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39 Cards in this Set
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Confederate States of America
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a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S. The U.S. government (The Union) rejected secession as illegal, and, after its army was fired upon at the Battle of Fort Sumter, used military action to defeat it. No foreign nation officially recognized the Confederate States as an independent country,[1][2] but they did allow their citizens to do business with the Confederacy. The Confederate government in Richmond had an uneasy relationship with its member states, with some historians arguing the Confederacy "died of states rights" because of the reluctance of several states to put troops under the control of the Confederate States government
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Cotton Kingdom
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The term used to describe the juggernaut crop that was the main economic resource for the South- cotton.
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Gettysburg Address
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a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and is one of the best-known speeches in United States history.[1] It was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the decisive Battle of Gettysburg.
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“Fire-Eaters”
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a group of extremist pro-slavery politicians from the South who urged the separation of southern states into a new nation, which became known as the Confederate States of America.
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“Peculiar Institution”
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a euphemism for slavery and the economic ramifications of it in the American South
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Robert Anderson
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a Scottish Victorian architect. Anderson trained in the office of George Gilbert Scott in London before setting up his own practice in Edinburgh in 1860. During the 1860s his main work was small churches in the 'First Pointed' (or Early English) style that is characteristic of Scott's former assistants. By 1880 his practice was designing some of the most prestigious public and private buildings in Scotland.
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Winfield Scott
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Over the course of his forty-seven-year career, he commanded forces in the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Black Hawk War, the Second Seminole War, and, briefly, the American Civil War, conceiving the Union strategy known as the Anaconda Plan that would be used to defeat the Confederacy. He served as Commanding General of the United States Army for twenty years, longer than any other holder of the office.
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Anaconda Plan
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an outline strategy for subduing the seceding states in the American Civil War. Proposed by General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, the plan emphasized the blockade of the Southern ports, and called for an advance down the Mississippi River to cut the South in two. Because the blockade would be rather passive, it was widely derided by the vociferous faction who wanted a more vigorous prosecution of the war, and who likened it to the coils of an anaconda suffocating its victim. The snake image caught on, giving the proposal its popular name.
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Conscription
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The term that described the series of military drafts during the Civil War.
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Crittenden Plan
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The compromise consisted of six proposed constitutional amendments and four proposed Congressional resolutions. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate rejected it in 1861. It was widely perceived as making heavy concessions to the South, but perhaps the most significant aspect of it was Abraham Lincoln's immediate rejection, because he was elected on a platform that opposed the expansion of slavery. The South's reaction to his rejection paved the way for the American Civil War
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Ft. Sumter
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The fort is best known as the site upon which the shots initiating the American Civil War were fired, at the Battle of Fort Sumter.On Friday, April 12, 1861, at 4:30 a.m., Confederate batteries opened fire, firing for 34 straight hours, on the fort. On Saturday, April 13, the fort was surrendered and evacuated.
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“Total War”
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a war in which a belligerent engages in the complete mobilization of all their available resources and population.
In the mid-19th Century, "total war" was identified by scholars as a separate class of warfare. In a total war, there is less differentiation between combatants and civilians than in other conflicts, and sometimes no such differentiation at all, as nearly every human resource, civilians and soldiers alike, can be considered to be part of the belligerent effort. |
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Confederate Ordnance Bureau
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a cabinet-level department in Confederate States of America government responsible for the administration of the affairs of the Confederate States Army. The War Department was led by the Confederate States Secretary of War. During its existence, the War Department was the largest department of the Civil Service in Confederate States of America.
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Josiah Gorgas
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one of the few Northern-born Confederate generals and was later president of the University of Alabama.[1]
As chief of ordnance during the American Civil War, Gorgas managed to keep the Confederate armies supplied with weapons and ammunition, despite the Union blockade and even though the South had hardly any munitions industry before the war began. He kept diaries during the Civil War which are now a popular subject of study for historians. |
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Joseph Johnson
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a career U.S. Army officer, serving with distinction in the Mexican-American War and Seminole Wars, and was also one of the most senior general officers in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He was unrelated to Albert Sidney Johnston, another high-ranking Confederate general.
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PT Beauregard
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a Louisiana-born American military officer, politician, inventor, writer, civil servant, and the first prominent general of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.
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Braxton Bragg
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a career United States Army officer, and then a general in the Confederate States Army—a principal commander in the Western Theater of the American Civil War and later the military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
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Stonewall Jackson
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a Confederate general during the American Civil War, and probably the best-known Confederate commander after General Robert E. Lee.[3] His military career includes the Valley Campaign of 1862 and his service as a corps commander in the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee.
