| Kansas-Nebraska Act | 1854 Act of Congress that repealed the Missouri Compromise and introduced as the guiding principle behind the incorporation of the Kansas and Nebraska Territories the idea of Popular Sovereignty, the idea that citizens of newly formed territories could decide when they applied for statehood whether slavery would be allowed in their new state. |
| Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions | Resolutions
passed in Kentucky and Virginia in response to the Alien and
Sedition Acts. The resolutions said that government was
overstepping its bounds and violating the idea of a contract
with the people. This idea of a contract was the basis for
the Declaration of Independence. Both Resolutions were
written by Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration and
founder of the Democratic-Republican Party. |
| Francis Scott Key | Lawyer and
amateur poet who wrote the Star-Spangled Banner, which has
become the national anthem of the United States. On
September 13, 1814, during the War of 1812, the British
bombed Fort McHenry, near Baltimore. It was a terrible
battle, and it lasted most of the day and night. In the
early part of September 14, Key saw the U.S. flag still
flying. He was so moved by this experience that he began to
write on the back of a letter he had in his pocket. He
finished the poem, all four verses, a little while later. It
was later printed as "Defence of Fort M'Henry." |
| Battle of Kings Mountain | American
victory on October 7, 1780 near the North Carolina-South
Carolina border that destroyed one whole section of General
Charles Cornwallis's army and forced him to retreat to South
Carolina to wait for reinforcements. It also gave American
General Nathanael Greene time to reorganize his forces. The
result was what some historians call the turning point in
the war in the south. The British had won handily at
Charleston and Camden and had sewed up South Carolina.
Several months later, Kings Mountain, coupled with the
subsequent American victory at Cowpens, forced the British
to concentrate on Virginia, where they were eventually
trapped into surrender at Yorktown. |
| Know-Nothing Party | political party that had its heyday in the 1840s and 1850s. Also known as the American Party, its members had a strong anti-immigrant stance that cut across slavery-abolitionist lines. The Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 brought many more members into the Know-Nothing fold. (The party got its way, by the way, because its members would not for the longest time publicly admit their political views. When asked what they thought about the political issues of the day, they would say, "I know nothing.") They had, in 1855, 43 members of the party in Congress. Their only presidential candidate, Millard Fillmore, lost badly to Democrat Franklin Pierce in 1856. The party fell apart after that, with many of its followers joining some former members of the Whig Party (which had also fallen apart) to form the Constitutional Union Party. |
| Lafayette | French
officer who fought for America in the Revolutionary War. He
participated in the Continental Congress and served under
George Washington at the Battle of Brandywine and at Valley
Forge. He also had a part in the final battle of the war,
Yorktown. |
| Lake Champlain | Lake far in
the north of New York that saw its share of Revolutionary
War battles. It was the staging point for a handful of
invasions from and of Canada, and it was the scene of a
brilliant naval victory by American General Benedict Arnold
against a much larger British force. It was also the scene
of the War of 1812 Battle of Plattsburg, a great American
victory. |
| Battle of Lake Erie | American
victory over British ships on September 10, 1813. This
victory secured the Northwest Territory for America and
reversed the British momentum gained at the surrender of
Fort Detroit. At Put-in-Bay, Ohio Territory, American ships
under Oliver Hazard Perry engaged British ships. The
American ships were smaller, but they had more of them. Of
the American victory, Perry made his famous statement: "We
have met the enemy, and they are ours." |
| Lancaster Turnpike | First
important turnpike in America. Also the first long-distance
stone and gravel road in the country. Chartered in 1792 and
completed in 1795, it ran 62 miles from Philadelphia to
Lancaster and gave travelers an easier way to reach the
Northwest Territory. The turnpike route was later replaced
by a canal. |
| Land Ordinance 1785 | Law passed by
Congress that allowed for sales of land in the Northwest
Territory and set up standards for land sale that became
precedents. Among them was the idea of selling mile-square
sections of land. |
| Robert E. Lee | Mexican War veteran, superintendent at West Point, and Confederate commander of the Army of Northern Virginia and ultimately of all Southern troops. He was the colonel in charge of the troops that arrested John Brown at Harpers Ferry. President Lincoln asked Lee to command the Union troops, but Lee would not abandon his native Virginia. His strategy, risk-taking, overcome-all-odds strategies bedeviled all the Army of the Potomac commanders except Ulysses S. Grant, to whom he surrendered at Appomattox Court House. |
| Lewis & Clark | Meriwether
Lewis and William Clark set out from St. Louis in 1804 to
explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. Along the
way, they hired several guides, among them a Native American
woman named Sacagawea, who led them the entire trip west to
the Pacific Ocean and back again. Lewis & Clark observed
other cultures, their customs, their food and clothing,
their agriculture, and all sorts of other aspects of their
society. In addition, the explorers discovered the existence
of a large number of animal and plant species that Americans
hadn't know about before. They returned to territorial
