1860, U.S. Census: total population, 31.44 million; slaves, 3.95 million (12.6%); free blacks, 488,000 (1.6%). Census also reports that one in 10 slaves cultivate tobacco; another 10 percent raise sugar, rice or hemp; and more than half work in cotton fields.
The U.S. thus has the largest population of enslaved persons in the Atlantic world, more than Brazil, although that country has imported far more African captives over the centuries.
Immigration in 1850s totals 2.60 million, up 52% over previous decade, for a total of 5.06 million since 1820. Immigrants make up 13 percent of population, greatest share so far, with Irish-born accounting for nearly four in 10 of foreign-born, Germans more than three in 10. Great majority settle in Northern cities or head west.
Very few go south. South Carolina’s foreign-born population is only 2% of the whole. New York City is 47% foreign-born. Immigrants avoid South because slave-based system debases pay.
1860, Three major pieces of legislation favored by Republicans from the North and West fail to advance in Congress due to Southern fears that they will boost Northern industry at the expense of the Southern plantation economy. They are:
- The Homestead Act, which would provide cheap western lands to small, independent farmers and shut out large planters. It is vetoed by Buchanan.
- The Pacific Railway Bill (House and Senate routes for a transcontinental railroad cannot be reconciled); and
- The Morrill Tariff, which would raise more federal revenue and protect Northern industries from British competition.
Democratic national convention.
1860, Democrats fail to nominate a presidential ticket at their convention in Charleston, April 23-May 3. With Buchanan keeping his promise to serve only one term, Stephen A. Douglas (Illinois) is the frontrunner.
But a block of Southern delegates, led by South Carolina “Fire-Eaters,” denies him the necessary two-thirds majority over 57 ballots. Because the party will not unequivocally support extension of slavery into new territories, they call for secession.
Just a week later, in Baltimore, a new Constitutional Union Party (mainly non-Republican ex-Whigs) nominates John Bell (Tennessee) for president, over Sam Houston of Texas. Bell is a slaveholder who opposes extension of slavery.
Republican national convention.
1860, The Republicans follow, opening their second national convention May 16 in Chicago. Although William Seward (New York) comes in as the frontrunner, it is Abraham Lincoln (Illinois) who finally wins a majority, and the nomination, on the third ballot. The platform opposes expansion of slavery, but does not call for abolition.
1860, Democrats try again, in Baltimore, in June, but divide quickly into two conventions. The first nominates Douglas easily. The second, comprising walkout Southern Democrats, nominates Buchanan’s vice president, John C. Breckenridge (Kentucky), for president.
Democrats fret that the split guarantees a Republican victory in November that will push South to secede. Many are certain that has been goal of the Fire Eaters all along.
1860, Slaves pick an estimated 400% more cotton per person this year than in 1801, thanks to latest hybrids, increasingly innovative techniques, better-trained overseers and “more effective” combinations of incentives and punishments.
Average price for enslaved men aged 21-38 sold in New Orleans is $1,200, compared to roughly $450 in 1804.
Slaves picking cotton in Georgia.
1860, Cotton is only 10 cents a pound after record Southern harvest of 4 million bales, two-thirds of world’s total.
Industrial Britain, which has bought 77% of its total 800 million pounds of cotton to this date from the South, has stored a large surplus. By the time that runs out in 1863, cotton has slowly risen to $1.89.
Thomas Francis Meagher.
1860, Clotilda is last ship known to smuggle slaves into U.S., July 9. They are 110 Nupe and Yoruba people purchased at Whydah (from a Dahomey prince for $100 in gold each) and brought to Mobile Bay. Shipowner Thomas Meagher and Capt. William Foster are identified but avoid federal charges.
Descendants of the slaves, freed at end of Civil War, live today in Africatown, in the north end of Mobile. Scuttled wreck of Clotilda is discovered near Twelve Mile Island in 2018.
1860, Many New York bankers, merchants and shipowners, all representing large investments in the cotton trade, voice support for the South, as does its Democratic mayor, Fernando Wood. Southern newspapers assert the city takes 40 cents of every dollar’s worth of cotton sold in Britain and Europe.
Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.
1860, Lincoln is elected president with 180 electoral votes (152 needed to win) and 1.87 million ballots (39.8% of total).
Douglas wins only 12 electoral votes despite 29.5% of the ballots; Breckenridge, 72 electoral votes and 18.1% of the ballots; and John Bell, 39 electoral votes, and 12.6% of the ballots.
Lincoln wins all the Northern and “free” states including California and Oregon; Breckinridge wins all the states that will secede, minus Virginia and Tennessee, plus Maryland and Delaware, also slave; Bell wins Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, all slave; Douglas wins only Missouri, also slave.
Southern slave masters see results as an existential threat to slavery.
Lincoln loses Democratic New York City to a fusion Democratic ticket by a 30% margin, but wins the state by a 7% margin.
1860, State referendum votes down universal suffrage for black males, 64-36%. They continue to be required to be state residents for at least three years and hold at least $250 worth of property debt-free; white males are not so required.
1860, By some estimates, total value of plantations and slaves (worth a rough average of $1,000 apiece) accounts for more than three-quarters of the nation’s gross domestic product.
1860, More than a third of state legislative seats in North Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi are held by “planters,” defined in the U.S. census as owners of 20 or more slaves. In Georgia, just under a third of the seats are held by planters.
In South Carolina, more than half the legislators are planters.
The secession convention.
1860, South Carolina secedes, Dec. 20. The vote of a special convention meeting in Charleston is 169-0. The state militia seizes the U.S. arsenal, post office and federal customs house in Charleston.
Maj. Robert Anderson and his federal garrison abandon Fort Moultrie in favor of easier-to-defend Fort Sumter in the middle of Charleston Harbor.
1860, Efforts through the winter and into March to find a compromise in Congress and at a “Peace Convention” in Washington fail; the gulf is too great. Lincoln sums it up in a letter to Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia (soon to become the Confederate vice president): “You think slavery is right and ought to be extended, while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted.”
Satirical cartoon of union fight.
1861, Kansas joins the Union, January, as 19th free state, compared to 15 slave. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana secede by month’s end. Their state militias seize Federal arsenals and forts. Texas secedes Feb. 1, despite opposition of Gov. Sam Houston.
Slave masters play dominant role in voting proclamations of secession. The threat to slavery is cited as prime motive in these papers or supporting documents.
The Texas declaration is particularly direct: “(Texas) was received (into the Union) as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery—the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits (borders)—a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.”
President Jefferson Davis.
1861, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, a resigned U.S. senator and former secretary of war, is elected provisional president of the Confederacy by the Provisional Congress of the seceding states, Feb. 9 in Montgomery, AL. Davis makes no mention of slavery. He is elected without opposition in November, Nov. 6.
1861, Departure of Davis and other Southern senators paves the way for Morrill Tariff bill to pass Senate. High tariffs will protect industry in U.S. for decades, at expense of rural interests. Signed by Buchanan (as Pennsylvania manufacturers will benefit).
1861, Just hours before Lincoln is sworn in, the Senate passes the Corwin Amendment, a last-ditch effort to protect slavery in Southern states from federal interference.
Buchanan endorses it with his signature.
And although Lincoln soon forwards it to states, only Kentucky ratifies the amendment (April 4) before war breaks out.
Lincoln's inauguration.
1861, Lincoln sworn in as president by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (who wrote Dred Scott decision) amid assassination threats and high security, March 4.
Alexander Stephens.
1861, Alexander Stephens, now vice president of the Confederacy, gives “Cornerstone Speech” in Savannah, March 21. He declares new Confederate government is founded on ideas “opposite” to “all men are created equal.” Instead, he says, “its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
After the South’s defeat, Stephens will insist the Confederacy was more concerned with states’ rights and economic issues rather than differing views of who has right to freedom.
1861, Warships led by HMS Prometheus and Comdr. Norman Bedingfield force the Lagos ruler, Dosunmo, to cede the island and nearby territory to Britain, which declares them a colony, March 5. British say they are concerned about continued slave trading as well as about French threats in Benin.
