Week 2 Definitions | Chapters 9 - 18

Question 1

Erie Canal

Answer 1

Most important and profitable of the barge canals of the 1820s and the 1830s; stretched from Buffalo to Albany, New York, connecting the Great Lakes to the East Coast and making New York City the nation’s largest port.

Question 2

Samuel F. B. Morse (1791 - 1872)

Answer 2

In 1832, he invented the telegraph ad revolutionized the speed of communication.

Question 3

Eli Whitney (1765 - 1825)

Answer 3

He invented the cotton gin in which could separate cotton from its seeds. One machine operator could separate fifty times more cotton than worker could by hand, which led to an increase in cotton production and prices. These increases gave planters a new profitable use for slavery and a lucrative slave trade emerged from the coastal South to the Southwest.

Question 4

Cyrus Hall McCormick (1809 - 1884)

Answer 4

In 1831, he invented a mechanical reaper to harvest wheat, which transformed the scale of agriculture. By hand a farmer could only harvest a half an acre a day, while the McCormick reaper allowed two people to harvest twelve acres of wheat a day.

Question 5

Lowell ‘girls’

Answer 5

Young female factory workers at the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts, which in early 1820s provided its employees with prepared meals, dormitories, moral discipline, and educational opportunities.

Question 6

Cult of domesticity

Answer 6

The belief that woman should stay home to manage the household, educate their children with moral values, and please their husbands.

Question 7

Irish Potato Famine

Answer 7

In 1845, an epidemic of potato rot brought a famine to rural Ireland that killed over 1 million peasants and instigated a huge increase in the number of Irish immigrating to America. By 1850, the Irish made up 43 percent of the foreign-born population in the United State; and in the 1850s, they made up over half of the population of New York City and Boston.

Question 8

Coffin ships

Answer 8

Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine had to endure a six-week journey across the Atlantic to reach America. During these voyages, thousands of passengers died of disease and starvation, which led to the ships being called “coffin ships.”

Question 9

Levi Strauss (1829 - 1902)

Answer 9

A Jewish tailor who followed miners to California during the gold rush and began making durable work pants that were later dubbed blue jeans or Levi’s.

Question 10

Nativism

Answer 10

Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic feeling in the 1830s through the 1850s; the largest group was New York’s Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, which expanded into the American, or Know-Nothing, party in 1854. In the 1920s, there was was a surge in nativism as Americans grew to fear immigrants who might be political radicals. In response, new strict immigration regulations were established.

Question 11

Second Bank of the United States

Answer 11

In 1816, the Second Bank of the United States was established in order to bring stability to the national economy, serve as the depository for national funds, and provide the government with the means of floating loans and transferring money across the country.

Question 12

John C. Calhoun (1782 - 1850)

Answer 12

He served in both the House of Representatives and the Senate for South Carolina before becoming secretary of war under President Monroe and then John Quincy Adams’s vice president. He introduced the bill for the second national bank to Congress and led the minority of southerners who voted for the Tariff of 1816. However, he later chose to oppose tariffs. During his time as secretary of war under President Monroe, he authorized the use of federal troops against the Seminoles who were attacking settlers. As John Quincy Adams’s vice president, he supported a new tariffs bill to win presidential candidate Andrew Jackson additional support. Jackson won the election, but the new tariffs bill passed and Calhoun had to explain why he had changed his opinion on tariffs.

Question 13

Henry Clay (1777 - 1852)

Answer 13

In the first half of the nineteenth century, he was the foremost spokesman for the American system. As speaker of the House in the 1820s, he promoted economic nationalism, “market revolution,” and the rapid development of western states and territories. He formulated the “second” Missouri Compromise, which denied the Missouri state legislature the power to exclude the rights of free blacks and mulattos. In the deadlocked presidential election of 1824, the House of Representatives decided the election. Clay supported John Quincy Adams, who won the presidency and appointed Clay to secretary of state. Andrew Jackson claimed that Clay had entered into a “corrupt bargain” with Adams for his own selfish gains.

Question 14

Daniel Webster (1782 - 1852)

Answer 14

As a representative from New Hampshire, he led the New Federalists in opposition to the moving of the second national bank from Boston to Philadelphia. Later, he served as representative and a senator for Massachusetts and emerged as a champion of a stronger national government. He also switched from opposing to supporting tariffs because New England had built up its manufactures with the understanding tariffs would protect them from foreign competitors.

