Civil War Flashcards
What was the Emancipation Proclamation?
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”
Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the United States, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (the Southern secessionist states) that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union (United States) military victory. Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.
What was the Battle of Gettysburg?
The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. In the battle, Union Major General George Meade’s Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, halting Lee’s invasion of the North. The battle involved the largest number of casualties of the entire war and is often described as the war’s turning point due to the Union’s decisive victory and concurrence with the Siege of Vicksburg.
Siege of Vicksburg
The second key moment in the Summer of 1863 came with the capture of Vicksburg. Control of the Mississippi river, and the Confederate trade that used it, was key to the war. The Union had made slow advances over the past year, retaking parts of the Mississippi from both directions. The final strong point was the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
The final campaign that General Grant conducted is largely regarded as one of the most daring, and brilliantly executed of the entire war.
March to the Sea
Sherman’s March to the Sea was an American Civil War campaign lasting from November 15 to December 21, 1864, in which Union Major General William Tecumseh Sherman led troops through the Confederate state of Georgia, pillaging the countryside and destroying both military outposts and civilian properties
William Tecumseh Sherman
Union soldier who led troops through the Confederate state of Georgia, pillaging the countryside and destroying both military outposts and civilian properties.
Appomattox Courthouse
Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union general Ulysses S. Grant, precipitating the capitulation of other Confederate forces and leading to the end of the bloodiest conflict in American history.
Black Dispatches
Black Dispatches was a common term used among Union military men in the American Civil War for intelligence on Confederate forces provided by African Americans, who often were slaves aiding the Union forces.
Fredrick Douglas
Frederick Douglass was a formerly enslaved man who became a prominent activist, author and public speaker. He became a leader in the abolitionist movement, which sought to end the practice of slavery, before and during the Civil War.
Harriet Tubman
Known as the “Moses of her people,” Harriet Tubman was enslaved, escaped, and helped others gain their freedom as a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad. Tubman also served as a scout, spy, guerrilla soldier, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War.
Louisiana Native Guard
The 1st Louisiana Native Guard was one of the first all-black regiments in the Union Army. Based in New Orleans, Louisiana, it played a prominent role in the Siege of Port Hudson
African American Soldiers
Black soldiers served in artillery and infantry and performed all noncombat support functions that sustain an army, as well. Black carpenters, chaplains, cooks, guards, laborers, nurses, scouts, spies, steamboat pilots, surgeons, and teamsters also contributed to the war cause.
Nursing
The two thousand women who volunteered as nurses during the American Civil War came from all walks of life to play a vital role in the war effort.
When war broke out, the country’s male-dominated nursing profession was in its infancy and still relatively primitive.
The huge escalation in the need for medical personnel during the conflict broke down the barriers preventing women from entering nursing.
Women as Soldiers
It is an accepted convention that the Civil War was a man’s fight.
Images of women during that conflict center on self-sacrificing nurses, romantic spies, or brave ladies maintaining the home front in the absence of their men.
The men, of course, marched off to war, lived in germ-ridden camps, engaged in heinous battle, languished in appalling prison camps, and died horribly, yet heroically.
This conventional picture of gender roles during the Civil War does not tell the entire story. Men were not the only ones to fight that war.
In addition to women who served as spies, daughters of regiments, cooks, laundresses, and nurses, approximately 400 posed as male soldiers.
Like the men, there were women who lived in camp, suffered in prisons, and died for their respective causes.
Both the Union and Confederate armies forbade the enlistment of women.
Women soldiers of the Civil War therefore assumed masculine names, disguised themselves as men, and hid the fact they were female.
Because they passed as men, it is impossible to know with any certainty how many women soldiers served in the Civil War.
Estimates place as many as 250 women in the ranks of the Confederate army.
13 Amendment
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Jefferson Davis
As president of the Confederate States of America throughout its existence during the American Civil War (1861–65), Jefferson Davis presided over the South’s creation of its own armed forces and acquisition of weapons. Davis chose Robert E. Lee as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862.