America in 1806 and passed their findings on to all
Americans. |
| Lexington & Concord | First shots
fired between American and British troops, on April 19,
1775. The British chose to march to Concord because it was
an arms depot. This meant that the Americans had stockpiled
weapons there. British troops had occupied Boston and were
marching on Concord as they passed through Lexington. No one
is still sure who fired first, but it was the "Shot Heard
'Round the World." Both sides opened fire, and the Americans
were forced to withdraw. But they had slowed the British
advance. By the time the Redcoats got to Concord, the
Americans were waiting for them in force. The weapons depot
was saved, and the British were forced to retreat, harassed
by militiamen along the way. The skirmishes were preceded by
Paul Revere's famous ride, warning the countryside: "The
British are Coming!" |
| Abraham Lincoln | The 16th president of the United States. One of the first important figures of the newly formed Republican Party, Lincoln first gained prominence by losing the race for the U.S. Senate in Illinois to Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln was elected and then re-elected, all the while directing the war effort and holding the country together. He is regarded by historians as one of America's greatest presidents. |
| Lincoln-Douglas Debates | Abraham Lincoln and the incumbent, Stephen A. Douglas, ran against each other for an Illinois Senate seat in 1858. The hot topics in the seven debates were slavery and Popular Sovereignty. In accepting his party's nomination for the seat, Lincoln gave his famous "House Divided" speech. Douglas won the Senate seat, but Lincoln gained nationwide recognition for his thoughtful, impassioned arguments. |
| Benjamin Lincoln | American general who played a large part in the American victory at Saratoga but suffered defeat at Charleston. He was there because he had led an attack on British-held Savannah and had been forced to retreat to Charleston. He was taken prisoner, then exchanged for a British officer. He later led American troops to Yorktown and accepted Lord Cornwallis's sword in surrender, marking the end of the Revolutionary War. He later was a member of the Massachusetts convention to ratify the Constitution. |
| James Longstreet | Mexican War veteran and Confederate general who fought under Robert E. Lee at most of the major battles fought by the Army of Northern Virginia. He was famous for his ability to hold a line, best demonstrated in the Battle of Fredericksburg. He fought at the Battle of Chickamauga and was briefly at Chattanooga but was sent away at the last minute. He also was commander of the troops that made Pickett's Charge, the disastrous assault on Cemetery Ridge during the Battle of Gettysburg. |
| Louisbourg | French island
citadel seized in June-July 1758 by British troops under
Jeffery Amherst and James Wolfe. British troops sailed from
Halifax, Nova Scotia, under cover of darkness to Cape Breton
Island, then had to wait almost a week for heavy fog to lift
before attacking. The French defense was sturdy, but British
luck won out once again as a small band of sailors managed
to land onshore and secure a beachhead while a lucky shot
from a British ship touched off a French gunpowder store,
igniting most of the other French ships in a tremendous
fireball. Once the British were onshore, it was only a
matter of time. The battle turned into a siege, and the
French finally surrendered, more than three weeks after the
fighting began. This battle was extremely important in that
it effectively cut off French reinforcements. It also
allowed allowed the British to sail down the St. Lawrence
River to Quebec, the last real French stronghold in North
America. |
| Louisiana Purchase | Huge addition
of land that doubled the size of the country. Thomas Jefferson bought
the Louisiana Territory from France for the paltry sum of
$15 million. The size of the Territory was 828,000 square
miles! Meriwether Lewis and William Clark explored this vast
territory from 1804 to 1806. |
| Loyalists | American
colonists who remained loyal to Great Britain during the
Revolutionary War. They were mostly farmers and numbered
about 500,000, or 16 percent of the population. Some of them
fought in the British army, but many did not. The terms of
the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War,
protected the Loyalists from persecution after the
war. |
| James Madison | Fourth
president, signer of the Constitution, writer of The
Federalist Papers, leader of the Democratic-Republican
Party. He is probably most famous, however, for his draft of
the Virginia Plan (the basis for our republican government),
his insistence on a Bill of Rights, and his notes of the
Constitutional Convention. As president, he presided over
the War of 1812, which the United States won. |
| Horace Mann | Famous
educator who formed the first state board of education in
the U.S., in Massachusetts in the 1830s. He was a champion
of free public schools and campaigned to make going to
school required. He also did a great deal to inform the
public at large about the benefits of and the need for
education. His Common-School Journal was read by thousands
of people all over the country. He also served in Congress
and was the first president of Antioch College, in Yellow
Springs, Ohio. |
| Marbury | First decision by the Supreme Court to declare a law unconstitutional (1803). |
| Marines | Branch of the
armed forces begun by the Second Continental Congress in
1775. The first amphibious landing came the next year. The
Marines were disbanded in 1783, following the Treaty of
Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War. The Marines were
restarted in 1798 and made a name for themselves with
victories against the Barbary Pirates in 1805 in Tripoli.
