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Battle of Fredericksburg - Who Won, Timeline & Location | HISTORY

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The Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, involved nearly 200,000 combatants and is remembered as one of the most significant Confederate victories. The battle, which took place in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, involved the largest concentration of troops in any Civil War battle.

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The lives of women changed dramatically during the American Civil War. They played important roles both at home and on the battlefield. On the home front, women for both sides had to manage the household while their husbands and sons were off fighting battles. On the battlefield, women helped to supply the soldiers, provide medical care, and worked as spies. Some women even fought as soldiers.

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Women in the Civil War - Role, Spies & Soldiers | HISTORY

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Women in the Civil War - Role, Spies & Soldiers | HISTORY

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The American Civil War challenged the ideology of Victorian domesticity and prompted women on both sides to get involved as nurses, fundraisers and soldiers.

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The Battle of Shiloh, also known as the Battle of Pittsburgh Landing, allowed Union troops to penetrate the Confederate interior. The carnage was unprecedented, with the human toll being the greatest of any war on the American continent up to that date.

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The Battle of Shiloh, also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, took place from April 6 to April 7, 1862, and was one of the major early engagements of the American Civil War. The battle began when the Confederate Army launched a surprise attack on Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant in southwestern Tennessee. After initial successes, the Confederates were unable to hold their positions and were forced back, resulting in a Union victory. Both sides suffered heavy losses, with more than 23,000 total casualties, and the level of carnage shocked North and South alike.

Yankee Victories

In the months prior to the Battle of Shiloh, Yankee troops had been working their way up the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. Kentucky was firmly in Union hands, and the U.S. Army controlled much of Tennessee, including the capital at Nashville.

General Ulysses S. Grant scored major victories at Forts Henry and Donelson in February, forcing Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston to gather the scattered Rebel forces at Corinth, Mississippi. Grant brought his army, 42,000 strong, to rendezvous with General Don Carlos Buell and his 20,000 troops.

Grant's objective was Corinth, a vital rail center near the Tennessee border that, if captured, would give the Union total control of the region. Twenty miles away, Johnston lurked at Corinth with 45,000 soldiers.

Did you know? Union General Lew Wallace, who played a controversial role in the Battle of Shiloh, later went on to write the popular 1880 novel "Ben Hur."

Johnston, however, did not wait for Grant and Buell to combine their forces. He advanced on April 3, delayed by rains and muddy roads that also slowed Buell.

Battle of Shiloh Begins

In the early dawn of April 6, a Yankee patrol found the Confederates poised for battle just a mile from the main Union army. Johnston attacked, driving the surprised bluecoats back near Shiloh Church in southwestern Tennessee.

Throughout the day, the Confederates battered the Union troops, driving them back towards Pittsburgh Landing and threatening to trap them against the Tennessee River.

Many troops on both sides had no experience in battle. The chances for a complete Confederate victory diminished as troops from General Buell's army began arriving, and Grant's command on the battlefield shored up the sagging Union line.

In the middle of the afternoon, Johnston rode forward to direct the Confederate attack and was struck in the leg by a bullet, severing an artery and causing him to quickly bleed to death. He became the highest ranking general on either side killed during the war.

General Pierre G. T. Beauregard assumed control, and he halted the advance at nightfall. The Union army was driven back two miles, but it did not break.

Grant Counterattacks

Soon, Grant was joined by the vanguard of the Buell's army. With an advantage in terms of troop numbers, Grant counterattacked on April 7. The tired Confederates slowly retreated, but they inflicted heavy casualties on the Yankees.

By nightfall, the Union had driven the Confederates back to Shiloh Church, recapturing grisly, blood-soaked reminders of the previous day's battle such as the Hornet's Nest, the Peach Orchard and Bloody Pond. The Confederates finally limped back to Corinth, thus giving a major victory to Grant and the Union.

Casualties and Significance

The cost of the victory was high. More than 13,000 of Grant's and Buell's approximately 62,000 troops were killed, wounded, captured or missing. Of 45,000 Confederates engaged, there were more than 10,000 casualties.

The more than 23,000 combined casualties were far greater than the casualty figures for the war's other key battles ( First Battle of Bull Run, Wilson's Creek, Fort Donelson and Pea Ridge) up to that date. It was a sobering reminder to all in the Union and the Confederacy that the war would be long, bloody and costly.

HISTORY Vault: The Secret History of the Civil War

Sources

Shiloh: Pittsburg Landing. American Battlefield Trust.
Battle of Shiloh. National Park Service: Shiloh National Military Park.

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Battle of Shiloh: Location, Dates and Who Won - HISTORY

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The Battle of Shiloh, or the Battle of Pittsburg Landing, took place April 6-7, 1862. The Union victory was one of the bloodiest engagements of the Civil War.

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The Emancipation Proclamation, or Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862, during the Civil War.

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Emancipation Proclamation - Definition, Dates & Summary

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Issued after the Union victory at Antietam on September 22, 1862, the Emancipation Proclamation carried moral and strategic implications for the ongoing Civil War. While it did not free a single enslaved person, it was an important turning point in the war, transforming the fight to preserve the nat…

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The Confederate army was smaller, had to smuggle most of their artillery pieces into the country from foreign sources, and was made up very largely of non-immigrant soldiers. In comparison to the Union, the General rank of the Confederacy was usually significantly superior in training and education. The South also had better cavalry, possibly because of a greater emphasis upon that branch of arms, and possibly because Southerners grew up in a horse culture and a large percentage of them knew how to ride from an early age. Disadvantaged because almost all of the resources for waging war—steel mills and iron mines, important industries, transportation facilities and most naval facilities and ships—were located in the North. Confederacy possessed inferior natural resources, industry, and transportation but lacked the financial resources to manufacture or acquire these necessities of war. The south was struggling financially and with recruiting young men to fight.

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The Union Army was larger, and was able to draw on a far larger population for replacements. The Union Army had better artillery, and was able to manufacture its’ own artillery. The Union's forces were made up of a far larger percentage of immigrants, and in general had good junior and mid-level officers, and a lot of rather mediocre top level officers. Advantaged because almost all of the resources for waging war—steel mills and iron mines, important industries, transportation facilities and most naval facilities and ships—were located in the North. More than 70 percent of the Nations railroads ran through the North, so they were able to move things around easier. The Union passed the Union draft law if they paid the government a $300 fee because they were struggling financially and struggling with recruitment.

