The Okie Legacy: Civil War At a Glance

Civil War At a Glance

When John Brown raided Harpers Ferry in 1859, he set in motion events that led directly to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. This folder, organized yearly through maps and chronologies, shows the course of the war from Fort Sumter in 1861 to Appomattox Court House and beyond in 1865. It is divided according to the two principal theaters in which the major military operations took place:

(1) The Eastern Theater, roughly comprising the area east of the Appalachians in the vicinity of the rival capitals of Washington and Richmond, and

(2) the Western Theater, primarily between the western slope of the Appalachians and the Mississippi River. Lesser operation that took place along the coasts and inland waterways and the isolated trans-Mississippi area are included in the Western Theater. Naval encounters on the high seas between cruisers, privateers, and blockade runners have been omitted. -- Civil War At A Glance -- American Civil War -- Civil War - Smithsonian Timeline

It was on October 16?18, 1859, that John Brown, attempted to amass arms for a slave insurrection. He attacked the federal armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. December 2, 1859. Brown was hung for murder and treason at Charles Town, Virginia. (This was two years after my Great-Grandfather John Robert Warwick (Sep. 1857-1937) was born. My G-Grandfather married my G-Grandmother Signora Belle Gwin, 16 January 1882, at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. SEE Marriage Ceritificate)

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln is elected President, with Hannibal Hamlin as his Vice President. On December 20, 1860, as a consequence of Lincoln?s election, a special convention of the South Carolina legislature votes to secede from the Union. It was January 9, 1861, Star of the West, an unarmed merchant vessel secretly carrying federal troops and supplies to Fort Sumter, is fired upon by South Carolina artillery at the entrance to Charleston harbor.

Between January 9?February 1, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas follow South Carolina?s lead and secede from the Union. January 29, Kansas is admitted as a state with a constitution prohibiting slavery. February, Delegates from six seceded states meet in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a government and elect Jefferson Davis President of the Confederate States of America.

March 4, Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the sixteenth President of the United States. April 12?13, Fort Sumter is bombarded and surrenders to South Carolina troops led by P. G. T. Beauregard. April 15, Lincoln declares a state of insurrection and calls for 75,000 volunteers to enlist for three months of service. April 17?May 20, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina secede from the Union. April 19, Lincoln orders a blockade of all Confederate ports. April 20, Colonel Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army.

May 24, 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, Richmond becomes the capital of the Confederacy. July 21, Confederate forces win a victory at the First Battle of Manassas. Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson earns the nickname ?Stonewall? for his tenacity in the battle.

November 1, George B. McClellan, thirty-four, replaces the aging Winfield Scott as general-in-chief of the Union armies. November 8, 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.

November, 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. -- See More Civil At The Smithsonian.

Here are some more interesting links concerning the Civil War:

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Volume 12 , Issue 13

2010

Civil War At a Glance