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Lincoln was elected 16th president of the United States, being the first republican president. He ran against three other candidates: Southern democrat John C. Breckinridge, Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and Northern democrat Stephen Douglas.
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South Carolina is the first state to secede the Union, follwed by: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. These seven states formed the Confederate States of America (CSA). The Confederacy wrote their own constitution and planned for an independent nation.
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First battle of US Civil War: General McDowell leads 30,000 northern men against General Johnston's 22,000 confederate troops attempting to crush the rebels. South scores victory and Unionist troops flee to Washington, leaving 5,000 deaths.
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The Emancipation Proclimation delcared "That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."
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Over 165,000 soldiers participated in what would be the largest battle in the western hemisphere. General Robert E. Lee withdrawls the Confederacy after three days of fighting, leaving 51,000 casualties on the North and South.
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By the end of the Battle of Gettsyburg, more than 51,000 Confederate and Union soldiers were wounded, missing or dead. In Lincoln's small speech, he dedicates the battlefield in which the combat occured as a cememtary for the deceased Unionists. He continues to say that the dead shall not have died in vain and this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.
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In order to end Confederate suffering, Lee surrenders to Grant, who gives generous terms of renunciation.
