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Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 mandated that states to which escaped slaves fled were obligated to return them to their masters upon their discovery and subjected persons who helped runaway slaves to criminal sanctions. -
Uncle Toms Cabin
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a novel which showed the stark reality of slavery and is generally regarded as one of the major causes of the Civil War. The novel was written in 1852 by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe, a teacher at the Hartford Female Academy and a dedicated abolitionist, who was once greeted by Abraham Lincoln as the ‘little lady who started a war.’ -
The Kansas and Nebraska Act
Was a bill that mandated popular soverighty allowing settlers of a territory to decide weather slavery would be allowed within new state's boarders. -
The Dred Scott Decision
On this day in 1857, the United States Supreme Court issues a decision in the Dred Scott case, affirming the right of slave owners to take their slaves into the Western territories, thereby negating the doctrine of popular sovereignty and severely undermining the platform of the newly created Republican Party. -
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John Brown Raid
bolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery. -
Election of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency -
Battle of Fort Sumter
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. At 2:30pm on April 13 Major Robert Anderson, garrison commander, surrendered the fort and was evacuated the next day. -
The First Battle of Bull Run(Mansses)
This was the first major land battle of the armies in Virginia. On July 16, 1861, the untried Union army under Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell marched from Washington against the Confederate army, which was drawn up behind Bull Run beyond Centreville. On the 21st, McDowell crossed at Sudley Ford and attacked the Confederate left flank on Matthews Hill. -
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The Merrimack v. Monitor
On March 8, 1862, from her berth at Norfolk, the Confederate ironclad Virginia steamed into Hampton Roads where she sank Cumberland and ran Congress aground. On March 9, the Union ironclad Monitor having fortuitously arrived to do battle, initiated the first engagement of ironclads in history. The two ships fought each other to a standstill, but Virginia retired. -
Battle of Antietam
The Army of the Potomac, under the command of George McClellan, mounted a series of powerful assaults against Robert E. Lee’s forces near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862. The morning assault and vicious Confederate counterattacks swept back and forth through Miller’s Cornfield and the West Woods. Later, towards the center of the battlefield, Union assaults against the Sunken Road pierced the Confederate center after a terrible struggle. Late in the day, the third and final major assa -
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, as the country entered the third year of the Civil War. It declared that all persons held as slaves shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free but it applied only to states designated as being in rebellion, not to the slave-holding border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri or to areas of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control. The careful planning of this document -
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Battle of Vicksburg
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. With the loss of Pemberton’s army and this vital stronghold on the Mississippi, the Confederacy was effectively split in half. Grant's successes in the West boosted his reputation -
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Battle of Gettysburg
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The CSS Hunley Successfully Sinks a Union Ship
On this day in 1863, the C.S.S. Hunley, the world's first successful combat submarine, sinks during a test run, killing its inventor and seven crewmembers. -
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Shermans March
Sherman’s March to the Sea is the name commonly given to the Savannah Campaign by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman taking place from November 15, 1864 to December 21, 1864. which followed the successful Atlanta Campaign. After leaving the decimated city of Atlanta on November 16, Sherman led his troops on a destructive campaign which concluded with the capture of the port city of Savannah on December 21. -
Passing of the 13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States and was the first of three Reconstruction Amendments adopted in the five years following the American Civil War. The 13th Amendment, passed by Congress January 31, 1865, and ratified December 6, 1865, states.
1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.- Congress shall hav
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The Surrender at Bennett Place
In April 1865, two battle-weary adversaries, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston and Union General William T. Sherman, met under a flag of truce to discuss a peaceful solution to the tragic Civil War. -
The Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse
Harried mercilessly by Federal troops and continually cut off from turning south, Lee headed west, eventually arriving in Appomattox County on April 8. Heading for the South Side Railroad at Appomattox Station, where food supplies awaited, the Confederates were cut off once again and nearly surrounded by Union troops near the small village of Appomattox Court House. Despite a final desperate attempt to escape, Lee’s army was trapped. General Lee surrendered his remaining troops to General Gra -
Assationation of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States, was the first American president to be assassinated. He was mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth in the Presidential Box of Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., while watching the comedy, Our American Cousin. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1866
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 granted citizenship and the same rights enjoyed by white citizens to all male persons in the United States "without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude. -
The Passing of the !4th Amendment
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868, and granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, which included former slaves recently freed. In addition, it forbids states from denying any person life, liberty or property, without due process of law" or to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.By directly mentioning the role of the states, the 14th Amendment greatly expanded the protection of civil -
The impeachement of Andrew Jackson
Johnson was impeached on February 24, 1868, in the U.S. House of Representatives on eleven articles of impeachment detailing his "high crimes and misdemeanors",[1] in accordance with Article Two of the United States Constitution. The House's primary charge against Johnson was with violation of the Tenure of Office Act, passed by Congress the previous year. Specifically, he had removed Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War who the Tenure of Office Act was largely designed to protect, from off -
Election of 1876
The election of 1876 was intensely fought and had a highly controversial outcome. The candidate who clearly won the popular vote, and who may have won the electoral college tally, was denied victory. -
Compromise of 1877
The Democrats agreed not to block Hayes' victory on the condition that Republicans withdraw all federal troops from the South, thus consolidating Democratic control over the region. As a result of the so-called Compromise of 1877 or Compromise of 1876, Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina became Democratic once again, effectively marking the end of the Reconstruction era.
