| Thomas Paine | Patriot and
American soldier whose main contribution was in writing. His
pamphlets, including Common Sense and The
Crisis, inflamed the American population and furthered
the Revolutionary cause. |
| Battle of Palo Alto | First major
battle of the Mexican-American War. It took place on May 8,
1846, near Brownsville, Texas, and resulted in a
standoff. |
| Panic of 1837 | First
Depression in American history. Banks lost money, people
lost faith in banks, and the country lost faith in President
Martin van Buren. |
| Peninsular Campaign | General George McClellan's plan to advance on Richmond, the Confederate capital, by going to Fort Monroe, near Hampton Roads, Virginia, by steamboat and advance northward along the James River. This plan was in direct contradiction to what Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton wanted: a Union army to protect Washington, D.C., in case of a Confederate strike. Still, McClellan got his way and set off in March, 1862, with 100,000 men. In just two months, he was six miles from Richmond. But Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign, J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry raid, and Robert E. Lee's Battle of the Seven Days convinced McClellan that he could not conceivably take Richmond and that his best course of action was to retreat. |
| Oliver Hazard Perry | Naval hero
who won two great battles during the War of 1812: the Battle
of Lake Erie and the Battle of the Thames River. In the
Battle of Lake Erie, he commanded inexperienced Americans
manning small ships against experienced British sailors
manning huge warships. The result was an American victory
and Perry's two most famous sayings: "Don't give up the
ship" and "We have met the enemy, and they are ours." In the
Battle of the Thames River, Perry and his ships made sure
the British didn't escape from the army commanded by William
Henry Harrison. |
| Petersburg | Site of the all-important railroad nexus of the South. Grant hoped to close off the transportation terminus that had kept Richmond supplied. For this, Grant turned to the siege. He marched his troops south and across the James River, building a pontoon bridge more than 2,000 feet long. Lee hunkered down, too. For 10 months, both sides fought minor skirmishes from their trenches. The losses were staggering (30,000 total). Also notable for the Battle of the Crater, in which Northern engineers dug a 500-foot-long tunnel under Southern lines and blew up a powder charge. Unfortunately for the North, the crater wasn't far enough behind Southern lines, and most of those killed in the crater were Federals. Grant finally broke through on April 2, 1865, after Sheridan's cavalry pushed back a weak Southern detachment at Five Forks. With their lines (army and supply) broken, the Confederates retreated. |
| Franklin Pierce | 14th
president. He signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act into law. He
began his political career in the New Hampshire state
legislature, becoming its Speaker at age 26. He then served
in both the House and Senate, representing New Hampshire. He
served in the Mexican War, then won the Democratic Party's
nomination for president in 1852. He campaigned on a
platform of continued peace (thanks to the Compromise of
1850). He promised continued peace when he was inaugurated.
But peace didn't continue, largely because of the passage of
the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which reopened the question of
slavery in the West. Pierce managed to anger both
Northerners and Southerners and was not allowed to run for
re-election. Instead, the Democrats chose James
Buchanan. |
| Zebulon Pike | Explorer who
is famous for discovering Pike's Peak in Colorado. He led
two expeditions to explore the U.S. The first, in 1805, had
as its goal the discovery of the headwaters of the
Mississippi River. The second expedition, which took place
the very next year, explored the Southwest. He died in the
War of 1812. |
| Pilgrims | English
Puritans who fled England to escape religious persecution.
