Civil War Characters

Abraham Lincoln

Civil War Characters

•______- President of the Confederacy; struggled to maintain unity among the Southern states; made unsuccessful bid for peace with the North prior to surrender

•______- Union general famous for his total war strategy; made devastating March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah in 1864

•______- Union general who defeated Lee’s forces and negotiated surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia

•______-Confederate general who surrendered unconditionally to Grant at Appomattox Court House

•______- Former Union general who ran unsuccessfully for president as a Peace Democrat against Lincoln in 1864

Fort Sumter

•In April 1861 Lincoln sent word to Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy.

•He told Davis he was sending needed supplies to the troops at ______.

•This left Davis with two choices. He could let the supplies in, or he could order his troops to fire on the fort.

•Davis ordered his troops to fire. The fort returned the fire. This was the ______to the Civil War.

Anaconda Strategy

•Lincoln adopted the so-called "______" first proposed by old "Fuss and Feathers," General-in-Chief ______.

•Mirroring the tactics of the ______, a South American snake that suffocates and kills its prey through constriction, the strategy required the ______of the Confederacy by securing the ______states.

•Additionally, Scott proposed mounting a massive ______blockade, severing the South in two by taking the ______River from ______to ______, and pushing relentlessly upon the ______front while protecting Washington, D.C., from Confederate attack.

•Within a year, Lincoln modified the plan to include ______of the South.

Battle of Bull Run

•War preparations took some time, so it was not until three months after Fort Sumter that Union and Confederate troops met again at the ______Battle of ______in Virginia, between Washington, D.C., and Richmond.

•Still believing that the war was a trifling matter that would be over quickly, a number of government officials and spectators from both sides came to “______” the battle, some even packing picnic lunches.

•By the end of the day, ______forces had ______and were forced to retreat.

•The loss shocked Northerners out of their complacency and prompted them to prepare more seriously for the struggle ahead.

Shiloh

•In April 1862, Union General ______engaged Confederate forces at ______, Tennessee, in an incredibly bloody battle.

•Tens of thousands of men died. By the end of the bloodbath, Grant had ______and demonstrated to the Confederates that Lincoln was serious about maintaining the Union.

•Southerners got the message and dug in for a longer war.

Antietam

•Rather than wait around for the enemy to attack him, ______made an aggressive push into the border states to try to defeat the ______on its own turf.

•He also hoped that a Confederate victory in ______would convince the state legislature to secede.

•In September 1862, Lee’s army met General ______troops at the Battle of ______, which resulted in more than 23,000 casualties—the ______single day of battle of the entire war.

•Lee was forced to ______back to Confederate territory.

Vicksburg

•At the same time Lee was losing in the North, Grant was besieging the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the West.

•Eventually, the trapped Confederates caved in to Grant’s demand for an unconditional surrender.

•This major victory at the Battle of Vicksburg gave the Union control of the Mississippi River and thus split the Confederacy in half.

Gettysburg

•Undaunted by his failure at Antietam, Lee marched into ______territory again in the summer of 1863, this time into ______.

•There, he met Union forces at the Battle of ______in early July. At the end of a bloody three-day struggle in which more than 50,000 died, ______was once again forced to ______.

•The battle was a resounding victory for the ______and a catastrophe for the ______.

•______commemorated the Union victory at ______several months after the battle with a speech at the dedication of a national ______on the site.

•Though very brief, the ______was poignant and eloquent.

•In the speech, Lincoln argued that the Civil War was a test not only for the Union but for the entire world, for it would determine whether a nation conceived in democracy could “long endure.”

Gettysburg Address

•Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.“

Emancipation Proclamation

•Once the war started, thousands of slaves began to run to ______lines.

•Thousands of other slaves began to exhibit insubordinate and even rebellious behavior on their home plantations

•______free blacks urged Lincoln to act decisively to ______slave rebellions.

•They called for the President to issue an ______.

•Accordingly, Lincoln announced to his cabinet on July 22, 1862, that he would issue an ______in his capacity as commander in chief of the armed forces in time of war.

•The ______would free all slaves in areas still in ______, and henceforth it would be a ______objective to destroy ______within the ______South.

•The President warned that if the rebellion did not end by ______, 1863, he would issue his presidential order of ______and move to destroy ______in the rebel states once and for all.

•In December of 1862,Lincoln announced to Congress: "In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth."

Homestead Act

•The bill stipulated that any ______citizen (or person ______to become a citizen) who headed a family could obtain a grant of ______of public land by paying a small ______fee and living on the land for ______years.

•The settler could own the land in ______months by paying ______an acre.

