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Underground Railroad
To escape from slavery- travel of foot at night, use North Star and other natural signs for direction, avoid patrols or armed men on horseback, struggle through forests, and across rivers. Free African American and white abolitionists developed a secret network of people who would, at great risk to themselves, hide fugitive slaves. The system of escape routes became known as the Underground Railroad which has secret tunnels and false cupboards. -
The liberator
The liberator was published from 1831 to 1865. Its circulation never grew beyond 3,000. The most radical abolitionist was a young editor named William Lloyd Garrison. Active in religious reform movements three years later he established his own paper, the liberator, to deliver an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation. -
Nat Turners rebellion
Some slaves rebelled against their condition of bondage. One of the most prominent rebellions were led by Virginia slave Nat Turner. In Augusta 1831, turner and more than 50 followers attacked four plantations and killed about 69 whites. Whites eventually captured and executed many members of the group, including Turner. -
The north star
Frederick Douglass: One of those eager readers who escaped form bondage to become an eloquent and outspoken critic of slavery. Garrison heard his speak Oman’s was so impressed that he sponsored Douglass to speak for various ant-slavery organizations. Hoping that abolition justified whatever means necessary to achieve it. In 1847, Douglass began him own antislavery newspaper he mailed it “The a North Star”, after the Star they guided runaway slaves to freedom. -
Compromise of 1850
The border was dispute in which the slaves state of Texas claimed the stern half of the New Mexico territory where the issue if slavery had not yet been settled. Henry clay worker to shape a compromise that both the north and the cough could accept. To please the north- union as a free California state. South- new and effective fugitive slave law. A provision allowed POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY, the right to vote for it against slavery, for residents of the New Mexico and Utah territories. Kansas v. Neb -
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman was called “Moses” by those she helped escape on the Underground Railroad. Tubman opened a home for elderly, orphaned. And needy African Americans. She was born a slave in Maryland in 1820. In 1849, after Tubman’s owner died. Fearing she was about to be sold she makes a break for freedom and reached Philadelphia. Tubman resolves to become a dory tot of the Underground Railroad. She made 19 trips back to the south and is said to have helped 300 slaves, including her parents. -
Fugitive slave act
Under the law, alleged fugitive slaves were not entitled to a trial by jury. anyone convicted of helping a fugitive was liable for a fine of $1,000 and Imprisoned for up to 6 months. Northerners resister it by organizing “vigilance committees” to send endangered African Americans to safety in Canada. Others resorted to violence to rescue fugitive slaves. Still others worked to help slaves escape for slavery. -
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe published her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which stresses that slavery was not just a political contest, but also a greater moral struggle. A young girl, Stowe had watched boats filled with people on their way to be sold at slave markets. It expressed her lifetime hatred of slavery. The book stirred northern abolitionists to increase their protests against the fugitive slave act which, southerners criticize the book as an attack on the south. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas and Nebraska territory lay north of the Missouri compromise line of 36 30’ and therefore was legally closed to slavery. Douglas introduces a bill in Congress on Jan 23,1854, that would divide the area into two territories: Nebraska in the north and Kansas in the south. After months of struggle the Kansas-Nebraska Act became law. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott was a slave whose owner took him from the slave state of Missouri. Scott appealed to the Supreme Court for his freedom in the grounds that living in a free state -Illinois- and a free territory- Wisconsin- had made him a free man. The courts decision made two key findings. First, it help that because Scott was a slave, he was not a citizen and had no right to sue in a United States court. -
Abolition
Abolition, the movement to abolish slavery, become the most important of a series of reform movements in America. Fourteen unwavering belief that he was an American not only led him to oppose colonialization-the effort to resettle free blacks in Africa- but also pushed him fervently to oppose slavery. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debates
The race for the U.S. Senate between Democratic incumbent Stephen Douglas and Republican challenger Congressman Abraham Lincoln. Neither wanted slavery in the territories, but they disagreed on how to keep it out. Douglas believed deeply in popular sovereignty. Lincoln, believed that slavery was immoral. In their second debate, Lincoln asked his opponent a question: Could the settlers of a territory vote to exclude slavery before the territory became a state? Douglas won the Senate seat. -
John browns raid /Harpers ferry
