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March 1861 -- Lincoln's Inauguration.
During his inauguration the new president said he would not attemp to end slavery in the states where it existed, but he said he wouldn't allow secession. He didn't want to resolve the national crisis with warfare. "Secession" meaning the action of withdrawing formally from membership of a federation or body, esp. a political state: "secession from the union". -
April 1861 -- Attack on Fort Sumter.
On April 12, the Civil War began with shots fired on the Fort Sumter and was eventually surrendered to South Carolina. -
Period: to
Civil War Era
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January 1862 -- Abraham Lincoln Takes Action.
President Lincoln issued a war order authorizing the Union to launch an aggressive action torwards the Conferderacy. General McClellan ignored his war order. -
April 1862 -- The Battle of Shiloh.
Confederate forces attacked Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant at Shiloh, Tennessee. Casualties were heavy, 13,000 out of 63,000 Union soldiers died, and 11,000 of 40,000 Confederate troops were killed. -
January 1863 -- Emancipation Proclamation.
Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863, declaring that all slaves in areas still in rebellion were, in the eyes of the federal government, free. -
May 1863 -- The Vicksburg Campaign.
Grant began a siege of the city. After six weeks, Confederate General John Pemberton surrendered, giving up the city and 30,000 men. -
November 1864 -- Abraham Lincoln Is Re-Elected.
The Republican party nominated President Abraham Lincoln as its presidential candidate, and Andrew Johnson for vice-president. -
April 1865 -- The Assassination of President Lincoln.
On April 14, as President Lincoln was watching the performance of "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., he was shot by John Wilkes Booth, an actor from Maryland obsessed with avenging the Confederate defeat. Lincoln died the next morning. Booth escaped to Virginia. Eleven days later, cornered in a burning barn, Booth was fatally shot by a Union soldier. Nine other people were involved in the assassination; four were hung, four imprisoned, and one acquitted. -
April-May 1865 -- Final Surrenders among Confederate Troops.
Remaining Confederate troops were defeated between the end of April and the end of May. Jefferson Davis was captured in Georgia on May 10.
