| 13 Colonies | Each
group of colonies had its unique aspects in many areas, from
architecture to economics. They all had a common goal: to
govern themselves and to have a say in how they were
represented. |
| Abolitionists | People who were part of the movement (sometimes violent) to eradicate slavery. Prominent abolitionists included William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Horace Greeley, and John Brown. |
| John Adams | Second
president of the United States, serving one term. He was
also vice-president for two terms under George Washington.
Adams was a leader of the American Revolution (along with
his cousin Samuel) and of the new Federalist Party, along
with Alexander Hamilton. His politics brought him into
conflict with his vice-president, Thomas Jefferson, who was
a leader of the new Democratic-Republican Party. Adams's
presidency was filled with foreign difficulties, including
the XYZ Affair, which almost led to war with France. His
son, John Quincy Adams, also served as president. |
| John Quincy Adams | Sixth
president, elected in 1824 by the House of Representatives
after no candidate received a majority of Electoral votes.
Was selected after another candidate, Henry Clay, agreed to
give his support to Adams. Clay then served as Adams's
Secretary of State. Adams had been foreign representative to
many European countries, then served as Secretary of State
under President James Monroe. Adams arranged for the
transfer of Florida from Spain to the U.S., and he was
instrumental in the forming of the Monroe Doctrine. |
| Samuel Adams | Signer of the
Declaration of Independence who was also a former governor
of Massachusetts and a ringleader of the American
Revolution, along with his cousin, John. When trouble was to
be made, Samuel Adams was there. He was a constant opponent
of British oppression, and he was an instigator in many
protests, including the Boston Tea Party. |
| Alamo | San
Antonio-area fort hat was overrun by Mexican forces on March
6, 1836. The Mexican army under General Santa Anna killed
every one of the 189 American defenders, including Davy
Crockett and Jim Bowie. The defeat at the Alamo became a
rallying cry for Americans when the Mexican War began a
decade later. |
| Alien and Sedition Acts | Four laws of
Congress that restricted the rights of groups of people. The
Naturalization Act increased from 5 to 14 the number of
years a non-American had to be living in America before he
or she could become an American citizen. The Alien Act
allowed the President to force non-Americans he thought
dangerous to leave the country. The Alien Deportation Act
allowed for the arrest and deportation of any non-American
during wartime. The Sedition Act made it a crime to do "any
false, scandalous and malicious writing." This resulted in
the jailing of 25 newspaper editors, most of them
Democratic-Republicans. This was during the presidency of
John Adams, a Federalist. The response to these acts was
marked. Kentucky and Virginia passed resolutions opposing
these acts. |
| American Revolution | The securing
of independence from Great Britain by the people of the 13
Colonies. Calling themselves the United States of America,
these people wrote a Declaration of Independence, defied the
authority of their mother country, and ended up winning a
war to protect that independence. The Revolution certainly
ended with the victory in the Revolutionary War; however, the
Revolution began long before that, maybe even with the
settlement in America (far away from England) of people who
wanted to govern themselves and who wanted to have a direct
say in the way they were governed. |
| American System | Idea that the
federal government should take an active role in promoting
and protecting the national economy. Three of the main ways
of doing this at that time were promoting a vast network of
internal transportation (roads, railroads, and canals), a
large protective tariff (a tax on goods imported from other
countries), and a central currency and economic strategy run
by the Bank of the United States, a federal bank. Henry Clay
was a champion of the American System. |
| Jeffery Amherst | Led the
British victory at Louisbourg, which earned him the position
of overall commander of British forces in North America. He
captured Fort Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga and directed
the capture of Montreal and the end of the war. It is said
that one of his favorite tactics was to give disease-ridden
blankets to prisoners of war. |
| Anaconda Plan | U.S. General-in-Chief Winfield Scott's plan to defeat the Confederacy: blockade the southern and eastern coasts, seize control of the Mississippi River so as to break the Confederacy in two, and then strike from all sides at once. When Scott and President Abraham Lincoln released the details of this plan, journalists and others scoffed at its lengthy development time. However, events of the Civil War proved Scott's plan sound. |
| Robert Anderson | Union Commander of Fort Sumter, who surrendered the fort to Confederate troops under General Pierre G.T. Beauregard on April 12, 1861. |
| Susan B. Anthony | Leader of the
movement to grant American women the right to vote, along
with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Anthony was
instrumental in bringing together men and women for a
national convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. The
result was a sort of "improved" Declaration of Independence,
which included the phrase "all men and women are created
equal." She also spoke out against slavery and worked for
the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. Together with
Mott, Stanton, and Stone, she helped form the American Equal
Rights Association after the Civil War. |
| Antietam | Creek that was the site of the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day of the Civil War. More than 23,000 men lost their lives on Sept. 17. General George McClellan had moved to intercept a Southern advance into Maryland. After being shown a copy of General Lee's to his commanders, McClellan, who was north, moved to intercept. His move was not quick enough to catch Lee by himself, though. Stonewall Jackson, recently returned from a victory at Harpers Ferry, joined Lee for the savage battle outside the town of Sharpsburg. Tactically, the battle was a draw. But the result was a Southern retreat, which gave not only the appearance of a Union in command but the opportunity for Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. |
