This document provides a detailed timeline and overview of key events and battles during the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865. It summarizes the major military campaigns led by generals like Grant, Lee, McClellan and Sherman. Key turning points are highlighted, such as the Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in 1863, Sherman's March to the Sea in 1864, and Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865, marking the end of major combat in the Civil War. Important political and social developments are also noted, such as the Emancipation Proclamation and Lincoln's reelection on the national union ticket in 1864.

1. A Timeline of the Civil
War
The War Between The States

2. 1861
April 19 – Lincoln begins naval
blockade of Confederate states
April 20 – Lee resigns from U.S.
army – takes command of Confed.
Forces in VA

3. 1861
 July 21: Bull Run
(Manassas)
 Generals:
 Union: Irwin McDowell
 Confederacy: P.G.T.
Beauregard
 Union troops &
spectators flee back to
Washington D.C.
 Confederate victory…
5,000 casualties
 Conf. General Thomas
J. (Stonewall) Jackson
a hero of the battle

4. 1861  July 27: Leadership change
for Union army
 General George B.
McClellan given command
of Union Army of the
Potomac
 McClellan soon given
command of all Union forces
Nov. 8 – The Trent Affair
2 Confederate diplomats
captured on their way to
England to get British support
Lincoln lets them free after
threats of war by England
Significance: England almost
convinced to join war on side
of Confederacy

5. 1862
 February 1862
Union General Ulysses
S. Grant wins victories
in west at Ft. Henry &
Ft. Donelson
 part of a push to divide
the Confederacy
Earns nickname
Unconditional
Surrender Grant

6. 1862
 March 8/9: Battle
of the Ironclads
 Confederate
Merrimac & Union
Monitor fight to a
draw in 1st battle
of the Ironclads
 Significance:
changes naval
battle forever

7. 1862
 March:
McClellan begins
Peninsular
Campaign to
take Confederate
capital city of
Richmond, VA
 100,000 Northern
troops under
McClellan vs.
50,000 Southern
troops under
Robert E. Lee
• typical slow, cautious
advance by McClellan
• 7 days of battles… union
army is stopped by Lee
• 30,000 casualties

8.  April 6/7: Battle of
Shiloh
 Confederate
General: Sidney
Johnston
 Union General:
Ulysses S. Grant
 Grant’s forces
attacked at Shiloh
(TN)… 2 day battle
 Northern victory
 13,000 Union
casualties; 10,000
Southern casualties
 Lincoln reluctantly
relieves Grant of
command

9. 1862
 April 24:
 Union naval forces under David Farragut
take New Orleans
 June 1:
 Robert E. Lee assumes command of
Confederate forces
 June 25-July 1
 Seven Days Battles – Lee forces McClellan
to pull back to Washington

10. 1862
 Aug. 29/30: 2nd
Bull Run
 Union General:
John Pope
 Confederate
Generals:
Jackson and
Longstreet
75,000 Union
forces defeated
by 55,000
Confederate
troops

11. 1862
 September
 Confederates under Lee invade the North (Maryland)…
threatens Washington D.C.
 Union troops under McClellan pursue Confederates (using copies
of Lee’s battle plans)
 Sept. 17: Antietam
 Bloodiest day in U.S. military history
 26,000 casualties…6,000 killed and 17,000 wounded
 Lee forced to retreat to Virginia… McClellan fails to pursue
Lee
 Significance: leads Lincoln to issue Emancipation
Proclamation
 January 1, 1863 set as effective date
 Freed all slaves in Confederate held territory
 War to preserve Union becomes struggle to end slavery as
well

12. “...on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord
one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons
held as slaves within any State or designated part of a
State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion
against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward,
and forever free; and the Executive Government of the
United States, including the military and naval authority
thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of
such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such
persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make
for their actual freedom.”
Abraham Lincoln - Emancipation Proclamation

13. 1862
 Dec. 13:
Fredericksburg
 Union troops under
Burnside = terrible
defeat at
Fredericksburg, VA
 Attempted 14 futile
assaults on entrenched
Confederates
 12,600 Union
casualties vs. 5,300
Confederate
casualties
• Nov. 7: Change in leadership
• Union General McClellan relieved of
command… New General is Ambrose
Burnside
"If you
don't want
to use the
army, I
should like
to borrow
it for a
while.” -
Lincoln

14. "We might as well have tried to take hell.” - Union
soldier at Fredericksburg
"It is well that war is so terrible - we should grow
too fond of it," states Lee during the fighting.

15. 1863
 Jan. 1 –
Emancipation
Proclamation goes
into effect - freeing
all slaves in Confed.
held territory
War to preserve
Union becomes
struggle to end
slavery

16. 1863
 Jan. 25: Union change in
leadership
 Union General Burnside
replaced by General Joseph
Hooker
 Jan. 29: Vicksburg
 Grant placed in command of
Army of the West
 Told to take Vicksburg, MS on
Mississippi River
 March 3: Draft
 Congress enacts the military
draft
 Those who could pay $300
could hire a substitute

17. 1863
 May1-4:
 Hooker’s forces
defeated by Lee at
Chancellorsville, VA
“Stonewall”
Jackson mortally
wounded by his
own troops
 June 28:
 Gen. George Meade
replaces Joe Hooker

18. 1863
 July 1-3: Battle of
Gettysburg
 Union forces under
General Meade
defeat
Confederates under
Lee, forcing the
Confederates to
retreat to VA >
Meade fails to
pursue and destroy
the battered
Confederate Army
 28,000 Confed. vs.
23,000 Union
casualties
This battle is the
turning point of the
war!

