After the Civil War, the arrival of Anglo-Americans proved disastrous for the people and the cultures west of the Mississippi. The most widespread Indian presence in the West was the Plains Indians. Their cultures were based on close and extended family networks and on an intimate relationship with nature. Many of these nations, including the powerful Sioux, subsisted largely through hunting buffalo. Although many tribes did not unite against white settler encroachment on their lands, the Sioux, Arapaho and Cheyenne did form a powerful alliance in the northern plains. However, many Native Americans remained vulnerable to eastern infectious diseases and at a considerable disadvantage in any long-term battle with an economically and industrially advanced people - they were outnumbered and outgunned by easterners wanting to encroach on their land. After the Civil War, the U.S. Army directed its efforts to taking over the Spanish/Mexican settlement in TX, the Southwest and CA. Centuries old Spanish mission society was largely reduced. It also broke the power of the the Navajo, Apache and other tribes. Chinese migration after 1848... In 1869, the transcontinental railroad was completed.The establishment of "Chinatowns" and anti-Chinese sentiments...The Chinese Exclusion Act... The Homestead Act... The admission of new states between 1864 - 1896: Nebraska, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Montana, Washington,Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma... The western mining boom 1860 - 1890s...

What is the symbolism in the position of Abraham Lincoln's hands and the way they are positioned in the Lincoln Memorial? What two images are sculpted into Abraham Lincoln's head in the Lincoln Memorial? What is the significance?

Today is President Abraham Lincoln's Birthday. We spent some time talking about Lincoln in the White House. The Civil War ends on April 9, 1865 and President Lincoln is assassinated just five days later on April 14, 1865. When he died in a boarding house across the street from Ford's Theater the next morning, Secretary of War, Edmund Stanton said, "Now, he belongs to the ages." President Lincoln was a self-educated lawyer and a simple family man from Illinois. When he and his family first arrived in the White House,they were astonished by its immense size. Lincoln and his wife Mary, had three sons: Robert, Tad and Willie. The U.S. was engaged in the horrific Civil War for the entirety of Lincoln's presidency. This took an immense toll on the President and his efforts and resolve to keep the U.S. a unified nation. Perhaps no other president in U.S. history aged more in four years of office than President Abraham Lincoln. While Lincoln's oldest son was off fighting the war, his younger sons, Tad and Willie became sick with typhoid fever in 1862. While Tad recovered, Willie did not. The President had to find a way to deal with his grief and lead a nation at war. He did this nobly. American history has many great heroes. But no other President had faced such a national crisis, or endured such personal tragedies, yet the President dealt with both with compassion and greatness.

We moved on to discussing Manifest Destiny and the conquest of the far west after the Civil War. We will be focusing on this broad topic for the remainder of the week. Today was an introduction to the societies of the far west...from the Plains and Western Native Americans to descendants from 17th century patterns of settlement in TX, the southwest and CA.

Once northern federal troops withdrew from occupying the southern states, ending the era of "Reconstruction," problems arose in the South - many which had existed prior to the Civil War and many which went on to impact the 20th century as well as life in America today. 1896 - Plessy v. Ferguson; the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of "separate but equal" segregated schools. The Sharecropping system... Changing gender roles for black and white women... The establishment of groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and other paramilitary groups terrorized black communities throughout the South. The withdrawal of federal troops from the South signaled that the national government was giving up on its attempts to control Southern politics and to improve the lot of African Americans in Southern society. Reconstruction was in the end, largely a failure, for in those years, the U.S. abandoned its first serious effort to resolve the nation's oldest and deepest social problem - the problem of race.

Why post-Civil War Reconstruction is really an oxymoron. The South was so devastated by the war and needed rebuilding. But more important, millions of former slaves, now free, needed help acclimating to their new world and how to access the rights guaranteed to them through the 13th, 14th & 15th amendments - known as the Civil War Amendments, they abolished slavery, granted former slaves citizenship rights and granted voting rights to African American men. The era of Reconstruction lasted from 1865 - 1877. We will discuss more about this period during last period when we meet again today.

We had a double period of AP US History today. The first Battle of Bull Run - 1861, The Battle of New Orleans - 1862, Shiloh - 1962, Antietam - 1862, the bloodiest single day of the war - 6,000 soldiers died and 17,000 sustained injuries... Vicksburg - 1863, Gettysburg - 1863, three days of fighting led to devastating losses on both sides... By this time, General Lee had lost nearly one third of his army. The last stage of the Civil War 1864 - 1865... Union Generals Grant and Sherman begin their marches south to capture Richmond, VA and Atlanta, GA. General Lee surrenders to General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, VA. The Legacy of the Civil War: the beginnings of modern warfare, with new weaponry and the military strategy of total warfare... After 100 years, states would finally become cohesively unified under a single federal government. The notion of states' regionalism will never again challenge the authority of the federal government.

1863 - the Emancipation Proclamation, - Gettysburg,- Conscription (military drafts in both the North & South), African Americans and the Union Cause, -Economic Development of the North is sped by the war, -Women, Nursing and the War, -Disastrous inflation in the South, -Economic and Social Effect of the Civil War: devastation of southern economy, diminished food production, goods and services, new roles for women due to the decimation of the male population, led to a generation of gender imbalance, except TX, all western states and territories remained loyal to the Union. The Civil War produced more carnage than any war in U.S. history: 618,000 people died, more than WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam War casualties combined.

Vlad watched the president's State of the Union address last night. Vlad was very enthusiastic to replay and discuss the parts that were most meaningful to him. States in the Confederacy and the Union... There were five slave states that remained neutral and did not join the Confederacy: Missouri, Kentucky, W.Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. They remained neutral because of their location between Union and Confederate states. They were concerned about the destruction the war would bring to their state. It turned out to be a sound decision as most of the fighting in the Civil War took place north or south of these states.

The Dred Scott Decision, 1857, Lincoln becomes president in 1860, by the time Lincoln becomes president, S. Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Florida had already seceded from the US,-First shots of the Civil War were fired from Ft. Sumter, S. Carolina and the Civil War begins on April 14, 1861, -Union advantages and Southern advantages at the start of the Civil War...

The Compromise of 1850 -Jefferson Davis becomes president of the seceded southern states known as the "Confederate States of America." -The Fugitive Slave Act, -Hawaii could have become a state in 1854, but it took another 100 years! Settlers begin to fight over whether or not newly acquired territories should or should not allow slavery. -The Kansas-Nebraska Act, -Bleeding Kansas, -"Free Soiler" thinking, -The Dred Scott Decision, John Brown's Raid and many other issues that contributed to the increasing tensions between the North and South during the turbulent 1850s.

Vlad completed reading Chapter 13 in his text.