History

1. Appomattox Courthouse General Lee began to move west hoping to find to escape the union forces; so that he could meet up with Johnston. But there were no way out of it, unfortunately all the route was blocked off by the union soldiers. Lee realized that it was pointless to sheds more blood for his army; so he arranged a meeting with Grant in his home town of Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia; On April 9 Lee surrender, and days later Johnson surrender too. Finally the long war was over. 2. John Brown John brown was one of the abolitionists in Kansas; He considered himself as a committed soldier of god and hoping to put an end to slavery. Brown gathered some people and his sons to killed five slave owner; as a warning to other slave owner settlers. The incident was called the Pottawatomie Massacre. With some encouragement and some funding by other abolitionist, he was able to come up with a plan to seize a mountain fortress in Virginia from which he believed could be a slave insurrection in the south. October 16 he attempts an attack with 18 of his man to seized harpers Ferry Virginia. But soon enough the citizen fought back and after 10 of his man were killed he finally surrender. In the end Brown and six of his men were hanged. 3. Missouri Compromise By 1818, Missouri Territory had gained sufficient population to warrant its admission into the Union as a state. Its settlers came largely from the South, and it was expected that Missouri would be a slave state. To a statehood bill brought before the House of Representatives, James Tallmadge of New York proposed an amendment that would forbid importation of slaves, and would bring about the ultimate emancipation of all slaves born in Missouri. This amendment passed the House February 19, but not the Senate. The bitterness of the debates sharply emphasized the sectional division of the United States. In 1820, a bill to admit Maine as a state passed the House. The admission of Alabama as a slave state in 1819 had brought the slave states; The two bills were joined as one in the Senate, with the clause forbidding slavery in Missouri replaced by a measure prohibiting slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36°30’ North latitude which is the southern boundary of Missouri. The House rejected this compromise bill; but after a conference committee of members of both houses was appointed, and the bills were treated separately. In March 1820, Maine was made a state, and Missouri was authorized to adopt a constitution having no restrictions on slavery. A provision in the Missouri constitution barring the immigration of free blacks to the state was objectionable to many Northern Congressmen; and necessitated another congressional compromise. Not until the Missouri legislature pledged that nothing in its constitution would be interpreted to abridge the rights of citizens of the United States, and Missouri admitted to the Union. The 36°30' provision held until 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise. 4. Steven A. Douglas Stephen A. Douglas, a thirty-seven years old Democratic senator from Illinois. A westerner from a rapidly growing state, he was an open spokesman for the economic needs of his section, and especially for the construction of railroads. Douglas was one of the architects of the Compromise Act of 1850; he reopened the slavery issue in 1854 when he sponsored the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise. In its place, he advocated the doctrine of popular sovereignty; which means territorial settlers would be allowed to decide on the slavery issue after they achieved statehood. This solution failed to defuse the slavery issue, and Kansas was soon come in contract with more conflicts. Douglas was bypassed for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1856, largely because of the situation in Bleeding Kansas. In 1858, Douglas defeated Lincoln in a hard-fought senatorial campaign. The well-publicized Lincoln-Douglas debates, however, helped bring Lincoln to national attention while further alienating Douglas from Southern Democrats because of his inability to reconcile popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott V. Stanford decision 1857. Douglas received the presidential nomination of the non-Southern wing of the Democratic Party in 1860, but the fragmentation of the Democrats allowed Lincoln to win an easy victory. When the Civil War broke out, Douglas supported Lincoln. On a speaking tour to rally support for the Union cause. He later became ill, and died with typhoid in 1861. 5. General George B. McClellan McClellan was born in Philadelphia, December 3, 1826; and educated at the University of Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was commissioned major general in the regular army; after the First Battle of Bull Run, he commanded the Army of the Potomac, and the troops around Washington, D.C. In November 1861 he was appointed commander in chief of the Union army.  