1860

The results of the 1860 census show a total population of a little more than 31 million, of which 13% are slaves. Slaves equal 2% of the population in the Northern Aligned States and 39% in Southern Aligned States.

November 6, 1860

Abraham Lincoln, who had declared "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free..." is elected president. The first Republican ever elected, he received 40% of the popular vote and won 59% of the Electoral votes. He was not even on the ballot in the deep south.

December 20, 1860

As a consequence of Lincoln’s election, a special convention of the South Carolina legislature votes to secede from the Union. In their secession, they stated: "We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection."

December 26, 1860

U.S. Major-General Robert Anderson moves his troops from Fort Moultrie, in Charleston, South Carolina, to Fort Sumter.

January 9, 1861

An unarmed merchant ship, Star of the West, arrives in Charleston Harbor with troops and supplies to reinforce Fort Sumter. The ship is fired upon and retreats.

Mississippi secedes from the Union.

January 10, 1861

Florida secedes from the Union.

January 11, 1861

Alabama secedes from the Union.

January 16, 1861

The Senate refuses to consider the The Crittenden Compromise, one of several failed attempts to ease tension between the North and South. The compromise contained six proposals for constitutional amendments, and four proposals for Congressional resolution including the re-application of the north/south boundary from the Missouri Compromise, stated that the federal government could not interfere with slavery where it already existed and could not interfere with the recovery of slaves from any part of the Union.

January 19, 1861

Georgia secedes from the Union.

January 26, 1861

Louisiana secedes from the Union.

January 29, 1861

Kansas becomes the thirty fourth state, entering the Union as a free state.

February 1, 1861

The Texas Legislature secedes from the Union.

February 8, 1861

A provisional Constitution of the Confederacy adopted in Montgomery, Alabama.

February 9, 1861

The Confederate States of America is formed with Jefferson Davis, a West Point graduate and former U.S. Army officer, as president. 

February 11, 1861

President elect Abraham Lincoln leaves Springfield, Illinois, on his trip to Washington, D.C., arriving on Saturday, February 23.

February 18, 1861

Jefferson Davis inaugurated as President of the Confederacy.

March 4, 1861

Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as 16th President of the United States of America.

March 6, 1861

The Confederate Congress authorizes an army of volunteers.

April 12, 1861

At 4:30 a.m. Confederates under General Pierre Beauregard open fire with 50 cannons upon Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. The Civil War begins.

April 13, 1861

U.S. Major-General Anderson surrenders Fort Sumter.

April 15, 1861

In Washington, President Lincoln issues a proclamation announcing an "insurrection," and calls for 75,000 troops to be raised from the militia from the Union states.

Robert E. Lee, son of a Revolutionary War hero, and a 25 year distinguished veteran of the United States Army and former Superintendent of West Point, is offered command of the Union Army. Lee declines.

April 17, 1861

Virginia secedes from the Union.

April 19, 1861

President Lincoln issues a Proclamation of Blockade against Southern ports. For the duration of the war the blockade limits the ability of the rural South to stay well supplied in its war against the industrialized North.

April 20, 1861

Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army. "I cannot raise my hand against my birthplace, my home, my children." Lee then goes to Richmond, Virginia, and accepts the command of the military and naval forces of Virginia, and accepts.

May 6, 1861

Arkansas secedes from the Union.

May 20, 1861

North Carolina secedes from the Union.

May 24, 1861

Union troops cross the Potomac River from Washington and capture Alexandria, Virginia, and vicinity. Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth is killed by a local innkeeper and is the first officer to die in the war. He becomes a martyr for the North.

May 29, 1861

Richmond, Virginia becomes the capital of the Confederacy.

June, 1861

Four Slave States Stay in the Union. Despite their acceptance of slavery, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri did not join the Confederacy. Although divided in their loyalties, a combination of political maneuvering and Union military pressure kept these states from seceding.

West Virginia Is Born. Residents of the western counties of Virginia did not wish to secede along with the rest of the state.

June 8, 1861

Tennessee secedes from the Union.

July, 1861

Suddenly aware of the threat of a protracted war and the army's need for organization and training, Lincoln replaces General McDowell with General George B. McClellan.

To blockade the coast of the Confederacy effectively, the federal navy had to be improved. By July, the effort at improvement had made a difference and an effective blockade had begun. The South responded by building small, fast ships that could outmaneuver Union vessels.

July 4, 1861

Lincoln, in a speech to Congress, states the war is..."a People's contest...a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men..." The Congress authorizes a call for 500,000 men.

July 21, 1861

The Union Army under General Irvin McDowell suffers a defeat at Bull Run, some 25 miles southwest of Washington. Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson earns the nickname "Stonewall," as his brigade resists Union attacks. When Union troops are forced to fall back to Washington, President Lincoln realizes the war will be long. "It's damned bad," he comments.

July 27, 1861

President Lincoln appoints General George B. McClellan as Commander of the Department of the Potomac, replacing General Irvin McDowell.

September 11, 1861

President Lincoln revokes General John C. Frémont's unauthorized military proclamation of emancipation in Missouri. Later, President Lincoln relieves General Frémont of his command and replaces him with General David Hunter.

November 1, 1861

President Lincoln appoints 34 year-old General George B. McClellan as General-in-Chief of all Union forces after the resignation of the aged Winfield Scott. Lincoln tells McClellan, "...the supreme command of the Army will entail a vast labor upon you." McClellan responds, "I can do it all."

November, 1861

Julia Ward Howe, inspired after seeing a review of General McClellan's army in the Virginia countryside near Washington, composes the lyrics to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." It is published in the Atlantic Monthly in February 1862.

November 7, 1861

Captain Samuel F. Dupont's warships silenced Confederate guns in Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard. This victory enabled General Thomas W. Sherman's troops to occupy first Port Royal and then all the famous Sea Islands of South Carolina, where Timothy H. O'Sullivan recorded them making themselves at home.

November 8, 1861

The Union navy seizes Confederate commissioners to Great Britain and France—James A. Mason and John Slidell—from the British steamer Trent, inflaming tensions between the United States and Great Britain. This begins an international diplomatic crisis for President Lincoln. England, the leading world power, demands their release, threatening war. Lincoln eventually gives in and orders their release in December. "One war at a time," Lincoln remarks.