-
The new Constitution of the United States has compromises to protect slavery. Each slave is counted as 3/5ths of a person.
-
Missouri joins the Union as a slave state in exchange for Maine to join as a free state to balance amount of free and slave states.
-
Border wars broke out in Kansas, which could not decide if it should be a slave or free state.
-
Receiving 180 of 303 possible electoral votes and 40 percent of the popular vote, Abraham Lincoln becomes president.
-
South Carolina secedes from the Union, followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.
-
Following secessions from southern states, a new country is formed with Jefferson Davis, a West Point graduate and former U.S. Army officer, as president.
-
At 4:30 a.m. the Confederate Army attacks Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina.
-
Virginia secedes from the Union, followed shortly afterwards by Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
-
After turning down an offer by the Union, Robert E. Lee instead fights for his homeland, Virginia, which later joins the Confederacy.
-
Confederate victory: McDowell loses to J.E. Johnston.
-
Confederate victory, Union forced to retreat North
-
Union victory in Tennessee.
-
After months of siege, New Orleans, the largest city in the South, is taken by Union troops.
-
Confederate victory: Lee defeats Pope's Army of Virginia
-
Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant at the village of Appomattox Court House in Virginia. The Confederacy ends and former states slowly rejoin the Union.