In 1862 President Abraham Lincoln believed that the Union troops should move directly against the Confederates at Manassas, Virginia; but McClellan disagreed and advanced on Richmond from the east. During the ensuing peninsular campaign, the Union army was generally successful, but their failure to take Richmond. McClellan was then ordered to evacuate the peninsula, and go to the aid of the troops near Manassas. He arrived too late to be of assistance; however, and after the defeat of the Union army in the Second Battle of Bull Run, he was again placed in active command of the Army of the Potomac. In September, 1862, he fought at Antietam. He stopped the Confederate attempt to invade the North; but because of heavy Union losses, he was again relieved of his command. He took no further part in the war. 6. Bill of Right The first was to pacify Anti-Federalists fears of an overwhelmingly powerful central government provided by the Constitution. The second reason was to protect the freedoms secured by the Americans after their war for independence. Without a Bill of Rights, the people feared that the government would have the power to oppress and to control everything. The bill of rights came into effect as Constitutional Amendments on December 15, 1791. Here is the list of the first ten amendments of the bill of rights. Amendment I: Freedom of speech, religion, press, redress, and preamble. Amendment II: Right to bear arms. Amendment III: Conditions for quarters of soldiers. Amendment IV: No unreasonable search and seizure. Amendment V: Provision concerning prosecution. Amendment VI: Right to speedy trial. Amendment VII: Right to trial by jury. Amendment VIII: No excessive bail and cruel punishment. Amendment IX: Rule of construction of constitution. Amendment X: Rights of states under constitution. 7. The Battle of Shiloh Confederate forces led by General Johnston attacked Union General Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing. The Union forces were not prepared but they still managed to hold their own until the arrival of General Buell's army and other reinforcements at Pittsburg Landing. Further, the Confederates lost their leader when General Johnston was killed by a stray bullet. On the second day, April 7th, Grant launched a counterattack and the Confederates retreated to Corinth. The outcome is victory for the union forces. However, approximately 23,746 men died. Of those, 13,047 were Union soldiers. Despite a tactical victory, the union forces experienced greater losses. 8. Battle of Gettysburg General Robert E. Lee concentrated his full strength against Major General George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac at the crossroads county seat of Gettysburg. On July 1, Confederate forces converged on the town from west and north, driving Union defenders back through the streets to Cemetery Hill. During the night; reinforcements arrived for both sides. On July 2, Lee attempted to envelop the Federals, first striking the Union left flank at the Peach Orchard, Wheatfield, Devil’s Den, and the Round Tops with Longstreet’s and hill division and then attacking the Union right at Culp’s and East Cemetery Hills with Ewell’s divisions. By evening, the Federals retained Little Round Top and had repulsed most of Ewell’s men. During the morning of July 3, the Confederate infantry were driven from their last toe-hold on Culp’s Hill. In the afternoon, after a preliminary artillery bombardment, Lee attacked the Union center on Cemetery Ridge. The Pickett-Pettigrew assault momentarily pierced the Union line but was driven back with severe casualties. Stuart’s cavalry attempted to gain the Union rear but was repulsed. On July 4, Lee began withdrawing his army toward Williamsport on the Potomac River; his train of wounded stretched more than fourteen miles. Victory goes to the Union side. 9. General Ulysses S. Grant Born in 1822, Grant was the son of an Ohio tanner. He went to West Point, and graduated in the middle of his class. In the Mexican War he fought under Gen. Zachary Taylor. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Grant was working in his father's leather store Ulysses S. Grant in Galena, Illinois. He was appointed by the Governor to command an unruly volunteer regiment. Grant whipped it into shape and by September 1861, he had risen to the rank of brigadier general of volunteers. At Shiloh in April, Grant fought one of the bloodiest battles in the West and came out less. Later Grant maneuvered and fought skillfully to win Vicksburg, the key city on the Mississippi, and thus cut the Confederacy in two. This was the culmination of one of the most brilliant military campaigns of the war. With the loss of Pemberton's army and this vital stronghold on the Mississippi, the Confederacy was effectively split in half. Grant's successes in the West boosted his reputation, leading ultimately to his appointment as General-in-Chief of the Union armies. Then he broke the Confederate hold on Chattanooga. Lincoln appointed him General in Chief in March 1864. Grant directed Sherman to drive through the South while he himself, with the Army of the Potomac, pinned down General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Finally, on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, Lee surrendered. Grant wrote out magnanimous terms of surrender that would prevent treason trials. As President, Grant presided over the Government much as he had run the Army. Indeed he brought part of his Army staff to the White House. Worse, he allowed himself to be seen with two speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk. When Grant realized their scheme to corner the market in gold, he authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to sell enough gold to wreck their plans. 