Civil War and Reconstruction Lecture Notes Flashcards

A set of vocabulary flashcards covering the key people, events, laws, and concepts of the American Civil War and Reconstruction era as detailed in the lecture notes.

Jefferson Davis

The individual elected as President of the Confederate States of America.

Fort Sumter

The federal fort in South Carolina where the Confederacy fired the first shots of the Civil War in April $1861$.

Writ of habeas corpus

A privilege suspended by Lincoln that, when revoked, denies a prisoner the right to secure a writ and allows them to be held without trial indefinitely.

Emancipation Proclamation

The $1862$ Executive Order that freed the slaves in the rebelling states and aided the war effort.

13th Amendment

The amendment that officially abolished slavery in all states.

Anaconda Plan

The Union strategy consisting of a naval blockade of the Confederate coast, a thrust down the Mississippi, and the strangulation of the South.

Total war

A strategy used by Union General William T. Sherman to decimate the South.

Gettysburg Address

A speech where Lincoln dedicated a military cemetery at the site of the war's turning point and expressed his vision for America's future.

General Robert E. Lee

The Confederate General who surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in $1865$, ending the war.

Reconstruction

The effort to rebuild the Southern states and restore the Union from $1865$ to $1877$.

Ten Percent Plan

Lincoln's plan to pardon Confederate supporters if they swore allegiance and to allow states to reenter the Union once $10\%$ of the voters did so.

Freedman's Bureau

An organization created by Congress to aid former slaves and poor whites with education, housing, and legal representation.

14th Amendment

The amendment stating all people born in the United States are citizens and have "equal protection under law."

15th Amendment

The amendment that prohibits denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous servitude.

Carpetbaggers

Northerners who moved to the South after the Civil War.

Scalawags

White Southerners who supported the Republican Party.

Sharecropping

A system where freed slaves rented land for a "share" of the harvested crop, often resulting in a cycle of poverty.

Compromise of 1877

An unwritten deal that awarded the White House to Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for the removal of federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.

Black Codes

Laws based on old slave codes designed to control the behavior of freedmen.

Jim Crow

Laws that established social and legal separation of the races.

Plessy v. Ferguson

A landmark SCOTUS ruling that established the doctrine of "separate is equal."

Booker T. Washington

An African American leader who advocated for accommodation, self-help, and attaining equality gradually through economic independence.

W.E.B. Du Bois

A founder of the NAACP who demanded immediate equality, political action, and full civil rights for Black people.

Niagara Movement

A group formed by W.E.B. Du Bois to develop a civil rights agenda and reject the conciliatory approach to segregation.

Susan B. Anthony

An activist who "tested" the 15th Amendment by voting in the Presidential election of $1872$, leading to her arrest and trial.