Going forward, Europeans will more frequently cite colonization as a solution to slavery.
1861, War opens with South Carolina militia bombarding Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, April 12. Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers to suppress “domestic insurrection” and proclaims naval blockade of Confederate ports to stop cotton exports and military imports.
1861, In the wake of Lincoln’s call for troops, Virginia secedes, April 17; Arkansas and North Carolina in May; and, finally, Tennessee in June, for a total of 11 in the Confederacy. Critically, four border slave states remain in Union: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri.
1861, Nightingale, a large, fast, New Hampshire-built clipper is boarded by Marines from USS Saratoga at Cabinda, April 20, in mouth of the Congo river. On board are 961 men, women and children in chains, apparently bound for Rio de Janeiro. Of these, 160 die before the seized ship can get to Monrovia and freedom.
Navy refits Nightingale to transport coal to Union ships blockading Gulf Coast ports. She was named in honor of Jenny Lind. Surviving records unclear as to who operated ship as a slaver.
Slaves arrive at Fort Monroe.
1861, At Fort Monroe (Hampton Roads, VA), Gen. Benjamin Butler provides federal protection for escaping slaves on grounds that they are “contraband,” May 27. Lincoln later signs enabling Confiscation Act, which includes slaves.
1861, U.S. troops are withdrawn from Indian Territory (OK), leaving Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek and other tribes who walked the Trail of Tears exposed to attack from the Comanche, newly installed on reservation to their west.
The eastern tribes reach treaties with the Confederacy, which promises to protect them and defend their slaveholding rights.
Many of these Indians take part in the war, the great majority fighting for the South.
Evacuating wounded soldiers.
1861, Union forces routed by Confederate army at First Battle of Bull Run, between Washington and Richmond, the new Confederate capital, July 21. Lack of training and experience apparent on both sides; so is fact that war will not be easy or short. Killed: 481, Union; 387, Confederate.
1861, Navy Secty. Gideon Wells directs commanders to “employ” escaped slaves seeking refuge on Union ships, July. By year’s end, blacks are incorporated into crews at equal pay. By war’s end, 20,000 blacks make up more than 15 percent of Union navy’s enlisted ranks. Army holds off until Emancipation Proclamation.
Pony Express worker in action.
1861, The first transcontinental telegraph link opens between California and Eastern states, which puts the 18-month old Pony Express out of business within days, October.
Former slaves settle in free land.
1861, Facing little resistance, a Union fleet under Flag Officer Samuel DuPont takes Port Royal, Beaufort and several Sea Islands of South Carolina, Nov. 7, establishing a base for blockading fleet as well as for raids.
White masters flee nearly 200 rice and cotton plantations, freeing 10,000 slaves (mostly Gullah) who are organized into free communities working the land for their food and for cotton, which is sold in the North. They move toward self-sufficiency under “the Port Royal Experiment.” More than 50 enthusiastic abolitionists and missionaries arrive to help with schools, churches and farms; scores more follow. Treasury Secty. Salmon P. Chase provides personal and financial support.
Navy recruits black sailors here immediately; Union army follows with one of the first black regiments in 1862.
Julia Ward Howe.
1861, Julia Ward Howe writes “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which she sets to the tune of “John Brown’s Body,” November. Music and “Glory, glory, hallelujah” refrain are taken from an old revival-meeting song.
1861, Lincoln proposes that Delaware consider gradual, compensated emancipation of state’s 1,798 slaves as an experiment, November. Slave masters would be paid $400 per slave after complete emancipation by Jan. 1, 1882, with federal government picking up the total $719,000 cost. Lincoln points out that this is considerably less than the $2 million cost of a single day of war.
But there is too much opposition in the state legislature to bring a bill forward.
1861, Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States is created by 47 presbyteries and 10 synods of the Old School, Dec. 4. In the North, Old School Presbyterians continue to support emancipation. On the New School side, Southerners had already created an independent United Synod in 1857.
Remains of Catholic Cathedral.