10. “spoil system” Spoil system is the system or practice in which public offices with their emoluments and advantages are at the disposal of the victorious party for its own purposes. When Jackson became president; he removed a total of no more than once-fifth of the federal officeholders during his eight years in office. Many of them had misused government funds or engaged in other corruption. To embrace his philosophy of the “spoil system” a system already well entrenched in a number of state governments. Jackson’s supporters also worked to transform the process by which presidential candidates won their party nomination. The spoils system and the political convention did serve to limit the power of two officeholders and the exclusive party. 11. Louisiana Purchase President Jefferson faced with Napoleon’s proposal; he had sent Livingston and James Monroe to Paris to assist in the negotiations; whether they should even consider making a treaty for the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. On April 30, 1803 after haggling over the price Livingston and Monroe signed the agreement. With the treaty United States was to pay a total of 80 million francs meaning 15 millions U.S dollars to the French government. The boundaries of the purchase were not defined; the treaty simply specified that Louisiana would occupy the same extent as it has when France and Spain had owned it. 12. Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 1842 In the spring of 1842, it sent Lord Ashburton to negotiate an agreement on the Maine boundary .The result of his negotiations with Secretary of State Webster and representatives from Maine and Massachusetts was the Webster- Ashburton Treaty of 1842. Its terms consist of a firm northern boundary between the U.S and Canada along Maine. And the new boarder gave the U.S a bit more than half of the previously dispute territory. The Webster Treaty was generally popular in America, and in its aftermath Anglo- American relations have gotten better. 13. Battle of San Jacinto The Battle of San Jacinto, fought on April 21, 1836, was the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Sam Houston; the Texas Army engaged and defeated General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's Mexican forces in a fight. About 700 of the Mexican soldiers were killed and 730 captured, while only nine Texans died. Santa Anna, the President of Mexico, was captured the following day and held as a prisoner of war. Three weeks later, he signed the peace treaties that dictated that the Mexican army will leave the region; so that Texas could become independent from Mexico. 14. Barbary pirates Trouble had appeared in the Mediterranean, off of the coast of North African. For many years Barbary States of North Africa like Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli engaged in piracy of European merchant shipping. The Barbary pirates routinely captured and confiscated ships and cargo, and enslaved or ransomed their crews and passengers. England, France, and Spain entered into treaties with the Barbary States, in effect, paying "protection money" for their merchant shipping. During the 1780 and 1790s the United States agreed to treaties providing for annual tribute to the Barbary States, but Jefferson was reluctant to continue this policy of appeasement. In 1801, the pirates were unsatisfied with the American responds to their demands. So they ordered the flagpole of the American consulate chopped down as a symbol of declaring war. Eventually 1805, the United States reached an agreement with the pasha that ended American payments of tribute to Tripoli; but required the United States to pay a heavy balanced of 60,000 for the release of American prisoners captured by Barbary pirates. 15. General Robert E. Lee He was appointed to West Point in 1825 were he exceeded in his scholastics and graduated with honors in 1829. After graduation, he joined the Corps of Engineers, and assisted in a variety of projects and construction of military bases and ports. General Lee left the U.S army to lead Confederate forces beginning in 1861. He was the most revered of all the white Southern leaders of the civil war. In 1862, Davis named General Robert E. Lee as his principal military adviser; Confederate troops under Joseph E. Johnston were attacking McClellan’s army outside of Richmond. Johnston, badly wounded, was replaced by Robert E. Lee. With Lee in charged; he launched a new offensive know as the Battle of Seven Days. Lee wanted to cut McClellan off from his base on the York River and then destroy the isolated Union army. As Army of Potomac left the peninsula by water, Lee moved north with the Army of Northern Virginia to hit Pope before McClellan could join him. Battle of Bull Run Lee threw back the assault and routed Pope’s army, which fled to Washington. Lee soon went on offensive again, heading towards