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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 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
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
Was an effort by armed abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in 1859 by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. -
John Brown hanged
Tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men, and inciting a slave insurrection, Brown was found guilty on all counts and was hanged. -
Abraham Lincoln elected President
In 1860, Lincoln won the party's presidential nomination. In the November 1860 election, Lincoln again faced Douglas, who represented the Northern faction of a heavily divided Democratic Party, as well as Breckenridge and Bell. -
South Carolina votes to secede from the United States
The convention then adjourned to Charleston to draft an ordinance of secession. When the ordinance was adopted on December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first slave state in the south to declare that it had seceded from the United States. -
Robert E. Lee is named commander of the Army of Northern Virginia
The Army of Northern Virginia was the primary military force of the Confederate States of America in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. It was also the primary command structure of the Department of Northern Virginia. It was most often arrayed against the Union Army of the Potomac. -
Confederate forces fire on Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12–13, 1861) 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. -
Richmond becomes the capital of the Confederacy
May 8, 1861, 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, July 4, 1861, 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 (the name used by Union forces), also known as the First Battle of Manassas (the name used by Confederate forces), 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
Elected to six-year terms as the first permanent President of the Confederate States of Constitution. -
The Merrimac and the Monitor fight of the Virginia coast
Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack, also called Battle of Hampton Roads, (March 9, 1862), 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 April 6–7, 1862, in southwestern Tennessee. -
Battle of Antietam
Also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, particularly in the Southern United States, 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 Fredericksburg
Fought 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. -
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. The Vicksburg campaign was one of the Union's most successful of the war -
NYC draft riots
The New York City 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
It was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863 – four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg. -
Atlanta is captured
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. -
Lincoln defeats George McClellan to win re-election
The United States presidential election of 1864, the 20th quadrennial presidential election, was held on Tuesday, November 8, 1864. 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. For the election, the Republican Party and some Democrats created the National Union Party, especially to attract War Democrats. -
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 Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was an agency of the United States Department of 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. -
Richmond falls to the Union Army
The city finally fell to Union forces on April 3, 1865, with large portions of the city destroyed by fires set during the evacuation. -
Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox
The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought on the morning of April 9, 1865, was one of the last battles of 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.
