Civil War Timeline

  • Missouri Compromise

    Missouri Compromise
    Under these agreements Maine was admitted as a free state and MIssouri as a slave state. Under president Madison
  • Santa Fe Trail

    Santa Fe Trail
    One of the busiest routes which stretched 780 miles from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe in Mexican provenience in New Mexico
  • San Felipe de Austin

    San Felipe de Austin
    In 1821 Stephen F. Austin established a colony where "no drunkard, no gambler, no profane swearer, and no idler" would be allowed. The main settlement of colony was named San Felipe de Austin in Stephen's honor. Each family member was granted land.
  • Harriet Tubman

    Harriet Tubman
    One of the most famous conductors was a born slave in Maryland. After Tubman's owner died she had rumors she was about to be sold. Fearing the possibility, Tubman decided to make a break for freedom and succeeded reaching Philadelphia.
  • The Liberator

    The Liberator
    William Lloyd Garrison established his own paper to deliver an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation
  • Mexico abolishes slavery

    Mexico abolishes slavery
    Many settlers were Southerners, who had brought slaves with them to Texas. Mexico, which had abolished slavery in 1829, insisted in vain that the Texans free their slaves.
  • Nat Turner's Rebellion

    Nat Turner's Rebellion
    One of the most prominent rebellions was led by Virginia slave. Turner and more than 50 followers attacked four plantations and killed about 60 whites.
  • Stephen F. Austin goes to jail

    Stephen F. Austin goes to jail
    Austin had traveled to Mexico City late in 1833 to present petitions to Mexican president Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna for greater self -government for Texas. While Austin was on his way home, Santa Anna had Austin imprisoned for inciting revolution
  • Oregon Trail

    Oregon Trail
    Stretched from the Independence, Missouri to Oregon City, Oregon. It was blazed in 1836 by Methodist missionaries named Marcus and Narcisa Whitman. Proved that wagons could travel on the Oregon Trail.
  • Texas Revolution

    Texas Revolution
    the 1836 rebellion in which Texas gained it's independence from Mexico.
  • Manidest Destiny

    Manidest Destiny
    expressed the belief that the United States was ordained to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican and Native American territory.
  • Texas enters the United States

    Texas enters the United States
    In March 1845, angered by U.S.- Texas negotiation on annexation, the Mexican government recalled its ambassador from Washington. On December 19, 1845, Texas entered the Union. Events moved quickly to war.
  • Mexican - American War

    Mexican - American War
    The war was initiatedby Mexico and resulted in Mexico's defeat and the loss of approximatey half of its national territory in the north.
  • The North Star

    The North Star
    Fredrick Douglass began his own antislavery newspaper. He names it the "North Star," after the star that guided runaway slaves to freedom.
  • Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

    Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
    On Februrary 2 1848, the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico agreed the Rio Grande as the border between Texas and Mexico and ceded the New Mexico and California territories to the United States.
  • Compromise of 1850

    Compromise of 1850
    Clay's compromise contained provisions to appease Northerners as well as Southerners. To please the North, the compromise provided that California be admitted to the Union as a free state. To please the South, the compromise proposed a new and more effective fugitive slave law. Had also provided for sovereignty in New Mexico and Utah.
  • Uncle Tom's Cabin

    Uncle Tom's Cabin
    Harriet Beecher Stowe published her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, which stressed that slavery was not just a political contest, but also a great moral struggle.
  • Kansas- Nebraska Act

    Kansas- Nebraska Act
    Became a law in 1854. Nebraska in the north and Kansas in the south. The bill would repeal the Missouri Compromise and establish popular sovereigty for both territories.
  • Dread Scott v. Sandford

    Dread Scott v. Sandford
    Dread Scott was a skave whose owner took him from a slave state of Missouri to free terriotory in Illinois and Wisconsin and back to Missouri. Scott appealed to the Supreme Court for his freedom on the grounds that living in a free state - Illinois- and a free territory- Wisconsin- had made him a free man. The case was in court for years and Supreme Court ruled against him.
  • Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Debates

    Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Debates
    Race for the U.S. senate. Neither wanted slavery in the territories, but they disagreed on how to keep it out. Douglas believed in popular sovereignty. Lincoln believed that slavery was immoral. Douglas won the Senate
  • John Brown's raid/ Harper Ferry

    John Brown's raid/ Harper Ferry
    He led a band of 21 men, black and white, into Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now west Virginia.) His aime was to seize the federal arsenal there and start a general slave uprising.
  • Abraham LIncoln becomes president

    Abraham LIncoln becomes president
    Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln emerged with less than half the popular vote and with no electoral votes from the South.
  • Formation of the Confederacy

    Formation of the Confederacy
    Delegates from the secessionist states met in Montgomery, Alabama, where they formed the Conferderate States of America, or Confederacy.
  • Attack on Fort Sumter

    Attack on Fort Sumter
    By the time Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, only four Southern forts remained in the Union hands. The most important was on an island in Charleston harbor.
  • Battle at Antietam

    Battle at Antietam
    McClellan ordered his men to pursue Lee, and the two sides fought on September 17 near a creek called Antietam. The clash proved to be the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with casualties totalling more than 26,000
  • Emancipation Proclamation

    Emancipation Proclamation
    Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The Proclamation did not free any slaves immediately because it applied only to areas behind Confederate lines, outside Union control
  • Battle of Bull Run

    Battle of Bull Run
    The first bloodshed on the battlefield occurred about three months after Fort Sumter fell, near the little creek of Bull Run., just 25 miles from Washington, D.C. The battle was a seesaw affair. After war soldiers left army and went home.
  • Conscription

    Conscription
    A draft that forced men to serve in the army.
  • Battle at Vicksburg

    Battle at Vicksburg
    in 1863, Vicksburg was one of the two remaining Confederate strongholds on the Mississippi River.
  • Battle of Gettysburg

    Battle of Gettysburg
    most decisive battle of the war was fought. began on July 1 when the Confederate soldiers led by A.P. Hill encountered several brigades of the Union cavalry under the command of John Buford, an experienced officer from Illinois.
  • Gettysburg address

    Gettysburg address
    "remade America." The speech helped the county to realize that it was not just a collection of individual staes; it was one unified nation.
  • Sherman's March

    Sherman's March
    William Tecumseh Sherman began his march southeast through Georgia to the sea, creating a wide path of destruction.
  • Thirteenth Amendment

    Thirteenth Amendment
    was ratified at the end of 1865. The U.S. Constitution now stated, "Neither slavery not involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States."
  • Surrender at Appomattox Court House

    Surrender at Appomattox Court House
    In a Virginia town, Lee and Grant met at a private home to arrange a Confederate surrender.
  • Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

    Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
    Lincoln died on April 15. John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln then leaped down from the presidential box to the stage and escaped from Ford's Theatre.
  • Abolition

    Abolition
    the movement to abolish slavery
  • Fugitive Slave

    Fugitive Slave
    Under the law, alleged fugitive slaves were not enitiled to a trial by jury. In addition, anyone convicted of helping a fugitive was liable for a fine of $1,000 and imprisonment for up to 6 months.
  • Underground railroad

    Underground railroad
    The system of escape routes they used became known as underground railroad.
  • Income Tax

    Income Tax
    a tax that takes a specified percentage of an individual's income