Fort Sumter
Definition: Federal fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina; the confederate attack on the fort marked the start of the Civil War.
Significance: The attack on Fort Sumter provoked the North to fight for their honor and the union.
Border States
Definition: States bordering the North: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. They were slave states, but did not secede.
Significance: Border states were super important in big decisions because they could be swayed any way they wanted. Lincoln was
West Virginia
Definition: By the end of 1861, it had liberated the anti secession mountain people of the region who created their own state government loyal to the Union; the state was admitted to the Union as West Virginia in 1863.
Significance: Most of the inhabitant
Trent Affair
Definition: Diplomatic row that threatened to bring the British into the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy, after a Union warship stopped a British steamer and arrested two Confederate diplomats on board.
Significance: First major Anglo-American cr
Alabama
Definition: British-built and manned Confederate warship that raided Union shipping during the Civil War. One of many built by the British for the Confederacy, despite Union protests.
Significance: established Britain as the chief naval base of the Confed
Laird Rams
Definition: Two well-armed ironclad warships constructed for the Confederacy by a British firm. Seeking to avoid war with the United States, the British government purchased the two ships for its Royal Navy instead.
Significance: US minister Adams threate
Dominion of Canada
Definition: The loose confederation of Ontario (Upper Canada), Quebec (Lower Canada), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, created by the British North America Act in 1867.
Significance: British wanted to protect Canada from possible threats from a reunited Ame
writ of habeas corpus
Definition: A court order requiring explanation to a judge why a prisoner is being held in custody.
Significance: Lincoln defied the Constitution and suspended this right during the Civil War, leaving people unprotected against arbitrary state action
New York Draft Riots
Definition: Uprisings during the Civil War (1863), mostly of working-class Irish-Americans, in protest of the draft. Rioters were particularly incensed by the ability of the rich to hire substitutes or purchase exemptions.
Significance: illustrated the dr
Morrill Tariff Act
Definition: This was an act passed by Congress in 1861 to meet the cost of the war. It raised the taxes on shipping from 5 to 10 percent however later needed to increase to meet the demanding cost of the war. This was just one the new taxes being passed t
Greenbacks
Definition: Name for Union paper money not backed by gold or silver. Value would fluctuate depending on status of the war.
Significance: indirectly taxed greenback holders, who were victims of inflation
National Banking System
Definition: Network of member banks that could issue currency against purchased government bonds. Created during the Civil War to establish a stable national currency and stimulate the sale of war bonds.
Significance: first significant step taken towards
Homestead Act
Definition: 1862 - Provided free land in the West to anyone willing to settle there and develop it. Encouraged westward migration.
Significance: helped make land more accessible to many westward moving settlers, but many people also found disappointment w
U.S. Sanitary Commission
Definition: Founded with the help of Elizabeth Blackwell, the government agency trained nurses, collected medical supplies, and equipped hospitals in an effort to help the Union Army. The commission helped professionalize nursing and gave many women the c
Charles Francis Adams
Definition: An American diplomat who, as ambassador during the Civil War. He helped to keep the British from recognizing the Confederacy. In the Trent affair, he was instrumental in averting hostilities between the two nations.
Significance: Played an imp
Napoleon III
Definition: Nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, and elected emperor of France from 1852-1870, he invaded Mexico when the Mexican government couldn't repay loans from French bankers. He sent in an army and set up a new government under Maximilian. He refused Lin
Maximilian
Definition: French viceroy appointed by Napoleon III of France to lead the new government set up in Mexico. After the Civil War, the U.S. invaded and he was executed, a demonstration of the enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine to European powers.
Significan
Jefferson Davis
Definition: An American statesman and politician who served as President of the Confederate States of America for its entire history from 1861 to 1865.
Significance: He believed in a strong government and because of that was bitterly opposed by state righ
Elizabeth Blackwell
Definition: An abolitionist, women's rights activist, and the first female doctor in the United States.
Significance: Organized the Women's Central Association of Relief during the Civil War. She trained nurses for war service. Elizabeth, along with Emily
Clara Barton
Definition: Launched the American Red Cross in 1881. An "angel" in the Civil War, she treated the wounded in the field.
