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Important details

April 12, Confederates fired shots on Fort Sumter

April 13, Major Robert Anderson evacuated the Union troops

But wide support in the North and the South for more military action

Aftermath

Four more southern states seceded

Significance

The American Civil War had begun

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Battle of Bull Run/Manassas July 21, 1861

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Battle of Bull Run/Manassas July 21, 1861

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Details:

Union soldiers under General McDowell, marched from Washington D.C. to Virginia;  they were trying to take the Confederate capital of Richmond

When Union soldiers reached Bull Run Creek, they were confronted by Confederate soldiers

Confederate reinforcements arrived by train – among the reinforcements included  Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and his Virginia brigade

Union was pushed back; soldiers and civilians ran back to Washington D.C.

Union supplies could not reach the fort; conditions inside the fort for the Union soldiers deteriorated

Aftermath:

Confederate victory

Battle of Bull Run was an embarrassment for the Union

Significance:

Union thought the war would be quick; Battle of Bull Run proved it would be a long war

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Details:

Passed by Congress and signed by Lincoln, who worried Border States would leave the Union  and join the Confederacy

First Confiscation Act (August 6, 1861) authorized Union army officials to seize any slaves employed by the Confederate army.

Second Confiscation Act (July 17, 1862) declared confiscation as punishment for treason, labeled Confederate slaves as “captives of war” who were to be “forever free, ” and declared that Confederate officials in areas occupied by the Union Army who did not surrender within 60 days of the act's passage would have their slaves freed .Aftermath:

Word of the Confiscation Acts spread rapidly in the South; this emboldened  slaves to run away

Significance:

One step closer to the Emancipation Proclamation

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Battle of Shiloh April 6-7, 1862 Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee

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Battle of Shiloh April 6-7, 1862 Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee

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Details:

The Confederate Army launched an attack on Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant

After initial successes, the Confederates were unable to hold their positions and were forced back

the battle ended the next day with the Union army doing little more than reoccupying the camp it had lost the day before while the Confederates returned to Corinth, Mississippi.

Although both sides claimed victory, it was a Confederate failure;

Aftermath:

Union would then move on to capture New Orleans

Significance:

Both sides suffered heavy losses, with more than 23,000 total casualties, and the level of violence shocked North and South alike.

Confederate Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston was killed, weakening Confederate  military leadership.

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Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg September 17, 1862, Sharpsburg, Maryland Antietam, the North (after the geography) Sharpsburg, the South (after the town).  

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Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg September 17, 1862, Sharpsburg, Maryland Antietam, the North (after the geography) Sharpsburg, the South (after the town).  

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Details:

The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia's first invasion into the North, hoping to capture

Washington DC

North discovered Confederate battle plans on the ground wrapped around a cigar

McClellan did not use all the troops he had available to him

Union did have more casualties, but the Confederacy did retreat to Virginia

Indecisive battle, but the North gained the advantage

Aftermath:

McClellan did not order his men to pursue the Confederates and was relieved of his position by Lincoln

Some historians believe that Robert E. Lee might have had to surrender his entire army if McClellan had continued his attack.

Significance:

Led Abraham Lincoln to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

Bloodiest one-day battle in the war (22,000 casualties)

Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg

September 17, 1862

Sharpsburg, Maryland

Antietam, the North (after the geography) Sharpsburg, the South (after the town).

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Emancipation Proclamation January 1, 1863

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Emancipation Proclamation January 1, 1863

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Details:

“As a fit and necessary war measure,the Emancipation Proclamation is a military strategy to end the war.” unknown

Freed enslaved people in the Confederate States of America

Allowed Black men to join the US Army

Did not apply to the border states or Confederate States under Union Control

Aftermath:

for the first time, it officially placed the U.S. government against the "peculiar institution" of slavery

crippled the South's ability to wage war, and kept Britain from supporting the South's independence,

Some emancipated slaves quickly fled from the neighborhood of their owners, while others became wage earners

Significance:

The Emancipation Proclamation was the necessary legislation that gave slaves their opportunity to free life in the United States. It was the culminating act of many arguments and papers by abolitionists.

The emancipation itself changed the nature of the war. It reflected a fundamental change in Lincoln’s own thinking about the relationship of slavery to the war as well as the future place of blacks in American life.

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Siege of VicksburgMay 18 - July 4, 1863 Vicksburg, Mississippi

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Siege of VicksburgMay 18 - July 4, 1863 Vicksburg, Mississippi

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Details:

Union forces waged a campaign to take the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi, halfway between Memphis to the north and New Orleans to the south.

The 47-day siege over control of the Mississippi River to the Union, a critical supply line, and was part of the Union’s Anaconda Plan to cut off outside trade to the Confederacy.

