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Uncle Tom's Cabin is Published
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. -
Republican Party is Formed
The Republican Party, commonly referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States, the other being its historic rival, the Democratic Party. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act Passed
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. -
Dred Scott v Sanford Decision is Rendered
Among constitutional scholars, Scott v. Sandford is widely considered the worst decision ever rendered by the Supreme Court. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 put a match to the tinderbox of sectional conflict over the future of slavery and helped shape the subsequent presidential election. -
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry was an effort by armed abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in 1859 by taking over a United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. -
John Brown is Hanged
In Charles Town, Virginia, militant abolitionist John Brown is executed on charges of treason, murder, and insurrection. -
Abraham Lincoln Elected President
On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, beating Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell. He was the first president from the Republican Party. -
South Carolina Votes to Secede From the United States
South Carolina became the first slave state in the south to declare that it had seceded from the United States. -
Richmond Becomes the Capital of the Confederacy
In the Confederate Capital City of Montgomery, Alabama, the decision was made to name the City of Richmond, Virginia as the new Capital of the Confederacy. -
Confederate Forces Fire on Fort Sumter
The American Civil War begins when Confederates fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. -
Lincoln Suspends Habeas Corpus
President Lincoln issued a message to both houses defending his various actions, including the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, arguing that it was both necessary and constitutional for him to have suspended it without Congress. -
First Battle of Bull Run is Fought
The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as the First Battle of Manassas, was fought on July 21, 1861 in Prince William County, Virginia, just north of the city of Manassas and about 25 miles west-southwest of Washington, D.C. -
Jefferson Davis Elected President of the Confederacy
Jefferson Davis, who had been elected President and Alexander H. Stephens were elected to six-year terms (February 22, 1862 – February 22, 1868) as the first permanent President and Vice President of the Confederate States of America. -
The Merrimack and the Monitor fight of the Virginia Coast
Naval engagement at Hampton Roads, Virginia, a harbor at the mouth of the James River, notable as history's first duel between ironclad warships and the beginning of a new era of naval warfare. -
Battle of Shiloh
The Battle of Shiloh was a battle in the Western Theater of the American Civil War in southwestern Tennessee. -
Robert E. Lee is Named Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia
Robert Edward Lee was an American and Confederate soldier, best known as a commander of the Confederate States Army. He commanded the Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865. -
Richmond Falls to the Union Army
Over a period of seven days from June 25 to July 1, 1862, Richmond's defensive line of batteries and fortifications set up under General Robert E. Lee, a daring ride around the Union Army by Confederate cavalry under General J.E.B. -
Battle of Antietam
The Battle of Antietam was fought on September 17, 1862, between Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Union General George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac, near Sharpsburg, Maryland and Antietam Creek as part of the Maryland Campaign. -
Emancipation Proclamation is Announced
President Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in the midst of the Civil War, announcing on September 22, 1862, that if the rebels did not end the fighting and rejoin the Union by January 1, 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states would be free. -
Battle of Federicksburg
The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought December 11–15, 1862, in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, between General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac. -
Battle of Chancellorsville
The Battle of Chancellorsville resulted in a Confederate victory that stopped an attempted flanking movement by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker's Army of the Potomac against the left of Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought from July 1 to July 3, 1863, is considered the most important engagement of the American Civil War. -
Confederates Surrender at Vicksburg
The Confederacy is torn in two when General John C. Pemberton surrenders to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Vicksburg campaign was one of the Union's most successful of the war. -
New York City Draft Riots
The New York City draft riots were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan, widely regarded as the culmination of working-class discontent with new laws passed by Congress that year to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. -
Lincoln Gives his Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, and one of the best-known speeches in American history. -
Atlanta is Captured
Continuing their summer campaign to seize the important rail and supply center of Atlanta, Union forces commanded by William Tecumseh Sherman overwhelmed and defeated Confederate forces defending the city under John Bell Hood. Union Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson was killed during the battle. -
Abraham Lincoln Defeats George McClellan to Win Re-election
The 1864 election was the first time since 1812 that a presidential election took place during a war. For much of 1864, Lincoln himself believed he had little chance of being re-elected. ... Because of this, McClellan was thought to be a heavy favorite to win the election. -
Sherman Begins His March to the Sea
Union General William T. Sherman led some 60,000 soldiers on a 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. The purpose of this “March to the Sea” was to frighten Georgia's civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause. -
Congress Passes the 13th Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865 -
Freedman's Bureau is Created
The Freedmen's Bureau, formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, was established in 1865 by Congress to help millions of former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War. -
Lincoln Gives His Second Inaugural Address
Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. Lincoln taking the oath at his second inauguration, March 4, 1865. Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address was delivered on March 4, 1865, during the final days of the Civil War and only a month before he was assassinated. -
Robert E. Lee Surrenders at Appomattox
Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War. -
President Lincoln Assassinated
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. -
John Wilkes Booth is Killed
John Wilkes Booth is killed when Union soldiers track him down to a Virginia farm 12 days after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. Twenty-six-year-old Booth was one of the most famous actors in the country when he shot Lincoln during a performance at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., on the night of April 14.
