• The Transcontinental Railroad

Def: Built between 1863 and 1869. A railway network that connected the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the U.S. for the first time. The construction and operation of the line was authorized by the Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864. The railroad was completed May 10, 1869 with a driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit, Utah.

Imp: The railroad established transcontinental transportation that revolutionized the population and economy of the West. Manifest Destiny is now complete.

• The American Bison (Buffalo) 1880's

Def: Is a North American species that roamed in massive herds. They became nearly extinct due to hunting and bovine disease when cattle were introduced.

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• The Cattle Drives 1865-1885

Def: An economic activity in the American West, cattle were driven in large herds from Texas to railheads in Kansas. The cattle were then shipped to stockyards in Chicago and out East.

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• Cotton Gin 1793

Def: Eli Whitney's invention/machine that separates cotton fibers from their seeds.

Imp: It made cultivating short-staple cotton profitable, revolutionizing the southern economy. Cotton exports as a percentage of all U.S. exports between 1800-1860. The cotton boom led to a huge increase in internal slave trade leading to the growth in slavery in the South. With cotton production rising by millons of bales the South became more dependent on slave labor and a desire for more land to plant on. This was a contributing factor to the start of the Civil War.

• Frederick Douglass 1818-1895

Def: Was an American abolitionist, author, and speaker. Born on a plantation and held in bondage for 20 years, he gained his freedom in 1838.

Imp: His writings have become a part of slave tradition. He was the voice against anti-slavery politics and racism. His influential black newspaper, editorials, and speeches are forever embedded in history.

• The Compromise of 1850

Def: It consisted of laws admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each to be determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute,ending the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves.

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• Uncle Tom's Cabin 1852

Def: Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, is published in 1852. The novel sold 300,000 copies within three months and was so widely read that when President Abraham Lincoln met Stowe in 1862, he reportedly said, "So this is the little lady who made this big war."

Imp: The book had a major influence on the way the American and English people viewed slavery. It was a stepping stone to the American Civil War.

• "Bleeding Kansas" 1856

Def: The period of violence during the settling of the Kansas territory. The residents would determine whether the area became a free state or a slave state. Proslavery and free-state settlers flooded into Kansas to try to influence the decision. Violence soon erupted as both fought for control.

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• The Dred Scott Decision

Def: An 1857 Supreme Court decision. The question between free soil and slavery. The Supreme Court ruled that Congress could not ban slavery in the territories and that black people did not have the right to bring suits before federal court due to the fact that they were not citizens.

Imp: A case that further inflamed differences in America over the issue of slavery, which in 1861 erupted with the outbreak of the American Civil War.

• Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865

Def: Won the Republican Party's nomination for president in 1860 and was elected that November. Shortly after his election the slave holding states started seceeding. By his inauguration in March 1861 all slave states had left the Union. The Civil War started shortly after.

Imp: His Emancipation Proclamation, issued in 1863, freed all slaves in the southern states and paved the way for slavery's eventual abolition, while his Gettysburg Address later that year stands as one of the most famous and influential pieces of oratory in American history.

• Ulysses S. Grant

Def: Grant graduated from West Point and fought in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). He commanded the Union army during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and served as the 18th U.S. president from 1869 to 1877.

Imp: After the war he became a national hero, and the Republicans nominated him for president in 1868. A primary focus of Grant's administration was Reconstruction, and he worked to reconcile the North and South while also attempting to protect the civil rights of newly freed black slaves.

• Robert E. Lee

Def: He attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and graduated second in his class in 1829. He fought in the Mexican War 1846-1848. Lee commanded the Army of Northern Virginia during most of the Civil War. Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, in 1865.

Imp: His brilliant battlefield leadership earned him a reputation as one of the greatest military leaders in history.

• Battle of Antietam

Def: Confederate and Union troops in the Civil War battle near Maryland's Antietam Creek in the bloodiest one-day battle in American history.

Imp: Lee turned his forces back to Virginia. His retreat gave President Lincoln the moment he had been waiting for to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, a historic document that turned the Union effort in the Civil War into a fight for the abolition of slavery.

• Emancipation Proclamation January 1863

Def: A preliminary proclamation was issued in September 1862, following the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in Maryland. President Abraham Lincoln signs the final Emancipation Proclamation, which ends slavery in the rebelling states on January 1, 1863.

Imp: It was a shift in the Union's Civil War goals, from reunification to eradication of slavery. It changed the world's views on what the South was fighting for, proslavery.

• The Massachusetts 54th Infantry Regiment March 1863

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• Battle of Gettysburg

Def: The largest military conflict in North American history. Union and Confederate forces fight at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle lasted three days and resulted in a retreat to Virginia by Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

Imp: The casualties for both armies were staggering. Lee lost 28,000 of his 75,000 soldiers, and Union losses stood at over 22,000. It was the last time Lee threatened Northern territory.

• Sherman's March To The Sea November-Decemeber 1864

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• The 13th Amendment

Def: The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially abolished slavery in America, and was ratified on December 6, 1865, after the conclusion of the American Civil War.

Imp: It eradicated the institution of slavery. It later became a stepping stone to the Civil Rights Movement in the 60's.

• Black Codes

Def: In late 1865, Mississippi and South Carolina enacted the first black codes.

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• The Ku Klux Klan

Def: A group including many former Confederate veterans founded the first branch of the Ku Klux Klan as a social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866.

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