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Click an image to jump to that section of the exhbit.

January 1

Emancipation Proclamation issued.
Frees slaves in states in rebellion and authorizes the enlistment of black troops.

November 8

Lincoln reelected president

March 3

The Freedmen's Bureau established.
Provides assistance to emancipated African Americans. Abolished in 1872.

Freedmen's Bureau abolished.

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America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War

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Click an image to jump to that section of the exhbit. January 1 Emancipation Proclamation issued. Frees slaves in states in rebellion and authorizes the enlistment of black troops. November 8 Lincoln reelected president March 3 The Freedmen's Bureau established. Provides assistance to emancipated African Americans. Abolished in 1872.

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The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867

After the North defeated the South in the Civil War, politicians faced the task of putting the divided country back together. There was great debate about how severely the former Confederate states should be punished for leaving the Union. With the assassination of President Lincoln in 1865, it was up to President Andrew Johnson to try to reunite former enemies. The Reconstruction Acts of 1867 laid out the process for readmitting Southern states into the Union. The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) provided former slaves with national citizenship, and the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) granted black men the right to vote. These were only the first steps, however, toward reconstructing the fragmented nation.

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Reconstruction (1866-1877) - Jump Back in Time | America's Library - Library of Congress

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The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867 After the North defeated the South in the Civil War, politicians faced the task of putting the divided country back together. There was great debate about how severely the former Confederate states should be punished for leaving the Union.

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Table of Contents

1. Emancipation and Reconstruction

2. Andrew Johnson and Presidential Reconstruction

3. Radical Reconstruction

4. Reconstruction Comes to an End

Reconstruction (1865-1877), the turbulent era following the Civil War, was the effort to reintegrate Southern states from the Confederacy and 4 million newly-freed people into the United States. Under the administration of President Andrew Johnson in 1865 and 1866, new southern state legislatures passed restrictive " Black Codes " to control the labor and behavior of former enslaved people and other African Americans.

Outrage in the North over these codes eroded support for the approach known as Presidential Reconstruction and led to the triumph of the more radical wing of the Republican Party. During Radical Reconstruction, which began with the passage of the Reconstruction Act of 1867, newly enfranchised Black people gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress. In less than a decade, however, reactionary forces-including the Ku Klux Klan -would reverse the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South.

Emancipation and Reconstruction

At the outset of the Civil War, to the dismay of the more radical abolitionists in the North, President Abraham Lincoln did not make abolition of slavery a goal of the Union war effort. To do so, he feared, would drive the border slave states still loyal to the Union into the Confederacy and anger more conservative northerners. By the summer of 1862, however, enslaved people, themselves had pushed the issue, heading by the thousands to the Union lines as Lincoln's troops marched through the South.

Their actions debunked one of the strongest myths underlying Southern devotion to the "peculiar institution"-that many enslaved people were truly content in bondage-and convinced Lincoln that emancipation had become a political and military necessity. In response to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which freed more than 3 million enslaved people in the Confederate states by January 1, 1863, Black people enlisted in the Union Army in large numbers, reaching some 180,000 by war's end.

Did you know? During Reconstruction, the Republican Party in the South represented a coalition of Black people (who made up the overwhelming majority of Republican voters in the region) along with "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags," as white Republicans from the North and South, respectively, were known.

Emancipation changed the stakes of the Civil War, ensuring that a Union victory would mean large-scale social revolution in the South. It was still very unclear, however, what form this revolution would take. Over the next several years, Lincoln considered ideas about how to welcome the devastated South back into the Union, but as the war drew to a close in early 1865, he still had no clear plan.

In a speech delivered on April 11, while referring to plans for Reconstruction in Louisiana, Lincoln proposed that some Black people-including free Black people and those who had enlisted in the military-deserved the right to vote. He was assassinated three days later, however, and it would fall to his successor to put plans for Reconstruction in place.

Andrew Johnson and Presidential Reconstruction

At the end of May 1865, President Andrew Johnson announced his plans for Reconstruction, which reflected both his staunch Unionism and his firm belief in states' rights. In Johnson's view, the southern states had never given up their right to govern themselves, and the federal government had no right to determine voting requirements or other questions at the state level.

