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South Carolina became the first state to secede from the federal Union on December 20, 1860. The victory of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election triggered cries for disunion across the slaveholding South. -
President Lincoln's First Inaugural Address focused on reassuring the Southern states that the president would not try to strip them of their slaves and that he would try to find a way to help them secure slavery if it would make them happy -
When Confederate troops marched into the fort on the afternoon of April 14, 1861, over 3,300 shells and “hot shot” 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. Under this order, commanders could arrest and detain individuals who were deemed threatening to military operations. -
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 -
The first land battle of the Civil War was fought on July 21, 1861, just 30 miles from Washington. Close enough for U.S. senators to witness the battle in person. Southerners called it the Battle of Manassas, after the closest town. Northerners called it Bull Run, after a stream running through the battlefield. -
He was inaugurated for a six-year term as President on February 22 of the following year. Davis' appointment was largely political; he was a compromise candidate chosen to appease both the moderate and radical factions in the Congress. -
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. -
Apr 6, 1862 – Apr 7, 1862.The Battle of Shiloh was a crucial success for the Union Army, led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Tennesse. 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. -
Most importantly, 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. Union Claims Victory -
Confederate victory. The Union Army of the Potomac suffered more than 12,500 casualties. Lee's Confederate army counted approximately 6,000 losses.On the Confederate side, the victory at Fredericksburg restored Confederate morale after Lee's unsuccessful campaign into Maryland in the fall -
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." -
Apr 30, 1863 – May 6, 1863. 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 -
Losses were among the war's heaviest: of about 94,000 Northern troops, casualties numbered about 23,000 of more than 71,000 Southerners, there were about 28,000 casualties.The Union had won the Battle of Gettysburg. Though the cautious Meade would be criticized for not pursuing the enemy after Gettysburg, the battle was a crushing defeat for the Confederacy. Union casualties in the battle numbered 23,000, while the Confederates had lost some 28,000 men–more than a third of Lee's army
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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 -
Jul 11, 1863 – Jul 16, 1863.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 -
Union Army General William Tecumseh Sherman lays siege to Atlanta, Georgia, a critical Confederate hub, shelling civilians and cutting off supply lines. The Confederates retreated, destroying the city's munitions as they went. -
The 1864 United States presidential election, the 20th quadrennial presidential election, was held on Tuesday, November 8, 1864. Near the end of the American Civil War, incumbent President Abraham Lincoln of the National Union Party easily defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B -
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. -
On March 3, 1865, 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. -
Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on Saturday, March 4, 1865, during his second inauguration as President of the United States -
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. Grant had tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate the city. -
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. -
John Wilkes Booth held that belief, and it was the motive behind his plot to murder President Abraham Lincoln. On April 14, 1865, while watching the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Mary, Lincoln was assassinated by Booth. -
John Wilkes Booth is killed when Union soldiers track him down to a Virginia farm 12 days after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. -
Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States.