DSST Civil War key terms

Union strategy devised by Winfield Scott to squeeze the Confederacy by blockading its coastline and seizing the Mississippi River, splitting the South and starving it of trade and supplies.

Naval encirclement of Confederate ports ordered by Lincoln in April 1861, intended to halt cotton exports and imported war goods; it gradually tightened and crippled Southern commerce.

Fast, low-profile ships that slipped through the Union blockade carrying cotton out and weapons, medicine, and luxuries in, usually via Nassau or Bermuda, at enormous profit.

Confederate belief that Europe's dependence on Southern cotton would force Britain and France to recognize the Confederacy or intervene; the diplomacy largely failed as cotton stockpiles and alternative sources blunted the lever.

Confederate foreign policy of withholding cotton from European markets to pressure Britain and France into supporting independence; it backfired by alienating textile workers and encouraging other cotton suppliers.

November 1861 incident in which a U.S. warship removed two Confederate envoys from the British mail steamer Trent; Lincoln released them, defusing a war scare with Britain.

1861 and 1862 laws allowing Union forces to seize property used to support the rebellion, including enslaved people; the Second Confiscation Act declared rebels' slaves free and paved the way for emancipation.

Legal label applied to enslaved people who fled to Union lines, treating them as enemy property seized in war rather than returning them; the policy began at Fort Monroe in 1861.

Lincoln's January 1, 1863 order declaring enslaved people in rebelling states free, authorizing Black enlistment, and reframing the war as a fight against slavery; it did not apply to loyal border states.

Constitutional amendment ratified in December 1865 abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime, closing loopholes left by the Emancipation Proclamation and state action.

1868 amendment granting citizenship and equal protection to formerly enslaved people, guaranteeing due process against states, and barring many ex-Confederates from office; it became the basis for later civil rights rulings.

1870 amendment prohibiting denial of the vote based on race, color, or previous servitude; it left loopholes like literacy tests and poll taxes that Southern states later exploited.

Collective name for the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, which abolished slavery, defined citizenship and equal protection, and protected voting rights after the Civil War.

Federal agency created in March 1865 to aid refugees and freedpeople with food, schools, legal help, and labor contracts; underfunded and attacked by white Southerners, it closed in 1872.

Laws passed by Southern legislatures in 1865-66 restricting freedpeople's movement, labor, and civil rights, often through vagrancy and apprenticeship rules; they provoked Radical Republican opposition.

Faction in Congress led by figures such as Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner who sought harsh terms for the South, civil rights for freedpeople, and congressional rather than presidential control of Reconstruction.

1864 congressional plan requiring a majority of white male Southerners to swear loyalty before reconstruction; Lincoln pocket-vetoed it, signaling the clash over who would control Reconstruction.

Lincoln's December 1863 proposal offering restoration to states where ten percent of 1860 voters swore loyalty and accepted emancipation; Congress rejected it as too lenient.

Andrew Johnson's 1865 program requiring loyalty oaths and ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment while pardoning many ex-Confederates; it enabled Black Codes and emboldened Southern resistance.

Congressional laws dividing the South into five military districts and requiring new state constitutions with Black male suffrage and Fourteenth Amendment ratification before readmission.

1867 law limiting the president's power to remove Senate-confirmed officials without Senate consent; Johnson's violation of it triggered his impeachment, and the Supreme Court later voided similar restrictions.

House impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868, chiefly over his removal of Secretary of War Stanton; the Senate fell one vote short of conviction, preserving presidential independence.

Derisive term for white Southerners who supported Reconstruction, the Republican Party, or the Union; many were small farmers or former Whigs seeking economic recovery.

Insulting label for Northerners who moved South during Reconstruction, portrayed as exploiters; many were teachers, Freedmen's Bureau agents, investors, or Union veterans.

Secret white supremacist organization founded in 1866 that used terror and violence to suppress Black voting and Republican politics; federal enforcement acts in the early 1870s curtailed it.

1870-71 federal laws, also called the Force Acts, authorizing prosecution of Klan violence and federal supervision of elections; they weakened the Klan but did not end white terrorism.

Labor system in which landless farmers worked a planter's land for a share of the crop, often borrowing supplies against future harvests; it trapped many freedpeople and poor whites in debt.

Credit arrangement in which merchants advanced seed, tools, and food against a lien on the crop, charging high interest; falling cotton prices deepened dependence and poverty.

Settlement resolving the disputed 1876 Hayes-Tilden election: federal troops withdrew from the South in exchange for Hayes's presidency and concessions to Southern Democrats, ending Reconstruction.

White Southern Democrats who reclaimed state governments from Republican rule in the 1870s, cutting taxes and public services and rolling back freedpeople's rights.

Federal fort in Charleston Harbor; Confederate bombardment in April 1861 began the Civil War and prompted Lincoln's call for volunteers.

Withdrawal of Southern states from the Union after Lincoln's 1860 election, beginning with South Carolina in December 1860; eleven states eventually formed the Confederacy.

Slave states that stayed in the Union: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, with West Virginia separating in 1863; their loyalty shaped emancipation policy and Union strategy.

September 1862 Maryland battle, the bloodiest single day of the war; a tactical draw that gave Lincoln the victory needed to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

July 1863 Pennsylvania battle that ended Lee's invasion of the North and became a turning point; Lincoln's November address there redefined the war's purpose.

Lincoln's brief November 1863 speech dedicating the Gettysburg cemetery, invoking equality and government by the people, and framing the war as a test of democratic survival.

Union operations in 1862-63 to capture the Mississippi River stronghold at Vicksburg; its July 1863 surrender, with Port Hudson, gave the Union control of the entire river.

Union campaign from Atlanta to Savannah in late 1864 in which Sherman's army destroyed railroads, supplies, and property to break Confederate will; it hastened the war's end.

Strategy targeting an enemy's economy, infrastructure, and civilian morale as well as its armies, exemplified by Sherman's campaigns and Sheridan's actions in the Shenandoah Valley.

Presidential contest in which Lincoln defeated Democrat George McClellan amid war weariness; Union battlefield victories, especially Atlanta, boosted Lincoln and ensured the war continued.

Northern Democrats, also called Peace Democrats, who opposed the war and urged negotiated settlement; they were strongest in the Midwest and were accused of disloyalty.

Lincoln's suspension of the writ, allowing detention of suspected disloyal persons without trial; the Supreme Court's Ex parte Milligan later limited military trials of civilians.

Government formed in February 1861 by seceding states, with Jefferson Davis as president and a constitution protecting slavery; it collapsed in 1865 after military defeat.

Warships protected by iron armor, such as the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia; their March 1862 duel at Hampton Roads ended wooden navies' dominance and revolutionized naval warfare.