Battle of Chickamauga

     The Battle of Chickamauga was fought on September 19-20, 1863 near Chickamauga Creek.  It is known as the second bloodiest battle of the civil war, after Gettysburg with a total of 34,624 deaths, captures, and missing in actions.  It was fought when the Confederate army of Tennessee attacked the invading Union army.  The Union soldiers had been on an invasion campaign known as the Chickamauga Campaign attempting to take Chattanooga, Tennessee for the Union.  This battle put a halt to this campaign, however.  The union army was outnumbered and towards the end of the battle, outmaneuvered.  After two days of battle, the were finally forced to retreat.

 

Emancipation Proclamation

     The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863.  It was an attack against the south and an attempt to weaken and deter them.  It stated that every slave in all of the states in rebellion against the union are free.  Aside from enraging and weakening the south, the new order put a new driving moral force behind the union soldiers.  This means that many of the soldiers felt driven and motivated to liberate the slaves.  It also caused many slaves to run from their masters to join the army and help liberate their brothers in bondage.

Antietam and Gettysburg

     The Battle of Antietam also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg was fought on September 17, 1862.  It was the bloodiest day in American history, with 22,717 dead, wounded, and missing on both sides.  It occurred because Confederate General Robert E. Lee attacked and attempted to take over Antietam, a Union supply railroad.  Although he was unsuccessful and forced to retreat, most say that his army fared much better than it should have.  He was vastly outnumbered by the Union army and also had no simple route of escape because behind him was Antietam River.  He and his army were however able to retreat, not unscathed but still a formidable force, when they should have been destroyed because of Union General George B. McClellan's awful tactics.
     Another devastating battle in the civil war was the Battle of Gettysburg, fought on July 1-3, 1863.  This battle was known as the bloodiest battle in the civil war with 46,286 casualties.  It is also often known as "the war's turning point".  The battle was fought because Lee, who had just won a decisive battle against the Union in Virginia, was confident enough to launch a second attack on Northern Union territory.  Lee led his army north through Shedowa Valley to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania where the Union and Confederate forces collided.  Finally, after three days of battle, the Confederate army was forced the retreat back to Virginia and the Gettysburg Campaign was over.

                                                         The Battle of Gettysburg

Secession In Georgia and Alexander Stephens's Role

     By 1860, Georgia was greatly divided over the issue of secession.  There were two sides, the secessionists and the co-operationists, who wanted Georgia to stay with the union.  The co-operationists were led by Alexander Stephens and the secessionists by Howell Cobb.  After months of debating and pressure to secede from South Carolina, Georgia finally decided to have a state wide vote.  Georgians would vote for delegates to represent their decision about secession at the "Secession Convention".  Once elected the delegates took a vote and the result was extremely pro-succession.  So therefore, it was decided that Georgia would succeed from the union and join South Carolina.

 

The Election of 1860

     The United States presidential election of 1860 was run primarily between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.  Lincoln was a northern republican and Douglas was a southern democrat.  Douglas' running mate was Herschel Johnson and Lincoln's was Hannibal Hamlin.  Lincoln received most of his support from New York, California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and his home state of Illinois.  His contender received support from most of the southern "slave" states, such as Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee.  On the day of the election, however, Douglas only won one state's electoral votes, Kentucky's.  He did win over 1 million votes in for the popular vote (a lot back then), but could not sway a majority of any state besides Kentucky.  Because of this Lincoln won the election.

The Dred Scott Case

Dred Scott, was a slave who unsuccessfully sued for his, his wife's, and his two daughter's freedom in the Dred Scott vs. Stanford case of 1857.  The case was based on the fact that even though he and his family were slaves, they had lived with their master, John Emerson, in a state where slavery was illegal, Wisconsin.  When his master took Scott back to a slave state he sued saying he was a free man because he had lived in Wisconsin.  Scott ended up bringing his case all the way to the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court, however, decided 7–2 against Scott, saying that neither he nor any other slave could be considered a citizen of the United States, and therefore Scott could not file a suit in court. Also, Scott's temporarily living in a free state did not free him under the Missouri Compromise, which the court ruled unconstitutional as it would wrongly steal property from Scott's owner.  In conclusion this case only further dived the North and South over the issue of slavery.

The Compromise of 1850 and Kansas-Nebraska Act

    The compromise of 1850 was a bill passed in order to undo some of the growing tensions between the south and the north.  Most of this tension came from the Missouri Compromise of 1820.  The southern slave state of Texas wanted to expand its state above the slave line and still wanted to be able to have slaves there.  And the north wanted the new state of California to be free even though half was below the 30 degree line.  Because of this the act had multiple purposes, one was that Texas had to give up its land claims above the slave line, another was that California became a free state.  One of the biggest southern gains was the admission of the fugitive slave act.  Another portion of the act was that slave trade was banned in Washington D.C.
     However, although both sides agreed with the compromise, both had parts they did not like.  That is why Georgia founded the Georgia Platform.  It was a widely accepted rule that stated after the compromise passed.  It stated that Georgia would succeed from the union if the union encroached any farther on their state rights.
     Eventually even with the compromises made in the 1850 bill there were still problems with the Missouri Compromise.  A big problem was with the creation of the new Kansas and Nebraska territories.  Those territories wanted to become slave states but were too far north for this to be legal.  Because of this the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was passed.  It found the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and finally repealed it.