U.S. Civil War, Reconstruction & Westward Expansion: Key Figures and Events

Abraham Lincoln

President during the Civil War who preserved the Union and issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Jefferson Davis

President of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Ulysses S. Grant

Union general who defeated Robert E. Lee and accepted his surrender.

Robert E. Lee

Leading Confederate general during the Civil War.

Frederick Douglass

Formerly enslaved abolitionist who fought for freedom and equality.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Union general known for his March to the Sea.

Stonewall Jackson

Important Confederate general known for his military leadership.

Andrew Johnson

President after Lincoln who favored lenient Reconstruction.

Thaddeus Stevens

Radical Republican who supported equal rights for formerly enslaved people.

Charles Sumner

Radical Republican senator who supported civil rights.

Hiram Revels

First African American U.S. senator.

Rutherford B. Hayes

President whose election settlement helped end Reconstruction.

Sitting Bull

Lakota leader who resisted U.S. expansion into Native American lands.

Crazy Horse

Lakota war leader who fought against U.S. military expansion.

George Armstrong Custer

U.S. Army officer defeated at the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Chief Joseph

Nez Perce leader who resisted forced relocation.

Geronimo

Apache leader who resisted U.S. and Mexican control of Apache lands.

Buffalo Bill Cody

Showman who helped popularize the American Wild West.

Andrew Carnegie

Industrialist who built a major steel empire.

John D. Rockefeller

Businessman who built Standard Oil into a major oil company.

Fort Sumter

The first battle of the Civil War in 1861.

First Battle of Bull Run

The first major land battle of the Civil War; showed the war would not be quick.

Battle of Antietam

1862 battle and bloodiest single day in American history; gave Lincoln an opportunity to announce emancipation.

Battle of Gettysburg

Major Union victory in 1863 that became a turning point of the Civil War.

Siege of Vicksburg

Union victory in 1863 that gave the North control of the Mississippi River.

Sherman's March to the Sea

Union campaign that destroyed Southern resources and infrastructure in 1864.

Appomattox Court House

Location where Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in 1865.

Union

The Northern states that remained loyal to the United States during the Civil War.

Confederacy

The Southern states that seceded from the United States.

Secession

The act of leaving or withdrawing from a country or political union.

Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln's 1863 order declaring enslaved people in rebelling areas free.

Gettysburg Address

Lincoln's speech honoring fallen soldiers and emphasizing equality and democracy.

Total War

Strategy of destroying an enemy's resources and ability to continue fighting.

13th Amendment

Abolished slavery throughout the United States.

Reconstruction

The period after the Civil War when the country rebuilt the South and addressed the rights of formerly enslaved people.

Lincoln's 10 Percent Plan

Plan allowing a Southern state to rejoin the Union when 10 percent of its voters pledged loyalty.

Presidential Reconstruction

Reconstruction plans led by presidents that generally favored a quicker and more lenient return of Southern states.

Military Reconstruction

Plan that divided the South into five military districts controlled by the Union military.

Freedmen's Bureau

Organization that helped formerly enslaved people with education, food, housing, and employment.

Black Codes

Southern laws designed to restrict the freedom of African Americans after slavery.

Jim Crow Laws

Laws that enforced racial segregation.

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

White supremacist group that used violence and intimidation against African Americans and their supporters.

Sharecropping

System in which farmers rented land and paid landowners with part of their crops.

Colfax Massacre

1873 racial massacre in Louisiana involving white supremacist violence against Black citizens and Republican supporters.

Compromise of 1877

Political agreement that led to the removal of federal troops from the South and effectively ended Reconstruction.

14th Amendment

Granted citizenship and equal protection under the law.

15th Amendment

Protected voting rights for men regardless of race.

Little Bighorn

1876 battle where Native American warriors defeated Custer's U.S. Army forces.

Wounded Knee

1890 massacre in which U.S. soldiers killed many Lakota people.

Homestead Act (1862)

Law that encouraged Western settlement by offering land to settlers who lived on and improved it.

Transcontinental Railroad (1869)

Railroad that connected the eastern and western United States.

Dawes Act (1887)

Law that divided tribal lands into individual allotments and weakened communal Native American land ownership.

Reservations

Lands designated by the U.S. government for Native American tribes, often following forced relocation.

Buffalo herds

An important resource for Plains Native Americans; their destruction damaged traditional ways of life.

Mining

The extraction of valuable minerals such as gold and silver.

Boomtown

A town that grows quickly because of a valuable discovery or economic opportunity.

Ranching

The raising of cattle and other livestock for profit.

Cattle Drives

The movement of cattle over long distances to railroads and markets.

Cowboys

Workers who cared for cattle and helped drive herds to markets.

Barbed Wire

Fencing that helped end the open-range cattle system.

Open Range

Large areas of unfenced land where cattle could graze freely.

Western Pioneers

Settlers who moved west in search of land and economic opportunities.

Westward Expansion

The movement of settlers into western territories and lands.

Native American Displacement

The forced removal of Native Americans from their traditional lands as settlers moved west.