The Civil War
Objective for Today
- Students will demonstrate their understanding of the causes and major points of the Civil War.
Agenda for Today
- Bellringer: You will spend 10 minutes studying with your partner for today's test over the Civil War.
- You will take a test over the Civil War. [SEE BELOW FOR STUDY GUIDE]
- We will grade the tests in class and discuss the Civil War.
Objective for Today
- Learners will demonstrate their understanding of the core reading skills learned so far this year.
Agenda for Today
- You will come in and finish working on the Readers Workshop.
- Mr. D will be conducting BRIs on some individual students.
Causes of the Civil War Study Guide
Overview
Two years before Abraham Lincoln became president, he delivered his “House Divided” speech, reflecting on America’s tremendous regional division over the issue of slavery. Combined with other social and economic differences and political jealousies, both sides were losing their ability to compromise, with the future of the Union at stake.
Starting in the early 1800s, a booming manufacturing economy supported by a complex web of railroads and canals transformed the north. In the south, most whites were poor farmers, but there were many big plantation owners who used the labor of enslaved Africans to dominate the region known as the Cotton Belt. Two very distinct cultures developed with very different views on slavery, the Constitution and the future of the rapidly growing nation.
Many Africans resisted their status as slaves and their brutal treatment eventually sparked protests by northern abolitionists. In the eyes of southerners, abolitionists were fanatics who completely misrepresented the southern lifestyle. While Congress enacted compromise legislation attempting to maintain the balance between slave states and free states, disagreements simmered and threatened to tear the country apart.
The Fugitive Slave Law and the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case were fateful decisions that brought the country to the breaking point. Soon after Lincoln, a northern Republican, won the 1860 presidential election, South Carolina and ten other southern states left the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. Within the year, the north and south were at war.
Time Line
1793 — Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin.
1817 — Construction of the Erie Canal begins.
1820 — The Missouri Compromise is reached.
1829 — David Walker’s Appeal calling for slave rebellion is published.
1831 — Nat Turner’s revolt occurs in Virginia.
1832 — William Lloyd Garrison starts the New England Anti-Slavery Society.
1845 — Texas is admitted as a slave state.
1850 — The Compromise of 1850 is reached.
1852 — Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published.
1854 — The Kansas-Nebraska Act is passed.
1854 — The anti-slavery Republican Party is founded.
1857 — The Dred Scott decision is made.
1858 — The Lincoln-Douglass Debates take place.
1859 — Anti-slavery crusader John Brown conducts a raid on Harper’s Ferry.
1860 — Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States.
1860 — South Carolina secedes from the Union.
1861 — The Confederate States of America is formed.
1861 — Confederate forces fire the first shots on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
Vocabulary Terms
Confederate States of America — A group of eleven southern states that left the Union and formed their own country.
The Civil War — A major war in the United States between 1861 and 1865 in which northern states battled southern states that were attempting to leave the Union.
Erie Canal — An artificial waterway, completed in 1825, that serves as an important northern transportation route linking Lake Erie to the Hudson River.
The American System of Manufacturing — A type of business production characterized by the use of interchangeable parts and the factory system that was popularized in America in the early 19th century.
market economy — An economic system in which there is a free exchange of goods by individuals and corporations.
cash crop — An agricultural product that is produced and sold by farmers in large quantities.
cotton gin — A machine invented by Eli Whitney that separates the seeds and shells from cotton bolls. Its invention resulted in a dramatic rise in the harvesting of southern cotton in the 19th century. The success of the cotton gin also resulted in the further entrenchment of slavery in the south.
Cotton Belt — The name given to the area of the American south where cotton was the main cash crop and the foundation of the economy.
Nat Turner’s revolt — An 1831 slave insurrection led by Nat Turner that was unsuccessful but dispelled the myth that enslaved Africans were content with their condition.
New England Anti-Slavery Society — A northern abolitionist group that William Lloyd Garrison helped found in 1832.
abolitionists — Anti-slavery reformers who campaigned to emancipate the slaves and to end slavery.
Underground Railroad — A secret network of stations maintained by people who were against slavery to help fugitive slaves escape to the north and Canada.
The Missouri Compromise — An 1820 agreement reached between the north and the south that tried to maintain the balance between free and slave states in America. As part of the compromise, Missouri was admitted as a slave state, while Maine was admitted as a free state.
Fugitive Slave Law— A law passed by Congress as part of the Compromise of 1850 that made it illegal for citizens to protect runaway slaves.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin — A best-selling book written in 1852 by abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe that informed and influenced many Americans on the issue of slavery.
