US History Final Ch 14

Confederacy

11 Southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860-61, carrying on all the affairs of a separate government and conducting a major war until defeated in the spring of 1865. Convinced that their way of life, based on slavery, was irretrievably threatened by the election of President Abraham Lincoln (November 1860), the seven states of the Deep South (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas) seceded from the Union during the following months. When the war began with the firing on Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861), they were joined by four states of the upper South (Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia).

Fort Sumter

1st battle of the Civil War. Due to James Buchannan's timidity with the debates over secession, he prompted South Carolina's new govt. to demand the surrender of fort Sumter (a federal Garrison in Charleston Harbor).

Contrabands

African Americans that exploited wartime chaos to seize freedom for themselves.

Jefferson Davis

As provisional president of the Confederacy in April 1861, identified the Confederates' cause with that of the patriots of 1776: White southerners were fighting for the "sacred right to self-government."

Clara Barton

Barton was a Union nurse who later founded Red Cross. Quote: She recalled "At the war's end, woman was at least fifty years in advance of the normal position which continued peace would have assigned her."

Military Draft

Confederate Congress imposed the 1st legally binding draft in American history. Demanded three years of military service from men b/w ages 18-35

Sherman's March

From November 15 until December 21, 1864, Union General William T. Sherman led some 60,000 soldiers on a 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. The purpose of this "March to the Sea" was to frighten Georgia's civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause. Sherman's soldiers did not destroy any of the towns in their path, but they stole food and livestock and burned the houses and barns of people who tried to fight back. The Yankees were "not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people," Sherman explained; as a result, they needed to "make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war."

Pickett's Charge

General George E. Pickett, and his 14,000 men, was sent by Lee to take cemetery ridge. Pickett's men charged across a 1 mile open terrain and were shot upon heavily.

Colonel Robert E. Lee of Virginia

He was a career officer whom veteran General Winfield Scott recommended to Abraham Lincoln to lead the new Union army. Lee resigned from the U.S. Army, which also meant he denied General Scott's offer.

Bull Run (Manassas Battle)

July 1861, Lincoln ordered General Irvin McDowell and an army of 30,000 men to attack General P.G.T Beauregard's force of 20,000 troops at Manassas, a Virginia rail junction 30 miles southwest of Washington. Bull Run is the assault McDowell launched near Manassas Creek. The Confederate's strong counterattack and signature "rebel yell" made citizens retreat back to Washington

The Crittenden Compromise

Kentucky Senator John J. Crittenden (1787-1863) introduced legislation aimed at resolving the looming secession crisis in the Deep South. The "Crittenden Compromise," as it became known, included six proposed constitutional amendments and four proposed Congressional resolutions that Crittenden hoped would appease Southern states and help the nation avoid civil war. The compromise would have guaranteed the permanent existence of slavery in the slave states by reestablishing the free-slave demarcation line drawn by the 1820 Missouri Compromise. Plan failed b/c Lincoln denied it.

Election of 1864

Lincoln won.

Gettysburg

Most important battle in the Civil War. General Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania in late June 1863. On July 1, the advancing Confederates clashed with the Union's Army of the Potomac, commanded by General George G. Meade, at the crossroads town of Gettysburg. On July 3, Lee ordered an attack by fewer than 15,000 troops on the enemy's center at Cemetery Ridge. The assault, known as Pickett's Charge, managed to pierce the Union lines but eventually failed, at the cost of thousands of rebel casualties, and Lee was forced to withdraw his battered army toward Virginia on July 4.

Appomattox

On Palm Sunday (April 9), 1865, Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia signaled the end of the Southern States attempt to create a separate nation.

Antietam

On September 17, 1862, Generals Robert E. Lee and George McClellan faced off near Antietam creek in Sharpsburg, Maryland, in the first battle of the American Civil War to be fought on northern soil. Though McClellan failed to utilize his numerical superiority to crush Lee's army, he was able to check the Confederate advance into the north. After a string of Union defeats, this tactical victory provided Abraham Lincoln the political cover he needed to issue his Emancipation Proclamation. Though the result of the battle was inconclusive, it remains the bloodiest single day in American history, with more than 22,000 casualties.

Emancipation Proclamation

President Lincoln, on September 22, 1862, issued a preliminary proclamation. The proclamation stated that all slavery would be legally abolished in all states that remained out of the Union on January 1, 1863. The rebel states could preserve slavery by renouncing secession. None choose to do so.

Secession

Secession, as it applies to the outbreak of the American Civil War, comprises the series of events that began on December 20, 1860, and extended through June 8 of the next year when eleven states in the Lower and Upper South severed their ties with the Union. Twenty-one northern and Border States retained the style and title of the United States, while the eleven slave states adopted the nomenclature of the Confederate States of America.

Gen George McClellan

a democratic partner nominee in 1864. Lincoln had twice removed McClellan from military commands: 1st for an excess of caution and 2nd for his opposition to emancipation. He repudiated the Democratic peace platform. Lost to Lincoln in the election.

Total War

a form of warfare that mobilized all of society's resources (economic, political, and cultural) in support of the military effort

King Cotton

a term used to describe the importance of raw cotton in the 19th century economy.

Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts

an infantry regiment that saw extensive service in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The regiment was one of the first official African American units in the United States during the Civil War.

Habeas Corpus

legal instruments used to protect people from arbitrary arrest, and ordered the Confederate army to release reluctant draftees

General Ulysses S. Grant

put in charge of all Union armies by Abraham Lincoln on March 1864. On May of 1864 Grant ordered William Tecumseh Sherman to invade Georgia and take Atlanta. Grant tactics for achieving victory were seen as sick, for example he was willing to accept heavy casualties. He defeated Lee and his Confederate army; however, he suffered 55,000 casualties (Lee had 31,000).

Enrollment Act of 1863

the law which enabled the military draft to be used on a federal scale in the United States for the first time. It was passed during the Civil War, at a time when the North had suffered a series of defeats and was short of men. The act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1863.

Greenbacks

when the Legal Tender Act of 1862 authorized $150 million in paper currency and required the public to accept them as legal tender