civil war timeline

  • Republican Party is formed

    Republican Party is formed

    In Ripon, Wisconsin, former members of the Whig Party meet to establish a new party to oppose the spread of slavery into the western territories. This new party is known as the Republican Party
  • kansas-nebraska act passed

    kansas-nebraska act passed

    The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, created two new territories, and allowed for popular sovereignty. It also produced a violent uprising known as “Bleeding Kansas,” as proslavery and antislavery activists flooded into the territories to sway the vote
  • Abraham Lincoln elected president

    Abraham Lincoln elected president

    He was elected president. He was the 16th president. He was elected while there was a divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the Presidency.
  • South Carolina votes to secede from the United States

    South Carolina votes to secede from the United States

    South Carolina became the first state to succeed from the federal union. This was potentially triggered by the 1860 presidential election because it caused conflict with slaveholders and the South.
  • Confederate forces fire on Fort Sumter

    Confederate forces fire on Fort Sumter

    When President Abraham Lincoln announced plans to resupply the fort, Confederate General broke into Fort Sumter kicking off the Battle of Fort Sumter. After a 34-hour exchange of artillery fire, Anderson and 86 soldiers surrendered the fort on April 13.
  • Lincoln suspends Haber corpus

    Lincoln suspends Haber corpus

    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. Under this order, commanders could arrest and detain individuals who were deemed threatening to military operations.
  • First Battle of Bull Run is fought

    First Battle of Bull Run is fought

    the first major battle of the American Civil War. The Confederates had won the first major battle of the Civil War. The Confederates won the battle, but both sides suffered casualties. The Union suffered 2,896 casualties including 460 killed.
  • Jefferson Davis elected president of the Confederacy

    Jefferson Davis elected president of the Confederacy

    Jefferson Daviss was elected president of the Confederate States Of America for his six-year term.
  • The Merrimac and the Monitor fight of the Virginia coast

    The Merrimac and the Monitor fight of the Virginia coast

    Monitor and the Merrimack during the American Civil War and was history's first naval battle between ironclad warships. It was part of a Confederate effort to break the Union blockade of Southern ports, including Norfolk and Richmond, Virginia, that had been imposed at the start of the war.
  • battle of shiloh

    battle of shiloh

    The Battle of Shiloh was a crucial success for the Union Army, led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Tennessee (named for the river, not the state). It allowed Grant to begin a massive operation in the Mississippi Valley later that year.
  • Robert E. Lee is named commander of the Army of Northern Virginia

    Robert E. Lee is named commander of the Army of Northern Virginia

    Robert Edward Lee was an American Confederate general best known as a commander of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He led the Army of Northern Virginia from 1862 until its surrender in 1865 and earned a reputation as a skilled tactician.
  • Battle of Antietam

    Battle of Antietam

    Antietam, the deadliest one-day battle in American military history, showed that the Union could stand against the Confederate army. It gave President Lincoln the confidence to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation at a moment of strength rather than desperation.
  • Battle of Fredericksburg

    Battle of Fredericksburg

    The first major instance of urban warfare in the Civil War. Bitter Union troops set about pillaging the town after the Rebels were finally defeated on December 11.
  • Emancipation Proclamation is announced

    Emancipation Proclamation is announced

    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."
  • battle of Chancellorsville

    battle of Chancellorsville

    It 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.
  • Confederates surrender at Vicksburg

    Confederates surrender at Vicksburg

    With the loss of Confederate general John C. Pemberton’s army after the siege at Vicksburg and a Union victory at Port Hudson five days later, the Union controlled the entire Mississippi River and the Confederacy was split in half. Grant’s victory led to his continued command in eastern Tennessee and his eventual appointment as general-in-chief of the Union armies.
  • Battle of Gettysburg

    Battle of Gettysburg

    The turning point of the Civil War because Robert E. Lees's plan to invade the North and force an immediate end to the war failed.
  • New York City draft riots

    New York City draft riots

    The New York City draft riots sometimes referred to as the Manhattan draft riots and known at the time as Draft Week, were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan.
  • Lincoln gives his Gettysburg Address

    Lincoln gives his Gettysburg Address

    President Abraham Lincoln delivered a short speech at the end of the ceremonies dedicating the battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. That speech has come to be known as the Gettysburg Address.
  • Abraham Lincoln defeats George McClellan to win re-election

    Abraham Lincoln defeats George McClellan to win re-election

    Northern voters overwhelmingly endorse the leadership and policies of President Abraham Lincoln when they elect him to a second term. With his re-election, any hope for a negotiated settlement with the Confederacy vanished.
  • Atlanta is captured

    Atlanta is captured

    Union General William T. Sherman orders the business district of Atlanta, Georgia, destroyed before he embarks on his famous March to the Sea. When Sherman captured Atlanta in early September 1864, he knew that he could not remain there for long.
  • Sherman begins his March to the Sea

    Sherman begins his March to the Sea

    Union General Sherman's scorched-earth March to the Sea campaign begins. 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.
  • Congress passes the 13th Amendment

    Congress passes the 13th Amendment

    Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States. The 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House on January 31, 1865.
  • Freedman’s Bureau is created

    Freedman’s Bureau is created

    Congress passed “An Act to establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees” to provide food, shelter, clothing, medical services, and land to displaced Southerners, including newly freed African Americans.
  • Richmond becomes the capital of the Confederacy

    Richmond becomes the capital of the Confederacy

    once Virginia seceded, the Confederate government moved the capital to Richmond, the South's second-largest city. The move served to solidify the state of Virginia's new Confederate identity and to sanctify the rebellion by associating it with the American Revolution.
  • Lincoln gives his second inaugural address

    Lincoln gives his second inaugural address

    President Abraham Lincoln spoke of mutual forgiveness, North and South, asserting that the true mettle of a nation lies in its capacity for charity. Lincoln presided over the nation's most terrible crisis
  • Lincoln gives his second inaugural address

    Lincoln gives his second inaugural address

    During his second inaugural address, President Abraham Lincoln spoke of mutual forgiveness, North and South, asserting that the true mettle of a nation lies in its capacity for charity. Lincoln presided over the nation's most terrible crisis.
  • Richmond falls to the union army

    Richmond falls to the union army

    The Rebel capital of Richmond, Virginia, falls to the Union, the most significant sign that the Confederacy is nearing its final days. For ten months, General Ulysses S. On April 2, the Yankees struck all along the Petersburg line, and the Confederates collapsed.
  • President Lincoln assassinated

    President Lincoln assassinated

    John Wilkes Booth shot and killed President Lincon in his box at Ford's theater in Washington. Booth was a supporter of slavery and believed that Lincolns goal was to destroy his beloved south and overthrow the constitution.
  • John Wilkes Booth is killed

    John Wilkes Booth is killed

    Booth was the guy who assassinated Lincon he was later shot and died from a gunshot wound.
  • Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox

    Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox

    Lee decided to surrender his army in part because he wanted to prevent unnecessary destruction to the South. When it became clear to the Confederates that they were stretched too thinly to break through the Union lines

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