History Test 11.2

Jefferson Davis

• Named after Thomas Jefferson born in Kentucky but grew up in Mississippi. • Graduated from West Point and served in the army and became a planter. • Elected to U.S Senate in 1846 and again in 1856 • His election as president of the Confederacy dismayed him. As his wife Varina wrote, "I thought his genius was mil-itary, but as a party manager he would not succeed." Varina was right. Davis had poor relations with many Confederate leaders, causing them to put their states' wel-fare above the Confederacy's.

Cherokee Nation

• Nation divided by Civil War. Both north and south wanted them because it was located in the Indian territory (a great grain and livestock-producing area) • The Cherokee had reasons to favor both. The union because the federal treaties guaranteed Cherokee rights, and to the confederacy because many Cherokee owned slaves. • The Cherokee signed a treaty with the South in October 1861. However, the alliance did not last. Efforts by the pro-Confederate leader Stand Watie (below) to govern the Cherokee Nation failed, and federal troops invaded Indian Territory. Many Cherokee deserted from the Confederate army; some joined the Union. In February 1863, the pro-Union Cherokee revoked the Confederate treaty.

copperhead

• a Northern Democrat who advocated making peace with the Confederacy during the Civil War. • Ohio congressman Clement Vallandigham was the most famous Copperhead. Vallandigham was tried and con-victed by a military court for urging Union soldiers to desert and for advocating an armistice.

habeas corpus

• a court order requiring authorities to bring a prisoner before the court so that the court can determine whether the prisoner is being held legally. when a Baltimore crowd attacked a Union regiment a week after Fort Sumter, Lincoln sent federal troops to Maryland. He also suspended in that state the writ of habeas corpus, a court order that requires authorities to bring a person held in jail before the court to determine why he or she is being jailed. Lincoln used this same strategy later in the war to deal with dissent in other states. As a result, more than 13,000 suspected Confederate sympathizers in the Union were arrest- ed and held without trial, although most were quickly released. The president also seized telegraph offices to make sure no one used the wires for subversion. When Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney declared that Lincoln had gone beyond his constitutional powers, the president ignored his ruling.

Emancipation Proclamation

• an executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, freeing the slaves in all regions behind Confederate lines. • The Proclamation did not free any slaves immediately because it applied only to areas behind Confederate lines, outside Union control. Since the Proclamation was a military action aimed at the states in rebellion, it did not apply to Southern territory already occupied by Union troops nor to the slave states that had not seceded. • Although the Proclamation did not have much practical effect, it had immense symbolic importance. For many, the Proclamation gave the war a high moral purpose by turning the struggle into a fight to free the slaves.

conscription

• the drafting of citizens for military service. • The Confederate law drafted all able-bodied white men between the ages of 18 and 35. • However, those who could afford to were allowed to hire substitutes to serve in their places. The law also exempted planters who owned 20 or more slaves. Poor Confederates howled that it was a "rich man's war but a poor man's fight." In spite of these protests, almost 90 percent of eligible Southern men served in the Confederate army.