Question 15

Tariff of 1816

Answer 15

First true protective tariff, intended strictly to protect American goods against foreign competition.

Question 16

American System

Answer 16

Program of internal improvements and protective tariffs promoted by Speaker of the House Henry Clay in his presidential campaign of 1824; his proposals formed the core of Whig ideology in the 1830s and 1840s.

Question 17

James Monroe (1758 - 1831)

Answer 17

He served as secretary of state and war under President Madison and was elected president. As the latter, he signed the Transcontinental Treaty with Spain which gave the United States Florida and expanded the Louisiana territory’s western border to the Pacific coast. In 1823, he established the Monroe Doctrine. This foreign policy proclaimed the American continents were no longer open to colonization and America would be neutral in European affairs.

Question 18

Oregon Country

Answer 18

The Convention of 1818 between Britain and the United States established the Oregon Country as being west of the crest of the Rocky Mountains and the two countries were to jointly occupy it. In 1824, the United States and Russia signed a treaty that established the line of 54°40′ as the southern boundary of Russia’s territorial claim in North America. A similar agreement between Britain and Russia finally gave the Oregon Country clearly defined boarders, but it remained under joint British and American control.

Question 19

Panic of 1819

Answer 19

Financial collapse brought on by sharply falling cotton prices, declining demand for American exports, and reckless western land speculation.

Question 20

Missouri Compromise

Answer 20

Deal proposed by Kentucky senator Henry Clay to resolve the slave/free imbalance in Congress that would result from Missouri’s admission as a slave state; in the compromise of March 20, 1820, Maine’s admission as a free state offset Missouri, and slavery was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory north of the southern border of Missouri.

Question 21

Monroe Doctrine

Answer 21

President James Monroe’s declaration to Congress on December 2, 1823, that the American continents would be thenceforth closed to colonization but that the United States would honor existing colonies of European nations.

Question 22

‘corrupt bargain’

Answer 22

A vote in the House of Representatives decided the deadlocked presidential election of 1824 in favor of John Quincy Adams, who Speaker of the House Henry Clay had supported. Afterward, Adams appointed Clay secretary of state. Andrew Jackson charged Clay with having made a “corrupt bargain” with Adams that gave Adams the presidency and Clay a place in his administration. There was no evidence of such a deal, but it was widely believed.

Question 23

John Quincy Adams (1767 - 1848)

Answer 23

As secretary of state under President Monroe, he negotiated agreements to define the boundaries of the Oregon country and the Transcontinental Treaty. He urged President Monroe to issue the Monroe Doctrine, which incorporated Adams’s views. As president, Adams envisioned an expanded federal government and a broader use of federal powers. Adams’s nationalism and praise of European leaders caused a split in his party. Some Republicans suspected him of being a closet monarchist and left to form the Democrat party. In the presidential election of 1828, Andrew Jackson claimed that Adams had gained the presidency through a “corrupt bargain” with Henry Clay, which helped Jackson win the election.

Question 24

Spoils system

Answer 24

The term—meaning the filling of federal government jobs with persons loyal to the party of the president—originated in Andrew Jackson’s first term; the system was replaced in the Progressive Era by civil service.

Question 25

Martin Van Buren (1782 - 1862)

Answer 25

During President Jackson’s first term, he served as secretary of state and minister to London. He often politically fought Vice President John C. Calhoun for the position of Jackson’s successor. A rift between Jackson and Calhoun led to Van Buren becoming vice president during Jackson’s second term. In 1836, Van Buren was elected president, and he inherited a financial crisis. He believed that the government should not continue to keep its deposits in state banks and set up an independent Treasury, which was approved by Congress after several years of political maneuvering.

Question 26

Peggy Eaton (1796 - 1879)

Answer 26

The wife of John Eaton, President Jackson’s secretary of war, was the daughter of a tavern owner with an unsavory past. Supposedly her first husband had committed suicide after learning that she was having an affair with John Eaton. The wives of members of Jackson’s cabinet snubbed her because of her lowly origins and past. The scandal that resulted was called the Eaton Affair.

Question 27

Webster-Hayne debate

Answer 27

U.S. Senate debate of January 1830 between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina over nullification and states’ rights.

Question 28

Tariff of 1832

Answer 28

This tariff act reduced the duties on many items, but the tariffs on cloth and iron remained high. South Carolina nullified it along with the tariff of 1828. President Andrew Jackson sent federal troops to the state and asked Congress to grant him the authority to enforce the tariffs. Henry Clay presented a plan of gradually reducing the tariffs until 1842, which Congress passed and ended the crisis.

