Timeline, Week 17 of the Civil War

Date	Key Events for the Week of July 29, 1861 (War Week 17)
July 31 Wed	Grant Receives a Second Chance Lincoln appoints Ulysses S. Grant General of Volunteers in Illinois. Grant had resigned his army commission in 1854 due to “bad habits” and was working for his brother as a tanner when the war began. However, his West Point credentials are too valuable to be ignored by the U.S. Army.

Historical Sketch: The Age of Robert Sing (Literally)

Thirteen weeks following the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor and following the Confederate victory at Manassas, Robert W. Sing of Bucksville, South Carolina, traveled to Conway to enlist. Robert W. Sing lived his entire life in the South Carolina river community of Bucksville, then known as Kingston Parish in the Horry District of South Carolina. The Waccamaw River flowed past Bucksville and provided a highway to Georgetown’s for timber mills to the south.

Timeline, Week 16 of the Civil War: Robert W. Sing Enlists

Date	Key Events for the Week of July 22, 1861 (War Week 16)
July 22 Mon	Lincoln’s Million Man Army Realizing that the war will be a prolonged conflict, President Lincoln calls for 500,000 new troops. Their term of enlistment will be for three years. On July 25, he asks for another 500,000 men.
	Robert W. Sing joins the 10th S.C. Infantry The week President Lincoln calls for new troops, Capt. Plowden C.J. Weston and his reputation for largess for his men travels to Horry County in search of more recruits for his command. Robert W. Sing of Bucksville, Horry District, responds to the beat of the drum and enlists in Company A of the 10th South Carolina Volunteer Infantry as a private. (Emanuel; Walker)

South Carolina Sesquicentennial Celebration

There are many websites that are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. Once site devoted to South Carolina's modest role in the conflict is the South Carolina Civil War Sesquicentennial site. The advisory board is a creation of the state's legislature and includes a representative from just about every cause that would have a stake in the war and life in South Carolina during the period. Another site focusing on South Carolina's Lowcountry is the Lowcountry Civil War Commemoration. Both site feature lists of events and exhibits, as well as background on the war. The Lowcountry site, however, has a tab entitled "Battles" that links you to a blank page. The site does have a page on the history of the national flags used by the U.S. and the C.S.A. during the war. Of course, it contains the Confederate Battle Flag of modern controversy, even though it is not a national flag. It is a battle flag used by regiments to identify each other during the course of a smoke-filled, chaotic engagement. Its proper place is as a battle or the C.S.A. navy ensign, not as the national flag of the Confederacy.

Timeline, Week 15 of the Civil War: Manassas (Bull Run)

Date	Key Events for the Week of July 15, 1861 (War Week 15)
July 18 Thu	Action at Blackburn's Ford, Virginia
19 Fri	Historical Sketches: 10th S.C.V. Infantry The 10th S.C.V. Infantry volunteers to be placed under the command of the Confederate army.

Historical Sketch: The Georgetown Rifle Guards

There were three major Atlantic seaports along the South Carolina coast. The largest was the vibrant city of Charleston on Charleston Harbor. The second located south of Charleston was Port Royal near Beaufort. To the north of Charleston and nestled within Winyah Bay was the port community of Georgetown. Georgetown played a vital role in the economy of South Carolina and the South. Georgetown District was also the home of some of the wealthiest men in the South and all of the United States though you would hardly notice it. Georgetown exuded none to the rich culture of Charleston. It did exceed Charleston in rice exports and in slaves. While the District of Charleston had close to one slave for each white inhabitant, in Georgetown District the ratio of slaves to whites was nine to one.

July 1861

Robert W. Sing Enlists

Thirteen weeks following the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, seventeen-year old Robert W. Sing of Bucksville, South Carolina, joins the cause of Southern independence by enlisting in Company A of the Tenth South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment. This is the beginning of a four-year, 3700-mile odyssey through six states of the southern Confederacy for Robert as he participates as an infantry private in the bloodiest conflict ever fought in North America.

The Reason We Fight (For Now)

In a bid to appease the South one more time, the U.S. Congress belatedly passes the Crittenden Resolution, which proclaims the current conflict between the North and the South is not about slavery, nor will it ever be about slavery, nor is there any plan for slavery to ever be abolished. This position would remain the policy of the United States until President Lincoln issues his Emancipation Proclamation in the fall of 1862.

