1. The introduction to this chapter notes that civil wars, in retrospect, often seem senseless. If the American people had known in advance the terrible cost of its civil war, would it have been fought? Why did each side think it could win?
Homestead Act (1862) Federal law granting 160 acres of public land in the West to any settler who would farm and improve it within five years of the grant; it encouraged migration into the Great Plains, 389
Radical Republicans A faction within the Republican party, headed by Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin Wade, that insisted on black suffrage and federal protection of the civil rights of blacks. After 1867, the Radical Republicans achieved a working majority in Congress and passed legislation promoting Reconstruction, 378 Sanitary Commission A private and voluntary medical organization, founded in May 1861, that sought to improve the physical and mental wellbeing of Union soldiers during the Civil War, 391
2. Dwight D. Eisenhower, U. S. general during World War II and subsequently President, once declared that “every war is going to astonish you in the way it occurred and the way it is carried out.” What were the astonishing aspects of the Civil War?
3. How did Lincoln’s war aims evolve? What were the reasons for and consequences of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation?
4. What factors on the home front influenced the course of war?
5. The chart on page 393 summarizes the “turning points” during the Civil War. Which one was the most important?
6. How did the Civil War strengthen the American nation? Was the nation stronger after the war than before?
Myhistdrylab Connections ~
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World History
