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civil war
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dred scott decision
Dred Scott first went to trial to sue for his freedom in 1847. Ten years later, after a decade of appeals and court reversals, his case was finally brought before the United States Supreme Court. In what is perhaps the most infamous case in its history, the court decided that all people of African ancestry -- slaves as well as those who were free -- could never become citizens of the United States and therefore could not sue in federal court. The court also ruled that the federal government did -
compromise of 1850
Divisions over slavery in territory gained in the Mexican-American (1846-48). War were resolved in the Compromise of 1850. It consisted of laws admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each to be determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former's favor, ending the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves. -
The Kansas-Nebraska act
The Kansas-Nebrask Act was an 1854 bill that mandated "popular sovereignty"--allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state's borders. Proposed by Stephen A. Douglas--Abraham Lincoln's opponent in the influential Lincoln-Douglas debates--the bill overturned the Missouri Compromise's use of latitude as the boundary between slave and free territory. The conflicts that arose between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in the aftermath of the act's p -
Bleeding of Kansas
Bleeding Kansas is the term used to described the period of violence during the settling of the Kansas territory. In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraksa Act overturned the Missouri Compromise's use of latitude as the boundary between slave and free territory and instead, using the principle of popular sovereignty, decreed that the residents would determine whether the area became a free state or a slave state. Proslavery and free-state settlers flooded into Kansas to try to influence the decision. Violence -
Lincoln-Dougles debates
What is often overlooked is that the debates were part of a larger campaign, that they were designed to achieve certain immediate political objectives, and that they reflected the characteristics of mid-nineteenth-century political rhetoric. Douglas, a member of Congress since 1843 and a nationally prominent spokesman for the Democratic party, was seeking reelection to a third term in the U.S. Senate, and Lincoln was running for Douglas's Senate seat as a Republican. Because of Douglas's politic -
Lincoln's election
The election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860 is commonly viewed as the beginning of a chain of events that erupted into civil war in April 1861. Lincoln was the first member of the Republican Party elected to the presidency, a remarkable rise for a political party that had been in existence less than ten years. At the Republican Convention held in Chicago in 1860, Lincoln received his party’s nomination over several contenders, most notably William H. Seward of New York. Contrary to -
Bull run
On July 21, 1861, Union and Confederate armies clashed near Manassas Junction, Virginia, in the first major land battle of the American Civil War. Known as the First Battle of Bull Run (or Manassas), the engagement began when about 35,000 Union troops marched from the federal capital in Washington, D.C. to strike a Confederate force of 20,000 along a small river known as Bull Run. -
Fort sumter
Fort Sumter is an island fortification located in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Originally constructed in 1829 as a coastal garrison, Fort Sumter is most famous for being the site of the first shots of the Civil War (1861-65). U.S. Major Robert Anderson occupied the unfinished fort in December 1860 following South Carolina’s secession from the Union, initiating a standoff with the state’s militia forces. When President Abraham Lincoln announced plans to resupply the fort, Confederate Genera -
Haper's Ferry
The stage for the Battle of Harpers Ferry was set in early September 1862, when Gen. Robert E. Lee opened the Maryland Campaign in an attempt to draw the Army of the Potomac out of war-worn Virginia. Expecting the historic arsenal at Harpers Ferry to evacuate when the Army of Northern Virginia marched up the Shenandoah Valley, Lee hoped to requisition the garrison’s supplies and open a supply line back into Virginia. Knowing that the Army of the Potomac was in pursuit, Lee ordered a bold maneuve -
Antietam
On September 17, 1862, Generals Robert E. Lee and George McClellan faced off near Antietam creek in Sharpsburg, Maryland, in the the first battle of the American Civil War to be fought on northern soil. Though McClellan failed to utlilize his numerical superiority to crush Lee's army, he was able to check the Confederate advance into the north. After a string of Union defeats, this tactical victory provided Abraham Lincoln the political cover he needed to issue his Emancipation Proclamation. Tho -
Emancipation Proclamation
On September 22, soon after the Union victory at Antietam, he issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states "shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." While the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave, it was an important turning point in the war, transforming the fight to preserve the nation into a battle for human freedom. -
Gettysburg and Gettysburg Address
In November 1863, President Abraham Lincoln was invited to deliver remarks, which later became known as the Gettysburg Address, at the official dedication ceremony for the National Cemetery of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, on the site of one of the bloodiest and most decisive battles of the Civil War. Though he was not the featured orator that day, Lincoln's 273-word address would be remembered as one of the most important speeches in American history. In it, he invoked the principles of human equ -
Andersonville Prison
From February 1864 until the end of the American Civil War (1861-65) in April 1865, Andersonville, Georgia, served as the site of a notorious Confederate military prison. The prison at Andersonville, officially called Camp Sumter, was the South's largest prison for captured Union soldiers and known for its unhealthy conditions and high death rate. In all, approximately 13,000 Union prisoners perished at Andersonville, and following the war its commander, Captain Henry Wirz (1823-65), was tried, -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee (1807-70) surrendered his approximately 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85) in the front parlor of Wilmer McLean's home in Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War (1861-65). Days earlier, Lee had abandoned the Confederate capital of Richmond and city of Petersburg, hoping to escape with the remnants of his Army of Northern Virginia, meet up with additional Confederate forces in North Car -
Reconstruction
The Union victory in the Civil War in 1865 may have given some 4 million slaves their freedom, but the process of rebuilding the South during the Reconstruction period (1865-1877) introduced a new set of significant challenges. Under the administration of President Andrew Johnson in 1865 and 1866, new southern state legislatures passed restrictive "black codes" to control the labor and behavior of former slaves and other African Americans. Outrage in the North over these codes eroded support for -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War.