They also saw action in the Mexican War. |
| John Marshall | First
important Chief Justice of the United States (beginning in
1801). He wrote many of the Supreme Court's first famous
opinions, including Marbury v. Madison, McCulloch
v. Ogden, and Gibbons v. Ogden. All of these
opinions strengthened the power of the federal government.
He served as Chief Justice until 1836. He had been a soldier
in the Revolutionary War and had served with George
Washington at Valley Forge. |
| Massasoit | Massasoit was
the chief of the Native American tribe the Wampanoag. He was
introduced to the Pilgrims by Samoset and later signed a
peace treaty with them that lasted for 50 years. |
| Mayflower | The
Mayflower was the ship that brought the Pilgrims to
America. It sailed from Southampton, England, on September
16, 1620, with 102 passengers on board. The voyage took 65
days, during which time two people died and one person was
born. The colonists had been granted territory in Virginia,
but the ship landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, on Dec. 26,
1620. |
| Mayflower Compact | The Mayflower
Compact was a document signed by 41 male Pilgrims on
November 21, 1620. By signing this document, the men agreed
to form a temporary government and be bound by its laws. The
compact became the basis of government in the Plymouth
Colony. |
| George McClellan | Union general whose Peninsular Campaign was turned back by Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. He won an important (but accidental) victory at Antietam. A meticulous organizer, he prided himself on examining all the possibilities. This caution and willingness to believe that he was overmatched even though his numbers were far superior to the Southern armies', however, led him to a road out of the army in November, 1862, as Lincoln's confidence in him to deliver waned. McClellan resurfaced as a Democratic candidate for president in 1864 but lost badly to Lincoln. |
| Cyrus McCormick | Inventor who is famous for his invention of the reaper, a device that speeds up the harvesting of grain. He invented this machine in 1831. The result was a much easier and faster grain harvest, making possible larger sales of grain. |
| McCulloch | Chief Justice
John Marshall wrote the opinion for this landmark case
defining the powers of a state over the federal
government. The case involved a conflict between the federal government and the State of Maryland. |
| Irvin McDowell | Commander of Union troops at the First Battle of Bull Run. He served in lesser roles until relieved in 1862. |
| George Gordon Meade | Union general who rose through the ranks fighting with Generals George McClellan, Ambrose Burnside, and Joseph Hooker, and finally commanded the troops at the Battle of Gettysburg. He was officially commander of the Army of the Potomac from Gettysburg until the end of the war, but General-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant traveled with those troops and was ostensibly their commander. |
| Mexican Cession | Area of the
present-day United States that Mexico agreed to give up as
part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the
Mexican-American War. This territory included all of the
present-day states of California, Nevada, and Utah and also
parts of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and
Wyoming. |
| Mexican War | War between
Mexico and the United States over the independence of Texas
and other territorial claims. The war lasted officially from
1846 to 1848 but had its unofficial beginnings mainly over
the governing of Texas as early as the 1830s. Texas declared
itself independent from Mexico in 1835, and the famous
massacres at the Alamo and Goliad took place in 1836.
