1860
November 6 -- Lincoln wins Presidential
Election.
December 20 -- South Carolina secedes from
the Union.
1861
January 19 -- Georgia secedes.
February 4 -- Georgia and five other
Southern states form the Confederate States of America. Five
others join later.
February 18 -- Jefferson Davis inaugurated
as President of the Confederate States.
March 4 -- Lincoln inaugurated.
Barbecue at Twelve Oaks
April 12 -- The Southern forces in Charleston fire on Fort
Sumter. The War Between the States has begun.
July 21 -- Union Army routed at Bull Run.
1862
Winter -- The Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the
Potomac are in a face-off in Virginia. The hardships of life in the field take a toll --
Charles dies of pneumonia.
April 6 -- Grant narrowly wins at Shiloh (the bloodiest day
thus far in the war).
September 17 -- McClellan 'wins' at Antietam. (the heaviest
combat loss of American life in any single day ever)
September 23 -- Lincoln announces the Emancipation
Proclamation effective January 1st 1863.
The Northern blockade is forcing a shortage of everything
in the South. At a fundraiser for the troops, Rhett bids a fortune to dance with Scarlett.
1863
July 1, 2 and 3 -- Meade beats Lee at Gettysburg. Scarlett
searches the casualty lists for Ashley's name.
July 4 -- Vicksburg falls to Grant.
November 23 to 25 -- Grant and Sherman clear Chattanooga of
Confederates
Christmas -- Ashley returns home on leave weary and
disillusioned.
1864
May 3 -- Grant begins his advance toward Richmond. A day
later Yankees under Sherman are attacking into Georgia.
September 2 -- Atlanta falls to Sherman. The departing
Confederates torch the supplies in the city as part of a "scorched earth"
policy, intending to leave nothing but cinders for the occupying Union troops.
Scarlett returns to Tara. Rhett joins the Confederate Army.
November 16 -- Sherman begins his 'march to the sea'.
Atlanta is left a smoldering ruin.
November -- Rhett fights in the Battle of Franklin (TN).
November -- A Union deserter arrives at Tara intent on
loot. He then menaces Scarlett, who shoots and kills him.
December 22 -- Sherman takes Savannah, cables Lincoln that
he presents the city to the North "as a Christmas present".
1865
February 17 -- Sherman advances into South Carolina.
Columbia is burned.
April -- 8th --Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox, VA.;
18th -- Johnston surrenders to Sherman in Durham, NC. War ends. More than 600,000
Americans lost their lives in the war -- ten times the number that would die in Vietnam a
century later.
April 14 -- Lincoln assassinated
Ashley returns to Tara and to Melanie.
1866
Jonas Wilkerson, the sleazy former overseer who has
prospered under the carpetbaggers, offers to buy Tara so Scarlett can pay the $300 in
taxes she owes.
Scarlett marries Frank Kennedy, a successful merchant, for
his money.
1867
Radicals in Congress impose a punitive reconstruction on
the South. Yankee troops occupy Georgia.
Ashley, Frank and others stage a vigilante raid on the
shantytown. Ashley is wounded and Frank is killed.
1868
The South is making a painful economic recovery.
Scarlett and Rhett are married. He spends a fortune to
restore Tara, in addition to buying a magnificent mansion in Atlanta.
1870s
Bonnie is killed in a riding accident.
Melanie dies.
Scarlett realizes that she really doesn't love
Ashley—it's been Rhett all along—and rushes home to tell him so. It's too late.
"Tomorrow is another day"
1877
Reconstruction ends.
Source: The Almanac of American History, Arthur M.
Schlesinger, Jr., G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, N.Y. 1983
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