| Appomattox Court House | Virginia site of the
surrender that ended the Civil War. Robert E. Lee surrendered his
forces to Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865 at the home of Wilmer
McLean. |
| Army of the Potomac | Main eastern Union army, commanded by a series of commanders, including Irvin McDowell, George McClellan, Ambrose Burnside, Joseph Hooker, George Gordon Meade, and Ulysses S. Grant. Charged with protecting the nation's capitol, Washington, the Army of the Potomac was also tasked with shutting down the Confederate eastern army under Robert E. Lee. |
| Benedict Arnold | Brilliant general who won several battles against the British and then joined them. He won at Lake Champlain and helped Ethan Allen take Fort Ticonderoga. He played a major part in the American victory at Saratoga. Yet, he joined the British and tried to help them win the war. He had planned to deliver his own keys to West Point, site of the U.S. army, to Britain's Major John Andre. Andre was captured and hanged. Arnold escaped and actually commanded British troops later in the war. He died in Britain, unrecognized and alone. |
| Articles of Confederation | Document
detailing form of government taken after the Revolutionary
War. The focus was on state governments, which had
tremendous power. This form of government proved unequal to
the task of governing the 13 Colonies, mainly because 9 of
the 13 states had to agree to get anything done. The result
was the Constitutional Convention. |
| Atlanta | Major industrial
center of the South burned by William T. Sherman, who then began his
"March to the Sea," carving a 60-mile-wide path of destruction on his
way to Savannah. |
| Stephen F. Austin | Called the
"Father of Texas" because he brought more than 1,200
families to Texas before it was an American state. He later
urged these people to revolt against Mexican rule and served
as secretary of state of the Republic of Texas. |
| Battle of Baltimore | Historic American victory that produced America's national anthem. On September 12, 1814, British troops landed near Baltimore, fresh from their victory at Washington and the burning of the White House and other government buildings. Baltimore was better prepared than Washington had been, and the British bombardment of American positions, including Fort McHenry, did not result in an American surrender. Convinced that they didn't have the troops to take Baltimore, the British retreated. It was the last official battle of the war. |
| Bank of the United States | Name of the first and second federal banks in American history. The brainchild of Alexander Hamilton, the Bank of the U.S. was set up to handle the monetary affairs of the federal government. |
| Barbary Pirates | Group of fighters who attacked American ships along the Barbary Coast of northern Africa at in the first few years of the 19th Century. They were members of a handful of African states who at first signed treaties with the United States in which they promised to stop attacking American ships. However, they broke those treaties. The U.S. fought back with force. Both the Navy and the Marines won big victories, including one at Tripoli in 1805. |
| Baron von Steuben | Prussian soldier who knew a great deal about warfare and soldier training. He helped drill the American troops at Valley Forge during the terrible winter there. His two assistants in this matter were Alexander Hamilton, General George Washington's personal aide, and General Nathanael Greene. The soldiers emerged better trained and more capable of acting as an army, not just a collection of militiamen. In addition to instructing the soldiers in fighting, von Steuben also taught them better camp sanitation. |
| Clara Barton | Nurse who carried
supplies to soldiers and also nursed injured soldiers during the
Civil War. In 1864, she was appointed superintendent of nurses for
the Army of the James. She is best known for establishing the
American branch of the Red Cross, in 1881. |
| Pierre Beauregard | Confederate General and Mexican War who began the war by seizing Fort Sumter, won the First Battle of Bull Run, lost to Grant at Shihoh, directed the successful defense of Petersburg for 10 months, and ended up with Joseph Johnston's army in the Carolinas, where it surrendered. |
| Henry Ward Beecher | preacher who made a name also as a leader of the abolitionist movement. He advocated violence as a means to achieve abolition. In this respect, guns wielded by abolitionists were sometimes called "Beecher's Bibles." His daughter, Harriet Beecher, became famous for writing Uncle Tom's Cabin. |
| John Bell | Long-time political leader from Tennessee. He served in the House from 1827 to 1841, including being Speaker in 1834-1835. He was picked as Secretary of War by William Henry Harrison and survived as successor John Tyler's Secretary of War for a few months. Bell then served in the Senate from 1847 to 1859. A lifelong Democrat, he switched to the Whig Party in 1835. He was the 1860 presidential candidate of the Constitutional Union Party, which existed for a short time in the 1860s. Bell finished a distant last in the popular vote but earned more electoral votes than Stephen A. Douglas. |
| Bill of Rights | The first 10 Amendments to the United States Constitution. |
| Daniel Boone | Explorer known for his trailblazing through what was then the American West. He went with British General Edward Braddock to Fort Duquesne in 1755. He helped make the Wilderness Road, a major road through the Kentucky territory, and named several towns after himself: Boonesborough. He later served in the Kentucky Legislature. |
| John Wilkes Booth | Southern sympathizer who killed Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 as the president and Mrs. Lincoln sat watching a production of the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Wilkes was tracked down and killed a few days later. His act was part of a larger plot, but no other officials were killed. |
| Boston Massacre | Shooting of
five American colonists by British troops on March 5, 1770.
