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The timespan of the United States covering the Civil War
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Twenty thousand New England shoe workers strike and subsequently win higher wages. -
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln gave his Cooper Union speech, which addressed his views on slavery and how he did not want it to expand into the western territories. -
The first Pony Express mail, traveling by horse and rider relay teams, leaves to travel mail across the country. -
Battle of Fort Harrison near Richmond, Virginia. The Confederate stronghold known as Fort Harrison falls to the Army of the James. Confederate efforts to retake the fort failed.
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On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was officially elected as the 16th president of the United States. -
The election of 1860 was held in a 4 - way contest between Abraham Lincoln, John Breckenridge, John Bell, and Stephen Douglas. -
In 1860, the first Secession Convention met in Columbia, South Carolina. -
The Crittenden Compromise was an unsuccessful proposal to enshrine slavery into the Constitution, making it unconstitutional to end slavery. -
In 1860, the state of South Carolina officially withdraws from the United States of America. -
President Buchanan fires his cabinet after Abraham Lincoln become elected as president. -
In 1860, South Carolina issued the " Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" analogous to the United States Declaration of Independence. -
In 1861, the southern states that seceded created a government at Montgomery, Alabama, and the Confederates States of America are formed. -
Jefferson Davis is appointed the first president of the Confederate States of America at Montgomery, Alabama on February 18, 1861. -
Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the sixteenth president of the United States in Washington, DC. -
In 1861, Southern forces fired upon Fort Sumter, South Carolina. This is the official start of the Civil War. -
President Lincoln issues a public declaration that an insurrection exists and calls for 75,000 militia to stop the rebellion. As a result of this call for volunteers, four additional southern states secede from the Union in the following weeks. Lincoln will respond on May 3 with an additional call for 43,000+ volunteers to serve for three years, expanding the size of the Regular Army. -
The Battle of Big Bethel is the first land battle to be taken place during the war in Virginia. -
At the culmination of the Wheeling Convention, the region that composed the northwestern counties of Virginia broke away from that state to form West Virginia, officially designated and accepted as the thirty-fifth state of the Union on June 20, 1861. -
The Battle of Bull Run is fought near Manassas, Virginia. The Union Army under General Irwin McDowell initially succeeds in driving back Confederate forces under General Pierre Gustav Toutant Beauregard, but the arrival of troops under General Joseph E. Johnston initiates a series of reverses that makes McDowell's army retreat. -
Lexington, Missouri falls to Confederate forces under Sterling Price. -
The Battle of Ball's Bluff took place in Virginia. Colonel Edward D. Baker led troops across the Potomac River only to be forced back to the river's edge where he was killed. The Union withdrawal turned into a rout with many soldiers drowning while trying to re-cross the icy waters of the Potomac River. -
The Battle of Mill Springs took place in Kentucky. The Union gained a victory, weakening the confederate hold on the state. -
The confederacy is forced to surrender Fort Henry in Tennesse. This allows for the union to have an open door to control the Tennesse River. -
The southern fort, Fort Donelson, was located on the Cumberland River. It was left in the Union's hands. General Ulysses S. Grant gained his nickname "Unconditional Surrender". -
Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as President of the Confederate States of America. -
The Battle of Shiloh was the first major battle in Tennessee. Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston is killed on the first day of fighting. The Union victory further secures the career of Union General Ulysses S. Grant. -
The Battle of Seven Pines took place near Richmond Virginia. General Joseph Johnston, commander of the Confederate army in Virginia is wounded and replaced by Robert E. Lee who renames his command the "Army of Northern Virginia". -
A Union flotilla under Commodore Charles Davis successfully defeats a Confederate river force on the Mississippi River near the city and Memphis surrenders. The Mississippi River is now in Union control except for its course west of Mississippi where the city of Vicksburg stands as the last southern stronghold on the great river. -
General Lee's army attacks the "Army of the Potomac" under General George McClellan in a succession of battles beginning at Mechanicsville on June 26 and ending at Malvern Hill on July 1. -
The Second Battle of Bull Run is fought on the same ground where one year before, the Union army was defeated and sent reeling in retreat to Washington. Likewise, the result of this battle is a Union defeat. -
The Battle of Antietam takes place in Maryland and is the bloodiest single day of the Civil War. The result of the battle ends General Lee's first invasion of the North. Following the Union victory, President Lincoln will introduce the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order that freed every slave in the Confederate States. -
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." -
Conscription, or the drafting of soldiers into military service, begins in the North. -
“Stonewall” Jackson and his men, returning from an attack, were fired on by their own Confederate brethren who thought Jackson's group was Union soldiers. Jackson was hit by two bullets in his left arm, which was then amputated. Eight days later Jackson died of complications from pneumonia. -
On May 18, 1863, the Seige of Vicksburg begins. Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant attacked Confederate defenses outside the city on May 19-22. The Mississippi River will be controlled by the Union if this fails. -
The Second Battle of Winchester took place in Virginia. It had the outcome of a win for the Confederacy caused by the failure of a federal army to retreat in time.
