What led to the Civil War? What happened during the Civil War? What happened after the Civil War?
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| 950837583 | Abolitionist | people who were against slavery. Some famous abolitionists were Frederick Douglas (a former slave, writer and orator), William Lloyd Garrison (editor of the Liberator newspaper), John Brown (mastermind of the Harpers Ferry attack), and Harriet Beecher Stowe (writer of Uncle Tom's Cabin). | |
| 950837584 | Nat Turner | Along with six slaves, he led a slave rebellion in 1831 in Virginia. Using axes and guns, he and his followers killed at least 57 slave-owners. | |
| 950837585 | Harriet Beecher Stowe | Wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin which was first published in parts in an abolitionist newspaper and later published as a novel. In the North, this story turned millions of people against slavery. The South scorned and cursed the author. | |
| 950837586 | Discrimination | Unequal treatment based on race, religion, gender, place of birth or other arbitrary characteristic. | |
| 950837587 | Segregation | the separation of groups of people based on differences such as race. | |
| 950837588 | Eli Whitney | Invented the cotton gin in 1793. This invention reduced the time needed to separate the seeds from the cotton. This helped make cotton profitable and brought wealth to the South. Cotton planters depended on slave labor, so the cotton gin also helped prolong slavery in the South. | |
| 950837589 | Union | The United States of America as one country united all the states under one country. During the Civil War, the Union referred to the Northern states. | |
| 950837590 | Confederacy | Before the Civil War, southern states seceded from the Union. They became the Confederate States, elected Jefferson Davis as their president, and adopted their own constitution. | |
| 950837591 | Fugitive | A person who flees or tries escape. Many slaves tried to escape, for example. | |
| 950837592 | John Brown | He was a militant abolitionist and felt that the time had come to end slavery by any means. After the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed, proslavery settlers raided Lawrence, Kansas. he participated in a retaliatory massacre in the town of Pottawatomie on May 21, 1856. On October 16, 1859, he and his men seized the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The plan was to seize the weapons, arm the slaves, and escape to the Virginia mountains where they would attack the plantations. The plan did not succeed and all his men were captured or killed during the raid. He was convicted of treason and sentenced to die, but many northerners viewed him as a hero. These events led many others to agree that the slavery issue could not be resolved in a nonviolent way | |
| 950837593 | Civil War | A conflict between two groups/peoples in one country. The American Civil War started after southerners attacked Fort Sumter in 1861 and ended when Lee surrendered to Grant at the Appomattox Court House in 1865. Four of the border states - Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina joined the other slave states and fought on the side of the Confederacy. The other four border states - Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri remained in the Union. Billions of dollars were spent and more than 620,000 soldiers were killed during the conflict. Also, the South, where the war was primarily focused, was devastated after the war. | |
| 950837594 | Abraham Lincoln | He was sworn into office as president on March 4, 1861. After he won the 1860 presidential election, southern states began to secede from the Union. On April 12, 1861 southerners opened fire on a Fort Sumter; a federal fort in Charleston Harbor and he declared war. Initially, Lincoln's goal was preserving the Union. As the war continued, Lincoln changed his mind and on January 1, 1863 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation which declared Confederate slaves free. He was reelected president in the election of 1864, but was assassinated on April 14, 1865 just five days after the war ended. | |
| 950837595 | Jefferson Davis | As the president of the Confederacy, he was devoted to the secessionist cause. He attended the military academy at West Point, New York and served as commander of the Mississippi Rifles in the Mexican War. He also filled a term as a U.S. Senator. | |
| 950837596 | Ulysses S. Grant | He was the final Union general. He used a strategy of total war in which Northern soldiers marched through the South burning fields and houses. | |
| 950837597 | Thomas Stonewall Jackson | He earned his nickname during the Battle of Bull Run. His regiment of Virginians stood like a "stone wall" and refused to give way to the northern troops. This inspired the other rebel troops which held firm until reinforcements arrived. Later he led his men to victory with screams that sent the Union troops running back to Washington. | |
| 950837598 | Dorothy Dix | She was already well known for her efforts to help improve conditions for the mentally ill before the war. She was appointed director of the Union army's nurses and was known as "Dragon Dix" because of her strict rules. She insisted all female nurses be over 30 years old, plain in appearance, physically strong, and willing to do unpleasant work. | |
| 950837599 | Clara Barton | She followed the Union armies into battle, tending troops where they fell. Later, she founded the American red Cross. She was known as "the angel of the battlefield." | |
| 950837600 | Civil War Northern Advantages | The North had more resources - troops, food, railroads to transport supplies and troops. The North had more farms to supply the troops and 90 percent of the manufacturing was in the North. The North had 21,000 miles of railroad track. Most of the nation's gold was in northern banks. Abraham Lincoln was also a major advantage of the North. He never wavered in his determination to preserve the Union. | |