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The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry Regiment was the first Northern black volunteer regiment enlisted to fight in the Civil War.  Its accomplished combat record led to the general recruitment of African-Americans as soldiers. They ultimately comprised ten percent of Union Army and Navy.  The Fifty-fourth’s successful campaign for equal pay also signaled a move toward racial justice in the military.

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The Election of 1860 demonstrated the divisions within the United States just before the Civil War. ... The Constitutional Union Party was also new; 1860 was the first and only time the party ran a candidate for president. The results of the 1860 election pushed the nation into war.

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The 1860 United States presidential election was the 19th quadrennial presidential election, held on November 6, 1860. In a four-way contest, the Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, absent from the ballot in ten slave states, won a national popular plurality, a popular majority in the North where states already had abolished slavery, and a national electoral majority comprising only Northern electoral votes. Lincoln's election thus served as the main catalyst of the American Civil War.

The United States had become increasingly sectionally divided during the 1850s, primarily over extending slavery into the Western territories. The incumbent president, James Buchanan, like his predecessor, Franklin Pierce, was a Northern Democrat with Southern sympathies. From the mid-1850s, the anti-slavery Republican Party became a major political force, driven by Northern voter opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Supreme Court's 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. From the election of 1856, the Republican Party had replaced the defunct Whig Party as the major opposition to the Democrats. A group of former Whigs and Know Nothings formed the Constitutional Union Party, which sought to avoid disunion by resolving divisions over slavery with some new compromise.

The 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago nominated Lincoln, a moderate former one-term Whig Representative from Illinois. Its platform promised not to interfere with slavery in the South but opposed extension of slavery into the territories. The 1860 Democratic National Convention adjourned in Charleston, South Carolina, without agreeing on a nominee, but a second convention in Baltimore, Maryland, nominated Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas's support for the concept of popular sovereignty, which called for each territory's settlers to decide locally on the status of slavery, alienated many radical pro-slavery Southern Democrats, who wanted the territories, and perhaps other lands, open to slavery. With President Buchanan's support, Southern Democrats held their own convention, nominating Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. The 1860 Constitutional Union Convention nominated a ticket led by former Tennessee Senator John Bell.

Lincoln's main opponent in the North was Douglas, who won the popular vote in two states, Missouri and New Jersey. In the South, Bell won three states and Breckinridge swept the remaining 11. Lincoln's election motivated seven Southern states, all voting for Breckinridge, to secede before the inauguration and the secession of four more, including two that voted for Bell, after Lincoln mobilized Federal troops to protect Federal property and coerce the seven initially seceding states. The election was the first of six consecutive Republican victories.

The 1860 presidential election conventions were unusually tumultuous, due in particular to a split in the Democratic Party that led to rival conventions.

Republican candidates:

Abraham Lincoln, former representative from Illinois

William Seward, senator from New York

Simon Cameron, senator from Pennsylvania

Salmon P. Chase, governor of Ohio

Edward Bates, former representative from Missouri

John McLean, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

Benjamin Wade, senator from Ohio

William L. Dayton, former senator from New Jersey

The Republican National Convention met in mid-May 1860, after the Democrats had been forced to adjourn their convention in Charleston. With the Democrats in disarray and a sweep of the Northern states possible, the Republicans felt confident going into their convention in Chicago. William H. Seward from New York was considered the front-runner, followed by Salmon P. Chase from Ohio, and Missouri's Edward Bates. Abraham Lincoln from Illinois, was lesser known, and was not considered to have a good chance against Seward. Seward had been governor and senator of New York, was from firm Whig backgrounds, and was a very able politician. Also running were John C. Frémont, William L. Dayton, Cassius M. Clay, and Benjamin Wade, who might be able to win if the convention deadlocked.

As the convention developed, however, it was revealed that frontrunners Seward, Chase, and Bates had each alienated factions of the Republican Party. Seward had (undeservingly) been painted as a radical, and his speeches on slavery predicted inevitable conflict, which spooked moderate delegates. He also was firmly opposed to nativism, which further weakened his position. He had also been abandoned by his longtime friend and political ally Horace Greeley, publisher of the influential New-York Tribune.

Chase, a former Democrat, had alienated many of the former Whigs by his coalition with the Democrats in the late 1840s. He had also opposed tariffs demanded by Pennsylvania, and even had opposition from his own delegation from Ohio.[citation needed ] However, Chase's firm antislavery stance made him popular with the radical Republicans. But what he had in policy he lacked in charisma and political acumen.

The conservative Bates was an unlikely candidate, but found support from Horace Greeley, who sought any chance to defeat Seward, whom he now had a bitter feud with. Bates outlined his positions on the extension of slavery into the territories and equal constitutional rights for all citizens, positions that alienated his supporters in the border states and Southern conservatives, while German Americans in the party opposed Bates because of his past association with the Know Nothings.

Into this mix came Lincoln. Lincoln was not unknown; he had gained prominence in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and had served as a house representative from Illinois. He had been quietly eyeing a run since the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, ensuring that the debates were widely published, and that a biography of himself was published. He gained great notability with his February 1860 Cooper Union speech, which may have ensured him the nomination. He had not yet announced his intentions to run, but it was superb speech. Delivered in Seward's home state, and attended by Greeley, Lincoln used the speech to show that the Republican party was a party of moderates, not crazed fanatics as the South and Democrats claimed. Afterwards, Lincoln was in much demand for speaking engagements. As the convention approached, Lincoln did not campaign very actively, as the "office was expected to seek the man". So it did at the Illinois state convention, a week before the national convention. Young politician Richard Oglesby had secretly found several fence rails from the Hanks-Lincoln farm that Lincoln may have split as a youngster, and paraded them into the convention with a banner that proclaimed Lincoln to be "The Rail Candidate" for president. Lincoln received a thunderous ovation, surpassing the expectations of him and his political allies.

Even with such support from his home state, Lincoln faced a difficult task if he was to win the nomination. He set about ensuring that he was the second choice of most delegates, realizing that the first round of voting at the convention was unlikely to produce a clear winner. He engineered that the convention would happen in Chicago, which would be inherently friendly to the Illinois-based Lincoln. He also made sure that the Illinois delegation would vote as a bloc for him. Lincoln did not attend the convention in person, and left the task of delegate wrangling to several close friends.

