President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law. It provided 160 acres of public land to any man or woman over the age of twenty-one willing to develop it for five years. It came into effect on January 1, 1863. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Joseph Nathan Kane, ed., Famous First Facts (New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1981), 304.
How to Cite This Page: "President Lincoln signs the Homestead Act," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/11845.