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The Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820. -
Election of Lincoln
The United States presidential election of 1860 set the stage for the American Civil War. The nation had been divided throughout most of the 1850s. In 1860 the issue finally came to a head, fracturing the formerly dominant Democratic Party into Southern and Northern factions and bringing Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party to power without the support of a single Southern state. -
South Carolina
Antebellum, South Carolina did more to advance nullification and secession than any other Southern state. In 1832, a South Carolina state convention passed the Ordinance of Nullification, declaring the Federal tariff laws of 1828 and 1832 unconstitutional, and not to be enforced in the state of South Carolina after February 1, 1833. -
Mississippi
There position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which is by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world. -
Florida
Conflicts over the issue of slavery and its impact on the South's economy, in addition to other reasons, led to a split in the Union. One after another, Southern states were seceding from the United States of America. On January 10, 1861, Florida delegates who were meeting in the state capital, Tallahassee, voted to secede from the U.S. Florida became one of the six original Southern states to form the Confederate States of America; eventually, 11 states would leave the Union. -
Alabama
It declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, That the State of Alabama now withdraws, and is hereby withdrawn from the Union known as the United States of America, and for Sovereign to be an Independent State. -
Georgia
The people of the State of Georgia in Convention assembled do declare and ordain and it is hereby declared and ordained that the ordinance adopted by the State of Georgia in convention on the 2nd day of Jany. The year of our Lord seventeen hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the constitution of the United States of America. -
Louisiana
A telegram, dated Baton Rouge, January 26, states : "The delay ordinance, moved to be substituted for the secession ordinance reported by the Committee of Fifteen, was voted down by an immense majority. Commissioners Manning, of South Carolina, and Winston, of Alabama, made eloquent addresses in favor of immediate secession. -
Texas
Texas seceded from the United States on February 1, 1861, and joined the Confederate States of America on March 2, 1861. Texas was mainly a supply state for the Confederate forces until mid 1863, when the Union capture of the Mississippi River made large movements of men, horses or cattle impossible. Texas regiments fought in every major battle throughout the war. On August 1, 1862 Confederate troops killed 34 pro-Union German Texans in the Nueces Massacre of civilians. -
Ft.Sumter
Ft.sumter was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War.After midnight proved futile. At 3:20 a.m., April 12, 1861, the Confederates informed Anderson that they would open fire in one hour. At 4:30 a.m., a single mortar round fired from Fort Johnson exploded over Fort Sumter, making the start of the bombardment from 43 guns and mortars at Fort Moultrie. -
Virginia
While the decision to secede came quickly and with less resistance in other more southern states. In Virginia it was the product of years of sectionalism and months of ardent debate. Only after actual war had broken out between the North and the South did Virginia secede from the Union. -
Arkansas
The people of the State of Arkansas, in convention assembled, do hereby declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the "ordinance and acceptance of compact" passed and approved by the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas on the 18th day of October, A.D. 1836. -
North Carolina
We, the people of the State of North Carolina in convention do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by the State of North Carolina in the convention of 1789, where by the Constitution of the United States was ratified and adopted, -
Tennessee
The people of the State of Tennessee, waiving any expression of opinion as a free and independent people, to alter, reform, or abolish our form of government in such manner as we think proper. They declare that all the laws and ordinances by which the State of Tennessee became a member of the Federal Union of the United States of America. -
First Battle of Bull Run
The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as the First Battle of Manassas the name used by Confederate forces and still often used in the Southern United States. was fought near Manassas, Virginia. It was the first major land battle of the American Civil War. -
RailRoads in the Civil war
As 1862 opened, the Confederacy achieved an amazing first in the history of railroads, by planning, constructing and then operating the first railroad ever designed and used exclusively for military purposes. They built a 5.5 miles (8.9 km) spur off the Orange and Alexandria Railroad at Manassas Junction toward Centreville, Virginia known as the Centreville Military Railroad. It was served to supply the Confederate defenses on the Centreville Plateau along the north side of the Bull Run. -
The SringField Musket
