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Nat Turner Slave Revolt
48 hour slave rebellion in which a group of slaves unsuccessfully attempt to overthrow and kill planter families -
William Lloyd Garrison Published The Liberator
The Liberator was a weekly newspaper and it was the most influential antislavery periodical in the pre-Civil War period of U.S. history. -
American Anti-Slavery Society Begins
A white abolitionist movement in the North led by social reformers, especially William Lloyd Garrison, founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society; -
Sarah Grimke's Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women published
Initially published as a series of letters in a newspaper, Sarah Grimke's responded to Catharine Beecher's defense of the subordinate role of women -
Henry Highland Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America
Highland called for the slaves of the South to refuse to work, to approach their masters and demand their freedom, and to resist their oppressors with force if necessary -
Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls
The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention, it advertised itself as a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman -
Harriet Tubman Escapes from Slavery
Following a bout of illness and the death of her owner Harriet Tubman decided to escape slavery in Maryland for Philadelphia -
Fugitive Slave Act
Passed by the United States Congress to provide for the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another state or territory -
Compromise of 1850
Senator Henry Clay introduced a series of resolutions in an attempt to seek a compromise and avert a crisis between North and South -
Sojourner Truth Delivered her "Aint I a Woman " Speech
Ain't I a Woman" is the name given to a speech, delivered by Sojourner Truth, some time after gaining her freedom in 1827 she became a well known anti-slavery speaker -
Harriet Beecher Stowe Published Uncle Tom's Cabin
A deliberate and carefully written anti-slavery argument. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. -
Republican Party Founded
anti-slavery Whigs had begun meeting in the upper midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party, one such meeting, in Wisconsin is generally remembered as the founding meeting of the Republican Party -
Creation of the Radical Republicans
Radical Republicans believed blacks were entitled to the same political rights and opportunities as whites. They also believed that the Confederate leaders should be punished for their roles in the Civil War -
Bleeding Kansas
Series of violent civil confrontations which emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas -
Panic of 1857
Financial panic in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. -
Lecompton Constitution
Southern pro-slavery advocates of Kansas statehood. It contained clauses protecting slaveholding and a bill of rights excluding free blacks, and it added to the frictions leading up to the U.S. Civil War. -
Dred Scott Decision
The Dred Scott decision was the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford, which had been brought before the court by Dred Scott, a slave who had lived with his owner in a free state before returning to the slave state of Missouri, Scott argued that time spent in a free state entitled him to emancipation, but the court decided that no black, free or slave, could claim U.S. citizenship, and therefore blacks were unable to petition the court for their freedom -
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate and Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate -
John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry
Led 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. -
Democratic Party Splits into Northern and Southern Halves
The Democratic Party was split over the issue of slavery, in the presidential election of 1860, the Democratic Party split in two, with Stephen Douglas running for the Northern Democratic Party, and John C. Breckinridge representing the Southern Democratic Party -
Abraham Lincoln Elected President
Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, beating Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell. He was the first president from the Republican Party. -
South Carolina Secedes from the Union
At the beginning of the Civil War, shortly after President Abraham Lincoln was elected from the Republican Party in late 1860, South Carolina voted to secede and several other states joined after the war with the Union broke out. -
Firing on Fort Sumter
Bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the Confederate States Army, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War -
Confederate States of America Founded
Confederate States of America was a collection of 11 states that seceded from the United States in 1860 following the election of President Abraham Lincoln. -
Battle of Antietam
Also called the Battle of Sharpsburg, it pitted Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia against Union General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac and was the culmination of Lee’s attempt to invade the north -
Battle of Gettysburg
Considered the most important engagement of the American Civil War, General Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania, the advancing Confederates clashed with the Union’s Army of the Potomac, commanded by General George G. Meade, at the crossroads town of Gettysburg. -
Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war, the proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Gettysburg Address
Lincoln advocates the words of the Declaration of Independence; and, Lincoln accentuated the Civil War as not just a fight to preserve the Union, but to bring equality to “all” of its citizens: -
General U.S. Grant Assumed Command of Union Troops
President Abraham Lincoln signed a brief document officially promoting then-Major General Ulysses S. Grant to the rank of lieutenant general of the U.S. Army, tasking the future president with the job of leading all Union troops against the Confederate Army. -
Sherman's March to the Sea
Military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army. -
Abraham Lincoln Reelected
1864 election was the first time since 1812 that a presidential election took place during a war, for much of 1864, Lincoln himself believed he had little chance of being re-elected and because of this, McClellan was thought to be a heavy favorite to win the election but Lincoln became victorious in the end -
Lincoln Assassination
Murderous attack on Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., shot in the head by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth -
Congress Pass 13th Amendment
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime -
Lee Surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse
Near the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. -
Andrew Johnson Became President
17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson assumed the presidency as he was vice president of the United States at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. -
Johnson Announced Plans for Presidential Reconstruction
Implemented a plan of Reconstruction that gave the white South a free hand in regulating the transition from slavery to freedom and offered no role to blacks in the politics of the South -
Arrival of Scalawags and Carpetbaggers in the South
Term “carpetbaggers” refers to Northerners who moved to the South after the Civil War, during Reconstruction and many carpetbaggers were said to have moved South for their own financial and political gains. Scalawags were white Southerners who cooperated politically with black freedmen and Northern newcomers. -
Ku Klux Klan Formed
A group of Confederate veterans convenes to form a secret society that they christen the “Ku Klux Klan.” The KKK rapidly grew from a secret social fraternity to a paramilitary force bent on reversing the federal government’s progressive Reconstruction Era-activities in the South, especially policies that elevated the rights of the local African American population. -
Freedmans Bureau Established
Formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, established to help millions of former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War -
Civil Rights Act Passed Over Johnsons Veto
Congress overrides veto to enact civil rights bill, a Republican-dominated Congress enacted a landmark Civil Rights Act overriding a veto by President Andrew Johnson. The law's chief thrust was to offer protection to slaves freed in the aftermath of the Civil War. -
First Congressional Reconstruction Act Passed
Enacted in 1867–68 that outlined the conditions under which the Southern states would be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War -
14th Amendment Ratified
14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. The amendment grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" which included former slaves who had just been freed after the Civil War. -
Andrew Johnson Impeached
The impeachment of Andrew Johnson occurred in 1868, when the United States House of Representatives resolved to impeach U.S. President Andrew Johnson, adopting eleven articles of impeachment detailing his "high crimes and misdemeanors -
U.S. Grant Elected President
Election of 1868 was the 21st quadrennial presidential election, the first election of the Reconstruction Era, Republican nominee Ulysses S. Grant defeated Democrat Horatio Seymour. -
15th Amendment Ratified
Passed by Congress the 15th amendment granted African American men the right to vote. -
Period of Redemption After the Civil War
White Democratic Southerners saw themselves as redeeming the South by regaining power -
Slaughterhouse Cases
The first United States Supreme Court interpretation of the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment which had recently been enacted -
U.S. v. Cruikshank
An important United States Supreme Court decision in United States constitutional law, one of the earliest to deal with the application of the Bill of Rights to state governments following the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment -
Compromise of 1877
Informal, unwritten deal, that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and formally ended the Reconstruction Era