Under Johnson's Presidential Reconstruction, all land that had been confiscated by the Union Army and distributed to the formerly enslaved people by the army or the Freedmen's Bureau (established by Congress in 1865) reverted to its prewar owners. Apart from being required to uphold the abolition of slavery (in compliance with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution), swear loyalty to the Union and pay off war debt, southern state governments were given free rein to rebuild themselves.

As a result of Johnson's leniency, many southern states in 1865 and 1866 successfully enacted a series of laws known as the " black codes," which were designed to restrict freed Black peoples' activity and ensure their availability as a labor force. These repressive codes enraged many in the North, including numerous members of Congress, which refused to seat congressmen and senators elected from the southern states.

In early 1866, Congress passed the Freedmen's Bureau and Civil Rights Bills and sent them to Johnson for his signature. The first bill extended the life of the bureau, originally established as a temporary organization charged with assisting refugees and formerly enslaved people, while the second defined all persons born in the United States as national citizens who were to enjoy equality before the law. After Johnson vetoed the bills-causing a permanent rupture in his relationship with Congress that would culminate in his impeachment in 1868-the Civil Rights Act became the first major bill to become law over presidential veto.

Radical Reconstruction

After northern voters rejected Johnson's policies in the congressional elections in late 1866, Radical Republicans in Congress took firm hold of Reconstruction in the South. The following March, again over Johnson's veto, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which temporarily divided the South into five military districts and outlined how governments based on universal (male) suffrage were to be organized. The law also required southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment, which broadened the definition of citizenship, granting "equal protection" of the Constitution to formerly enslaved people, before they could rejoin the Union. In February 1869, Congress approved the 15th Amendment (adopted in 1870), which guaranteed that a citizen's right to vote would not be denied "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

By 1870, all of the former Confederate states had been admitted to the Union, and the state constitutions during the years of Radical Reconstruction were the most progressive in the region's history. The participation of African Americans in southern public life after 1867 would be by far the most radical development of Reconstruction, which was essentially a large-scale experiment in interracial democracy unlike that of any other society following the abolition of slavery.

Southern Black people won election to southern state governments and even to the U.S. Congress during this period. Among the other achievements of Reconstruction were the South's first state-funded public school systems, more equitable taxation legislation, laws against racial discrimination in public transport and accommodations and ambitious economic development programs (including aid to railroads and other enterprises).

Reconstruction Comes to an End

After 1867, an increasing number of southern whites turned to violence in response to the revolutionary changes of Radical Reconstruction. The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations targeted local Republican leaders, white and Black, and other African Americans who challenged white authority. Though federal legislation passed during the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant in 1871 took aim at the Klan and others who attempted to interfere with Black suffrage and other political rights, white supremacy gradually reasserted its hold on the South after the early 1870s as support for Reconstruction waned.

Racism was still a potent force in both South and North, and Republicans became more conservative and less egalitarian as the decade continued. In 1874-after an economic depression plunged much of the South into poverty-the Democratic Party won control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the Civil War.

When Democrats waged a campaign of violence to take control of Mississippi in 1875, Grant refused to send federal troops, marking the end of federal support for Reconstruction-era state governments in the South. By 1876, only Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina were still in Republican hands. In the contested presidential election that year, Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes reached a compromise with Democrats in Congress: In exchange for certification of his election, he acknowledged Democratic control of the entire South.

The Compromise of 1876 marked the end of Reconstruction as a distinct period, but the struggle to deal with the revolution ushered in by slavery's eradication would continue in the South and elsewhere long after that date.

A century later, the legacy of Reconstruction would be revived during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, as African Americans fought for the political, economic and social equality that had long been denied them.

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Reconstruction - Civil War End, Changes & Act of 1867

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Reconstruction, the turbulent era following the U.S. Civil War, was an effort to reunify the divided nation, address and integrate African Americans into society by rewriting the nation's laws and Constitution. The steps taken gave rise to the Ku Klux Klan and other divisive groups.

