Timeline
- 1860 - Crittenden Compromise
- 1860 - Abraham Lincoln elected President of the United States
- 1860 - South Carolina secedes from the Union
- 1861 - Ten more states secede from the Union and establish the Confederate States of America
- 1861 - Jefferson Davis elected President of the Confederacy
- 1861 - American Civil War begins at Fort Sumter
- 1861 - First Battle of Bull Run (First Battle of Manassas)
- 1862 - Battle of Hampton Roads (Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack; first ever naval battle between iron-sided ships)
- 1862 - Homestead Act
- 1862 - Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act
- 1862 - Gen. Robert E. Lee placed in command of the Army of Northern Virginia
- 1862 - Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Battle of Manassas)
- 1862 - Battle of Antietam (Battle of Sharpsburg)
- 1862 - Dakota War of 1862 begins
- 1862–1863 - Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation
- 1863 - Battle of Gettysburg
- 1863 - The Siege of Vicksburg ends
- 1863 - New York Draft Riots
- 1863 - Pro-Union Virginia counties become separate state of West Virginia
- 1864 - Gen. Ulysses S. Grant put in command of all Union forces
- 1864 - Wade–Davis Bill
- 1864 - Sand Creek Massacre
- 1864 - Nevada becomes a state
- 1864 - U.S. presidential election, 1864
- 1864 - Sherman's March to the Sea
- 1865 - Robert E. Lee made commander-in-chief of all Confederate forces
- 1865 - Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, captured by a corps of black Union troops
- 1865 - Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House
- 1865 - Abraham Lincoln assassinated; Andrew Johnson becomes President
- 1865 - American Civil War ends as the last elements of the Confederacy surrender
- 1865 - 13th Amendment passes, permanently outlawing slavery