Significance: In this theater of war Barton had an immense impact, nursing the wounded and transporting supplies to the front lines.
Sally Tompkins
Definition: Established an infirmary for wounded Confederate soldiers in Richmond, Virginia. When Confederate hospitals were brought under military control, Jefferson Davis commissioned her as an officer with the rank of captain, making her the first fema
Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson
Definition: Confederate general; he commanded troops at both battles of Bull Run and was mortally wounded by his own soldiers at Chancellorsville in 1863.
Significance: Stonewall Jackson's reputation for moving his troops so rapidly. He became the most ce
George B. McClellan
Definition: A general for northern command of the Army of the Potomac in 1861; nicknamed "Tardy George" because of his failure to move troops to Richmond; lost battle vs. General Lee near the Chesapeake Bay; Lincoln fired him twice.
Significance: He twice
Robert E. Lee
Definition: Confederate general who had opposed secession but did not believe the Union should be held together by force.
Significance: Lee commanded the Army of Northern Virginia, the most successful of the Southern armies during the American Civil War,
John Pope
Definition: Northern commander who led a small force in Virginia. He attacked the Confederates without waiting for the arrival of all of McClellan's troops. Pope fled to Washington, defeated by Lee. He was removed from command and McClellan was back in ch
A.E. Burnside
Definition: More than 10,000 Northern soldiers were killed when this man, McClellan's successor as commander of the Army of the Potomac, decided on the frontal attack on Lee's Virginia army on December 13, 1862.
Significance: He was removed from command i
Joseph Hooker (Fighting Joe)
Definition: Union army general, known as "Fighting Joe" for his bold attacks on Confederate lines during McClellan's peninsular campaign. He took command of the Army of the Potomac from A.E. Burnside in 1863, a post he lost just six months later after he
George G. Meade
Definition: Union general who replaced Hooker three days before the Battle of Gettysburg, where he finally broke the Confederate attack.
Significance: Union major general and one of the most important commanders of the American Civil War. He defeated Robe
George Pickett
Definition: U.S. Army officer who became a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He is best remembered for his participation in the futile and bloody assault at the Battle of Gettysburg that bears his name, Pickett's Charge
Ulysses S. Grant
Definition: an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869-1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
Significance: Grant became famous around the nation after capturing Fort
William Tecumseh Sherman
Definition: 2nd most important Union General who introduced total war in "the march to the sea." He destroyed crops, towns, and farms everywhere he went.
Significance: He received recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy as well as cri
Salmon Chase (1808-1873)
Definition: New England born abolitionist who, as secretary of the treasury, pushed Lincoln to take a tougher stance on slavery during the Civil War. In 1864, Radical Republicans unsuccessfully tried to replace Lincoln with him on the Republican ticket. L
Clement L. Vallandigham
Definition: An anti-war Democrat who criticized Lincoln as a dictator, called him "King Abraham". He was arrested and exiled to the South., Prominent Copperhead who was an ex-congressman from Ohio, demanded an end to the war, and was banished to the Confe
John Wilkes Booth
Definition: was an American stage actor who, as part of a conspiracy plot, assassinated Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865.
Significance: He assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
Battle of Bull Run (Manassas Junction)
Definition: (July 1861) First major battle of the Civil War and a victory for the South, it dispelled Northern illusions of swift victory.
Significance: First major battle, the North realized they needed to work harder in order to win while the south thou
Peninsula Campaign (1862)
Definition: Union General George B. McClellan's failed effort to seize Richmond, the Confederate Capital. Had McClellan taken Richmond and toppled the Confederacy, slavery would have most likely survived in the South for some time.
Significance: Union for
Merrimack
Definition: Abandoned Union warship salvaged by the Confederacy. Enforced with iron plates to become an ironclad ship. Renamed "Virginia".
Significance: Merrimack was the first of six screw frigates (steam frigates powered by screw propellers) begun in 18
Monitor
Definition: These ships were the first ironclad ships. The ironclad ships were revolutionary compared to the wooden ships of the time, as they seemed impenetrable. The Monitor was the Union's ship.
Significance: The USS Monitor represented a radical depar
Second Battle of Bull Run
Definition: a Civil War battle in which the Confederate army forced most of the Union army out of Virginia.
