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1861
Beginning of the American Civil War
The American Civil War began on April 12 or 13, 1861, when the Confederates in Charleston, South Carolina, bombed Fort Sumter that was occupied by Union forces commanded by Major Robert Anderson.
When Anderson saw that the Confederates exceeded them in number and arms he opted to surrender the Fort to the demands of the Confederates.
There was no loss of lives in the exchange of fire. But after the battle the general opinion was that of going to war. President Lincoln solicited 75,000 volunteers to contain the rebellion that caused four other states to unite in the secession from the Confederation. The Civil War had begun.
In the beginning, Tennesseans showed little enthusiasm for separating from the nation with which they had shared sacrifices for so long. In 1860, they had given their support to John Bell, of the Constitutional Union Party, one of the 3 candidates for the Presidency of the United States who were defeated by Abraham Lincoln.
Tennessee was divided in 3 zones on the question of the emancipation of slaves: the east of the state with its center in Knoxville was Unionist and in favor of abolition; the west of Tennessee, with its center in Memphis, was Confederate and defended the right to slavery and the center of the state with its capital of Nashville was equally divided, preferring to find a solution through dialogue.
Campus panorama of Kirkland and Nashville skyline downtown and State Capitol.(John Russell/Vanderbilt University)
Isham G. Harris, then Governor(1857-1862) called the Assembly General of Tennessee to an emergency meeting in January of 1861, after the attack by the Union at Fort Sumter, denouncing the Union and President Lincoln for their warlike action. This time, the vote of Central Tennessee favored succession and the state joined with the Confederation.
Of the ten southern secessionist states, Tennessee was the last to withdraw from the Union. 11 States formed the Confederate States of America: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina.
1862
The Battle of Donelson
The Battle at Fort Donelson, the 11th to 16th of February, 1862, was fought shortly after the capture of Fort Henry on the 6th of February.
Grant, after capturing Fort Henry (on the Tennessee River) marched his troops overland 12 miles to Fort Donelson (on the Cumberland River) and the battle was fought from the 11th to the 16th of February, 1862. This victory opened the Cumberland River as an avenue for the invasion of the south by the Union forces, and also elevated Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant to a position of notoriety with the rank of Major General and earning him the nickname “Unconditional Surrender” (Unconditional Surrender—using his first two initials U.S).
On the morning of the 15th of February, the fort was surrounded by the Unionist forces and Brigadier General John B. Floyd who was in command of the Confederates, launched a surprise attack against Grant’s army searching for an escape route. Despite obtaining a good advantage he ordered his troops to return to the fort.
Early on the 16th, Floyd and his second in command, Brigadier General Gideon J. Pillow, handed over command to Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner who accepted the conditions of “Unconditional Surrender” from General Grant.
The Battle of Shiloh
Also called the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, it was an important battle in the western theater of the Civil War. This battle was fought the 6th and 7th of April, 1862, in the southeast of Tennessee.
An Union army under the command of Major General Ulysses S. Grant infiltrated Tennessee by way of the Tennessee River and camped on Pittsburg Landing on the west bank of the river. The Confederate forces under the command of Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T Beauregard had considerable success on the first day but were defeated on the second day of the battle.
The first day the Confederates attacked with the objective of forcing the Union defenses to retreat to the river toward the marshes of Owl Creek, with the objective of defeating Grant’s Tennessee Army before the expected arrival of the Ohio Army of Major General Don Carlos Buell.
In a Confederate confusion during the battle, the Unionists retreated towards the northeast, toward Pittsburg Landing and regrouped in defensive positions under Brigadier Generals Benjamin M. Prentiss and W.H.L. Wallace.
General Johnston died the first day of the battle and Beauregard decided not to continue the offensive that night.
General Buell’s reinforcements and Grant’s army arrived that night and reversed the situation when the commanders of the Union launched a counterattack. The Confederates were forced to retreat from the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States and lost the hope of blocking the Union’s advance toward the north of Mississippi.
First Battle of Murfreesboro
The 10th of June, 1862, Major General Don Carlos Buell, at the head of the Army of Ohio, began a slow advance toward Chattanooga that had been under threat the 7th and 8th of June by the forces of Brigadier General James S. Negley. Responding to the threat, the Confederate government sent General Forrest to Chattanooga to organize a cavalry brigade. Then in the month of July the Confederate Cavalry under the command of Forrest and Colonel John Hunt Morgan made incursions and attacks on Central Tennessee and in Kentucky.
