| Abraham Lincoln |
the 16th President of the United States (1861-1865), who was Commander-in-Chief of the Union troops during the American Civil War and who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, thus bringing an end to slavery in the United States (b.1809--d.1865). |
| antebellum |
in or of the period prior to a war, esp. the American Civil War. (Cf. postbellum.) |
| bluecoat |
one who wears a blue coat or uniform, esp. a police officer or a Union soldier in the U.S. Civil War. |
| carpetbagger |
a Northerner who went to the South to seek private gain in the aftermath of the American Civil War, usu. depicted as carrying his belongings in a carpetbag. [1/2 definitions] |
| confederate |
(cap.) a person or state allied with the Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War. [1/6 definitions] |
| contraband |
during the American Civil War, a slave under the Confederacy who fled to or was taken into territory occupied by Union forces. Such fugitive slaves were, in a sense, free, in that they were not returned by the Union to Confederate slave owners. Instead, however, they were declared captured enemy war materials, or "contraband of war." Thousands of contrabands worked as paid, though exploited, laborers for the Union. [1/5 definitions] |
| copperhead |
(cap.) during the U.S. Civil War, a Northerner who sympathized with the South. [1/2 definitions] |
| Dixie |
the southern states of the United States, esp. those forming the Confederacy during the Civil War. [1/2 definitions] |
| Emancipation Proclamation |
the declaration first introduced in 1862 by President Lincoln that freed all the slaves from Confederate states that were not yet under Union control during the United States Civil War. |
| Frederick Douglass |
U.S. abolitionist and orator, who served as an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War (b. 1818--d. 1895). |
| Gilded Age |
in U.S. history, the post-Civil War era, characterized by rapid industrialization, economic expansion, and widespread corruption in business and government. |
| Grand Army of the Republic |
an organization founded in 1866 by men who had served in the Union Army or Navy during the U.S. Civil War. |
| grandfather clause |
a former law in certain southern U.S. states that exempted white voters from the literacy requirement if their ancestors voted prior to the Civil War, and that thus enlarged the white voting population, relative to the black. [1/2 definitions] |
| Harriet Tubman |
American abolitionist who escaped slavery yet returned to the South to rescue others, making use of the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War, Tubman acted as a scout and spy for the Union Army. After the war, she became an activist for the rights of women. (b. 1822?--d. 1913). |
| Jayhawker |
(l.c.) an anti-slavery guerrilla in Kansas or Missouri during the U.S. Civil War. [1/2 definitions] |
| Ku Klux Klan |
a secret society organized and active in the southern United States after the Civil War, which sought to regain white supremacy over newly freed blacks. [1/2 definitions] |
| loyalist |
(cap.) someone who supported the British during the American Revolution, or the Republican government during the Spanish Civil War. [1/2 definitions] |
| manhood suffrage |
within a nation, the right of all adult men to vote regardless of their status. In the United States in the nineteenth century, the movement within individual states toward manhood suffrage sought to guarantee that poor and propertyless white men would not be denied the vote. This movement succeeded in its particular aims but did nothing to ensure the right to vote for non-whites. Although the Fifteenth Amendment was passed after the Civil War to prevent states from denying the right to vote to anyone based on race, manhood suffrage continued to be denied to non-white adult males in many states. |
| nightrider |
a member of a band of mounted, often masked men who committed acts of violence and intimidation, esp. in the southern United States after the Civil War. |
| postbellum |
occurring in, pertaining to, or characteristic of a period following a war, esp. the American Civil War. (Cf. antebellum.) |
| reconstruction |
(cap.) in U.S. history, the period immediately following the Civil War. [1/2 definitions] |