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South Carolina became the first state to secede from the federal Union. The victory of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election triggered cries for disunion across the slaveholding South. -
Lincoln promised not to interfere with the institution of slavery where it existed and pledged to suspend the activities of the federal government temporarily in areas of hostility -
When Confederate troops marched into the fort on the afternoon of April 14, 1861, over 3,300 shells and hot shots had been fired at the fort during the initial 34-hour bombardment by 43 Confederate guns. -
Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus between Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia to give military authorities the necessary power to silence dissenters and rebels. -
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. -
The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Battle of Manassas, marked the first major land battle of the American Civil War. On July 21, 1861, Union and Confederate armies clashed near Manassas Junction, Virginia. -
Jefferson was elected president of the confedercy. He ran without opposition and the election confirmed that he was elected. -
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. -
The Battle of Shiloh was a crucial success for the Union Army, led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Army of Tennessee. It allowed Grant to begin a massive operation in the Mississippi Valley later that year -
Robert E. Lee commanded the Army of Northern Virginia, the most successful of the Southern armies during the American Civil War, and ultimately commanded all the Confederate armies. As the military leader of the defeated Confederacy, Lee became a symbol of the American South. -
Union victory at Antietam provided President Abraham Lincoln the opportunity he had wanted to announce the Emancipation Proclamation, making the Battle of Antietam one of the key turning points of the American Civil War. -
It was a battle with many Union casualties, the largest river crossing of the war, and it also acted as a boost for the Confederate hopes of victory. -
Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
The Battle of Chancellorsville was a huge victory for the Confederacy and General Robert E. Lee during the Civil War, though it is also famous for being the battle in which Confederate General Thomas Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded -
The Union had won the Battle of Gettysburg. The battle of Gettysburg would give the North a major morale boost and put a definitive end to Confederate General Robert E. Lee's bold plan to invade the North. -
Surrender at Vicksburg Summary. On July 4, 1863, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton surrendered the city of Vicksburg and the Confederate garrison defending it to Major General Ulysses S. Grant -
The New York Draft Riots occurred in July 1863, when the anger of working-class New Yorkers over a new federal draft law during the Civil War sparked five days of some of the bloodiest and most destructive rioting in U.S. history. -
Lincoln delivered one of the most famous speeches in United States history at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19, 1863. The victory of U.S. forces, which turned back a Confederate invasion, marked a turning point in the Civil War -
The Battle of Atlanta was a battle of the Atlanta Campaign fought during the American Civil War on July 22, 1864, just southeast of Atlanta, Georgia. Continuing their summer campaign to seize the important rail and supply hub of Atlanta. -
President Abraham Lincoln of the National Union Party easily defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B. McClellan, by a wide margin of 212–21 in the electoral college, with 55% of the popular vote. -
On November 15, 1864, Union General William T. Sherman begins his expedition across Georgia by torching the industrial section of Atlanta and pulling away from his supply lines -
On December 18, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted as part of the United States Constitution. The amendment officially abolished slavery, and immediately freed more than 100,000 enslaved people. -
An Act to establish the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees to provide food, shelter, clothing, medical services, and land to displaced Southerners, including newly freed African Americans. -
President Lincoln delivered his Second Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865. In the address, he urged people to "bind up the nation's wounds" caused by the Civil War and to move toward a lasting peace. -
Confederate lines near Petersburg broke after a nine-month siege. The retreat of the army left the Confederate capital of Richmond, 25 miles to the north, defenseless. -
In Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 Confederate troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War. -
President Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865. John Wikes Booth was the one that assassinated Lincoln. -
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.