Timeline of the Important Events and Battles of the Civil War

1861

February 9- Southern States (Confederate) elects Jefferson Davis as their president.

April 12- At exactly 4:30 a.m. General Pierre Beauregard orders Confederate soldiers to attack Fort Sumter, which was located Charleston, California. The Beginning of the Civil War!

April 17- Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina joins the Confederacy.

July 21- The North (Union) loses the Battle of Bull Run (located 25 miles from Washington), who was lead by General Irvin McDowell. Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson earns the new title as "Stonewall" because of his army surviving after Union attacks.

1862

February 6- General Ulysses S. Grant takes over Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, after he earns the new title as " Unconditional Surrender".

February 20- President Lincoln's 11 year old son past away from fever, after drinking from dirty water in the White House.

April 6/7- General Ulysses S. Grant and his small Union army is surprise attacked by Confederates at Shiloh. A victory for the struggling North!

May 31- General Joseph E. Johnston gets badly wounded after trying to attack McClellan's army.

June1- General Robert E. Lee replaces Johnston for the Confederate army.

June 25- July 1- The Seven Days Battle had a big lost of people for both sides, after Lee attacks McClellan around Richmond. Confederates won that battle!

August 29/30- The Union army is defeated again at the Second Battle of Bull Run in North of Virginia, the Confederates were controlled by General Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet.

September 17- General Lee's army is ceased by McClellan at Antietam in Maryland, many men were either wounded, missing, or dead. This battle was the bloodiest in U.S history, Union gains a victory as Lee flees.

September 22- The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was made by President Lincoln for making all slaves free.

December 13- The newly replaced General Ambrose E. Burnside and his Union army loses at Fredericksburg in Virginia.

1863

May 1-4- General Lee's small army defeats the newly replaced Union General Joseph (Fighting Joe) Hooker, Stonewall Jackson was badly wounded by his own side.

May 10- Stonewall Jackson past away from the wounds, his last words were "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees." (This caused a huge damage on South)

July 1-3- General Lee was defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.

July 4- The last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River, Vicksburg, surrendered to Union General Grant.

1864

May 4- June 3- General Grant marches toward major battles at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. As they are in North Virginia, Sherman controls another Union army in the west toward Atlanta to fight Joseph E. Johnston's army.

April 9- Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia.

April 14- In the middle of the night after the celebration for the Union's victory, President Lincoln went to Ford's Theater with his wife to watch a play called "Our American Cousin". At approximately 10:13 p.m, Lincoln was shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth. Doctors tended to him immediately but, he never woke up.

April 15- President Lincoln dies at 7:22 a.m.

April 26- John Wilkes Booth is killed in a tobacco field in Virginia by a bullet.

May 4- Abraham Lincoln's grave was placed in Oak Ridge Cemetery, outside Springfield, Illinois.

Somewhere in May- Other Confederates surrender and the country is united again, over 620,000 people were killed during the whole war, only 50,000 survivors made it back home. The end of the Civil War!