USH Unit 4

Battle of Gettysburg

1863-most disastrous event of civil war and perhaps U.S. history. Over 50,000 soldiers from north and south lost their lives. After 5 years of fighting and thousands of lives lost, in 1865 Confederate commander Robert E. Lee, surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union forces.

Poll taxes

Small taxes levied on the right to vote that often fell due at a time of year when poor African-American sharecroppers had the least cash on hand. This method was used by most Southern states to exclude African Americans from voting. Poll taxes were declared void by the Twenty-fourth Amendment in 1964.

Conscription

A forced enlistment of citizens of a country to fight for their country.

Segregation

A social system that provides separate facilities for minority groups.

Total war/ war of attrition

A war that involves the complete mobilization of resources and people, affecting the lives of all citizens in the warring countries, even those remote from the battlefields. A war based on wearing the other side down by constant attacks and heavy losses

Radical Republicans

After the Civil War, a group that believed the South should be harshly punished and thought that Lincoln was sometimes too compassionate towards the South.

Compromise of 1877

After the disputed Presidential Election of 1876, Congress declared Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the winner, but Republicans promised to withdraw remaining troops from Southern states & no longer attempt to reshape Southern states; marked the end of Reconstruction as Democrats regained control of the South

Impeachment

An action by the House of Representatives to accuse the president, vice president, or other civil officers of the United States of committing "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes."

Clara Barton

Launched the American Red Cross in 1881. An "angel" in the Civil War, she treated the wounded in the field.

Literacy tests

Method used to deny African-Americans the vote in the South that tested a person's ability to read and write - they were done very unfairly so even though most African-Americans could read and write by the 1950's they still failed.

Lee's surrender at Appomattox

On April 9, 1865, Lee was forced to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia (a significant portion of the Confederate army) at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia, effectively ending the Civil War.

Gettysburg Address

(1863) a speech given by Abraham Lincoln after the Battle of Gettysburg, in which he praised the bravery of both Union and confed soldiers and renewed his commitment to winning the Civil War; supported the ideals of self-government and human rights

Freedman's Bureau

(1865-72), during the Reconstruction period after the American Civil War, popular name for the U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, established by Congress to provide practical aid to 4,000,000 newly freed black Americans in their transition from slavery to freedom

Plessy v. Ferguson

(1896) Plessy was made to sit in the black train car because he was an octoroon (1/8 black). Railroad company was on his side because they paid too much to maintain seperate cars. Established "seperate but equal" clause

Battle of Vicksburg

1863, Union gains control of Mississippi, confederacy split in two, Grant takes lead of Union armies.

Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws passed from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 through the mid-1950s by which white southerners reasserted their dominance by denying African Americans basic social, economic, and civil rights, such as the right to vote.

Antietam

(AL), 1862, the first major battle to take place on Northern soil. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with almost 23,000 casualties. Even though he had Lee's battle plans, McClellan hesitated to attack in this Maryland battle, leading to an unconvincing Union victory. The win was important, however, as it stopped the Confederate invasion of the North and gave Lincoln the victory he was waiting for to act on slavery

13th, 14th, 15th Amendments

13: officially abolished and prohibit slavery to this day. 14: all persons born in the United States are American citizens including African Americans. 15: prohibits denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Andrew Johnson

17th President of the United States, A Southerner form Tennessee, as V.P. when Lincoln was killed, he became president. He opposed radical Republicans who passed Reconstruction Acts over his veto. The first U.S. president to be impeached, he survived the Senate removal by only one vote. He was a very weak president.

Emancipation Proclamation

1863, Lincoln's proclamation made after a crucial victory at Antietam, allowed lincoln to push for something radical; frees all slaves in areas under rebellion; this excludes the border states, keeping them on the side of the union, prevents foreign powers from entering the war for slavery, provides a rationale for the war, and allows blacks to enlist in the army;

General Robert E. Lee

Commander of the Confederate Army. Confederate general who did not support succession but was loyal to his home state of Virginia; won many important battles, such as the First Battle of Bull Run, but surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse. Was offered by Lincoln to lead the Union Army but was loyal to his home state Virginia when they seceded from the Union.

Battle of Bull Run (1st Manassas)

First battle of CW. Union loss- war would not end quickly.

Ku Klux Klan

Founded in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party's Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks. Its members waged an underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at white and black Republican leaders.

Sherman's March to the Sea

General Sherman led 60,000 troops on a march south across Georgia; burned cities and destroyed everything in his path; killed civilians, destroyed crops. Sherman believed in total war.

Contraband

Goods that have been imported or exported illegally.

Black Codes

Immediately after the war, Southern state legislatures enacted sets of laws to regulate free blacks and ensure white supremacy.

General Ulysses S. Grant

In 1864, President Lincoln placed this victorious commander at Vicksburg in command of all Union forces. He slowly battered Lee's armies into submission around Richmond in 1864-1865, and received Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. He was elected president in 1868 and 1872 and guided the nation through the difficult period of Reconstruction. His scandal-ridden administration seemed to suggest a transition into a new "gilded age."

Share cropping

agricultural plan developed in the South after the Civil War; landowner provided tenant with house, tools, etc. in exchange for a "share" of the crop

Anaconda Plan

created by the Union: liberating slaves, blockading in the Southern area, capturing and controlling enemy base and defeat the troops by dividing them- like a snake

John Wilkes Booth

was an American stage actor who, as part of a conspiracy plot, assassinated Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865.

Draft Riots

were a series of 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