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The Battle of Fredericksburg is tenth on our list of the bloodiest Civil War battles. On December 11, 1862 Union engineers began to push pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock river outside of the city of Fredericksburg in the Confederate state of Virginia. Union artillery had largely destroyed the old city of Fredericksburg, but the ensuing Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13 was a Union disaster. Unon General Ambrose Burnside's hopes to get around Confederate General Robert E. Lee's right flank (held by Stonewall Jackson) came to nothing because of poor execution, although the Union forces very nearly broke through.

On the Confederate side, perhaps the greatest result of the campaign was that it sealed Lee's position as the great military idol of the Confederacy.

The Federal commander resorted to unimaginative frontal assaults against a very strong Confederate position on Marye's Heights. The Union lost heavily and gained nothing tactically or strategically as the result of this battle. The army returned to its pre-battle lines, and the Northern public expressed great indignation about the battle and the Republican direction of the war. The series of seemingly pointless frontal assaults against well-positioned Confederates made the defeat at Fredericksburg all the more bitter, and the infamous "Mud March" in January ended Burnside's brief tenure at army headquarters. The aftermath of Fredericksburg marked a low point for the Army of the Potomac.

In late December, just after Christmas, Union General William S. Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland marched toward Bragg's Army of Tennessee, which lay a short distance southeast of Nashville near Murfreesboro. The Confederate cavalry harassed his advance. Rosecrans nevertheless made rapid progress in this unusual (for the Civil War) winter campaign.

The armies made contact on December 30. Both commanders planned to hit the other's right ank. Fighting on December 31 favored the Confederates. Rebel General Braxton Bragg launched his attacks first and drove Rosecrans's army back. Rosecrans exhibited great courage and steadiness in putting together a defensive line, and one of his subordinates, Philip Sheridan, held his division together to stabilize the line. Bragg notified Richmond that he had won a victory.

After a day of tense inaction, fighting on January 2 favored the Union. Bragg ordered desperate frontal assaults that were easily repulsed. Bragg decided to retreat deeper into southeast Tennessee on January 3-4, 1863.

Stones River or Murfreesboro was a bloody, but essentially indecisive, military contest. Casualties for the Union and Confederacy made up the highest combined percentage for any major battle of the war. The two armies settled into winter quarters and left the strategic situation in middle Tennessee similar to what it was before the battle.

The Second Battle of Bull Run followed Union Commander Geroge B. McClellan's retreat from Richmond after the failed Seven Days battles that ended the Peninsular Campaign against Richmond.

The initial confrontation pitted Lee against a separate army headed by Union General John Pope, who brought a harsher type of war to Virginia. He threatened to execute guerrillas, arrest citizens who harbored irregulars, and drive from their homes civilians in Union lines who refused to take the oath of allegiance. He also vowed to take whatever his army needed from civilians, thus earning the enmity of white Southerners in Virginia. Pope planned a campaign toward the rail junction at Gordonsville that would sever Lee's rail connections to the Shenandoah Valley via the Orange and Alexandria and the Virginia Central Railroads.

Lee reacted to Pope's movements by first reorganizing his army into two "wings", then dividing and then reuniting it again. Conferedate General James Longstreet's wing of Lee's army kept an eye on McClellan below Richmond. Stonewall Jackson's wing marched to meet Pope along the Rappahannock river.

Jackson defeated part of Pope's army at Cedar Mountain on August 9, 1862. He probed along the Rappahannock after Pope's troops withdrew. Lee and Longstreet joined Jackson along the Rappahannock after McClellan was recalled to Washington.

The reunited Army of Northern Virginia defeated Pope's army at Second Manassas (August 28-30). Jackson's wing flanked the Federals, destroyed their main supply base at Manassas Junction, and engaged them on the old Manassas (Bull Run) battlefield. Longstreet's wing arrived on the battlefield opposite Pope's left flank. Pope didn't realize that these CSA forces had arrived to face him. The Confederates delivered a decisive attack on August 30 that drove the Federals from the field. The Union troops withdrew in good order back to the defenses of Washington, D.C. Pope was removed from command and posted to Minnesota to fight the Sioux; McClellan was reinstated by Lincoln as the field commander.

