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Compromise of 1850
As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished. California entered the Union as a free state and a territorial government was created in Utah. -
The Kansas Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. -
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War was a series of violent political confrontations in the United States involving anti-slavery "Free-Staters" and pro-slavery "southern yankees" elements in Kansas between 1854 and 1861, including "Bleeding Congress". -
The Dred Scott Decision
Sandford, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on March 6, 1857, ruled that a slave (Dred Scott) who had resided in a free state and territory (where slavery was prohibited) was not thereby entitled to his freedom. -
Lincoln – Douglas Debates
The series of seven debates between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois state election campaign is among the most significant statements in American political history. The issues they discussed were not only of critical importance to the sectional conflict over slavery and states’ rights but also touched deeper questions that would continue to influence political discourse. -
Harper’s Ferry
In October 1859, the U.S. military arsenal at Harpers Ferry was the target of an assault by an armed band of abolitionists led by John Brown (1800-59). The raid was intended to be the first stage in an elaborate plan to establish an independent stronghold of freed slaves in the mountains of Maryland and Virginia.. -
Lincoln’s Election
In 1860, Lincoln won the party's presidential nomination. In the November 1860 election, Lincoln again faced Douglas, who represented the Northern faction of a heavily divided Democratic Party, as well as Breckinridge and Bell. -
Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter is an island fortification located in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Originally constructed in 1829 as a coastal garrison, Fort Sumter is most famous for being the site of the first shots of the Civil War (1861-65). U.S. Major Robert Anderson occupied the unfinished fort in December 1860 following South Carolina’s secession from the Union, initiating a standoff with the state’s militia forces. -
Bull Run
The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as Battle of First Manassas, was fought on July 21, 1861 in Prince William County, Virginia, near the city of Manassas, It was the first major battle of the American Civil War. -
Antietam
On September 17, 1862, Generals Robert E. Lee and George McClellan faced off near Antietam creek in Sharpsburg, Maryland, in the the first battle of the American Civil War to be fought on northern soil.Though McClellan failed to utilize his numerical superiority to crush Lee’s army, he was able to check the Confederate advance into the north. Aftera string of Union defeats, this tactical victory provided Abraham Lincoln the political cover he needed to issue his Emancipation Proclamation. -
Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Gettysburg and Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is a speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln at the November 19, 1863, dedication of Soldier's National Cemetery, a cemetery for Union soldiers killed at the Battle Of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. -
Andersonville Prison
From February 1864 until the end of the American Civil War (1861-65) in April 1865, Andersonville, Georgia, served as the site of a notorious Confederate military prison. The prison at Andersonville, officially called Camp Sumter, was the South’s largest prison for captured Union soldiers and known for its unhealthy conditions and high death rate. -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought on the morning of April 9, 1865, was one of the last battles of the American Civil War. It was the final engagement of Confederate Army general Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia before it surrendered to the Union Army under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
On April 14, 1865, 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.