Abraham Lincoln Timeline
12 February 1809 born in Kentucky
1811 The Lincoln family moved 10 miles away. They lived in a log cabin.
1815 Abraham attended school in a log school house.
1816 The family moved to Indiana. There they could buy the land directly and there was no slavery.
February 1817 The family moved into their new log cabin.
1817 While hunting turkey, Abraham killed a bird. He suffered such great remorse that he never hunted again.
October 1818 Nancy Lincoln, Abraham's mother died.
2 December 1819 Thomas Lincoln, Abraham's father, married Sarah Bush Johnston. She had three children of her own from her first marriage.
1823 Abraham's parents joined the Pigeon Creek Baptist Church. Abraham never joined any church, but he was deeply religious.
1828 Abraham helped take a flatboat loaded with farm produce to New Orleans.
1828 Sarah Lincoln, Abraham's sister, died in childbirth.
1830 The Lincoln's moved to Illinois.
1831 Denton Offutt hired Abraham and tow others to take a flatboat to New Orleans. As a result of the trip, Offutt hired Lincoln as a clerk in his new store in the village of New Salem, Illinois.
July 1831-Spring 1837 Lincoln lived and worked in New Salem. He only worked for Offutt for a few months before the business failed.
Spring 1832 The Black Hawk War took place. Lincoln volunteered for the militia. He was elected captain of the men from New Salem. He served for a total of ninety days in the militia.
March 1832 Lincoln announced his candidacy for the state legislature. Because he was serving in the militia he was unable to campaign.
21 April 1832 Abraham Lincoln (23) assembled with his New Salem neighbors for the Black Hawk War on the Western frontier. Illinois Governor John Reynolds had called for volunteers to beat back a new Indian threat. Black Hawk, chief of the Sac and Fox Indians, had returned to his homeland at the head of a band of 450 warriors, intent on forcibly reversing the treaty he had signed 28 years earlier that ceded control of the tribe's ancestral home in northwestern Illinois to the U.S. government.
July 1832 Lincoln arrived home from the militia. The election took place He was defeated, but the people from his precinct gave him 277 of their 300 votes.
Fall 1832 Lincoln bought a store with William F. Berry on credit. The store failed after a few months and put Lincoln further into debt.
May 1833 New Salem appointed Lincoln as the postmaster. He was also offered a job as a deputy surveyor.
1834 Lincoln ran again for the state legislature. He ran for the Whig party. He won the election and he served four successive two-year terms
1834 During Lincoln's first term, John T. Stuart urged him to study law. Lincoln borrowed books from Stuart to study.
1835 William Berry died, leaving Lincoln a debt of $1,100. It took him several years to pay off, but it earned him the nickname of, "Honest Abe."
9 September 1836 Lincoln received his license to practice law.
14 April 1837 Lincoln moved to Springfield, Illinois. There he became the junior partner in the law firm with John Stuart.
1837 Lincoln made his first public speech against slavery.
1840 Lincoln argued his first case before the Illinois Supreme Court.
1840 Lincoln made a speaking tour around Illinois for the presidential campaign.
1841 Lincoln's partnership with Stuart ended. He became a junior partner with Stephen T. Logan.
4 November 1842 Lincoln married Mary Todd.
1 August 1843 Robert Todd Lincoln, his first son is born.
1844 Lincoln worked for the election campaign for Henry Clay.
Fall 1844 Lincoln's partnership with Logan ended. Lincoln started his own firm and asked William H. Herndon to be his partner. The partnership was never dissolved.
10 March 1846 Edward Baker Lincoln, his second son is born.
1846 Lincoln won the Whig nomination for the House of Representatives. Lincoln won the election.
6 December 1847 Lincoln took his seat in Congress.
1848 Lincoln worked on the election of Zachary Taylor.
4 March 1849 Lincoln's term ended. He was unsuccessful in getting an appointment as Commissioner of the General Land Office. He was offered the position of governor of the Oregon Territory, but he declined. He returned to Springfield and began again to practice law.