After a 65-day journey from Southampton, England, they
landed in Plymouth Harbor on the western side of Cape Cod
Bay on December 21, 1620. There, under the leadership of
William Bradford, they signed the Mayflower Compact, which
created their own government. |
| Molly Pitcher | Her real name
was Mary Hays McCauly. She suffered along with her husband
during the cold winter at Valley Forge. She got her nickname
by bringing pitcher after pitcher of water to the thirsty
American troops and their hot guns (for the Battle of
Monmouth took place on a very hot day). Her husband, William
Hays, was an artilleryman who was manning a gun the day of
the battle. She was carrying a pitcher of water to his post
when she saw him slump over, hit. She took over the rammer
staff of the gun, helping it to keep firing away in the face
of enemy fire. She had also gone out onto the battlefield to
bring a wounded soldier back to safety. General George
Washington recognized her efforts publicly and called her
"Sergeant Molly." |
| William Pitt | Name of two
British prime ministers. Pitt the Elder was PM during the
French and Indian War. Pitt the Younger took over the office
from Lord North after the Revolutionary War. When the
British retook Fort Duquesne, they named it Fort Pitt in
honor of their Prime Minister. Pitt was responsible for
financing the British war effort, largely by taxing the
British colonies (including those in America), and he also
personally promoted Generals Jeffery Amherst and James Wolfe
to positions of prominence. The latter decision turned out
to be a good one because those two men helped win the war.
The former decision turned out to be a bad one because it
eventually led to the Revolutionary War. He was PM during
some of the early taxes on the American colonies, including
the Stamp Act, which he opposed. He made a famous speech
against the Act. He was replaced shortly thereafter by
George Grenville. |
| Battle of Plattsburg | Battle on
Lake Champlain on September 11, 1814, during the War of
1812. American forces defeated the British on land and at
sea and helped convince the British that they could no
longer hope of taking American territory. |
| Plymouth | Colony
founded by the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in
December, 1620. Many of the 102 passengers who sailed from
England aboard the Mayflower died. The survivors formed the
Plymouth Colony. They faced great hardship but made friends
with neighboring Native Americans. Among the leaders of the
Plymouth Colony were William Bradford, John Carver, William
Brewster, and Miles Standish. |
| James K. Polk | 11th
president. He was president during the Mexican-American War
and also brought the Oregon Territory into the Union. He
began his political career in the Tennessee state
legislature and then moved up to the House of
Representatives, also representing Tennessee. He served as
Secretary of State under Andrew Jackson and Martin van
Buren, then returned to Tennessee to become governor. He had
always been a supporter of fellow Democrat Andrew Jackson,
and this support came back to help him when Jackson
supported Polk for president in 1844. Polk favored the
annexation of Texas and Oregon and won the presidency partly
because he came to be known as "the expansionist candidate."
The struggle over the Oregon Territory had the potential to
turn nasty, but Polk managed to get a treaty (The Treaty of
1846) that avoided war. (The phrase "54-40 or fight" came
out of the struggle over Oregon. It referred to the northern
boundary of the Oregon Territory, which was at 54'40' north
latitude.) Polk also benefited from strong support at home
for the war against Mexico. |
| Pony Express | Horse-powered mail service that ran 2,000 miles from St.
Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, in 1860 and
1861. Carriers boasted that mail could be delivered along
the entire route in 10 days. Each rider traveled about 75
miles, then handed off the mail to another rider. This
system worked, even through the winter. This was a novel
idea, but the organizers didn't make a whole lot of money.
And when the telegraph became a reality in October 1861, the
Pony Express made its last delivery. |
| John Pope | Commander for a time of the Army of Virginia. Lost his command after the Confederate victory at the Second Battle of Bull Run. |
| Popular Sovereignty | Idea popularized by Stephen A. Douglas that territories and states could decide whether they would allow slavery. Theidea was in direct contradiction with the Dred Scott Decision, which was the law of the land. |
| William Prescott | American
colonel who led his troops during the Battle of Bunker Hill.
