1860 Abraham Lincoln speaks against slavery in New Haven, Connecticut.
1860 Abraham Lincoln is selected as the US presidential candidate for the Republican party.
1860 U.S. presidential election, 1860: Abraham Lincoln beats John C. Breckinridge, Stephen A. Douglas, and John Bell and is elected as the 16th President of the United States, the first Republican to hold that offi
1861 President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, DC after an assassination attempt in Baltimore, Maryland.
1861 End of term for President of the United States James Buchanan. He is succeeded by Abraham Lincoln.
1861 American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus in the United States.
1861 American Civil War: Battle of Ball's Bluff - Union forces under Colonel Edward Baker are defeated by Confederate troops in the second major battle of the war. Baker, a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, is killed in the fighting.
1861 American Civil War: US President Abraham Lincoln appoints George McClellan as commander of the Union Army, replacing the aged General Winfield Scott.
1862 U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law creating the United States Bureau of Agriculture (later renamed USDA).
1862 U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law.
1862 United States president Abraham Lincoln signs into law the Pacific Railway Acts authorizing construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad.
1862 U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Morrill Land Grant Act into law, creating land-grant colleges to teach agricultural and mechanical sciences across the United States.
1862 American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln reluctantly restores Union General George McClellan to full command after General John Pope's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Second Bull Run.
1862 American Civil War: Preliminary announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln
1862 American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln removes George McClellan as commander of the Union Army.
1862 American Civil War: Union President Abraham Lincoln approves General Ambrose Burnside's plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia (this led to a dramatic Union defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13).
1862 American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union (thus dividing Virginia in two); meanwhile, the Battle of Stones River is fought near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
1863 Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation during the second year of the American Civil War making slavery's abolition in the rebel states an official war goal.
1864 Civil War gold hoax - ''New York World'' and the ''New York Journal of Commerce'' publish a fake proclamation that president Abraham Lincoln has issued a draft of 400,000 more soldiers
1864 U.S. presidential election, 1864: Abraham Lincoln is reelected in an overwhelming victory over George McClellan.
1865 US President Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated for second term. Andrew Johnson becomes Vice President.
1865 US President Abraham Lincoln is shot at Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth.
1892 Former President Abraham Lincoln's birthday is declared a national holiday in the United States.
1901 The 16th President, Abraham Lincoln, was exhumed and reinterred in concrete several feet thick.