1 February 1850 His son, Edward died after a two month illness.
21 December 1850 His third son, William Wallace Lincoln, was born.
4 April 1853 Thomas (Tad) Lincoln, his fourth son was born.
1854 Lincoln was elected to the state legislature, but he resigned to run for a senate seat. He did not win the election.
1856 Lincoln joined the Republican party. The party believed in the abolition of slavery, which had become an important issue to Lincoln.
26 June 1857 Lincoln spoke against the Dred Scott decision.
1858 Lincoln was nominated to run against Stephen A. Douglas for a senate seat. During the election, Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of debates.
21 August 1858 The first debate between Lincoln and Douglas took place.
15 October 1858 The last debate in the series took place. Douglas won the election, but the debates made Lincoln a national figure.
16 May 1860 Lincoln was nominated by the Republican party as the presidential candidate. Lincoln was the election from the electoral votes, however, more Americans voted against Lincoln than for him.
20 December 1860 South Carolina seceded from the Union. They did not want Lincoln to be president. Ten other states followed.
11 February 1861 Lincoln left Springfield to go to Washington D.C.
23 February 1861 President-elect Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington to take office after an assassination plot was foiled in Baltimore.
4 March 1861 Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th president of the United States.
12 April 1861 Fort Sumter was attacked by the Confederate artillery. The attack started the Civil War.
14 April 1861 Lincoln called for 75,000 men to volunteer for the army.
19 April 1861 Lincoln ordered the blockade of Confederate ports.
17 June 1861 Lincoln witnessed Dr. Thaddeus Lowe demonstrate the use of a hot-air balloon
July 1861 The North had assembled an army. The Confederates were ready and waiting along the Potomac River in Virginia.
21 July 1861 The First battle of Bull Run took place. The confederate forces won.
16 August 1861 Lincoln prohibited the states of the Union from trading with the seceding states of the Confederacy.
20 February 1862 Willie, his son, died. Mary Todd Lincoln never fully recovered from the death.
1862 Lincoln relieved General George B. McClellan of his command of the Union army. General John Pope was made the commander.
20 May 1862 Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, providing 250 million acres of free land to settlers in the West.
11 August 1862 Lincoln appointed Union General Henry Halleck to the position of general in chief of the Union Army.
29-30 August 1862 Pope was defeated at the second Battle of Bull Run. McClellan was made the commander again.
17 September 1862 McClellan turned back General Robert E. Lee at Antietam, but he refused to move after him.
22 September 1862 A preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.
24 September 1862 Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus against anyone suspected of being a Southern sympathizer.
5 November 1862 Lincoln removed McClellan for a second time. He put in General Ambrose E. Burnside.
13 December 1862 Burnside was defeated in the Battle of Fredericksburg. He was removed as the commanding general. General Joseph Hooker replaced him.
1 January 1863 Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves.
1-4 May 1863 Hooker lost the Battle of Chancellorsville.
20 June 1863 Lincoln admitted West Virginia as the 35th state.
July 1863 The Union won two major victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg.
19 November 1863 Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address.
8 December 1863 Lincoln announced his plan for the Reconstruction of the South
9 March 1864 Lincoln made General Ulysses S. Grant the commander of the Union army.
June 1864 Lincoln was nominated by the Union Party as the presidential candidate.
7 June 1864 Lincoln was nominated for another term as president at his party's convention in Baltimore.
12 July 1864 Lincoln became the first standing president to witness a battle as Union forces repelled Jubal Early's army on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.
2 September 1864 General Sherman captured Atlanta.
8 November 1864 The major wins helped Lincoln to be reelected.
5 March 1865 Lincoln had his second inaugural address.
9 April 1865 Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House. Lincoln authorized Grant to extend generous terms to Lee and his army.
11 April 1865 Lincoln spoke to a crowd very soberly about the end of the war and the need for reconstruction of the union.
14 April 1865 Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Boothe, while attending a play at Ford's Theater.
15 April 1865 Lincoln died at 7:22 A.M.
26 April 1865 Boothe was trapped in a barn and killed.
3 May 1865 President Lincoln's funeral train arrived in Springfield, Illinois
4 May 1865 Lincoln was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.