To conserve ammunition, Prescott told his men, "Don't fire
until you see the whites of their eyes." |
| Battle of Princeton | American
victory on January 3, 1777, following hard on the heels of
General George Washington's great success at Trenton. The
victory at Princeton drove the British out of New Jersey,
almost for good. |
| Casimir Pulaski | Polish count considered the father of American cavalry. He first found success at Brandywine, where his cavalry charge covered the American retreat and allowed General George Washington to escape. In 1778, Pulaski convinced Washington and the American army to organize a cavalry division. They all agreed, and the American cavalry was born. Pulaski led cavalry charges in other battles, including the Battle of Savannah. But it was at this battle that he was killed. His horse was shot from underneath him, and he died of wounds he received in the fall." |
| Battle of Quebec | Epic, heroic
battle pitting British General James Wolfe against French
general Marquis de Montcalm that just about ended French
occupation of Canada. Quebec itself was a natural fortress,
a large city built on high bluffs, with steep cliffs
stretching for miles on either side of the city. No real
path led from the St. Lawrence River bay up to the heights.
But an eagle-eyed British scout had discovered an overgrown
path that led up the cliffs and to a lightly defended part
of the French lines. Under cover of darkness, thousands of
troops slipped up the path and past the French sentries to
the Plains of Abraham, a wide open space outside the city of
Quebec. When French troops awakened the next morning, they
found line after line of infantry of British troops waiting
for them. The battle raged for days and finally ended with
the French surrender on September 12, 1759. Both Wolfe and
Montcalm died soon after from injuries sustained in the
battle. |
| Reaper | Hugely
successful grain-harvesting machine invented by Cyrus
McCormick and Obed Hussey in the early part of the 19th
century. The reaper made harvesting grain much easier by
using revolving bars to cut the grain, pulling it onto a
conveyer, and binding it in bushels. This saved huge amounts
of time in the harvesting of grain. |
| Reconstruction | Lincoln's plan to restore the Union. Among his proposals were a pardon for every Southerner who took an oath to support the Union and the allowance of a state to re-enter if 10 percent of a state's voters took that oath. Congress, on the other hand, wanted to force a state to get 50 percent. Lincoln died before his plan was put into action. |
| Republican Party | Political party formed in 1854 out of the ashes out of the Know-Nothing and Whig parties. John C. Fremont was its first candidate, in 1856. Lincoln was its first successful candidate, in 1860. |
| Paul Revere | Famous
silversmith who rode through the countryside to warn the
American colonists that the British were coming. He didn't
actually make his destination because he was captured by
British "Redcoats," but one of his companions, Dr. Samuel
Prescott, got the message through. When the British arrived,
the Americans were ready. |
| Revolutionary War | 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. |
| Richmond | Capital of the Confederacy and target of Northern strategies from McClellan's Peninsular Campaign to Grant's grind-them-down "total war." Finally evacuated by a starved and exhausted Lee after Grant seized the railroad supply lines in April, 1865. One week later, Lee surrendered. |
| William S. Rosencrans | Union general who chased Confederate General Braxton Bragg across Tennessee, losing to him at the Battles of Murfreesboro and Chickamauga. |
| Samoset | Native
American who first met the Pilgrims. It was he who walked
into their settlement and said, "Greetings, Englishmen." He
returned several times, bringing other Native Americans,
including the great Massasoit, leader of the Wampanoag, who
made a peace treaty with the Pilgrims. |
| Battle of San Jacinto | American
victory over Mexican forces in April 21, 1836. Americans
were angered by the massacres at the Alamo and Goliad, in
which Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had
ordered all prisoners executed. A force of 910 Americans,
led by Sam Houston, marched on San Jacinto and defeated a
Mexican force of 1,500. Half of the Mexican force was
killed, and almost all of the rest were taken prisoner. The
result was a secure Texas, one that could proclaim itself a
Republic. |
| Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna | President of
Mexico and chief general of Mexican forces during much of
the turbulent mid-19th century. He captured the Alamo and
killed all its defenders. He did the same thing at Goliad.
