Chronology: Events of the Civil War

1849 – Gold discovered in California

1850 – Compromise of 1850: California remains slaveless but the Fugitive Slave Law is enforced. Texas and New Mexico are slave states

Democrats kept the South’s interpretation of the Constitution secure

1852 – Franklin Pierce – Democrat president elected; Jefferson Davis is his secretary of War; Whigs wane

1854 – Kansas-Nebraksa Act (Kansas becoming a slave state infringes the Missouri Compromise)

1856 – Bleeding Kansas: sack of Lawrence and consequent retaliation of John Brown

1856 – Elections with the new Republican party but Democrat James Buchanan wins

1858 – Senatorial election in Illinois. Lincoln against Douglas delivers the “House Divided Speech” in June 16

1859 – slave traffick increases. Besides slavery, there is economic friction, the South his against the high tariffs that Northerners want to pass; John Brown's execution.

November 1860: Abraham Lincoln elected president

20 Dec. 1860: South Carolina secedes

January- Feb. 1861 – Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas secede from the Union (Jefferson Davis will be president of the Confederacy)

April 1861 – Union Blockade and Battle of Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee secede from the Union. Civil War under way

1861-1862: key battles include  the First and Second Battles of Bull Run, The Battle of Shiloh, The Battle of Antietam, and the Battle of Fredericksburg. 

Jan. 1 1863: Emancipation Proclamation, 13^th Amendment

July 1, 1863: Battle of Gettysburg; Gettysburg's address

Sep 2, 1864. General Sherman captures the city of Atlanta, Georgia. Later in the year he would march to the sea and capture Savannah, Ga

April 9, 1865: General Robert E. Lee, the leader of the Confederate Army, surrenders to General Ulysses S. Grant 

March 4, 1865: Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address

April 14, 1865: While attending the Ford's Theatre, President Lincoln is shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth. Andrew Johnson will assume the presidency until 1869

1865-1877: Reconstruction period