c. 1850-c. 1865:
Civil War
Essential Questions
- How did Congress try to resolve the dispute between North and South over slavery?
- How did the Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas-Nebraska Act increase tensions between the North and South?
- What developments deepened the divisions between North and South?
- How did the Union finally collapse into a civil war?
- How did each side’s resources and strategies affect the early battles of the Civil War?
- How did the Emancipation Proclamation and the efforts of African American soldiers affect the course of the war?
- How did the Civil War bring temporary and lasting changes to American society?
- How did the Battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg change the course of the Civil War?
- What was the final outcome and impact of the Civil War?
Key Terms
c. 1850-1860: Civil Crisis
Illustration for the first edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Eliza tells Uncle Tom that he has been sold and she is running away to save her child.
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Assignments and Readings
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Events Leading Up to the Civil War
| ultimate_guide_to_the_presidents_episode_3.pdf |
| civil_war_review_packet.pdf |
| 10_days_that_unexpectedly_changed_america_antietam.pdf |
| lee_and_grant.pdf |
American Civil War A-Z Project
| american_civil_war_a-z_project.pdf |
For info on MLA: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_and_style_guide.html
MLA citation maker: www.citationmachine.net/mla/cite-a-book
MLA citation maker: www.citationmachine.net/mla/cite-a-book
Primary Sources
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Slideshows
Videos
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10 Days: Antietam from ViewfinderNYC on Vimeo.
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Digital History Textbook
The Impending Crisis
For forty years, attempts were made to resolve conflicts between North and South. The Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery in the northern half of the Louisiana Purchase. The acquisition of vast new territories during the 1840s reignited the question of slavery in the western territories. The Compromise of 1850 was an attempt to solve this problem by admitting California as a free state but allowing slavery in the rest of the Southwest. But the compromise included a fugitive slave law opposed by many Northerners. The Kansas-Nebraska Act proposed to solve the problem of status there by popular sovereignty. But this led to violent conflict in Kansas and the rise of the Republican party. The Dred Scott decision eliminated possible compromise solutions to the sectional conflict and John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry convinced many Southerners that a majority of Northerners wanted to free the slaves and incite race war.
The Civil War
This chapter examines the election of 1860, the secession crisis, the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Union and the Confederacy, the military history of the war, as well as the economic and social changes the war produced.
For forty years, attempts were made to resolve conflicts between North and South. The Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery in the northern half of the Louisiana Purchase. The acquisition of vast new territories during the 1840s reignited the question of slavery in the western territories. The Compromise of 1850 was an attempt to solve this problem by admitting California as a free state but allowing slavery in the rest of the Southwest. But the compromise included a fugitive slave law opposed by many Northerners. The Kansas-Nebraska Act proposed to solve the problem of status there by popular sovereignty. But this led to violent conflict in Kansas and the rise of the Republican party. The Dred Scott decision eliminated possible compromise solutions to the sectional conflict and John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry convinced many Southerners that a majority of Northerners wanted to free the slaves and incite race war.
- The Slave Power Conspiracy
- The Crisis of 1850
- Slavery in a Capitalist World
- The Compromise of 1850
- The Fugitive Slave Law
- The Breakdown of the Party System
- The Kansas-Nebraska Act
- The Revival of the Slavery Issue
- "Bleeding Kansas" and "Bleeding Sumner"
- The Election of 1856
- The Dred Scott Decision
- The Gathering Storm
- The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
- Harper's Ferry
- Conclusion
The Civil War
This chapter examines the election of 1860, the secession crisis, the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Union and the Confederacy, the military history of the war, as well as the economic and social changes the war produced.
- The Election of 1860
- South Carolina Leaves the Union
- Secession
- Establishing the Confederacy
- Last-Ditch Efforts at Compromise
- Fort Sumter
- Lincoln Responds to Secession
- War Begins
- Prospects for Victory
- Why the Civil War Was So Lethal
- Bull Run
- A War for Union
- The Anaconda Plan
- Pressure for Emancipation
- War in the West
- A Will to Destroy
- The Eastern Theater
- Native Americans and the Civil War
- War Within a War
- Antietam
- The Significance of Names
- The Emancipation Proclamation
- The Meaning of the Emancipation Proclamation
- The Home Front
- The Death Toll
- The Second American Revolution
- The Confederacy Begins to Collapse
- The New York City Draft Riots
- Blacks in Blue
- Fort Wagner
- The Battle Against Discrimination
- Towards Gettysburg
- The Battle of Gettysburg
- Vicksburg
- Was Lincoln a Racist?
- The Thirteenth Amendment
- Total War
- Slaves' Role in Their Own Liberation
- The 1864 Presidential Election
- Grant Takes Command
- A Stillness at Appomattox
- 'The President is murdered'
- The War's Costs