Americans secured Texas independence at San Jacinto later in
1836. The U.S. annexed Texas in 1844. Two years later, war
erupted. The Mexicans fought tough, but Americans prevailed
in the end, including a stubborn charge up and over the
walls of two large castles in and around Mexico City. As
part of the settlement, Mexico agreed to give up more than
half of its territory, which the U.S. convered eventually
into several states. This was known as the Mexican
Cession. |
| Mexico City | Mexican
capital city that was captured by American forces during the
Mexican-American War. American troops under Winfield Scott
traveled through heavily hostile territory and made three
separate charges against three heavily guarded positions
before winning the battle. The battle lasted two days. The
Americans lost 139 dead and 876 injured. The Mexicans lost
4,000 killed and injured. Not long after, a war-ending
treaty was signed. |
| Minutemen | American
soldiers who got their name because they could be ready to
right "at a minute's notice." They saw their first action at
Lexington and Concord and gained fame from there. The first
minutemen were from Massachusetts, but other states soon had
their own regiments. |
| Missouri Compromise | Agreement put
forward by Henry Clay that allowed Missouri to enter the
Union as a slave state and Maine to enter the Union as a
free state. The Compromise also drew an imaginary line at 36
degrees 30 minutes north latitude, dividing the new
Louisiana Territory into two areas, one north and one south.
All of the Louisiana Territory north of this line was free
territory, meaning that any territories that became states
from this area would enable African-Americans to be free.
The Compromise also encouraged people in the north to return
runaway slaves to their homes and did not prohibit slavery,
even in the free territories. |
| Monitor and Merrimack | Ironclad ships that fought a famous battle near Hampton Roads, Virginia, in 1861. The Merrimack was actually a sunken Union castoff, dredged up by Confederates and renamed the Virginia. The Monitor was a new Union ship. The ships fired at each other all day, but their iron shells prevented damage. |
| Battle of Monmouth | Indecisive
battle near Monmouth Courthouse, New Jersey, on June 28,
1778. American troops under General George Washington fought
British troops under General Henry Clinton. The British had
left Philadelphia en route to New York. The Americans were
pursuing from Valley Forge, their goal to stop the British
advance. It was a very hot day, and the heat took its toll
on both sides. Exhausted, both sides stopped the fighting.
Under cover of darkness, the British slipped away. This
battle also saw the deeds of one Mary Hays McCauly, better
known as "Molly Pitcher." |
| James Monroe | Fifth
president, served two terms. Fought in the Revolutionary
War. Delegate from Virginia to the Constitutional
Convention. Served on diplomatic mission to France in 1803,
helped convince U.S. to accept Louisiana Purchase. Governor
of Virginia. During the War of 1812, he served both as
Secretary of State and as Secretary of War, the only person
ever to do this. As president, bought Florida from Spain
and, in 1823, issued the Monroe Doctrine, which basically
told European nations to leave Central and South America
alone. |
| Monroe Doctrine | Proclamation
in 1823 by President James Monroe. Basically, it warned
European nations not to get involved in political matters in
Central and South America. The Doctrine was intended to show
that the United States was the only country that could
influence such political matters. Further, several countries
in South American had recently undergone revolutions against
their European colonial owners and ended up with republican
governments. The United States agreed with their political
philosophy and did not want to see those newly free
nations become European colonies again. |
| Montcalm | French
commander in charge of all French troops in Canada. He was
the architect of the "fort strategy," by which French forts
were built at key spots all across Canada to protect French
interests there. He was the commander at the Battle of Fort
William Henry and personally tried to stop the massacre that
followed. He won several small battles, but his greatest
success was in the taking of Fort Ticonderoga in July 1758.
The war took a decidedly Britain turn after that. British
victories at Crown Point and Loiusbourg left the St.
Lawrence River open to attack, and Montcalm retreat to
Montreal and then Quebec. He lost his prestige and his life
at the Battle of Quebec. Without his leadership and with
British troops advancing from all sides, France surrendered
all of Canada at Montreal on September 8, 1760.. |
| Monterrey | Mexican War
battle that took place on September 21, 1846. American
forces under Zachary Taylor took the strategic Mexican city.