| 950837601 | Civil War Northern Disadvantages | The greatest weakness of the North was its military leadership. Many northern officers were too old for command, and Lincoln was not able to find an effective general to lead the war until Grant. | |
| 950837602 | Civil War Southern Advantage | The South was fighting a defensive war in their own territory. The greatest strength was its military leadership. Most of America's best military leaders at that time were southerners who chose to fight for the Confederacy. Colonel Robert E. Lee resigned from the U.S. Army to become the commander-in-chief of the Confederate forces. | |
| 950837603 | Civil War Southern Disadvantages | The greatest weakness of the South was an economy that could not support a long war. It did not have many factories to produce guns and military supplies. After the Union ships blockaded southern pots and cut off European trade the Confederacy could no longer trade cotton for weapons and supplies. They faced severe shortages. They also did not have the railroad network needed to move supplies. President Jefferson Davis was also never able to form a strong, single nation out of the 11 strongly independent states that seceded from the Union. | |
| 950837604 | Battle of Gettysburg | The turning point of the Civil War. This battle was won by the North and was the last attempt that Lee made to invade the North. | |
| 950837605 | Gettysburg Address | On November 19, 1863, Lincoln delivered a famous speech at the dedication of the cemetery for those killed during the battle of Gettysburg. Lincoln started his speech saying, "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." He ended his speech saying, "we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." | |
| 950837606 | The Atlanta Campaign | Union General Sherman was ordered to inflict "all the damage you can against their war resources." The northern Georgia battles started in the summer of 1865 against Confederate generals Hood and Johnson. In September of 1864 he reached Atlanta and his army set the city on fire. The capture of Atlanta improved northern morale and helped Lincoln become reelected. | |
| 950837607 | Sherman's March to the Sea | After burning Atlanta, Sherman marched his army to Savannah. His troops destroyed everything of value within a 60-mile-wide path. Houses, fields, hay, and food supplies were burned or destroyed. Any animals that could not be used or taken were killed and left on the roads. Savannah was captured on December 1864. From there, Sherman turned north and destroyed all opposition in the Carolinas before marching to Raleigh, North Carolina where he awaited Grant's final attack on Richmond. | |
| 950837608 | Appomattox Court House | The battle at Petersburg, VA lasted 9 months until the Union forces broke through on April 1, 1965 and captured Richmond two days later. The official end of the Civil War occurred when Lee surrendered to Grant's forces at the Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. Grant allowed the Confederate soldiers to go home if they promised not to continue fighting. Soldiers could keep their horses and mules and officers could keep their weapons. Grant also sent food to Lee's half-starved men. | |
| 950837609 | Sharecropping | A practice of renting land to African Americans in exchange for crops that was little better than slavery since the freedmen were usually trapped in a lifetime of poverty and debt. Planters split their land into small plots that were rented to individual tenant farmers. Since freedmen did not have money, they paid their rent by giving the land owner a share of the crops (usually ½ to ⅓). Landowners also loaned sharecroppers food, seeds, tools and supplies, so these farmers were usually never able to earn enough crops to repay the debt. | |
| 950837610 | Freedmen | African Americans who had been set free from slavery. | |
| 950837611 | Freedmen's Bureau | Before the Civil War ended, Congress established this bureau to assist former slaves. It provided food and medical care to both blacks and whites in the South. It also built schools for freemen who were desperate to get an education. | |
| 950837612 | Civil Rights | The rights the Constitution entitles all people to as citizens, especially equal treatment under the law. | |
| 950837613 | Reconstruction | Rebuilding the south and bringing the southern states back into the Union. President Johnson's Reconstruction plan allowed a former Confederate state to rejoin the Union once it had written a new state constitution, canceled its war debts, and ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery. Congress controlled Reconstruction after Republican candidates won a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress in the 1866 election. Congress passed its own Military Reconstruction Act in 1867. This divided the South into 5 military districts controlled by federal troops. These troops helped register voters. Confederates were banned from voting, so the new voters included freedmen, white southerners who had opposed the war, and northerners who had moved South after the war. | |
| 950837614 | Ulysses S. Grant | The Union general during the Civil War became president in the election of 1868. He was elected with the help of half a million black votes. He supported Reconstruction and promised to protect the rights of African Americans in the South. | |
| 950837615 | White Terrorism | Groups like the Ku Klux Klan threatened, beat, and even murdered African Americans to keep them from participating in the political process (voting). | |
