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Missouri Compromise
Maine would enter as a free state and Missouri would enter as a slave state, thus preserving the balance in the Senate. Beginning of the Civil War time period. -
Nat Turner Slave Rebellion
Aug 21, 1831– Aug 23, 1831
The Black preacher, Nat Turner, believed his mission on Earth was to free his people from slavery. Caused slave owners to implement more slave laws. Slave laws beginning to be the issue of the Civil War. -
Wilmot Proviso
Proposal to stop slavery from spreading from the territory where Mexico was. The issue of whether to allow or prohibit slavery in new states remained unresolved and sectionalism was growing more intense. The political differences would soon cause a full blown war. -
War with Mexico
Apr 25, 1846 – Feb 2, 1848
The Mexican War began after the United States annexed
Texas and insisted that the new border with Mexico was the Rio
Grande River. The United States had twice attempted to purchase the territories from Mexico. -
Compromise of 1850
Northern Whigs and Southern Democrats engaged in heated attacks on one another over the status of slavery in the Mexican Cession. Shortly after the discovery of gold happened in California and the population rapidly increased. Continuing the discussion of slavery. -
Fugitive Slave Act
The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves. -
Publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Uncle Tom’s Cabin brought the issue of abolition into middle class homes of the 1850s. Slavery continues to be the only common thread leading up to the civil war. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was an unsuccessful attempt to
use popular sovereignty as a solution to the slavery question. These events represent mounting sectional division. -
Bleeding Kansas
1855-1860
Proslavery Kansans reacted by raising their own army.
Violence between the two sides created warlike conditions that led to the territory being referred to as
"Bleeding Kansas." Popular sovereignty had failed. -
Dred Scott Decision
a lawsuit in which a slave named Dred Scott claimed he should be a free man. The Supreme Court rejected Scott's claim, ruling that no enslaved or free Black could be a citizen of the United States. The Court saidCongress could not prohibit slavery in federal territories. Thus, the Court found the Missouri Compromise of 1820 were unconstitutional. -
John Brown’s Raid on Harper's Ferry
Oct 16, 1859 – Oct 18, 1859
John Brown, an ardent abolitionist, decided to fight slavery with violence and killing; believing he was chosen by God
to end slavery, Brown commanded family members and other abolitionists to attack proslavery settlers
in Kansas killing five men. -
Abraham Lincoln elected president
President Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. The immediate reaction by the states
of the Deep South was secession. The trigger event that prompted the outbreak of the Civil War was Abraham Lincoln's Republican victory in
the 1860 Presidential election. -
South Carolina secedes
Upon Lincoln's election, South Carolina voted to secede (separate from) the United States. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and then Texas followed South Carolina in their break
from the United States. -
Formation of the Confederate State of America
After the succesion of South Carolina, several other southern states favoring slavery did so as well along with it. Slavery is one of the main reasons for the cause of the civil war. -
Fort Sumter
Apr 12, 1861 – Apr 13, 1861
Confederate forces attacked the Fort Sumter, South Carolina United States Army fortification in April 1861, which marked
the beginning of the long-feared Civil War. -
Antietam
The Battle of Antietam was fought in
September 1862. Confederate General Robert
E. Lee marched his forces to Antietam Creek,
Maryland, where he fought the war's first major
battle on Union soil. -
Vicksburg
May 18, 1863-July 4, 1863
The Battle of Vicksburg was fought over a span of two months from May through July 1863.
Union General Ulysses S. Grant laid siege to Vicksburg
Because the Union now controlled the Mississippi River,
Confederate troops and supplies from Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas were cut off from the East. -
Gettysburg
July 1–3, 1863
The Battle of Gettysburg was
fought in July 1863.
Confederate General Robert E.
Lee hoped once again that an
invasion of Union territory
would significantly weaken
Northern support for the war effort. It
was the deadliest battle of the
American Civil War.Gettysburg marked the
beginning of the end for the
Confederate forces in the east -
Appomattox Courthouse
Robert E. Lee ultimately surrendered to
General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia on April 9, 1865 to
end the war.
