What happened in1862 during the civil war?

Answer 1

The start of the major campaigns, East and West.

In the West, U.S. Grant emerged as a victorious army commander, though the credit initially went to his boss, the cautious, slow-moving Henry Halleck, who missed many opportunities to destroy the enemy. Still, by the end of the year, The Union had stopped the Confederates from occupying Kentucky, and was near to liberating the Mississippi, thus ending the war in the West.

In the East, the popular young General-in-Chief of the Union armies, George McLellan, decided to move on Richmond via the Peninsula, where he suffered a string of defeats by the newly-appointed Confederate commander Robert E. Lee. This was making the Confederacy look viable in the eyes the British, who were planning to support them. Mainly to keep the British out, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, officially turning it into a war on slavery, making it diplomatically impossible for other countries to support the Confederates. Meanwhile McLellan's successors did not seem to be making much headway by the end of the year. Lincoln had not yet learned to choose good Generals.