Civil War (1861-1865)

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1861 In a letter to William Seward, President Lincoln declares:

"I say now, however, as I have all the while said, that on the territorial question -- that is, the question of extending slavery under the national auspices, -- I am inflexible. I am for no compromise which assists or permits the extension of the institution on soil owned by the nation. And any trick by which the nation is to acquire territory, and then allow some local authority to spread slavery over it, is as obnoxious as any other."

1861 The Civil War begins when rebels fire on Fort Sumter, South Carolina.

1861 South Carolina and ten other southern states secede from the Union to form the Confederate States of America.

1863 January - President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation goes into effect. It grants freedom to all enslaved people in rebellious states.

1863 New York Draft Riots. The riots are the worst civil disturbance in American history. White mobs fearful of a flood of freedmen workers attack free African Americans, Republican Party buildings, and army recruiting stations.

1864 Some Confederate Generals vow to kill any African American Union soldiers captured in the war. At the Battle of Fort Pillow in Tennessee, 300 surrendered African Americans are massacred.

1864 President Lincoln vetoes the Wade-Davis Reconstruction Bill, which proposes harsh penalties on the South if a Union victory was achieved.

1864 The Sand Creek Massacre. Colorado troops attack Cheyenne Indians encamped on Sand Creek under the promised protection of Fort Lyon. Up to 500 Native Americans, mostly women and children, are murdered.

1865 March - Congress establishes the Freedmen's Bureau to feed, treat, shelter, and house the 4 million formerly enslaved people of the Confederacy.

1865 April - Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. The Civil War ends.

1865 April - President Lincoln is assassinated. Vice President Andrew Johnson becomes President.

1865 December - The 13th Amendment is ratified, legally abolishing slavery in the United States.

NOTE:
When the Civil War broke out, Andrew Johnson was a first-term U.S. senator aligned with the states' rights and pro-slavery wing of the Democratic Party. Johnson opposed the breakup of the Union and remained in his Senate seat after Tennessee left to join the Confederacy. Although Andrew Johnson was committed to saving the Union, Johnson was a slave owner and opposed the Emancipation Proclamation. In the months after the end of the civil war, it became clear that Johnson opposed all efforts to secure equality of the former slaves.

During this time, reform-minded Republicans sought to insure that the newly freed slaves enjoyed the same measure of equality and opportunity that white Americans enjoyed. Through their control of the Congress, the Republican Party initiated programs designed to accomplish these ends. In 1865 and 1866, Congress funded the Freedman's Bureau to feed, clothe, and protect the ex-slaves and passed civil rights acts to outlaw varied forms of segregation. In addition, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment (1865) to outlaw slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) to extend federal citizenship to blacks, and the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) to protect the black man's right to vote. Congress backed up these efforts with the passage of a comprehensive Civil Rights Act in 1875.