Civil War Study Guide

1. Lincoln describes the concept of freedom in America by going back to the origin or the
country and the document that founded it. He says that what the people have done here is
died for others freedom and that we will never forget what they have done. He redefined
freedom and made it so that freedom was fit for everybody.

2. The use of old war tactics in the Civil War seemed useless because of the newer technology.
There were massive amounts of people killed because of the combination of old tactics and
new weaponry.

3. The Emancipation Proclamation gave the Union another reason to fight besides defending the
Union; there were changes in the moral purpose of the war. The north now felt like they were
liberating others and fighting for their freedom as well.

4. The federal government increased it powers during the war by calling on more soldiers to
fight in the war. The government of the north also used grants and such to continue to build
railroads for the soldiers in the south in order to get food and equipment to them. Lincoln
also suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. Taxation was first introduced as well as
paper currency to help the Union in the war.

5. The innovative plan for the battle of Vicksburg included Grant’s decision to move his troops
to the south of the city where the terrain was better. He did this because many of the main
forces for Vicksburg and the Confederates were in the north. The siege lasted 6 weeks until
the town and men finally gave up.

6. The Whigs lost steam because they no longer had a common cause. They formed on the basis
that they all hated Jackson, but by the time of the war, they had died out because he was no
longer in politics. Many Whigs had different thoughts than those of the same political party
and disbanded because of their lack of similarity.

7. The northerner’s feeling changed after the War with Mexico because of the land they might
be able to acquire. California was admitted a free state which disrupted the balance of free to
slave states. The Missouri Compromise was thrown away because of the placement of
California and there was a new compromise put in its place: the Compromise of 1850. Along
with California being a free state, they also abolished slave trade in D.C. The downside for
the northerners was the fact that they had to help return slaves who ran away, something they
didn’t believe in. This led them to be against the south for one of many reasons.

8. The conflict in Kansas, including the Kansas-Nebraska Act and Bleeding Kansas,
foreshadowed the war because of what happened. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was the debate
over what the new territories would become either slave or free. They ended up letting the
residents choose through popular sovereignty. Nebraska was almost a free state from the start
because of how north it was of the Missouri Compromise, but that was destroyed when
Kansas had the ability to allow slavery. Bleeding Kansas was a reaction to what happened in
 Kansas. John Brown was an abolitionist who rallied up against those who wanted slavery in
Kansas and killed people because of what he believed in.

9. General Grant was named overall commander of the western Union troops during the civil
war because he used the numbers of his men to his advantage. He may have had more
causalities, but he helped ultimately win the victory for the Union. General McClellan, on the
other hand, always was cautious when fighting the other side and chose not to move his
troops into battle too quickly. He was eventually taken out and replaced by Burnside.

10. Northern whites that opposed slavery thought they were defending liberty because they
wanted all men to be equal and free. The north also wanted to preserve the Union. The south
on the other hand, thought they were defending liberty because they were protecting their
loved ones and their property.