The first round of voting predictably produced a lead for Seward, but not a majority, with Lincoln in second place. The second round eliminated most of the minor contenders, with votes switching to Seward or mostly to Lincoln. The convention remained deadlocked however, and skillful political maneuvering by Lincoln's delegate wranglers convinced the delegates to abandon Seward in favor of Lincoln. Lincoln's combination of a moderate stance on slavery, long support for economic issues, his western origins, and strong oratory proved to be exactly what the delegates wanted in a president. On the third ballot on May 18, Lincoln secured the nomination overwhelmingly. Senator Hannibal Hamlin from Maine was nominated for vice-president, defeating Cassius M. Clay. Hamlin was surprised by his nomination, saying he was "astonished" and that he "neither expected nor desired it."

The party platform promised not to interfere with slavery in the states, but opposed slavery in the territories. The platform promised tariffs protecting industry and workers, a Homestead Act granting free farmland in the West to settlers, and the funding of a transcontinental railroad. There was no mention of Mormonism (which had been condemned in the Party's 1856 platform), the Fugitive Slave Act, personal liberty laws, or the Dred Scott decision. While the Seward forces were disappointed at the nomination of a little-known western upstart, they rallied behind Lincoln, while abolitionists were angry at the selection of a moderate and had little faith in Lincoln.

Democratic (Northern Democratic) Party nomination

Northern Democratic candidates:

Stephen Douglas, senator from Illinois

James Guthrie, former treasury secretary from Kentucky

Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, senator from Virginia

Joseph Lane, senator from Oregon

Daniel S. Dickinson, former senator from New York

Andrew Johnson, senator from Tennessee

At the Democratic National Convention held in Institute Hall in Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1860, 50 Southern Democrats walked out over a platform dispute, led by the extreme pro-slavery " Fire-Eater" William Lowndes Yancey and the Alabama delegation: following them were the entire delegations of Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas, three of the four delegates from Arkansas, and one of the three delegates from Delaware.

Six candidates were nominated: Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois, James Guthrie from Kentucky, Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter from Virginia, Joseph Lane from Oregon, Daniel S. Dickinson from New York, and Andrew Johnson from Tennessee, while three other candidates, Isaac Toucey from Connecticut, James Pearce from Maryland, and Jefferson Davis from Mississippi (the future president of the Confederate States) also received votes.

Douglas, a moderate on the slavery issue who favored " popular sovereignty", was ahead on the first ballot, but was 56½ votes short of the secure the nomination. On the 57th ballot, with Douglas was still ahead, but 51½ votes short of the nomination, the exhausted and desperate delegates agreed on May 3 to cease voting and adjourn the convention.

While the Democrats convened again at the Front Street Theater in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 18, 110 Southern delegates (led by "Fire-Eaters") boycotted the convention or walked out after the convention informed them they would not adopt a resolution supporting extending slavery into territories whose voters did not want it.

While some considered Horatio Seymour a compromise candidate for the National Democratic nomination at the reconvening convention in Baltimore, Seymour wrote a letter to the editor of his local newspaper declaring unreservedly that he was not a candidate for either spot on the ticket. After two ballots - the 59th ballot overall - the remaining Democrats nominated Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois for president. The election would now pit Lincoln against his longtime political rival, whom Lincoln had lost to in the Illinois senate race just two years earlier. That two candidates were from Illinois showed the importance of the West in the election.

While Benjamin Fitzpatrick from Alabama was nominated for vice president, he refused the nomination.

After the convention concluded with no vice-presidential nominee, Douglas offered the nomination to Herschel Vespasian Johnson from Georgia, who accepted.

Southern Democratic candidates:

John C. Breckinridge, Vice President of the United States

Daniel S. Dickinson, former senator from New York

Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, senator from Virginia

Joseph Lane, senator from Oregon

Jefferson Davis, senator from Mississippi

The delegates who walked out of the convention at Charleston reconvened in Richmond, Virginia on June 11. When the Democrats reconvened in Baltimore, they rejoined (except South Carolina and Florida, who had stayed in Richmond).

When the convention seated two replacement delegations on June 18, they walked out again or boycotted the convention, accompanied by nearly all other Southern delegates and erstwhile Convention chair Caleb Cushing, a New Englander and former member of Franklin Pierce's cabinet.

This larger group met immediately in Baltimore's Institute Hall, with Cushing again presiding. They adopted the pro-slavery platform rejected at Charleston, and nominated Vice President John C. Breckinridge for president, and Senator Joseph Lane from Oregon for vice president.

Yancey and some (less than half) of the bolters - almost entirely from the Lower South - met on June 28 in Richmond, along with the South Carolina and Florida delegations, at a convention that affirmed the nominations of Breckinridge and Lane.

Besides the Democratic Parties in the Southern states, the Breckinridge/Lane ticket was also supported by the Buchanan administration. Buchanan's own continued prestige in his home state of Pennsylvania ensured that Breckinridge would be the principal Democratic candidate in that populous state. Breckinridge was the last sitting vice president nominated for president until Richard Nixon in 1960.

Constitutional Union candidates:

John Bell, former senator from Tennessee

Sam Houston, governor of Texas

John J. Crittenden, senator from Kentucky

Edward Everett, former senator from Massachusetts

William A. Graham, former senator from North Carolina

William C. Rives, former senator from Virginia

The Constitutional Union Party was formed by remnants of both the defunct Know Nothing and Whig Parties who were unwilling to join either the Republicans or the Democrats. The new party's members hoped to stave off Southern secession by avoiding the slavery issue. They met in the Eastside District Courthouse of Baltimore and nominated John Bell from Tennessee for president over Governor Sam Houston of Texas on the second ballot. Edward Everett was nominated for vice-president at the convention on May 9, 1860, one week before Lincoln.

John Bell was a former Whig who had opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Lecompton Constitution. Edward Everett had been president of Harvard University and Secretary of State in the Millard Fillmore administration. The party platform advocated compromise to save the Union with the slogan "The Union as it is, and the Constitution as it is."

Liberty (Union) Party nomination

Liberty (Union) candidates:

Gerrit Smith, former representative from New York

By 1860, very little remained of the Liberty Party, after most of its membership left to join the Free Soil Party in 1848 and nearly all of what remained of it joined the Republicans in 1854. The remaining party was also called the Radical Abolitionists. A convention of one hundred delegates was held in Convention Hall, Syracuse, New York, on August 29, 1860. Delegates were in attendance from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, and Massachusetts. Several of the delegates were women.

