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The compromise of 1850
Senator Henry Clay introduced a series of resolution in an attempt to seek a compromise and avert a crisis between North and South. As part of the Compromise of 1850,the Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished. -
Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated
Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the sixteenth president of the United States in Washington, DC. -
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. -
Battle of Antietam
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 Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation goes into effect. Applauded by many abolitionists including Frederick Douglass, there are others who feel it does not go far enough to totally abolish slavery. -
The Battle of Gettysburg
When Confederate soldiers led by A. P. Hill encountered several brigades of Union cavalry under the command of John Buford. -
The Gettysburg Address
A famous speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln at the dedication of a national cemetery on the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. -
Total War
In March 1864, President Lincoln appointed Ulysses S. Grant commander of all Union armies. Grant in turn appointed William Tecumseh Sherman as commander of the military division of the Mississippi. These two appointments would change the course of the war. -
Reconstruction
Reconstruction, the period during which the United States began to rebuild after the Civil War. The term also refers to the process the federal government used to readmit the defeated Confederate states to the Union. -
13th Amendment
The Emancipation Proclamation reed only those slaves who lived in states that were behind Confederate lines, and not yet under Union control. The government had to decide what to do about the border states, where slavery still existed. The president believed that the only solution was a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.After some political maneuvering, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified at the end of 1865. -
Lincoln's Assassination
During its third act, a man crept up behind Lincoln and shot the president in the back of his head. Lincoln, who never regained consciousness, died on April 15. It was the first time a president of the United States had been assassinated.The Civil War had ended. Slavery and secession were no more. Now the country faced two new problems: how to restore the Southern states to the Union and how to integrate approximately 4 million newly freed African Americans into national life. -
President Andrew Johnson Impeachment
Because the Radicals thought Johnson was blocking Reconstruction, they looked for grounds on which to impeach him. They found grounds when Johnson removed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton from office in 1868. -
14th Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment, which prevented states from denying rights and privileges to any U. S. citizen, now defined as
“all persons born or naturalized in the United States. -
15th Amendment
No citizen could be denied the right to vote based on color or rule or previous servitude. -
President Ulysses S. Grant
In the 1868 presidential election, the Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant won by a margin of only 306,000 votes out of almost 6 million ballots cast. More than 500,000 Southern African Americans had voted. President Grant sends federal troops to Vicksburg, Mississippi.
