Although not yet a state during the Civil War, the region that became North Dakota had a great deal riding on the conflict. President Lincoln said the country could not exist half-slave and half-free. It would be one thing or the other.
Plains Wars, series of conflicts from the early 1850s through the late 1870s between Native Americans and the United States, along with its Indian allies, over control of the Great Plains between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. Learn more about the Plains Wars here.