The Civil War

Lincoln gives his second inaugural address

1865 BCE

Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. Lincoln taking the oath at his second inauguration. Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address was delivered on March 4, 1865, during the final days of the Civil War and only a month before he was assassinated.

Freedman's Bureau is created

1865 BCE

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was an agency of the United States Department of War to "direct such issues of provisions, clothing, and fuel, as he may deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children

Richmond falls to the Union Army

1865 BCE

Due to its symbolic and strategic importance to the Confederate war effort, it was the target of numerous attempts by the Union Army to seize possession of the capital, most notably during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862 and the Overland Campaign of 1864. Its proximity to the fighting would lead to it becoming a center of hospitals and military prisons. The city finally fell to Union forces.

President Lincoln Assassinated

1865 BCE

The 16th President of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.

John Wilkes Booth is killed

1865 BCE

John Wilkes Booth is killed when Union soldiers track him down to a Virginia farm 12 days after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. Twenty-six-year-old Booth was one of the most famous actors in the country when he shot Lincoln during a performance at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., on the night of April 14.

Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox

1865 BCE

At Appomattox, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War. Forced to abandon the Confederate capital of Richmond, blocked from joining the surviving Confederate force in North Carolina, and harassed constantly by Union cavalry, Lee had no other option.

Atlanta is captured

1864 BCE

Continuing their summer campaign to seize the important rail and supply center of Atlanta, Union forces commanded by William Tecumseh Sherman overwhelmed and defeated Confederate forces defending the city under John Bell Hood. Union Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson was killed during the battle.

Sherman begins his March to the Sea

1864 BCE

Sherman's March to the Sea was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from, by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army.

Congress passes the 13th Amendment

1864 BCE

The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate.

Abraham Lincoln defeats George McClellan to win re-election

1864 BCE

The United States presidential election of 1864, the 20th quadrennial presidential election, was held on Tuesday, November 8, 1864. In the midst of the American Civil War, incumbent President Abraham Lincoln of the National Union Party defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B. McClellan.

Confederates surrender at Vicksburg

1863 BCE

Union casualties for the battle and siege of Vicksburg were 4,835; Confederate were 32,697 (29,495 surrendered). The full campaign, since March 29, claimed 10,142 Union and 9,091 Confederate killed and wounded. In addition to his surrendered men, Pemberton turned over to Grant 172 cannons and 50,000 rifles.

Battle of Chancellorsville

1863 BCE

Battle Of Chancellorsville Summary: The Battle of Chancellorsville, resulted in a Confederate victory that stopped an attempted flanking movement by Maj. Gen. Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker's Army of the Potomac against the left of Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

New York City draft riots

1863 BCE

The New York City draft riots, known at the time as Draft Week, were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan, widely regarded as the culmination of working-class discontent with new laws passed by Congress that year to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War.

Battle of Gettysburg

1863 BCE

The Battle of Gettysburg is considered the most important engagement of the American Civil War. After a great victory over Union forces at Chancellorsville, General Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania in late June 1863.

Lincoln gives his Gettysburg Address

1863 BCE

It was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863 – four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Battle of Antietam

1862 BCE

Also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, particularly in the Southern United States, was fought between Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Union General George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac, near Sharpsburg, Maryland and Antietam Creek as part of the Maryland Campaign. It was the first field army–level engagement in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War to take place on Union soil and at present remains the bloodiest day in American history

Robert E. Lee is named commander of the Army of Northern Virginia

1862 BCE

Robert Edward Lee was an American and Confederate soldier, best known as a commander of the Confederate States Army. He commanded the Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865.

The Merrimac and the Monitor fight of the Virginia Coast

1862 BCE

Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack, also called Battle of Hampton Roads, in the American Civil War, naval engagement at Hampton Roads, Virginia, a harbour 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.

Battle of Shiloh

1862 BCE

The Battle of Shiloh was a battle in the Western Theater of the American Civil War in southwestern Tennessee. A Union force known as the Army of the Tennessee, General Ulysses S. Grant had moved via the Tennessee River deep into Tennessee and was encamped principally at Pittsburg Landing on the west bank of the Tennessee River, where the Confederate Army of Mississippi General Albert Sidney Johnston launched a surprise attack on Grant's army from its base in Corinth, Mississippi.

Battle of Fredericksburg

1862 BCE

The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought December 11–15, 1862, in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, between General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General Ambrose Burnside, as part of the American Civil War. The Union Army's frontal attacks made this one of the most one- sided affairs yet. This battle was also refered to by Abraham Lincoln as "butchery."

Emancipation Proclamation is announced

1862 BCE

President Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in the midst of the Civil War, announcing on September 22, 1862, that if the rebels did not end the fighting and rejoin the Union by January 1, 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states would be free.

Lincoln suspends habeas corpus

1861 BCE

When Congress was called into special session. President Lincoln issued a message to both houses defending his various actions, including the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, arguing that it was both necessary and constitutional for him to have suspended it without Congress

Richmond becomes the capital of the Confederacy

1861 BCE

After the Confederate Army fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, beginning the Civil War, additional states seceded. ... Shortly thereafter, in recognition of Virginia's strategic importance, the Confederate capital was moved to Richmond.

Jefferson Davis Elected President of the Confederacy

1861 BCE

Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America. He ran without opposition, and the election simply confirmed the decision that had been made by the Confederate Congress earlier in the year.

First Battle of Bull Run is fought

1861 BCE

The First Battle of Bull Run (the name used by Union forces), also known as the First Battle of Manassas (the name used by Confederate forces), was fought on July 21, 1861 in Prince William County, Virginia, just north of the city of Manassas and about 25 miles west-southwest of Washington, D.C.

Confederate forces fire on Fort Sumter

1861 BCE

Beauregard, in command of the Confederate forces there and early in the morning of April 12, 1861, Confederate guns around the harbor opened fire on Fort Sumter. At 2:30pm on April 13th, Major Robert Anderson, garrison commander, surrendered the fort and was evacuated the next day.

South Carolina Votes to Secede from the United States

1860 BCE

The convention then adjourned to Charleston to draft an ordinance of secession. When the ordinance was adopted on December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first slave state in the south to declare that it had seceded from the United States.

Abraham Lincoln elected president

1860 BCE

Lincoln won the party's presidential nomination. In the November 1860 election, Lincoln again faced Douglas, who represented the Northern faction of a heavily divided Democratic Party, as well as Breckinridge and Bell.

John Brown is hanged

1859 BCE

An American abolitionist who believed in and advocated armed insurrection as the only way to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States. Brown first gained attention when he led small groups of volunteers during the Bleeding Kansas crisis of 1856. Dissatisfied with the pacifism of the organized abolitionist movement, he said, "These men are all talk. What we need is action-action!" In 1856, Brown and his supporters killed five supporters of slavery in the Pottawatomie massacre,

John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry

1859 BCE

An effort by armed abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in 1859 by taking over a United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia.

Dred Scott v. Sanford decision is rendered

1857 BCE

Among constitutional scholars, Scott v. Sandford is widely considered the worst decision ever rendered by the Supreme Court. ... The Dred Scott decision of 1857 put a match to the tinderbox of sectional conflict over the future of slavery and helped shape the subsequent presidential election.

Kansas-Nebraska Act passed

1854 BCE

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´.

Republican Party is formed

1854 BCE

The Republican Party, commonly referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States, the other being its historic rival, the Democratic Party.

Uncle Tom's Cabin is published

1852 BCE

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman.