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Nat Turner Slave Revolt
Slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County in Virginia. Rebel slaves killed 55 to 65 people, atleast 51 being white. -
William Lloyd Garrison Published The Liberator
It was the most influential antislavery periodical in the pre-Civil War period of U.S. history. -
American Anti-Slavery Society Begins
The American Anti-Slavery Society was a society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Freed slaves like Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown spoke at meetings -
Sarah Grimke's Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women published
Sarah Grimké responded to Catharine Beecher's defense of the subordinate role of women. -
Henry Highland Garnets' "Address to the Slaves of the United States of America"
Called for an open rebellion of the slaves -
Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls
A convention to discuss the social, civil. and religious condition and rights of women -
Harriett Tubman Escapes From Slavery
. In 1849, following a bout of illness and the death of her owner, Harriet Tubman decided to escape slavery in Maryland for Philadelphia. -
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. -
Fugitive Slave Act
Helped provide the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another state or territory -
Sojourner Truth Delivered her "Ain't I a Woman" Speech
"Aint I a Woman" speech became one of the most famous abolitionist and women's rights speeches in American history. -
Harriet Beecher Stowe Published Uncle Tom's Cabin
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". -
Bleeding Kansas
A series of violent confrontations in the United States between 1854 and 1861 which emerged from a debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas. -
Republican Party Founded
It declared their new party opposed to the expansion of slavery into new territories and selected a statewide slate of candidates. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. -
Lecompton Constitution
The document permitted slavery. Excluded free blacks from living in Kansas, and allowed only male citizens of the United States to vote. -
First Congressional Reconstruction Act passed
U.S legislation that outlined the conditions under which the Southern states would be readmitted into the Union following the civil war. -
Panic of 1857
Caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy -
Lincoln-Douglass Debates
The Lincoln-Douglas debates were significant because of the issues discussed between the candidates during the debates. -
John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry
Was an effort by abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in 1859 by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. -
Democratic Party Splits into Northern and Southern Halves
Because the Democratic vote was spread so thin, Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated Douglas, Breckenridge, and Bell in the 1860 presidential election. The Democrats' split had defeated their own party. -
South Carolina Secedes from the Union
South Carolina became the first slave state in the south to declare that it had seceded from the United States. -
Abraham Lincoln Elected President
On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, beating Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell. He was the first president from the Republican Party. -
Confederate States of America Founded
In February 1861, representatives from the six seceded states met in Montgomery, Alabama, to formally establish a unified government, which they named the Confederate States of America. On February 9, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was elected the Confederacy's first president. -
Firing on Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the first battle of the American Civil War -
Battle of Antietam
Antietam Creek was the bloodiest single day in American military history. -
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 Address
President Lincoln delivered the 272 word Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863 on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought from July 1 to July 3, 1863, is considered the most important engagement of the American Civil War. -
Congress Passed the 13th Amendment
United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. -
General U.S. Grant Assumed Command of Union Troops
President Abraham Lincoln signs a brief document officially promoting then-Major General Ulysses S. Grant to the rank of lieutenant general of the U.S. Army -
Sherman’s March to the Sea
On September 1, 1864, Sherman and his army captured Atlanta, Georgia, an important transportation center in the Confederacy. -
Abraham Lincoln Reelected
The 1864 election was the first time since 1812 that a presidential election took place during a war. For much of 1864, Lincoln himself believed he had little chance of being re-elected -
Lee Surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House
Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Brought an end to the civil war. -
Andrew Johnson Became President
Was the first American president to be impeached. -
Ku Klux Klan formed
Six Confederate veterans from Pulaski, Tennessee created the original Ku Klux Klan. A White supremacist group who wanted the white dominant culture to remain dominant. -
Period of “Redemption” after the Civil War
White Democratic Southerners saw themselves as redeeming the South by regaining power. They appealed to scalawags -
Johnson Announced Plans for Presidential Reconstruction
In 1865 President Andrew Johnson implemented a plan of Reconstruction that gave the white South a free hand in regulating the transition from slavery to freedom and offered no role to blacks in the politics of the South. -
Arrival of Scalawags and Carpetbaggers in the South
Carpetbaggers are Northerners who moved to the South after the Civil War. Scalawags were white Southerners who cooperated politically with black freedom and the new Northerners in the South. -
Freedman’s Bureau Established
The most important arm of this bureaucracy was the Freedmen's Bureau. The Freedmen's Bureau was established by Congress as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands on March 3, 1865, to aid and protect former slaves after the end of the war. -
Lincoln Assassination
the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy intended by Booth to revive the Confederate cause by eliminating the three most important officials of the United States government. -
Civil Rights Act Passed over Johnson’s Veto
A Republican-dominated Congress enacted a landmark Civil Rights Act on this day in 1866, overriding a veto by President Andrew Johnson. The law's chief thrust was to offer protection to slaves freed in the aftermath of the Civil War -
Andrew Johnson Impeached
The House of representatives voted 126 to 47 in favor of impeaching the President for high crimes and misdemeanors -
14th Amendment Ratified
The amendment grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" which included former slaves who had just been freed after the Civil War. -
U.S. Grant Elected President
As an American hero, Grant was later elected the 18th President of the United States -
15 th Amendment Ratified
15th amendment granted African American men the right to vote. -
Creation of the Radical Republicans
The leading Radicals in Congress were Thaddeus Stevens in the House and Charles Sumner in the Senate. Grant was elected as a Republican in 1868 and after the election he generally sided with the Radicals on Reconstruction policies and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1871 into law. -
Slaughterhouse Cases (Supreme Court)
The Slaughter-House Cases was the first United States Supreme Court interpretation of the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment which had recently been enacted. -
U.S. v. Cruikshank
One of the earliest case to deal with the application of the Bill of Rights to state governments, following the adoption of the 14th amendment. Arose from the 1873 Colfax Massacre, in which a group of armed whites killed more than a hundred African Americans. -
Compromise of 1877
The Compromise of 1877 was an informal, unwritten deal, that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and formally ended the Reconstruction Era.
