History 8 - Final Exam 2025

Compromise of 1850

A law that admitted California as a free state and established the Fugitive Slave Act

Fugitive Slave Act

A law that made it a crime to help runaway slaves and allowed for the arrest of escaped slaves in any state

Kansas-Nebraska Act

A law that allowed voters to choose whether or not to allow slavery

Republican Party

Antislavery political party that formed in the 1850s

Southern Secession

A movement of states leaving the union, leading to the Civil War

General McClellan

A general for the Union at the start of the war

General Lee

A general for the Confederacy

General Grant

A general for the Union that took over in 1864

General Sherman

A general for the Union who used "total war" during his "March to the Sea"

Fort Sumter

First battle of the Civil War

First Battle of Bull Run

An early Confederate victory that demonstrated the war would take longer than previously thought

Battle of Antietam

The bloodiest single day in American history; it was followed by the Emancipation Proclamation

Battle of Vicksburg

The battle that gave the Union control of the Mississippi River

Battle of Gettysburg

A Union victory that was the turning point of the war (Lee never attacked in the North again)

Sherman's March to the Sea

A series of battles through the South that used "total war" to force the South into surrender

Appomattox

The site of the surrender of the Confederate Army under Robert E. Lee to Union commander Ulysses S. Grant

Reconstruction

The rebuilding of the South after the Civil War

Free-Soil Party

A political party established in the 1840s that opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

A novel published in 1852 by Harriet Beecher Stowe that depicted the harsh realities of slavery