American Civil War

Events

Date: April 12, 1861-May 9th, 1865

As American expansionism pushed land-hungry Americans west, the rapid admission of former Native lands, either through outright violence or forced coercion, reignited debates about the institution of slavery as practiced by Southern-American states. In the early 19^th-century, conflict erupted as slave-owning states advocated for an equal number of slave states to be admitted for every free state, leading to instances of significant violence such as “Bleeding Kansas.” By the mid-1850s, legal challenges favoring abolition greatly exacerbated these tensions between the North and South.

In order to protect a Southern economy driven by the enslavement, torture, and policing of Black families, Southern states led a political coalition to secede from the United States. The secessionist states became known as the Confederate States of America, and, soon after their assemblage, attacked a number of United States Forts including Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Tribes that supported the Union at the outset of war included Potawatomi, Creeks, Seminole, Kickapoo, Shawnee, Huron, and Ottawa nations, among others.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE CIVIL WAR

April 12, 1861: Battle of Fort Sumter
June 30, 1861: Battle of Philippi
July 21, 1861: First Battle of Bull Run/First Battle of Manassas
August 28-29, 1861: Battle of Hatteras Inlet Batteries
October 21, 1861: Battle of Ball’s Bluff
November 7, 1861: Battle of Belmont
January 19, 1862: Battle of Mill Springs
February 6, 1862: Battle of Fort Henry
February 11, 1862: Battle of Fort Donelson
March 8, 1862: Battle of Hampton Roads
March 23, 1862: First Battle of Kernstown
April 5, 1862: Siege of Yorktown
April 6-7, 1862: Battle of Shiloh
April 10-11, 1862: Battle of Fort Pulaski
April 25, 1862: Capture of New Orleans
May 31, 1862: Battle of Seven Pines
June 6, 1862: Battle of Memphis
June 26, 1862: Battle of Beaver Dam Creek
June 27, 1862: Battle of Gaines’ Mill
June 30, 1862: Battle of Glendale
July 1, 1862: Battle of Malvern Hill
August 9, 1862: Battle of Cedar Mountain
August 28-30, 1862: Second Battle of Bull Run/Second Battle of Manassas
September 1, 1862: Battle of Chantilly
September 14, 1862: Battle of South Mountain
September 17, 1862: Battle of Antietam
October 8, 1862: Battle of Perryville
December 13, 1862: Battle of Fredericksburg
December 31, 1862 – January 2, 1863: Battle of Stones River
January 9-11, 1863: Battle of Arkansas Post
April 30 – May 1, 1863: Battle of Chancellorsville
May 12, 1863: Battle of Raymond
May 18 – July 4, 1863: Siege of Vicksburg
May 21 – July 9, 1863: Siege of Port Hudson
June 9, 1863: Battle of Brandy Station
July 1-3, 1863: Battle of Gettysburg
July 11, 1863: First Battle of Fort Wagner
July 18, 1863: Second Battle of Fort Wagner
September 19-20, 1863: Battle of Chickamauga
November 23-25, 1863: Battle of Chattanooga
May 5-7, 1864: Battle of the Wilderness
May 8-21, 1864: Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse
May 13, 1864: Battle of Resaca
May 15, 1864: Battle of New Market
May 31 – June 12, 1864: Battle of Cold Harbor
July 22, 1864: Battle of Atlanta
July 24, 1864: Second Battle of Kernstown
July 30, 1864: Battle of the Crater
August 5, 1864: Battle of Mobile Bay
August 18-21, 1864: Battle of Globe Tavern
August 31 – September 1, 1864: Battle of Jonesborough
October 19, 1864: Battle of Cedar Creek
November – December, 1864: Sherman’s March to the Sea
November 29, 1864: Battle of Spring Hill
November 30, 1864: Battle of Franklin
December 15-16, 1864: Battle of Nashville
January 13-15, 1865: Second Battle of Fort Fisher
March 19-21, 1865: Battle of Bentonville
April 1, 1865: Battle of Five Forks
April 6, 1865: Battle of Sailor’s Creek
April 9, 1865: Confederate Surrender at Appomattox Court House

The American Civil War lasted four years and had devastating long-term effects on the American population. The fighting force of the Confederate Army proved to be both misguided and mismanaged in their war strategy, with desertion rates numbering in the tens of thousands as the war carried on. The Confederacy relied heavily on conscription (April 16^th, 1862 Conscription Act passed by the CSA) in addition to the wholesale theft of food stuffs from communities across the South throughout the duration of the conflict. In the waning years of the war, Southern states found their cities under siege and their armies composed of children and the elderly.

Ultimately, the war’s end ushered in a new period of political turbulence in the United States as the eyes of the nation shifted westward once again. By 1877, Southern Reconstruction was abruptly ended to support the growing interest in “civilizing” the American west. The Kansas Potawatomi were not spared this sea of settlers, and would once again find themselves inundated by American traffic as an influx of outsiders lusted after the land they were promised in perpetuity.

Citations

Website:

Public Broadcasting Service. (n.d.). Significant Civil War Battles. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline-death/.

Books & Articles:

Davis, W. C. (2003). Look Away!: a history of the Confederate States of America. Free Press.
McCurry, Stephanie. 2010. Confederate Reckoning : Power and Politics in the Civil War South. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Sutton, R. K., & Latschar, J. A. (2013). American Indians and the Civil War. Eastern National.