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Jefferson Davis
a United States soldier and statesman, and was the President of the Confederate States of America during the entire Civil War which was fought from 1861 to 1865. He took personal charge of the Confederate war plans but was unable to find a strategy to defeat the larger, more powerful and better organized Union. His diplomatic efforts failed to gain recognition from any foreign country. At home he paid little attention to the collapsing Confederate economy; the government printed more and more pa -
Missouri Compromise
a series of agreements passed by Congress in 1820-1821 to maintain the balance of power between slave states and free states. -
The compromise of 1850
a network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century slaves of African descent in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. -
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 (10 Stat. 277) created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing white male settlers in those territories to determine through popular sovereignty whether they would allow slavery within each territory. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford
a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that African Americans, whether slave or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court, and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Debates
a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for the Senate in Illinois, and Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. At the time, U.S. senators were elected by state legislatures; thus Lincoln and Douglas were trying for their respective parties to win control of the Illinois legislature. -
John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry
an attempt by the white abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt in 1859 by seizing a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. -
Formation of the Confederacy
States began seceding after the Election of Abraham Lincoln, even before he was inaugurated. South Carolina (December 20, 1860), Mississippi (January 9, 1861), Florida (January 10, 1861), Alabama (January 11, 1861), Georgia (January 19, 1861), Louisiana (January 26, 1861), and Texas (February 1, 1861). On February 4, 1861, the states farthest south, where slavery and plantations agriculture were dominant, formed the Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as President. They establish -
Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter is a Third System masonry sea fort located in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The fort is best known as the site upon which the shots that started the American Civil War were fired, at the Battle of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. In 1966, the site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. -
Bull Run
The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as First Manassas (the name used by Confederate forces), was fought on July 21, 1861, in Prince William County, Virginia, near the city of Manassas. It was the first major land battle of the American Civil War. -
Antietam
The Battle of Antietam also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, particularly in the South, fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek as part of the Maryland Campaign, was the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Union soil. It is the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with a combined tally of dead, wounded, and missing at 22,717. -
Emancipation Proclamation
an executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1,1863,freeing the slaves in all regions behind Confederate lines. -
Vicksburg
the final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate Army of Vicksburg led by Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. -
The Gettysburg Address
A famous speech delivere by Abraham Lincoln in November 1863,at the dedication of a national cemetery on the cite of the Battle of Gettysburg. -
William Tecumseh Sherman and his March (a.k.a. Sherman's March)
Sherman's March to the Sea is the name commonly given to the military Savannah Campaign in the American Civil War, conducted through Georgia from November 15 to December 21, 1864 by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army. 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. -
The Thirteenth Amendment
an amendment to the U.S. Constitution,adoptd in 1865,that has abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. -
Appomattox Court House
town near Appomatox,Virginia,where Lee surrendred to Grant on April 9,1865 -
Assasination of Abraham Lincoln
United States President Abraham Lincoln was shot on Good Friday,[1] April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army of the Potomac, ending the American Civil War. -
Underground Railroad
a system of routes along which runwaay slaves wew helped to escape to Canada or to safe areas in the free states. -
Conscription
the drafting of citizens for military service -
Income Tax
a tax on earings
