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Cram Sheet:
The Civil War
PEOPLE
John Wilkes Booth
 Actor and southern sympathizer,
assassinated President Abraham
Lincoln, 14 April 1865
 Tracked down, shot and killed after a
12-day manhunt
Jefferson Davis
 First and only President of Confederacy
 Also served as Secretary of War for the
Confederacy
 His economic policies and military
strategies failed to give the South what it
needed to defeat the North
Ulysses S. Grant
 Union general who commanded the
eastern front from 1864 to 1865
 Nicknamed “The Butcher” for his
determination to destroy southern
armies any way he could, regardless of
human cost
Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson
 Confederate general during the Civil
War
 Received his nickname “Stonewall” for
resolute leadership at Battle of Bull Run
(Manassas), 1861
 Mortally wounded when accidentally
shot by Confederate soldiers at Battle of
Chancellorsville, 1863
Robert E. Lee
 Confederate general; son of
Revolutionary War hero from wealthy
Virginia family
 First asked by Lincoln to command
Union Army, but instead declared
allegiance to the Confederacy
 Strong leader, but failed at the Battle of
Gettysburg, the war's pivotal battle
 Surrendered to Grant’s Union Army in
April 1865, ending the Civil War
Abraham Lincoln
 Anti-slavery Republican, elected U.S.
President, 1860
 Moderate stance on emancipation; not
abolitionist, but against slavery’s
expansion
 His election triggered secession crisis,
which led to Civil War
 Assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at
Ford’s Theater, Washington D.C, 1865
George McClellan
 Ineffective Union general during Civil
War
 Fired by President Lincoln in 1862
 Democratic presidential nominee in the
1864 election, running on a platform of
peace and criticizing Lincoln’s
leadership
 Lost to Lincoln by only a small margin
Robert Gould Shaw
 White Union colonel who commanded
the all-black 54th Massachusetts Infantry
 Originally displeased with his
assignment to lead an all-black regiment
 Killed with his troops while storming a
Confederate position at Fort Wagner in
July 1863
EVENTS
1861 Attack on Fort Sumter
 First shots fired in Civil War, 12 April
1861, at Union-controlled Fort Sumter in
South Carolina
 Jefferson Davis, president of
Confederacy, ordered strikes against
Union forces
 At time of attack, neither North nor
South had an official army
 Attack spurred President Lincoln to ask
Congress to authorize a military draft to
build an army
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1861 Battle of Bull Run (Manassas)
 First official battle of the Civil War;
occurred west of Washington, D.C., 21
July 1861
 Smaller Confederate army stood strong
against Union assaults
 Fierce battle disproved both sides'
hopes of easy victory in Civil War
1862 Battle of Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing)
 Extremely bloody two-day battle in
Tennessee began with Union troops in
disarray but ended with Confederate
retreat
 Union army lost some 13,000 men and
Confederacy lost 10,000
 More American men died in this single
battle than in all previous American wars
1863 Emancipation Proclamation
 Issued by President Lincoln during the
Civil War, motivated less by abolitionist
sentiment than by strategic desire to
weaken the Confederacy
 Freed slaves in the Confederacy, but did
not free slaves in states than had
declared loyalty to the Union
1863 Draft Riots
 4 days of rioting in New York City
occurred in response to federal
conscription laws passed in July
 Working class whites, especially Irish,
rebelled because they worried that if
they left for war, free blacks would take
their jobs
 Also fueled by anger over the decision
to allow wealthy men to buy their way
out of military service
1863 Battle of Gettysburg
 One of the bloodiest battles of the Civil
War, fought in southern Pennsylvania
over first 4 days in July
 Union troops defeated Confederate
army led by Robert E. Lee, forcing
southerners to retreat
 Marked the farthest advance of the
Confederate Army into northern territory
 Turning point of the Civil War
1865 Surrender at Appomattox
Courthouse
 Confederate General Robert E. Lee
surrendered his army to Union General
Ulysses S. Grant in western Virginia, 9
April 1865
 Marked the end of the Civil War
1865 Lincoln assassinated
 Actor John Wilkes Booth, a southern
sympathizer, shot Lincoln in the head
while the President and his wife were
watching a play at Ford's Theater,
Washington, D.C.
 Lincoln died the next day
 Assassination occurred five days after
Confederate Army surrendered
GROUPS
54th Massachusetts Infantry
 All-black unit that fought for the Union
during the Civil War
 Led by white colonel Robert Gould
Shaw
 Led charge against Confederate forces
at Fort Wagner, suffering overwhelming
casualties
 Story dramatized in the 1989 film Glory
CONCEPTS
Cash Crop
 Crop grown for sale and export rather
than for food or animal feed
 Tobacco and cotton were major cash
crops in the years leading up to the Civil
War
 Once it had seceded and gone to war
with the North, the South faced a
disadvantage since its cash crops
couldn't feed the southern population
“Greenbacks”
 Term for paper money printed by the
Union when the government was in
need of money to fund the war
 Originally backed by gold, then by
government bonds
 Value of this money varied according to
vitality of the Union Army, at times
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depreciating far below face value
Habeas Corpus
 Latin legal term for the right of prisoners
to a fair trial
 During Civil War, President Lincoln,
fearing subversion from southern
sympathizers in the North, suspended
the right of habeas corpus
 Lincoln’s decision to suspend habeas
was extremely controversial at the time
Pickett’s Charge
 A failed Confederate assault against
Union lines during the Battle of
Gettysburg
 Named for Confederate General George
Pickett, who led the attack
 Ended in defeat and death of 10,000
Confederate soldiers
 Marked "high-water mark" of
Confederacy; southern troops never
advanced farther north than Pickett's
Charge
Secession Crisis
 Sequence of events that led to the
creation of Confederate States of
America
 Reaction to election of Republican
Abraham Lincoln as president, 1860
 South Carolina was the first to secede,
20 December 1860
 SC’s action triggered quick secession of
6 more states: MS, FL, AL, GA, LA, TX
PLACES
Appamattox Courthouse, Virginia
 Site of Robert E. Lee's surrender to
Ulysses S. Grant, which ended the Civil
War, 1865
Ford's Theater, Washington, D.C.
 Site of Abraham Lincoln's assassination
by actor and southern sympathizer John
Wilkes Booth, 1865
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
 Site of the war's most decisive battle, a
Union victory, 1863
 Site of Abraham Lincoln's famous
Gettysburg Address, 1863
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