Gerrit Smith, a prominent abolitionist and the 1848 presidential nominee of the original Liberty Party, had sent a letter in which he stated that his health had been so poor that he had not been able to be away from home since 1858. Nonetheless, he remained popular in the party because he had helped inspire some of John Brown's supporters at the Raid on Harpers Ferry. In his letter, Smith donated $50 to pay for the printing of ballots in the various states.

There was quite a spirited contest between the friends of Gerrit Smith and William Goodell in regard to the nomination for the presidency. In spite of his professed ill health, Gerrit Smith was nominated for president and Samuel McFarland from Pennsylvania was nominated for vice president.

In Ohio and Illinois, slates of presidential electors pledged to Smith ran with the name of the Union Party.

People's Party nomination

The People's Party was a loose association of the supporters of Governor Samuel Houston. On April 20, 1860, the party held what it termed a national convention to nominate Houston for president on the San Jacinto Battlefield in Texas. Houston's supporters at the gathering did not nominate a vice-presidential candidate, since they expected later gatherings to carry out that function. Later mass meetings were held in northern cities, such as New York City on May 30, 1860, but they too failed to nominate a vice-presidential candidate. Houston, never enthusiastic about running for the Presidency, soon became convinced that he had no chance of winning and that his candidacy would only make it easier for the Republican candidate to win. He withdrew from the race on August 16, and urged the formation of a Unified "Union" ticket in opposition to Lincoln.

In their campaigning, Bell and Douglas both claimed that disunion would not necessarily follow a Lincoln election. Nonetheless, loyal army officers in Virginia, Kansas and South Carolina warned Lincoln of military preparations to the contrary. Secessionists threw their support behind Breckinridge in an attempt either to force the anti-Republican candidates to coordinate their electoral votes or throw the election into the House of Representatives, where the selection of the president would be made by the representatives elected in 1858, before the Republican majorities in both House and Senate achieved in 1860 were seated in the new 37th Congress. Mexican War hero Winfield Scott suggested to Lincoln that he assume the powers of a commander-in-chief before inauguration. However, historian Bruce Chadwick observes that Lincoln and his advisors ignored the widespread alarms and threats of secession as mere election trickery.[citation needed ]

Indeed, voting in the South was not as monolithic as the Electoral College map would make it seem. Economically, culturally, and politically, the South was made up of three regions. In the states of the "Upper" South, later known as the " Border States" (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri along with the Kansas territories), unionist popular votes were scattered among Lincoln, Douglas, and Bell, to form a majority in all four. In the "Middle" South states, there was a unionist majority divided between Douglas and Bell in Virginia and Tennessee; in North Carolina and Arkansas, the unionist (Bell and Douglas) vote approached a majority. Texas was the only Middle South state that Breckinridge carried convincingly. In three of the six "Deep" South states, unionists (Bell and Douglas) won divided majorities in Georgia and Louisiana or neared it in Alabama. Breckinridge convincingly carried only three of the six states of the Deep South (South Carolina, Florida, and Mississippi). These three Deep South states were all among the four Southern states with the lowest white populations; together, they held only nine percent of Southern whites.

Among the slave states, the three states with the highest voter turnouts voted the most one-sided. Texas, with five percent of the total wartime South's population, voted 75 percent Breckinridge. Kentucky and Missouri, with one-fourth the total population, voted 73 percent pro-union Bell, Douglas and Lincoln. In comparison, the six states of the Deep South making up one-fourth the Confederate voting population, split 57 percent Breckinridge versus 43 percent for the two pro-union candidates. The four states that were admitted to the Confederacy after Fort Sumter held almost half its population, and voted a narrow combined majority of 53 percent for the pro-union candidates.

In the eleven states that would later declare their secession from the Union and be controlled by Confederate armies, ballots for Lincoln were cast only in Virginia, where he received 1,929 votes (1.15 percent of the total). Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of the votes Lincoln received were cast in border counties of what would soon become West Virginia - the future state accounted for 1,832 of Lincoln's 1,929 votes.

Lincoln received no votes at all in 121 of the state's then-145 counties (including 31 of the 50 that would form West Virginia), received a single vote in three counties and received ten or fewer votes in nine of the 24 counties where he polled votes. Lincoln's best results, by far, were in the four counties that comprised the state's northern panhandle, a region which had long felt alienated from Richmond, was economically and culturally linked to its neighbors Ohio and Pennsylvania and would become the key driver in the successful effort to form a separate state. Hancock County (Virginia's northernmost at the time) returned Lincoln's best result - he polled over 40% of the vote there and finished in second place (Lincoln polled only eight votes fewer than Breckinridge). Of the 97 votes cast for Lincoln in the state's post-1863 boundaries, 93 were polled in four counties along the Potomac River and four were tallied in the coastal city of Portsmouth.

Some key differences between modern elections and the those of the mid-nineteenth century are that at the time, not only was there was no secret ballot anywhere in the United States, but the state did not print and distribute ballots. In theory, any document containing a valid or at least non-excessive number names of citizens of a particular state (provided they were eligible to vote in the electoral college within that state) might have been accepted as a valid presidential ballot, however what this meant in practice was that a candidate's campaign was responsible for printing and distributing their own ballots (this service was typically done by supportive newspaper publishers). Moreover, since voters did not choose the president directly, but rather presidential electors, the only way for a voter to meaningfully support a particular candidate for president was cast a ballot for citizens of his state who would have pledged to vote for the candidate in the Electoral College. In ten southern slave states, no citizen would publicly pledge to vote for Abraham Lincoln, so citizens there had no legal means to vote for the Republican nominee. In most of Virginia, no publisher would print ballots for Lincoln's pledged electors. While a citizen without access to a ballot for Lincoln could theoretically have still voted for him by means of a write-in ballot provided his state had electors pledged to Lincoln and the voter knew their identities, casting a ballot in favor of the Republican candidate in a strongly pro-slavery county would have incurred (at minimum) social ostracization (of course, casting a vote for Breckinridge in a strongly abolitionist county ran a voter the same risk).

In the four slave states that did not secede (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware), Lincoln came in fourth in every state except Delaware (where he finished third). Within the fifteen slave states, Lincoln won only two counties out of 996, Missouri's St. Louis and Gasconade Counties. In the 1856 election, the Republican candidate for president had received no votes at all in twelve of the fourteen slave states with a popular vote (these being the same states as in the 1860 election, plus Missouri and Virginia).

The election was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860, and was noteworthy for the exaggerated sectionalism and voter enthusiasm in a country that was soon to dissolve into civil war. Voter turnout was 81.2%, the highest in American history up to that time, and the second-highest overall (exceeded only in the election of 1876).

