APUSH Chapter 20

Johnny Reb

'johnny' was applied as a nickname for Confederate soldiers by the Federal soldiers in the American Civil War 'grayback' derived from their gray Confederate uniforms

National Banking Act

A United States federal law that established a system of national charters for banks, the United States national banks. They encouraged development of a national currency based on bank holdings of U.S. Treasury securities, the so-called National Bank Notes ("greenbacks") and established the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as part of the Department of the Treasury and authorized the Comptroller to examine and regulate nationally-chartered banks

Fort Sumter

A fort in SE South Carolina, guarding Charleston Harbour. Its capture by Confederate forces (1861) was the first action of the Civil War.

Clara Barton

A reformer and nurse of the nineteenth century, who founded the American Red Cross in the 1880s. She had organized nursing care for Union soldiers during the Civil War.

Charles Francis Adams

American envoy whose shrewd diplomacy helped keep Britain neutral during the Civil War

Edwin M. Stanton

An American lawyer and politician who served as Secretary of War under the Lincoln Administration during the American Civil War from 1862-1865. His effective management helped organize the massive military resources of the North and guide the Union to victory.

Trent Affair

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.

Maximilian

French viceroy who takes over Mexico during Civil War due to fact that America cannot enforce monroe doctrine

Willliam H. Seward

He rather foolishly believed that if the North picked a fight with European nations, the South would rally behind the Union. Later, he was prepared to march south to confront Napoleon and the Austrian Archduke Maximilian, who had established a regime in Mexico. Napoleon had been gambling that the Union would collapse in the midst of the Civil War. However, after the war was over in 1865, Seward organized a force and went down to Mexico to pursue the people that had defied the Monroe Doctrine. Napoleon realized this and took leave, leaving his puppet emperor to die.

Jefferson Davis

On February 9, 1861, after Davis resigned from the U.S. Senate, he was selected to be the provisional President of the Confederate States of America. He was elected without opposition to a six-year term that November. During his presidency, Davis took charge of the Confederate war plans but was unable to find a strategy to stop the larger, more powerful, and better organized Union. His diplomatic efforts failed to gain recognition from any foreign country, and he paid little attention to the collapsing Confederate economy, printing more and more paper money to cover the war's expenses. He supported a well-knit government, but this was opposed by states' rights supporters which led him less able to exercise arbitrary power. He was an able CSA President, but he was unpopular due to his defiance of public opinion. He overworked himself with civil government issues and military operations. He was devoted to the South, and was brilliant in all honesty, but sadly he had awkward social ticks which were not great for his publicity.

Abraham Lincoln

President of the United States at the beginning of the Civil War; was inaugurated after seven states had already seced

Morrill Tariff Act

Tax placed on imported goods that protected the North's industry and which replaced the Tariff of 1857.

Alabama

The Alabama was a British ship (commerce raider) controlled by Confederates. 1862; It escaped to the Portuguese Azores to take on weapons and an English crew, never entering a Southern port. It captured 60 Northern vessels, which angered the North who had to divert naval strength from the blockade to the Alabama. 1864; The Alabama was destroyed by a Union cruiser off the coast of France. U.S. minister Charles Francis Adams convinced Britain that ships of the kind were a dangerous precedent against them and convinced Britain to stay neutral in the war. Britain later apologized for the Alabama business and paid $15.5 million in damages caused by commerce raiders to U.S. ships (1871-72).

Border States

The slave states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, which refused to secede from the Union in 1860-61.

Draft Riots

Violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. They were the largest civil insurrection in American history apart from the Civil War itself.

Butternut Region

area of southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois where an antislavery war would have been very unpopular

Laird Rams

ironclad warships tha were kept out of Confederate hards by Minister Adams's stern protests to the British government

Martial law

military rule and police power

Billy Yank

ordinary Union soldier

Napoleon III

treated Union with contempt. abandoned Maximillian in 1867 and Mexico once again independent. nephew of napoleon bonaparte, and elected emperor of france from 1852-1870, he invaded mexico when the mexican government couldn't repay loans from french bankers. he sent in an army and set up a new government under maximillian. he refused lincoln's request that france withdraw. after the civil war, the u.s. sent an army to enforce the request and napoleon withdrew.