western Maryland. In 1863, General Joseph Hooker was in command of the Potomac; a total of 120,000 troops remained north of Rappahannock. Hooker soon moved toward Fredericksburg to Lee’s army. Lee only had half of the men Hooker did, but he boldly divided his forces for a dual assault on the Union army. The Battle of Chancellorsville lasted from May 1 to May 5, Stonewall Jackson attacked the Union right and Lee charged the front. General Hooker barely managed to escape with his army. In April of 1865, Grant army of the Potomac still engaged in the prolonged siege at Petersburg; but without rail access to the South the confederate forces could no longer defend Richmond. Lee tried to find an escape route but he was surrounded by the Union Army with nowhere to escape. He then tried to negotiate with Grant at a private home in Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Lee surrender what is left of his troops and nine days later Johnston too surrender to Sherman. 16. Shakers The Shakers made a redefinition of traditional sexuality and gender roles central to their society. Founded by Ann Lee in the 1770’s; they derived their name from a unique religious ritual, in which members of congregation would shake themselves free of sin while performing a loud chant. The Shaker organization attracted about 6000 members in the 1840’s; more women than men joined. Shakers openly endorsed the idea of sexual equality. In the Shakers community women as a whole have more power. The Shakers were trying as well to create a society separated, and protected from a disorder that they believed had come to characterize American life as a whole. 17. Frederick Douglas The greatest African American abolitionist of all was Frederick Douglass. Born as a slave in Maryland, Douglass escaped to Massachusetts in 1838; Douglass became a well spoken leader of antislavery leader and spent two years lecturing in England. He then return to the U.S in 1847, Douglass purchased freedom from his Maryland owner. He founded an antislavery newspaper call “the North Star of Rochester”. Douglass demanded for African Americans not only freedom, but full social and economic equality as well. 18. Liberator The” Liberator” was founded by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831. Garrison was an assistant in the 1820’s to the New Jersey Quaker Benjamin Lundy, who published the leading antislavery newspaper of the time called “the Genius of Universal Emancipation.” Garrison’s thinks that the opponents of slavery should view the institution from the black man’s point of view; not the slave owners. Garrison used the “liberator” as a way to speak out to others. Garrison also attracted a large group of followers throughout the North. 19. General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard In 1961, General P.G.T Beauregard was the commander of Confederate army at Charleston. The confederate government ordered Beauregard to take the island, by force if necessary. On April 12-13, 1861, when General Anderson on the Union side refused to surrender the fort, the Confederates bombarded it for two days. Finally April 14, 1861, Anderson surrendered; and that was the beginning of the civil war. The North and South first major battle of the civil war was in northern Virginia. The Union army consist of 30,000 men under the command of General Irvin McDowell was stationed outside of Washington. And about 30 miles away, at the town of Manassas, was a slightly smaller Confederate army under P.G.T Beauregard. In the middle of July 1861, Beauregard moved hi troops behind Bull Run, which is a small stream north of Manassas, and called for reinforcements. Early in 1862, Ulysses S. Grant attacked Fort Henry, defended by the union force. In 1862 with about 40,000 men, Grant now advanced south along the Tennessee River to take control of railroad lines. He marched from Pittsburg landing nearby Shiloh, Tennessee, where a force almost equal to his own, Commanded by Albert S. Johnston and P.G.T Beauregard, caught him by surprise. The result lead to the Battle of Shiloh, first day of the battle Johnston was killed; and the southerner forced Grant to move back to the river. Luckily the next day Grant was reinforced by 25,000 men. Grant troops recovered and Beauregard lost ground and was forced to withdraw. After that victory in Shiloh, the north occupied Corinth, Mississippi. 20. Compromise of 1850 The Compromise of 1850 was an intricate package of five bills, passed in September 1850, defusing a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North that arose following the Mexican-American War. Henry Clay, who was spearheading the effort, believed that no compromise could last unless it settled all the issues in dispute between the sections. He presented to the senate January 29, 1850. Among the bill’s provisions were admission of California as a free state; and the land that was acquired from Mexico, without restrictions on slavery, and also a new and more effective fugitive slave law. The Compromise became possible after the sudden death of President Zachary Taylor, who, although a slave-owner himself, tried to implement the Northern policy of excluding slavery from the Southwest. After Zachary Taylor death he was succeeded by Millard Fillmore of New York. He supported the compromise and used his powers of persuasion to swing northern Whigs into line. Douglas was a Democratic senator from Illinois; also a spoke man for the economic needs of his section and for the construction of railroads. Douglas also gained support with complicated backroom deals linking the compromise to such visionary matters as the sale of government bond and the construction of railroads. As a result the president had signed all the component of the compromise. The Compromise of 1850, unlike the Missouri Compromise, was not a product of widespread agreement on common national ideals; but it was a victory of bargaining and self interest. 