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Battle at Fort Sumter
bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War. Following declarations of secession by seven Southern states, South Carolina demanded that the U.S. -
Lincoln orders blockade of the south
Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, initiating hostilities between the North and South. Lincoln immediately began moving to meet the crisis head on. -
1st Battle of Bull Run (or you may see if called Manassas)
Although neither army was adequately prepared at this early stage of the war, political considerations and popular pressures caused the Federal government to order General Irvin McDowell to advance southwest of Washington to Bull Run in a move against Richmond, Virginia. -
7 Days Campaign
Richmond, Virginia during the American Civil War. Confederate General Robert E. Lee drove the invading Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, away from Richmond and into a retreat down the Virginia Peninsula. The series of battles is sometimes known erroneously as the Seven Days Campaign, but it was actually the culmination of the Peninsula Campaign, not a separate campaign in its own right. -
Emancipation Proclamation issued
During the American Civil War it was based on the president's constitutional authority as commander in chief of the armed forces; it was not a law passed by Congress. It proclaimed all those enslaved in Confederate territory to be forever free, and ordered the Army (and all segments of the Executive branch) to treat as free all those enslaved in ten states that were still in rebellion, thus applying to 3.1 million of the 4 million slaves in the U.S. -
Battle of Gettysburg
Before the battle, major cities in the North such as Philadelphia, Baltimore and even Washington were under threat of attack from General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia which had crossed the Potomac River and marched into Pennsylvania. -
Sherman captures Atlanta
Continuing their summer campaign to seize the important rail and supply center of Atlanta, Union forces commanded by William T. Sherman overwhelmed and defeated Confederate forces defending the city under John B. Hood. Union Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson was killed during the battle. Despite the implication of finality in its name, the battle occurred midway through the campaign and the city did not fall until September 2, 1864, after a Union siege and various attempts to seize railroads and supp -
Abraham Lincoln re-elected
Abraham Lincoln was re-elected as president. Since the election of 1860, the Electoral College had expanded with the admission of Kansas, West Virginia, and Nevada as free-soil states, but the electoral process was disrupted by the American Civil War. -
Union Army moves in and occupies Richmond, VA.
Lee tried to break through Grant's lines, only to be repulsed. Just days later, Grant launched an all-out assault on Lee's army. Lee was forced to notify President Davis on April 2, 1865, that Richmond had to be evacuated. -
Ulysses S. Grant takes over the Union Army
18th President of the United States (1869–1877) following his highly successful role as a war general in the second half of the Civil War. Under Grant, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military; the war, and secession, ended with the surrender of Robert E. Lee's army at Appomattox.[1] As president he led the Radical Republicans in their effort to eliminate all vestiges of Confederate nationalism and slavery. Upset over uncontrolled violence in the South and wanting to protect African Amer
