Timeline to the Civil War

  • Missouri Compromise

    The Mssouri Compromise (1820) admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state
    Drew the line for the expansion of slavery at 36'30" line AKA Mason-Dixon Line.
  • Compromise of 1850

    1.Introduced the principle of popular sovereignty
    2.California is admitted as a free state
    3.Slavery question in other Mexican Cession states would be decided by popular sovereignty.
    4.Sale of skaves (but not slavery) was prohibited in Washington D.C
    5.New Fugitive slave law-required north to return runaway slaves enforced by fed govt
  • Uncle Tom's Cabin

    Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the US and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War.
  • Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

    Stephen Douglas proposed poposed popular sovereignty to decide whether these states would be slave or free.
    Kansas-Nebraska Act overturned the Missouri Compromise by allowing popular sovereignty north of 36'30"
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    Bleeding Kansas

    The violent--became known as Bleeding Kasas.
    This emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas
  • Dred Scott v Sandford

    Slaves were property not people and had no right to sue in court.
    This further justified slavery, because the Supreme Court ruled Congress had no right to restrict expansion of slavery without violating people's right to own property.
    Declared the Missouri Comromise unconstitutional.
    Slave Dred Scott was brought to free territory by his owner & sued for freedom.
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    John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry

    Struck fear in the hearts of slave owners
    Abolitionists:Hailed Brown as a martye for the cause, leading southerners to believe the felling was common on the North
    Martyr:dies for their beliefs
    Led raid on Virginia arsenal, with the hope of arming slave and starting a rebellion.
  • Election of 1860

    "Free soil" position on slavery expansion
    1860:Abraham Lincoln wins presdential election.
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    Battle of Fort Sumter

    The first shots were fired on the Union on the Fort on this day. The US Army had to surrender which led to the start of the Civil War
  • Battle of Bull Run

    Although Union troops had the upper hand in the beginning, the Confederacy was triumphant. Shockedthose who hoped the war would end quickly and who were unprepared for the carnage modern warfare would produce.
    Lincoln replaced McDowell with General G. McClellan in hopes he would lead the Union to victory.
  • Battle of Antietam

    The single bloodiest day of the war. 23,000 soldiers (23k) lay dead wounded. First Southern invasion into North. Althought the Union xperienced more losses than the Condeferacy, Lee retreated to Virginia and Lincoln had found the opportunity he needed to move foward with Emancioation Proclamtion.
  • Gettysburg Address

    Lincoln Decribes the Civil War as a struggle to fulfill the Declaration of Independence and preserve a nation "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal".
  • Emancipation Proclamation

    All persons held as slave within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against th United States, shall be then thenceforward, and forever free;
    Revieved into the armed service of the United State to Garrison forts,positions, stations, and other places.
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    Battle of Vicksburg

    The surrender of Vicksburg, and the Port Hudson, Louisiana days later, split the Confederacy in half at the Missippi River and gave the Union contro of the river, Key turnin oint in western theatre.
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    Battle of Gettysburg

    Lee retreats to Virginia. Nearly 1/3 of his fighting force was dead or wounded. Second and last attenpt of the South to invade the North!
  • Sherman's March to the Sea

    William T. Sherman also followed the total war strategy. He led his forces on a march to the sea from the Tennessee-Georgie border, utilizing scorched earth methods.
  • Presidential Reconstruction Plans

    Lincoln:The 10% Plan, only 10% of the voters in the 1860 election need to
    Oath to the Union
    Accept the terms of Emancipation.
  • Surrender at Appmattox Court House

    Lee surenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House,Virginia
  • Election of 1866

    In 1866, republicans in Congress got a veto-proof majority
    Congress used victory as a mandate
    Congressional Reconstruction plan was pass by Repubicans in Congress.
  • Republican Reconstruction

    Military Reconstruction Act of 1867
    5 military districts that split former Confederacyn and controlled by the US Army
  • Election of 1876

    A compromise was needed to settle the election results.
    Suspected fraud and undetermined winner.
  • Compromise of 1877

    Removed Union Soldired from the South end Military Reconstruction Act
    African Americans left to defend for themselves in hostile and unregulated environment of South without Proteching of federal troops
    Ended Reconstruction Era
    Resolves the election of 1876
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    Plessy v Ferguson

    Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark in 1896 U.S Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the "separte but equal" doctrine. The case stemmed from an 1892 incident in which African American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for blacks. Like Rosa Parks refusing to give a seat to a white man on a bus this is Plessy with a train.