Explain one way in which the american civil war was important in the settlement of the west ?

With Federal resources focused on waging the war farther east, both native tribes and the Confederacy attempted to claim lands west of the Mississippi. The Federal government's response included The Homestead Act and the construction of the transcontinental railroad. The goal was to encourage settlement, solidify Union control of the trans-Mississippi West, and further marginalize the physical and cultural presence of tribes native to the West. 

the reform movements that arose during the antebellum period in america focused on specific issues: temperance, abolishing imprisonment for debt, pacifism, antislavery, abolishing capital punishment, amelioration of prison conditions (with prison's purpose reconceived as rehabilitation rather than punishment), the humane treatment of animals, the humane and just treatment of native americans, the establishment of public institutions for the care of the destitute, orphans, blind, and mentally ill, the establishment of public schools, the abolition of tobacco use, vegetarianism, health reform, homeopathic medicine, woman's rights (including, at first, especially the establishment of a woman's right to own property apart from her husband and her right to sue for divorce), and the amelioration of labor conditions (including higher pay, the right to form unions, the right to strike, and the demand for limits on the number of work hours, and safe working conditions).

explanation:

gpd hope this

~blake