Brown secretly obtained financial backing from several prominent Northern abolitionists.He led a band of 21 men, into Harpers Ferry, Virginia. troops put down the rebellion. Authorities tried Brown and put him to death. Public reaction to Brown’s execution was intense in both sections of the country. In the North, guns fired salutes, and huge crowds heard speakers denounce the South. There where mobs assaulted whites who were suspected of holding antislavery views in the south. -
Abraham Lincoln becomes president
Lincoln pledged to halt the further spread of slavery, he also tried to reassure Southerners that a Republican administration would not “inter- fere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves.” Nonetheless, many Southerners viewed him as an enemy. Northern Democrats rallied behind Douglas and his doctrine of popular sovereignty. Southern Democrats, who supported the Dred Scott decision, lined up behind Vice-President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. Lincoln emerged as the winner. -
Formation of the confederacy
When the news reached Northern-born William Tecumseh Sherman, superin- tendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy (now Louisiana State University), he poured out his fears for the South. Mississippi soon followed South Carolina’s lead, as did Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. In February 1861, delegates from the secessionist states met in Montgomery, Alabama, where they formed the Confederate States of America, or Confederacy. Jefferson D pres of miss -
Attack on fort Sumter
By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861, only four Southern forts remained in Union hands. The most important was Fort Sumter, on an island in Charleston harbor.
Lincoln decided to neither abandon Fort Sumter nor reinforce it. He would merely send in “food for hungry men.” At 4:30 A.M. on April 12, Confederate bat- teries began thundering away to the cheers of Charleston’s citizens. The deadly struggle between North and South was under way. -
Battle of Bull Run
The first bloodshed on the battlefield occurred 3 months after Fort Sumter fell, just 25 miles from Washington, D.C. In the morning the Union army gained the upper hand, but the Confederates held firm, inspired by General Thomas J. Jackson. Confederate reinforcements helped win the first Southern victory. The Confederates were too exhausted to follow up their victory with an attack on Washington. Many Confederate soldiers, confi- dent that the war was over, left the army and went home. -
Income tax
The war’s effect on the economy of the North was much more positive. The army’s need for supplies supported woolen mills, steel foundries, and others. Wages didn’t keep up with prices. When white male workers went out on strike, employees hired free blacks, immigrants, and women to replace them for lower wages. As the Northern economy grew, Congress decided to help pay for the war by collecting the nation’s first income tax, a tax that takes a specified percentage of an individual’s income. -
Battle of Antietam
In September his troops crossed the Potomac into the Union state of Maryland. McClellan ordered his men to pursue Lee, and the two sides fought on September 17 near a creek called the Antietam. The clash proved to be the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with casualties totaling more than 26,000. The next day, instead of pursuing the battered Confederate army into Virginia and possibly ending the war, McClellan did nothing. As a result, Lincoln removed him from command. -
Emancipation proclamation
Although Lincoln disliked slavery, he didn’t believe that the federal government had the power to abolish it where it already existed. Lincoln’s powers as commander in chief allowed him to order his troops to seize enemy resources. just as he could order the Union army to take supplies, he authorized the army to emancipate slaves. Emancipation became a weapon of war. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The following portion captured national attention. -
Conscription
The war led to social upheaval and political unrest in both the North and the South. As the fighting intensified, heavy casualties and widespread desertions led each side to impose conscription, a draft that forced men to serve in the army. In the North, conscription led to draft riots, the most violent of which took place in New York City. Sweeping changes occurred in the wartime economies of both sides as well as in the roles played by African Americans and women. -
Gettysburg address
In November 1863, a ceremony was held to ded- icate a cemetery in Gettysburg. There, President Lincoln spoke for a little more than two minutes. According to some contemporary historians, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address “remade America.” Before Lincoln’s speech, people said, “The United States are . . .” Afterward, they said, “The United States is . . .” In other words, the speech helped the country to realize that it was not just a col- lection of individual states; it was one unified nation. -
Battle of Vicksburg (1)
Union general Ulysses S. Grant fought to take Vicksburg, one of the two remaining Confederate strongholds on the Mississippi River. Vicksburg rested on bluffs above the river from which guns could control all water traffic. Grant tried several schemes to reach Vicksburg and take it from the Confederates. He sent Benjamin Grierson to lead his cavalry brigade through the heart of Mississippi. Grierson succeeded in destroying rail lines and distracting Confederate forces from Union infantry. -
Battle at Vicksburg (2)
Grant was able to land his troops south of Vicksburg on April 30 and immediately sent his men in search of Confederate troops in Mississippi. In 18 days, Union forces had sacked Jackson, the capital of the state.
