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Emancipation Proclamation is issued
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War using his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states then in rebellion, thus applying to 3.1 million of the 4 million slaves in the U.S. at that time. -
The first Conscription Act
Because of recruiting difficulties, an act was passed making all men between the ages of 20 and 45 liable to be called for military service. Service could be avoided by paying a fee or finding a substitute. -
Resistance by slaves
Another factor that affected the South was the growing resistance from slaces. To hurt the Southern economy, slaves slowed their pace of work or stopped working altogether. Some carried out sabotage, destroying crops and farm equipment to hurt the plantation economy. -
The Civil War prison camps
Civil War prison camps were terrible places.Conditions were also horrible in the South and North.The camp with the worst reputation was at Andersonville in the south Georgia. Built to hold 10,000 prisoners at one point it housed 33,000. Inmates had little shelter from the heat or cold. -
The Battle of Gettysburg
An 1863 battle in the civil war in which the union defeated the confederacy, ending hopes for a confederate victory in the north. The fighting rage for three days. On the rocky hills and fields around Gettysburg, 90,000 Union troops, under the command of General George meade, clashed with 75,000 Confederates. -
The siege of Vicksburg.
On July 4, 1863, the day after Pickett's Charge, the union received more good news. In Mississippi, General Ulysses S. Grant had defeated Confederate troops at the Siege of Vicksburg. Grant had begun his attack on Vicksburg in May 1863. But when his direct attacks failed, he settled in for a long siege. -
54th Massachusetts Regiment.
The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment was the first military unit consisting of black soldiers to be raised in the North during the Civil War. Prior to 1863, no concerted effort was made to recruit black troops as Union soldiers -
The Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. I -
Confederate troops approachWashington, D.C.
Confederate General Jubal Early led his forces into Maryland to relieve the pressure on Lee's army. Early got within five miles of Washington, D.C., but on July 13, he was driven back to Virginia. -
General Grant commander of all the union armies
The Union Army went through eight Commanders during the Civil War. They were George McClellan (twice), John Pope, Ambrose Burnside, Irvin McDowell, Joseph Hooker, George Meade, and U.S. Grant.
The Confederates were not organized the same way. Robert E. Lee was not the Commander of all the Confederate troops. He was Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, which fought in the eastern theater of the war. The overall Commander of the Army was the President Jefferson Davis.