After the terrible loss at Fredericksburg, some of Burnside's subordinates, including Joseph Hooker, lobbied with Congress for a change of command. Lincoln replaced Burnside with "Fighting Joe" Hooker. Hooker initially showed great promise as commander of the Army of the Potomac. He brought a combination of talent and extreme ambition to his post. He displayed formidable organizational skills, reinvigorated the Army of the Potomac, and planned a brilliant offensive that got off to a promising start in late April. Correcting Burnside's shortcomings in many areas, Hooker improved delivery of supplies and medical care.

He also developed a strategic plan that shifted the bulk of his army to an advantageous position behind the Confederate lines at Fredericksburg by the end of April. Lincoln wanted him to focus on Lee's army, not on Richmond. Hooker planned a cavalry raid toward Richmond, demonstrating with a large force in Lee's front and swinging the bulk of his army around Lee's left flank and in behind his positions.

But Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson countered Hooker's moves with a dazzling response that seemed to drain all energy and daring from the Federal commander. Having seized the initiative, the badly outnumbered Confederates won a remarkable victory that sent the Union army reeling back across the Rappahannock River in early May.

Hooker's planning and splendid early movements reach a shattering climax in the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 1-4. Hooker abandoned his offensive intentions when Lee (after dividing his forces) attacked on May 1 instead of retreating toward Richmond. On May 2, Lee split his army again as "Stonewall" Jackson marched around Hooker's right flank and delivered a crushing attack against the XI Corps. Jackson was fatally wounded by his own men while returning from nighttime reconnaissance. On May 3-4, Confederate attacks against two parts of Hooker's army persuaded the Union commander to retreat back across the Rappahannock.

Following his victory at Second Manassas, and after dispatching Stonewall Jackson to capture Harper's Ferry, a Federal arsenal, Lee reunited and concentrated his nearly 35,000-man army near Sharpsburg, Maryland (along Antietam Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River). One division (A. P. Hill's) remained in Harpers Ferry to guard 12,000 Union prisoners. Union General George B. McClellan, with nearly 70,000 men, launched heavy assaults in three sectors of the battlefield. His goal was to grind Lee down and cut him off from the Potomac River, his line of retreat. The Union assaults were not coordinated, however. A. P. Hill's Light Division made a forced march from Harpers Ferry and arrived in time to turn the tide of the battle.

The Battle of Chickamauga gave Confederate General Braxton Bragg a striking tactical victory. Union General Rosecrans concentrated his army just south of Chattanooga in the valley of Chickamauga Creek by September 18. Bragg's reinforced Army of Tennessee, which with its almost 70,000 men outnumbered Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland, attacked on September 19 and 20. Bragg wanted to cut Rosecrans off from Chattanooga. Then Bragg planned to trap and envelop Rosecrans. Fighting started on the September 19 as it had at Gettysburg, with a cavalry and infantry skirmish that escalated into a general engagement. There was no decisive result after the first day.

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The Ten Bloodiest Battles of the Civil War

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The Battle of Fredericksburg is tenth on our list of the bloodiest Civil War battles. On December 11, 1862 Union engineers began to push pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock river outside of the city of Fredericksburg in the Confederate state of Virginia.

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The Presidents of the United States of America - Fast Facts, Short Biography, Statistics

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begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.
THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Article the first. .... After the first enumeration required by the first Article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which, the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.

Article the second. .... No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened. see Amendment XXVII

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begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

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Here is the order in which the states ratified the US Constitution.

1. Delaware - December 7, 1787

2. Pennsylvania - December 12, 1787

3. New Jersey - December 18, 1787

4. Georgia - January 2, 1788

5. Connecticut - January 9, 1788

6. Massachusetts - February 6, 1788

7. Maryland - April 28, 1788

8. South Carolina - May 23, 1788

9. New Hampshire - June 21, 1788

10. Virginia - June 25, 1788

11. New York - July 26, 1788

12. North Carolina - November 21, 1789

13. Rhode Island - May 29, 1790

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The Virginia Plan, New Jersey Plan, and the Great Compromise

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George Washington was one of the people who believed a stronger government was necessary. Although he wanted to stay home after the war and take care of his estate, he agreed to attend a meeting to improve the government. In the late spring of 1787, horses and a carriage took him over 250 kilometers of rough road to join other state leaders in Philadelphia.