1861, Fire sweeps through downtown Charleston, destroying the Catholic Cathedral of St. John and St. Finbar, the South Carolina Institute and nearly 600 other buildings, night of Dec. 11. Firefighters, most of whom are free blacks or slaves, struggle to contain flames to 540 acres; cause is unknown.
1862, Ten feet of water, in rain and snow (especially in Sierra Nevada) fall on California over 43 days leading to worst flooding ever recorded, peaking in January. Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, and Delta flooded for combined length of 300 miles, averaging 20 miles wide, wiping out bridges, roads, new telegraph lines, mills, Gold Country mines and thousands of homes. Deaths estimated at 4,000.
Los Angeles and San Diego counties similarly affected, as are Oregon’s Willamette and lower Columbia valleys, and Nevada, present-day Idaho and Baja California. Waters don’t fully recede before the fall.
Cause? “Atmospheric rivers” generated over the Pacific, are now credited with the disaster, similar to systems that inundated same areas in early 2023.
1862, This victory, Feb. 7, gives Union control of Pamlico and Albemarle sounds and the Virginia and North Carolina coast from Norfolk to Cape Lookout. Union navy and army had taken busy Hatteras Inlet the previous August in their first victory of the war.
Union forces follow up with the occupation of New Bern, Beaufort and Morehead City, March.
A Freedmen’s Colony is established on Roanoke Island the following year, with former slaves building two churches and a school.
1862, With opposing Southerners gone from Congress, the U.S. Senate and House vote by large margins to finally recognize Haiti 58 years after its independence was won, February. They also vote to recognize independent Liberia.
1862, Lincoln reintroduces his Delaware proposal for gradual, compensated emancipation of slaves to senators and congressmen from four border states and the District of Colombia, March 6. Total cost: $173 million for their 432,622 slaves, which he says is equal to 87 days of war. Also proposes emigration of freed persons to Haiti and Liberia.
Again, opposition is too great; border representatives insist on their constitutional right to permit slavery. And their support of Union is critical.
Fighting in Shiloh, Tennessee.
1862, Battle of Shiloh on Tennessee river kills nearly 3,500 combined, with total casualties at more than 23,700. Bloodiest battle of war to date, April 6-7.
1862, Lincoln meets with five black leaders, a first, to ask support for his latest voluntary colonization proposals (now focused on Central America), April 14. He says, “But for your race among us there could not be war,” that racial equality is impossible in white-dominated U.S., and that races “should be separated.”
When reports get out, Frederick Douglass leads widespread, but not universal, black outrage over the comments.
1862, Just two days later, Lincoln signs into law immediate abolishment of slavery in Washington, DC. More than 3,000 people become free. More than 900 Union-supporting masters compensated $300 per slave. Ex-slaves who choose to emigrate overseas receive $100.
French fight Mexicans.
1862, French forces in Mexico, sent by Napoleon III and supported by Mexican conservatives and Catholic clergy, defeat a small Mexican force allied with Pres. Benito Jaurez, and take Orizaba, April. This initiates French campaign to establish an empire in Mexico.
Mexican forces turn back French at Puebla, May 5—Cinco de Mayo—but are soon forced back on defensive.
Attack on New Orleans.
1862, Adm. David Farragut takes New Orleans, April 29, blocking Mississippi traffic through the Confederacy’s largest city (169,000) and busiest port. Baton Rouge falls May 5, and Natchez, May 10. Over the next 12 months, tens of thousands of slaves escape Louisiana and Mississippi plantations for the Union lines.
Union troops lay waste to Louisiana agriculture. Sugar production alone drops from 270,000 tons in 1861 to 5,400 tons in 1864.
1862, As salt shortage sweeps most of Confederacy in May, less meat and fish can be preserved for Confederate soldiers and civilians alike. Union naval blockade stops salt imported from England and Bahamas; Union army targets salt works in Virginia, Kentucky and Louisiana.
Robert Smalls.
1862, Robert Smalls, a slave hired out as a deckhand, loads wife, children and 12 other slaves onto a Confederate steamer (the Planter) and runs out of Charleston Harbor to safety of Union blockade ships, May 13.
