Test Two

Question 1

What is the importance of Harper’s Ferry

Answer 1

On October 16, 1859, the radical abolitionist John Brown led a group of 21 men in a raid on the arsenal. Five of the men were African American: three free African Americans, one a freed slave and one a fugitive slave. During this time assisting fugitive slaves was illegal under the Fugitive Slave Act. Brown attacked and captured several buildings; he hoped to use the captured weapons to initiate a slave uprising throughout the South.Brown was tried for treason against the State of Virginia, convicted and hanged in nearby Charles Town. The raid was a catalyst for the Civil War

Question 2

Explain the different positions on secession and ideological justification for secession in the South. Provide key figures for each argument.

Answer 2

Immediate secession – want the states to secede immediately because Lincoln was elected.
Cooperationists – individuals that want to take collective action. Want to delay the process of secession and want to take a collective stance.
Ultimatumist – individuals that want to give the new republican administration an ultimatum, either they address the issues or they support secession.
Oppositionists – opposed secession. Andrew Johnson

Question 3

Explain the northern response to secession socially and politically from December 1860 through April 1861.

Answer 3

Abolitionists – glad they seceded
Buchanan – wants to let Lincoln deal with it but is pressured into saying something. Says “secession is only legal in cases of oppression and tyranny and the election of Lincoln is not an acceptable cause for secession.”
Peace Conference - John Tyler calls convention.
Voluntary Reconstruction - Southern unionists were majority in southern states.

Question 4

Explain the importance of Fort Sumter.

Answer 4

First battle of Civil War.

Question 5

Describe how the Civil War was a Total War?

Answer 5

Total war is about expenditure of resources. Military and civilian > fought on land, air (kind of), and sea. Fought on all measures.

Question 6

Explain the physical and ideological advantages and disadvantages of the North and South going into the war.

Answer 6

North
• Advantages
o Technology
o Industrial
o Navy (one of the biggest in the world) – converting merchant ships
o 110,000 manufacturing establishments. 1.3 million workers
o New York was center of banking and finance
o More railroads
o Better communication
o Food
o More people
o More medical supplies
o North has long term relationship with England.
o Already established
o Europe is opposed to slavery
• Disadvantages
o Have to conquer the south, supply lines and military have to go farther.

South
• Advantages
o Defensive war, only have to prevent the north from winning
o More cotton
• Disadvantages
o 18,000 manufacturing establishments, much less than north
o Fewer railroads.
o England finds new source for cotton. (Egypt and India)
o Lower resources
o Desertion

Question 7

How did the North and South differ in the methods of financing the war? What was the significance of the differences?

Answer 7

In both cases, the answer is that the great bulk of the financing for the war came from borrowing. This was much easier for the North, with its greater industrial capacity, which made it a better risk for lenders. The South also did a lot of simply printing more money, which was a way to finance the war, but was also disastrous in terms of creating inflation.

Question 8

Lincoln Douglas Debates

Answer 8

The debates between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln were held during the 1858 campaign for a US Senate seat from Illinois. The debates were held at 7 sites throughout Illinois, one in each of the 7 Congressional Districts. Douglas, a Democrat, was the incumbent Senator, having been elected in 1847. He had chaired the Senate Committee on Territories. He helped enact the Compromise of 1850. Douglas then was a proponent of Popular Sovereignty, and was responsible for the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Lincoln was a relative unknown at the beginning of the debates. In contrast to Douglas’ Popular Sovereignty stance, Lincoln stated that the US could not survive as half-slave and half-free states. The Lincoln-Douglas debates drew the attention of the entire nation.

Question 9

Freeport Doctrine

Answer 9

Was Stephen Douglas’s doctrine that, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, slavery could be excluded from territories of the United States by local legislation.

Question 10

Election of 1860

Answer 10

Lincoln vs. Breckenridge - The election was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860, and served as the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the American Civil War. The United States had been divided during the 1850s on questions surrounding the expansion of slavery and the rights of slave owners.

Question 11

James Buchanan

Answer 11

President before Lincoln. After secession, he wants to let Lincoln deal with it but is pressured into saying something. Says “secession is only legal in cases of oppression and tyranny and the election of Lincoln is not an acceptable cause for secession.”

Question 12

Robert E. Lee

Answer 12

from Virginia and went with his state. They were confederate so he went confederate too.

Question 13

Crittenden Compromise

Answer 13

John Crittenden from KY is a unionist.
• North will have to give in
• Slavery will have to be expanded.
• Lincoln supported compromise except one part, extending slaves.

Question 14

Virginia Peace Convention

Answer 14

•	Peace Conference, Feb 4, 1861
	AKA Virginia Peace Conference
	John Tyler – calls this convention
	14 northern states send delegates
	7 slave owning states send delegates but none were from states that had seceded. 
	130-135 men at conference
	William Seward – Secretary of State

Question 15

Voluntary Reconstruction - William Seward

Answer 15

 Upper south
 Southern unionists were the majority in seceded states.
 Seward wants to lose Sumter, no aggression, amendment, make New Mexico a slave state.

