History Chapter 21 Study Guide

What is a civil war?

A conflict between two groups of citizens in one country

What was responsible for most Civil War deaths?

Diseases

What was the most significant geographic disadvantage of the South?

Economy and its transportation systems.

What happened at Appomattox Court House?

General Lee surrenders to General Grant.

Why was the Battle of Gettysburg a turning point in the Civil War?

General Lee would only fight on Southern Soil because he lost so many of his men during this battle.

Why can it be said that the Battle of Antietam was a defeat for both sides?

In that single day of fighting, more Americans were killed than in the War of 1812 and the Mexican War combined.

What did the Emancipation Proclamation achieve?

It changed the war into a crusade for freedom.

Why did Northerners believe Richmond was so important?

It was the capital of the Confederacy

Why did the Union want to control the town of Vicksburg?

It would give them control over the Mississippi River

Why did General Lee send troops into Maryland, a slave state?

Lee hoped this show of strength might persuade Maryland to join the Confederacy. He also hoped that a Confederate victory on Union soil would convince European nations to support the South.

How did the Battle of Bull Run change Lincoln's point of view?

Lincoln and his generals now realized that ending the war would not be easy.

At the beginning of the Civil War, what was the North's greatest weakness?

Military leadership

What challenge did Lincoln face on the home front?

Opposition to the war itself

Why did Lincoln echo the words of the Declaration of Independence in his Gettysburg Address?

The civil war was testing whether a nation "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

What risk did African American Union soldiers face in the war?

The risk of being recaptured and being sold into slavery

How did Jefferson Davis compare the Civil War to the American Revolution?

They "merely asserted a right which the Declaration of Independence of 1776 had defined to be inalienable."

The Union completed the first step of the Anaconda Plan by the end of 1861. What did that accomplish?

They surrounded the South by sea to cut off its trade.

What did Union troops find when they approached the town of Manassas?

Thomas Jackson and his regiment of Virginians that were refusing to give up

Sheridan's campaign in the Shenandoah Valley and Sherman's march through Georgia were examples of General Grant's belief in...?

Total war

What did women do during the war?

Wives and mothers supported their families by running farms and businesses. Many women went to work for the first time in factories. Others found jobs as nurses, teachers, or government workers. Women also served the military forces on both sides as messengers, guides, scouts, smugglers, soldiers, and spies.