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Civil War Events
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Conferdal Attack on Fort Sumter
In the early morning hours of April 12, 1861, a lone shot pierced the darkness covering Charleston, South Carolina. The newly formed Confederate Army had fired on Fort Sumter, an installation held by United States forces sitting in the middle of the harbor. That lone shot in the dawn hours was just the first of millions of shots that would be fired over the next four years. It was the start of the American Civil War. Let's learn more about Fort Sumter and how the Civil War began there in 1861. -
Battle of Bull Run
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Battle of Hampton Roads
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Battle of Antietam
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Emancipation Proclamation
President Lincoln justified the Emancipation Proclamation as a war measure intended to cripple the Confederacy. Being careful to respect the limits of his authority, Lincoln applied the Emancipation Proclamation only to the Southern states in rebellion. -
Seige of Vicksburg
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Battle of Gettysburg
The Town of Gettysburg, population 2,000, was a town on the rise. It boasted three newspapers, two institutes of higher learning, several churches and banks, but no shoe factory or warehouse. The ten roads that led into town are what brought the armies to Gettysburg. The shoe myth can be traced to a late-1870s statement by Confederate general Henry Heth. -
Ratification of 13th Amendment
Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States. The 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House on January 31, 1865. -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee (1807-70) surrendered his approximately 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85) in the front parlor of Wilmer McLean's home in Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War (1861-65). -
Assassination of Lincoln
Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated. An unsuccessful attempt had been made on Andrew Jackson 30 years before in 1835, and Lincoln had himself been the subject of an earlier assassination attempt by an unknown assailant in August 1864. The assassination of Lincoln was planned and carried out by the well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, as part of a larger conspiracy in a bid to revive the Confederate cause.