Morrill Land Grant Act

•Lincoln also signed into law and supported the legislation sponsored by Justin Smith Morrill, senator from Vermont, transferring giant allocations of ______to the states to be sold for the support of ______and ______arts ______.

•The amount of land granted each state was proportional to its representation in Congress -- thirty thousand acres for each senator and representative.

•The bill demonstrated Lincoln's commitment to make the federal government an important force in higher ______, one that would insure its ______.

•______was also to be included in the curricula of these so-called ______colleges. Later, these schools in the Midwest and South were to become the great state university systems.

13th Amendment

•The President was worried that his ______proclamation might be ______(voided) by the courts after the war on the grounds that any confiscation of "property" required due process of law, and that such a policy could only be adopted by a ______passed by Congress.

•The ______platform of 1864 had endorsed the ______Amendment -- which the U.S. Senate had passed in April, and Lincoln used all the powers of his office, including patronage, to push it through the House, which adopted the amendment on ______.

•Lincoln would not live, however, to see it become part of the Constitution after its ratification in December 1865.

Suspension of Habeas Corpus

•To prevent an insurrection in ______, Lincoln arrested several ______leaders in the state, suspended the ______(which requires police to inform suspects of the charges against them), and imprisoned them until the war was ______.

•Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger Taney ruled that the suspension was ______and ______, but Lincoln ______him, believing that his actions had been necessary to prevent further rebellion.

Victory at Appomattox

•In April 1865, Ulysses S. Grant’s forces broke through Robert E. Lee’s defenses and forced the ______to retreat.

•The Confederate forces burned their capital city, ______, behind them as they retreated in order to render it useless to the ______armies.

•His men malnourished and heavily outgunned, ______chose to ______.

•Several days later, on April 9, 1865, Lee ______to Grant formally and ______at ______, Virginia.

•Grant accepted the surrender and provided the Southerners ______for their march home.

•Jefferson Davis and other ranking Confederates, meanwhile, had been captured fleeing Virginia.

•The ______was over.

Reconstruction under Lincoln

•After major Union victories at the battles of ______and ______in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln began preparing his plan for ______to reunify the North and South after the war’s end.

•Because Lincoln believed that the South had never legally seceded from the Union, his plan for Reconstruction was based on ______.

•He thus issued the ______of ______and ______in 1863 to announce his intention to reunite the once-united states.

•Lincoln hoped that the proclamation would rally northern support for the war and persuade weary Confederate soldiers to surrender.

10% Plan

•Lincoln’s blueprint for ______included the ______Plan, which specified that a southern state could be ______into the Union once 10 percent of its voters (from the voter rolls for the election of 1860) swore an oath of ______to the ______.

•Voters could then ______delegates to draft revised state ______and establish new state ______.

•All southerners except for high-ranking Confederate army ______and government officials would be granted a full ______.

•Lincoln guaranteed southerners that he would protect their ______property, though not their ______.

Wade-Davis Bill

•In the summer of 1864, the ______Republicans passed the ______Bill to counter Lincoln’s Ten-Percent Plan.

•The bill stated that a ______state could rejoin the Union only if ______of its registered voters swore an “ironclad oath” of ______to the United States.

•The bill also established safeguards for black ______but did not give blacks the ______.

•President Lincoln feared that asking 50 percent of voters to take a loyalty oath would ruin any chance of ending the war swiftly.

•Because the Wade-Davis Bill was passed near the end of Congress’s session, Lincoln was able to ______it, effectively blocking the bill by refusing to sign it before Congress went into recess.

Freedmen’s Bureau

•The president and Congress disagreed not only about the best way to readmit southern states to the Union but also about the best way to ______southern ______.

•Lincoln, for his part, authorized several of his wartime generals to ______former ______on ______lands.

•General William Tecumseh Sherman’s ______Field Order ______set aside land in ______and islands off the coast of ______for roughly 40,000 former slaves.

•Congress, meanwhile, created the ______in early 1865 to distribute ______and ______, establish ______, and redistribute additional confiscated ______to former ______and poor ______.

•Anyone who ______loyalty to the Union could lease ______of ______from the bureau and then have the option to purchase them several years later.

Lincoln’s Assassination

•At the end of the Civil War, in the spring of 1865, Lincoln and Congress were on the brink of a political showdown with their competing plans for ______.

•But on April 14, ______, a popular stage actor from Maryland who was ______to the secessionist ______, ______Lincoln at ______in Washington, D.C.

•When Lincoln died the following day, Vice President ______, a ______from Tennessee, became president.