Since Andrew Jackson had won re-election in 1832, all six subsequent presidents had only won one term, while the last four of those had won with a popular vote under 51 percent.

Lincoln won the Electoral College with less than 40 percent of the popular vote nationwide by carrying states above the Mason-Dixon line and north of the Ohio River, plus the states of California and Oregon in the Far West. Unlike every preceding president-elect, Lincoln did not carry even one slave state.

There were no ballots distributed for Lincoln in ten of the Southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Lincoln was therefore the second President-elect to poll no votes in some states which had a popular vote (the first was John Quincy Adams, who polled no ballots in the popular votes of two states in the election of 1824, the only other election in which there were four major candidates, none of whom distributed ballots in every state). It should be further noted that, prior to introduction of the secret ballot in the 1880s, the concept of ballot access did not exist in the sense it does today: there was no standardized state-issued ballot for a candidate to "appear" on. Instead, presidential ballots were printed and distributed by agents of the candidates and their parties, who organized slates of would-be electors publicly pledged to vote for a particular candidate. The 1824 and 1860 presidential elections were the only two prior to the introduction of the secret ballot where a winning candidate was so unpopular in a particular region that it was impossible to organize and print ballots for a slate of eligible voters pledged to vote for that candidate in an entire state.

Since 1860, and excluding unreconstructed Southern states in 1868 and 1872, there have been two occasions where a Republican presidential candidate failed to poll votes in every state, while national Democratic candidates have failed to appear on all state ballots in three elections since the introduction of the secret ballot, though in all three, the Democratic candidate nonetheless won the presidency , but none of them were off the ballot in as many states as Lincoln in 1860.

Lincoln won the second-lowest share of the popular vote among all winning presidential candidates in U.S. history. Lincoln's share of the popular vote would likely have been even lower if there had been a popular vote in South Carolina, though conversely it would likely have been higher had he been on the ballot in Southern states. The Republican victory resulted from the concentration of votes in the free states, which together controlled a majority of the presidential electors.

Lincoln's strategy was deliberately focused, in collaboration with Republican Party Chairman Thurlow Weed, on expanding on the states Frémont won four years earlier: New York was critical with 35 Electoral College votes, 11.5 percent of the total, and with Pennsylvania (27) and Ohio (23) as well, a candidate could collect 85 votes, whereas 152 were required to win. The Wide Awakes young Republican men's organization massively expanded registered voter lists, and although Lincoln was not even on the ballot in most Southern states, population increases in the free states had far exceeded those seen in the slave states for many years before the election of 1860, hence free states dominated in the Electoral College.

The split in the Democratic party is sometimes held responsible for Lincoln's victory despite the fact that Lincoln won the election with less than 40% of the popular vote, as much of the anti-Republican vote was "wasted" in Southern states in which no ballots for Lincoln were circulated.

At most, a single opponent nationwide would have deprived Lincoln of only California, Oregon, and four New Jersey electors, whose combined total of eleven electoral votes would have made no difference to the result since every other state won by the Republicans was won by a clear majority of the vote: in this scenario, Lincoln would have received 169 electoral votes, 17 more than the 152 required to win.

In the four states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania where anti-Lincoln votes were combined into fusion tickets, Lincoln still won three and split New Jersey: despite this, a shift of 25,000 votes to the fusion ticket in New York would have left Lincoln with 145 electoral votes - seven votes short of winning the Electoral College - and forced a contingent election in the House of Representatives. Of the five states that Lincoln failed to carry despite polling votes, he received 20 percent of the vote in only one (Delaware), and 10 percent of the vote in only one more (Missouri).

Like Lincoln, Breckinridge and Bell won no electoral votes outside of their respective sections. While Bell retired to his family business, quietly supporting his state's secession, Breckinridge served as a Confederate general. He finished second in the Electoral College with 72 votes, carrying eleven of fifteen slave states (including South Carolina, whose electors were chosen by the state legislature, not popular vote). Breckinridge stood a distant third in national popular vote at eighteen percent, but accrued 50 to 75 percent in the first seven states that would form the Confederate States of America. He took nine of the eleven states that eventually joined, plus the border slave states of Delaware and Maryland, losing only Virginia and Tennessee. Breckinridge received very little support in the free states, showing some strength only in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

Bell carried three slave states (Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia) and lost Maryland by only 722 votes. Nevertheless, he finished a remarkable second in all slave states won by Breckinridge or Douglas. He won 45 to 47 percent in Maryland, Tennessee and North Carolina and canvassed respectably with 36 to 40 percent in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, and Florida. Bell himself had hoped that he would take over the former support of the extinct Whig Party in free states, but the majority of this support went to Lincoln. Thus, except for running mate Everett's home state of Massachusetts, and California, Bell received even less support in the free states than did Breckinridge, and consequently came in last in the national popular vote, at 12.62%.

Douglas was the only candidate who won electoral votes in both slave and free states (free New Jersey and slave Missouri). His support was the most widespread geographically; he finished second behind Lincoln in the popular vote with 29.52%, but last in the Electoral College. Douglas attained a 28 to 47% share in the states of the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and Trans-Mississippi West, but slipped to 19 to 39% in New England. Outside his regional section, Douglas took 15 to 17% of the popular vote total in the slave states of Kentucky, Alabama, and Louisiana, then 10 percent or less in the nine remaining slave states. Douglas, in his "Norfolk Doctrine", reiterated in North Carolina, promised to keep the Union together by coercion if states proceeded to secede: the popular vote for Lincoln and Douglas combined was 69.17% of the turnout.

The 1860 Republican ticket was the first successful national ticket that did not feature a Southerner, and the election marked the end of Southern political dominance in the United States. Between 1789 and 1860, Southerners had been president for two-thirds of the era, and had held the offices of Speaker of the House and President pro tem of the Senate during much of that time. Moreover, since 1791, Southerners had comprised a majority of the Supreme Court.

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. "1860 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Source (Electoral Vote): "Electoral College Box Scores 1789-1996". National Archives and Records Administration.

(a) The popular vote figures exclude South Carolina where the Electors were chosen by the state legislature rather than by popular vote.

Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836-1892 ( Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247-57.

States where the margin of victory was under 1%:

States where the margin of victory was under 5%:

States where the margin of victory was under 10%:

Lincoln's victory and imminent inauguration as president was the immediate cause for declarations of secession by seven Southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) from 20 December 1860 to 1 February 1861. They then formed the Confederate States of America.

