The Civil War Timeline

  1861

  February 9th - Confederate states are formed. Jefferson Davis is appointed president of the Confederacy.

  April 12th - The civil war begins - Fort Sumter, South Carolina, is attacked by the confederates under General Pierre Beauregard.

  April 17th - Virginia secedes from the Union.

  April 19th -  Proclamation of Blockade, against the southern ports, issued by President Lincoln.

  July 21st - Union army is defeated at Bull Run.

  November 1st - President Lincoln appoints General George McClellan as general-in-chief of the Union forces. 

1862

  January 31st - President Lincoln issues General War Order No. 1 for naval and land forces to begin a general advance by February 22^nd.

  February 6th - General Ulysses S. Grant's Union troops captured Fort Henry in Tennessee.

  April 6th - 7th  - Battle at Shiloh on the Tennessee River results in 13,000 Union killed and wounded and 10,000 Confederate troops killed.

  June 1st - General Robert E. Lee assumes command of the Union forces.

  June 25th - July 1st - the Seven Days Battles near Richmond results in heavy losses for both armies.

  August 29th -30th - The Second Battle of Bull Run is fought. The Union was defeated and retreated to Washington.

  September 17th - The Battle of Antietam in Maryland is fought. This was the bloodiest day in U.S. history with 26,000 men dead, wounded or missing.

  September 22nd - President Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

December 13th -  General Ambrose E. Burnside, Union commander-in-chief suffers defeat at Fredericksburg, Virginia.

1863

  January 1st - President Lincoln issues the final Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves. 

  May 1st -4th  - Union troops under the command of General Joseph Hooker are defeated by General Robert E. Lee's

Confederate troops at the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia.

  May 10th - Confederate troops suffer the loss of Stonewall Jackson who died of wounds incurred in battle.

  July 1st-3rd -  Union troops are victorious in the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

  July 4th - The confederate troops surrenders its last stronghold, Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River.

  September 18th - 20th - Confederate armies are victorious at Chickamauga leaving the Union army trapped in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

  November 19th - President Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address

  November 23rd - 25th -  Union troops defeat the confederate army in Chickamauga.

1864

  May 4th - June 3rd  - Major battles are fought at Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor.

  September 2nd - the Union Army captures Atlanta.

  October 19th - Union victory in Shenandoah Valley.

  November 8th - Abraham Lincoln is re-elected President of the United States of America.

1865

  January 31st - The U.S. Congress approves the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution to abolish slavery.

  April 3rd - The Union army seizes Richmond, Virginia.

  April 14^th - President Abraham Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth.

  April 15^th - President Lincoln dies at 7:22 a.m.; Vice President Andrew Jackson takes over as president.

  May 4^th - Abraham Lincoln is laid to rest in the Oakridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.

  Mid May - The south is defeated, the war ends. Over 620,000 lives were lost in this war.