Term | Definition |
Anaconda Plan | Northern Civil War strategy to starve the south by blockading seaports and controlling the Mississippi River |
Stonewall Jackson | Confederate general known for leading his troops in the Battle of Bull Run where they withstood a major push from the Union army and General Irvin McDowell |
Shiloh | 1862 Civil War battle fought in southwestern Tennessee resulting in a Union victory and nearly 25,000 deaths. |
Ulysses S. Grant | Notable Union general and leader of the Radical Republicans. Led Union troops to victory against Robert. E Lee and become the 18th president of the United States. |
Robert E. Lee | Confederate General and leader who surrendered his troops at the Appomattox Courthouse ending the American Civil War |
Contraband | Supplies captured by the enemy during wartime. |
Antietam | 1862 Civil War battle in which 23,000 troops were killed or wounded in one day. |
Emancipation Proclamation | Decree by President Lincoln that freed enslaved people living in Confederate States still in rebellion. |
Militia Act | 1862 law that allowed African Americans to serve in the Union military. |
54 Massachusetts Regiment | Union militia that was one of the first official African American Units in the United States during the Civil War. |
Homestead Act | 1862 law that gave 160 acres of land to citizens willing to live on and cultivate it for 5 years. |
Vicksburg | Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River that surrendered to Union forces in 1863 after a siege. |
Gettysburg | Civil War battle and Union victory involving the most casualties in the entire war. Also referred to as the biggest turning point in the entire war. |
Total War | Military strategy in which an army attacks not only enemy troops but the economic and civilian resources that support them. |
William T. Sherman | Union general that is known for his march through the south forcing the surrender of all the Confederate armies in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida in 1865. |
Thirteenth Amendment | 1865 constitutional amendment that abolished slavery |
Clara Barton | Nurse during the Civil War that went on to found the American branch of the Red Cross organization |
Appomattox Court House | Site where Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered to the Union. |