American Civil War Timeline
1775 Philadelphia Quakers organize America's first antislav-ery society.
1776-83 English colonies' War for Independence against Great Britain ends with the formation of the United States.
1788 The U.S. Constitution is ratified, providing legal protection to slaveowners.
1793 Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin, which will dramatically increase Southern cotton production.
1803 President Thomas Jefferson purchases the Louisiana Territory from France.
1775
"Yankee Doodle" is written.
1789
George Washington takes office as the first U.S. president.
1800
The Library of Congress is established.
1775
1800
1816 The American Colonization Society is formed with the idea of settling free blacks back in Africa.
1820 Congress passes the Missouri Compromise, which maintains the balance between slave and free states in the Union.
1828 Congress passes the so-called "Tariff of Abominations" over the objections of Southern states.
1831 Slave Nat Turner leads a violent slave rebellion in Virginia.
1832-33 The "Nullification Crisis" in South Carolina ends after tariffs on foreign goods are lowered.
1833 The Female Anti-Slavery Society and the American Anti-Slavery Society are founded.
1837 Abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy is murdered by a proslavery mob in Illinois.
1838 Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery and joins the abolitionist movement.
1839 New York governor William Henry Seward refuses to return three escaped slaves to Virginia.
1839 Abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld publishes American Slavery as It Is.
1841 Horace Greeley launches the New York Tribune, which becomes a leading abolitionist newspaper.
1845 Texas is annexed by the United States over the objections of Mexico, which regards it as part of its country.
1846 Dred Scott files his famous lawsuit in an effort to win his freedom.
1818
Congress adopts a U.S. flag.
1825
The New York Stock Exchange opens.
1844
Samuel F. B. Morse transmits the first telegraph message.
1818
1825
1844
1848 The Mexican War ends with the United States acquiring five hundred thousand square miles of additional land in western North America.
1849 Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery.
1850 The Narrative of Sojourner Truth is published.
1850 Harriet Tubman makes the first of her nineteen trips to the South to lead slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad.
1850 The Compromise of 1850, including the controversial Fugitive Slave Act, becomes law.
1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin is published, increasing support for the abolitionist movement in the North.
1854 The Kansas-Nebraska Act is passed, returning decisions about allowing slavery back to individual states.
1856 South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks attacks Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner in the Senate chambers over an abolitionist speech.
1856 John Brown and his followers attack and kill five proslavery men in Kansas.
1857 The U.S. Supreme Court issues its famous Dred Scott decision, which increases Northern fears about the spread of slavery.
1858 New York senator William Henry Seward warns of an approaching "irrepressible conflict" between the South and the North.
1858 Illinois senate candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas meet in their famous debates over slavery and its future place in America.
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1859 Abolitionist John Brown leads a raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an unsuccessful effort to start a slave revolt across the South.
5/18/1860 The Republican Party nominates Abraham Lincoln as its candidate for president.
11/6/1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected president of the United States.
12/20/1860 South Carolina secedes from the Union.
1/9/1861 Mississippi secedes from the Union.
1/10/1861 Florida secedes from the Union.
1/11/1861 Alabama secedes from the Union.
1/19/1861 Georgia secedes from the Union.
1/26/1861 Louisiana secedes from the Union.
1/28/61 Pierre G. T. Beauregard is fired as superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for supporting secession.
1/29/1861 Kansas is admitted into the Union as the thirty-fourth state.
2/1/1861 Texas secedes from the Union.
2/8/1861 The Confederate Constitution is adopted in Montgomery, Alabama.
2/9/1861 Jefferson Davis is elected provisional president of the Confederacy.
2/18/1861 Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the president of the Confederacy.
3/4/1861 Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the sixteenth president of the United States.
1859
The world's first flying trapeze circus act performs in France.
1860
An internal combustion engine is patented.
1860
The first world heavyweight boxing championship bout takes place in England.
1859
The world's first flying trapeze circus act performs in France.
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3/6/1861 The Confederacy calls for one hundred thousand volunteers to join its military.
4/1861 Edward Pollard publishes Letters of a Southern Spy, harshly criticizing Abraham Lincoln and all Northerners.
