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Abraham Lincoln
• On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as the United State’s 16th President.
• He was the first Republican to be elected as President.
• By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven states had seceded, and the Confederate States of America had been formally established, with Jefferson Davis as its elected president. -
Civil War
• At 4:30 a.m. Confederates under Gen. Pierre Beauregard open fire with 50 cannons upon Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina.
• At 2:30pm on April 13 Major Robert Anderson, garrison commander, surrendered the fort and was evacuated the next day.
• The Civil War begins. -
Proclamation
• President Lincoln issues a public declaration that an insurrection exists and calls for 75,000 militia to stop the rebellion.
• As a result of this call for volunteers, four additional southern states secede from the Union in the following weeks.
• Lincoln will respond on May 3 with an additional call for 43,000+ volunteers to serve for three years, expanding the size of the Regular Army. -
A struggle for maintaining in the world
• On 4 July 1861, the Thirty-seventh United States Congress met in special session to decide whether or not to approve President Abraham Lincoln’s request for additional soldiers and money to prosecute the war.
• In a now famous address (dated and sent to Congress on 4 July 1861, but read in session on 5 July 1861), Lincoln outlined the events that ignited the war, described his view of the fundamental purpose of government, and presented his rationale for the conflict in defense of the Union. -
Bloodiest day in U.S. military history
• The bloodiest day in U.S. military history as Gen. Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Armies are stopped at Antietam in Maryland by McClellan and numerically superior Union forces.
• By nightfall 26,000 men are dead, wounded, or missing.
• Lee then withdraws to Virginia. -
Union Army
• The Union Army under Gen. Hooker is decisively defeated by Lee's much smaller forces at the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia as a result of Lee's brilliant and daring tactics.
• Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson is mortally wounded by his own soldiers. Hooker retreats.
• Union losses are 17,000 killed, wounded and missing out of 130,000. The Confederates, 13, 000 out of 60,000. -
Chattanooga
• The Rebel siege of Chattanooga ends as Union forces under Grant defeat the siege army of Gen. Braxton Bragg.
• During the battle, one of the most dramatic moments of the war occurs. Yelling "Chickamauga! Chickamauga!" Union troops avenge their previous defeat at Chickamauga by storming up the face of Missionary Ridge without orders and sweep the Rebels from what had been though to be an impregnable position.
• “My God, come and see ‘em run!” a Union soldier cries. -
The Mine Run Campaign
• Meade's Army of the Potomac marches against Lee's Army of Northern Virginia south of the Rapidan River, east of Orange Court House.
• Lee reacts and throws up a line of defenses along the banks of Mine Run Creek.
• After several days of probing the defenses, Meade withdraws north of the Rapidan and goes into winter quarters. -
Escape from Libby Prison, Richmond
• After weeks of digging, 109 Union officers made their escape from the notorious Libby Prison, the largest and most sensational escape of the war.
• Though 48 of the escapees were later captured and two drowned, 59 were able to make their way into Union lines. -
Battle of the Wilderness, Virginia
• The opening battle of the "Overland Campaign" or "Wilderness Campaign". General Ulysses S. Grant, accompanying the Army of the Potomac under General Meade, issued orders for the campaign to begin on May 3.
• Lee responded by attacking the Union column in the dense woods and underbrush of an area known as the Wilderness, west of Fredericksburg, Virginia.
