USH U2 Vocab

Secession

Southern states leaving the Union after Lincoln won the 1860 election

Union

The Northern states that stayed part of the US government during the war

Confederacy

The 11 Southern states that left the Union during the war

Jefferson Davis

President of the Confederacy during the Civil War

Border states

Slave states that stayed in the Union (like Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri)

Fort Sumter

Union fort in Charleston Harbor (South Carolina), where a Confederate attack started the war in April 1861

Lincoln's choice at Fort Sumter

Resupply the fort instead of abandoning it, then the choice to fire first would be from the south

Abraham Lincoln

US president during the Civil War who had to make HUGE decisions

Anaconda Plan

Union strategy to squeeze the South with a naval blockade and control the Mississippi River

First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas)

First major battle (July 1861) was close to Washington DC, and spectators came out to watch...but it was a Confederate win that crushed hopes of a quick war

Stonewall Jackson

Confederate general who earned his nickname by holding his ground at Bull Run

Regiment

A unit of about 1,000 soldiers, usually recruited from the same town or region

Sullivan Ballou

Union officer famous for a letter to his wife written a week before he died at Bull Run. Does this ring(tone) a bell?

Battle of Hampton Roads

First battle between "ironclad" ships (1862), ended in a tie, but changed naval war forever

Battle of Shiloh

Bloody 1862 battle in Tennessee that showed both sides how deadly the war would be

Ulysses S. Grant

Union general who won in the West and led all Union armies to victory

Robert E. Lee

Top Confederate general who led the Army of Northern Virginia

Battle of Antietam

Bloodiest single day in American history (September 1862), stopped Lee's invasion of the North and inspired the Emancipation Proclamation

Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln's 1863 order freeing enslaved people in Confederate states (turning the war into a fight against slavery)

Battle of Gettysburg

Three-day battle in Pennsylvania (July 1863), which was the turning point of the war and Lee's last invasion of the North

Gettysburg Address

Lincoln's short and famous 1863 speech saying the war was about equality and "a new birth of freedom"

Sherman's March to the Sea

Union army march across Georgia (in 1864), destroying railroads, farms, and supplies

Appomattox Court House

Place in Virginia where Lee surrendered to Grant in April 1865

John Wilkes Booth

Famous actor who shot Lincoln at Ford's Theater in April 1865, just days (!!) after the war ended

Ten Percent Plan

Lincoln's Plan to bring Southern states back quickly, requiring only 1/10 of voters to swear loyalty to the Union