Several other states also considered declaring secession at the time:

Missouri convened a secession convention, which voted against secession and adjourned permanently.

Arkansas convened a secession convention, which voted against secession and adjourned temporarily.

Virginia convened a secession convention, which voted against secession but remained in session.

Tennessee held a referendum on having a secession convention, which failed.

North Carolina held a referendum on having a secession convention, which failed.

All of the secessionist activity was motivated by fear for the institution of slavery in the South. If the President (and, by extension, the appointed federal officials in the South, such as district attorneys, marshals, postmasters, and judges) opposed slavery, it might collapse. There were fears that abolitionist agents would infiltrate the South and foment slave insurrections. (The noted secessionist William Lowndes Yancey, speaking at New York's Cooper Institute in October 1860, asserted that with abolitionists in power, "Emissaries will percolate between master [and] slave as water between the crevices of rocks underground. They will be found everywhere, with strychnine to put in our wells.") Less radical Southerners thought that with Northern antislavery dominance of the federal government, slavery would eventually be abolished, regardless of present constitutional limits.

Bertram Wyatt-Brown argues that secessionists desired independence as necessary for their honor. They could no longer tolerate Northern state attitudes that regarded slave ownership as a great sin and Northern politicians who insisted on stopping the spread of slavery.

Another bloc of Southerners resented Northern criticism of slavery and restrictions on slavery but opposed secession as dangerous and unnecessary. However, the "conditional Unionists" also hoped that when faced with secession, Northerners would stifle anti-slavery rhetoric and accept pro-slavery rules for the territories. It was that group that prevented immediate secession in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas when Lincoln took office on 4 March 1861. He took no action against the secessionists in the seven "Confederate" states but also declared that secession had no legal validity and refused to surrender federal property in those states. (He also reiterated his opposition to slavery anywhere in the territories.) The standoff continued until mid-April, when Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered Confederate troops to bombard and capture Fort Sumter.

Lincoln then called for troops to put down rebellion, which wiped out the possibility that the crisis could be resolved by compromise. Nearly all "conditional Unionists" joined the secessionists. The Virginia convention and the reconvened Arkansas convention both declared secession, as did the legislatures of Tennessee and North Carolina; all four states joined the Confederacy.

Chadwick, Bruce (2010). Lincoln for President: An Unlikely Candidate, An Audacious Strategy, and the Victory No One Saw Coming. Sourcebooks, Inc. ISBN 978-1-4022-2858-2.

Decredico, Mary A. "Sectionalism and the Secession Crisis," in John B. Boles, ed., A Companion to the American South (2004) pp. 231-248, on the historiography of Southend motivations

Egerton, Douglas (2010). Year of Meteors: Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Election That Brought on the Civil War. Bloomsbury Press. ISBN 978-1-59691-619-7.

Fuller, A. James, ed. The Election of 1860 Reconsidered (Kent State Univ Press, 2013); 288pp; essays by scholars; online

Goodwin, Doris Kearns (2002). Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-82490-6.

Grinspan, Jon, "'Young Men for War': The Wide Awakes and Lincoln's 1860 Presidential Campaign," Journal of American History 96.2 (2009): online.

Harris, William C. (2007). Lincoln's Rise to the Presidency. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1520-9.

Holt, Michael F. (1978). The Political Crisis of the 1850s.

Holt, Michael F. The Election of 1860: "A Campaign Fraught with Consequences (2017)

Holzer, Harold (2004). Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-9964-0.

Johannsen, Robert W. Stephen A. Douglas (1973), standard biography

Luebke, Frederick C. (1971). Ethnic Voters and the Election of Lincoln. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press.

Luthin, Reinhard H. (1944). The First Lincoln Campaign. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-8446-1292-8.along with Nevins, the most detailed narrative of the election

Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union (10 volumes, Macmillan, 1979-2018), detailed scholarly coverage of every election, 1848 to 1864.

Nichols, Roy Franklin. The Disruption of American Democracy (1948), pp. 348-506, focused on the Democratic party

Parks, Joseph Howard. John Bell of Tennessee (1950), standard biography

Potter, David M. (1976). The impending crisis, 1848-1861. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-131929-7.

Rhodes, James Ford (1920). History of the United States from the Compromise of 1859 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. vol. 2, ch. 11. highly detailed narrative covering 1856-60

Chester, Edward W A guide to political platforms (1977) pp 72-79 online

Porter, Kirk H. and Donald Bruce Johnson, eds. National party platforms, 1840-1964 (1965) online 1840-1956

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1860 United States presidential election - Wikipedia

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The 1860 United States presidential election was the 19th quadrennial presidential election, held on November 6, 1860. In a four-way contest, the Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, absent from the ballot in ten slave states, won a national popular plurality, a popular majority in the North where states already had abolished slavery, and a national electoral majority comprising only Northern electoral votes.

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The Underground Railroad physically resisted the repressive laws that held slaves in bondage. ... By provoking fear and anger in the South, and prompting the enactment of harsh legislation that eroded the rights of white Americans, the Underground Railroad was a direct contributing cause of the Civil War.

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This type of reform was an organized attempt to end the  practice of slavery in the United States. An abolitionist, as the name implies, is a person who sought to abolish slavery during the 19th century. More specifically, these individuals sought the immediate and full emancipation of all enslaved people. Opposition to slavery wasn’t a new concept when abolitionism started. Since the inception of the Atlantic slave trade, which began in the 16th century, critics voiced their disapproval of the system.

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What Is an Abolitionist?

An abolitionist, as the name implies, is a person who sought to abolish slavery during the 19th century. More specifically, these individuals sought the immediate and full emancipation of all enslaved people.

Most early abolitionists were white, religious Americans, but some of the most prominent leaders of the movement were also Black men and women who had escaped from bondage.

The abolitionists saw slavery as an abomination and an affliction on the United States, making it their goal to eradicate slave ownership. They sent petitions to Congress, ran for political office and inundated people of the South with anti-slavery literature.

These staunch activists wanted to abolish slavery completely, which differed from the ideas of other groups like the Free Soil Party, which opposed the expansion of slavery into U.S. territories and newly formed states such as Kansas.

Did you know? Female abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott went on to become prominent figures in the women's rights movement.

How Did Abolitionism Start?

Opposition to slavery wasn't a new concept when abolitionism started. Since the inception of the Atlantic slave trade, which began in the 16th century, critics voiced their disapproval of the system.