At the time, the meeting was called the Philadelphia Convention, or sometimes the Federal Convention or Grand Convention. Today we usually call it the Constitutional Convention.

Eventually, 55 men from 12 states took part. Only the smallest state, Rhode Island, chose not to send someone.

The men who attended the convention were called delegates or deputies.

Portrait of the delegates

Age: The youngest was 26; the oldest 81. The average age was 42.

Education: Most had a college education. Several had graduate degrees. Almost half studied at Harvard, Yale or Princeton.

Professions: Law, business, finance, real estate and agriculture. Some were also governors, judges, doctors and military veterans.

Public service: Eight signed the Declaration of Independence; six signed the Articles of Confederation; and forty represented their states in the Confederation Congress.

The delegates elected George Washington president of the convention. But Washington said little during the meetings. It was another man from Virginia, James Madison, who quickly became a leader. Madison had come to Philadelphia with a plan to strengthen the power of a central government.

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The Making of the Constitution | VOA Learning English

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George Washington was one of the people who believed a stronger government was necessary. Although he wanted to stay home after the war and take care of his estate, he agreed to attend a meeting to improve the government.

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Battles of Lexington and Concord April 19, 1775, (The American Revolution)

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The French and Indian War

June 19-July 11: The Albany Congress

Oct. 7: Proclamation of 1763

April 5: The Sugar Act
September 1: The Currency Act

March 22: The Stamp Act
March 24: The Quartering Act of 1765
May 29: Patrick Henry's "If this be treason, make the most of it!" speech
May 30: The Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions
Oct. 7-25: The Stamp Act Congress

March 18: The Declaratory Act

June 29: The Townshend Revenue Act

August 1: Boston Non-Importation Agreement

March 5: The Boston Massacre

June 9: The Gaspee Affair

May 10: The Tea Act Dec. 16: The Boston Tea Party

March 31: Boston Port Act, one of the " Intolerable Acts" May 20: Administration of Justice Act, one of the " Intolerable Acts" May 20: Massachusetts Government Act, one of the " Intolerable Acts" June 2: Quartering Act of 1774, one of the " Intolerable Acts" June 22: Quebec Act, one of the " Intolerable Acts" Sept. 5-Oct. 26: The First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia and issues Declaration and Resolves Oct. 10: Battle of Point Pleasant, Virginia (disputed as to whether it was a battle of the American Revolution or the culmination of Lord Dunmore's War) Oct. 20: The Association (prohibition of trade with Great Britain) Oct. 24: Galloway's Plan rejected

March 23: Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech Apr. 18: The Rides of Paul Revere and William Dawes Apr. 19: Minutemen and redcoats clash at Lexington and Concord, "the shot heard 'round the world." May 10: Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys seize Fort Ticonderoga May 10: The Second Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia June 15: George Washington named Commander-in-Chief June 17: Battle of Bunker Hill: The British drive the Americans from Breed's Hill July 3: Washington assumes command of the Continental Army Nov. 13: Richard Montgomery's Continental Army forces occupy Montreal in Canada Dec. 11: Virginia and NC patriots rout Loyalist troops and burn Norfolk Dec. 22: Colonel Thomson with 1,500 rangers and militia capture Loyalists at Great Canebrake, SC Dec. 23-30: Snow Campaign, in SC, so called because patriots are impeded by 15" of snow Dec. 30-31: American forces under Benedict Arnold fail to seize Quebec