Smalls’ feat helps persuade Lincoln to recruit black soldiers into Union army. Smalls is later named commander of the Planter as part of the Union fleet. After the war, he serves 20 years as a U.S. congressman from South Carolina.
1862, The Homestead Act of 1862, which will grant 160-acre tracts of Western land to independent farmers for $1.25 an acre, is signed by Lincoln, May 20. Shuts out wealthy Southern planters, a longtime goal of Republicans and abolitionists. Sen. Andrew Johnson (Tennessee) is a leading sponsor.
Over the decades, settlers, including many immigrants, will claim 270 million acres in 30 states. Not open to those taking up arms against the U.S. Blacks specifically included in Homstead Act of 1866.
Most of this land is taken by various U.S. treaties from Indian peoples forced onto reservations.
1862, Lincoln signs Pacific Railway Act, which authorizes Union Pacific and Central Pacific to begin work on transcontinental railroad from Council Bluffs, IA, to Sacramento, July 1. Federal government to support with vast land grants and bonds.
This is the third of the major Republican economic and development bills long and bitterly opposed by now-departed Southerners in Congress. Already law are the Homestead Act and the increased Morrill Tariff.
1862, Slaves whose masters join the Confederate Army are declared free by Union government under Second Confiscation and Militia Act, July 17. Also, slavery abolished in western U.S. territories, July 19. Also, Lincoln wins $500,000 from Congress for colonization efforts.
1862, A band of starving Dakota Sioux rise against white settlers in Minnesota river valley, Aug. 17, killing more than 300, and taking women and children hostage. Tens of thousands more flee. A chief, Little Crow, writes that an Indian agent had refused credit for food, saying Dakota children could “eat grass or their own dung.”
Forts Ridgely and Abercrombie are besieged before a relief column defeats Little Crow’s men, Sept. 23. Some Dakota withdraw to west and north to Canada, many others surrender with their families. Nearly 500 are subjected to military trials (most of which last just minutes) that result in 303 men sentenced to death.
Pres. Lincoln insists on reviewing trial records and commutes the sentences of all but 38. They are hanged in Mankato, the day after Christmas. It remains the largest single-day mass execution in U.S. history.
Lincoln discusses new measure.
1862, Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation covering more than 3.5 million slaves held in rebelling states, Sept. 22, following Union victory at Antietam, MD (bloodiest day in U.S. history with 5,389 killed; 17,301 wounded).
To take effect three months later, proclamation frees as many as 75,000 slaves immediately in regions held by Union forces. Does not free slaves in loyal border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware, or in loyal counties of what will become West Virginia.
Blacks to be accepted into Union army and navy. Confederacy regards it as a call to race war.
1862, Mitchelville, a new village built by former slaves, mainly Gullah, opens in November on Hilton Head Island, SC, the latest development in the Port Royal Experiment. Most people are paid wages for their work on behalf of Union military, but many also farm on the previous plantation. Stores and churches rise, schools are introduced and new methods of teaching adults are developed.
In nearby Beaufort, First South Carolina Volunteers, the initial all-black regiment, is mustered in as authorized by Lincoln, also November. Recruits are men freed from Sea Islands plantations the previous year. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, an active white abolitionist in Boston before the war, is named commander.
1862, Lincoln makes one last, very detailed proposal for gradual, compensated emancipation in his annual message to Congress, Dec. 1.
1862, Umar Tall, leader of the Muslim Toucouleur people who has battled the traditionalist Bambara as well as French forces in Senegal, launches a jihad from his Futa Toro base. He soon overruns the Massina Empire to the east, which he says has strayed from Muslim principals.
More than 70,000 die in three great battles, which end in May with the execution of the Massina leader, Amadu III; the destruction of the capital, Hamdullahi; and Omar Tall’s control of the vast inner Niger delta.
A revolt of Massina supporters succeeds in killing Umar Tall in 1864, but his fundamentalist Toucouleur empire survives under a nephew, Tidiani Tall.