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Uncle Tom's Cabin is Published
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. -
Republican Party is formed
By February 1854, anti-slavery Whigs had begun meeting in the upper midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party. One such meeting, in Wisconsin on March 20, 1854, is generally remembered as the founding meeting of the Republican Party. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act passed
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. 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´. -
Dred Scott V. Sanford decision is rendered
Dred Scott decision, formally Dred Scott v. John F.A. Sandford, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on March 6, 1857, ruled that a slave who had resided in a free state and territory (where slavery was prohibited) was not thereby entitled to his freedom; that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States; and that the Missouri Compromise , which had declared free all territories west of Missouri, was unconstitutional. -
John Brown is hanged
On October 18, U.S. Marines commanded by Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart, both of whom were destined to become famous Civil War generals, recaptured the arsenal, taking John Brown and several other raiders alive. On November 2, Brown was sentenced to death by hanging. -
Abraham Lincoln elected as president
On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, beating Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell. He was the first president from the Republican Party. -
South Carolina votes to secede from the United States
The secession of Southern States led to the establishment of the Confederacy and ultimately the Civil War. It was the most serious secession movement in the United States and was defeated when the Union armies defeated the Confederate armies in the Civil War, 1861-65. -
Jefferson Davis elected president of the Confederacy
The Provisional Confederate States Congress met at Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4, 1861. A provisional constitution was adopted on February 8, 1861. On February 9, 1861, Jefferson Davis was elected Provisional President and Alexander H. Stephens was elected Provisional Vice President. -
Confederate Forces fire on Fort Sumter
Beauregard, in command of the Confederate forces there and Maj. Robert Anderson, the Sumter garrison commander. The talks failed to resolve tensions, forcing Beauregard to action. Early in the morning of April 12, 1861, Confederate guns around the harbor opened fire on Fort Sumter. -
Richmond becomes the capital of the Confederacy
However, on May 8, 1861, in the Confederate Capital City of Montgomery, Alabama, the decision was made to name the City of Richmond, Virginia as the new Capital of the Confederacy. -
First Battle of Bull Run is fought
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. -
Robert E. Lee is named commander of the Army of Northern Virginia
Robert E. Lee (1807-70) served as a military officer in the U.S. Army, a West Point commandant and the legendary general of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War (1861-65). In June 1861, Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia, which he would lead for the rest of the war. Lee and his army achieved great success during the Peninsula Campaign and at Second Bull Run and Fredericksburg, with his greatest victory coming in the bloody Battle of Chancellorsville. -
The Merrimac and the monitor fight at the coast of Virgina
The March 9, 1862, battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack (CSS Virginia) during the American Civil War (1861-65) was history's first duel between ironclad warships. -
Battle of Shiloh
The Battle of Shiloh was a battle in the Western Theater of the American Civil War, fought April 6–7, 1862, in southwestern Tennessee. -
Battle of Antietam
The Battle of Antietam, also called the Battle of Sharpsburg, occurred September 22, 1862, at Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland. It pitted Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia against Union General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac and was the culmination of Lee’s attempt to invade the north. The battle’s outcome would be vital to shaping America’s future, and it remains the deadliest one-day battle in all American military history. -
Battle of Fredericksburg
The Battle of Fredericksburg was an early battle of the civil war and stands as one of the greatest Confederate victories. Led by General Robert E. Lee, the Army of Northern Virginia routed the Union forces led Maj Gen. Ambrose Burnside. -
Emancipation Proclamation is announced
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Congresses passes the 13th amendment
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 on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. -
Lincoln suspends habeas corpus
Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law on March 3, 1863, and suspended habeas corpus under the authority it granted him six months later. -
Battle of Chancellorsive
The Battle of Chancellorsville was a major battle of the American Civil War, and the principal engagement of the Chancellorsville Campaign. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was the largest battle of the American Civil War as well as the largest battle ever fought in North America, involving around 85,000 men in the Union’s Army of the Potomac under Major General George Gordon Meade and approximately 75,000 in the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert Edward Lee. -
Confederates surrender at Vicksburg
After defeating a Confederate force near Jackson, Grant turned back to Vicksburg. On May 16, he defeated a force under John C. Pemberton at Champion Hill. ... Pemberton surrendered on July 4, and President Abraham Lincoln wrote that the Mississippi River “again goes unvexed to the sea.” -
New York City drafts riots
The New York City draft riots (July 13–16, 1863), 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. -
Lincoln gives his Gettysburg Address
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. -
Atlanta is captured
"Atlanta is ours, and fairly won": the immortal words of General William T. Sherman when he captured Atlanta on this date in 1864. -
Abraham Lincoln defeats George McCellan to win re-election
The United States presidential election of 1864 was the 20th quadrennial presidential election, 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. -
Sherman begins his March to the sea
Sherman's March To The Sea summary: Sherman's March to the Sea is the name commonly given to the Savannah Campaign by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman taking place from November 15, 1864 to December 21, 1864. which followed the successful Atlanta Campaign. -
Freedman's Bureau is created
The Freedmen's Bureau, formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, was established in 1865 by Congress to help millions of former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War. -
Lincoln gives his second inaugural address
Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, during his second inauguration as President of the United States. -
Richmond falls to the Union Army
The Rebel capital of Richmond, Virginia, falls to the Union, the most significant sign that the Confederacy is nearing its final days. -
Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox
On April 9, 1865, near the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. -
President Lincoln Assassination
On the evening of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. -
John Wilkes Booth is killed
John Wilkes Booth was an American actor and assassin, who murdered President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865. -
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry
Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery.