Question 29

Force bill

Answer 29

During the nullification crisis between President Andrew Jackson and South Carolina, Jackson asked Congress to pass this bill, which authorized him to use the army to force South Carolina to comply with federal law.

Question 30

Trail of Tears

Answer 30

Cherokees’ own term for their forced march, 1838–1839, from the southern Appalachians to Indian lands (later Oklahoma); of 15,000 forced to march, 4,000 died on the way.

Question 31

Nicholas Biddle (1786 - 1844)

Answer 31

He was the president of the second Bank of the United States. In response to President Andrew Jackson’s attacks on the bank, Biddle curtailed the bank’s loans and exchanged its paper currency for gold and silver. He was hoping to provoke an economic crisis to prove the bank’s importance. In response, state banks began printing paper without restraint and lent it to speculators, causing a binge in speculating and an enormous increase in debt.

Question 32

'pet banks'

Answer 32

During President Andrew Jackson’s fight with the national bank, Jackson resolved to remove all federal deposits from it. To comply with Jackson’s demands, Secretary of Treasury Taney continued to draw on government’s accounts in the national bank, but deposit all new federal receipts in state banks. The state banks that received these deposits were called “pet banks.”

Question 33

Whig party

Answer 33

Founded in 1834 to unite factions opposed to President Andrew Jackson, the party favored federal responsibility for internal improvements; the party ceased to exist by the late 1850s, when party members divided over the slavery issue.

Question 34

'peculiar institution'

Answer 34

This term was used to describe slavery in America because slavery so fragrantly violated the principle of individual freedom that served as the basis for the Declaration of Independence.

Question 35

Paternalism

Answer 35

A moral position developed during the first half of the nineteenth century which claimed that slaves were deprived of liberty for their own “good.” Such a rationalization was adopted by some slave owners to justify slavery.

Question 36

Colonization

Answer 36

Of planting Africans back to Africa.

Question 37

Yeomen

Answer 37

Small landowners (the majority of white families in the South) who farmed their own land and usually did not own slaves.

Question 38

Mulattoes

Answer 38

People of mixed racial ancestry, whose status in the Old South was somewhere between that of blacks and whites.

Question 39

Spirituals

Answer 39

Songs, often encoded, which enslaved peoples used to express their frustration at being kept in bondage and forged their own sense of hope and community.

Question 40

Nat Turner (1800 - 1831)

Answer 40

He was the leader of the only slave revolt to get past the planning stages. In August of 1831, the revolt began with the slaves killing the members of Turner’s master’s household. Then they attacked other neighboring farmhouses and recruited more slaves until the militia crushed the revolt. At least fifty-five whites were killed during the uprising and seventeen slaves were hanged afterwards.

Question 41

Second Great Awakening

Answer 41

Religious revival movement of the early decades of the nineteenth century, in reaction to the growth of secularism and rationalist religion; began the predominance of the Baptist and Methodist churches.

Question 42

Burned-over district

Answer 42

Area of western New York strongly influenced by the revivalist fervor of the Second Great Awakening; Disciples of Christ and Mormons are among the many sects that trace their roots to the phenomenon.

Question 43

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints / Mormons

Answer 43

Founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, the sect was a product of the intense revivalism of the burned-over district of New York; Smith’s successor Brigham Young led 15,000 followers to Utah in 1847 to escape persecution.

Question 44

Joseph Smith (1805 - 1844)

Answer 44

In 1823, he claimed that the Angel Moroni showed him the location of several gold tablets on which the Book of Mormon was written. Using the Book of Mormon as his gospel, he founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons. Joseph and his followers upset non-Mormons living near them so they began looking for a refuge from persecution. In 1839, they settled in Commerce, Illinois, which they renamed Nauvoo. In 1844, Joseph and his brother were arrested and jailed for ordering the destruction of a newspaper that opposed them. While in jail, an anti-Mormon mob stormed the jail and killed both of them.

Question 45

Brigham Young (1801 - 1877)

Answer 45

Following Joseph Smith’s death, he became the leader of the Mormons and promised Illinois officials that the Mormons would leave the state. In 1846, he led the Mormons to Utah and settled near the Salt Lake. After the United States gained Utah as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, he became the governor of the territory and kept the Mormons virtually independent of federal authority.