21. Battle of the Wilderness The Battle of the Wilderness, fought in May 1864, was the first battle of General Ulysses S. Grant's against General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Both armies suffered heavy casualties, a harbinger of a bloody war of attrition by Grant against Lee's army; and eventually, the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia. The battle was tactically inconclusive, as Grant disengaged and continued his offensive. Grant attempted to move quickly through the dense underbrush of the Wilderness of Spotsylvania, but Lee launched two of his corps on parallel roads to intercept him. Fighting until dark was fierce but inconclusive as both sides attempted to maneuver in the dense woods. At dawn on May 6, Hancock attacked along the Plank Road, driving Hill's Corps back in confusion, but General James Longstreet arrived in time to prevent the collapse of the Confederate right flank. Longstreet followed up with a surprise flanking attack from an unfinished railroad bed that drove Hancock's men back to the Brock Road; but the momentum was lost when Longstreet was wounded by his own men. An evening attack by General John B. Gordon against the Union right flank caused consternation at Union headquarters; but the lines stabilized and fighting ceased. On May 7, Grant disengaged and moved to the southeast, intending to leave the Wilderness to interpose his army between Lee and Richmond; leading to the bloody Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. 22. Lincoln-Douglas Debates In Congressional elections of 1858; during the election of Senate in Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas, who is a northern Democrat, against Abraham Lincoln, who was Republican. Lincoln was a successful lawyer who had been involved in state politics for a long time. The Lincoln-Douglas debates attracted enormous crowds and received wide attention. At the center of the debates was a basic difference on the issue of slavery. Lincoln believed slavery was morally wrong, but he was not an abolitionist. That was in part because he could not envision an easy alternative to slavery in the areas where it already existed. Douglas’s position satisfied his followers sufficiently to win him reelection to the Senate, but did nothing to enhance his national political ambitions. Lincoln lost the election in Illinois, but emerged with a growing following in and out of the state. As the election went on, the democrats lost ground in almost every northern state. Still the party retained control of the Senate but lost its majority in the House; as a result the congressional sessions of 1858 and 1859 were bitterly deadlocked. 23. Uncle Tom’s Cabin Uncle Tom's Cabin; is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in 1852; Stowe, a Connecticut-born teacher at the Hartford Female Academy and an active abolitionist, focused the novel on the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of other character; are a fellow slaves and slave owners. The sentimental novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as enslavement of fellow human beings. Her novel, by embedding the antislavery message within a familiar and popular literary form, succeeded in bringing the message of abolitionism to an enormous new audience. 24. Know Nothing Party In 1845, natives held a convention in Philadelphia and formed the Native American Party. Many of the Native groups combined in the 1850 to form the Supreme Order of the Star Spangled Banner. The order adopted a strict code of secrecy, which included the secret password, used in lodges across the country. The know-Nothings turned their attention to party politics, and after the election of 1852 they created a new political party called the American Party. In 1854, The Know-Nothing party allies with the new organization called the Republican; to organize the House of Representatives. After 1854, the strength of know nothing slowly faded. 25. March to the Sea Sherman had left Atlanta to begin his March to the Sea. Living off the land, destroying supplies it could not use, his army cut a sixty-mile-wide swath across Georgia He seized the confederate army of war supplies and railroad communications; but also to break the spirit of the Southern people, he burned down towns and plantations. He continued his destructive march through South Carolina. He was unstoppable until he reached inside North Carolina, where a small force under Johnston that did more than brief delay for Sherman.