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Treaty of Ghent, signed in the Belgian city of the same name, ends the War of 1812 between the U.S. and Britain. Historians usually consider the end of the War of 1812 to be the approximate starting point of the antebellum period.
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Buchanan had once aspired to a presidency that would rank in history with that of George Washington. However, his inability to impose peace on sharply divided partisans on the brink of the Civil War has led to his consistent ranking by historians as one of the worst presidents in American history. Historians in both 2006 and 2009 voted his failure to deal with secession the worst presidential mistake ever made.
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He spent much of the next decade on garrison duty, although he participated in several minor campaigns and expeditions to quell warring Plains Indians, including William S. Harney's 1855 campaign against the Sioux and the 1857 expedition of Edwin V. Sumner against the Cheyenne tribe. He then was involved in the Utah War in 1858 in a U.S. Army force led by Albert Sidney Johnston, a future Confederate general. He rose to the rank of captain in the Regular Army.
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For four years between 1861 and 1865 the United States engaged in a civil war. Divisions between the free North and the slaveholding South erupted into a full-scale conflict after the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860. Eleven southern states seceded from the Union, collectively turning their back on the idea of a single American nation.
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For most of the war it was Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), who proclaimed that the conflict was ultimately intended to "preserve the union" of the United States. Actual hostilities began a month after his inauguration, on April 12, 1861.
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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 which started the American Civil War were fired, at the Battle of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861
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Union troops gathered around Washington D.C. in hope of seizing Manassas, VA, which was a vital railroad, but the Confederate troops aligned the creek waiting for Union forces at Bull Run. This was the first large battle of the war. The Confederate forces defeated the Union.
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In Missouri, an elected convention on secession voted decisively to remain within the Union. When pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne F. Jackson called out the state militia, it was attacked by federal forces under General Nathaniel Lyon, who chased the governor and the rest of the State Guard to the southwestern corner of the state.
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When Confederate forces entered Kentucky in September 1861, neutrality ended and the state reaffirmed its Union status, while trying to maintain slavery. During a brief invasion by Confederate forces, Confederate sympathizers organized a secession convention, inaugurated a governor, and gained recognition from the Confederacy. The rebel government soon went into exile and never controlled Kentucky.
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After Virginia's secession, a Unionist government in Wheeling asked 48 counties to vote on an ordinance to create a new state on October 24, 1861. The inclusion of 24 secessionist counties in the state and the ensuing guerrilla war engaged about 40,000 Federal troops for much of the war. Congress admitted West Virginia to the Union on June 20, 1863. West Virginia provided about 20,000–22,000 soldiers to both the Confederacy and the Union.
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July 1-3, 1863
Location: Pennsylvania
Confederate Commander: Robert E. Lee
Federal Commander: George G. Meade
Confederate Forces Engaged: 75,000
Federal Forces Engaged: 82,289
Winner: Federals
Overall Casualties: 51,112 (U.S. - 23,049 / C.S. - 28,063) -
Almost accidentally, Confederate troops discovered Union calvary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Confederates attacked, paving the way for the largest battle of the war, lasting three days. The Union Army won the Battle of Gettysburg, destroying Lee's hopes of carrying the fighting further up North.
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Chivington gained infamy for leading a 700-man force of Colorado Territory militia during the massacre at Sand Creek in November 1864. An estimated 70–163 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho – about two-thirds of whom were women, children, and infants – were killed and mutilated by his troops.
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On April 9, 1865, General Lee surrendered to Grant waving the white flag atop a hill overlooking the Appomattox River in Virginia. General Grant later accepted General Lee's surrender in the Appomattox Court House.
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As Confederate states came back under control of the US Army, President Abraham Lincoln set up reconstructed governments in several southern states during the war, including Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
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At the end of May 1865, President Andrew Johnson announced his plans for Reconstruction, which reflected both his staunch Unionism and his firm belief in states' rights
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The Civil War, America's bloodiest conflict, cost nearly 1,100,000 casualties and claimed more than 620,000 lives
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-1 out of approximately 65 men were killed in action
-1 of 56 died from wounds
-1 of 13.5 died of disease
-1 of 10 was wounded in action
-1 of 15 was captured or reported missing
-1 of 7 captured died in prison -
On December 8, 1868, President Andrew Johnson nominated Chambers for appointment to the brevet grade of brigadier general of volunteers, to rank from March 13, 1865, for the Battle of Champion's Hill, and the U.S. Senate confirmed the appointment on February 16, 1869.
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Texas v. White was a significant case argued before the United States Supreme Court in 1869. The case involved a claim by the Reconstruction government of Texas that United States bonds owned by Texas since 1850 had been illegally sold by the Confederate state legislature during the American Civil War. The state filed suit directly with the United States Supreme Court, which, under the United States Constitution.
