The American Civil War began when Confederate forces bombarded Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, and it ended with General Robert E. Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. Eleven Southern states had left the Union after the election of Abraham Lincoln, driven above all by the defense of slavery, and formed the Confederate States of America. Major battles such as Antietam, Gettysburg and Vicksburg turned the war, and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 made the abolition of slavery a Union aim. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died, making it the deadliest conflict in American history. Slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment, and the postwar Reconstruction era struggled to define the rights of freed people.
Before and after
- 3 March 1861Tsar Alexander II emancipates the Russian serfs
- from 17 March 1861 to 18 June 1946Kingdom of Italy
- 23 March 1861Publication of Great Expectations
- 10 April 1861Founding of Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- from 12 April 1861 to 9 April 1865American Civil War
- 7 May 1861Birth of Rabindranath Tagore
- 19 June 1861Birth of José Rizal
- from 13 September 1861 to 20 September 1861Siege of Lexington
- 10 October 1861Birth of Fridtjof Nansen
More in Wars, politics & history
- from 24 June 1812 to 14 December 1812French invasion of Russia
- from 24 April 1846 to 2 February 1848Mexican-American War
- from 18 August 1866 to 10 May 1871Unification of Germany
- from 24 April 1877 to 3 March 1878Tenth Russo-Turkish War
- from 1 August 1894 to 17 April 1895First Sino-Japanese War
- from 8 October 1912 to 30 May 1913First Balkan War
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 19th century.