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South Carolina is the first to officially secede from the Union.
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Mississippi secedes from the Union.
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Florida secedes from the Union.
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Alabama secedes from the Union.
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Georgia secedes from the Union.
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Louisiana secedes from the Union.
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Texas secedes from the Union.
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The election of the 16th president of te United States.
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Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the sixteenth President of the United States. During his inaguration speech he warns the south that he will not tolerate secession.
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On Friday, April 12, 1861, at 4:30 in the morning, confeterates confederate forces under General Beauregard bombard Major Robert Anderson and his Union soldiers at Fort Sumter for 34 hours straight in Charleston, South Carolina.
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Lincoln requests to congress the enlistment of a Union army.
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Union forces led by General Ulysses Grantare are ambushed at the town of Shiloh in Tennessee. The death toll - Union: 13,000
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General Robert E. Lee assumes command of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
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Lincoln declares that he will free any slaves in towns that the Union captures.
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The first military draft in American history. Congress requests every man to serve in the army unless he can find another person to tae his place or pay the government $300.
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Confederate General Thomas Jackson dies from wounds sustained when he was shot by his own troops after returning from night reconacence at Chancellorsville.
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A three day battle in which the Union forces lead by General Meade defeat the confederate forces under General Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
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On the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee orders General George Pickett to assault Union positions across a mile long field. More than half of the 12,000 Confederate soldiers who participate in the charge are slaughtered as they walk into Union gunfire.
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After a long seige General Ulysses S. Grant takes Vicksburg which is west of the Mississippi River.
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Lincoln appoints Ulysses S. Grant as commander of all Union armies.
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Union General Sherman captures Savannah, Georgia, and offers it to President Lincoln as a gift.
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General Robert E. Lee surenders to General Ulysses S. Grant in a farmhouse which marks the end of the civil war.
