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First Issue of the Liberator
The Liberator was a newspaper article. This was Americas most ardent anti-slavery agitator. This pronouncement marked the beginning of the anti-slavery campaign. William Lloyd Garrison was the author of this newspaper. They once said " Our Country is the World-Our country man is our mankind." -
Compromise of 1850
This Compromise ended slave trade in Washington D.C., and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves. They gained the territory New Mexico over a war for the Compromise of 1850. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin published
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is published. The novel sold 300,000 copies within three months and was so widely read that when President Abraham Lincoln met Stowe in 1862, he reportedly said, “So this is the little lady who made this big war.” This changed America and how we viewed slavery. -
Kansas, Nebraska Act
This act allowed people in Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves weather or not slavery within their borders. Abraham Lincoln passed this act. Slave owners were not happy with this and anti-slaves were excited for this act to be passed. -
Dred Scott decision
Dred Scott was a slave who had resided in a free state and territory. He wanted to change the law of slavery and of black rights. -
James Buchanan swore into office as 15th president
James Buchanan was in office from 1857-1861. He was teetering on the civil war. Buchanan was a Pennsylvania candidate and won president of the U.S. -
Raid at Harpers Ferry
John Brown hoped to arm enslaved African Americans and start a revolt against slaveholders He ended up defeated and killed. The North was shocked . John was a martyr. The South was frightened because they didn't like the violence. -
Abe Lincoln Elected President
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 was a Kentucky lawyer. The Democratic party split. -
South Carolina Secedes from the Union
When Abe Lincoln was elected South Carolina Seceded. South Carolina acted first, calling for a convention to secede from the Union. State by state, conventions were held, and the confederacy was formed. -
Battle of Fort Sumter Begins
On April 12, 1861, General P.G.T. Beauregard, in command of the Confederate forces around Charleston Harbor, opened fire on the Union garrison holding Fort Sumter. Garrison evacuated the fort the next day. -
First Battle of Bull Run Begins
This was the first major land battle of the armies in Virginia. On July 16, 1861, the untried Union army under Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell marched from Washington against the Confederate army.Jackson got the nickname "stonewall" because he would not retreat. -
Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. America was in it's third year of the Civil War when it was issued. It declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Battle of Gettysburg Begins
Lee ordered an attack by fewer than 15,000 troops on the enemy’s center at Cemetery Ridge. The assault, known as “Pickett’s Charge,” managed to pierce the Union lines but eventually failed, at the cost of thousands of rebel casualties, and Lee was forced to withdraw his battered army toward Virginia on July 4. -
Sherman's March to the Sea Begins
Union General William T. Sherman begins his expedition across Georgia by torching the industrial section of Atlanta and pulling away from his supply lines. For the next six weeks, Sherman’s army destroyed most of the state before capturing the Confederate seaport of Savannah, Georgia.Sherman captured Atlanta in early September 1864 after a long summer campaign. He recognized his vulnerability in the city, however, as his supply lines stretched all the way from Nashville, Tennessee. -
The Surrender at Appomattox Court House
Harried mercilessly by Federal troops and continually cut off from turning south, Lee headed west, eventually arriving in Appomattox County on April 8. Despite a final desperation to escape, Lee's army was trapped. -
Lincoln's Assassination
John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War.