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Manassas (Bull Run)
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fought on July 21, 1861, in Prince William County, Virginia, near the City of Manassas. It was the first major land battle of the American Civil War.
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Monitor and Merrimac
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often referred to as the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack (or Merrimac), was the most noted and arguably most important naval battle of the American Civil War from the standpoint of the development of navies. It was fought over two days, March 8–9, 1862, in Hampton Roads, a roadstead in Virginia where the Elizabeth and Nansemond Rivers meet the James River just before it enters Chesapeake Bay. The battle was a part of the effort of the Confederacy to break the Union blockade, which had cut off Virginia's largest cities, Norfolk and Richmond, from international trade
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Battle of Seven Pines
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took place on May 31 and June 1, 1862, in Henrico County, Virginia, as part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War. It was the culmination of an offensive up the Virginia Peninsula by Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, in which the Army of the Potomac reached the outskirts of Richmond.
On May 31, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston attempted to overwhelm two Federal corps that appeared isolated south of the Chickahominy River. The Confederate assaults, although not well coordinated, succeeded in driving back the IV Corps and inflicting heavy casualties. Reinforcements arrived, and both sides fed more and more troops into the action. Supported by the III Corps and Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick's division of Maj. Gen. Edwin V. Sumner's II Corps (which crossed the rain-swollen river on Grapevine Bridge), the Federal position was finally stabilized. Gen. Johnston was seriously wounded during the action, and command of the Confederate army devolved temporarily to Maj. Gen. G.W. Smith. On June 1, the Confederates renewed their assaults against the Federals, who had brought up more reinforcements, but made little headway. Both sides claimed victory. |
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Gettysburg
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fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War,[7] it is often described as the war's turning point.[8] Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee's invasion of the North.
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Jefferson Davis
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an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War serving as President for its entire history. After initially attending Transylvania University Davis later graduated from West Point.
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George McClellan
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a major general during the American Civil War. He organized the famous Army of the Potomac and served briefly (November 1861 to March 1862) as the general-in-chief of the Union Army. Early in the war, McClellan played an important role in raising a well-trained and organized army for the Union. Although McClellan was meticulous in his planning and preparations, these characteristics may have hampered his ability to challenge aggressive opponents in a fast-moving battlefield environment. He chronically overestimated the strength of enemy units and was reluctant to apply principles of mass, frequently leaving large portions of his army unengaged at decisive points.
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Robert E. Lee
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a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War. The son of U.S. Revolutionary War hero, Henry ("Light Horse Harry") Lee III, and a top graduate of West Point, Robert E. Lee distinguished himself as an exceptional officer and combat engineer in the United States Army for 32 years before resigning to join the Confederate cause. By the end of the American Civil War, he was commanding general of the Confederate army. He became a postwar icon of the South's "lost cause," and is still admired to this day.
In early 1861, President Abraham Lincoln invited Lee to take command of the entire Union Army. Lee declined because his home state of Virginia was, despite his wishes, seceding from the Union. When Virginia declared its secession from the Union in April 1861, Lee chose to follow his home state.[1] Lee's eventual role in the newly established Confederacy was to serve as a senior military adviser to President Jefferson Davis. Lee soon emerged as the shrewdest battlefield tactician of the war, after he assumed command of the Confederate eastern army |
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Ulysses S. Grant
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the 18th President of the United States (1869–1877) as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America
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King Cotton Diplomacy
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a slogan used by southerners 1860-61 to support secession from the United States by arguing cotton exports would make an independent Confederacy economically prosperous, and—more important—would force Britain and France to support the Confederacy because their industrial economy depended on textiles, which depended on cotton. The slogan was successful in mobilizing support, as all seven of the states that raised large amount of cotton seceded by February 1861, but not the other eight slave states. To implement the diplomatic strategy the southerners refused to sell or ship out their cotton in early 1861, but by the summer the Union blockade shut down over 90% of exports. The Europeans had large stocks of cotton on hand and were not injured by the boycott, and did not intervene, so the strategy proved a failure for the Confederacy.[
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Emancipation Proclamation
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an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War under his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with the rest freed as Union armies advanced.[1] On September 22, 1862, Lincoln announced that he would issue a formal emancipation of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America that did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863.[2] None did return and the actual order, signed and issued January 1, 1863, took effect except in locations where the Union had already mostly regained control. The Proclamation made abolition a central goal of the war (in addition to reunion), angered many Northern Democrats, energized anti-slavery forces, and weakened forces in Europe that wanted to intervene to help the Confederacy. Total abolition of slavery was finalized by the Thirteenth Amendment of 1865.
