Dates US CIVIL WAR

1820

Missouri Compromise

1846 Jan

Republic of Texas joined the USA

1846–47

Mexican-American War

1850

Compromise of 1850, including the Fugitive Slave Act

1852

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s "Uncle Tom’s Cabin" published

1854

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1857

Dred Scott Supreme Court Decision

1859

John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry

1860 Nov

Lincoln elected President

1860 Dec

Secession of South Carolina

1861 Jan–Feb

Secession of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas

1861 Apr 12–13

Attack on Fort Sumter

1861 Apr 17–May 20

Secession of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina

1861 July

Confederate victory at 1st Battle of Bull Run

1862 Mar–July

McClellan’s Peninsular Campaign; failed to capture Richmond

1862 Sept

Union victory at Battle of Antietam

1863 Jan

Lincoln issued Emancipation Proclamation

1863 July 1–3

Union victory at Battle of Gettysburg

1864 Mar

Grant appointed General-in-Chief of the Union armies

1864 Sept

Fall of Atlanta; Union victory

1864 Nov 8

Lincoln re-elected President

1864 Nov 15

Sherman began the "March to the Sea"

1865 Jan

13th Amendment passed, abolishing slavery

1865 Mar

Freedmen’s Bureau established

1865 Apr 9

Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House

1865 Apr 14

Lincoln assassinated

1865 Dec

Ku Klux Klan formed

1866 Apr

Civil Rights Act

1866 June

14th Amendment guaranteed equal protection of the law

1866 July

Freedmen’s Bureau Act

1867

Reconstruction Acts

1868

Ulysses S. Grant elected President

1870

15th Amendment extended voting rights to Black Americans

1870–71

Enforcement Acts

1872

Amnesty Act

1873

The Slaughterhouse Cases Supreme Court decision

1876 April

United States vs. Cruikshank

1877 Nov

Disputed presidential election between Tilden and Hayes

1877

Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction; removal of remaining Union troops from the South