4/12/1861 South Carolina troops open fire on Fort Sumter, marking the beginning of the American Civil War.
4/13/1861 Major Robert Anderson surrenders Fort Sumter to the Confederates.
4/15/1861 President Abraham Lincoln calls for seventy-five thousand volunteers to join the Union army.
4/19/1861 President Abraham Lincoln orders a blockade of Southern ports.
4/20/1861 Thaddeus Lowe makes a successful balloon flight from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Unionville, South Carolina.
5/1861 Winfield Scott develops his "Anaconda Plan."
5/6/1861 Arkansas secedes from the Union.
5/7/1861 Tennessee forms an alliance with the Confederacy that makes it a Confederate state for all practical purposes.
5/13/1861 Queen Victoria proclaims British neutrality in the conflict between America's Northern and Southern sections.
5/14/1861 Emma Edmonds disguises herself as a man and joins the Union army.
5/20/1861 North Carolina secedes from the Union.
5/23/1861 Virginia secedes from the Union.
1861
American inventor
Elisha G. Otis patents a steam-powered elevator.
1861
American Civil War
1861
American inventor
Elisha G. Otis patents a steam-powered elevator.
1861
American Civil War
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6/3/1861 Stephen A. Douglas dies in Chicago, Illinois.
6/10/1861 Napoleon III declares French neutrality in the American Civil War.
6/11/1861 Counties in western Virginia resist Virginia's vote to secede and set up their own government, which is loyal to the Union.
7/20/1861 Confederate Congress convenes at the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.
7/21/1861 Confederate forces win the First Battle of Bull Run, the war's first major battle.
7/22/1861 Julia Ward Howe writes the words to "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in her hotel room.
7/25/1861 U.S. Congress passes the Crittenden Resolution, which states that the North's war aim is to preserve the Union, not end slavery.
7/27/1861 General George B. McClellan assumes command of Federal forces in Washington.
8/30/1861 Union general John C. Fremont proclaims martial law in Missouri, which is torn by violence between pro-Union and pro-Confederate forces.
11/1861 John Bell Hood's Texas Brigade is organized.
11/6/1861 Jefferson Davis is elected to a six-year term as president of the Confederacy.
11/8/1861 Union Captain Charles Wilkes seizes two Confederate officials traveling on the Trent, a British vessel. The incident triggers deep outrage in England.
1861
English novelist Charles Dickens's Great Expectations
1861
The United States introduces the
1861
English novelist Charles Dickens's Great Expectations
1861
The United States introduces the
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11/20/1861 The Union organizes the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War in order to review the actions and qualifications of the North's military leadership.
11/27/1861 Confederate officials seized from the Trent are released from custody with apologies.
2/6/1862 Union general Ulysses S. Grant captures Fort Henry on the Tennessee River.
2/16/1862 Ulysses S. Grant captures Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River.
2/22/1862 Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as president of the Confederacy.
2/25/1862 Confederates abandon Nashville, Tennessee, to oncoming Union forces.
3/1862 Emma Edmonds makes her first trip behind Confederate lines as a Union spy.
3/9/1862 The Union ship Monitor battles the Confederate ship Virginia to a draw at Hampton Roads, Virginia.
4/6-7/1862 Union and Confederate forces fight in the inconclusive Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.
4/16/1862 The Confederate Congress passes a conscription act requiring most able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five to sign up for military service.
4/25/1862 The Union fleet under the command of Admiral David R. Farragut captures New Orleans.
5/13/1862 Slave Robert Smalls leads a group of slaves who steal the Confederate ship Planter and turn it over to the Union Navy.
1861
Congress levies the first income tax to fund Union forces.
1861
King Victor Emmanuel II creates kingdom of Italy.
1862
Frenchman Victor Hugo writes Les
Misérables.
1861
1861
1862
6/1/1862 General Robert E. Lee assumes command of Confederate forces defending Richmond, Virginia.
6/6/1862 Union forces take control of Memphis, Tennessee.
6/17/1862 Confederate forces led by Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson leave the Shenandoah Valley after a successful military campaign.
6/25/1862 The Seven Days' Battles begin between George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.