Timeline, Week 5 of the Civil War: Bloody St. Louis

Date	Key Events for the Week of May 6, 1861 (War Week 5)
May 6, 1861 Mon	Arkansas Secedes from the Union Tennessee Tennessee legislature calls for popular vote on secession.
10 Fri	Riots in St. Louis Union forces capture Camp Jackson in Missouri. Pro-secessionist forces react by rioting resulting in 29 deaths. (Bowman 54)

Timeline, Week 4 of the Civil War: Maryland Stays in the Union

Date	Key Events for the Week of April 29, 1861 (War Week 4)
April 29, 1861 Mon	Maryland rejects secession. 2nd Session, Provisional Confederate Congress, convenes.

Timeline, Week 3 of the Civil War: Writ of Habeas Corpus

Date	Key Events for the Week of April 22, 1861 (War Week 3)
April 22, 1861 Mon	Arkansas Arsenal Seized A North Carolina militia seizes the federal arsenal in Fayetteville, Ark., though North Carolina has yet to formally secede from the Union. (Bowman 52)
27 Sat	Lincoln Suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus In one of the most controversial acts of his presidency, President Lincoln suspends the right of habeas corpus along a narrow stretch of railroad running through Maryland that connects Washington City and the rest of the North. (Neely 5)

Timeline, Week 2 of the Civil War: Civil War

Date	Key Events for the Week of April 15, 1861 (War Week 2)
April 15, 1861 Mon	War Begins Lincoln calls on the remaining Union states to provide 75,000 recruits to form militias to suppress the “insurrection” taking place in the South. The term of enlistment is three months. Southern states, including those still loyal to the Union, react in alarm.  (Wagner 6)
17 Wed	Virginia Secedes from the Union In reaction to President Lincoln’s call for the formation of militias, Virginia secedes from the Union.

Timeline, Week 1 of the Civil War: Fort Sumter

Date	Key Events for the Week of April 8, 1861 (War Week 1)
April 10, 1861 Wed	Confederate Forces Demand the Surrender of Fort Sumter Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard commanding Confederate forces demands the Union garrison quit the fort. (Bowman 50)
12 Fri	The Assault on Fort Sumter In their first overt act of war, Confederate batteries open fire on Fort Sumter shortly before dawn. The Union forces are able to fire one shot for every four shot by Confederate canons. (New York Times Online, “Disunion”)

Timeline, April 1861

War

Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard, in command of South Carolina and Confederate forces surrounding the Union garrison holding Fort Sumter, demands the surrender of the Union garrison holding Fort Sumter, a federal installation in the middle of South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor. Major Robert Anderson, the garrison’s commander, is a slave owner from Kentucky and at one time was Gen. Beauregard’s former artillery instructor at West Point. Major Anderson and his vastly outnumbered forces have held onto the fort for over 100 days with no relief or reinforcement from the Union, nor is any expected. If there is to be war, President Lincoln determined, then the first provocation must come from the South. On the morning of April 12, 1861, at 4:30 a.m., the command is given and Confederate gunners open fire on the fort. Major Anderson, waiting for daybreak, issues orders for his men to return fire. For the next thirty hours, Anderson’s troops fire 1000 rounds to the Confederate’s 4000.

Timeline, March 1861

Abraham Lincoln is Inaugurated the 16th President of the United States
The new president announces that he will not interfere with the institution of slavery where it currently exists. He calls the act of secession by the southern states an unconstitutional act. Lincoln’s hope is for preservation of the Union without bloodshed. “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine,” he proclaims, “is the momentous issue of Civil War.” (Wagner 47)

Date	Key Events for March 1861
March 4, 1861	Abraham Lincoln Inaugurated The new president pledges to hold the nation together as their Union under the Constitution is “perpetual.” The U.S. Senate convenes a special session of 37th Congress.
11	The C.S.A. Congress Adopts the Confederate Constitution
16	1st Session, Provisional Confederate Congress adjourns.
28	The special session of 37th U.S. Congress adjourns.

Timeline, February 1861

Birth of a Nation

The seven original seceding states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—meet in Montgomery, Alabama, to draft a constitution creating a new nation independent of the United States. The Confederate Constitution will vary little from the U.S. Constitution drafted seventy years earlier. Key differences include clear and specific language legalizing slavery, and a single, six-year term for the president. The assembled representatives elect former Mississippi senator Jefferson Davis as the provisional president of the Confederate States of America. (Wagner 162-63)

Date	Key Events for February 1861
February 1, 1861	Texas Secedes from the Union Opposing secession, Texas governor Sam Houston—the hero of the Battle of San Jacinto and Texas independence—confines himself to his office in the capitol while the vote to leave the Union takes place on the floor above him.  (New York Times Online, “Disunion”)