-
The 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the US throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable.
-
The movement to abolish slavery, became the most important of a series of reform movements in America.
-
The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century enslaved people of African descent in the United States in efforts to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause.
-
Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist, humanitarian, and an armed scout and spy for the United States Army during the American Civil War.
-
On April 9, 1865, in a Virginia town called Appomattox Court House, Lee and Grant met at a private home to arrange a Confederate surrender. At Lincoln’s request, the terms were generous. Grant paroled Lee’s soldiers and sent them home with their possessions and three days’ worth of rations. Officers were permitted to keep their sidearms. Within a month all remaining Confederate resistance collapsed. After four long years, the Civil War was over.
-
The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865.
-
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 until December 21, 1864, Union General William T. Sherman led some 60,000 soldiers on a 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. The purpose of this “March to the Sea” was to frighten Georgia's civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause
-
The Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. The Proclamation applied in the ten states that were still in rebellion in 1863, and thus did not cover the nearly 500,000 slaves in the slave-holding border states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland or Delaware) which were Union states. Those slaves were freed by later separate state and federal actions.
-
The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, one of the best-known in American history.
-
The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War.
-
The Siege of Vicksburg was the final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War.In May and June of 1863, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's armies converged on Vicksburg, investing the city and entrapping a Confederate army under Lt. Gen. John Pemberton. On July 4, Vicksburg surrendered after prolonged siege operations. This was the culmination of one of the most brilliant military campaigns of the war.
-
The Battle of Antietam /ænˈtiːtəm/, also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, particularly in the South, was fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland and Antietam Creek as part of the Maryland Campaign.
-
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 established their capital at Montgomery, Alabama and took over federal forts on their territory.
-
The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as Battle of First Manassas, was fought on July 21, 1861 in Prince William County, Virginia, near the city of Manassas, not far from Washington, D.C. It was the first major battle of the American Civil War.
-
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of U.S. Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, by the Confederates, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the U.S. Army that started the American Civil War.
-
In 1861, Lincoln imposes the first federal income tax by signing the Revenue Act. Strapped for cash with which to pursue the Civil War, Lincoln and Congress agreed to impose a 3 percent tax on annual incomes over $800.
-
As the 1860 presidential election approached,
the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln appeared to be moderate in his views. Although he pledged to halt the further spread of slavery, he also tried to reassure Southerners that a Republican administration would not “interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves.” Nonetheless, many Southerners viewed him as an enemy. -
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an effort by white abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in 1859 by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
-
The 1858 race for the U.S. Senate between Democratic incumbent Stephen Douglas and Republican challenger Congressman Abraham Lincoln. To many outsiders it must have seemed like an uneven match. Douglas was a well-known two-term senator with an outstanding record and a large campaign chest, while Lincoln was a self educated man who had been elected to one term in Congress in 1846.
-
A major Supreme Court decision was brought about by Dred Scott, a slave whose owner took him from the slave state of Missouri to free territory in Illinois and Wisconsin and back to Missouri. Scott appealed to the Supreme Court for his freedom on the grounds that living in a free state—Illinois—and a free territory—Wisconsin—had made him a free man.
-
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 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´.
-
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War.
-
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican–American War.
-
Fugitive Slave Act surprised many people. Under the law, alleged fugitive slaves were not entitled to a trial by jury. In addition, anyone convicted of helping a fugitive was liable for a fine of $1,000 and imprisonment for up to six months. Infuriated by the Fugitive Slave Act, some Northerners resisted it by sending endangered African Americans to safety in Canada. Others resorted to violence to rescue fugitive slaves. Still others worked to help slaves escape from slavery.
-
On February 2,1848, the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico agreed to the Rio Grande as the border between Texas and Mexico and ceded the New Mexico and California territories to the United States.
-
Frederick Douglass escaped from bondage to become an eloquent and outspoken critic of slavery. In 1847, Douglass began his own antislavery newspaper. He named it The North Star, after the star that guided runaway slaves to freedom.
-
The Mexican–American War, also known as the Mexican War, the U.S.–Mexican War or the Invasion of Mexico, was an armed conflict between the United States of America and the United Mexican States from 1846 to 1848. It followed in the wake of the 1845 US annexation of Texas, which Mexico considered part of its territory, despite the 1836 Texas Revolution.
-
The Texans killed 630 of Santa Anna’s soldiers in 18 minutes
and captured Santa Anna himself. The Texans set Santa Anna free after he signed the Treaty of Velasco, which granted independence to Texas. -
The Texas Revolution began when colonists in the Mexican province of Texas rebelled against the increasingly centralist Mexican government.
-
Austin had traveled to Mexico City late in 1833 to present petitions to Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna for greater self-government for Texas. While Austin was on his way home, Santa Anna had Austin imprisoned for inciting revolution.
-
Some slaves rebelled against their condition of
bondage. One of the most prominent rebellions was led by Virginia slave Nat Turner. In August 1831, Turner and more than 50 followers attacked four plantations and killed about 60 whites. Whites eventually captured and executed many members of the group, including Turner. -
Many of the settlers were Southerners, had brought slaves with them to Texas. Mexico had abolished slavery in 1829, insisted that the Texans free their slaves.
-
The most radical white abolitionist was a young editor named William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison became the editor of an antislavery paper in 1828. Three years later he established his own paper, The Liberator, to deliver an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation
-
Santa Fe Trail, which stretched 780 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe in the Mexican province of New Mexico, was one of the busiest routes. Each spring from 1821 through the 1860s, American traders loaded their covered wagons with goods and set off toward Santa Fe.
-
The Oregon Trail stretched from Independence,
Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon. It was found in 1836 by
two methodist missionaries named Marcus and Narcissa
Whitman. They proved that wagons could travel on the Oregon Trail. Many pioneers migrated west on the Oregon Trail. The trip took months, even if all went well. -
Moses Austin, had received a land from Spain to establish a colony between the Brazos and Colorado rivers Stephen his son, in 1821 established a colony where “no drunkard, no gambler, and no profane swearer would be allowed. The main settlement of the colony was named San Felipe de Austin. By 1825, Austin had issued 297 land grants. Each family received either 177 inexpensive acres of farmland, or 4,428 acres for stock grazing, as well as a 10-year exemption from paying taxes.
-
Compulsory enlistment for state service, typically into the armed forces.
