Social Studies

1820 Congress tried to end quarrels over slavery by passing the Missouri Compromise.

Missouri Compromise= an imaginary line through the Louisiana Territory. Except for Missouri, states north of the line would be free states. States to it’s south will allow slavery.

It worked until 1850, California joined and a compromise grew.

There was 15 slave states and 15 free states from slavery.

California asked to join the United States as a free State. This would tip the balance of the states with slaves in it.

Henry Clay = Senator from Kentucky (Slave Owner) came up with compromiser of 1850.

Compromiser of 1850= Allowed California to join the union as a free state. In return the north agreed to allow the territories of New Mexico, and Utah to decide for themselves if they wanted to be a free state or a slave state.

Fugitive State Law= a law that required police in free states to help capture escaping African Slaves.

Many people were against the compromise of 1850.

Abolitionist argued that the Fugitive State Law clashed the Bill of Rights. Under the law a free slave could be captured and sold into slavery.

Kansas Nebraska Act= allowed the Kansas and Nebraska territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery.

The Kansas- Nebraska Act angered the abolitionist because both were North of the Missouri Compromise Line.

This made groups afraid that planters would win enough votes for the territories to allow slavery to begin moving into the territories.

Free soilers= People committed to making the territories free.

1856= Violence broke out between supporters of slavery and free soilers. Hundreds people were killed. Newspapers referred this incident as the “Bleeding Kansas.”

Republican party= they were against slavery and took a stand against it. They opposed allowing slavery in the territories.

Abraham Lincoln= a lawyer from Illinois. He morally was against slavery and also was firmly against the extension of slavery into the territories.

Dred Scott Decision = was an enslaved man that asked the court to allow him to be free because he lived with his owner in a free territory.

Court ruled against him because they said that an enslaved person were property. They said that the constitution protects the right for citizens to take their property anywhere. Furthermore, they said that the Missouri Compromise had not been constitutional.

Some leaders including Abraham said that the Dred Scott decision did not have to be obeyed because the other branches of the government had not supported the courts decision.

John Brown= an abolitionist who hoped to start a rebellion that would end slavery.

In the Dawn of October 16, 1859, they took control of a building in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, where the federal government stored weapons. Brown and his men were arrested.

John’s raid made the Southerners fear that the North would stop at nothing to abolish slavery.

The northerners were divided.

A abolitionist named Theodore Parker called Brown “a saint.” The Liberator called Brown’s plan “insane.”

He ran for senator as a member of the republican party.

During his campaign he was strongly against slavery.

Lincoln lost the election. It made him well-known throughout

the country.

Election for presidency. Lincoln was up against three

candidates for the Presidency.

Lincoln was the only one against slavery.

To preserve the union he said he would leave the union the way it was with the slaves.

If that would happen then there would be more free states than slaves states.

The South said if that Lincoln would win the election they would Succeed the union.

Secede= means that the states would leave the union.

Lincoln won the election in December of 1860.

South Carolina was the first state to leave the Union.

The next states were Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, and South Carolina had formed a new country.

The Confederate States of America or the Confederacy.

They had their own Constitution and named a President. They chose Jefferson Davis.

Jefferson Davis was Senator from Mississippi and a planter who had fought in the Mexican War. The Union was Now Split.

All this caused the Civil War. Border states= Delaware, Maryland,

Kentucky, and Missouri.

Fort Sumner= Lincoln sent unarmed supply to South Carolina and he let the Governor know. The Confederacy decided to attack fort Sumner before the supplies arrived.

Union soldiers were forced to surrender. After that four more states seceded the

union. Virginia being one of them and when that happened Robert E. Lee resigned from the Union Army.

Lincoln tried to preserve the Union. After the attack of Fort Sumner that started the Civil War.

Civil war= a war between people in the same country.

The Civil War divided the Country and divided the states. Sometimes even families were divided.

Strategy= is a long- range plan made to reach a goal.

Union Strategy= to invade the South and weaken the South. Lincoln planned to blockade the Southern Ports. This would stop the South from receiving weapons or supplies from European countries. This was known as the Anaconda Plan. It was called that because a anaconda is a snake that …

… squeezes its pray to death. The Union would squeeze the South

by not letting it ship or receive goods. If the South could not sell its cash crops, it would not have money to buy supplies for it’s army.

The Confederate Strategy was to defend its land against the Union attack.

The wanted to make the war tom last a long time.

The southerners saw an advantages to a long war.

They thought the Northerners would get tired of fighting.

Southerners leaders also expected to get …

…from Britain and France. Both of the countries depended on

Southern cotton to keep their mills running.

The South was counting on their help.

In the first year of the War neither side won major victories.

Most of the War’s major battles was fought in the South.

It was the first major battle fought in the Civil War, which was fought on July 21, 1861.

This battle was also known as the Battle of Manassas.

It was a hot sunny day near Manassas Junction, Virginia.

Both sides came with a lot of soldiers. Each side had about 30,000 soldiers each.

Both sides of the soldiers were not trained.

A general by the name of Thomas Jackson from Virginia , helped keep the Confederates together when they tried to fall back. In history he will later be known as Stonewall Jackson. He helped the Confederates stand their ground.

It was a confusing battle but in the end the Confederates won this battle.

In September 1862 General Robert E. Lee led the Confederate army into Maryland.

Lee hoped that this invasion would end the War all together.

The Union soldiers met his army at Antietam Creek, Maryland.

Both sides lost many men in a bloody battle.

The confederates retreated to Virginia. More soldiers died in one day in the Battle

…

…of Antietam than any other day of the War.

About 1550 Confederate soldiers and more than 2100 union soldiers were killed.