Forrest departed from Chattanooga the 9th of June with two cavalry regiments and combining with other units on the way, created a force of 1400 men. The principal objective was to attack Murfreesboro, an important railroad resupply center for the Union railroad from Nashville to Chattanooga, at dawn on the 13th of July,
The garrison in Murfreesboro was camped in three locations around the city and included detachments of four units, infantry, cavalry and artillery, under the command of Brigadier General Thomas Turpin Crittenden, who had arrived the 12th of July. Between 4:15 and 4:30 in the morning of the 13th of July, Forrest surprised the Union squads at Woodbury, to the east of Murfreesboro and rapidly invaded a Federal hospital and the camp of a detachment of the 9th Regiment of Pennsylvania Cavalry. Other Confederate troops attacked the other camps of the Union command, the prison and Headquarters. When afternoon arrived all the units had surrendered to Forrest.
The Battle of Stone’s River
(In the South, simply the Battle of Murfreesboro) was fought the 31st of December, 1862, to the 2nd of January, 1863.
Major General William S. Rosencrans, at the head of the Cumberland Army, marched from Nashville to Murfreesboro the 26th of December to confront the Army of Tennessee, led by General Braxton Bragg. Of all the important battles of the Civil War, the one at Murfreesboro resulted in the highest percentage of fatalities on both sides.
Although the result of the battle was inconclusive, the Union Army drove back two Confederate attacks and the subsequent retreat of the Confederates was a very necessary incentive for the moral of the Union after the defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg (Virginia, 1862) y denied the Confederate aspirations of controlling Central Tennessee.
The Chattanooga Campaign
The Chattanooga Campaign was a series of maneuvers and battles during October and November of 1863. After defeating General Rosencrans at the battle of Chickamauga in September, the Confederate Army under the command of General Braxton Bragg besieged the Rosencrans forces by occupying key high terrain around Chattanooga. Major General Ulysses S. Grant had been given the command of the Western Forces and considerable reinforcements arrived with him in Chattanooga from Mississippi and also from the East.
After opening a supply corridor for the troops and animals that had been deprived of supplies, Grant’s army repelled a Confederate counterattack at the Battle of Wauhathcie the 28th and 29th of October, 1863.
The 23rd of November the Army of the Cumberland under the command of Major General George H. Thomas managed to gain the high ground at Orchard Knob while part of the Tennessee Army under the command of Major General William T. Sherman maneuvered to launch a surprise attack on the right flank of Bragg at Missionary Ridge. The 24th of November troops arrived from the east under the command of Major General Joseph Hooker and defeated the Confederates in the battle of Lookout Mountain and began a maneuver toward Bragg’s left flank in Rossville.
The 25th of November Sherman’s attack on Bragg’s right flank made little progress. With the intention of distracting Bragg’s attention, Grant authorized Thomas’ troops to advance the center of the line to the base of Missionary Ridge. A combination of misunderstood orders and the pressure of the tactical situation resulted in Thomas’ troops gaining the top of Missionary Ridge, putting the Tennessee Army in flight and retreat to Dalton, Georgia. There, finally, the Confederates managed to successfully stop the Unionists at the Battle of Ringgold Gap.
Bragg’s defeat eliminated the last Confederate control in Tennessee and opened the doors to invasion of the Deep South and the Atlanta Campaign by General Sherman in 1864.
Mexico – French Intervention.
1863
Colombia – Change the name from The Republic of New Granada to United States of Colombia.
1864
The Battle of Fort Pillow
Fort Pillow was located 40 miles to the north of Memphis and had been constructed by Brigadier General Gideon Johnson Pillow in 1862. Both sides used it during the war and the Confederates had evacuated it during the fall of New Madrid and Island #10 to the Union who had occupied it since.
The 16th of March, 1864 Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest launched an offensive to the west of Tennessee and Kentucky. The objective was to destroy the Union waterway defenses from Paducah, Kentucky to south of Memphis.
The Battle of Paducah was the 25th of March and causes great losses to the city and to the military supplies of the Union. Then they set off to Fort Pillow in search of the provisions and horses they needed.
Fort Pillow was protected by a troop of 600 men, black and white, many of whom were liberated slaves. The attack by Forrest began at 10 am and was brutal and without cease. Close to 3:30 pm General Forrest ordered them to surrender but the response was negative and General Forrest ordered the final attack. It was at that moment that what is described as the Massacre of Fort Pillow began, in which soldiers, women and children were indiscriminately killed by bayonet, saber and gun.
From there the War cry “Remember Fort Pillow” was born for black soldiers, unifying them to struggle without cease against death.