Question 46

Transcendentalism

Answer 46

Philosophy of a small group of mid-nineteenth-century New England writers and thinkers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller; they stressed “plain living and high thinking.”

Question 47

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

Answer 47

As a leader of the transcendentalist movement, he wrote poems, essays, and speeches that discussed the sacredness of nature, optimism, self-reliance, and the unlimited potential of the individual. He wanted to transcend the limitations of inherited conventions and rationalism to reach the inner recesses of the self.

Question 48

Horace Mann (1796 - 1859)

Answer 48

He believed the public school system was the best way to achieve social stability and equal opportunity. As a reformer of education, he sponsored a state board of education, the first state-supported “normal” school for training teachers, a state association for teachers, the minimum school year of six months, and led the drive for a statewide school system.

Question 49

Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802 - 1887)

Answer 49

She was an important figure in increasing the public’s awareness of the plight of the mentally ill. After a two-year investigation of the treatment of the mentally ill in Massachusetts, she presented her findings and won the support of leading reformers. She eventually convinced twenty states to reform their treatment of the mentally ill.

Question 50

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815 - 1902)

Answer 50

She was a prominent reformer and advocate for the rights of women, and she helped organize the Seneca Falls Convention to discuss women’s rights. The convention was the first of its kind and produced the Declaration of Sentiments, which proclaimed the equality of men and women.

Question 51

Abolition

Answer 51

In the early 1830s, the anti-slavery movement shifted its goal from the gradual end of slavery to the immediate end or abolition of slavery.

Question 52

William Lloyd Garrison (1805 - 1879)

Answer 52

In 1831, he started the anti-slavery newspaper Liberator and helped start the New England Anti-Slavery Society. Two years later, he assisted Arthur and Lewis Tappan in the founding of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He and his followers believed that America had been thoroughly corrupted and needed a wide range of reforms. He embraced every major reform movement of the day: abolition, temperance, pacifism, and women’s rights. He wanted to go beyond just freeing slaves and grant them equal social and legal rights.

Question 53

Frederick Douglas (1818 - 1895)

Answer 53

He escaped from slavery and become an eloquent speaker and writer against slavery. In 1845, he published his autobiography entitled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and two years later he founded an abolitionist newspaper for blacks called the North Star.

Question 54

Underground Railroad

Answer 54

Operating in the decades before the Civil War, the “railroad’’ was a clandestine system of routes and safehouses through which slaves were led to freedom in the North.

Question 55

Harriet Tubman (1820 - 1913)

Answer 55

She was born a slave, but escaped to the North. Then she returned to the South nineteen times and guided 300 slaves to freedom.

Question 56

Sojourner Truth (1797 - 1883)

Answer 56

She was born into slavery, but New York State freed her in 1827. She spent the 1840s and 1850s travelling across the country and speaking to audiences about her experiences as slave and asking them to support abolition and women’s rights.

Question 57

Manifest Destiny

Answer 57

Imperialist phrase first used in 1845 to urge annexation of Texas; used thereafter to encourage American settlement of European colonial and Indian lands in the Great Plains and Far West.

Question 58

Oregon fever

Answer 58

Enthusiasm for emigration to the Oregon Country in the late 1830s and early 1840s.

Question 59

Franciscan Missions

Answer 59

In 1769, Franciscan missioners accompanied Spanish soldiers to California and over the next fifty years established a chain of missions from San Diego to San Francisco. At these missions, friars sought to convert Indians to Catholicism and make them members of the Spanish empire. The friars stripped the Indians of their native heritage and used soldiers to enforce their will.

Question 60

Overland (Oregon) Trails

Answer 60

Trail Route of wagon trains bearing settlers from Independence, Missouri, to the Oregon Country in the 1840s to 1860s.

Question 61

John C. Fremont 'the Pathfinder' (1813 - 1890)

Answer 61

He was an explorer and surveyor who helped inspire Americans living in California to rebel against the Mexican government and declare independence.

Question 62

Stephen F. Austin (1793 - 1836)

Answer 62

He established the first colony of Americans in Texas, which eventually attracted 2,000 people.

Question 63

Tejanos

Answer 63

Texas settlers of Spanish or Mexican descent.

