Download Select Timeline of Events Relevant to Our Civil War Unit

Humanities Core Course - Winter 2014
Select Timeline of Events Relevant to Our Civil War Unit
Note: These entries are primarily drawn, often verbatim, from Liberty, Equality, Power: A
History of the American People (Concise Fifth Edition, Volume I: 2011) and Give Me Liberty!: An
American History (Seagull Third Edition, Volume One: 2012). Therefore, this timeline is for your
personal reference only and should not be quoted from or otherwise distributed / reproduced.
1816
Foundation of American Colonization Society, which promoted gradual abolition of slavery
and settlement of black Americans in Africa
1820
Congress passes the Missouri Compromise, which maintained the sectional balance in
Congress by admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state and by drawing a line
west from the 36º30' parallel separating future slave and free states
1822
Denmark Vesey, a former slave who had purchased his freedom, plans a slave rebellion in
South Carolina for July 14; word of the conspiracy is leaked beforehand and the plan is
suppressed
1829
African-American abolitionist David Walker publishes Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the
World
1830
Charles Grandison Finney leads religious revival in Rochester, New York (example of growth of
evangelical Christianity)
Beginning in late 1820s (in response to a new federal tariff on manufactured goods) and
continuing through ~1833, "nullification crisis" led by South Carolinian John Calhoun. Calhoun
and others argued that states could nullify federal laws and had the right to secede from the
Union.
1831
First blackface minstrel shows - a popular form of theater among working
men of the northern cities in which white men in blackface portrayed American
Americans in song and dance; the shows also reinforced racial stereotypes that
were near the center of American popular culture
January
William Lloyd Garrison begins publication of The Liberator
August
Nat Turner's Rebellion in Virginia - slave revolt in which 55 whites were killed
- more than in any other American slave revolt
1833
Foundation of American Anti-Slavery Society; the society demanded the immediate,
uncompensated emancipation of slaves and full civil + legal rights for blacks
Parliament of United Kingdom passes Slavery Abolition Act of 1833
1835
Abolitionists launch "postal campaign," flooding mail with antislavery tracts
1836
Abolitionists flood Congress with antislavery petitions; Congress adopts "gag rule" to table
antislavery petitions
1837
Antislavery editor Elijah Lovejoy killed by a mob in Illinois
1838
Frederick Douglass escapes slavery
Mob in Philadelphia burns down Philadelphia Hall, which abolitionists had built to hold their
meetings
1845
Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave published
1848
First Women's Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York
1850
Congress passes Compromise of 1850 to resolve differences between the sections; amongst
the provisions of the Compromise were ending the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in
Washington, D.C. and the passage of the stringent Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The Fugitive
Slave Act prohibited local authorities from interfering with the capture of fugitive slaves and
required individual citizens to assist with the capture if called upon by federal agents.
1852
White New Englander Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin - a
sentimental novel that told the story of the Christian slave Uncle Tom; it became
a best-seller and the most powerful antislavery tract of the antebellum years
July 5
Douglass delivers "What To The Slave Is The Fourth of July" Speech in
Rochester, New York
1854
Congress passes Kansas-Nebraska Act, which effectively repealed the provision of the 1820
Missouri Compromise by leaving the question of slavery in new territories to the territories'
white settlers
1855
Whitman's Leaves of Grass published
1857
U.S. Supreme Court issues the Dred Scott decision, ruling that only white
persons could be citizens of the United States, that Congress had no power
March
under the Constitution to bar slavery from a territory (i.e., that the then-defunct
Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional), and that a slave residing in a free
state does not confer freedom upon that slave.
1858
Lincoln-Douglas debates (Illinois politician Stephen A Douglas, not Frederick Douglass!)
1859
John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry. He intended his raid on a South
Carolina U.S. armory and arsental for the manufacture and storage of military
October
rifles as a means to arm slaves and launch an army to defeat slavery. His 36hour failed raid stoked southern fears of slave insurrections.