He managed to lose magnificently at San Jacinto. He led his
troops during the Mexican-American War. He remained
president after the war and was removed from office several
years later. |
| Santa Fe Trail | Way west well
traveled by Americans aiming to settle in the West. The
Santa Fe Trail ran from Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe, in what
is now New Mexico. The Trail opened in 1821, the year Mexico
gained its independence from Spain. A decade later, the
Trail had two main routes: the Mountain Fork, which went
through Colorado, and the Cimarron Fork, which went through
Kansas. Travel along the Trail reached its height after the
Mexican Cession, in 1848. The Civil War brought travel along
the Santa Fe Trail to a halt, but people began traveling
again after the war ended, in 1865. The introduction of the
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad in 1880 made wagon
travel a less attractive option, and the Santa Fe Trail fell
into disuse. |
| Battle of Saratoga | Turning point
of the Revolutionary War in that it convinced France to
enter the war on the side of the Americans. British General
John Burgoyne came up with a brilliant plan to take all of
New York away from the Americans. His three-pronged attack
called for a meeting of three forces at Saratoga. Burgoyne
would advance south from Canada and plan to meet at Albany
with Generals Barry St. Leger and William Howe. St. Leger
was to move east from Fort Oswego, on Lake Ontario; and Howe
was to march north from Virginia. This was a brilliant plan,
Burgoyne thought, and he hoped to crush the American
Northern Army. Trouble was, it didn't work. Howe never got
the message and went to Philadelphia instead. Burgoyne
himself was stopped by American General Benedict Arnold at
Saratoga. St. Leger made it to Albany and had it all to
himself. At the Battle of Saratoga (which was really a
handful of battles), Burgoyne surrendered almost his entire
army to General Horatio Gates on October 17, 1777. The
American victory convinced France that America really did
have a chance of winning. Soon thereafter, French money and
supplies (and eventually, troops and ships) were making
their way to America. The end had begun. |
| Savannah | Resounding
British victory. The British had seized Savannah a few
months earlier. A joint American-French forced tried to take
back the city on October 9, 1779. Commanding the American
troops is General Benjamin Lincoln. The casualties for the
Americans and French are enormous, among them Polish Count
Casimir Pulaski, considered the father of American cavalry.
His horse was shot from underneath him, and he died of
wounds he received in the fall. |
| Winfield Scott | Mexican War
hero who won the famous Battle of Mexico City by storming
three huge castles. Scott originally fought in the War of
1812 and was taken prisoner at the Battle of Queenston
Heights. He was commander of the army during the Mexican War
and (briefly) the Civil War. He ran for president in 1852 as
a Whig but was defeated. |
| William Seward | Lincoln's Secretary of State. He was also present at the Hampton Roads peace conference. A founder of the Republican Party, he began his political career as a member of the Whig Party in the New York state legislature. He served as governor of New York from 1839 to 1842 and was a U.S. Senator beginning in 1849. Seward was wounded in an assassination attempt the night Lincoln died but recovered and served as Secretary of State under President Andrew Johnson. He is also known for securing the purchase of what became the state of Alaska. |
| William T. Sherman | Union general who fought with Ulysses S. Grant at Shiloh and Chattanooga and took his troops on the "March to the Sea," from Atlanta to Savannah. |
| Battle of the Seven Days | Series of 1862 battles (during the Peninsular Campaign) taken together to illustrate Lee's ability to demoralize McClellan and the North with quick strikes by small forces on larger ones. For the record, the larger battles were at Mechanicsville, Gaines; Mill, Savage's Station, Frayser's Farm, and Malvern Hill. When the battles were over, the Army of the Potomac had lost 15,000 men and had retreated to the James River. |
| Shays's Rebellion | Movement by
New England farmers desperate to be paid for their service in
the Revolutionary War. Farmer Daniel Shays took charge of
the group and led an attack on a federal arsenal in
Springfield, Massachusetts, in January 1787. Federal troops
under Revolutionary War General Benjamin Lincoln came from
Boston. Four men were killed and 20 wounded. Shays
disappeared into the wilds of Vermont, not yet a state.
