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Spencer carbine, any of a family of rim-fire repeating arms both carbines and rifles that were widely used in the American Civil War. The carbine was invented by Christopher M. Spencer of Connecticut and was patented in 1860. -
Abraham Lincoln delivers an address at Cooper Union in New York City. In it, he sets forth the platform of the Republican Party and confirms its no-compromise stance on slavery. -
The pony express is created as an express mail service that used relays of horse-mounted riders between Missouri and California. -
The national convention of the Democratic Party, led by Stephen Douglas, meets in Charleston, South Carolina. Southern delegates are determined to enforce a pro-slavery stance in the territories but Northern Democrats oppose such a code and support popular sovereignty in the regions. -
Benjamin Henry perfects the Henry rifle which was manufactured by the New Haven Arms Company and used in considerable numbers by certain Union army units in the American Civil War. -
Abraham Lincoln wins the 1860 elections becoming the president of the United States of America -
The 1860 United States presidential election was the 19th quadrennial presidential election, held on November 6, 1860. Between Abraham Lincoln, John Breckenridge, John Bell, and Stephen Douglas. -
The convention had been called by the governor and legislature of South Carolina once Lincoln's victory was assured. Delegates were elected on December 6, 1860, and the convention convened on December 17. Its action made South Carolina the first state to secede. -
The Crittenden Compromise was the creation of John J. Crittenden, a Democratic senator from Kentucky, who emerged with a compromise that he claimed would end the arguments over slavery and avert a Civil War between the North and South. -
South Carolina became the first state to secede from the federal Union -
The Confederate States of America is established under Jefferson Adams. -
The states of Mississippi (January 9, 1861), Florida (January 10, 1861), Alabama (January 11, 1861), Georgia (January 19, 1861), Louisiana (January 26, 1861), Texas (February 1, 1861), Virginia (April 17, 1861), Arkansas (May 6, 1861), North Carolina (May 20, 1861), and Tennessee (June 8, 1861) formally seceded from the United States. -
Jefferson Davis was elected president, not of the United States of America but of the Confederate States of America. He ran unopposed and was elected to serve for a six-year term. Davis had already been serving as the temporary president for almost a year. -
The Confederate States of America attacked the United States military garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Less than two days later, the fort surrendered. No one was killed. The battle, however, started the Civil War -
The Battle of Big Bethel was one of the earliest land battles of the American Civil War. It took place on the Virginia Peninsula, near Newport News, on June 10, 1861. -
The Battle of Philippi formed part of the Western Virginia Campaign of the American Civil War and was fought in and around Philippi, Virginia, on June 3, 1861. A Union victory, it was the first organized land action of the war, though generally viewed as a skirmish rather than a battle. -
The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Battle of First Manassas, was the first major battle of the American Civil War. The battle was fought on July 21, 1861, in Prince William County, Virginia, just north of the city of Manassas and about 30 miles west-southwest of Washington, D.C. -
The Battle of Hatteras Inlet Batteries was the first combined operation of the Union Army and Navy in the American Civil War, resulting in Union domination of the strategically important North Carolina Sounds. Two forts on the Outer Banks had been built by the Confederates, to protect their commerce-raiding activity. -
The Battle of Ball's Bluff was an early battle of the American Civil War fought in Loudoun County, Virginia, on October 21, 1861, in which Union Army forces under Major General George B. McClellan suffered a humiliating defeat. -
The Battle of Belmont was fought on November 7, 1861, in Mississippi County, Missouri. It was the first combat test in the American Civil War for Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, the future Union Army general in chief and eventual U.S. president, was fighting Major General Leonidas Polk. -
The Battle of Mill Springs, also known as the Battle of Fishing Creek in Confederate terminology, and the Battle of Logan's Cross Roads in Union terminology, was fought in Wayne and Pulaski counties, near current Nancy, Kentucky, on January 19, 1862, as part of the American Civil War. -
The Battle of Fort Henry was fought on February 6, 1862, in Donelson, Stewart County, Tennessee, during the American Civil War. It was the first important victory for the Union and Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Western Theater. -
The Union victory at Fort Donelson forced the Confederacy to give up southern Kentucky and much of Middle and West Tennessee. -
The Battle of Hampton Roads, also referred to as the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack or the Battle of Ironclads, was a naval battle during the American Civil War. -
The First Battle of Kernstown was fought on March 23, 1862, in Frederick County and Winchester, Virginia, the opening battle of Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's campaign through the Shenandoah Valley during the American Civil War. -
The Battle of Yorktown or Siege of Yorktown was fought from April 5 to May 4, 1862, as part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War. -
The Battle of Shiloh was an early battle in the Western Theater of the American Civil War, fought April 6–7, 1862, in southwestern Tennessee. The battle is named after a small church in the vicinity named Shiloh which ironically translates to "place of peace" or "heavenly peace". -
The First Battle of Memphis was a naval battle fought on the Mississippi River immediately North of the city of Memphis, Tennessee on June 6, 1862, during the American Civil War. The engagement was witnessed by many of the citizens of Memphis. -
The Second Battle of Bull Run or Battle of Second Manassas was fought August 28–30, 1862, in Prince William County, Virginia, as part of the American Civil War. -
The Battle of Antietam, or Battle of Sharpsburg particularly in the Southern United States, was a battle of the American Civil War fought on September 17, 1862 -
The Battle of Arkansas Post, also known as Battle of Fort Hindman, was fought from January 9 to 11, 1863, near the mouth of the Arkansas River at Arkansas Post, Arkansas, as part of the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. -
The Battle of Chancellorsville was a major battle of the American Civil War, and the principal engagement of the Chancellorsville campaign. -
The siege of Vicksburg was the final major military action in the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. -
The siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana, was the final engagement in the Union campaign to recapture the Mississippi River in the American Civil War. -
The Battle of Brandy Station, also called the Battle of Fleetwood Hill, was the largest predominantly cavalry engagement of the American Civil War, as well as the largest ever to take place on American soil. -
The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. -
The First Battle of Fort Wagner was fought on July 10 and 11, 1863, on Morris Island in Charleston harbor during the American Civil War. An attempt by the Union Army to capture Fort Wagner was repulsed. -
The Second Battle of Fort Wagner, also known as the Second Assault on Morris Island or the Battle of Fort Wagner, Morris Island, was fought on July 18, 1863, during the American Civil War. Union Army troops commanded by Brig. -
The Battle of Chickamauga, fought on September 19–20, 1863, between U.S. and Confederate forces in the American Civil War, marked the end of a Union offensive, the Chickamauga Campaign, in southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia. -
Battle of Chattanooga, a decisive engagement fought at Chattanooga on the Tennessee River in late November 1863, contributed significantly to victory for the North. Chattanooga had strategic importance as a vital railroad junction for the Confederacy. -
Sherman's March to the Sea was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 until December 21, 1864, by William Tecumseh Sherman, major general of the Union Army. -
The Battle of the Wilderness ended inconclusively, though the Union Army suffered more than 17,500 casualties over the two days of fighting, some 7,000 more than the toll suffered by the Confederates. -
The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, sometimes more simply referred to as the Battle of Spotsylvania, was the second major battle in Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's 1864 Overland Campaign of the American Civil War. -
The Battle of Resaca was fought during the Civil War on May 14-15, 1864, in Gordon County. Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston's troops were able to slow, but not halt, the progress of Union general William T. Sherman's forces into Georgia. -
The Battle of Cold Harbor was fought during the American Civil War near Mechanicsville, Virginia, from May 31 to June 12, 1864, with the most significant fighting occurring on June 3. -
The Battle of Atlanta was a battle of the Atlanta Campaign fought during the American Civil War on July 22, 1864, just southeast of Atlanta, Georgia. -
The Second Battle of Kernstown was fought on July 24, 1864, at Kernstown, Virginia, outside Winchester, Virginia, as part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864 in the American Civil War. The Confederate Army of the Valley under Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early soundly defeated the Union Army of West Virginia -
The Battle of Spring Hill was fought on November 29, 1864, at Spring Hill, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War. -
The Second Battle of Franklin was fought on November 30, 1864, in Franklin, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin–Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War. It was one of the worst disasters of the war for the Confederate States Army. -
The Battle of Nashville was a two-day battle in the Franklin-Nashville Campaign that represented the end of large-scale fighting west of the coastal states in the American Civil War. -
Davis appoints Lee general-in-chief; U.S. House passes the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery -
Sherman's army moves through Columbia, South Carolina; Schimmelfenning's Union troops occupy Charleston -
U.S. Congress establishes the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Freedmen's Bureau). -
Davis signs a "Negro Soldier Law," authorizing the enlistment of slaves -
Petersburg, Virginia, falls to the Union; Richmond evacuated and set ablaze -
Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. -
John Wilkes Booth assassinates Lincoln; Andrew Johnson becomes president -
Sherman accepts the surrender of C.S.A's General Joe Johnston in North Carolina -
President Johnson proclaims armed resistance at an end; Davis is captured -
In Galveston, U. S. Maj. Gen. Granger issued General Orders No. 3, confirming those enslaved in Texas had been freed under the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. Local celebrations later inspired “Juneteenth,” commemorating the end of slavery. -
Black code in the United States are any of numerous laws enacted in the states of the former Confederacy after the American Civil War, in 1865 and 1866, designed to replace the social controls of slavery that had been removed by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution -
Alfred found, through his experiments, that mixing nitroglycerine with fine sand called kieselguhr would turn the liquid into a paste that could be shaped into rods. These rods could then be inserted into drilling holes. The invention was made in 1866. -
The Howell torpedo was the first self-propelled torpedo developed by the United States and used in service in the U.S. Navy. It was invented by Lt. Cmdr. John Howell in the 1870s and 1880s, after English engineer Robert Whitehead, debuted the world’s first successful torpedo in 1866. -
Congress passes an act to expand the Freedmen's Bureau. Johnson vetoes the act, but again Congress overrides his veto. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. It was mainly intended, in the wake of the American Civil War, to protect the civil rights of persons of African descent born in or brought to the United States. -
The Memphis massacre of 1866 was a series of violent events that occurred from May 1 to 3, 1866 in Memphis, Tennessee. The racial violence was ignited by political and social racism following the American Civil War, in the early stages of Reconstruction. -
U.S. Congress passes Fourteenth Amendment, affirming citizenship for African Americans -
After the war, the state legislature ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on July 18, 1866, and was the first state readmitted to the Union on July 24, 1866. -
The U.S. Army creates black cavalry and infantry regiments after Congress passed the Army Organization Act. Their main tasks were to help control the Native Americans of the Plains, capture cattle rustlers and thieves and protect settlers, stagecoaches, wagon trains, and railroad crews along the Western front. -
The Ku Klux Klan usally shortened to the KKK or the Klan is an American white supremacist terrorist and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Catholics, Native Americans as well as immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Muslims, and atheists. -
First Reconstruction Act passed by the U.S. Congress; overturning Johnson's veto -
The Ku Klux Klan reorganizes into a paramilitary organization led by a former Confederate General, Nathan Bedford Forrest -
The first practical typewriter was completed in September 1867, although the patent was not issued until June 1868. The man who was responsible for this invention was Christopher Latham Sholes of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The first commercial model was manufactured in 1873 and was mounted on a sewing machine stand. -
During Radical Reconstruction, which began with the passage of the Reconstruction Act of 1867, newly enfranchised Black people gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning elections to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress. -
African-American men are granted the right to vote in the District of Columbia. -
The United States reached an agreement to purchase Alaska from Russia for a price of $7.2 million. The Treaty with Russia was negotiated and signed by Secretary of State William Seward and Russian Minister to the United States Edouard de Stoeckl. -
The first elevated railroad in USA begins service in New York. -
The fourteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified. It gives all native-born and naturalized people citizenship and gives blacks equal protection under the law. -
In Boston, Massachusetts, the Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established as the first dental school in the United States. -
Howard University, named after the head of the Freedmen's Bureau, is founded in Washington, D.C.