Civil War Flashcards
Artillary
Large, powerful weapons such as cannon and mortars.
Assassination
The murder of a prominent person such as President Lincoln.
Battery
A unit of four or six cannons, or fortified position on which they are placed.
Battle
Large-scale combat between two armed forces (skirmishes and engagements are smaller scaled and briefer)
Blockade
The closing off, using naval forces, of a city or other area to traffic and communication.
Border state
Slave-owning states that did not secede from the Union: Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri.
Cartridge box
A leather box in which the soldier carried his rounds or bullets.
Casualty
A person killed, wounded, captured, or missing during a war.
Calvary
Soldiers mounted on horseback fighting as a unit.
Chloroform
The liquid drug used to anesthetize (put to sleep) wounded soldiers in the war.
Confederacy or CSA
The alliance of 11 Southern states to form the Confederate States of America.
Contraband
Goods illegally traded during wartime. Slaves were sometimes called contraband during the war.
Copperhead
A Northern Democrat who agreed with Southern secession and clamored for peace during the war.
Deploy
To spread out armies to create a battle line.
Desertion
To leave one’s military post, or to turn away from battle, often punishable by death.
Dixie
Slang term for the Confederacy, also a popular song.
Draft or Conscription
The selection of citizens for mandatory military service.
Drill
The process of instructing recruits how to march and practice the military arts as a unit.
Dysentery
An often fatal disease of the human intestines, usually caused by unsanitary conditions of military camps and battles sites.
Envelopment
An attack against the flanks of an enemy
Emancipation
The formal release of slaves from bondage, as it happened in January 1863.
Flanks
The sides of an army’s line in battle. A flanking movement is attacking the sides.
Abolitionist
A person who believed in the abolishment of Negro slavery.
Forage
The search for food by soldiers often at the expense of farmers in battle area.
Greenback
Paper money used during the Civil War in the North.
Hardtack
A quarter-inch or half-inch thick hard cracker eaten by CivilWar soldiers. Also known as biscuits, crackers, and army bread.
Haversack
Cloth bag used by soldier to carry rations and food.
Infantry
Foot soldiers marching and fighting together. The vast majority of Civil War soldiers were infantry.
Ironclad
A ship covered with iron plates and used in the Civil War, as in the
