Civil War Vocabulary and
Key Terms
Copy the vocabulary, terms, and definitions
on a piece of paper.
Secede
•to withdraw from or split
away from
•The South seceded from
the United States when
Lincoln was elected
president
•You will also see the word
secession; as in the
secession of the Southern
states
Fort Sumter
•Fort in South
Carolina where the
Civil War began
Confederacy
•What the states that
had seceded called
themselves
•aka Confederate
States of America
Union
•What the United
States was called
during the war.
•Union = North
•Confederacy =
South
Jefferson Davis
•Elected president
of the Confederacy
Robert E. Lee
•Main commander of
the Confederate army
Abraham Lincoln
•Elected president of the
United States in 1860. He was
president during the Civil
War.
Ulysses S. Grant
•The leading Union
general at the end of the
Civil War
Border States
•States between the North and the South Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland
Washington D.C.
•Capital of the
Union
Richmond, Virginia
•Capital of the Confederacy
King Cotton
•Cotton was the
most important
agricultural
product in the
South.
•The South made a
great deal of
money on
exporting cotton
Anaconda Plan
•Union plan to cut the South in half making
it difficult to supply the troops
•Named after a big snake
blockade
•an effort to cut off food, supplies, war
material or communications from a
particular area by force
•The Union tried to blockade the
Confederacy with the Anaconda Plan
Battle of Bull Run
•The first major
battle of the war
Battle of Antietam
•The first battle
fought in Union
territory.
•Bloodiest single day
of the war
Emancipation Proclamation
•Document signed by Lincoln freeing the slaves in
the Confederacy
Battle of Gettysburg
•The deadliest battle of
the war
•Fought on Union
territory
•Union victory is
turning point of the
war
Gettysburg Address
•Lincoln’s famous
speech given after the
Battle of Gettysburg