One person, an African-American man named Crispus Attacks,
was killed. Nearly every part of the story is disputed by
both sides. Did the colonists have weapons? The British say
rocks and other such weapons were hurled at them. But the
British had guns, and they did open fire. The Boston
Massacre deepened American distrust of the British military
presence in the colonies. |
| Boston Post Road | Mail route that ran from Boston to New York. The original Boston Post Road, later called the Upper Road, went into use in 1673. Two other mail routes were known as the Middle and Lower roads. You can see remnants of the Lower Road in the path of the modern Highway 1. |
| Boston Tea Party | Angry and frustrated at a new tax on tea, American colonists calling themselves the Sons of Liberty and disguised as Mohawk Native Americans boarded three British ships (the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver) and dumped 342 whole crates of British tea into Boston harbor on December 16, 1773. Similar incidents occurred in Maryland, New York, and New Jersey in the next few months, and tea was eventually boycotted throughout the colonies. |
| Jim Bowie | Kentucky
adventurer who made a name for himself and his "Bowie
knives." He was known as a rough-and-tumble guy, but he also
was friendly to Native Americans. He believed passionately
in the independence of Texas and fought for it hard. He was
at the Alamo on the day all the Americans died, sick in his
bed with pneumonia. |
| Edward Braddock | British
general who lost an intense battle at Fort Duquesne. He was
the British commander in America for a time, and one of his
officers was a young George Washington. Braddock ordered a
march through the wilderness to a heavily fortified Fort
Duquesne. He paid for it with his life. Out of the 1,400
British soldiers who were in involved in the battle, 900 of
them died. One of them was Braddock. Washington organized
the retreat to Fort Necessity, where the British awaited the
inevitable French follow-up. |
| William Bradford | One of the
original leaders of the Plymouth Colony, founded by the
Pilgrims in New England in 1620. He was elected governor of
the colony in 1621 and re-elected 30 times. He coined the
term "Pilgrims." |
| Mathew Brady | photographer whose more than 3,500 photographs of the Civil War brought the war to the homefront. |
| Brandywine | Battle fought
on September 11, 1777, when American troops under General
George Washington tried to stop British troops under
Generals William Howe and Charles Cornwallis from reaching
Philadelphia, the temporary American capital. Howe's 18,000
British troops were more than enough for the 11,000
Americans, who backtracked to Chester, leaving Philadelphia
dangerously exposed. The British occupied the capital and
then pressed on to Germantown. |
| Braxton Bragg | Confederate general
who did battle famously with Union General William S. Rosencrans
several times throughout Tennessee. He started out as a corps
commander in the Army of Mississippi at the Battle of Shiloh. As
Commander of the Army of Tennessee, Bragg invaded Kentucky early in
the war but to Tennessee when the promised secessionist uprising did
not materialize. He also had several skirmishes with Union Major Gen.
Don Carlos Buell. Bragg was victorious at the Battles of Murfreesboro
and Chickamauga but met his ultimate defeat at the Battle of
Chattanooga and retreated into Georgia. He was taken out of the field
by Confederate President Jefferson Davis and made chief military
adviser in early 1864, serving in that post until the end of the war. |
| John C. Breckinridge | Vice-President of the United States under James Buchanan, he ran for president as a Southern Democrat in 1860, finishing third in the popular vote but second in the electoral vote. He was a corps commander in the Army of Mississippi at the Battle of Shiloh and served under Braxton Bragg at Murfreesboro and Chickamauga and then Robert E. Lee at Cold Harbor. He served as Confederate Secretary of War from February, 1864 until the end of the Civil War. |
| Isaac Brock | Canadian (and
British) general who gained everlasting fame by capturing
the American Fort Detroit without having to fire a shot and
even though he was outnumbered 2-to-1. He had trained his
troops for battle and made them into a great fighting force.
