President Abraham Lincoln meets with the secret Senate Republican caucus committee and shrewdly arranges for the committee members and his cabinet to explain their differences face to face.

Exploring the most important 55 months in American history
President Abraham Lincoln meets with the secret Senate Republican caucus committee and shrewdly arranges for the committee members and his cabinet to explain their differences face to face.
Republican senators gather in an extraordinary caucus to determine how to better manage the war effort after the terrible defeat at Fredericksburg.
Abraham Lincoln surprises his cabinet by reading a draft of an executive order freeing all slaves in Confederate states.
Abraham Lincoln revokes David Hunter’s order freeing all slaves in his military department. But Lincoln also declared for the first time that he had the power to free slaves as a wartime necessity.
Abraham Lincoln personally directs an operation that results in capturing one of the Confederacy’s most important naval bases.
Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law establishing the first Federal paper currency in U.S. history–the “U.S. Note.”