How Did The Civil War Affect The Westward Expansion

The South And The West Three major events that significantly impacted the history of the U.S. were The Civil War, Reconstruction, and Westward Expansion. They shaped what our country is today and what it will become in the future. However, there were several political, social, and economic consequences due to the events. The Civil War pinned brother against brother in the fight against the Union and the Confederacy. Originally, the purpose for the North fighting the war was to preserve the Union. However, once Abraham Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, The Union now fought to end slavery as well as preservation of the Union. Even though the Union had been victorious, hundreds of thousands of mean still died. The Civil War is known as the bloodiest war to have ever taken place on American soil. One positive outcome of the Civil War is that the railroads were being built and perfected which is a major technological development in U.S. history. Another consequence of the war

The Americans believed that it was their divine and inevitable right to claim the westward land. However, this expansion had a large problem. The Native Americans had already been settled in that land for thousands of years. And the Americans wanted to simply take it away from them. The Native Americans were forced out of their land as more and more Americans began to settle down in the west. Many Americans were influenced by the Homestead Act which gave them 160 Acres of land as long as they maintained the land for 5 years. Eventually, the Native Americans no longer had somewhere to go. They decided to sign a treaty with the Americans which granted them a small reservation in which no American would cross and a promise that supplies would be sent. However, the supplies never came and Americans continued to cross into the reservation. The Native Americans wanted to fight back but they were powerless against the American’s