Wednesday · November 11, 2026
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The events of July 25 · Read the full edition → · More from July 25 →
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Four days after Bull Run, Congress votes: this war is to save the Union, not free the slaves

The House passes it 121 to 2, the Senate 30 to 5, an effort to keep Kentucky and Missouri from following the South.

The Union army had just been routed at Bull Run, and Washington itself suddenly felt exposed. Lincoln worried about Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland, slaveholding states that had not yet seceded and might still leave the Union if the war looked like an abolitionist crusade. On July 22, 1861, the House passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution, and the Senate passed it on July 25, 1861, declaring the fight was meant only to preserve the Union and the Constitution, with slavery in those states left untouched. The House approved the resolution's two branches by votes of 121–2 and 119–2, respectively. The Senate, 30 to 5…

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More from July 25
1946

A geyser of radioactive water rises 6,000 feet over Bikini Lagoon

Ninety feet down, the Baker device throws a column of sea into the sky and drenches the target fleet in fallout no one had planned for.
1866

Congress creates a new rank so Grant outranks every soldier alive

The four-star General of the Army exists for one man, and one man only holds it.
1868

Johnson signs the Wyoming Organic Act as territory takes shape along the rail line

The boundaries drawn this week already look like the Wyoming on today's map.
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General Nelson Miles opens a new front in the war, three weeks after Santiago fell in Cuba.
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Read the full July 25 edition →Everything that happened on July 25 →
More from Civil War & Reconstruction
1863

Hill's men march on Gettysburg for supplies; Buford's cavalry is waiting on the ridges

Trading ridge for ridge all morning, Union troopers hold long enough for infantry to arrive; Hancock picks Cemetery Hill as the ground to stand on.
1863

Out of ammunition, Chamberlain orders the bayonet; the 20th Maine sweeps Little Round Top

The Union left had no plan to hold the hill; Oates's 15th Alabama breaks when the Maine men charge downhill, and a portion of the regiment is taken.
1863

Lee turns south; 12,500 men sent across an open mile are thrown back, and the Army of Northern Virginia retreats

The assault on Cemetery Ridge collapsed under Union artillery and rifle fire before it reached the line; survivors streamed back across the same field.
1863

Gardner surrenders Port Hudson; the Union holds the Mississippi from source to sea

After 48 days on the bluff, half his men sick and the food gone, the Confederate general yields the last rebel stronghold on the river.
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