Jan. 1: Daniel Morgan is taken prisoner during his attempt to take Quebec City Jan. 15: Paine's Common Sense published Feb. 27: Revolutionaries drive the loyalists from Moore's Creek Bridge, North Carolina March 3: The Continental fleet captures New Providence Island in the Bahamas March 17: The British evacuate Boston; British Navy moves to Halifax, Canada June 8: Revolutionaries fail to take Three Rivers, Quebec June 12: The Virginia Declaration of Rights June 28: Sullivan's Island, SC, failed British naval attack June 29: The First Virginia Constitution June 28: American forces decisively defeat the British Navy at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina July 1: At the instigation of British agents, the Cherokee attack along the entire southern frontier July 1-4: Congress debates and revises the Declaration of Independence. See Chronology of the Declaration July 4: Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence; it's sent to the printer July 8: The Declaration of Independence is read publicly July 15: Lyndley's Fort, SC, Patriots fend off attack by Indians and Tories dressed as Indians Aug. 1: Ambushed by Cherokees, Patriots are saved by a mounted charge at Seneca, SC Aug. 2: Delegates begin to sign The Declaration of Independence Aug. 10: Tugaloo River, SC, Andrew Pickens defeats Cherokees Aug. 12: Andrew Pickens' detachment surrounded by 185 Cherokee Indians, forms a ring and fires outward. It is known as the "Ring Fight." Aug. 12: Colonel David Williamson and Andrew Pickens burn Tamassy, an Indian town Aug. 27: Redcoats defeat George Washington's army in the Battle of Long Island. Washington's army escapes at night. Sept. 15: The British occupy New York City Sept. 16: Generals George Washington, Nathanael Greene, and Israel Putnam triumphantly hold their ground at the Battle of Harlem Heights Sept. 19: Colonel David Williamson's Pennsylvania militia forces attacked by Cherokees at Coweecho River, NC Oct. 11: Benedict Arnold defeated at the Battle of Valcour Island (Lake Champlain), but delayed British advance Oct. 28: The Americans retreat from White Plains, New York. British casualties (~300) higher than American (~200). Nov. 16: The Hessians capture Fort Washington, NY Nov. 20: Lord Cornwallis captures Fort Lee from Nathanael Greene Dec. 26: Washington crosses the Delaware and captures Trenton from Hessians

Jan. 3: Washington victorious at Princeton Jan. 6-May 28: Washington winters in Morristown, NJ Apr. 27: Benedict Arnold's troops force a British retreat at Ridgefield, Connecticut. May 20: Treaty of DeWitt's Corner, SC: Cherokees lose most of their land east of the mountains June 14: Flag Resolution July 5: St. Clair surrenders Fort Ticonderoga to the British July 27: Lafayette arrives in Philadelphia Aug. 6: The Redcoats, with Iroquois support, force the patriots back at Oriskany, NY, but then have to evacuate Aug. 16: American Militia under General Stark victorious at the Battle of Bennington, VT (actually fought in Walloomsac, New York, several miles to the west) Aug. 23: British withdraw from Fort Stanwix, NY, upon hearing of Benedict Arnold's approach Aug. 25: British General Howe lands at Head of Elk, Maryland Sept. 11: The British win the Battle of Brandywine, Pennsylvania Sept. 16: Rainout at the Battle of the Clouds, Pennsylvania Sept. 19: Burgoyne checked by Americans under Gates at Freeman's Farm, NY. This is part of the "Battles of Saratoga." Sept. 21: Paoli Massacre, PA Sept. 26: British under Howe occupy Philadelphia Oct. 4: Americans driven off at the Battle of Germantown Oct. 7: Burgoyne loses second battle of Freeman's Farm, NY (at Bemis Heights). This is part of the "Battles of Saratoga." Oct. 17: Burgoyne surrenders to American General Gates at Saratoga, NY Oct. 22: Hessian attack on Fort Mercer, NJ repulsed Nov. 16: British capture Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania Dec. 5-7: Americans repulse British at Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania Dec. 19: Washington's army retires to winter quarters at Valley Forge

Feb. 6: The United States and France sign the French Alliance March 7: British General William Howe replaced by Henry Clinton May 20: Battle of Barren Hill, Pennsylvania. Lafayette with 500 men and about 50 Oneida Indians successfully evade British onslaught June 18: British abandon Philadelphia and return to New York June 19: Washington's army leaves Valley Forge June 28: The Battle of Monmouth Court House ends in a draw July 4: George Rogers Clark captures Kaskaskia, a French village south of St. Louis Aug. 8: French and American forces besiege Newport, RI Sept. 28: The Tappan Massacre ("No Flint" Grey kills 30 Americans by bayonet) Dec. 29: The redcoats occupy Savannah