7/2/1862 President Abraham Lincoln calls for three hundred thousand enlistments for three-year periods in order to further strengthen the Union army.
7/17/1862 U.S. Congress passes laws allowing blacks to serve as soldiers in Union army.
7/29/1862 Confederate commerce raider Alabama leaves England and starts attacking Northern trading vessels.
8/29-30/1862 The Second Battle of Bull Run ends in a disastrous defeat for the Union.
9/5/1862 General Robert E. Lee leads the Army of Northern Virginia into Northern territory for the first time, as his force enters Maryland.
9/15/1862 Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's army captures twelve thousand Union troops at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
9/17/1862 George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia fight at Antietam in the bloodiest single day of the war. Neither side registers a conclusive victory, but the draw convinces Lee to return to Virginia.
1862
The Homestead Act encourages settlement of Western land.
1862
"Taps" is composed.
1862
British crops fail and hunger is widespread.
1862
1862
1862
9/22/1862 President Abraham Lincoln issues his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which will free slaves in Confederate territory.
10/8/1862 Confederate invasion of Kentucky ends after the Battle of Perryville.
10/12/1862 Jeb Stuart's Confederate cavalry completes ride around George B. McClellan's Union army after raid on Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
11/7/1862 President Abraham Lincoln removes General George B. McClellan from command of the Army of the Potomac, replacing him with General Ambrose Burnside.
12/13/1862 General Robert E. Lee's Confederate forces hand the Union a decisive defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg.
1/1/1863 President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, which frees all slaves in Confederate territory.
1/1/1863 John Singleton Mosby is named captain of the Confederate guerrilla rangers.
1/2/1863 Union victory at the Battle of Stones River stops Confederate plans to invade middle Tennessee.
1/23/1863 General Ambrose Burnside's new offensive against Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia sputters to a halt in bad weather. Burnside's "Mud March" convinces President Abraham Lincoln to replace him with General Joseph Hooker.
3/3/1863 U.S. Congress passes a conscription act requiring most able-bodied Northern men to sign up for military service.
1862 1863
The speed of light The world's first
1862 is successfully subway system opens
French composer Claude measured m London, England
1862 1863
The speed of light The world's first
1862 is successfully subway system opens
French composer Claude measured m London, England
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4/2/1863 Bread riots erupt in Richmond, Virginia, as hungry civilians resort to violence to feed their families.
5/1863 Union spy Pauline Cushman is captured and sentenced to death by Confederate general Braxton Bragg, but she is rescued near Shelbyville, Tennessee.
5/2/1863 General Robert E. Lee and the Confederates claim a big victory at Chancellorsville, but Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson is killed during the battle.
5/22/1863 General Ulysses S. Grant begins the siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, after attempts to take the Confederate stronghold by force are turned back.
5/26/1863 Ohio congressman Clement L. Vallandigham is exiled to Confederate territory for criticizing President Abraham Lincoln and encouraging Union soldiers to desert.
6/9/1863 The largest cavalry battle of the Civil War ends in a draw at Brandy Station, Virginia.
6/20/1863 West Virginia is admitted into the Union as the thirty-fifth state.
7/1-3/1863 The famous Battle of Gettysburg takes place in Pennsylvania. Union general George G. Meade and the Army of the Potomac successfully turn back General Robert E. Lee's attempted invasion of the North, doing terrible damage to Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in the process.
7/4/1863 Vicksburg surrenders to General Ulysses S. Grant and his Union force after a six-week siege of the city.
7/9/1863 Union troops take control of Port Hudson, Louisiana. The victory gives the North control of the Mississippi River.
1863
Civil war breaks out in Afghanistan.
1863
American carmaker Henry Ford is born.
1863
Roller skating is introduced in the United States.
1863
Civil war breaks out in Afghanistan.
1863
American carmaker Henry Ford is born.
1863
Roller skating is introduced in the United States.
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7/13/1863 Antidraft mobs begin four days of rioting in New York City.
7/18/1863 Black troops of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts regiment make a valiant but unsuccessful attempt to seize Fort Wagner in South Carolina from the Confederates.
8/21/1863 Confederate raiders led by William C. Quantrill murder 150 antislavery settlers and burn large sections of Lawrence, Kansas.