In an early effort to stop slavery, the American Colonization Society, founded in 1816, proposed the idea of freeing slaves and sending them back to Africa. This solution was thought to be a compromise between antislavery activists and slavery supporters.

By 1860, nearly 12,000 African Americans had returned to Africa.

Missouri Compromise

The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which allowed Missouri to become a slave state, further provoked anti-slave sentiment in the North.

The abolitionist movement began as a more organized, radical and immediate effort to end slavery than earlier campaigns. It officially emerged around 1830.

Historians believe ideas set forth during the religious movement known as the Second Great Awakening inspired abolitionists to rise up against slavery. This Protestant revival encouraged the concept of adopting renewed morals, which centered around the idea that all men are created equal in the eyes of God.

Abolitionism started in states like New York and Massachusetts and quickly spread to other Northern states.

Laws Inflame Tensions

In 1850, Congress passed the controversial Fugitive Slave Act, which required all escaped enslaved people to be returned to their owners and American citizens to cooperate with the captures.

Seven years later, the Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision that Black people-free or enslaved-didn't have legal citizenship rights. Owners of enslaved people were also granted the right to take their enslaved workers to Western territories. These legal actions and court decisions sparked outrage among abolitionists.

Famous Abolitionists

Many Americans, including free and formerly enslaved people, worked tirelessly to support the abolitionist movement. Some of the most famous abolitionists included:

William Lloyd Garrison: A very influential early abolitionist, Garrison started a publication called The Liberator, which supported the immediate freeing of all enslaved men and women.

Frederick Douglass: Douglass escaped slavery himself and published a memoir titled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. An instrumental figure in the abolitionist movement, he also supported women's suffrage.

Harriet Beecher Stowe: Stowe was an author and abolitionist who was best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Susan B. Anthony: Anthony was an author, speaker and women's rights activist who also supported the abolitionist movement. She is revered for her diligent efforts in fighting for women's rights to vote.

: Brown was a radical abolitionist who organized various raids and uprisings, including an infamous raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

Harriet Tubman: Tubman was a fugitive enslaved person and abolitionist who was known for helping escaped enslaved people reach the North via the Underground Railroad network.

Sojourner Truth: Best known for her speech, "Ain't I a Woman?," Truth was both an abolitionist and a women's rights advocate.

Rift Widens Between North and South

As it gained momentum, the abolitionist movement caused increasing friction between states in the North and the slave-owning South. Critics of abolition argued that it contradicted the U.S. Constitution, which left the option of slavery up to individual states.

Abolitionism was illegal in the South, and President Andrew Jackson banned the U.S. Postal Service from delivering any publications that supported the movement.

In 1833, a white student at Lane Theological Seminary named Amos Dresser was publicly whipped in Nashville, Tennessee, for possessing abolitionist literature while traveling through the city.

Elijah Lovejoy

In 1837, a pro-slavery mob attacked a warehouse in Alton, Illinois, in an attempt to destroy abolitionist press materials. During the raid, they shot and killed newspaper editor and abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy.

After the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was passed, both pro- and anti-slavery groups inhabited the Kansas Territory. In 1856, a pro-slavery group attacked the town of Lawrence, which was founded by abolitionists from Massachusetts. In retaliation, abolitionist John Brown organized a raid that killed five pro-slavery settlers.

Then, in 1859, Brown led 21 men to capture the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He and his followers were seized by a group of Marines and convicted of treason. Brown was hanged for the crime.

The Civil War and Its Aftermath

President Abraham Lincoln opposed slavery but was cautious about fully supporting the more radical ideas of the abolitionists. As the power struggle between the North and the South reached its peak, the Civil War broke out in 1861.

As the bloody war waged on, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, calling for the freeing of enslaved people in areas of the rebellion. And in 1865, the Constitution was ratified to include the Thirteenth Amendment, which officially abolished all forms of slavery in the United States.

Abolitionist Movement Ends

Though the abolitionist movement seemed to dissolve after the addition of the Thirteenth Amendment, many historians argue that the effort didn't completely cease until the 1870 passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, which extended voting rights to Black men. Meanwhile, the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States," including former enslaved people.

When slavery officially ended, many prominent abolitionists turned their focus to women's rights issues. Historians believe that the experiences and lessons learned during the abolitionist movement paved the way for leaders who were eventually successful in the women's suffrage movements.

Abolitionist ideals and traditions also served as a model for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP), which was formed in 1909.

HISTORY Vault: Black History

Sources

Abolition and the Abolitionists. National Geographic.
Early abolition. Khan Academy.
Abolitionist Sentiment Grows. UShistory.org.

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Abolitionist Movement - Definition & Famous Abolitionists | HISTORY

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The abolitionist movement was the effort to end slavery, led by famous abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and John Brown.

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The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant revival movement during the early nineteenth century. The movement began around 1790 and gained momentum by 1800; after 1820, membership rose rapidly among Baptist and Methodist congregations, whose preachers led the movement. The Second Great Awakening began to decline by 1870. It enrolled millions of new members and led to the formation of new denominations. It has been described as a reaction against skepticism, deism, and rational Christianity, although why those forces became pressing enough at the time to spark revivals is not fully understood.

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The Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century, when agricultural societies became more industrialized and urban. The transcontinental railroad, the cotton gin, electricity and other inventions permanently changed society.

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The Industrial Revolution: Crash Course History of Science #21

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A telegram is a message transmitted by telegraph and a telegram is an apparatus, or a process, for communicating rapidly between distant points, especially by means of established visible or audible signals representing words or ideas, or by means of words and signs, transmitted by electrical means.

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Mexican-American War, also called Mexican War, Spanish Guerra de 1847 or Guerra de Estados Unidos a Mexico (“War of the United States Against Mexico”), war between the United States and Mexico (April 1846–February 1848) stemming from the United States’ invasion of Texas in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River (Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (U.S. claim). The war—in which U.S. forces were consistently victorious—resulted in the United States’ acquisition of more than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 square km) of Mexican territory extending westward from the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean.

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In 1874, he took advantage of a general amnesty issued by President Sebatian Lerdo de Tajada and returned to Mexico, by then crippled and almost blind from cataracts. Santa Anna died at his home in Mexico City on June 1876 at age 82.

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Mountain men were helpful in opening up various emigrant trails (widened into wagon roads) allowing Americans in the east to settle the new territories of the far west by organized wagon trains traveling over roads explored and in many cases, physically improved by the mountain men.