Question 16

Constitution of the Confederate States of America

Answer 16

• Feb 8, 1861 – provisional constitution created.
• Was modeled after US Constitution.
• March 11 – permanent constitution was signed.
• Robert Barowell Rhett Jr – chair of committee
• Montgomery Convention – provisional governing body of Confederacy

Question 17

Jefferson Davis

Answer 17

was an American politician who was U.S. Representative and Senator from Mississippi, U.S. Secretary of War, and the President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. He took personal charge of the Confederate war plans but was unable to find a strategy to defeat the more populous and industrialized Union. His diplomatic efforts failed to gain recognition from any foreign country, and at home, the collapsing Confederate economy forced his government to print more and more paper money to cover the war’s expenses, leading to runaway inflation and devaluation of the Confederate dollar.

Question 18

Alexander Stephens = Cornerstone Speech

Answer 18

In it he declared that slavery was the natural condition of blacks and the foundation of the Confederacy. Stephens’ speech explained the fundamental differences between the constitutions of the Confederacy and that of the United States, enumerated contrasts between U.S. and Confederate ideologies and beliefs, laid out the Confederacy’s causes for declaring secession, and defended the enslavement of African Americans.

Question 19

Lincoln’s inauguration address

Answer 19

He appealed for the preservation of the Union. To retain his support in the North without further alienating the South, he called for compromise. He promised he would not initiate force to maintain the Union or interfere with slavery in the states in which it already existed.

Question 20

Simon Cameron

Answer 20

Was an American politician who served as United States Secretary of War for Abraham Lincoln at the start of the American Civil War. Forced to resign.

Question 21

Edwin Stanton

Answer 21

Was an American lawyer and politician who served as Secretary of War under the Lincoln Administration during most of the American Civil War. Stanton’s effective management helped organize the massive military resources of the North and guide the Union to victory. He also organized the manhunt for Lincoln’s killer, John Wilkes Booth.

Question 22

Leroy Walker

Answer 22

was the first Confederate States Secretary of War.

Question 23

Parts of the Union army

Answer 23

Militia
Army/Navy - Infantry, Calvary, Artillery
Volunteer

Question 24

Parts of the Confederate Army

Answer 24

Privateer
Volunteer Army
Regular Army - Infantry, Calvary, Artillery

Question 25

Salmon P. Chase

Answer 25

Chase served as Secretary of the Treasury in President Lincoln’s cabinet from 1861 to 1864, during the Civil War. In that period of crisis, there were two great changes in American financial policy, the establishment of a national banking system and the issue of paper currency. The former was Chase’s own particular measure.

Question 26

Christopher Memminger

Answer 26

When South Carolina seceded from the United States in 1860, Memminger was asked to write the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union which outlined the reasons for secession. When Jefferson Davis formed his first cabinet, Memminger was chosen as Secretary of the Treasury on February 21, 1861. It was a difficult task, in view of the financial challenges facing the Confederacy. Memminger attempted to finance the government initially via bonds and tariffs (and confiscation of gold from the United States Mint in New Orleans), but soon found himself forced to more extreme measures such as income taxation and fiat currency.

Question 27

Legal Tender Act

Answer 27

To finance the Civil War, the federal government in 1862 passed the Legal Tender Act, authorizing the creation of paper money not redeemable in gold or silver.

Question 28

King Cotton

Answer 28

Was a slogan summarizing the strategy used during the American Civil War by the Confederacy to show that secession was feasible and there was no need to fear a war by the United States. The idea was that control over cotton exports would make an independent Confederacy economically prosperous, ruin the textile industry of New England, and—most importantly—would force Great Britain and perhaps France to support the Confederacy militarily because their industrial economies depended on Southern cotton. The Union imposed a blockade, closing all Confederate ports to normal traffic; consequently, the South was unable to move 95% of its cotton.

Question 29

Trent Affair

Answer 29

The Trent Affair was an international diplomatic incident that occurred during the American Civil War. On November 8, 1861, the USS San Jacinto, commanded by Union Captain Charles Wilkes, intercepted the British mail packet RMS Trent and removed, as contraband of war, two Confederate diplomats, James Mason and John Slidell. The envoys were bound for Britain and France to press the Confederacy’s case for diplomatic recognition and to lobby for possible financial and military support, in the name of cotton diplomacy.

Question 30

Battle of Bull Run

Answer 30

Was fought on July 21, 1861, in Prince William County, Virginia, near the city of Manassas, not far from the city of Washington, D.C. It was the first major battle of the American Civil War. The Union’s forces were slow in positioning themselves, allowing Confederate reinforcements time to arrive by rail. Each side had about 18,000 poorly trained and poorly led troops in their first battle. It was a Confederate victory followed by a disorganized retreat of the Union forces.

Question 31

Seven Days Battle

Answer 31

The Seven Days Battles were a series of six major battles over the seven days from June 25 to July 1, 1862, near Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War. Confederate General Robert E. Lee drove the invading Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, away from Richmond and into a retreat down the Virginia Peninsula. The series of battles is sometimes known erroneously as the Seven Days Campaign, but it was actually the culmination of the Peninsula Campaign, not a separate campaign in its own right. The Seven Days ended with McClellan’s army in relative safety next to the James River, having suffered almost 16,000 casualties during the retreat. Lee’s army, which had been on the offensive during the Seven Days, lost over 20,000.

Question 32

Battle of Fredericksburg

Answer 32

Between General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General Ambrose Burnside. The Union Army’s futile frontal attacks on December 13 against entrenched Confederate defenders on the heights behind the city is remembered as one of the most one-sided battles of the American Civil War, with Union casualties more than twice as heavy as those suffered by the Confederates.