Significance: A decisive victory for the rebels, as Lee had managed a strategic offensive against an enemy force (Pope and McClellan's) twice the s
Battle of Antietam
Definition: Civil War battle in which the North succeeded in halting Lee's Confederate forces in Maryland. Was the bloodiest battle of the war resulting in 25,000 casualties.
Significance: The battle ended the Confederate invasion of Maryland in 1862 and
Emancipation Proclamation
Definition: Proclamation issued by Lincoln, freeing all slaves in areas still at war with the Union.
Significance: The Emancipation Proclamation changed the meaning and purpose of the Civil War. The war was no longer just about preserving the Union� it wa
Thirteenth Amendment
Definition: The constitutional amendment ratified after the Civil War that forbade slavery and involuntary servitude.
Significance: The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except when applied as punishment for a crime in the entire
Battle of Fredericksburg
Definition: The Union, led by Major General Ambrose Burnside, was defeated and lost 12,000 men. General Robert E. Lee, Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, was the Confederate general who led in the defeat.
Significance: A major Confederate victory
Battle of Gettysburg
Definition: 1863, this three day battle was the bloodiest of the entire Civil War, ended in a Union victory, and is considered the turning point of the war.
Significance: The turning point of the Civil War for one main reason: Robert E. Lee's plan to inva
Gettysburg Address
Definition: (1863) a speech given by Abraham Lincoln after the Battle of Gettysburg, in which he praised the bravery of Union soldiers and renewed his commitment to winning the Civil War; supported the ideals of self-government and human rights.
Significa
Battle of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson
Definition: Key victory for Union General Ulysses S. Grant, it secured the North's hold on Kentucky and paved the way for Grant's attacks deeper into Tennessee.
Significance: The Battle of Fort Henry was the first significant Union victory of the American
Battle of Shiloh
Definition: Confederate forces surprised union troops & drove them across the Tennessee river; union got backup and won the battle but it was one of the most bloody battles in the civil war.
Significance: A crucial victory for the Union during the Civil W
Siege of Vicksburg
Definition: the Union army's six-week blockade of Vicksburg that led the city to surrender during the Civil War.
Significance: The Union got full control of the Mississippi river therefore taking over and shutting down the confederates trade, transportati
Sherman's March
Definition: General Sherman lead a force from Chattanooga, Tennessee to South Carolina destroying everything the Confederates could use to survive. He set fire to South Carolina's capital, Columbia.
Significance: It restored the South's spirit to fight. I
Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War
Definition: (1861-1865) Established by Congress during the Civil War to oversee military affairs. Largely under the control of Radical Republicans, the committee agitated for a more vigorous war effort and actively pressed Lincoln on the issue of emancipa
Copperheads
Definition: A group of northern Democrats who opposed abolition and sympathized with the South during the Civil War.
Significance: The Copperheads were Peace Democrats that believed the war should end and the Union should be reunited through negotiation.
The man without a country
Definition: Edward Everett Hale's story of treason and banishment, inspired by the wartime banishing of Copperhead Clement Vallandigham.
Significance: American Army lieutenant Philip Nolan, who renounces his country during a trial for treason and is conse
Union Party
Definition: included all of the Republicans and the war Democrats. It excluded the copperheads and peace Democrats. It was formed out of fear of the republican party losing control. It was responsible for nominating Lincoln.
Significance: The National Uni
Wilderness Campaign
Definition: A series of brutal clashes between Ulysses S. Grant's and Robert E. Lee's armies in Virginia, leading up to Grant's capture of Richmond in April of 1865. Having lost Richmond, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.
Significance: th
Appomattox Courthouse
Definition: Famous as the site of the Battle of Appomattox Courthouse, where the surrender of the Confederate Army under Robert E. Lee To Ulysses S. Grant took place on April 9, 1865.
Significance: The resulting Battle of Appomattox Court House, which las
Reform Bill of 1867
Definition: Granted suffrage to all male British citizens, dramatically expanding the electorate. The success of the American democratic experiment, reinforced by the Union victory in the Civil War, was used as one of the arguments in favor of the Bill.
S