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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." -
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. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford decision is rendered
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. -
John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry was an effort by armed abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in 1859 by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. -
John Brown is Hanged
In Charles Town, Virginia, militant abolitionist John Brown is executed on charges of treason, murder, and insurrection. -
Abraham Lincoln elected 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
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. -
Confederate Forces fire on Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the Confederate States Army, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army that started the American Civil War. -
Richmond becomes the Capital of the Confederacy
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. -
Lincoln suspends Habeas Corpus
When Congress was called into special session, July 4, 1861, 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. -
First Battle of Bull Run is fought.
The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as the First Battle of Manassas, 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 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. -
Jefferson Davis elected president of the Confederacy
Jefferson Davis, who had been elected President and Alexander H. Stephens, who had been elected Vice President, under the Provisional Confederate States Constitution, were elected to six-year terms (February 22, 1862 – February 22, 1868) as the first permanent President and Vice President of the Confederate States of America. -
The Merrimac and the Monitor fight of the Virginia Coast
Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack, also called Battle of Hampton Roads, (March 9, 1862), 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
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 Antietam
The Battle of Antietam, also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, 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. It was the first field army–level engagement in the American Civil War to take place on Union soil and at present remains the bloodiest day in American history, with a combined tally of 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing. -
Battle of Fredericksburg
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. -
Emancipation Proclamation is announced
The Emancipation Proclamation, or Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. It changed the federal legal status of more than 3 million enslaved people in the designated areas of the South from slave to free. -
Battle of Chancellorsville
The Battle of Chancellorsville, April 30–May 6, 1863, resulted in a Confederate victory that stopped an attempted flanking movement by Maj. Gen. Joseph "Fighting Joe" -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought from July 1 to July 3, 1863, is considered the most important engagement of the American Civil War. -
Confederates surrender at Vicksburg
The Confederacy is torn in two when General John C. Pemberton surrenders to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Vicksburg campaign was one of the Union's most successful of the war. -
New York City Draft 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. -
Congress passes the 13th Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment 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. -
Atlanta is Captured
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. -
Abraham Lincoln defeats George McClellan to win re-election
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
From November 15 until December 21, 1864, Union General William T. Sherman led some 60,000 soldiers on a 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. The purpose of this “March to the Sea” was to frighten Georgia's civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause. -
Freedman's Bureau is created
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." -
Lincoln gives his second inaugural address
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. -
Richmond falls to the Union Army
General Robert E. Lee decided that he would withdrawal more south to hook up with General Joseph Johnson and this would have worked if not for Union General George Gordon Meade blocking his way. Running out of food and supplies, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9th a few days after Richmond had fallen to Union troops. -
Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox
The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought on the morning of April 9, 1865, was one of the last battles of the American Civil War. -
President Lincoln Assinated
Abraham Lincoln, 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 Theater in Washington, D.C. -
John Wilkes Booth is Killed
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.
