First Month

Background to the Civil War I:  Colonial slavery, slavery and the Constitution, the industrial revolution in the north, king cotton, the “pairing” of states, the Missouri Compromise

Second Month

Background to the Civil War II:  the spread of slavery to new territories/states, the nullification crisis, Compromise of 1850, Kansas/Nebraska Act, rise of the Republicans, events leading to the Civil War, 1857-1861

Third Month

Civil War I:   Fort Sumter, 1st Bull Run, strategies, strengths & weaknesses of both sides, philosophies of victory, Congress vs. the president, The Peninsular Campaign of 1862 through the Battle of Antietam, the South’s problem with international recognition, early battles in the western theatre.

Fourth Month

Civil War II:  1863-1865.  Major battles of the last year and a half of the war, politics of the war, the election of 1864, sieges of Vicksburg and Petersburg, Sherman and “total war,” Grant in command, Lee’s surrender.

Fifth Month

Reconstruction:  assassination of Lincoln, Andrew Johnson as president, competing plans for Reconstruction, treatment of the South after the war, treatment of freed slaves after the war, election of Grant and the Grant administration, the end of Reconstruction with the election of Hayes in 1876.
The Gilded Age:  If there’s time, this semester will end with a unit on the US between 1876 and 1901.  Topics will include urbanization, the second industrial revolution, immigration, the settlement of the west, city machines and the problems of cities, the robber barons.