They showed it at their next important battle, at Queenston
Heights, near Niagara. Brock took a personal interest in his
troops' welfare, and the led them on a charge to take an
important hill in this battle. They took the hill but lost
their general. |
| Battle of Brooklyn | First real
battle between British and American forces, in August 1776.
Also called the Battle of Long Island. Redcoats under
Generals William Howe and Charles Cornwallis advanced on New
York and tried to trap the Americans in Brooklyn. General
George Washington responded by holding his ground until
nightfall and then retreating under cover of darkness. The
troop movements for this battle actually occurred over a
number of days. It was the first British victory and the
first of many legendary Washingtonian escapes. |
| John Brown | Violent abolitionist who wanted to free the slaves at all costs. He took matters in his own hands by leading a band of determined patriots on a mission to seize the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. They wanted to distribute the weapons there to slaves and anyone else who wanted to rise up against slavery. On Oct. 16, 1859, they succeeded in taking over an engine house. But the U.S. Army, led by Col. Robert E. Lee, subdued the short-lived rebellion. Brown spoke in his own defense, and Henry David Thoreau issued a plea in Brown's defense; but Brown was convicted and hanged for treason. |
| James Buchanan | 15th
president. He was president when Southern states began
seceding from the Union. The only president never to marry,
Buchanan began his political career in the House of
Representatives, representing Pennsylvania. He also served
as Minister to Russia and Great Britain. He was James K.
Polk's Secretary of State. As president, he failed to keep
the spirit of compromise and peace that filled the decade
since the Compromise of 1850. the Supreme Court delivered
the Dred Scott Decision during Buchanan's presidency. His
own Democratic Party couldn't agree on slavery or much else
and split into two factions, each of which nominated its own
candidate. (Neither of these was Buchanan!) This split of
the Democratic vote ensured the election of the Republican
Party candidate, Abraham Lincoln. Just weeks after the
election, with Buchanan a lame duck, Southern states began
to secede. |
| Battle of Buena Vista | February 1847
battle between American and Mexican forces. Despite being
outnumbered 14,000-to-5,000, the Americans, under Zachary
Taylor, emerged victorious. |
| Don Carlos Buell | Mexican War veteran and Union general who organized troops around Washington, D.C., when the war broke out and did battle famously with Confederate General William Braxton Bragg. Originally serving with General Ulysses S. Grant at Shiloh, Buell was given command of a force that eventually retreated from Tennessee. When his forces and Bragg's met up again at the Battle of Perryville, in Kentucky, Buell turned the tables and forced Bragg to retreat. However, Buell didn't keep the initiative; for this, he was relieved of his command. |
| Bull Run | Two battles actually, both fought near Manassas Creek and both won by the South. The first was the first engagement of the war, on July 21, 1861, and sent the Union army packing. The second, following hard on the heels of the unsuccessful Peninsular Campaign, was a year later, on Aug. 29-30, 1862, and gave the South almost all of Virginia back. |
| Battle of Bunker Hill | Two-day
engagement between British forces under the command of
General William Howe and American forces under Colonel
William Prescott. The Americans had occupied Breed's Hill in
Charlestown on June 16, 1775, in order to protect the
shipyard of nearby Boston. The next day, the British
attacked. They took the hill but suffered heavy losses. The
Americans fired until they were out of ammunition, then
quickly retreated. To conserve ammunition, Prescott told his
men, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes."
Even though the battle was fought on Breed's Hill, it has
been remembered as the Battle of Bunker Hill. |
| John Buford | Union major general who was cavalry commander for the Army of the Potomac at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg. |
| John Burgoyne | British
general who met with great success early in the war but met
his end at Saratoga. He was at the Battle of Bunker Hill and
helped capture Fort Ticonderoga. He had plans for an
invasion of New York and got as far as Saratoga, where he
was stopped and forced to surrender to American General
Horatio Gates, partly because Burgoyne's support, in the
person of General William Howe, had marched toward
Philadelphia instead. Burgoyne left the army and returned
home a disgrace. |
| Ambrose Burnside | Major general who led the Union to the disastrous defeat at Fredericksburg. He was a brigade commander at Bull Run and a corps commander at Antietam, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. |
| Aaron Burr | New York Senator and Vice President whose career always seemed to be entwined with that of Alexander Hamilton, the leader of the Federalist Party. Burr served one term in the Senate, then ran for president, in 1800. He received 73 Electoral votes, the same number as Jefferson. In the House of Representatives, Hamilton spoke out so vehemently against Burr that the House elected Jefferson and Burr became vice president. He was later part of a plot to lead the New England states into secession. Hamilton exposed the plot, and Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. Burr killed Hamilton on July 11, 1804. He was indicted for murder but never tried. He escaped and later tried to form a new republic in the Southwest; for this, he was tried for treason but found not guilty. He later went back to practicing law. |