Question 64

General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (1794 - 1876)

Answer 64

In 1834, he seized political power in Mexico and became a dictator. In 1835, Texans rebelled against him and he led his army to Texas to crush their rebellion. He captured the missionary called the Alamo and killed all of its defenders, which inspired Texans to continue to resistance and Americans to volunteer to fight for Texas. The Texans captured Santa Anna during a surprise attack and he bought his freedom by signing a treaty recognizing Texas’s independence.

Question 65

Alamo

Answer 65

Siege in the Texas War for Independence of 1836, in which the San Antonio mission fell to the Mexicans. Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie were among the courageous defenders.

Question 66

Sam Houston (1793 - 1863)

Answer 66

During Texas’s fight for independence from Mexico, Sam Houston was the commander in chief of the Texas forces, and he led the attack that captured General Antonio López de Santa Anna. After Texas gained its independence, he was name its first president.

Question 67

Lone Star Republic

Answer 67

After winning independence from Mexico, Texas became its own nation that was called the Lone Star Republic. In 1836, Texans drafted themselves a constitution, legalized slavery, banned free blacks, named Sam Houston president, and voted for the annexation to the United States. However, quarrels over adding a slave state and fears of instigating a war with Mexico delayed Texas’s entrance into the Union until December 29, 1845.

Question 68

James Knox Polk 'Young Hickory' (1795 - 1849)

Answer 68

As president, his chief concern was the expansion of the United States. In 1846, his administration resolved the dispute with Britain over the Oregon Country border. Shortly, after taking office, Mexico broke off relations with the United States over the annexation of Texas. Polk declared war on Mexico and sought to subvert Mexican authority in California. The United States defeated Mexico; and the two nations signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in which Mexico gave up any claims on Texas north of the Rio Grande River and ceded New Mexico and California to the United States.

Question 69

Winfield Scott (1786 - 1866)

Answer 69

During the Mexican War, he was the American general who captured Mexico City, which ended the war. Using his popularity from his military success, he ran as a Whig party candidate for President.

Question 70

Bear Flag Republic

Answer 70

On June 14, 1846, a group of Americans in California captured Sonoma from the Mexican army and declared it the Republic of California whose flag featured a grizzly bear. In July, the commodore of the U.S. Pacific Fleet landed troops on California’s shores and declared it part of the United States.

Question 71

Zachary Taylor (1784 - 1850)

Answer 71

During the Mexican War, he scored two quick victories against Mexico, which made him very popular in America. President Polk chose him as the commander in charge of the war. However, after he was not put in charge of the campaign to capture Mexico City, he chose to return home. Later he used his popularity from his military victories to be elected the president as a member of the Whig party.

Question 72

Wilmot Proviso

Answer 72

Proposal to prohibit slavery in any land acquired in the Mexican War, but southern senators, led by John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, defeated the measure in 1846 and 1847.

Question 73

Secession

Answer 73

Shortly after President Abraham Lincoln was elected, southern states began dissolving their ties with the United States because they believed Lincoln and the Republican party were a threat to slavery.

Question 74

Popular sovereignty

Answer 74

Allowed settlers in a disputed territory to decide the slavery issue for themselves.

Question 75

Free-Soil party

Answer 75

Formed in 1848 to oppose slavery in the territory acquired in the Mexican War; nominated Martin Van Buren for president in 1848, but by 1854, most of the party’s members had joined the Republican party.

Question 76

Compromise of 1850

Answer 76

Complex compromise mediated by Senator Henry Clay that headed off southern secession over California statehood; to appease the South it included a stronger fugitive slave law and delayed determination of the slave status of the New Mexico and Utah territories.

Question 77

Stephen A. Douglas (1812 - 1861)

Answer 77

As a senator from Illinois, he authored the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Once passed, the act led to violence in Kansas between pro- and antislavery factions and damaged the Whig party. These damages prevented Senator Douglas from being chosen as the presidential candidate of his party. Running for senatorial reelection in 1858, he engaged Abraham Lincoln in a series of public debates about slavery in the territories. Even though Douglas won the election, the debates gave Lincoln a national reputation.

Question 78

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Answer 78

Gave federal government authority in cases involving runaway slaves; so much more punitive and prejudiced in favor of slaveholders than the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act had been that Harriet Beecher Stowe was inspired to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin in protest; the new law was part of the Compromise of 1850, included to appease the South over the admission of California as a free state.

Question 79

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

Answer 79

Law sponsored by Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas to allow settlers in newly organized territories north of the Missouri border to decide the slavery issue for themselves; fury over the resulting nullification of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 led to violence in Kansas and to the formation of the Republican party.

