Abraham Lincoln: Life Before the Presidency. The man who preserved the Union and issued the Emancipation Proclamation came into the world on February 12, 1809.
03/11/1861: Confederate Congress adopts Confederate Constitution The Confederate Congress unanimously adopts the Confederate Constitution, which declares the sovereignty of states and forbids the passage of any bill which outlaws slavery.
04/12/1861: Fort Sumter Responding to Lincoln's attempt to resupply Fort Sumter (one of the last remaining federal stations in the South), South Carolina's Confederate batteries, under the command of General P.G.T. Beauregard open fire on the federal arsenal, in the Charleston harbor, at 4:30 a.m. Confederate President Jefferson Davis issues the order to Beauregard.
There is perhaps no better example of the complexity of "our peculiar institution" (American slavery) than the story of Hannah Reynolds, the only known civilian casualty of the Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought on the morning of April 9, and the battle that directly led to the surrender of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia to Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant.
Hannah was a slave owned by Dr. Samuel H. Coleman. On April 8, 1865 as Union and Confederate armies converged on Appomattox Court House, Dr. Coleman , his wife Amanda, and their two-year old Mary Ann, fled their 250-acre farm; Hannah refused to leave. When soldiers arrived at the Coleman home on April 8, Hannah resisted them as they ransacked her master's home.
Dorothea Dix was born in Hampden, Maine in 1802. Her father was an itinerant Methodist preacher, and her mother was frequently depressed. While her father's behavior was erratic, and Dorothea, the oldest, took on a great deal of responsibility very young, he did teach her to read and write.