• Describe the first wave of southern secession in 1860 and the various efforts, including President Lincoln’s, to prevent more states from seceding.

• Show how and why Fort Sumter became the flashpoint that propelled America into the Civil War.

• Describe the major military campaigns that led up to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862.

• Show how and why the conduct of the Civil War changed after the Emancipation Proclamation and the Union’s decision to fight a "total war."

• Assess the costs of Civil War mobilization, especially the battlefield casualties, the sacrifices women made, and national conscription.

• Discuss the many ways in which the Civil War was a "great divide" in American history.

1860 Seven states in the Deep South launch the first wave of secession.

1861 Confederates fire on Fort Sumter, Lincoln calls for troops, and the Civil War begins.

Four more states in the upper South secede in a second wave of secession.

South wins First Battle of Manassas in Virginia.

1862 Union advance against Robert E. Lee in Peninsula Campaign stalls.

South wins Second Battle of Manassas.

South is rebuffed at Battle of Antietam in Maryland.

President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation.

Congress passes Pacific Railroad Act, chartering transcontinental railroad.

Morrill Act establishes land-grant universities.

Homestead Act provides free land in the West.

Militia Act initiates Union conscription.

1863 After winning Battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville,

South invades Pennsylvania and loses Battle of Gettysburg.

Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant take Vicksburg on the Mississippi River.

Enrollment Act centralizes mobilization effort.

1864 William T. Sherman achieves fall of Atlanta and leads "March to the Sea."

Lincoln defeats former general George McClellan in presidential election.

Grant’s army approaches Richmond through the Wilderness and lays siege to Petersburg, Virginia.

1865 Fall of Petersburg prompts Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House.

Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth assassinates Lincoln.