-
Journey to Washington
Lincoln left his home in Springfield, Illinois. At this time he began his journey to Washington, passing through Harrisburg he discovered indications of a purpose violently to oppose his progress. -
Period: to
Fort Sumter
First action between United States and Confederate forces, this artillery duel resulted in the surrender of the bastion of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor but no casualties. It served as an indication that the South was willing to fight for federal property it considered to be its own following seccession. -
The Firth Bull Run (First Manassas)
First significant action of The American Civil War, Bull Run shocked the North into the realization that it would not be a three-month war. The battle falsely buoyed the South's hopes of negotiating an end to the war. -
Period: to
Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing)
Shiloh was both the bloodiest single day and bloodiest two-day battle in American history. Served as America's introduction to the "total warfare." The engagement also saw the death of Sidney Albert Johnston, on whom Jefferson Davis had pinned his hopes in the West. -
Period: to
Seven Days Retreat
With the success of George McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, Lincoln and Edwin Stanton agreed on closing the recruitment offices in the north. Army of Northern Virginia and aggressively pursued the Army of the Potomac as it retreated down Virginia's Lower Peninsula. Lincoln and Stanton had to admit they were wrong and re-open the offices -
Vicksburg
Lincoln realized early in the war that control of the Mississippi was a major goal of the Western forces. Ulysses S. Grant delivered the city when the Army of Mississippi surrendered after a prolonged siege. In response Lincoln proclaimed "I have found the man who can win this war." -
Antietam
Bloodiest day of the Civil War, this battle gave Abraham Lincoln the perceived victory he desired to release the Emancipation Proclamation. The costly battle also ended Robert E. Lee's advance into Maryland. -
Period: to
Gettysburg
George Meade won the largest and most costly battle in American history fought on the farms and hillsides of southern Pennsylvania. The Union victory ended Lee's belief that a single massive victory would defeat the Army of the Potomac. -
Gettysburg Address
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought fourth on this continent , a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." -Abraham Lincoln -
Gettysburg Address
President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most memorable speeches in American history. Lincoln brilliantly and movingly reminded a war-weary public why the Union had to fight, and win, the Civil War. -
Period: to
Chattanooga
Following the worst defeat of any United States army at Chickamauga Lincoln dispatched three of his best generals (Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Joseph Hooker) to Chattanooga. Six weeks later Grant broke out of the city, drove the Confederate Army into Georgia, and began preparing for the Spring campaigns. -
Presidential Election
Abraham Lincoln was re-elected as president. The Electoral College had been expanded with the admission of Kansas, West Virginia, and Nevada as free-soil states, but the electoral process was disrupted by the American Civil War. -
Assasination of Abraham Lincoln
The assassination of United States President Abraham Lincoln took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army of the Potomac. -
End of the American Civil War
the end of the Civil War, Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi, signs the surrender terms offered by Union negotiators. With Smith's surrender, the last Confederate army ceased to exist, bringing a formal end to the bloodiest four years in U.S. history.
