On February 1, 1865, Abraham Lincoln affixed his signature to the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, completing the final executive step in abolishing slavery throughout the nation. The act itself—quiet, procedural, and almost anticlimactic—belied the enormity of its meaning. With a few…
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In the bleak aftermath of the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Union Army stood stunned—not merely by defeat, but by the scale and clarity of it. On January 26, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln formally relieved Ambrose Burnside of command of the Army of the Potomac,…
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On December 22, 1864, one of the most consequential campaigns of the American Civil War reached its dramatic conclusion when Savannah, Georgia, fell to Union forces under the command of William Tecumseh Sherman. Days later, Sherman sent a succinct but unforgettable message to Abraham…
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On December 20, 1860, a secession convention in South Carolina voted unanimously to secede from the Union. Fearing that Republican Abraham Lincoln’s administration would appoint antislavery officials who would undermine slavery, slaveholders chose to abandon the Constitution and form their own nation. To justify…
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On December 1, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln delivered his second State of the Union Address, a landmark speech that emphasized the moral and strategic motivations behind the Union’s fight in the American Civil War. Delivered just ten weeks after the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln…
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On October 3, 1863, amid the turmoil of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation that would establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday in the United States. Lincoln’s declaration designated November 26, 1863, as a day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our…
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In the middle of November, the sixteenth president was jotting down a speech as he traveled by train from Washington to Pennsylvania to dedicate the most famous battle in American history. The Gettysburg Address, delivered by President Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863, is…
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On November 8, 1861, the Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward found themselves caught in one of the most important diplomatic conflicts during the Civil War. Called the “The Trent Affair,” the incident involved the interception of a British mail steamer, the RMS Trent,…
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Abraham Lincoln’s election on November 6, 1860, signaled more than a partisan win; it signaled a stunning blow against the proslavery movement that had long held power over the United States. In a republic strained by the question of slavery’s expansion—an argument that had…
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On September 17, 1862, the rolling fields and cornrows along Antietam Creek bore witness to the single bloodiest day in American military history. George B. McClellan’s Union Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia clashed in a desperate struggle…
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