1860
November
Abraham Lincoln, Republican of Illinois, elected U.S. President
December 20 South Carolina secedes from the Union
1861
January
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana secede
February 1
Texas secedes
March 4
April 12
April 17
May
Abraham Lincoln's Presidential Inauguration; Lincoln assumes office
Confederate guns attack Fort Sumter; Civil War begins
Virginia secedes
Confederacy moves its capital to Richmond, Virginia
Arkansas and North Carolina secede
Union General Benjamin Butler refuses to return to their masters 3 slaves who
escaped to his lines on the basis that they were contraband of war; following
this, slaves who escaped and came within Union lines were known as
"contrabands"
Douglass' "How to End the War" in Douglass' Monthly
June
July
Tennessee secedes
With Lincoln's endorsement, Congress passes a resolution affirming that the
Union did not intend to interfere with slavery and sought only to "defend and
maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union"
Battle of Manassas/First Battle of Bull Run - ending in Confederate victory,
the battle exhilarated Confederates and confirmed their belief in their martial
superiority while crushing Northern expectations of a short war
August 6
Congress passes an act authorizing the seizure of all property, including slaves,
being used for Confederate military purposes (while most did not, some Union
commanders had returned slaves escaping from the Confederacy to their
masters or prevented them from entering Union camps)
August 30
Major General John C. Frémont, commanding Union forces in Missouri, issues an
order freeing the slaves of all Confederate sympathizers in the state (this later
becomes known as the Frémont Emancipation); he argues his proclamation
was only a means of detering secessionists in Missouri, a slave state which had
not seceded
September
Douglass' "Fighting Rebels With Only One Hand" in Douglass' Monthly
Lincoln, fearful that the Frémont Emancipation might cause border states to
September 11
secede, orders Frémont to rescind his order in Missouri
September 28 Whitman's Beat! Beat! Drums! in Harper's Weekly
November
Lincoln proposes that border states embark on program of gradual emancipation
with the federal government compensating owners for their loss of property
1862
Some Union commanders in occupied portions of Louisiana, South Carolina, and
Missouri begin to organize black regiments
Douglass' "What Shall Be Done With The Slaves If Emancipated?" in Douglass'
Monthly
January
February-June Series of Union victories bolster hope in North that war will soon end
Congress passes act forbidding the return of slaves who escape to Union lines
March
Lincoln signs the District of Columbia Emancipation Act, which ends slavery
in Washington D.C. by paying Union slaveholders up to $300 per freed slave. It
also allocated money to pay each newly freed slave up to $100 if s/he chose to
leave the United States for places such as Haiti or Liberia
April 16
June 25-July 1 Conferate victory in Seven Days Campaign
July
Congress passes Second Confiscation Act, which liberated slaves held by
owners disloyal to the Union in Union-occupied territories as well as slaves who
escaped to Union lines
July 12
After border-state congressmen fail to accept Lincoln's proposal of compensated
emancipation, Lincoln concludes that compromise is not possible and decides to
issue an emanicpation proclamation. The next week he notified his cabinet of his
intention, saying it was "a military necessity, absolutely essential to the
preservation of the Union." We was encouraged to wait until the North was
experiencing military sucess to issue the proclamation.
Lincoln meets at the White House with a delegation of black leaders and urges
them to promote emigration from the United States. He is quoted as stating,
"You
and we are different races" and "It is better for us both to be separated."
August
Confederate victory in Second Battle of Bull Run
August 30
September 17 Union victory in battle of Antietam
Lincoln issues Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which stipulated that
September 22 if any state or part of any state was still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, then
the president would declare the slaves therein "forever free"
1863
Alcott's Hospital Sketches published
January 1
April
July 18
September 5
1864
April 8
Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in states that
were not under Union control. It also paves the way for blacks fighting for the
Union army, stating "I further declare and make known, that such persons of
suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States
to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all
sorts in said service."
Douglass' "Why Should A Colored Man Enlist?" in Douglass' Monthly
The 54th Massachusetts Infantry, the first black regiment raised in the North,
was set into battle for the first time
Jacobs' "Life Among the Contrabands" in The Liberator
Whitman's Drum-Taps published
Senate passes 13th Amendment to abolish slavery, but it was blocked in the
House
1865
November 4
Whitman's Sequel to Drum-Taps published
Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!" in New York Saturday Press