History Guide: American Civil War

Americans descended from African forebears, usually those enslaved and brought to the USA before the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.

Lee, Robert Edward, 1807-70, general in chief of the Confederate armies in the American Civil War, b. Jan. 19, 1807, at Stratford, Westmoreland co., Va.; son of Henry ("Light-Horse Harry") Lee.

Abraham Lincoln (the “Great Emancipator”) was the sixteenth president of the United States. Born in a log cabin on the Kentucky frontier, near Hodgenville, on February 12, 1809, Lincoln has been a prominent icon since his assassination in 1865

Though best known for founding and leading the American Red Cross in the late nineteenth century, Clara Barton contributed all of her energies to helping the Union soldiers during the Civil War—from the arrival of the first soldiers in Washington, DC, in April 1861, through the war's aftermath and the grim task of identifying the unknown war dead.

American statesman, President of the Southern Confederacy.

US educator and social critic; Du Bois was one of the early leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the editor of its journal Crisis 1909-32.

US millionaire industrialist and philanthropist; He was the founder of Standard Oil in 1870, from which were descended four of the world's largest oil companies - Amoco, Chevron, Exxon, and Mobil.

1820–91, Union general in the American Civil War; Sherman is said by many to be the greatest of the Civil War generals.

US antislavery and women's-suffrage campaigner; A former slave, she ran away and became involved with religious groups.

US abolitionist; Born a slave in Maryland, she escaped to Philadelphia (where slavery was outlawed) in 1849. She helped set up the Underground Railroad.

From Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History
Between February 1864 and May 1865, 45,613 United States prisoners were held at Andersonville, and nearly 13,000 men died there.

Fortification, built 1829–60, on a shoal at the entrance to the harbor of Charleston, S.C., and named for Gen. Thomas Sumter; scene of the opening engagement of the Civil War.

Important series of battles in the American Civil War in Georgia (May-September 1864).

The first battle of Bull Run (or first battle of Manassas) was the first major engagement of the Civil War.

Manassas Junction, Virginia, was the magnet that attracted the armies of North and South to the banks of Bull Run in July 1861. There two railroads, the Manassas Gap and the Orange & Alexandria, connected thirty miles southwest of Washington, D.C.

Following the end of the Peninsula campaign, General Robert E. Lee sent Stonewall Jackson north with 24,000 men to watch the new Federal Army of Virginia, led by Major General John Pope.

The Union Conscription Act of Mar. 3, 1863, provided that all able-bodied males between the ages of 20 and 45 were liable to military service.

Site of one of the decisive battles of the American Civil War: a Confederate defeat by Union forces 1-3 July 1863.

In the American Civil War, a series of engagements (May–June, 1864) fought in the Wilderness region of Virginia. Early in May, 1864, the Northern commander in chief, Grant, led the Army of the Potomac (118,000 strong) across the Rapidan River into the Wilderness, a wild and tangled woodland c.10 mi (16 km) W of Fredericksburg.

During the American Civil War, successful Confederate campaign June-July 1862 to drive back Union forces threatening Richmond, Virginia.

Incident in the diplomatic relations between the United States and Great Britain, which occurred during the American Civil War.

Argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1856–57; It involved the then bitterly contested issue of the status of slavery in the federal territories.

US Supreme Court decision of 1857 which denied ‘blacks’ (African Americans) US citizenship and made slavery legal in all US territories.

Speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln on Nov. 19, 1863, at the dedication of the national cemetery on the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg, Pa.; It is one of the most famous and most quoted of modern speeches.

The first Ku Klux Klan was an organization that thrived in the South during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War.

1865–77, in U.S. history, the period of readjustment following the Civil War.

Term used by Americans generally in reference to a native of New England and by non-Americans, especially the British, in reference to an American of any section.