American Civil War and Reconstruction Identities

Flashcards covering key terms and concepts from lectures on the American Civil War and Reconstruction.

Secession

Leaving the Union

Fort Sumter

Sea fort in Charleston, SC. First battle of Civil War took place here.

Anaconda Plan

Military strategy by Winfield Scott

Battle of First Bull Run

First major land battle. July 21, 1861.

Battle of Antietam

Major battle near Sharpsburg, Maryland.

Battle of Gettysburg

Turning point in the Civil War, led by General George Meade.

Battle of Vicksburg

Union victory, gains final control of Mississippi River.

Appomattox

Town in Virginia, where General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant.

Abraham Lincoln

President during the Civil War, delivered the Gettysburg Address. Abolished slavery through Emancipation Proclamation.

Jefferson Davis

President of the Confederate States of America. Supporter of slavery and its expansion.

Ulysses Grant

Commander of the Union Army during the Civil War. Anti-Slavery.

Robert E. Lee

Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War. Surrendered to Ulysses Grant in Appomattox.

Emancipation Proclamation

Declared that all enslaved people in Confederate states would be free.

Gettysburg Address

Speech given by Abraham Lincoln.

Total War

Describes the shift in how the Civil War was conducted

Attrition warfare

One side attempts to slowly wears down its opponent

Draft riots

Started due to public anger towards the newly made federal conscription law during the Civil War

Conscription

Mandatory enlistment of men, into the civil war

John Wilkes Booth

Southern supporter who assassinated Abraham Lincoln.

Contrabands

Enslaved people who would escape to the Union, basically becoming property of the Union.

Clara Barton

Nicknamed “angel of the battlefield”. Founded the Red Cross.

Andersonville

Confederate prison camp during the Civil War.

Henry Wriz

Swiss-American war criminal, Confederate Army officer.

Monitor v. Merrimac (Virginia)

The USS Monitor (union), went against the Confederate CSS Virginia

54th Massachusetts

One of the first all-Black Union Army groups during the Civil War.

13th Amendment

Abolished slavery and involuntary enslavement in the U.S. except as punishment for a crime.

14th Amendment

Guarantees citizenship to all persons born in the U.S., including former slaves.

15th Amendment

Bans the denial of voting rights based on race, color, or former condition of enslavement

Black Codes

Racially discriminating U.S. state laws that limited the freedom of africans but not white people

Carpetbaggers

Northerner who went to the South after the Civil War to profit from Reconstruction.

Scalawags

Southerner who collaborated with northern Republicans during Reconstruction.

Freedmen’s Bureau

Federal agency to help newly freed slaves and poor whites in the South following the Civil War.

Ku Klux Klan

American Protestant-led Christian extremist group that would torture African Americans.