Civil War (Battles and Important People)

Ulysses S. Grant

General of the Union Army during the Civil War, and he won the first major Union victories of the war.He became the 18th President of the United States in 1868.

states' rights

the right of states to limit the power of the federal government

Gettysburg Address

Abraham Lincoln delivered it on November 19, 1863, to dedicate a cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In his two minute speech, Lincoln spoke to the fact that our nation was "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." He suggested that the Civil War was a test of whether the nation and democracy would survive.

Emancipation Proclamation

Abraham Lincoln issued it in 1863. This executive order declared all slaves in rebelling states to be free. This event expanded the goals of the war from saving the Union to freeing the slaves. As a result of the Proclamation, many escaped slaves, former slaves, and freemen joined the Union army.

William Carney

African American Soldier Medal of Honor for saving the American Flag

Lincoln's Second Inagural Address

After Abraham Lincoln's reelection as President in 1864. At the time of this speech, the Civil War was nearing an end, and Lincoln addressed the future of the country. Lincoln called for healing and peace, saying, "With malice toward none; with charity for all... let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds..."

Abraham Lincoln

As President of the United States during the Civil War, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared freedom for slaves within the Confederacy. He also delivered the famous Gettysburg Address dedicating the Soldier's National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. On April 14, 1865, he was assassinated.

Civil War

Between the North (Union) and the South (Confederate States of America). The war began on April 12, 1861, with the Confederates firing on Fort Sumter. It ended on April 9, 1865, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. Historians believe there were many causes of the Civil War, including sectionalism, states' rights, and slavery.

Phillip Bazaar

Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. Hispanic sailor who aided the Union victory in the Civil War.

Robert E. Lee

He rejected Abraham Lincoln's offer to command the Union Army at the start of the Civil War. He instead seceded with his home state of Virginia and became the commander of the Confederate Army.

sectionalism

Loyalty to one's own region of the country, rather than to the nation as a whole

Fort Sumter

On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired the first shots of the Civil War in the harbor of Charlestown, South Carolina. The Confederates bombarded the fort for thirty-four hours until Union forces were forced to surrender. This marked the beginning of the Civil War.

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Southern sympathizer, shot President Lincoln in the head at Ford's Theater. After Lincoln's death, control over Reconstruction of the South fell to his successor, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and the Radical Republicans in Congress.

Lee's Surrender at Appomattox

On April 9, 1865, five years after the Civil War began, General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate troops, surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union troops, at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

Jefferson Davis

President of the Confederacy. In his inaugural address as President of the Confederate States of America, he argued that separation from the Union was a "necessity, not a choice."

Battle of Vicksburg

The battle took place during the Civil War in 1863. Union forces seized control of the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi, thus effectively gaining control of the Mississippi River. As a result, the South was split in half, and the North was able to prevent the shipment of troops and supplies along the river.

Battle of Gettysburg

This battle took place during the Civil War in 1863. This battle lasted for three days and ended in a Union victory. Some historians estimate as many as 50,000 were killed or wounded, and its outcome was considered to have been the turning point of the Civil War.

Battle of Antietam

This battle took place during the Civil War in Maryland, 1862. This was one of the bloodiest single day battles in American history. Nearly 23,000 men were killed or wounded. Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation soon after and thus expanded the goals of the war to include the abolition of slavery.

slavery

humans owning other humans and forcing them to work for free

The Union

the North, all the states that did not secede

The Confederacy

the states that seceded and started their own country based on slavery

secession

the withdrawal of a state from a union

1861 - 1865

years the Civil War was fought