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Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was a secret network organized by people who helped men, women, and children escape from slavery to freedom. It operated before the Civil War (1861-1865) ended slavery in the United States. -
The Liberator
The Liberator was the most widely circulated anti-slavery newspaper during the antebellum period and throughout the Civil War. It was published and edited in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison, a leading white abolitionist and founder of the influential American Anti-Slavery Society. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831, led by Nat Turner. Rebel slaves killed from 55 to 65 people, at least 51 being white. -
The North Star
Frederick Douglas established the abolitionist paper The North Star on December 3, 1847, in Rochester, NY, and developed it into the most influential black antislavery paper published during the antebellum era. It was used to not only denounce slavery, but to fight for the emancipation of women and other oppressed groups. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that defused a political confrontation between slave and free states on the status of territories acquired in the Mexican–American War. -
Fugitive Slave Act
he Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850. The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
It's an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S. and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War". -
Kansas-Nebraska
The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed each territory to decide the issue of slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty. -
Dread Scott v. Sandford
The Dred Scott case was a major event on the road to the Civil War. The Supreme Court's ruling was a provocative opinion. It stated flatly that Blacks had "no rights which the white man was bound to respect" and rejected the right of any territory to ban slavery within its own borders. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephan Douglas Debates
They were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. -
John Brown's raid/Harper's Ferry
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an 1859 effort by abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in Southern states by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It has been called the dress rehearsal for the Civil War. -
Abraham Lincoln becomes president
The 1860 United States presidential election was the nineteenth quadrennial presidential election to select the President and Vice President of the United States.The election of Lincoln served as the primary catalyst of the American Civil War. -
Formation of the Confederacy
On February 4, 1861, the states farthest south, where slavery and plantations agriculture were dominant, formed the Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as President. They established their capital at Montgomery, Alabama and took over federal forts on their territory. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War. -
Battle of Bull Run
Union and Confederate armies clashed near Manassas Junction, Virginia, in the first major land battle of the American Civil War. ... The Confederate victory gave the South a surge of confidence and shocked many in the North, who realized the war would not be won as easily as they had hoped -
Income Tax
Lincoln imposes the first federal income tax by signing the Revenue Act. Strapped for cash with which to pursue the Civil War, Lincoln and Congress agreed to impose a 3 percent tax on annual incomes over $800. -
Battle of Antietam
Beginning early on the morning of September 17, 1862, Confederate and Union troops in the Civil War clash near Maryland's Antietam Creek in the bloodiest single day in American military history. The Battle of Antietam marked the culmination of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the Northern states. -
Abolition
The abolitionist movement began years before the Civil War broke out. The abolitionist definition was a fanatical belief that slavery should immediately cease and all slaves should be freed without delay. Lincoln wanted to end slavery gradually over a period of time. -
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. -
Conscription
During the Civil War, the U.S. Congress passes a conscription act that produces the first wartime draft of U.S. citizens in American history. The act called for registration of all males between the ages of 20 and 45, including aliens with the intention of becoming citizens, by April 1 -
Battle of Vicksburg
It was the final major military action in the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. Vicksburg was the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River; therefore, capturing it completed the second part of the Northern strategy, the Anaconda Plan. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought in July 1863, was a Union victory that stopped Confederate General Robert E. Lee's second invasion of the North. More than 50,000 men fell as casualties during the 3-day battle, making it the bloodiest battle of the American Civil war. -
Gettysburg address
The Gettysburg Address is a speech that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered during the American Civil War at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, -
Sherman's March
Sherman's March to the Sea was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 until December 21, 1864, by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army. -
13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought in Appomattox County, Virginia, on the morning of April 9, 1865, was one of the last battles of the American Civil War. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War, its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. -
Harriet Tubman
She was an American abolitionist and political activist. During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the struggle for women's suffrage.
