Chapter 20 Terms and Definitions
- Confederate States of America
The government formed by seceding southern states in February 1861, with Jefferson Davis as president, dedicated to protecting slavery and states' rights.
- Jefferson Davis
President of the Confederate States of America throughout the Civil War.
- Fort Sumter
The federal fort in Charleston Harbor whose bombardment by Confederate forces on April 12, 1861, began the Civil War.
- Border States
Slave states — Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri — that remained in the Union, giving it a crucial strategic advantage.
- King Cotton Diplomacy
The South's failed strategy of using its cotton exports to pressure Britain and France into supporting the Confederacy.
- Anaconda Plan
General Winfield Scott's Union strategy to blockade southern ports and split the Confederacy along the Mississippi River, slowly strangling it.
- First Battle of Bull Run
The July 1861 battle near Manassas, Virginia, in which Confederate forces routed the Union army, ending hopes for a short war.
- Total War
A style of warfare targeting an enemy's economic and civilian resources, not just its armies, which increasingly characterized the Civil War.
- Copperheads
Northern Democrats who opposed the Civil War and favored a negotiated peace with the Confederacy.
- Conscription
Mandatory military service (the draft), adopted by both the Confederacy (1862) and the Union (1863) as the war dragged on.