9/2/1863 Union troops take control of Knoxville, Tennessee.
9/9/1863 Union forces take control of Chattanooga, Tennessee, after the city is abandoned by General Brax-ton Bragg's army.
9/20/1863 The two-day Battle of Chickamauga ends in a major defeat for the Union.
9/23/1863 General Braxton Bragg begins the Confederate siege of Chattanooga.
10/17/1863 General Ulysses S. Grant is named supreme commander of Union forces in the west.
11/19/1863 President Abraham Lincoln delivers his famous Gettysburg Address at a ceremony dedicating a cemetery for soldiers who died at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.
11/25/1863 The three-day Battle of Chattanooga results in a major victory for the North, as Union troops led by General George Henry Thomas scatter General Brax-ton Bragg's Confederate army.
12/8/1863 President Abraham Lincoln proposes his Ten Percent Plan, which says that seceded states can return to the Union provided that one-tenth of the
1863
President Abraham Lincoln proclaims the first national Thanksgiving Day.
1863
President Abraham Lincoln proclaims the first national Thanksgiving Day.
1863
The Capitol dome in Washington, D.C., is capped.
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The Capitol dome in Washington, D.C., is capped. 1860 voters agree to form a state government that is loyal to the Union. 12/27/1863 General Joseph E. Johnston takes command of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. 3/12/1864 General Ulysses S. Grant is promoted to leadership of all of the Union armies. 3/18/1864 General William T. Sherman is named to lead Union armies in the west. 4/12/1864 Confederate troops led by Nathan Bedford Forrest capture Fort Pillow, Tennessee, and are accused of murdering black Union soldiers stationed there. 4/17/1864 General Ulysses S. Grant calls a halt to prisoner exchanges between North and South, further increasing the Confederacy's manpower problems. 5/5/1864 General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and General Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Potomac battle in the Wilderness campaign. 5/9-12/1864 General Robert E. Lee stops the Union advance on Richmond at the brutal Battle of Spotsylvania. 5/11/1864 Jeb Stuart is mortally wounded in a battle with Philip H. Sheridan's cavalry at Brandy Station, Virginia. 6/1864 U.S. Congress passes a law providing for equal pay for black and white soldiers. 6/3/1864 The Union's Army of the Potomac suffers heavy losses in a failed assault on Robert E. Lee's army at Cold Harbor, Virginia. 6/18/1864 General Ulysses S. Grant begins the Union siege of Petersburg, which is defended by Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. 1864 1864 President Abraham President Abraham Lincoln initiates Lincoln is nominated wartime draft. for a second term. 1864 1864 President Abraham President Abraham Lincoln initiates Lincoln is nominated wartime draft. for a second term.
6/23/1864 Confederate forces led by Jubal Early begin a campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. 7/11/1864 Confederate troops commanded by Jubal Early reach outskirts of Washington, D.C., before being forced to return to the Shenandoah Valley. 7/17/1864 General John Bell Hood takes command of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. 7/30/1864 Union general Ambrose Burnside makes a disastrous attack in the Battle of the Crater. 8/5/1864 Admiral David G. Farragut leads the Union Navy to a major victory in the Battle of Mobile Bay, which closes off one of the Confederacy's last remaining ports. 8/29/1864 The Democratic Party nominates General George B. McClellan as its candidate for president of the United States and pushes a campaign promising an end to the war. 9/1/1864 General William T. Sherman captures Atlanta, Georgia, after a long campaign. 9/4/1864 General William T. Sherman orders all civilians to leave Atlanta, Georgia, as a way to hurt Southern morale. 9/19-22/1864 Union troops led by Philip H. Sheridan defeat Jubal Early's Confederate army in the Shenan-doah Valley. 10/1/1864 Rose O'Neal Greenhow drowns in the Atlantic Ocean while trying to smuggle gold into the Confederacy in the hoops of her dress. 10/6/1864 Philip H. Sheridan's Union troops begin a campaign of destruction in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864 "In God We Trust" first appears on U.S. coins. 1864 "In God We Trust" first appears on U.S. coins. 1864 A cyclone destroys most of Calcutta, India.
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