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Lincon
Abraham Lincoln is elected sixteenth president of the United States, the first Republican president in the nation who represents a party that opposes the spread of slavery in the territories of the United States. -
South Carolina
The first Secession Convention meets in Columbia, South Carolina. -
Union
South Carolina secedes from the Union. -
Sc
South Carolina, one of the richest states in the country, is the first to secede in the immediate aftermath of Lincoln’s election. The Ordinance of Secession cites Northern hostility to slavery and the election of a sectional party as reasons for the state’s action. -
S States
Six additional southern states secede from the Union. -
Confederates
The southern states that seceded create a government at Montgomery, Alabama, and the Confederate States of America are formed. -
Jefferson davis
Jefferson Davis is appointed the first President of the Confederate States of America at Montgomery, Alabama, a position he will hold until elections can be arranged. -
Lincolns Inauguration
Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the sixteenth president of the United States in Washington, DC. -
Fort Sumter
Southern forces fire upon Fort Sumter, South Carolina. The Civil War has formally begun. -
Militia
President Lincoln issues a public declaration that an insurrection exists and calls for 75,000 militia to stop the rebellion. As a result of this call for volunteers, four additional southern states secede from the Union in the following weeks. Lincoln will respond on May 3 with an additional call for 43,000+ volunteers to serve for three years, expanding the size of the Regular Army. -
union forces
President Lincoln issues a public declaration that an insurrection exists and calls for 75,000 militia to stop the rebellion. As a result of this call for volunteers, four additional southern states secede from the Union in the following weeks. Lincoln will respond on May 3 with an additional call for 43,000+ volunteers to serve for three years, expanding the size of the Regular Army. -
Skirmish
A skirmish near Philippi in western Virginia, is the first clash of Union and Confederate forces in the east. -
Battle run
The Battle of Bull Run (or First Manassas), is fought near Manassas, Virginia. The Union Army under General Irwin McDowell initially succeeds in driving back Confederate forces under General Pierre Gustav Toutant Beauregard, but the arrival of troops under General Joseph E. Johnston initates a series of reverses that sends McDowell's army in a panicked retreat to the defenses of Washington. -
Battle of Big Bethel
Battle of Big Bethel, the first land battle of the war in Virginia. -
Wheeling Convention
-At the culmination of the Wheeling Convention, the region that composed the northwestern counties of Virginia broke away from that state to form West Virginia, officially designated and accepted as the thirty fifth state of the Union on June 20, 1863.