Aftermath:

The North gained control of the Mississippi River

Significance:

cemented the reputation of Union General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85). These two victories marked the major turning point of the Civil War in favor of the Union.

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Battle of Gettysburg July 1 - 3, 1863 Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

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Battle of Gettysburg July 1 - 3, 1863 Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

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Details:

Three-day battle

The largest battle ever fought in North America, involving around 85,000 men in the Union’s Army of the Potomac under Major General George Gordon Meade and approximately 75,000 in the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert Edward Lee.

Northern Victory

Aftermath:

Casualties for the Union: 3,155 dead, 14,529 wounded, 5,365 missing; total= 23,049.

Casualties for the Confederacy: 3,903 dead, 18,735 injured, and 5,425 missing; total up to 28,000.

Significance:

The pivotal turning point in the Civil War: The Battle of Gettysburg was the Confederate’s last attempt to invade the North

Four months later – Lincoln travels to Gettysburg and gives the Gettysburg address

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Details:

early 1863, Lincoln’ administration passed  The Enrollment Act

all male citizens between 20 and 35 and all unmarried men between 35 and 45 subject to military duty (military draft).

all eligible men were entered into a lottery,

could buy their way out by hiring a substitute or paying $300 to the government (roughly $5,800 today).

Working class White rioted, killing 120 citizens, including lynching 11 African Americans

caused millions of dollars in property damage and left 3,000 of the city’s African Americans resident homeless.

Aftermath:

the abolitionist movement in New York City revived itself slowly, and in March 1864, less than a year after the draft riots, New York City saw its first all-Black volunteer regiment in the Union Army march

Upwards of 4,000 African Americans moved out of New York City

Significance:

The New York draft riot was also closely associated with racial competition for jobs. Northern lwhite laborers feared that emancipation of slaves would cause an influx of African American workers from the South, .

The New York Draft Riots remain the deadliest riots in U.S. history, even worse than the 1992 Los Angeles Riots and the 1967 Detroit Riots.

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March to the Sea Nov.15 - Dec. 21, 1864 Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia

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March to the Sea Nov.15 - Dec. 21, 1864 Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia

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Details:

Union General William T. Sherman led some 60,000 soldiers on a 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia.

The purpose of Sherman’s March to the Sea was to frighten Georgia’s civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause.

Aftermath:

Victory in Atlanta helped Lincoln get re-elected in 1864

Significance:

Through the employment of a scorched-earth policy, Sherman successfully disrupted the flow of supply of Confederate forces, broke the will of the civilian South to support the Confederate cause, and thus, hastened the end of the civil war.

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Lee’s Surrender April 9, 1865 Town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia

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Lee’s Surrender April 9, 1865 Town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia

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Aftermath:

All officers and men were to be pardoned, and they would be sent home with their private property–most important, the horses, which could be used for a late spring planting. Officers would keep their sidearms,

and Lee’s starving men would be given Union rations.

Surrenders, paroles, and amnesty for many Confederate combatants would take place over the next several months and into 1866 throughout the South and border states.

16 months after Appomattox, on August 20, 1866, the President formally declared an end to the war.

Significance:

Effectively ended the American Civil War.

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Details:
Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 Confederate troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively  ending the American Civil War. Nine months after Appomattox Court House, the 13th Amendment was ratified; slavery was  abolished

Details:

General George McClellan ran against Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln won re-election

As the election occurred during the American Civil War , it was contested only by the states that had not seceded from the Union.

Aftermath:

Five days after Appomattox Court House, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor, assassinated  President Abraham Lincoln

Significance:

the election was the first successful democratic election ever conducted anywhere in the world in the midst of a civil war.

Lincoln's re-election ensured that he would preside over the successful conclusion of the Civil War.

Lincoln's victory made him the first president to win re-election since Andrew Jackson in 1832, as well as the first Northern president to ever win re-election.

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Details:

The city of Petersburg, 24 miles south of Richmond, was the junction point of five railroads that supplied the entire upper James River region.

From June 15–18, 1864, Confederate general Beauregard and his troops, though outnumbered by the Federals, saved Petersburg from Union capture.

After four days of fighting with no success, Grant begins siege operations, and other Union troops simultaneously attack around Richmond

Aftermath:

10 months of siege, follow the battle

The Confederacy is cut off from their capital of Richmond

By February 1865, Lee has only 45,000 soldiers to oppose Grant’s 110,000. Grant continues to order attacks and cut off rail lines. On April 2, Union forces launch an all-out assault that cripples Lee’s army. That evening, Grant evacuates Petersburg. Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House a week later.

Significance:

The Siege of Petersburg and Sherman’s March to the Sea would lead to Lee’s  surrender at the Appomattox Court House

Military strategy shifted from limited war to total war, including trench warfare