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The Second Battle of Winchester, Virginia took place from June 14 - 15. The failure of a federal troop to retreat in time caused the Confederacy to gain a victory. -
General Rosecrans begins a campaign in Tennessee that drives the Confederates back 80 miles in a week, leaving Knoxville and Chattanooga exposed to the Union. -
The Battle of Brandy Station took place in Virginia. Union cavalry forces cross the Rapidan River to attack General J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry and discover that Lee's men are moving west toward the Shenandoah Valley. It was the largest cavalry battle of the Civil War. -
The Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, took place from July 1 -3. General Lee had an unsuccessful invasion of the North. The confederate army suffered severe casualties and was never as effective again. Over a third of Lee’s army became casualties. -
The confederacy surrenders Vicksburg, Mississippi to the union army under Grant. This allows the Union to have complete control of the Mississippi. -
The confederacy at Port Hudson surrenders after news of the surrender of Vicksburg reaches the garrison. The North now controls the Mississippi River. -
Camp Sumter Prison Camp, also called Andersonville Prison Camp, opens, located in Georgia. It will become known for overcrowded conditions and high death rates among inmates. -
President Lincoln appoints Ulysses S. Grant as Lieutenant-General of the Union. He now commands all of the Union armies. -
The Capture of Fort Pillow, Tennessee. After a rapid raid through central and western Tennessee, Confederate cavalry under Nathan Bedford Forrest attacked and overwhelmed the Union garrison at Fort Pillow, located on the Mississippi River. -
The Union starts the beginning of the Atlanta Campaign. With three Union armies under his command, General William T. Sherman marched south from Tennessee into Georgia against the Confederate Army of Tennessee under General Joseph Johnston, the objective being the city of Atlanta. -
Battle of Yellow Tavern. Six miles north of Richmond, Confederate cavalry under General J.E.B. Stuart blocked a force of Union cavalry under General Philip Sheridan. General Stuart was mortally wounded during the encounter. -
Abraham Lincoln is nominated by his party for a second term as president. -
General John Bell Hood replaces General Joseph Johnston as commander of the Army of Tennessee. This change in command signals a new Confederate strategy to thwart Sherman's campaign. -
General Sherman's Army of Georgia begins the "March to the Sea" -
Abraham Lincoln is reelected president of the United States. -
The Battle of Nashville, Tennessee. The Confederate Army under John Bell Hood is thoroughly defeated and the threat to Tennessee ends. -
Wilmington, NC, falls to Union troops, closing the last important southern port on the east coast. On this same day, Joseph E. Johnston is restored to command the Army of Tennessee. -
President Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated for his second term as president in Washington, DC. -
Attack on Fort Stedman, Petersburg, Virginia. Confederate troops under General John B. Gordon attacked and briefly capture the Union fort in the Petersburg siege lines in an attempt to prevent Union plans for a late March assault. By end of the day, the lines remain unchanged. -
The Confederate defeat at Five Forks initiates General Lee's decision to abandon the Petersburg-Richmond siege lines. -
The Fall of Petersburg and Richmond. General Lee abandons both cities and moves his army west in hopes of joining Confederate forces under General Johnston in North Carolina. -
The Battle of Sailor's Creek, Virginia. A portion of Lee's Army- almost one-third of it- is cornered along the banks of Sailor's Creek and annihilated.
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President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by actor John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, DC. -
General Richard Taylor surrenders Confederate forces in the Departments of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana. -
The final battle of the Civil War takes place at Palmito Ranch, Texas. It is a Confederate victory. -
General Simon Bolivar Buckner enters into terms for the surrender of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi, which are agreed to on June 2, 1865. The Civil War officially ends. -
The last piece of the abolishment paper " The Liberator" is released in Boston.
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Congress passed the Freedmen's Bureau and Civil Rights Bills in early 1866. The first bill extended the life of the bureau, which was originally established as a temporary organization. -
" Black Codes" were passed by new southern state legislatures to control the labor and behavior of colored people. -
Fisk University was established in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a historically black university. -
Congress passes the Tenure of Office Act, denying the right of the President to remove officials who have been appointed with the consent of Congress. -
The United States Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was the first federal legislation to protect the rights of African Americans. -
The US declares that a state of peace exists with Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennesse, and Virginia. -
Congress buys Ford's Theater, which cost $100,000. It will house the Amry Medical Museum, the Office of the Surgeon General, and War Department Records. -
The 14th Amendment is passed by the US Congress, affirming citizenship for African Americans. -
Tennesse readmits to the Union on July 24, 1866. -
President Andrew Jackson issues a proclamation of peace with Texas. -
The North's booming economy led to the construction of the longest bridge in the world at the time, which connected Ohio and Kentucky. -
African American men are given the right to vote in Washington, D.C. -
First Reconstruction Act was passed by the U.S Congress. -
Congress passes the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which temporarily divided the South into 5 military districts and outlined how governments based on male suffrage were to be organized. -
The United States obtained Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867 by a treaty ratified by the US Senate. -
The KKK reorganizes into a paramilitary organization led by a former Confederate General, Nathan Bedford Forrest. -
Congress passes a bill readmitting Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina into the Union. -
President Andrew Johnson demands the resignation of Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War. -
Due to his lack of effectiveness with reconstruction, Congress looks to impeach President Johnson