THE CIVIL WAR
Questions/Thinking Points

Terms

The Adder's Den or Secrets of the Great Conspiracy to Overthrow Liberty in America
The Compromise of 1850
Stephen Douglas
Fugitive Slave Law
Know Nothing Party
Kansas-Nebraska Act
"Bleeding Kansas"
Sack of Lawrence
Charles Sumner
John Brown
Pottawatomie Creek
Election of 1856
Republican Party
James Buchanan
Dred Scott case
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Abraham Lincoln
Harper's Ferry
Election of 1860
Secession
Confederate States of America (CSA)
Jefferson Davis
Crittenden Compromise
Ft. Sumter
Anaconda Strategy
Confisication Act

Ulysses S. Grant
The Battle of Shiloh

Captain David Farragut
General George B. McClellan
Peninsular Campaign
The Seven Days' Battles
Robert E. Lee
The Homestead Act
The Morrill Act
The Legal Tender Act
The National Banking Act
New York City Draft Riots
54th Massachusetts Regiment
Battle of Chancellorsville
Stonewall Jackson
Gettysburg
Vicksburg
Thirteenth Amendment
Total War
Election of 1864
Andrew Johnson
Sherman's March Through Georgia
10 Percent Plan
Wade-Davis Bill
Grant's Wilderness Campaign
Appamatox
John Wilkes Booth


1.  What theories did John Smith Dye make in his book?
2.  What question dominated American politics in the 1850s?
3.  Why were the South's political leaders so worried about whether slavery would be permitted in the West when geography and climate made it unlikely that slavery would ever prosper in the area?

4.  What was Henry Clay's proposal to solve the crisis of 1850?  What was the response to it?  What events helped make Clay's compromise a reality?
5.  What factors contributed to the rise of the Know Nothing Party?
6.  How did the Kansas-Nebraska Act "kill" the Second Party System?
7.  How did popular sovereignty invite civil war in Kansas?
8.  What did the Supreme Court rule in the Dred Scott case?  What effect did this have on the growing sectional crisis?
9.  How did Lincoln and Douglas present two radically sharply contrasting views of slavery in their debates?
10.  How did John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry further divide the country?
11.  Why did compromise fail in 1861?
12.  What were the prospects for a Northern or Southern victory in 1861?
13.  Why was the Civil War so lethal?
14.  What factors often determined where battles occured?
15.  What was the North fighting for in 1861?
16.  How did the presence of slave states within the Union affect Northern actions early in the war?
17.  What was McClellan's strategy during the Peninsular Campaign?
18.  How did the South follow the lessons of history in its bid for independence?
19.  How did Antietam lead to the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation?
20.  How had Northern opinion towards emancipation changed by 1862, and why?
21.  Why was the Civil War called the Second American Revolution?
22.  What issues divided the South as the war dragged on?
23.  How did blacks fare serving in the Union army?
24.  How did Sherman's success in battle help Lincoln win reelection in 1864?
25.  What was at stake in the Election of 1864?
26.  What conflicts emerged over how to reintegrate the South into the Union?




This page last updated 9 November 2007

© Kahne Parsons 2007-08