US History: Revolution and Civil War Study Guide

Vocabulary flashcards covering the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction Era based on the study guide.

Abraham Lincoln

Elected president in 1860; initially aimed to save the Union, later issued the Emancipation Proclamation, allowed Black soldiers to enlist, supported the 13th Amendment, and favored a lenient plan to reunite the country after the Confederate surrender before his assassination.

Battle of Fort Sumter

The first military battle of the American Civil War.

Atlantic Slave Trade

A system begun by Portugal in which enslaved Africans were subjected to forced labor, denied rights, and faced frequent violence and family separation.

Robert E. Lee

The top Confederate general during the Civil War.

Tenure of Office Act

The federal law that President Andrew Johnson violated when he attempted to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, leading to Johnson's impeachment.

Edwin Stanton

The Secretary of War whose attempted removal by President Andrew Johnson triggered Johnson's impeachment for violating the Tenure of Office Act.

Ironclad Ships

Armored naval vessels introduced during the Civil War that fundamentally transformed naval warfare.

North's Wartime Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages included having more people, factories, railroads, and supplies; its primary disadvantage was having to invade the South.

South's Wartime Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages included holding a defensive position and fighting on familiar land; disadvantages included having fewer people, factories, railroads, and supplies.

Intolerable Acts

A series of punitive British parliamentary acts that, alongside the Stamp Act, Townshend Acts, and Tea Act, helped cause the American Revolution.

Boston Massacre

A 1770 confrontation in which British soldiers killed five American colonists.

Sons and Daughters of Liberty

Colonial groups that actively protested British taxes and organized boycotts of British goods.

Appomattox Court House

The location where the Confederate surrender occurred in April 1865, leading to the end of the Civil War.

William Tecumseh Sherman

The Union general who executed total war across the South by destroying railroads, supplies, and other resources to weaken the Confederacy.

Total War

A military strategy used by General William Tecumseh Sherman aimed at destroying enemy resources, supplies, and transportation infrastructure to break resistance.

Sharecropping

An agricultural labor system in which farmers rented land and paid the landowner with a portion of their crops, often trapping Black families and poor white farmers in perpetual debt and poverty.

Carpetbaggers

A label given to Northerners who moved to the South during Reconstruction, referencing critics' claims that they carried all their belongings in carpetbags.

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

An organization that employed terror and violence against Black Americans and their allies to actively resist Reconstruction and civil rights.

Freedmen's Bureau

A Reconstruction agency that assisted formerly enslaved people by providing education, basic needs, and schools.

Ten Percent Plan

President Abraham Lincoln's Reconstruction plan that allowed a Southern state to rejoin the Union once 10% of its 1860 voters took an oath of loyalty and accepted emancipation.

Congressional Reconstruction

The Reconstruction approach led by Congress that provided freedpeople with stronger civil rights protections and voting rights compared to President Johnson's lenient plan.

Thirteenth Amendment

A constitutional amendment abolishing slavery that specifically includes an exception permitting involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime following a conviction.

Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments

Constitutional amendments passed during Reconstruction that granted citizenship, civil protections, and voting rights to African Americans.

King Cotton Diplomacy

A Confederate diplomatic strategy that attempted to leverage the economic importance of Southern cotton exports to secure political support from Great Britain and France.

Black Codes

Restrictive Southern laws enacted during Reconstruction designed to oppress African Americans and restrict their freedom and civil participation.

Jim Crow Laws

State and local racial segregation laws implemented in the American South following the end of Reconstruction in 1877.

Civil War Inventions and Innovations

Technologies and systems developed or popularized during the Civil War, including ironclad ships, the Gatling gun, repeating rifles, the ambulance corps, and canned food.