Causes of Conflict
What 1860 event triggered the first wave of Southern secession?
Answer: The election of Abraham Lincoln.
This was the first official battle of the Civil War.
Answer: Battle of Fort Sumter.
He was President of the Confederacy.
Answer: Jefferson Davis.
Name the Union’s plan to blockade the South and divide it by the Mississippi River.
Answer: The Anaconda Plan.
What amendment officially abolished slavery in the U.S.?
Answer: The 13th Amendment.
This doctrine allowed territories to vote on slavery and led to violence in Kansas.
Answer: Popular sovereignty.
This 1863 battle is considered the turning point of the war.
Answer: Battle of Gettysburg.
This enslaved man sued for freedom and lost, intensifying sectional conflict.
Answer: Dred Scott.
What major intelligence breakthrough helped the U.S. prepare for the Battle of Midway?
Answer: Breaking of the JN-25 Japanese naval code. (Fun bonus crossover with WWII knowledge.)
What was sharecropping, and how did it limit economic freedom for freedmen?
Answer: A farming system that kept Black families in debt and dependency.
Name two economic differences between the North and South that caused tension.
Industrial vs. agricultural economies; wage labour vs. slave labour.
This campaign by Sherman devastated the South and exemplified “total war.”
Answer: Sherman’s March to the Sea.
Name the African American abolitionist who advised Lincoln and fought for Black enlistment in the Union Army.
Answer: Frederick Douglass.
Define “total war” and provide one example.
Answer: Warfare targeting all resources of the enemy; e.g., Sherman’s March.
Give one example of a political restriction imposed on African Americans after the Civil War.
Answer: Poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, or gerrymandering.