Civil War - Events

On September 28, 1864, William J. Hardee bid farewell to the soldiers of Hardee's Corps, Army of Tennessee.

John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry was an attempt to capture the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown intended to seize weapons and distribute them to enslaved African Americans in the South, in hopes of establishing an independent republic for them. The raid failed, and Brown and his men were captured. In the weeks that followed, Brown was tried, convicted, and executed, ending his violent anti-slavery career. The raid intensified the sectional divide over slavery and pushed the nation closer to civil war.

The Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln took place on April 14, 1865, when Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln during a play at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. Lincoln died from his wounds early the next morning. After a massive manhunt, Booth was shot and killed, and eight others were found guilty of conspiring to kill the President. On July 7, 1865, four of them were executed at Fort McNair, ending the ordeal of the first American President to be assassinated.

The Nullification Crisis took place from 1832-1833 and was a significant event in American history that involved the state nullification of U.S. tariffs. On November 24, 1832, the Convention of the People of South Carolina approved the South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification, starting the constitutional crisis that nearly triggered the Civil War.

Pickett’s Charge was a major Confederate assault against the center of the Union line at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. About 12,500 Confederate troops advanced toward Cemetery Ridge after an artillery bombardment, but Union forces repulsed the attack and inflicted heavy casualties. The defeat helped secure the Union victory at Gettysburg and ended Robert E. Lee’s second invasion of the North.

On January 25, 1862, officers of the Army of the Northwest requested that Brigadier General William W. Loring petition the Confederate War Department to recall his forces from Romney, Virginia.

The Confederate Surrender at Vicksburg took place on July 4, 1863, during the Vicksburg Campaign, after Confederate forces under John C. Pemberton suffered through the six-week Siege of Vicksburg, which was carried out by Ulysses S. Grant’s Union army. Pemberton accepted Grant’s surrender terms, and Confederate soldiers marched out of their defenses and stacked their weapons. The victory gave the Union control of the Mississippi River and cut the Confederacy off from territories in the American West.

Proposed by Virginia and chaired by former U.S. President John Tyler, the Washington Peace Conference was an unsuccessful eleventh-hour attempt to save the Union and avoid the American Civil War.