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As I looked around this site I learned who the Mormons were. I also learned their beliefs like they considered themselves christians. I also learned about the Book of Mormon and other things about the Mormons.

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Beliefs

Mormons consider themselves Christians, but many Christians don't recognize Mormonism as an official denomination.

Mormons believe in the crucifixion, resurrection and divinity of Jesus Christ. Followers claim that God sent more prophets after Jesus's death. They say that the original church has been restored in modern times.

Mormons embrace four different texts: The Christian Bible, The Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price.

According to the LDS church, Adam and Eve lived in Daviess County, Missouri after being driven from the Garden of Eden.

There are three levels of heaven-celestial, terrestrial and telestial-in Mormonism. Only those in the celestial kingdom will live in God's presence.

Followers don't recognize the Christian concept of the trinity (God existing in three persons). Instead, they believe the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are three separate gods.

The The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints considers Joseph Smith, who founded Mormonism, a prophet.

Mormons follow a strict healthy lifestyle that doesn't allow them to consume alcohol, tobacco, coffee or tea.

Family life, good deeds, respect for authority and missionary work are important values in Mormonism.

Mormons practice clothing rituals that include wearing special undergarments that have religious significance. Known as the "temple garment," the attire is worn by adult members who make sacred promises to God.

Not all Mormon churches accept the label "Mormon," because the term has at times been used in a derogatory manner, and it does not allow for the variety of beliefs that exist among churches that follow the Book of Mormon and the teachings of Joseph Smith.

Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith Jr. was born in Vermont on December 23, 1805. When Smith was 14, he said he received a vision from God and Jesus that told him not to join any Christian denominational churches.

Three years later, Smith claimed that an angel named Moroni appeared to him. Moroni revealed that Smith had been selected to translate the Book of Mormon, a sacred text that was written around the 4th century and named after Moroni's father, Mormon.

According to Moroni, this spiritual book contained information about the ancient people who inhabited the Americas. He revealed that the book was inscribed on golden plates near Palmyra, New York, which was close to where Smith lived at the time.

Although the plates were first revealed to him on September 22, 1823, Smith said he was not allowed to retrieve them until September 1827. The Book of Mormon was translated and published in 1830.

Smith also asserted that John the Baptist appeared to him while he was translating the Book of Mormon and instructed him to restore the church by preaching the true gospel.

Joseph Smith Murdered

After the Book of Mormon was published, Mormonism began to spread and grow rapidly. Smith set up Mormon communities in Missouri, Ohio and Illinois.

Smith was criticized and persecuted by many for teaching his new ideas. In February 1844, Smith and his brother were jailed on charges of treason.

On June 27, 1844, both Smith and his brother were murdered in jail by an anti-Mormon mob in Carthage, Illinois.

Brigham Young

After Smith died, the church divided. Many Mormons followed Brigham Young, who became Smith's successor.

Young led a large group of persecuted Mormons from Illinois to search for religious freedom. In 1847, Young and the other pioneers reached Utah's Salt Lake Valley.

Mormon Western Expansion

During the 1850s, Young organized the migration of about 16,000 Mormons from Illinois to Utah. He founded Salt Lake City and became the first governor of the Utah Territory.

Young was named the President of the Church and kept this title until his death in 1877. Scholars believe Young significantly influenced the religious and political landscape of the American West.

Mountain Meadows Massacre

Despite moving to a relatively isolated region in Utah, tensions between Mormons and other Americans continued.

In September of 1857, a Mormon militia murdered about 120 people who were part of a wagon train from Arkansas. This event became known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

The exact motive for the massacre is still debated today, and some records show that Mormon leaders attempted to cover up the attack.

Scholars are also unsure who was directly responsible for the violence. Some have blamed Brigham Young, while others say the local leaders in southern Utah were at fault.

Book of Mormon

Mormons believe that the Book of Mormon confirms information found in the Holy Bible.

The text gives an account of ancient prophets who lived in the Americas. It covers events that occurred from about 2500 B.C. to A.D. 400.

According to the book, some Jews came to America to avoid persecution in Jerusalem. They divided into two groups who fought each other: the Nephites and the Lamanites. In A.D. 428, the Nephites were defeated. The text says that the Lamanites are the same group that's known as the American Indians.

According to the Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ appeared and preached to the Nephites in the Americas after his crucifixion.

The book is divided into smaller books that read as narratives. The LDS church states that more than 150 million copies of the Book of Mormon have been distributed as of 2011.

Mormon Church

Today, the LDS church is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. It's run by a prophet who also serves as president of the church for life.

The church's hierarchy consists of:

The first presidency (president and two counselors)

The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

The First Quorum of the Seventy

Stake Presidency

Ward Bishopric

Individual members

Children in the church are typically baptized at 8 years of age.

A young man, 12 years of age or older, can enter into a priesthood known as Aaronic priesthood. Those over 18 can enter into Melchizedek priesthood.

Mormon Polygamy

Although the LDS church banned the practice of polygamy in 1890, Mormons historically wed many wives.

In recent years, the church acknowledged that Joseph Smith wed as many as 40 wives, some as young as age 14.

Today, Mormons frown upon polygamy and choose to marry just one spouse. Still, a small number of fundamentalists, who broke from the church, continue to practice plural marriage.

Mormonism Today

In recent years, Mormonism has crept its way into popular American culture.

Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney brought the religion to the forefront of American politics in 2012.

The well-known musical comedy, The Book of Mormon, has also brought attention to the religion, although it's caused mixed reactions within the Mormon community.

According to a 2023 Pew Research poll, a quarter of Americans say they hold very or somewhat unfavorable views of Mormons. A 2012 Pew poll found that said that 46 percent of Mormons feel they face a lot of discrimination.

Sources

Mormonism's History, Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry.

Timeline: The Early History of the Mormons, PBS.

Mormon Church Fast Facts, CNN.

Mormons in America - Certain in Their Beliefs, Uncertain of Their Place in Society, Pew Research Center.

2016 Statistical Report for 2017 April Conference, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Newsroom.

Church: Mormon founder Joseph Smith wed 40 wives, CNN.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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Mormons consider themselves Christians, but many Christians don't recognize Mormonism as an official denomination. Mormons believe in the crucifixion, resurrection and divinity of Jesus Christ. Followers claim that God sent more prophets after Jesus's death. They say that the original church has been restored in modern times.