Important People
Key Battles
Prelude to War
Secession Crisis
Miscellaneous
100

Man elected President in 1860

Abraham Lincoln

100

Site of first battle between North and South

Fort Sumter

100

To settle the dispute over land gained from Mexico, this legislation admitted California as a free state but included a strict new Fugitive Slave Act.

Compromise of 1850

100

First Southern State to leave the Union

South Carolina

100

Withdrawal of states from the Union

Secession

200

African-American man who had his case heard by the Supreme Court?

Dred Scott 

200

Site of southern surrender, ending the Civil War

Appomattox Courthouse 

200

This Act, championed by Stephen Douglas, overturned the Missouri Compromise by allowing "popular sovereignty" to determine the status of slavery in new territories.

Kansas Nebraska Act 

200

While the North became increasingly urban and industrial, this broad sector—specifically the production of cotton — formed the entire backbone of the Southern economy by the mid-1800s.

Agriculture

200

Nickname for Kansas in the period before the war

Bleeding Kansas 

300

Assassin of President Lincoln

John Wilkes Booth

300

Town where Lincoln gave a famous speech at the dedication of a cemetery

Battle of Gettysburg 

300

These two Illinois politicians engaged in seven legendary face-to-face meetings while competing for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln

300

This election finally forced southern states to cede from the Union

Election of 1860

300

Executive order that freed the slaves in rebel territory 

Emancipation Proclamation

400

Man who led an attack on Harper's Ferry to get guns for a slave uprising. 

John Brown

400

Battle that gave the Union victory and control of the Mississippi river

Battle of Vicksburg 

400

In this 1857 Supreme Court ruling, Chief Justice Roger Taney declared that African Americans were not citizens and that Congress could not ban slavery in the territories.

Dred Scott decision

400

New nation formed by the Southern states

Confederacy

400

Idea that the people in the area of the Mexican Cession should vote to decide whether their state would be slave or free

Popular Sovereignty 

500

President of the Confederacy 

Jefferson Davis 

500

First major land battle of the Civil War

Battle of Bull Run / Manassas

500

In 1859, radical abolitionist John Brown led a raid on a federal armory in this Virginia town, hoping to spark a massive slave insurrection.

Harper's Ferry

500

Name of the compromise created by a Kentucky Senator to appease the South

Crittenden Compromise 

500

Man who recaptured Harper's Ferry and arrested John Brown

Robert E. Lee

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