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Trent Affair
The Trent Affair was when the Union warship stopped a British ship making its way to England and arrested 2 Confederate diplomats-James Mason and John Slidell, Britain prepared for war against US-sent troops to Canada. Lincoln decided to release Confederates because he did not want to fight a two front war overseas and domestically. He said Captain of Union Ship acted without orders. -
Battle of Shiloh
This was named after a church in Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee (100 miles southwest of Nashville). Confederate commander Albert Sidney Johnston led a force north from Corinth, Mississippi. Ulysses S. Grant, who had just captured Fort Donelson, brought five Union divisions to face him. At first, the South led the attack, but Union troops held the "Hornets' Nest" for hours, killing Johnston in the process. Beauregard took over, but by the second day Northern Generals. -
Battle of Chattanooga
This battle took place on Lookout Mountain. This was the turning point in the Civil War because it opened the doorway to the Union forces for invasion into the deep South at the last moment. The victory also made it possible to capture Atlanta in time to influence the 1864 Congressional and Presidential elections. -
Seven Days' Battles
Confederate victory in Virginia, during which Lee stopped Union campaign against Richmond and drove the union back toward the sea; was a counterattack to McClellan's Peninsula Campaign. -
Battle of Antietam
Union army routes Lee's offensive strike, allows Lincoln to give emancipation proclamation (because it was after a union win instead of a union fail, if after union fail the people would have thought north was failing and wanted slaves to attack southern masters), decisive, bloody, Lee's attack on Maryland in hopes that he could take it from the Union, bloodiest day of the war, stalemate, McClellan replaced by Burnside, stalemate, South would never be so close to victory again. -
Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln issued this speech as a way to broaden the goals of the war and achieve a moral victory, but through its principles it freed absolutely no slaves on the day it was given; changed the purpose of the war and caused Europeans to withdraw from supporting south. -
Battle of Vicksburg
General Ulysses S. Grant came down the Mississippi River in an attempt to split the confederacy. It took him 3 months to take the city. It was a devestating loss for the South because it cut off Texas and Louisiana. He also took Jackson, Mississippi. -
Battle of Gettysburg
Lee invaded Pennsylvania, bloodiest battle (largest number of deaths) of the war, Confederate Pickett's Charge (disastrous), Lee forced to retreat (not pursued by Meade), South doomed to never invade North again, Gettysburg Address given by Lincoln (nation over union), Turning point of the War that made it clear the North would win. 50,000 people died, war still drags on for 2 more years. -
New York Draft Riots
After the Battle at Gettysburg, mobs of working-class men and women roamed the streets for four days until federal troops suppressed them. They loathed the idea of being drafted to fight a war on behalf of slaves who, once freed, would compete with them for jobs. The riot lynched several African Americans and burned down black homes, businesses, and even an orphanage. It was the bloodiest riot in American history. Only the arrival of the federal troops halted the violence. -
Gettysburg Address
A speech by Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War at the dedication of a national cemetery on the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, key ideas were liberty, equality, and democratic ideas; purpose of war was to protect those ideas, honor dead, reaffirm declaration of independence, redefined by the civil war as a 'new birth of freedom' that would bring true equality to all citizens and that would also create a unified nation in which everyone is equal. -
End of Reconstruction
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863) Lincoln set up a process for political Reconstruction, as in reconstructing the state governments in the South so that Unionists were in charge rather than secessionists; full presidential pardons for most southerners who either took an oath of allegiance to the Union and the Constitution, a state government could be reestablished and accepted as legitimate by the US president as soon as at least 10 percent of the voters in the state. -
Lincoln 10% Plan
States could rejoin into the Union when 10 percent of the 1860 vote count from that state had taken an allegiance to the U.S. and pledged to abide by emancipation, citizens of former Confederate states would be given the opportunity to swear allegiance to the government in Washington (high-ranking Confederate military and civilian authorities would not be offered this opportunity), the state was afforded the chance to form its own state government. -
Wade-Davis Bill
Passed through Congress in 1864, this bill was far stricter than Lincoln's 10% Plan and required 50 percent of the voters of a state to take the loyalty oath and permitted only non-Confederates to vote for a new state constitution. It was backed by the Radical Republicans, who thought Lincoln's plan would allow the southern aristocrats to assume power again and deny equality to blacks in the South. -
