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First Election of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. Lincoln received only 40 percent of the popular vote but handily defeated the three other candidates. -
First state secedes from the Union
The first state to secede from the union was South Carolina. -
Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the raid 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. -
First Battle of Bull Run
35,000 Union troops marched from the federal capital in Washington, D.C. to strike a Confederate force of 20,000 along a small river known as Bull Run. -
Battle of Antietam
It was the first field army-level engagement in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War to take place on Union soil and is the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with a combined tally of 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing. -
Emancipation Proclamation
The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." Issued by President Abraham Lincoln -
The Battle of Vicksburg
The Siege of Vicksburg was the final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. Vicksburg was the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River; therefore, capturing it completed the second part of the Northern strategy, the Anaconda Plan. -
The Battle of Gettysburg
Considered the most important engagement of the American Civil War. Also the costliest land battle of the American Civil War with 46,286 casualties. -
The Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, one of the best-known in American history. It was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg. -
The Fall of Atlanta
The Battle of Atlanta was a battle of the Atlanta Campaign fought during the American Civil War. Union forces were trying to seize the important rail and supply center of Atlanta. -
Confederacy Surrenders
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. It was the final engagement of Confederate Army general Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia before it surrendered to the Union Army under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. -
Assassination of Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth Friday, April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.
