Civil war

Towards Civil War

By Laila Alimahmoodi

  • Abraham Lincoln elected as president

    Abraham Lincoln elected as president
    The announcement of Lincoln’s victory signaled the secession of the Southern states, which since the beginning of the year had been publically threatening secession if the Republicans gained the White House.

  • Robert E. Lee named commander of Confederate Armies

    Robert E. Lee named commander of Confederate Armies
    Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June of 1861, which he would lead for the rest of the war.

  • Conflict at Fort Sumter

    Conflict at Fort Sumter
     The Confederate shelling of the Union-held Fort Sumter at the entrance to the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, marked the start of a four-year civil war that would tear the United States apart and cost many thousands of lives.

  • First Major Battle

    First Major Battle
    30,000 Union troops attacked a smaller Confederate force at Bull Run in Virginia. The Union drove the Confederates back at first, but then the Confederates unleashed a savage counterattack that forced Union lines to break and the Union to retreat.

  • Emancipation Proclamation issued

    Emancipation Proclamation issued
    Lincoln knew that the Constitution did not give him the power to end slavery. The Constitution did, however, give him the power to take property from an enemy in wartime- and, by law, enslaved people were property.

    The proclamation applied only to enslaved people in areas held by the Confederacy.

  • Grant named commander of Union armies

    Grant named commander of Union armies
    Grant was entrusted with command of all US armies during the later years of the Civil War after proving to Lincoln that he was a competent leader.

  • Sherman's March to the Sea begins

    Sherman's March to the Sea begins
    The last months of the war saw the Union determined to break the will of the South. Sherman and his men became destroyers. From Atlanta, Sherman’s troops burned cities and farmlands as they marched across Georgia to the Atlantic coast.

  • Civil War Ends

    Civil War Ends
    When the Union captured the train carrying food to his troops and Lee was completely surrounded, he knew it was over. Grant and Lee met in the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Grant offered his terms, which Lee accepted.

  • Lincoln is Assassinated

    Lincoln is Assassinated
    President Lincoln attended a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC. John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, shot Lincoln in the head. Lincoln died several hours later.