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Uncle Tom's Cabin Published
A novel, first published serially, by Harriet Beecher Stowe; it paints a grim picture of life under slavery. The title character is a pious, passive slave, who is eventually beaten to death by the overseer Simon Legree. -
Republican Party is Formed
anti-slavery Whigs had begun meeting in the upper midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party. One such meeting, in Wisconsin is generally remembered as the founding meeting of the Republican Party. -
Kansas Nebraska Act Passed
The Kansas Nebraska Act 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 vs Standford 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
Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery. ... One of Brown's sons was killed in the fighting. -
John Brown is Hanged
In Charles Town, Virginia, militant abolitionist John Brown was executed on charges of treason, murder, and insurrection. -
Abe Lincoln Elected President
Elected President. Abraham Lincoln. Republican. The United States Presidential Election of 1860 was the nineteenth quadrennial presidential election to select the President and Vice President of the United States. -
Secession of South Carolina
The force of events moved very quickly upon the election of Lincoln. South Carolina acted first, calling for a convention to secede from the Union. State by state, conventions were held, and the Confederacy was formed. Within three months of Lincoln's election, seven states had seceded from the Union. -
Confederate Forces Fire on Fort Sumter
This event was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the Confederate States Army, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army that started the American Civil War. -
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The Civil War
The war was fought in the United States between northern (Union) and southern (Confederate) states from 1861 to 1865, in which the Confederacy sought to establish itself as a separate nation. The Civil War is also known as the War for Southern Independence and as the War between the States. -
Richmond Becomes Capital of 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. -
Lincoln Suspends Habeas Corpus
When Congress was called into special session, 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 the American Civil War, fought in Virginia near Washington, D.C. The surprising victory of the Confederate army humiliated the North and forced it to prepare for a long war. A year later the Confederacy won another victory near the same place. -
Jeff Davis Elected President of Confederacy
Jefferson Davis, who had been elected President and Alexander H. Stephens, who had been elected Vice President, under the Provisional Confederate States Constitution, were elected to six-year terms as the first permanent President and Vice President of the Confederate States of America. -
Merrimac and the Monitor Fight of the Virginia Coast
Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack, also called Battle of Hampton Roads, , in the American Civil War, 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, fought in southwestern Tennessee.The Battle of Shiloh became one of the bloodiest engagements of the war, and the level of violence shocked North and South alike. -
Robert E Lee is Named Commander of the Army of Northern VA
Robert E. Lee was named commander of the Northern Virginia Army in 1862. He commanded the Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865. -
Battle of Antietam
This event was a decisive engagement in the American Civil War (1861–65) that halted the Confederate advance on Maryland for the purpose of gaining military supplies. -
Battle of Fredricksburg
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, commanded by Major General Ambrose Burnside, as part of the American Civil War. -
Emancipation Proclamation is Announced
The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued on by President Lincoln freeing slaves in all portions of the United States not then under Union control (that is, within the Confederacy). -
Battle of Chancellorsville
The Battle of Chancellorsville resulted in a Confederate victory that stopped an attempted flanking movement by Maj. Gen. Joseph "Fighting Joe" 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. After a great victory over Union forces at Chancellorsville, General Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania in late June 1863. -
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. -
NYC Draft Riots
Known at the time as Draft Week, 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 was a speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Lincoln was speaking at the dedication of a soldiers' cemetery at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. -
Congress Passes 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. -
Atlanta is Captured
The Battle of Atlanta was fought just southeast of Atlanta, Georgia. Union forces commanded by William T. Sherman, wanting to neutralize the important rail and supply hub, defeated Confederate forces defending the city under John B. Hood. -
Abe Lincoln Defeats George McClellan to Win Re-Election
In the midst of the American Civil War, incumbent President Abraham Lincoln of the National Union Party defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B. McClellan. Lincoln's re-election ensured that he would preside over the successful conclusion of the Civil War. -
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. -
Freedman's Bureau is Created
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 Second Inaugural Address
Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address was delivered during the final days of the Civil War and only a month before he was assassinated. -
Richmond Falls to the Union Army
The Confederate government fled the city with the army right behind. Now, on the morning of April 3, blue-coated troops entered the capital. Richmond was the holy grail of the Union war effort, the object of four years of campaigning. -
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 Theatre in Washington, D.C. -
John Wilkes Booth is Killed
Southern sympathizer who killed Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 as the president and Mrs. Lincoln sat watching a production of the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Wilkes was tracked down and killed a few days later.