Battle of gettysburg currier lithograph ives july 3 1863

Civil War Timeline

  • Abolition

    Abolition
    Forton, a free African American whose Grandfather was brought from Africa started the Abolition in 1780 "Abolition, the movement to abolishing slavery, became the most important of a series to reform movements in America.
  • The Liberator

    The Liberator
    The most radical white abolitionist was a young editor named Williams Lloyd Garrison from Massachusetts. He became the editor of an antislavery paper in 1828. Three years later he established his own paper, The Liberator, to deliver an uncompromising demand; immediate emancipation. His apposition gained support in 1830s.
  • Nat Turner's Rebellion

    Nat Turner's Rebellion
    One of the most prominent rebellions was led by a Virginia slave, Nate Turner. In August of 1931 him and 50+ slaves attacked plantations and killed 60 whites. He got executed after,
  • The North Star

    The North Star
    One of the readers of The Liberator was an African-American Frederick Douglass who began his own anti-slavery newspaper in 1847, he named it the North Star.
  • Underground Railroad

    Underground Railroad
    Anti slavery supporters would risk their lives to help out slaves escape, the would escort them to the next station on a railroad trying to reach the North and Canada.
  • Compromise of 1850

    Compromise of 1850
    Clay provided a series of resolution after fighting over California being a slave state or not. Clay got rejected but Douglas of Illinois picked up the idea which resulted to The compromise of 1850 which made California salve free and passed popular sovereignty for the citizens of Utah and New Mexico to chose.
  • Fugitive Slave Act

    Fugitive Slave Act
    Passed on September 18, 1850 by Congress, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850. The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves.
  • Uncle Tom's Cabin

    Uncle Tom's Cabin
    It's an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S. and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War".
    1852
  • Kansas - Nebraska Act

    Kansas - Nebraska Act
    The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed each territory to decide the issue of slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty.
  • Dread Scott vs Sandford

    Dread Scott vs Sandford
    The Dred Scott case was a major event on the road to the Civil War. The Supreme Court's ruling was a provocative opinion. It stated flatly that Blacks had "no rights which the white man was bound to respect" and rejected the right of any territory to ban slavery within its own borders.
  • Abraham Lincoln and Stephan Douglas debates

    Abraham Lincoln and Stephan Douglas debates
    The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate
  • John Brown Raid/ Harpers Ferry

    John Brown Raid/ Harpers Ferry
    John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an 1859 effort by abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in Southern states by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It has been called the dress rehearsal for the Civil War.
  • Formation of the Confederacy

    Formation of the Confederacy
    On February 4, 1861, the states farthest south, where slavery and plantations agriculture were dominant, formed the Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as President. They established their capital at Montgomery, Alabama and took over federal forts on their territory.
  • Attack on fort Sumter

    Attack on fort Sumter
    The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War.
  • Battle of Bull Run

    Battle of Bull Run
    Union and Confederate armies clashed near Manassas Junction, Virginia, in the first major land battle of the American Civil War. ... The Confederate victory gave the South a surge of confidence and shocked many in the North, who realized the war would not be won as easily as they had hoped.
  • Abraham Lincoln becomes president

    Abraham Lincoln becomes president
    The 1860 United States presidential election was the nineteenth quadrennial presidential election to select the President and Vice President of the United States.The election of Lincoln served as the primary catalyst of the American Civil War.
  • Conscription

    Conscription
    During the Civil War, the U.S. Congress passes a conscription act that produces the first wartime draft of U.S. citizens in American history. The act called for registration of all males between the ages of 20 and 45, including aliens with the intention of becoming citizens, by April 1.
  • Income Tax

    Income Tax
    Lincoln imposes the first federal income tax by signing the Revenue Act. Strapped for cash with which to pursue the Civil War, Lincoln and Congress agreed to impose a 3 percent tax on annual incomes over $800.
  • Battle of Antietam

    Battle of Antietam
    Beginning early on the morning of September 17, 1862, Confederate and Union troops in the Civil War clash near Maryland's Antietam Creek in the bloodiest single day in American military history. The Battle of Antietam marked the culmination of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the Northern states.
  • Emancipation Proclamation

    Emancipation Proclamation
    President Abraham Lincoln issued the 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.
  • Harriet Tubman

    Harriet Tubman
    She was an American abolitionist and political activist. During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the struggle for women's suffrage.
  • Battle of Vicksburg

    Battle of Vicksburg
    It was the final major military action in the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. Vicksburg was the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River; therefore, capturing it completed the second part of the Northern strategy, the Anaconda Plan.
  • Battle of Gettysburg

    Battle of Gettysburg
    The Battle of Gettysburg, fought in July 1863, was a Union victory that stopped Confederate General Robert E. Lee's second invasion of the North. More than 50,000 men fell as casualties during the 3-day battle, making it the bloodiest battle of the American Civil war.
  • Gettysburg address

    Gettysburg address
    The Gettysburg Address is a speech that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered during the American Civil War at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
  • Sherman's March

    Sherman's March
    Sherman's March to the Sea was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 until December 21, 1864, by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army.
  • 13th Amendment

    13th Amendment
    This Amendment of 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.
  • Surrender at Appomattox Court House

    Surrender at Appomattox Court House
    Abraham Lincoln was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War, its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis.
  • Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

    Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
    Abraham Lincoln was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War, its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis