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Second Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln issues the second Emancipation Proclamation, emphasized as a war measure. Which frees all slaves in states or parts of states that were still in rebellion against the United States. -
10 Percent Plan
Lincoln issues a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction.
Which comes to be known as his 10 Percent Plan. -
Wade Davis Bill
Republicans in Congress propose the Wade Davis Bill as an alternative to Lincoln's 10 Percent Plan. Lincoln pocket-vetoes it. -
Military give 40 acres
General William T. Sherman issues Special Field Order 15.
Setting aside confiscated plantation land in the Sea Islands and along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia for black families to settle in 40-acre plots.
Some 40,000 freedmen and women are living on the land by June. -
Freedmen Bureau Established
The temporary Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen. And Abandoned Lands known as the Freedmen's Bureau is established within the War Department. -
Freedmen Savings Bank
Congress also charters the Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company commonly called the Freedmen's Savings Bank. -
Surrender At Appomattox
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrenders his army to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia -
Booth shoots
President Lincoln is shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth while attending the comedy "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. He dies the next day. -
Johnson becomes president
Andrew Johnson becomes the seventeenth president upon the death of Abraham Lincoln. -
Presidential reconstruction
President Johnson announces his plan of Presidential Reconstruction (1865 1867). -
Lincoln consipraters
Four people are hanged in Washington, D.C., after being convicted of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. -
Pardon's issued
Johnson's strict pardon policy has been abandoned wealthy planters are quickly brought back into the union. By September, hundreds of pardons were being issued in a single day. some 13,000 in all. -
southerner's slow
Southern states elect former Confederates to public office at the state and national levels. drag their feet in ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment, and refuse to extend the vote to black men. -
Black Codes
Southern legislatures begin drafting "Black Codes" to re-establish white supremacy. -
13th amendment was ratified
The Thirteenth Amendment is ratified prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude. -
Reconsruction begins
Republicans win well over a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate the election is seen as a popular referendum on the widening divide between Johnson and the Radicals.