Feb. 3: Major General Moultrie defeats British detachment at Port Royal Island, SC Feb. 14: Patriots Andrew Pickens and Elijah Clarke beat Loyalists at Kettle Creek, GA Feb. 23-24: American George Rogers Clark captures Vincennes (in what is now Indiana) on the Wabash in the Western campaign March 3: British Lt. Colonel Jacques Marcus Prévost defeats Americans under General John Ashe at Brier Creek, GA May 11-13: Major General Augustin Prévost (brother of Jacques, see above) breaks his siege when American forces under Major General Lincoln approach June 20: Stono River, SC, Major General Lincoln inflicts extensive British casualties in indecisive battle June 21: Spain declares war on Great Britain July 8: Fairfield, CT, burned by British July 11: Norwalk, CT, burned by British July 15-16: American "Mad" Anthony Wayne captures Stony Point, NY Aug. 19: Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee attacks Paulus Hook, NJ Aug. 29: Newtown, NY, after two massacres, American forces burn Indian villages Sept. 23: John Paul Jones, aboard the Bonhomme Richard, captures British man-of-war Serapis near English coast
Oct. 9: American attempt to recapture Savannah, GA fails Nov.-June 23, 1780: Washington's 2nd winter at Morristown, NJ (the harshest winter of the 18th century)

May 12: British capture Charleston, SC May 29: British crush Americans at Waxhaw Creek, SC June 20: Patriots rout Tories at Ramseur's Mill, NC July 11: French troops arrive at Newport, RI, to aid the American cause Aug. 6: Patriots defeat Tories at Hanging Rock, SC Aug. 16: British rout Americans at Camden, SC Sept. 23: John André arrested, leading to the exposure of Benedict Arnold's plans to cede West Point to the British Oct. 7: King's Mountain, SC: battle lasts 65 minutes. American troops led by Isaac Shelby and John Sevier defeat Major Patrick Ferguson and one third of General Cornwallis's army Oct. 14: Washington names Nathanael Greene commander of the Southern Army

Jan. 1: Mutiny of unpaid Pennsylvania soldiers Jan. 17: American General Daniel Morgan overwhelmingly defeats British Colonel Tarleton at Cowpens, SC Feb. 1: The Battle of Cowan's Ford, Huntersville, NC March 2: Articles of Confederation adopted March 15: British win costly victory at Guilford Courthouse, NC April 25: Greene defeated at Hobkirk's Hill, SC May 15: British Major Andrew Maxwell cedes Fort Granby, SC to Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee June 6: Americans recapture Augusta, GA June 18: British hold off Americans at Ninety Six, SC July 6: "Mad" Anthony Wayne repulsed at Green Springs Farm, VA Sept. 8: Greene defeated at Eutaw Springs, SC Sept. 15: French fleet drives British naval force from Chesapeake Bay Oct. 19: Cornwallis surrounded on land and sea by Americans and French and surrenders at Yorktown, VA

March 8: Gnadenhutten massacre, a.k.a. the Moravian massacre.
March 20: Lord North resigns as British prime minister July 11: British evacuate Savannah, GA Nov. 30: British and Americans sign preliminary Articles of Peace Dec. 14: British leave Charleston, SC

April 19: Congress ratifies preliminary peace treaty Sept. 3: The United States and Great Britain sign the Treaty of Paris Nov. 25: British troops leave New York City Dec. 23: Washington resigns as Commander

Sept. 17: U.S. Constitution signed

June 21: U.S. Constitution adopted, when New Hampshire ratifies it

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The French and Indian War June 19-July 11: The Albany Congress Oct. 7: Proclamation of 1763 April 5: The Sugar Act September 1: The Currency Act March 22: The Stamp Act March 24: The Quartering Act of 1765 May 29: Patrick Henry's "If this be treason, make the most of it!"