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The Missouri Compromise
In the years leading up to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, tensions began to rise between pro-slavery and anti-slavery. -
The Mexican War
The Mexican American War marked the first U.S. armed conflict chiefly fought on foreign soil. The war ended in 2 years so it went from 1846 to 1848. -
Compromise of 1850
Divisions over slavery in territory gained in the Mexican-American. War were resolved in the Compromise of 1850. -
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
This was one of the most controversial elements of the 1850 compromise and heightened Northern fears of a slave power conspiracy. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Douglas hoped that the formula of "popular sovereignty" would ease national tensions over the issue of human bondage and that he would not have to take a side on the issue. -
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas is the term used to described the period of violence during the settling of the Kansas territory. -
‘Bleeding Sumner’ Brooks-Sumner fight
Without warning, Brooks rushed forward and began beating the unsuspecting Sumner savagely with a gold-tipped wooden cane. -
Dred Scott Decision
Although Taney hoped that his ruling would settle the slavery question once and for all, the decision immediately spurred vehement dissent from anti-slavery elements in the North, especially Republicans. -
John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia
Descending upon the town in the early hours of October 17th, Brown and his men captured prominent citizens and seized the federal armory and arsenal. -
Election of 1860
Before Lincoln's inauguration, seven Southern states declared their secession and later formed the Confederacy. -
Battle of Fort Sumter, 1861
On April 12, 1861, General P.G.T. Beauregard, in command of the Confederate forces around Charleston Harbor, opened fire on the Union garrison holding Fort Sumter. -
The Union’s ‘Anaconda Plan’
The Anaconda Plan or Scott's Great Snake is the name widely applied to an outline strategy for subduing the seceding states in the American Civil War. -
South Carolina secedes from Union
South Carolina was a source of troops for the Confederate army, and as the war progressed, also for the Union as thousands of ex-slaves flocked to join the Union forces. -
Battle of Antietam
After pursuing Confederate General Robert E. Lee into Maryland, Union Army Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan launched attacks against Lee's army, in defensive positions behind Antietam Creek. At dawn on September 17, Maj. Gen. -
Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. -
Battle of Gettysburg
After his success at Chancellorsville in Virginia in May 1863, Lee led his army through the Shenandoah Valley to begin his second invasion of the North—the Gettysburg Campaign. -
Sherman’s March to the Sea
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. -
Confederate Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse
The signing of the surrender documents occurred in the parlor of the house owned by Wilmer McLean on the afternoon of April 9.