On March 9, 1862, the first prophetic battle between ironclads — the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (aka Merrimac) — took place at Hampton Roads, Virginia. Shown here is the USS Monitor several months later with evidence of battle damage.

On February 16, 1862, Union forces under general Ulysses S. Grant Captured Fort Donelson in Tennessee.  It was one of the first major Union victories of the Civil War and earned Grant the nickname “Unconditional Surrender” Grant.

Supported by Federal gunboats, Union forces under Brigadier General Ambrose Burnside captured Roanoke Island, North Carolina, from Confederate forces in an amphibious operation over February 7th and 8th, 1862.

Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States and provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to [...]

The Compromise was actually a series of bills passed mainly to address issues related to slavery. The bills provided for slavery to be decided by popular sovereignty in the admission of new states, prohibited the slave trade in the District of Columbia, settled a Texas boundary dispute, and established a stricter fugitive slave act. This [...]

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, announcing, “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious areas “are, and henceforward shall be free.”