The Battle of Nashville
The Battle of Nashville was a two day battle during the Franklin Campaign – Nashville represented the last large scale conflict in the west of the American Civil War. It took place in Nashville,Tennessee on the 15th and 16th of December, 1864 between the Confederate Army of Tennessee under command of Lieutenant General John Bell Hood and the Union forces under command of General Mayor George H. Thomas. In one of the greatest victories achieved by the Union Army during the war, Thomas attacked and defeated the army of Hood, effectively destroying their capacity as a fighting force.
Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil – War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870)
1865
The Civil War ends. Former Vice President Andrew Johnson is now President and it falls to him the difficult task of reunifying the North with the South.
The Ku Klux Klan forms in Pulaski with Confederate war veterans. General Nathan Bedford Forrest serves as the Grand Wizards of the vigilante organization that terrorizes the population with their extreme ideology.
Tennessee is the first of the Southern states to be readmitted to the Union on the 24th of July of that year.
Fisk University is founded in Nashville as a college of higher education principally for recently freed slaves
Peru, Chile, Bolivia – War with Spain (1865-1866).
1868
The House of Representative (Congress) votes to denounce Andrew Jackson and challenge him in court. The following year Johnson resigns and retires to his house in Greenville.
Puerto Rico – The Cry of Lares
Cuba – The Manifest of October 10th
1870
The state constitution is amended.
Argentina – Assassination of Justo José de Urquiza
Uruguay – Revolution of the Lances (1870-1872)
1873
Vanderbilt University is founded in Nashville. It was named in honor of Cornelius
Aerial images of Vanderbilt Campus and Kirkland Hall
(Daniel Dubois / Vanderbilt University)
Vanderbilt, a businessman who donated a million dollars to construct and maintain the institution. Cornelius Vanderbilt was born in New York in 1794. He made his fortune in transport systems, first creating a service from State Island and later to California and France. Then he made a change to railroad and at the time of his death had created an important transportation system in America. He was one of the most successful American capitalists of the century. During the Civil War he donated a Vanderbilt steamboat to the government of the United States and then the funds for the foundation of Vanderbilt University.
Andrew Johnson dies of a heart attack, the only ex-president to have returned to serve in the US Senate.
1875
Ecuador – Death of Gabriel García Moreno by assassination.
1878
Of the 19, 600 residents of Memphis, 5200 of them die in a yellow fever epidemic.
Cuba – The Ten Years’ War (1878-1888)
1879
Blount College transforms into the University of Tennessee.
Blount College, the antecedent of the University of Tennessee, was established in Knoxville in 1794, two years before Tennessee became a state. Blount College was located close to what is today the commercial center of Knoxville and was characterized by being non-sectarian, which was very uncommon for an institution of higher learning during that time. The University has continued to be non-denominational and is known as being the oldest university to the west of the Appalachians.
From the beginning Blount College was only for men, as were the majority of college during those times. This restriction was eliminated in 1892 when the first women students were admitted. The University has been coeducational since then.
Bolivia – Government by military dictatorship, led by Uladislao Silva. (1879-80).
Uruguay – Census indicates that the population is 437,000.
Chile, Peru and Bolivia – War of the Pacific (1879-1881)
1881
Peru -Battle of Miraflores, Admiral Patricio Lynch heads the Chilean troops as they enter and occupy Lima, the capital of Peru.
1883
Chile, Peru – Treaty of Ancón ends the War of the Pacific
Colombia – Changes its name from the United States of Colombia to the Republic of Colombia
1886
Chile – José Manual Blamaceda is elected President.
1888
Chile – Annexes Easter Island
Brazil – Abolition of slavery by Emperor Pedro II
1891
Chile – Civil War
1895
Ecuador – Beginning of the Liberal era with President Eloy Alfaro
1897
The state of Tennessee celebrated its Centenary (although a year late) with a great exposition in Nashville.
Nashville Parthenon. Photo courtesy of Will Powell
The Centennial Exposition of Tennessee was the last expression of the Golden Age of the High South—a demonstration of industrial technology and papier-mâché versions of the world wonders. The Parthenon of Nashville was constructed of bone, wood and brick. Reconstructed in concrete after 1920, it remains still as an attraction in the city. During the six months that is was in Centennial Park, the Exposition attracted almost two million visitors to the spectacular monuments of the Southern recuperation.
Then Governor Robert Taylor said: “Some of those who saw the ruin of our land 30 years ago will appreciate the fact that we have built miracles.”
Cuba –War of Independence. Jose Martí, organizer of the war, dies.
Cuba – The United States occupation begins.
1898
Puerto Rico – Spain cedes the island to the United States. The American government begins.
Cuba – The American battleship the Maine sinks in the Bay of Havana and the United States enters into war, in Cuba, against Spain.
1899
Colombia – War of the 1000 Days (1899-1902).
