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Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
2/2/1848 was signed The Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo between the United States and Mexico. It ended the Mexican-American war 1846-48 and added more than 1 million square miles to the United States. The treaty came into force on July 4 1848. -
Tension in Kansas and Nebraska
The Kansas and Nebraska territory lay north of the Missouri Compromise line and therefore was legally closed to slavery. Stephen A. Douglas introduced a bill in Congress on January 23, 1854, that would divide the area into two territories: Nebraska in the north and Kansas in the south. If passed the bill would repeal the Missouri Compromise and establish popular sovereignty for both territories. -
Dred Scott decision
On March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott. According to the ruling, Scott lacked any legal standing to sue in federal court because he was not, and never could be, a citizen. Dred Scott was 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. -
Harpers Ferry
On the night o October 16, 1859, John Brown led a band o 21 men, black and white, into Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). His aim was to seize the ederal arsenal there and start a general slave uprising. He was studying the slave uprisings that had occurred in ancient Rome and, more recently, on the French island o Haiti. He believed that the time was ripe or similar uprisings in the United States. -
Abraham Lincoln's election
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. Lincoln received only 40 percent of the popular vote but handily defeated the three other candidates: Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, a U.S. senator for Illinois. -
Bull Run
The first Battle of Bull Run was the 1st major battle of the Civil War won by the Confederate. -
Battle of Antietam
The Battle of Antietam is the bloodiest day in United States history. Over 26,000 men are killed, wounded or missing in action on both sides. Though officially a draw, the battle stops General Robert E. Lee's invasion of Maryland and he retreats back to Virginia. -
Emmancipation Proclamation
On January 1 1863, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The following portion captured national attention. Emmancipation was not just a moral issue; it became a weapon of war. -
Battle of Gettysburg
Battle of Gettysburg was the most decisive battle of the war. It began on July 1 when Confederate soldiers led by A.P. Hill encountered several brigades of Union cavalry under the command of John Buford, an experienced officer from Illinois. -
Battle at Vicksburg
Far to the West on the Mississippi River, General Ulysses S. Grant takes Vicksburg after a long siege. At this point, the Union controls the entire river, cutting the Confederacy in two. -
Creation of the Freedmen's Bureau
The Freedmen's Bureau was established by an act of Congress on March 3 1865. -
Appomattox
On April 3, 1865, Union troops conquered Richmond, the Confederate capital. Southerners had abandoned the city the day before, setting it afire to keep the Northerners from taking it. -
Thirteenth Amendment
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially abolished slavery in America, and was ratified on December 6, 1865, after the conclusion of the American Civil War. -
U.S.Grant elected
In the 1868 presidential election, the Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant won by a margin of only 306,000 votes out of almost 6 million ballots cast. More than 500,000 Southern African Americans had voted. Of this number, 9 out of 10 voted for Grant. -
Elections
A few days before the electoral votes were to be tabulated, the Electoral Commission Law was signed by President Grant. It applied strictly to the electoral count of the 1876 election, and created a 15-member commission to rule on disputed electoral votes.