Even though both sides lost a lot of soldiers, later after that Abraham Lincoln announces the freedom of every slave.

When Abraham Lincoln took office, he was not opposed slavery for the South.

He went to war to keep the nation united.

As the war progressed , he believed that it could also help end slavery.

A few days before the Battle of Antietam Lincoln had shared a secret to his cabinet. He had planned to free at least some of the enslaved people.

On January 1, 1863 Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

It said that all the areas that was still fighting against the North were free.

The enslaved people in border states were not free.

The Proclamation did not free many enslaved people because the Union had no control of the South.

This document expanded goals of war to include freeing all enslaved states.

As the Union soldiers moved to the South they carried out the Emancipation Proclamation.

Many enslaved people, newly freed, joined the Union army or worked as laborers behind the battle lines.

Some people thought the Union might be …

…able to win the war but that the South will still be able to keep slavery.

Now after the Emancipation Proclamation everyone knew that was not going to be the case anymore.

During the Civil War there were many different people of both sides that contributed to the war effort.

In the North and South only men were allowed to join the army.

Women many ways to help. They took over factory , business,

and farm jobs that men left behind. Women's worked as nurses.

Dorothea Dix and Clara Barton both worked as nurses for the Union Army .

Barton’s kindness earned her the nickname “Angel of the Battlefield.”

Sally Tompkins ran a hospital from Virginia for confederate soldiers.

Belle Boyd, from Virginia spied for the Confederacy.

Her missions made her famous.

About 180,000 African Americans served in the Union army during the Civil War.

The soldiers faced prejudice from people in the North and South.

At first, African soldiers were not paid as much as the white soldiers.

They were also given poor equipment, and often ran out of supplies.

After all that the African Americans soldiers …

…proved themselves in battle. They led raids behind Confederate lines,

served as spies and scouts and fought in almost every major battle of the war.

One of the best known African American regiments was the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts led by Robert Gould Shaw.

In 1863, the fifty-fourth led an attack on Fort Wagner in South Carolina.

Despite heavy fire, the regiment fought their way into the fort.

Confederate forces drove them back. Many soldiers in the regiment,

including Shaw, were killed.

By May 1863 the Union Army had a good general finally by the name of Ulysses S. Grant.

One of his most important battles was in May at Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Grant laid siege to Vicksburg. The union guns pounded the city, and the Union army cut off all supplies. The people and soldiers ran out of supplies in the city but refused surrender.

Finally on July 4, two months after the siege began Vicksburg surrendered to Union Troops.

This was a major victory for the Union. The Union now had control of the

Mississippi River. The confederacy was now cut ion two

parts. States in the Confederacy ‘s western areas

could no longer communicate easily with

…states in its eastern areas.

General Lee and his Army defeated Union troops at Chancellorsville, Virginia.

This victory gave the Confederacy confidence to try to invade the North again.

Southerners thought if they could win a major victory in a Northern state people in the North would demand and end to the war.

In June 1863, General Lee’s troops headed North. They reached the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 1.

The Union army was led by George G. Meade. His army met Lee’s army at Gettysburg.

The fighting lasted for three days. It was one of the deadliest battles of the war. During those three days more than 3000

Union soldiers and nearly 4000 Confederate ..

…soldiers were killed More than 20000 men on each side

were wounded or reported missing. The Union victory at Gettysburg

marked a turning point in the war. After the battle General Lee’s army

retreated to Virginia. They would never aging be able to launch a major attack against the Union.

On November 19,1863 President Abraham Lincoln went to Gettysburg to dedicate a Union cemetery there.

Nearly 6000 people gathered for the ceremony.

Lincoln gave a speech that day. He spoke less than three minutes.

Yet, it is known as one of the most greatest speeches in American history.

Lincoln spoke about the ideals of liberty and equality on which the country had been founded.

He honored the soldiers who had died defending those ideals. He ended with these words: “…that these dead shall not have died in vain… that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish [disappear] from the earth.”

In 1864 Lincoln appointed Ulysses S. Grant commander of all Union forces.

Grant planned to march to Richmond and capture the Confederate capital.

Union General William Tecumseh Sherman was ordered to march from Chattanooga Tennessee, to Atlanta Georgia.

In September 1864 Sherman reached Atlanta.

From Atlanta Sherman’s army of 62,000 men headed toward Savannah Georgia, this was known as the Sherman’s March to the Sea.

The army cut a path of destruction 60 miles wide and 300 miles long.

Union soldiers burned homes and stores, destroyed crops ands tore up railroad tracks.

In the North, Grant’s army was defeating Lee’s smaller army .

Lee was running out of men fast and supplies.

In April 1865, Confederate troops evacuated Richmond Virginia.

As they left the set the City on fire. A little bit afterwards the Union soldiers

took control of Richmond. Lee’s army moved west Grant’s army in ….

…constant pursuit. Lee’s men were starving and they were

outnumbered by 10 to 1. On April 9.1865, Lee met with Grant in

a farmhouse in the Virginia Village of Appomattox Court House.

Grant wrote out the agreement of the surrender for Lee’s signature.

In the next few weeks Lee’s surrender …

…reached the other Confederate soldiers. Other Confederate soldiers surrendered then.

After four years the War was over. The Union preserved the Nation but at a

terrible cost. More than 6000,000 soldiers died in the

Civil War. The South was left in ruins. In the North there was joy and Victory.

On April 14, 1865 just five days after Lee’s surrender , President Lincoln was assassinated.

He was assassinated in Ford’s Theatre in Washington , D.C.

He was murdered by John Wilkes Booth. Booth was an actor and was a

Confederate supporter. The President that worked to keep the

…

…Nation together was now dead.