Question 80

John Brown (1800 - 1859)

Answer 80

He was willing to use violence to further his antislavery beliefs. In 1856, a pro-slavery mob sacked the free-state town of Lawrence, Kansas. In response, John Brown went to the pro-slavery settlement of Pottawatomie, Kansas and hacked to death several people, which led to a guerrilla war in the Kansas territory. In 1859, he attempted to raid the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. He had hoped to use the stolen weapons to arm slaves, but he was captured and executed. His failed raid instilled panic throughout the South, and his execution turned him into a martyr for his cause.

Question 81

Pottawatomie Massacre

Answer 81

In retaliation for the “sack of Lawrence,” John Brown and his abolitionist cohorts hacked five men to death in the pro-slavery settlement of Pottawatomie, Kansas, on May 24, 1856, triggering a guerrilla war in the Kansas Territory that cost 200 settler lives.

Question 82

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

Answer 82

U.S. Supreme Court decision in which Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that slaves could not sue for freedom and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories, on the grounds that such a prohibition would violate the Fifth Amendment rights of slaveholders.

Question 83

Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)

Answer 83

His participation in the Lincoln-Douglas debates gave him a national reputation and he was nominated as the Republican party candidate for president in 1860. Shortly after he was elected president, southern states began succeeding from the Union and in April of 1861 he declared war on the succeeding states. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves. At the end of the war, he favored a reconstruction strategy for the former Confederate states that did not radically alter southern social and economic life. However, before his plans could be finalized, John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln at Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865.

Question 84

Lincoln-Douglas debates

Answer 84

Series of senatorial campaign debates in 1858 focusing on the issue of slavery in the territories; held in Illinois between Republican Abraham Lincoln, who made a national reputation for himself, and incumbent Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas, who managed to hold onto his seat.

Question 85

Freeport Doctrine

Answer 85

Senator Stephen Douglas’ method to reconcile the Dred Scott court ruling of 1857 with “popular sovereignty,” of which he was a champion. Douglas believed that so long as residents of a given territory had the right to pass and uphold local laws, any Supreme Court ruling on slavery would be unenforceable and irrelevant.

Question 86

Fort Sumter

Answer 86

First battle of the Civil War, in which the federal fort in Charleston (South Carolina) Harbor was captured by the Confederates on April 14, 1861, after two days of shelling.

Question 87

Jefferson Davis (1808 - 1889)

Answer 87

He was the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War. When the Confederacy’s defeat seemed invitable in early 1865, he refused to surrender. Union forces captured him in May of that year.

Question 88

Ulysses S. Grant (1822 - 1885)

Answer 88

After distinguishing himself in the western theater of the Civil War, he was appointed general in chief of the Union army in 1864. Afterward, he defeated General Robert E. Lee through a policy of aggressive attrition. He constantly attacked Lee’s army until it was grind down. Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9th, 1865 at the Appomattox Court House. In 1868, he was elected President and his tenure suffered from scandals and fiscal problems including the debate on whether or not greenbacks, paper money, should be removed from circulation.

Question 89

Bull Run

Answer 89

First land engagement of the Civil War took place on July 21, 1861, at Manassas Junction, Virginia, at which surprised Union troops quickly retreated; one year later, on August 29–30, Confederates captured the federal supply depot and forced Union troops back to Washington.

Question 90

Anaconda Strategy

Answer 90

Union General Winfield Scott developed this three-pronged strategy to defeat the Confederacy. Like a snake strangling its prey, the Union army would crush its enemy through exerting pressure on Richmond, blockading Confederate ports, and dividing the South by invading its major waterways.

Question 91

George B. McClellan (1826 - 1885)

Answer 91

In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him head of the Army of the Potomac and, later, general in chief of the U.S. Army. He built his army into well trained and powerful force. However, he often delayed taking action against the enemy even though Lincoln wanted him to attack. After failing to achieve a decisive victory against the Confederacy, Lincoln removed McClellan from command in 1862.

Question 92

Robert E. Lee (1807 - 1870)

Answer 92

Even though he had served in the United States Army for thirty years, he chose to fight on the side of the Confederacy and took command of the Army of North Virginia. Lee was excellent at using his field commanders; and his soldiers respected him. However, General Ulysses S. Grant eventually wore down his army, and Lee surrendered to Grant at the Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

Question 93

Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson (1824 - 1863)

Answer 93

He was a Confederate general who was known for his fearlessness in leading rapid marches, bold flanking movements, and furious assaults. He earned his nickname at the Battle of the First Bull Run for standing courageously against Union fire. During the battle of Chancellorsville, his own men accidently mortally wounded him.

