Civil War Timeline

  • Compromise of 1850

    Compromise of 1850
    the admission of California as a free state, the strengthening of the Fugitive Slave Law; popular sovereignty in Utah and New Mexico concerning the question of slavery; the abolition of the slave trade in D.C.; and the federal assumption of Texas's debt.
  • Fugitive Slave Law

    Fugitive Slave Law
    The Act was strengthened at the insistence of the slave states of the South by the Compromise of 1850, which required even the governments and residents of free states to enforce the capture and return of fugitive slaves.
  • Kansas- Nebraska Act

    Kansas- Nebraska Act
    It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders.
  • Lincoln- Douglas Debates

    Lincoln- Douglas Debates
    The series of seven debates between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois state election campaign.
  • Parties split

    Parties split
    The Democratic party splits over the issue of slavery
  • Civil War begins

    Civil War begins
    The Battle of Fort Sumter was the 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.
  • Battle of Antietam

    Battle of Antietam
    Lee invades the North, within the first three hours, 12,000 soldiers killed. The battle was a draw
  • Emancipation Proclamation

    Emancipation Proclamation
    The Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to the slaves in the Confederate States
  • The Battle of Gettysburg

    The Battle of Gettysburg
    The "turning point" in the war