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The Senator of Mississippi, Jefferson Davis performs a speech about slavery and his ambitions to grow it and protect the slave owners. -
Lincoln makes a Cooper Union Address speech at Cooper Union in the city of New York. -
Abraham Lincoln wins the Republican Party presidential nomination over William H. Seward. -
Former members of the American and Whig parties have a meeting in Baltimore to create the Constitutional Union Party. John Bell is nominated to run for president with Edward Everett as vice president. -
The United States government establishes the Government Printing Office. -
Abraham Lincoln, and his vice president Andrew Johnson, are elected for President. -
President James Buchanan sent his State of the Union Address to the Congress of the United States. -
The first Secession Convention is held in South Carolina. -
Current President, James Buchanan, fires his Cabinet. For Abraham Lincoln is to be the new President. -
After Lincoln was elected, South Carolina feels threatened and officerly leaves the Union. -
Mississippi parts from the Union. -
Florida leaves the Union
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Alabama officially removes itself from the Union. -
Georgia secedes from the Union after South Carolina, Mississippi, and Florida has. -
Louisiana secedes from the Union as the last state to leave in the month of January. -
Texas (February 1, 1861), Virginia (April 17, 1861),
Arkansas (May 6, 1861), North Carolina (May 20, 1861), and Tennessee (June 8, 1861) -
The succeeded states formed a nation called the Confederate States of America. -
Forces from the Confederate States of America attacked the United States military garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Less than two days later, the fort surrendered. No one was killed. -
He did not support slavery but was loyal to his culture. -
Federal forces under General Irvin McDowell attempted to flank Confederate positions by crossing Bull Run but were turned back. The end result of the battle was a Confederate victory -
Jefferson Davis is elected president of the COnfederate States of America. -
The Battle of Fort Henry on February 6, 1862, was the first significant Union victory -
Casualties: 23,741
13,047 Union
10,694 Confederate
(Union Victory) -
Naval action by Union forces. Major victory for the Union. -
A two-day battle in the Peninsular Campaign, in which Confederate attacks were repulsed, fought 6 miles (10 km) east of the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia. -
President Lincoln signed into law the Pacific Railway Act, which established a public-private partnership, and commenced a ten year project (it took instead only seven years) to build a railroad to the Pacific Ocean. -
Casualties: 22,180
13,830 Union
8,350 Confederate -
Considered to be the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.
23,100. -
President Abraham Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, threatening to free all the enslaved people in the states in rebellion if those states did not return to the Union by January 1, 1863. -
One day after the congressional mid-term elections, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln relieved Union general George B. McClellan, -
Casualties: 17,929
13,353 Union
4,576 Confederate -
Lincoln issues the final Emancipation Proclamation, officially allowing black soldiers and sailors into Union forces. -
Cherokee Nation abolishes slavery and declares support for the Union -
Confederates were victorious at the Battle of Chancellorsville; Stonewall Jackson is fatally wounded. -
Stonewall Jackson dies due to infection. -
Gen. E. Lee launches his second invasion in North, (75000 Confederates) which will lead to Gettsyburg. -
Confederates are left defeated in Pennsylvania after the three-day battle. -
Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee defeated a Union force commanded by General William Rosecrans in the Battle of Chickamauga. -
Lincoln makes a two-minute speech at a ceremony dedicating the Battlefield. Remembered as one of the greatest speeches. -
Union forces under General Grant defeat the Confederates ending the rebel seige of Charranooga. The battle lasted two days. -
Lincoln Issues his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, which would pardon those who participated in the "existing rebellion" if they take an oath to the Union. -
Terrible prison camp opens near Andersonville, Georgia -
Congress passes the punitive Wade-Davis Bill; Lincoln will pocket veto. -
Union troops missed an opportunity to capture Petersburg and cut off Confederate rail lines. -
12,000 Confederate Troops Threaten Washington -
U.S. General Phil Sheridan begins the Shenandoah Valley Campaign. -
General Sherman captures Atlanta, Georgia. -
The territory of Nevada became an official U.S. State -
Lincoln defeats McClellan in the 1864 presidential election. -
A massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho people by the U.S. Army in the American Indian Wars. -
Confederates' main western army is destroyed at the Battle of Nashville, Tennessee. -
U.S. House of Representatives passes the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery (ratified December 1865) -
Sherman's army moves through Columbia in South Carolina. -
U.S. Congress establishes the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. -
Davis signs a "Negro Soldier Law," which allows for people of black heritage to enlist in the army. -
Petersburg, Virginia, falls to the Union; Richmond is evacuated. -
Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. -
John Wilkes Booth assassinates Lincoln during a theater show. -
Andrew Johnson becomes President after Lincoln is killed. -
Sherman accepts the surrender of Confederate General Joe Johnston in North Carolina. -
Jefferson Davis is captured under President Johnson
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First United States federal law defines citizenship and affirms that all citizens are equally protected by the law. -
A police officer tried to arrest a black ex-soldier, and this situation caused an outburst. -
A landmark decision of the US Supreme Court that ruled that the use of military tribunals to try civilians when civil courts are operating is unconstitutional. -
U.S. Congress passes Fourteenth Amendment, affirming citizenship for African Americans -
Reduced the number of United States circuit courts from 9 to 7. -
Tennessee recognizes defeat and rejoins the Union -
The U.S. Congress passes legislation authorizing the rank of General of the Army Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. (First one to receive this rank).
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The National Union Convention is held in Philadelphia. The goal was to reconcile the Radical Republicans in Congress with the Reconstructionist policies of President Andrew Johnson. -
President Johnson formally declares Civil War over. -
The Republican Party wins in a landslide despite President Andrew Johnson's Swing Around the Circle tour. -
The John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge opens between Cincinnati, Ohio and Covington, Kentucky, becoming the longest suspension bridge in the world. -
African-American men are granted the right to vote in the District of Columbia. -
Also known as the Military Reconstruction Act. Outlined the terms for readmission to the representation of rebel states. The bill divided the former Confederate states, except for Tennessee, into five military districts. -
U.S bought Alaska from Russia for 7.2 million dollars. -
A Sioux and Cheyenne war party kills U.S. Second Lieutenant Lyman Kidder, along with an Indian scout and ten enlisted men in Kansas. -
The first elevated railroad in USA begins service in New York. -
In Boston, Massachusetts, the Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established as the first dental school in the United States. -
President Andrew Johnson vetos almost all Reconstruction Bills that had been passed by Congress. -
The United States takes control of Midway Island. -
The treaty requires Native American Plains tribes to relocate to a reservation in western Oklahoma. -
The House of Representatives votes 126 to 47 in favor of a resolution to impeach Andrew Johnson -
After pursuing a policy of total war on the Plain Indians, General William Tecumseh Sherman proposes the Treaty of Fort Laramie. -
First Memorial Day is celebrated. It was proclaimed by General John A. Logan. -
The territories of the Wyoming region were organized into an official state. -
Rebels ( 400–600) in the town of Lares declare Puerto Rico independent; the local militia easily defeats them a week later. -
U.S. presidential election, 1868: Ulysses S. Grant defeats Horatio Seymour in the election. -
In the early morning, United States Army Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an attack on a band of Cheyenne living on reservation land with Chief Black Kettle, killing 103 Cheyenne. -
President Andrew Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all Civil War rebels. Except for war camp associates.
