 destroyed the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia.
2/3/1865. President Lincoln rejected Confederate attempts to negotiate, demanding unconditional surrender.
22/2/1865. Wilmington, the last Confederate port, fell to the Union forces.
6/2/1865, Robert E Lee became Commander of the Confederate forces in America.
1/2/1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed a Resolution proposing the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery in the USA.
24/12/1864. General Sherman captured Savannah, Georgia, from the Confederates.
15/11/1864, General Sherman set out on his march to Savannah, leaving Atlanta a ruin so the Confederates could not use it. He destroyed all arsenals, public buildings, machine shops, and depots, having evacuated all civilians.
31/10/1864, Nevada became the 36th State of the Union.
19/10/1864, At the Battle of Cedar Creek, in the American Civil War, General Sheridan defeated the Confederates.
17/8/1864, Eight crewmen on the Confederate submarine HL Hunley sank the Union warship Housatonic with an explosive charge, killing five Northern sailors. This was the first time a submarine had sunk an enemy ship in wartime. The Hunley surfaced to signal success to shore with a blue light, then resubmerged. She never resurfaced.
5/8/1864, The Battle of Mobile Bay.
27/6/1864, Battle of Kenesaw Mountains, Georgia. Confederate troops defeated Sherman’s forces, killing 2,000 of them to losses of only 270 of themselves.
18/6/1864, The USS Kearsarge, captained by John Wilmslow, sank the British built warship Alabama, a Confederate ship, off Cherbourg.
15/6/1864, Arlington Cemetery, the site of the unknown soldier, was established near Washington.
5/6/1864, Battle of Wilderness; Unionist victory.
3/6/1864, Battle of Cold Harbor. Fought in Virginia during the American Civil War, General Ulysses S Grant’s Unionist forces suffered heavy losses, 12,000 men, in an ill-judged attack on General Robert E Lee’s well-defended Confederate position. Although a Confederate victory, this battle served to maintain the Unionist strategy of maintaining unremitting pressure on the South..
23/5/1864, Battle of North Anna; Confederate victory.
21/5/1864, The Battle of Spottsylvania Courthouse ended.
15/5/1864, Battle of Drewry’s Bluff; Confederate victory.
11/5/1864, Battle of Yellow Tavern; Unionist victory.
9/3/1864, General Ulyssses Grant was made Commander in Chief of the Union forces in the American Civil War.
2/3/1864, US President Lincoln rejected Confederate General Lee’s call for peace talks, demanding surrender.
23/11/1863, The Battle of Chattanooga in the American Civil War. The Confederates under Bragg were heavily defeated.
19/11/1863. Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, at the dedication of the military cemetery at Gettysburg. He said ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth’.
2/11/1863, US President Lincoln was invited to make a speech at the dedication of the new cemetery at Gettysburg. Jefferson Davis visited Charleston and publicly stated that he believed the city would not fall.
17/10/1863, US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton boarded a train in Indianapolis, with orders for him to assume command of the Military Division of the Mississippi.
3/10/1863. President Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November to be a national holiday of Thanksgiving.
19/9/1863, The Battle of Chickamauga in the American Civil War. Confederate forces under Bragg won, but at a cost of over 2,000 dead and 14,600 wounded.
13/9/1863, Cyrus Adler, US historian (died 1940) was born.
21/8/1863, The Quantrill raid, on Lawrence, Kansas.
11/7/1863, Conscription began for the Unionist Army in the US Civil war. Draft riots broke out in New York and other cities; 1,200 people were killed.
4/7/1863. Confederate forces under General Joseph Pemberton surrendered unconditionally to Federal troops who had besieged Vicksburg since May. This effectively split Confederate territory in two.
3/7/1863. The Battle of Gettysburg,, Pennsylvania, in the American Civil War, ended with the Confederate Army under General Ro