It was one of several triumphs for Taylor and the
Americans. |
| Mormon Trail | Trail that
the Mormons followed on their migration west to Utah. The
trail stretched west, from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Utah. About
70,000 Mormons followed in the footsteps of Joseph Smith,
their prophet, to their Promised Land. They eventually
formed the State of Deseret, the Utah Territory, and the
|
| Samuel Morse | Artist and
inventor most famous for the development of a workable,
easily produced electric telegraph. The first telegraph was
between Baltimore and Washington in 1844. Just 17 years
later, telegraph lines stretched from coast to coast. Morse
also came up with a code of dots-and-dashes that stood for
letters and numbers. This was called the Morse Code. The
telegraph made it possible for people to send instant
messages over long distances, without having to wait for
mail delivery. |
| Lucretia Mott | Leader of the
movement to grant American women the right to vote, along
with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Mott was
instrumental in bringing together men and women for a
national convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. The
result was a sort of "improved" Declaration of Independence,
which included the phrase "all men and women are created
equal." She also spoke out against slavery. |
| Murfreesboro | Tennessee city that was the site of a Confederate victory by General Braxton Bragg over Union General William S. Rosencrans. However, Bragg left the field after his victory, allowing Rosencrans to occupy the city of Murfreesboro and continue the pursuit that would end in a Union victory at the Battle of Chattanooga. |
| National Road | Also known as
the Cumberland Road, it was the first federal highway. It
stretched from Cumberland, Maryland, to Vandalia, Illinois.
It was created by an act of Congress in 1806 and built
between 1811 and 1852. The National Road was the main route
to the West for eastern settlers for a great many
years. |
| Battle of New Orleans | American
victory in a battle that never had to happen. American
forces under General Andrew Jackson defeated British forces
on January 8, 1815, several weeks after the signing of the
Treaty of Ghent, which had officially ended the war. Neither
group of troops had gotten the news by the time the battle
began. This battle is also interesting in that the British
lost more than 700 dead and 1,400 injured while the
Americans lost only 8 dead and 13 wounded. |
| Lord North | Prime
Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. A former Lord
of the Treasury, he focused on economic problems for the
first part of his reign. He thought to make an example of
Massachusetts by coming down hard on the insurrection there.
An example was the Tea Act, which so angered American
colonists that they dumped 342 crates of tea into Boston
Harbor. But his experiment backfired. Not only did the
Massachusetts colonists fight back, but the rest of the
colonies also caught the revolutionary fire. War was
declared, and the fighting began. North continued to serve
as prime minister throughout the war, managing the affairs
of the country from home while his armies fought in the
field afar. He tried to resign several times during the war,
but King George III would not accept the resignation.
Finally, a year after Yorktown, while peace negotiations
were dragging on, North resigned for good. |
| Northwest Ordinance | Land
agreement of 1787 that created the Northwest Territory,
enabling the United States to expand into the Great Lakes
area. States created from the Northwest Territory included
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and
Wisconsin. |
| Northwest Territory | Large area of
land created by the Continental Congress in the Northwest
Ordinance of July 13, 1787. The region was later called the
Old Northwest. American settlers poured into the Northwest
Territory, which was eventually divided into the states of
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Based on
standards set forth in the Land Ordinance of 1785, settlers
could buy land in mile-square blocks. They did so in large
numbers. Slavery was prohibited. Several British forts
nearby led to tensions that eventually broke out into the
War of 1812. The American victory in that war ended British
claims to any lands in the Northwest Territory. |
| Nullification | Constitutional struggle between some states and President
Andrew Jackson. The states didn't want to pay the protective
tariff that Jackson wanted, and the states claimed the right
to "nullify," or declare void the tariff. This would have
meant that the states didn't have to pay the tariff. More
importantly, it would have meant that the states would have
had authority over the federal government in a basic
economic matter like the tariff. The states involved
withdrew their objection to the tariff, mainly because of
yet another compromise bill introduced by Henry Clay. This
bill gradually reduced tariffs for 11 years, putting off the
nullification question until then. |
| Oregon Territory | Land claimed
by both the United States and Great Britain. This was an
ongoing dispute until the Treaty of 1846, which set the
boundary at the 49th parallel, where it is today. |
| Oregon Trail | Way west
followed by thousands of Americans during the 1840s and
1850s. The Trail was mapped out by the great explorer John C
Fremont and began at Independence, Missouri, and ended at
Fort Vancouver, in what is now Washington. The last part of
the trail was the Columbia River; pioneers usually traveled
by raft. Use of the Oregon Trail fell off when gold was
discovered in California in 1848 and people went there
instead. |
| Osceola | Leader of the
Seminole tribe, living in Florida. Andrew Jackson had
defeated the Seminole in 1818, burning many of their
villages. Osceola led them in a war against Americans in
1835. Among those fighting against him were Zachary Taylor
and Winfield Scott. The Seminole dug in and kept the
Americans at bay for a long time, fighting in the swamps of
the Everglades. But Osceola was eventually lured to a
conference under a flag of truce. At this truce conference,
American General Thomas Jesup had Osceola captured. The
great Seminole leader was thrown into prison, where he
died. |