The muzzle loading 58 caliber rifled musket was the primary weapon of the American Civil War. An unprecedented production of over a million and a half were made in the North during the Civil War by Springfield Armory and private contractors. The quantity made in the South is unknown, but is estimated as less than one percent of the number made in the North. The primary source for the South was to pick them up on the battlefields after the Union Army withdrew from immediate contact. -
Second battle of the Bull Run
The Second Battle of Bull Run, or, as it was called by the Confederacy, the Battle of Second Manassas. Was a part of the American Civil War. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia against Union Maj. Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia, and a battle of much larger scale and numbers than the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) fought in 1861 on the same ground. -
Antietam
It is also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, particularly in the South), it was fought near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek, as part of the Maryland Campaign.it was the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Northern soil. -
Emancipation proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation was criticized at the time for freeing only the slaves over which the Union had no power. Although most slaves were not freed immediately, the Proclamation brought freedom to thousands of slaves the day it went into effect in parts of nine of the ten states to which it applied (Texas being the exception). -
Battle of Fredricksburg
The battle was the result of an effort by the Union Army to regain the initiative in its struggle against Lee's smaller but more aggressive army. Burnside was appointed commander of the Army of the Potomac in November. -
Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the Civil War, the Union victory in the summer of 1863 that ended General Robert E. Lee's second and most ambitious invasion of the North. It was the war's bloodiest battle with 51,000 casualties. It also provided President Abraham Lincoln with the setting for his most famous address. -
Siege of Knoxville
The Siege of Knoxville, Tennessee occurred during the American Civil War. Knoxville was occupied by Ambrose E. Burnside with a strong Federal force, 12,000 men, in 1863. On November the 17th and 29th, by James Longstreet, who had pursued the Federal general thither. -
Battle of Chattanooga
The location was in Hamilton County and City of Chattanooga. On November 23-24, Union forces struck out and captured Orchard Knob and Lookout Mountain. On November 25, Union soldiers assaulted and carried the seemingly impregnable Confederate position on Missionary Ridge. -
Battle of Cold Harbor
The Battle of Cold Harbor was one of the bloodiest military engagements of the American Civil War. It was fought on June 3rd, 1864, at Cold Harbor, Virginia northeast of Richmond. It was part of the Overland Campaign that also included battles at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House. The Battle of Cold Harbor began when the Union Army of the Potomac, which numbered about 110,000 men under General Ulysses S. Grant. -
Battle of Atlanta
Before the battle of Peach Tree Creek, north of the city of Atlanta, General William Tecumseh Sherman ordered his men to advance towards Atlanta. They formed in a semi-circle around the north and east of the Georgia city, they began pressure young John Bell Hood, new commander of the Army of Tennessee. Moving towards Atlanta from the east, General Francis Blair spotted a high ridge known as Bald Hill and ordered Mortimer Leggett to take the hill. -
Harper's Ferry
It is located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers in the states of West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland.Harpers Ferry witnessed the first successful application of interchangeable manufacture, the arrival of the first successful American railroad, John Brown's attack on slavery, the largest surrender of Federal troops during the Civil War, and the education of former slaves in one of the earliest integrated schools in the United States. -
Sherman's March to the sea
The campaign began with Sherman's troops leaving the captured city of Atlanta, Georgia on November 15 and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. It is widely remembered for inflicting significant property damage, particularly to industry and infrastructure. Sherman's March to the Sea followed his successful Atlanta Campaign of May to September 1864. -
Assassination of Lincoln
On the evening of April 14, 1865, while attending a special performance of the comedy, Our President Abraham Lincoln was shot. Accompanying him at Ford's Theater that night were his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, a twenty-eight year-old officer named Major Henry R. Rathbone, and Rathbone's fiancee, Clara Harris. After the play was in progress, a figure with a drawn derringer pistol stepped into the presidential box, aimed, and fired. The president slumped forward. -
Appomattox Courthouse
When the courthouse at the village of Clover Hill burned for the second time in 1892, it was not rebuilt and a new courthouse was built in West Appomattox. That sealed the fate of the village of Clover Hill. The county seat was formally moved to the town of West Appomattox in 1894. As a result the population of Clover Hill, where the Old Appomattox Court House once stood, never grew much over 150. -
The First Consumption Act
