Chapter 14- Civil War Flashcards
Conscription
This required all able-bodied white men age eighteen to thirty-five to serve in the military for three years. Subsequent amendments raised the age limit to forty-five and then to fifty, and lowered it to seventeen.
Legal tender act
Signed in 1862, it authorized the issue of $150 million of the so-called greenbacks
National bank act
This established criteria by which a bank could obtain a federal charter and issue national bank notes (notes backed by the federal government). It also gave private bankers an incentive to purchase war bonds.
Jefferson Davis
President of the confederacy.
Radical republicans
A group of republicans that included secretary of the treasury Salmon P Chase, senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, and representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. They never formed a tightly knit unit; on some issues they cooperated with Lincoln. Bu they assailed him early in the war for failing to make emancipation a war goal and later for being too eager to read it the conquered rebel states into the union.
Anaconda plan
This military strategy called for the union to blockade the southern coastline and to thrust, like a snake, down the Mississippi River.
First battle of bull run
The first major land battle in the civil war. It was also known as first manassas
Robert e. Lee
Leader of the confederate army.
Battle of Antietam
First major battle on Northern Territory.
Ulysses s. Grant
Leader of the union army.
William t. Sherman
West Point graduate and Mexican-American war veteran who had most recently run a southern military academy. He led the union troops and captured atlanta.
Battle of Shiloh
The bloodiest in American history to that date. It happened in April 6-7, 1862.
Cotton diplomacy
Southerners believed they could use cotton to help them win the civil war. Southern notions of embargoing cotton exports in order to bring the British to their knees failed. Planters conducted business as usual by raising cotton and trying to slip it through the blockade.
Emancipation proclamation
Issued on January 1, 1863, it declared “forever free” all slaves in areas in rebellion.
Women’s national loyal league
An organization that called for a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery founded by women active in the suffrage movement.
Freedmen’s bureau
Created by congress in March 1865, it had responsibility for the relief, education, and employment of former slaves.
Battle of Gettysburg
The greatest battle and the turning point of the civil war.
Battle of Vicksburg
Strategic victory in the west, it gave the union the control of the Mississippi River.
Homestead act
Passed in 1862, embodied the Republican Party’s ideal of “free soil, free labor, free men” by granting 160 acres of public land to settlers after five years of residence on the land.
Merrill land grant act
This gave to the states proceeds of public lands to fund the establishment of universities emphasizing “such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and mechanic arts.” It spurred the growth of large state universities, mainly in the Midwest and west, Michigan state, Iowa state, and Purdue universities, among others, profited from the law
New York City draft riots
Enraged by the first drawing of names under the enrollment act and by a longshoremen’s strike in which blacks had been used as strike breakers, mobs of Irish working-class men and women roamed the streets for four days until suppressed by federal troops.
United States sanitary commision
An organization that raised funds at “sanitary funds,” bought and distributed supplies, ran special kitchens to supplement army rations, tracked down the missing, and inspected army camps.
Thirteenth amendment
The constitutional amendment that abolished slavery, it was passed by congress in 1865.
Appomattox court house
The site where Robert e lee surrendered to Ulysses s grant.
