American Civil War Vocabulary

This vocabulary is necessary for complete comprehension of the American Civil War and for any assessment.

American Civil War

civil war in the United States between the North and the South; 1861-1865.

The American Civil War was the largest and most destructive conflict in the Western world between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the onset of World War I in 1914.

Confederacy

the southern states that seceded from the United States in 1861.

Four more slave states seceded and joined the Confederacy. A total of 11 states comprised the Confederacy

Confederate

of or having to do with the southern Confederacy during the American Civil War.

When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the deep South seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America.

Border States

the border states were slave states that did not secede from the Union.

They were Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, and after 1863, the new state of West Virginia.

North

the region of the United States lying to the north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Several battles had already taken place--near Manassas Junction in Virginia, in the mountains of western Virginia where Union victories paved the way for creation of the new state of West Virginia, at Wilson's Creek in Missouri, at Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, and at Port Royal in South Carolina where the Union navy established a base for a blockade to shut off the Confederacy's access to the outside world.

South

the region of the United States lying to the south of the Mason-Dixon line.

When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the deep South seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America.

Habeas Corpus

the right for a person to be brought before a court to determine if they can be detained or not.

In Article I, Section 9, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution, the Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. On April 27, 1861, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus between Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia to give military authorities the necessary power to silence dissenters and rebels. Under this order, commanders could arrest and detain individuals who were deemed threatening to military operations. Those arrested could be held without indictment or arraignment. Over 143 years later, the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) that only Congress can suspend Habeas Corpus.

Union

the United States, including, according to Lincoln, ALL the states even the ones which illegally seceded.

Several battles had already taken place--near Manassas Junction in Virginia, in the mountains of western Virginia where Union victories paved the way for creation of the new state of West Virginia, at Wilson's Creek in Missouri, at Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, and at Port Royal in South Carolina where the Union navy established a base for a blockade to shut off the Confederacy's access to the outside world.

Union soldier

a member of the Union Army during the American Civil War.

By 1864 the original Northern goal of a limited war to restore the Union had given way to a new strategy of "total war" to destroy the Old South and its basic institution of slavery and to give the restored Union a "new birth of freedom," as President Lincoln put it in his address at Gettysburg to dedicate a cemetery for Union soldiers killed in the battle there.

battlefield

a region where a battle is being (or has been) fought

blockade

a war measure isolating an area of importance to the enemy

Several battles had already taken place--near Manassas Junction in Virginia, in the mountains of western Virginia where Union victories paved the way for creation of the new state of West Virginia, at Wilson's Creek in Missouri, at Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, and at Port Royal in South Carolina where the Union navy established a base for a blockade to shut off the Confederacy's access to the outside world.

campaign

related operations aimed at achieving a particular goal

Huge battles like Shiloh in Tennessee, Gaines' Mill, Second Manassas, and Fredericksburg in Virginia, and Antietam in Maryland foreshadowed even bigger campaigns and battles in subsequent years, from Gettysburg in Pennsylvania to Vicksburg on the Mississippi to Chickamauga and Atlanta in Georgia.

cavalry

troops trained to fight on horseback

By the spring of 1865 all the principal Confederate armies surrendered, and when Union cavalry captured the fleeing Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Georgia on May 10, 1865, resistance collapsed and the war ended.

civil war

a war between factions in the same country

The Civil War is the central event in America's historical consciousness.collapse break down, literally or metaphorically. By the spring of 1865 all the principal Confederate armies surrendered, and when Union cavalry captured the fleeing Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Georgia on May 10, 1865, resistance collapsed and the war ended.

militia

civilians trained as soldiers, not part of the regular army

Lincoln called out the militia to suppress this "insurrection."

preserve

keep in safety and protect from harm, loss, or destruction

Northern victory in the war preserved the United States as one nation and ended the institution of slavery that had divide the country from its beginning.

resolved

explained or answered

The war resolved two fundamental questions left unresolved by the revolution: whether the United States was to be a dissolvable confederation of sovereign states or an indivisible nation with a sovereign national government; and whether this nation, born of a declaration that all men were created with an equal right to liberty, would continue to exist as the largest slaveholding country in the world.

secession

formal separation from an alliance or federation

The incoming Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession.

slave state

any of the southern states in which slavery was legal prior to the American Civil War

The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states.

theater of war

the entire land, sea, and air area that may become or is directly involved in war operations

In the meantime Union armies and river fleets in the theater of war comprising the slave states west of the Appalachian Mountain chain won a long series of victories over Confederate armies commanded by hapless or unlucky Confederate generals.