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John Brown, in an attempt to amass arms for a slave insurrection, attacks the federal armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
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Brown is hanged for murder and treason at Charles Town, Virginia.
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Abraham Lincoln is elected President, with Hannibal Hamlin as his Vice President
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As a consequence of Lincoln’s election, a special convention of the South Carolina legislature votes to secede from the Union.
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Star of the West, an unarmed merchant vessel secretly carrying federal troops and supplies to Fort Sumter, is fired upon by South Carolina artillery at the entrance to Charleston harbor.
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Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the sixteenth President of the United States.
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Battle of Fort Sumter. Beauregard takes Charleston Federal fort, first battle of American Civil War.
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Union troops cross the Potomac River from Washington and capture Alexandria, Virginia, and vicinity. Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth is killed by a local innkeeper and is the first officer to die in the war. He becomes a martyr for the North.
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General Ulysses S. Grant captures Fort Henry, Tennessee. Ten days later he accepts the “unconditional and immediate surrender” of Fort Donelson. These victories open up the state of Tennessee for Union advancement.
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During the Battle of Seven Pines in Virginia, Robert E. Lee takes over command of the Confederate army from the wounded Joseph E. Johnston.
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President Lincoln issues the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation
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Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, which declares that slaves in the seceded states are now free.
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The battle was fought in Virginia during Valley Campaigns of 1864 in the American Civil War. A small Confederate army, which included cadets from the Virginia Military Institute (V.M.I.), forced Union Major General Franz Sigel and his army out of the Shenandoah Valley.
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The Battle of Palmetto Ranch, was fought between Union Army and Confederate States Army forces on May 12–13, 1865 near Brownsville, Texas. It was the last land battle of any size or significance of the American Civil War.[1]