Kansas-Nebraska Act — A controversial law passed by Congress that permitted the residents of Kansas and Nebraska to decide whether slavery would or would not be permitted in their states.
Dred Scott v. Sandford — A critical 1857 Supreme Court decision that further inflamed hostilities between the north and the south regarding slavery. As part of its ruling, the Court stated that Scott, an African American, was not a citizen and did not have the right to sue for his freedom.
The Civil War Study Guide
Overview
The Civil War began on April 12, 1861 with the first shots fired by Confederate troops on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The attack followed decades of regional unrest over slavery, states’ rights, social values and western expansion. Shortly after President Lincoln was elected 1860, some southern states seceded from the Union, elected their own president (Jefferson Davis) and wrote their own constitution — the United States essentially became two countries. President Lincoln’s primary goal was to restore the Union. While both sides believed the war would end quickly, it evolved into a long and bloody conflict in which more than 600,000 men died.
Both sides had their advantages: the North had a much larger population and a more developed industrial base and transportation network, while the South was fighting for their homeland and way of life. Slavery was a main issue in the conflict, with the future of millions of enslaved Africans and America’s experiment in democracy at stake. President Lincoln’s war plan evolved into a battle not just to save the Union, but also to establish a nation where all people would be free.
After some key victories early on, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s forces were defeated at Gettysburg in 1863, the deadliest battle ever fought in North America. The Union victory changed the course of the war. In 1864 Union General Ulysses S. Grant moved his army southward, inflicting heavy casualties, and General William Tecumseh Sherman tore his way through the South, capturing and burning the city of Atlanta. By early 1865, the last Confederate strongholds began to fall, and on April 9, 1865 Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Virginia. Shortly afterwards, President Lincoln was assassinated by southern sympathizer, John Wilkes Booth.
After four years of fighting, the Civil War was finally over, marking a major turning point in United States history. The American South was devastated, its economy shattered, its towns and cities in ruins. Major questions remained about readmitting the southern states to the Union — and about how to ensure liberty to over three million African Americans freed from slavery.
Time Line
1861 — The Civil War begins with a Confederate attack on Fort Sumter.
1861 — The First Battle of Bull Run is fought.
1862 — The Battle of Antietam Creek is waged.
1863 — The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect.
1863 — Many people are killed in the New York City Draft Riots.
1863 — The Battle of Gettysburg takes place.
1863 — The city of Vicksburg is taken by Union troops.
1863 — President Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg Address.
1864 — Many Cheyenne are killed in a massacre in Sand Creek, Colorado.
1864 — General Sherman captures and burns Atlanta.
1864 — President Lincoln is reelected.
1865 — General Robert E. Lee surrenders to General Grant
1865 — President Lincoln is assassinated.
1865 — The 13th Amendment ending slavery is ratified.
Vocabulary
The Civil War — A major war in the United States between 1861 and 1865 in which northern states battled southern states that were attempting to leave the Union.
Fort Sumter — A fort in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina that Confederate forces bombed in 1861 in the first battle of the Civil War.
First Battle of Bull Run — The first major battle of the Civil War, in which Confederate troops defeated Union troops in 1861.A second Battle of Bull Run was fought in 1862.
railroad artillery — A type of mobile weaponry that was mounted on rail cars and was first used during the Civil War.
Spencer repeating carbine — A type of deadly repeating rifle first used during the Civil War.
Emancipation Proclamation — An executive order by President Lincoln that slaves in the states that had left the Union were to be considered forever free.
border states — States located between North and South with internal divisions over the issue of slavery: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri.
Port Royal Experiment — A program sponsored by philanthropic northerners that sought to prepare freed slaves to be part of American society.
Bread Riots — Violent actions by mobs of people in the South to protest the shortage or high price of bread during the Civil War.
Draft Riots — Nationwide violent actions, most notably in New York in 1863, to protest the drafting of men into the armed forces.
Gettysburg — A location in Pennsylvania where the Union won a major victory over the Confederacy in the Civil War. After the battle, President Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address.
Sand Creek massacre — An 1864 attack by Union forces that killed approximately two hundred Cheyenne living on a remote reservation in Colorado.
Wilderness campaign — The first Civil War confrontation between Generals U.S. Grant and Robert E. Lee; the battle took place in Virginia in May 1864.
total war — Warfare in modern times that involves entire populations and that regards all of the people and all of the territory of an enemy as subject to attack.
Appomattox — A location in Virginia where Confederate forces led by Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union forces on April 9, 1865.
Ford’s Theater — The Washington, D.C. playhouse where President Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865.
industrialization — The changeover from hand labor to the use of machinery and the factory system for the manufacture of goods.