Grant and his troops rushed to Vicksburg, hoping to take the city while the rebels were reeling from their losses. Grant ordered two frontal attacks on Vicksburg, neither of which succeeded. the last week of May 1863, Grant settled in for a siege. -
Battle at Vicksburg (3)
After food supplies ran so low that people were reduced to eating dogs and mules, the Confederate command of Vicksburg asked Grant for terms of surrender. The city fell on July 4. Five days later Port Hudson, Louisiana, the last Confederate holdout on the Mississippi, also fell. The Union had achieved another of its major military objectives, and the Confederacy was cut in two. -
Battle of Gettysburg (1)
Confederate soldiers led by A. P. Hill encoun- tered several brigades of Union cavalry under the command of John Buford. He ordered his men to take defensive positions on the hills and ridges around town. When Hill’s troops marched toward the town from the west, Buford’s men were waiting. By the end of the first day of fighting, 90,000 Union troops under the command of General George Meade had taken the field against 75,000 Confederates, led by General Lee. -
Battle of Gettysburg (2)
second day of battle, Lee ordered General James Longstreet to attack Cemetery Ridge. At about 4:00 P.M., Longstreet’s troops were positioned in a peach orchard and wheat field that stood between them and most of the Union army on Cemetery Ridge. The Confederates repeatedly attacked the Union lines. Although the Union troops were forced to concede some territory, their lines withheld the withering Confederate onslaught. -
Battle at Gettysburg (3)
On July 3, Lee ordered an artillery barrage on the center of the Union lines on Cemetery Ridge. For two hours, the two armies fired at one another in Pittsburgh. forces marched across the farmland between their position and the Union high ground. Northern artillery renewed its barrage, and the infantry fired fired on the rebels. After the battle, Lee gave up any hopes of invading the North and led his army back to Virginia. 23,000 Union men and 28,000 Confederates were killed or wounded. -
Sherman’s March
In the spring of 1864, Sherman began his march southeast through Georgia to the sea, creating a wide path of destruction. His army burned almost every house in its path and destroyed live- stock and railroads. Sherman was determined to make Southerners “so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it.” By mid-November he had burned most of Atlanta. After reaching the ocean, Sherman’s forces followed by 25,000 former slave. -
Thirteenth Amendment
Emancipation Proclamation freed only those slaves who lived in states that were behind Confederate lines, and not yet under Union control. The president believed that the only solution was a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. The U.S. Constitution now stated, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly con- victed, shall exist within the United States.” -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
Southerners had abandoned the city the day before, setting it afire to keep the Northerners from taking it. On April 9, 1865, in a Virginia town called Appomattox Court House Lee and Grant met at a private home to arrange a Confederate surrender. Grant paroled Lee’s soldiers and sent them home with their possessions and three days’ worth of rations. Within a month all remaining Confederate resistance collapsed. After four long years, the Civil War was over. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln and his wife went to Ford’s Theatre in Washington. A man crept up behind Lincoln and shot the president in the back of the head and died on April 15. After the shooting, John Wilkes Booth then leaped down from the presidential box to the stage and escaped. Twelve days later, Union cavalry trapped him in a Virginia tobacco shed and shot him dead. The funeral train that carried Lincoln’s body from Washington to his home- town of Springfield, Illinois, took 14 days.