US History
Unit VI – The Civil War Era (1850-1877)
ESSAY QUESTION: Was the Civil War a revolutionary event?
Chapters
Ch. 14—Slavery and America’s Future: The Road to war, 1845-1861
Ch. 15—Transforming Fire: The Civil War, 1861-1865
Ch. 16—Reconstruction: An Unfinished Revolution, 1865-1877
Eras and Ideas
The Coming of the Civil War
The Compromise of 1850
“Bleeding Kansas”
The Civil War
Reconstruction
The Compromise of 1877
Timeline: US History: The Civil War Era (1850-1877)
1832
1835-1840
1840
1846-1848
1846
1848
1849
1850-1854
1850
1851
1852
1854
1855-1856
1856
1857
1858
1866
1867
1868
1868-1870
1869
Nullification Crisis
Intensification of abolitionist attacks on slavery
Violent retaliatory attacks on abolitionists
Liberty Party formed
Mexican War
Wilmot Proviso
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Gold discovered in California
Zachary Taylor elected twelfth president
Seneca Falls Convention
Free-Soil party founded
Zachary Taylor elected president
California gold rush
“Young America” Movement
Taylor dies; Millard Fillmore becomes
thirteenth president
Compromise of 1850, including Fugitive Slave
Act
Women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio
Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s
Cabin
Franklin Pierce elected president
Ostend Manifesto
Kansas-Nebraska Act nullifies Missouri
Compromise
Republican and Know-Nothing parties formed
Thousands pour into Kansas, creating months of
turmoil and violence
John Brown’s massacre in Kansas
Sumner-Brooks incident in Senate
James Buchanan elected president
Dred Scott decision legalizes slavery in
territories
Lecompton constitution in Kansas
Lincoln-Douglas debates
Freedmen’s Bureau established
Black Codes developed
Repossession of land by whites and
freedpeople’s contracts starts
Freedmen’s Bureau renewed and Civil Rights
Act passed over Johnson’s veto
Southern Homestead Act
Ku Klux Klan formed
Tennessee readmitted to Union
Reconstruction Acts passed over Johnson’s veto
Impeachment controversy
Freedmen’s Bureau ends
Fourteenth Amendment ratified
Senate fails to convict Johnson of impeachment
charges
Ulysses Grant elected president
Ten states readmitted under congressional plan
Georgia and Virginia reestablish Democratic
party control
1859
1860
1860-1861
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1870
1870s-1880s
1870-1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1876-1877
1877
1880s
John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry
Democratic party splits
Four-party campaign
Abraham Lincoln elected president
Seven southern states secede
Confederate States of America founded
Attack on Fort Sumter begins Civil War
Lincoln calls up state militia and suspends
habeas corpus
First Battle of Bull Run
Union blockades the South
Battles at Shiloh, Bull Run, and Antietam
Monitor and Virginia battle
First black regiment authorized by Union
Union issues greenbacks
South institutes military draft
Pacific Railroad Act
Homestead Act
Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation
Congress adopts military draft
Battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg
Southern tax laws and impressments Act
New York draft riots
Southern food riots
Sherman’s march through Georgia
Lincoln reelected
Lee surrenders at Appomattox
Lincoln assassinated; Andrew Johnson becomes
president
Johnson proposes general amnesty and
Reconstruction plan
Racial confusion, widespread hunger, and
demobilization
Congress passes 13th Amendment, abolishing
slavery
Fifteenth Amendment ratified
Black “exodusters” migrate to Kansas
Force Acts
Grant reelected president
Credit Mobilier scandal, Panic causes
depression
Alabama and Arkansas reestablish Democratic
control
Civil Rights Act passed
Mississippi reestablishes Democratic control
Hayes-Tilden election
South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida
reestablish Democratic control
Compromise of 1877; Rutherford B. Hayes
assumes presidency and ends Reconstruction
Tenancy and sharecropping prevail in the South
Disfranchisement and segregation of southern
blacks begins