Civil War

Louisiana Purchase

1803 purchase of the Louisiana territory from France. Made by Jefferson, this doubled the size of the US.

Cotton Gin

A machine for cleaning the seeds from cotton fibers, invented by Eli Whitney in 1793

Compromise of 1808

a compromise in the state legislature that allowed more equal representation for the Upcountry. It was signed by 1808.

Missouri Compromise

Admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. created a line dividing the country in to free and slave areas.

Fugitive Slave Act

(1850) a law that made it a crime to help runaway slaves; allowed for the arrest of escaped slaves in areas where slavery was illegal and required their return to slaveholders

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1854 - Created Nebraska and Kansas as states and gave the people in those territories the right to chose to be a free or slave state through popular sovereignty.

Dred Scott Decision

Supreme Court ruling that declared slaves were not viewed as citizens but as property

Election of 1860

Lincoln, the Republican candidate, won because the Democratic party was split over slavery. As a result, the South no longer felt like it has a voice in politics and a number of states seceded from the Union.

Battle of Gettysburg

1863, this three day battle was the bloodiest of the entire Civil War, ended in a Union victory, and is considered the turning point of the war

Appomattox Courthouse

April 1865., the Virginia town where Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in 1865, ending the Civil War

Battle of Fredericksburg

an 1862 Civil War battle in Virginia; one of the Union's worst defeats

First Battle of Bull Run

First "real" battle of the Civil War, it was expected by Union officials to be short but ended up a Confederate victory

Lincoln's Assassination

vshot and killed by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., April 14, 1865

Battle of Shiloh

an 1862 Civil War battle in Tennessee that ended in a Union victory

Battle of Antietam

Civil War battle in which the North suceedeed in halting Lee's Confederate forces in Maryland. Was the bloodiest battle of the war resulting in 25,000 casualties

Sherman's March to the Sea

during the civil war, a devastating total war military campaign, led by union general William Tecumseh Sherman, that involved marching 60,000 union troops through Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah and destroying everything along there way.

Fort Sumter

Federal fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina; the confederate attack on the fort marked the start of the Civil War

Siege of Vicksburg

1863 Union army's blockade of Vicksburg, Mississippi, that led the city to surrender during the Civil War

Spotsylvania

a battle between the armies of Grant and Lee during the Wilderness Campaign, Grant tried to get between Lee and Richmond (12,000 casulties in one day)

House divided speech

made by Abraham Lincoln before he was elected stating that the United States will either be all slave or all free because it can't be half and half and still succeed.

First Inaugural Speech

Abraham Lincoln's address outlining his views on the Union and slavery.

Gettysburg Address Speech

A speech given by Abraham Lincoln, and dedication of the national center of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania

Emancipation Proclamation

Issued by abraham lincoln on september 22, 1862 it declared that all slaves in the confederate states would be free

Second Inaugural Speech

Emphasized that the wounds of the war must be healed once the war was over. Moral outlook of the war.

13th Amendment (1865)

Abolition of slavery w/o compensation for slave-owners