Civil War Causes and Effects Flashcards

Grade 5 · Social Studies · Flashcards

Key terms, people, and concepts related to the causes and effects of the American Civil War.

Flashcards

Sectionalism

Loyalty to the interests of one's own region or section of the country rather than the nation as a whole — a key cause of the Civil War.

Slavery

The practice of owning people as property and forcing them to work without pay; the primary cause of the Civil War.

Secession

Formally withdrawing from a political union; eleven Southern states seceded from the United States in 1860–1861.

Confederate States of America

The government formed by eleven Southern states that seceded from the Union in 1861.

Union

The Northern states that stayed loyal to the U.S. government and fought to preserve the nation during the Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln

16th U.S. President who led the Union during the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Jefferson Davis

President of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.

Emancipation Proclamation

President Lincoln's executive order of January 1, 1863, declaring enslaved people in Confederate states to be free.

13th Amendment

Ratified in 1865, this constitutional amendment permanently abolished slavery throughout the United States.

Reconstruction

The period from 1865–1877 when the U.S. government worked to rebuild the South and extend rights to formerly enslaved people.

Battle of Gettysburg

A major Civil War battle in Pennsylvania (July 1–3, 1863) considered the turning point of the war in favor of the Union.

Fort Sumter

A Union fort in South Carolina where Confederate forces fired the first shots of the Civil War in April 1861.

Appomattox Court House

The Virginia location where Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865, effectively ending the Civil War.

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