| 950837616 | Black Codes | After the Civil War, state governments were controlled by the same leaders. They passed laws to control former slaves. The laws spelled out rights, helped planters find workers to replace their slaves, and kept freedmen at the bottom of the social order in the South. Freedmen were given the right to marry and own property, to sue in court, and to work for wages. But they were not given other civil rights like serving on juries or voting. Freedmen could only work in jobs requiring few skills (farm work) and could not enter many trades or start businesses. Laws also called for segregation and required freedmen to work or they could be arrested and hired out. | |
| 950837617 | The Civil Rights Act of 1866 | This bill declared freedmen to be full citizens with the same rights as whites. President Johnson vetoed the bill but Congress overrode his veto. | |
| 950837618 | Military Reconstruction Act | In 1867 Congress passed an act dividing the South into five military districts, each governed by a general backed by federal troops. The state governments set up under President Johnson's Reconstruction plan were declared illegal. New governments were to be formed by both black and white southerners loyal to the United States. | |
| 950837619 | Southern Reconstruction | The military controlled South registered three groups of voters- freedmen, white southern who had opposed the war, and northerners who had moved south after the war. Delegates were elected to constitutional conventions. About one-fourth of those elected were African Americans and new constitutions were written. These were the most progressive in the nation. They guaranteed voting to every adult male, ended imprisonment for debt, and called for establishment of the first public schools in the South. New state governments were elected. The majority of those elected were Republicans and about one-fifth were African Americans. By 1870 every southern state had rejoined the Union. Work began on rebuilding damaged roads, bridges, and railroads. Schools and hospitals were built. The legislature raised taxes by up to 400 percent between 1860 and 1870 to pay for these improvements. | |
| 950837620 | Jim Crow laws | Laws enforcing segregation of blacks and whites in the South after the Civil War. "Jim Crow" was a black character from an entertainer's act in the mid-1800s. | |
| 950837621 | Plessy v. Ferguson | Homer Plessy was arrested for refusing to obey a Jim Crow law and took his case all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that segregation laws did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment as long as facilities available to both races were roughly equal. After this decision even more Jim Crow laws were passed. Blacks and whites attended separate schools, sat in separate sections in theaters, etc. | |
| 950837622 | The Enforcement Acts | In 1870 and 1871 Congress passed three laws to combat terrorism against African Americans. These laws made it illegal to prevent another person from voting by bribery, force, or scare tactics. President Grant sent troops to the south to enforce these acts but people brought to trial were seldom convicted. | |
| 950837623 | The Amnesty Act of 1872 | Most northerners were losing interest in Reconstruction and the plight of freedmen by this time. The Amnesty (forgiveness) Act of 1872 allowed most former Confederates to vote again. As a result, Democrats had regained control of almost all southern states by 1876. | |
| 950837624 | The End of Reconstruction | In 1876 Americans went to the polls to choose a new president. The Democrats nominated New York governor Samuel J. Tilden and the Republicans supported Rutherford B. Hayes. Tilden won the popular vote, but was one short of the 185 electoral votes needed to win the election. Twenty votes in dispute were awarded to Hayes by the Republican controlled Congress which would have made Hayes the winner. However, the Democrats were outraged and threatened to block the election. The two parties agreed to the Compromise of 1877, Democrats would allow Hayes to become president if he gave southerners "the right to control their own affairs." Hayes withdrew all remaining troops from the South and Reconstruction ended. | |
| 950837625 | Reconstruction Reversed | When Democrats in the south regained control of the states, they cut education spending and many schools closed. Only those who could afford to pay sent their children to school. By the 1880s, only about half of all black children in the South attended school. Southern states passed laws requiring citizens to pay a poll tax or pass a literacy test to vote. These tests were usually rigged to fail any African American, regardless of education. Whites were also excused from paying poll taxes or literacy tests by a "grandfather clause" that said that the tax or test did not apply if your grandfather could vote on January 1, 1867. New segregation acts called Jim Crow laws were also passed. | |
| 950837626 | Plessy v. Fergusson | Homer Plessy was arrested when he refused to obey a Jim Crow law. He took his case to the Supreme Court. In 1896 the court ruled that segregation laws did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment as long as the facilities available to both races were roughly equal. | |
| 950837627 | Migration | Thousands of African Americans responded to violence and segregation by leaving the South. In 1878, 200 southern African Americans returned to Liberia (an African nation founded by freed slaves on the west coast of Africa). Many blacks moved from the South to cities in the North where they competed with recent European immigrants for jobs. Others headed West where they found work as cowboys. | |
| 950837628 | Self-Help | Most African Americans remained in the South. They worked hard to improve their lives. Between 1865 and 1903, the number of black owned businesses in the South soared from 2,000 to 25,000. Families, churches and communities banded together to build schools and colleges for black children in the South. Because of this, literacy rose from 5% to 50% by 1900. |
