US History: Abolitionism, Expansion, and the Civil War

Posted on Dec 20, 2024 in History

1. Humanitarian

A person who seeks to promote human welfare.

2. Transcendentalists

A person who accepts these ideas not as a religious belief but as a way of understanding life relationships.

3. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Led the Transcendentalist movement.

4. Henry David Thoreau

Abolitionist; New England Transcendentalist.

5. Communitarian

Philosophy that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community.

6. Shakers

The society of believers in Christ’s second appearing.

  • Mother Ann Lee was the founder of the Shaker movement.
  • Celibacy, communal life, confession of sin.
  • Believed in full gender equality.

7. Oneida Community

  • Father John Humphrey Noyes established the society.
  • A religious-based, socialist group of about 250, dedicated to living as one family and to sharing all property, work, and love.
  • Known as the perfectionists/Bible communists.
  • Practiced Complex Marriage: Every woman was the wife of every man and every man was the husband of every woman.

8. Owenites (Followers of Robert Owen)

  • Robert Owen founded the society.
  • Utopian socialist philosophy aimed for radical reform of society and is considered a forerunner of the cooperative movement.
  • New Harmony – less successful utopian experiments. Owen believed that an individual’s character was shaped by his or her environment.

9. Dorothy Dix

Created the first generation of American mental asylums.

10. Elizabeth Cady Stanton

American suffragist, social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early women’s rights movement.

11. Lucretia Mott

Sheltered runaway slaves and became one of the early leaders of the women’s rights movement.

12. Denmark Vesey Revolt

A major slave revolt in 1822, “the rising.” Failed to happen in Charleston, S.C.

  • Denmark Vesey “Telemaque” was a free black former slave in Charleston, South Carolina who came up with the plan.

13. Nat Turner Revolt

Was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia during August 1831.

  • Nat Turner was the leader of the rebellion and killed up to 65 people, the highest number of fatalities caused by any slave uprising in the American south.

14. William Lloyd Garrison and the Liberator

Was the voice of abolitionism. “Every movement needs a voice.” Became the leader of emerging anti-slavery movement.

15. Wendell Phillips

American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator, and lawyer. Gave up his practice to fight for the abolition of slavery.

16. Frederick Douglass

Was an American abolitionist and journalist, often known as the “father” of the modern civil rights movement. Douglass created the abolitionist paper “The North Star” on December 3, 1847. It became the most influential black antislavery paper to ever be published during the antebellum era (the period after the War of 1812 that characterized the rise of abolitionists and supporters of slavery.)

17. Moral Persuasion

  1. William Lloyd Garrison and the Liberator
  2. Wendell Phillips
  3. Frederick Douglass
  4. James Horton

18. Moral Persuasion plus Political Action

  • Frederick Douglass
  • Theodore Dwight Weld
  • Arthur and Lewis Tappan
  • James G. Birney
  • Liberty Party
  • Grimke sisters (Sarah and Angelina)
  • Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

19. Force

  • David Walker’s Appeal
  • Rev. Henry Highland
  • John Brown

20. Migration

  • Dr. Martin Delany
  • American Colonization Society and Liberia

21. William Henry Harrison

Became the 9th president (oldest to be inaugurated) during the 1840 election. His inauguration only lasted a month due to his death. “Longest inaugural speech, shortest term in office.”

22. John Tyler

Was the Vice president during William Henry Harrison’s presidency. Became President after Harrison’s death in 1841.

23. Zebulon Pike Expedition

Military party sent out to explore the south and west of the recent Louisiana Purchase.

24. Webster-Ashburton Treaty

Was a treaty resolving several border issues between the United States and the British North American colonies. It resolved the Aroostook war, a nonviolent dispute of the Maine-New Brunswick border.

25. Stephen F. Austin

“Father of Texas.” He led the second and ultimately successful colonization of the region by bringing 300 families from the U.S. to the region in 1825. He worked with the Mexican government to support immigration from the U.S.

26. Sam Houston

Brought Texas into the United States as a constituent state. After Sam Houston’s victory at the Battle of San Jacinto, he gained independence of Texas from Mexico.

27. Mexican War 1846-1848

Marked the first U.S. armed conflict chiefly fought on foreign soil. It pitted a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico against the expansionist-minded administration of U.S. president James K Polk, who believed the United States had a “Manifest destiny” to spread across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. Mexico lost about one third of its territory, including all of present day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico.

28. Zachary Taylor

12th President, known as a national war hero for his battles in the Mexican War. He led the nation during its debates on slavery and southern secession.

29. Winfield Scott

“Old fuss and feathers.”

Won the war and captured Mexico city.

30. Butterfield Overland Mail Routes

“6 days to Sacramento.”

  • Was a stagecoach service. It carried passengers and U.S. mail from Memphis, Tennessee and St. Louis, Missouri to San Francisco, California. The routes met at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and then continued through Indian Territory, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Baja California, and California ending in San Francisco.

31. Camel Experiment by U.S. Military

Major George H. Crossman recommended to congress in 1836 that the Army should experiment with the use of camels since the chief desert problem for the traditional military animals was lack of water and forage. Camels could go longer without water than horses or mules.

32. Oregon Trail

2,200 mile historic east-west large wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon.

33. California Trail

Was an emigrant trail of about 2,000 miles across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri river towns to what is now the state of California.

34. Kit Carson

Was an American frontiersman, trapper, soldier and Indian agent who made an important contribution to the westward expansion of the United States.

35. John Fremont

“The pathfinder.”

  • Was an American military officer, explorer, and politician who became the first candidate of the anti-slavery republican party. He led four expeditions into the American west, that era’s penny press. During the Mexican war Fremont took control of California from the bear flag republic in 1846.