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Enrollment Act of March 1863
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legislation passed by the United States Congress during the American Civil War to provide fresh manpower for the Union Army. A form of conscription, the controversial act required the enrollment of every male citizen and those immigrants who had filed for citizenship between ages twenty and forty-five. Federal agents established a quota of new troops due from each congressional district. In some cities, particularly New York City, enforcement of the act sparked civil unrest as the war dragged on, leading to the New York Draft Riots on July 13-16.
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Appomattox Courthouse
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The location of Robert E. Lee's surrender during the Civil War.
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Trent Incident (and all those involved)
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an international diplomatic incident that occurred during the American Civil War. On November 8, 1861, the USS San Jacinto, commanded by Union Captain Charles Wilkes, intercepted the British mail packet Trent and removed, as contraband of war, two Confederate diplomats, James Mason and John Slidell. The envoys were bound for Great Britain and France to press the Confederacy’s case for diplomatic recognition by Europe.
The initial reaction in the United States was to rally against Britain, threatening war; but President Abraham Lincoln and his top advisors did not want to risk war. In the Confederate States, the hope was that the incident would lead to a permanent rupture in Anglo-American relations and even diplomatic recognition by Britain of the Confederacy. Confederates realized their independence potentially depended on a war between Britain and the U.S. In Britain, the public expressed outrage at this violation of neutral rights and insult to their national honor. The British government demanded an apology and the release of the prisoners while it took steps to strengthen its military forces in Canada and the Atlantic. After several weeks of tension and loose talk of war, the crisis was resolved when the Lincoln administration released the envoys and disavowed Captain Wilkes's actions. No formal apology was issued. Mason and Slidell resumed their voyage to Britain but failed in their goal of achieving diplomatic recognition. |
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13th Amendment
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officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, passed by the House on January 31, 1865, and adopted on December 6, 1865. On December 18, Secretary of State William H. Seward, in a proclamation, declared it to have been adopted. It was the first of the Reconstruction Amendments.
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Copperheads
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A group of northern Democrats who opposed the American Civil War, wanting an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates. Republicans started calling anti-war Democrats "Copperheads," likening them to the poisonous snake. The Peace Democrats accepted the label, but for them the copper "head" was the likeness of Liberty, which they cut from copper pennies and proudly wore as badges.
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Clement Vallandigham
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an Ohio resident of the Copperhead faction of anti-war Democrats during the American Civil War. He served two terms in the United States House of Representatives.
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NY Riots
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A series of uprisings, primarily by Irish immigrants, against African Americans in response to the military drafts of 1863.
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Sherman’s March to the Sea
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the name commonly given to the Savannah Campaign conducted around Georgia during November–December 1864 by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army in the American Civil War. The campaign began with Sherman's troops leaving the captured city of Atlanta, Georgia, on November 15 and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. It inflicted significant damage, particularly to industry and infrastructure (per the doctrine of total war), and also to civilian property.
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John Wilkes Booth
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an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well known actor.[1] He was also a Confederate sympathizer vehement in his denunciation of the Lincoln Administration and outraged by the South's defeat in the American Civil War. He strongly opposed the abolition of slavery in the United States and Lincoln's proposal to extend voting rights to recently emancipated slaves.
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Antietam
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also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, particularly in the South), fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek, as part of the Maryland Campaign, was the first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Northern soil. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with about 23,000 casualties
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Vicksburg
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the final major military action in the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate army of Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton into the defensive lines surrounding the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
When two major assaults (May 19 and May 22, 1863) against the Confederate fortifications were repulsed with heavy casualties, Grant decided to besiege the city beginning on May 25. With no re-enforcement, supplies nearly gone, and after holding out for more than forty days, the garrison finally surrendered on July 4. This action (combined with the capitulation of Port Hudson on July 9) yielded command of the Mississippi River to the Union forces, who would hold it for the rest of the conflict. The Confederate surrender following the siege at Vicksburg is sometimes considered, when combined with Gen. Robert E. Lee's defeat at Gettysburg the previous day, the turning point of the war. It also cut off communication with Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department for the remainder of the war. The city of Vicksburg would not celebrate Independence Day for about eighty years as a result of the siege and surrender. |
