Music was popular among the soldiers of both armies, creating a diversion from the boredom and horror of the war.

Soldiers were forbidden to interfere with slavery or assist runaways, but many soldiers found such a policy unchristian.

The American Civil War had begun.

To a Southern man, there was no fate more terrifying than the thought of being reduced to the level of a slave. 

The Missouri Compromise marked a major turning point in America’s sectional crisis because it exposed to the public just how divisive the slavery issue had grown.

 The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 more than doubled the size of the United States.

Conflicts stemming from slavery’s western expansion created problems for the United States from the very start.

And so, during the early-nineteenth century, opportunities for education and employment often depended on a given family’s class.

Women and children worked to supplement the low wages of many male workers.

The market revolution shook other industries as well.

By 1860 Americans laid more than 30,000 miles of railroads

The cotton boom fueled speculation in slavery

To protect the fortunes and liabilities of entrepreneurs who invested in early industrial endeavors, states offered the privileges of incorporation

New York State completed the Erie Canal in 1825

Prostitutes and con men could look like regular honest Americans.

The New York convention would ratify the Constitution by just three votes, and finally Rhode Island would ratify it by two votes

The last global ice age trapped much of the world’s water in enormous continental glaciers.