36. Compromise of 1850

  1. California admitted as a free state.
  2. Popular sovereignty in New Mexico and Utah territories.
  3. Abolish the slave trade in the national capital.
  4. Enactment of a strict fugitive slave law.

37. Fugitive Slave Act 1850

A group of laws referred to as the “Compromise of 1850.” In this compromise the antislavery advocates gained the admission of California as a free state and the prohibition of slave-trading in the district of California.

38. Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854

Created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing white male settlers in those territories to determine through popular sovereignty whether they would allow slavery within each territory.

39. Pony Express

A mail service delivering messages, newspapers, mail, and small packages from St. Joseph, Missouri, across the Great Plains, over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento, California. By horseback, using series of relay stations.

40. Bloody Kansas (Nebraska Act 1854)

Was a series of violent political confrontations in the United States involving anti-slavery free-staters and pro-slavery “border ruffian” elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the neighboring towns of the state of Missouri between 1854 and 1861.

41. Republican Party, 1854

Former members of the Whig party met to establish a new party to oppose the spread of slavery into the western territories.

42. Dred Scott Decision 1857

The right of slave owners to take their slaves into the western territories, thereby negating the doctrine of popular sovereignty and severely undermining the platform of the newly created Republican party.

43. Legal Status of Slaves Under the Constitution

  1. Slaves were legal property.
  2. No law could be made that discriminated against the property owners.
  3. Afro-Americans were not citizens of the United States.
  4. Slavery was allowed in all territories.

44. Abraham Lincoln

Became the 16th president March 4, 1861, issuing the emancipation proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the confederacy in 1863.

45. John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, 1859

John and a group of his supporters captured citizens and seized the federal armory and arsenal. Had hopes that the local slave population would join the raid and through the raids success weapons would be supplied to slaves and freedom fighters throughout the country. Was held down by local militia and took refuge. Was captured and put on trial and charged with treason against the state of Virginia, murder, and slave insurrection. He was then sentenced to death.

46. Political Splits = Formation of the Republican Party 1854

  1. Whigs
  2. Liberty Party
  3. Free Soil Party
  4. Anti-Masonic Party
  5. American (Know Nothing Party)
  6. Northern Democrats

47. Campaign of 1860

  • Abraham Lincoln of Illinois and the Republican Party
  • John C. Breckemidge of Kentucky and the Southern Democrats
  • John Bell of Tennessee and the Constitutional Union Party

48. Homestead Act, 1862

Was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862. Encouraged western

Migration by providing settlers 160 acres of public land. In exchange, homesteaders paid a small filing fee and were acquired to complete five years of continuous residence before receiving ownership of the land.

49. Emancipation Proclamation

Was issued by President Abraham Lincoln. As the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”

50. General Ulysses S. Grant

18th president, worked closely with Lincoln to lead the Union army to victory over the confederacy in the American civil war.

51. William T. Sherman

Was an American soldier who served as a general in the Union army during the American civil war, for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the “scorched earth” policies that he implemented in conducting total war against the confederate states.

52. Union Strategy

  1. Naval blockade.
  2. Consolidate control of Border States.
  3. Cut the Confederacy into segments.

53. General Robert E. Lee

Was an American soldier best known for commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865.

54. General Stonewall Jackson

Was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, and the best-known Confederate commander after General Robert E. Lee.

55. Confederate Strategy

  1. Seize Washington City.
  2. Move into Maryland and Pennsylvania.
  3. Cut northeast off from the northwest.
  4. Force the Union government to sue for peace.

56. Merrimac and the Monitor

Also called Battle of Hampton Roads, (March 9, 1862), in the American Civil War, naval engagement at Hampton Roads, Virginia, a harbor at the mouth of the James River, notable as history’s first duel between ironclad warships and the beginning of a new era of naval warfare.

57. Battle of Manassas (a.k.a. The Battle of Bull Run)

Was fought on July 21, 1861, in Prince William County, Virginia, near the city of Manassas, not far from Washington, D.C. It was the first major battle of the American Civil War. The Union forces were slow in positioning themselves, allowing Confederate reinforcements time to arrive by rail. Each side had about 18,000 poorly trained and poorly led troops in their first battle. It was a Confederate victory followed by a disorganized retreat of the Union forces.

58. Battle of Shiloh (a.k.a. The Battle of Pittsburgh Landing)

Was a major battle in the Western Theater of the American Civil War, fought April 6-7, 1862, in southwestern Tennessee. A Union army under Major General Ulysses S. Grant had moved via the Tennessee River deep into Tennessee and was encamped principally at Pittsburg Landing on the west bank of the river, where Confederate forces under Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and Pierre G. T. Beauregard launched a surprise attack on Grant’s army.

59. Battle of Antietam

Fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek as part of the Maryland Campaign, was the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Union soil. It is the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with a combined tally of dead, wounded, and missing at 22,717.

60. Battle of Gettysburg

Was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. The battle involved the largest number of casualties of the entire war and is often described as the war’s turning point. Union Maj. Gen. George Meade’s Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee’s attempt to invade the North.

61. Battle of Vicksburg

Was the final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate Army of Vicksburg led by Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Vicksburg was the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River.

62. Sherman’s March to the Sea

Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army. The campaign began with Sherman’s troops leaving the captured city of Atlanta, Georgia, on November 15 and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. Sherman’s bold move of operating deep within enemy territory and without supply lines is considered to be revolutionary in the annals of war.

63. Surrender at Appomattox, April 9, 1865

Was one of the last battles of the American Civil War. It was the final engagement of Confederate Army general Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia before it surrendered to the Union Army under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Lee, having abandoned the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, after the ten-month Siege of Petersburg, retreated west, hoping to join his army with the Confederate forces in North Carolina.