Battle of Fort Pillow
The Confederates, led by Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest, defeated the Union army. During this battle, Major Booth, the man in charge of the Union army, was killed. This battle ended with a massacre of the surrendered Federal black troops. Some historians conclude this was one of the saddest events of American military history. -
Battle of Cold Harbor
Cold Harbor was a battle that fought during the American Civil War from June 1 to June 3, 1864, near Cold Harbor, Virginia. It culminated in the slaughter of more than 13,000 Union soldiers attempting to advance to the Confederate entrenchment. The Confederates lost fewer than 2,000 men, and they were shocked by the carnage caused by the folly of the Union commanders. -
Battle of Petersburg
A battle in which ended in stalemate between Lee and Grant. Grant forced confederates to abandone Petersburg and Richmond and pursued them by cutting off their line of retreat to the South. Lee finally surrendered to the Union forces. -
Battle of Franklin
A suicide mission by General Hood, sending his men across two miles of open ground into Union entrenchments as well as established artillery under the command of General George Thomas. Hood was unable to break the line at this battle and take Nashville. -
Battle of Nashville
One of the largest victories achieved by the Union Army in which heavily damaged the confederate army. The Army of Tennessee was destroyed and would never fight again. Confederate General John Bell Hood resigned his command. -
Thirteenth Amendment
The Constitutional amendment prohibiting all forms of slavery and involuntary servitude towards others. Blacks no longer had to serve a master, and were entitled to equal rights as well. Former Confederate States were required to ratify the amendment prior to gaining reentry into the union. A Proclamation Without Emancipation. -
Freedmen's Bureau
A temporary agency that was created after the Civil War, worked to provide food and medical care, to help the freedmen to resettle, to ensure justice for the freedmen, to manage abandoned or confiscated property, to regulate labor, to establish schools, and to employ them. -
Lincoln's Assassination
Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., as the American Civil War was drawing to a close, just six days after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant and Union forces. The assassination was planned and carried out by John Wilkes Booth as part of a larger conspiracy in an effort to rally the remaining Confederate troops to continue fighting. -
Ku Klux Klan Forms
This group was founded in Tennessee in 1866 by Southerners who were extremely racist against African Americans, and disliked all other cultures and races. often violent actions during the Reconstruction era represented the resentments felt by many Southern whites towards the changing political, social, and economic conditions of the Reconstruction era. -
Black Codes Passed
A law that was passed by all Southern state legislatures, hindered the freedom of blacks, set of regulations limited movement by blacks, prohibited interracial marriage, insisted that blacks obtain special certificates to hold certain jobs. -
Reconstruction Act
The act placed southern states under military rule and control. they barred people from the confederacy from voting. Period after the Civil War during which Northern political leaders created plans for the governance of the South and a procedure for former Southern states to rejoin the Union; Southern resentment of this era lasted well into the twentieth century. -
Johnson's Impeachment
Andrew Johnson's impeachment was the result of Stanton's dismissal by the President, this was the last straw for the House Republicans. Johnson was just barely acquitted. As a result for the rest of his term he was powerless to alter the course of Reconstruction and the country. -
Fourteenth Amendment
This amendment granted citizenship to blacks with no interference in their civil and political rights, all citizens were guaranteed the right to vote, citizenship would be the same in all states, and states that did not give freedmen the vote would have reduced representation in Congress, former Confederate officials could not hold public office, and to refuse to allow the payment of the confederate debt. -
Fifteenth Amendment
This amendment prohibited denial of suffrage by states to any citizen on basis of race, color, or previous servitude. Many enfranchised northern blacks who might vote were most likely republican. -
Civil Rights Act
Passed legislation that guaranteed access to transportation and hotels for all blacks; repealed blacks codes and removed restrictions on workers; prohibited racial discrimination in jury selection; became a watered down bill that the Supreme Court eventually struck down. -
Compromise of 1877
Democrats won a clear majority and Tilden was going to be President but in 3 southern states, the returns were contested and to win, Tilden needed only one electoral vote from SC, FL, and LA; electoral commission created to determine who would get the 3 states votes; 8-7 Hayes won; immediately ended federal support for Southern Republicans, supported the building of a southern transcontinental railroad, withdrew last of federal troops protecting Blacks and Republicans.