Question 94

Emancipation Proclamation (1863)

Answer 94

President Abraham Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation on September 22, 1862, freeing the slaves in the Confederate states as of January 1, 1863, the date of the final proclamation.

Question 95

Thirteenth Amendment

Answer 95

This amendment to the U.S. Constitution freed all slaves in the United States. After the Civil War ended, the former confederate states were required to ratify this amendment before they could be readmitted to the Union.

Question 96

Radical Republicans

Answer 96

Senators and congressmen who, strictly identifying the Civil War with the abolitionist cause, sought swift emancipation of the slaves, punishment of the rebels, and tight controls over the former Confederate states after the war.

Question 97

Gettysburg

Answer 97

Fought in southern Pennsylvania, July 1–3, 1863; the Confederate defeat and the simultaneous loss at Vicksburg spelled the end of the South’s chances in the Civil War.

Question 98

William T. Sherman's 'March to the Sea'

Answer 98

Union General William T. Sherman believed that there was a connection between the South’s economy, morale, and ability to wage war. During his March through Georgia, he wanted to demoralize the civilian populace and destroy the resources they needed to fight. His army seized food and livestock that the Confederate Army might have used as well as wrecked railroads and mills and burned plantations.

Question 99

Freedman's Bureau

Answer 99

Reconstruction agency established in 1865 to protect the legal rights of former slaves and to assist with their education, jobs, health care, and landowning.

Question 100

John Wilkes Booth (1838 - 1865)

Answer 100

He assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at the Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865. He was pursued to Virginia and killed.

Question 101

Andrew Johnson (1808 - 1875)

Answer 101

As President Abraham Lincoln’s vice president, he was elevated to the presidency after Lincoln’s assassination. In order to restore the Union after the Civil War, he issued an amnesty proclamation and required former Confederate states to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. He fought Radical Republicans in Congress over whether he or Congress had the authority to restore states rights to the former Confederate states. This fight weakened both his political and public support. In 1868, the Radical Republicans attempted to impeach Johnson but fell short on the required number of votes needed to remove him from office.

Question 102

Black Codes

Answer 102

Laws passed in southern states to restrict the rights of former slaves; to combat the codes, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment and set up military governments in southern states that refused to ratify the amendment.

Question 103

Thaddeus Stevens (1792 - 1868)

Answer 103

As one of the leaders of the Radical Republicans, he argued that the former Confederate states should be viewed as conquered provinces, which were subject to the demands of the conquerors. He believed that all of southern society needed to be changed, and he supported the abolition of slavery and racial equality.

Question 104

Fourteenth Amendment (1868)

Answer 104

Guaranteed rights of citizenship to former slaves, in words similar to those of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

Question 105

Fifteenth Amendment

Answer 105

This amendment forbids states to deny any person the right to vote on grounds of “race, color or pervious condition of servitude.” Former Confederate states were required to ratify this amendment before they could be readmitted to the Union.

Question 106

Carpetbaggers

Answer 106

Northern emigrants who participated in the Republican governments of the reconstructed South.

Question 107

Scalawags

Answer 107

White southern Republicans—some former Unionists—who served in Reconstruction governments.

Question 108

Greenbacks

Answer 108

Paper money issued during the Civil War. After the war ended, a debate emerged on whether or not to remove the paper currency from circulation and revert back to hard-money currency (gold coins). Opponents of hard-money feared that eliminating the greenbacks would shrink the money supply, which would lower crop prices and make it more difficult to repay long-term debts. President Ulysses S. Grant, as well as hard-currency advocates, believed that gold coins were morally preferable to paper currency.

Question 109

Credit Mobilier scandal

Answer 109

Construction company guilt of massive overcharges for building the Union Pacific Railroad were exposed; high officials of the Ulysses S. Grant administration were implicated but never charged.

Question 110

Horace Greeley (1811 - 1872)

Answer 110

In reaction to Radical Reconstruction and corruption in President Ulysses S. Grant’s administration, a group of Republicans broke from the party to form the Liberal Republicans. In 1872, the Liberal Republicans chose Horace Greeley as their presidential candidate who ran on a platform of favoring civil service reform and condemning the Republican’s Reconstruction policy.