American Civil War

David Head

• Publisher: QuickStudy Reference Guides
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781423237464
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Students, history and Civil War buffs can have answers lickety split at their fingertips. This timeline in 6 laminated pages includes the critical people and events that played a part in this heroic and tragic turning point that fortified American pride. Suggested uses:
• Students - Review before relevant history tests, support class lessons and textbook, impress your teachers & professors
• Teachers/Professors - fact bank to build tests & quizzes, lesson plan support, reference for documentary film viewing, supplement to the textbook
• Reenactors - Indestructible reference during muddy Civil War reenactments reenactments

Radical Reconstruction, 1867–1877

1867

1. Led by the Radical Republicans, a faction in Congress dedicated to a strong Reconstruction policy that punishes the South, Congress approves the Reconstruction Act of 1867, overriding the veto of President Johnson. The law:
   1. Divides the former Confederacy into five military districts governed by Union generals.
   2. Charges the military to oversee elections and guarantee the rights of freedmen.
   3. Requires that before states are readmitted to the Union, they must ratify the 14th Amendment, allow freedmen to vote, and prohibit high-level Confederate officers from voting.
2. To protect Radical Republican ally Edwin Stanton, the secretary of war, Congress passes the Tenure of Office Act again over the veto of President Johnson. The law requires Senate approval for the dismissal of cabinet secretaries.

1868

1. The 14th Amendment is ratified. In addition to protecting the citizenship rights of freedmen, it guarantees equal protection, abolishes the three-fifths clause, disqualifies some Confederates from serving in Congress, and repudiates the Confederate debt.
2. 
   President Johnson is impeached for violation of the Tenure of Office Act.
   1. Johnson fired Secretary Stanton in spite of the law.
   2. In his trial before the Senate, Johnson is acquitted by one vote and continues as president.
   3. The Supreme Court later finds the act violated the Constitution.
3. The term carpetbagger, a pejorative applied to Northern whites who moved South seeking economic opportunities following the war, enters circulation.
4. General Ulysses S. Grant (R-OH) defeats Horatio Seymour (D-NY) to win the presidency.

1869

1. Debate on the 15th Amendment, which protects voting rights for black men, divides the women’s rights movement.
   
   1. Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe found the American Woman Suffrage Association to support the passage of the amendment even though it does not enfranchise women.
   2. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony form the National Woman Suffrage Association to fight for women’s voting rights.
2. In a scheme to corner the gold market, financiers Jay Gould and Jim Fisk bring on a sharp market contraction.
3. In Tennessee, a “Redeemer” government comes to power, dedicated to reconstituting the prewar social conditions.

1870

1. With representatives from Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas taking their seats in Congress, all the states of the former Confederacy are readmitted to the Union.
2. The 15th Amendment is ratified. Its text reads, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
3. To protect African American voters from KKK violence, Congress passes the First Enforcement Act.
4. Senator Hiram Revels (R-MS), Congressman Joseph Rainey (R-SC), and Congressman Jefferson Long (R-GA) become the first black members of Congress.

1871

1. The Second Enforcement Act is passed; it offers federal protection for rights to vote, hold office, serve on juries, and equal protection of the law.
   1. The president is authorized to impose martial law and suspend the right of habeas corpus to enforce the law.
2. President Grant sends federal troops to suppress the KKK in South Carolina. Although few convictions result, the KKK’s influence is drastically reduced.

1872

1. 
   P. B. S. Pinchback becomes interim governor of Louisiana; he is the first African American governor.
2. The Amnesty Act removes virtually all restrictions on voting or office holding by former Confederates.
3. Newspapers break the Crédit Mobilier scandal involving a shell corporation created to defraud the government in contracts to build the Union Pacific Railroad.
4. President Grant wins reelection, defeating newspaper editor and former congressman Horace Greeley of New York.
   1. Greeley received the nomination of both the Liberal Republican Party and the Democratic Party.
   2. Greeley died before the electoral votes were cast and the election was made official.

1873

1. Texas government returns to Democratic Party control. Other Southern governments will soon follow suit....