Civil War Glossary Notes

Anaconda Plan

• Union General Winfield Scott's strategy to "squeeze" the South into submission.
• Involved naval blockades and controlling the Mississippi River.

Battle of Gettysburg

• Union victory in Pennsylvania.
• Considered the "Turning Point" of the war.

Bleeding Kansas

• Outbreaks of violence between pro- and anti-slavery factions in pre-Civil War Kansas.

Blockade

• Preventing goods from being imported or exported to subdue an enemy.

Civil War

• A war between citizens of the same country.
• In the US, it was between the North (Union) and South (Confederacy).

Compromise of 1850

• A plan to ease tensions during westward expansion.
• Allowed states to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery (popular sovereignty).

Confederacy

• Eleven states that seceded from the Union.
• Waged war against the United States.
• States included: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina.

Dred Scott v. Sanford

• Dred Scott, an enslaved man, sued for his freedom after living in a free state.
• Supreme Court decision: enslaved people were not US citizens and had no right to sue.

Election of 1860

• Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency was a catalyst for the start of the Civil War.

Emancipation Proclamation

• Lincoln's order, effective January 1, 1863.
• Freed all slaves in states still in rebellion.
• Did not free slaves in the border states that remained loyal to the Union.

Freeport Doctrine

• Stephen Douglas' assertion that citizens of a state could keep slavery out by refusing to pass laws that protect the slaveholder's property rights.

Fugitive Slave Act

• 1850 law that required free states in the North to cooperate in returning runaway slaves.
• Caused great resentment in the North.

Gettysburg Address

• Lincoln's speech honoring the dead at Gettysburg.
• Famous opening: "Four score and seven years ago…"

Kansas-Nebraska Act

• 1854 law that repealed the Missouri Compromise.
• Applied the principle of popular sovereignty to the Kansas and Nebraska territories.

Lincoln, Abraham

• Republican who won the election of 1860.
• South Carolina seceded from the Union shortly after his election.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

• Series of debates between Republican Abraham Lincoln and Democrat Stephen Douglas in 1858.
• Focused on the expansion of slavery into the territories.

Missouri Compromise

• 1820 Compromise that maintained a balance between free and slave states.
• If a slave state was added to the Union, a free state would be added also.

Ostend Manifesto

• Communication encouraging US seizure of Cuba.

Popular Sovereignty

• Concept that allowed people to decide whether or not to allow slavery in a territory.

Sectionalism

• Greater loyalty many Americans felt to their "section" of the country rather than the country as a whole.

Slave Codes

• Laws that restricted the behavior of enslaved people.

Slavery

• Institution that regarded people, primarily African Americans, as property that could be bought and sold.

State's Rights

• The rights that individual states hold in the federal system.

Taney, Roger B.

• Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who wrote the Dred Scott decision.

Total War

• A war that mobilizes all resources in order to be victorious.

Union

• 20 free states and 5 border states that remained loyal to the United States.

Vicksburg Campaign

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