19. Confederate
dead in the
“Devil’s Den”
Amputation
being
performed at a
Union field
Hospital

20. 1863
 July 4: Battle of
Vicksburg
Siege begins May 22
 City is bombarded by
2,800 shells a day…47
days of shelling
 Starvation becomes
commonplace
General Grant takes
Vicksburg and takes
control of the
Mississippi River
 Significance:
Confederacy is split
in two

21. 1863
 July 13-16
 Violent anti-draft
riots in NYC
 Copperheads –
vocal Northern
Democrats who
opposed the
Civil War
 Wanted
immediate peace
settlement with
Confederates

22. 1863
Nov. 19
Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg
Address to dedicate a cemetery
on the site of the battlefield

23. The Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought
forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty,
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created
equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so
dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great
battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion
of that field, as a final resting place for those who here
gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether
fitting and proper that we should do this.

24. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot
consecrate - we cannot hallow - this ground. The brave
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have
consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say
here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us
the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the
great task remaining before us - that from these honored
dead we may take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in
vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of
freedom - and that government of the people, by the
people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln - November 19, 1863

25. 1863
Nov. 23-25
Grant’s forces break siege of
Chattanooga – Union troops
avenge the loss at Chickamauga

26. 1864
 March 9: Change in Union leadership
 General Ulysses. S. Grant given control of
Union Army
 General William T. Sherman given control
of armies in West
 May:
 Coordinated campaign of all Union forces
 120K Union troops under Grant begin moving
toward Richmond, VA to face Confederates
and Gen. Lee
 Beginning of a war of attrition

27. 1864
June 3: Battle
of Cold Harbor
(VA)
Union
General Grant
foolishly
attacks a
strongly held
Confed.
position
Union loses
7K men in 20
minutes

28. 1864
 June 15: Siege of
Petersburg
Union troops
surround General
Lee’s forces
 July 20: Sherman
takes Atlanta
General Sherman
begins 3-month
struggle to take the
vital southern city of
Atlanta
The 13-inch Union mortar "Dictator" mounted
on a railroad flatcar at Petersburg. Its 200-
pound shells had a range of over 2 miles

29. 1864
 Aug. 29: Political Changes
 Democrats nominate General McClellan
to run against Lincoln as “peace
candidate”
Republicans ran as the National Union
Party and re-nominated Lincoln
 Hoped to attract those democrats who
supported the war
 Nominated Andrew Johnson (D-TN) to
balance the ticket as vice president

30. 1864
 Sept. 2: Atlanta
 Sherman captures Atlanta
 Destroys Atlanta’s warehouses and railroads
 Significance: Union victory over this major southern city provides a
boost for Lincoln’s re-election campaign
 Nov. 8: Election of 1864
 Lincoln re-elected president
 Nov. 15: “March to the Sea”
 General Sherman leads troops on march to Savannah, GA
 Uses scorched earth policy… everything not used by Union Army =
destroyed, such as railroads, bridges, factories, and harvest
 Captures Savanna, GA on December 22

31. General Sherman
surveys the damage
at Atlanta

33. 1865
 Jan. 31 - 13th Amendment to the Constitution
passed Congress & sent to states for
ratification - outlaws slavery in the U.S.
 “Neither Slavery, nor involuntary servitude,
except as a punishment for crime whereof
the party shall have been duly convicted,
shall exist within the United States, or any
place subject to their jurisdiction.”
 March 4 - Lincoln inaugurated for 2nd term

34. Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
 “With malice toward none, with charity
for all, with firmness in the right as God
gives us to see the right, let us strive on
to finish the work we are in, to bind up
the nation's wounds, to care for him who
shall have borne the battle and for his
widow and his orphan, to do all which
may achieve and cherish a just and
lasting peace among ourselves and with
all nations.” March 4, 1865

35. 1865
 April 2 - Lee evacuates
Petersburg - Richmond
also evacuated - Grant's
forces advance
 April 4 - Lincoln tours
Richmond &
Confederate White
House

36. 1865
April 9 - Lee
surrenders
at
Appomattox
Courthouse,
VA
Surrender Terms at Appomattox, 1865
General R.E. Lee,
Commanding C.S.A.
APPOMATTOX Ct H., Va.,
April 9,1865,
General; In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of
the 8th inst., I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of
Northern Virginia on the following terms, to wit: Rolls of all officers
and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to an
officer to be designated by me, the other to be retained by such
officer or officers as you may designate. The officers to give their
individual paroles not to take up arms against the Government of
the United States until properly [exchanged], and each company
or regimental commander to sign a like parole for the men of their
commands. The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked,
and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me to
receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers,
nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and
man will be allowed to return to his home, not to be disturbed by
the United States authorities so long as they observe their
paroles, and the laws in force where they may reside.
Very respectfully,
U.S. Grant,
Lieutenant-General

37. The Civil War started on the property
of Wilmer McLean in Manassas, VA
and ended with the surrender of
Lee’s forces in the parlor of
McLean’s home in Appomatox
Courthouse, VA.
Lee,
shortly
after his
surrender

38. 1865
April 14 -
Lincoln shot
at Ford's
Theater