Other men were arrested and imprisoned. Soon after, John
Hancock was elected governor of Massachusetts. Hancock
quieted everything down. |
| Philip Sheridan | Union cavalry commander who fought in the West and East and secured Washington, D.C., one last time at the Battle of Five Forks. |
| Battle of Shiloh | Two-day (April 6-7, 1862) battle ending in Union victory (and 23,000 combined dead) even though Confederate troops under Joseph E. Johnston and Pierre Beauregard had struck first and almost pushed the Union army back out of Tennessee altogether. With the Union victory came the certainty that Tennessee was forever lost to the South. |
| Samuel Slater | Famous cotton
mill builder. He was originally an English citizen who came
to America after the Revolutionary War. He built his first
mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1790. Other mills around
New England soon followed. These mills featured of spinning
machines that quickly turned cotton into textiles and
fabrics. Such machines and mills were an important part of
the Industrial Revolution. |
| Slavery | The forced servitude of one person by another. The Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott Decision, reinforced it. Congress reinforced it in act after act (from the Missouri Compromise to the Compromise of 1850). Lincoln did not officially stand against it until the Emancipation Proclamation. Yet, the Civil War in the end was a war over slavery. Fugitive Slave Laws were passed; abolitionists cried foul; the Underground Railroad spirited thousands to safety; Southerners refused to let their slaves fight for them or alongside them. Slavery was an all-encompassing way of life that many in the South could not give up and many in the North could not let live. |
| John Smith | Leader of
Jamestown, first English colony in America to survive and
become permanent. It was settled in 1603 and supported
itself through tobacco farming. |
| Sons of Liberty | Secret
organization of American colonists formed initially to
protest the Stamp Act. The idea found success in many
colonies, after the initial organizations in Boston and New
York. After the Stamp Act was repealed a year after it was
passed, the Sons of Liberty disbanded. But the patriotic
spirit and the name remained. Groups of men, such as the
ones who dumped the tea into Boston Harbor, were called sons
of liberty. |
| Squanto | Native
American who befriended the Pilgrims and taught them how to
grow food. |
| Stamp Act | First direct British tax on American colonists. Instituted in November, 1765. Every newspaper, pamphlet, and other public and legal document had to have a Stamp, or British seal, on it. The Stamp, of course, cost money. The colonists didn't think they should have to pay for something they had been doing for free for many years, and they responded in force, with demonstrations and even with a diplomatic body called the Stamp Act Congress, which delivered its answer to the Crown. Seeing the hostile reaction in the colonies, the British government repealed the Stamp Act in March 1766 but at the same time passed the Declaratory Act, which said that Great Britain was superior (and boss of) the American colonies "in all cases whatsoever." The Stamp Act gave the colonists a target for their rage. Indeed, the Sons of Liberty was formed in response to this Act. The Stamp Act Congress also gave the colonists a model for the Continental Congress. |
| Edwin Stanton | Lincoln's Secretary of War. Before that, he was attorney general under President James Buchanan. It was Stanton that President Andrew Johnson tried to remove in violation of the Tenure of Office Act, an attempt that brought on Johnson's impeachment trial. In 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant named Stanton to the Supreme Court. Stanton died four days later. |
| Elizabeth Cady Stanton | Leader of the
movement to grant American women the vote. Other leaders of
this movement included Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott.
Stanton 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." In 1866, Stanton and Anthony formed the
Equal Rights Association, which wanted equal rights for all
people, men and women, white and black. Stanton campaigned
tirelessly for women's "suffrage," or the right to vote,
until her death in 1902. |
| Star-Spangled Banner | America's
national anthem. The words were written by Francis Scott Key
during the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British in the
War of 1812. The music was composed in 1777 by John Stafford
Smith, an Englishman, as a setting for a poem. Union
soldiers sang it during the Civil War, and American soldiers
sang it during World War I. But it wasn't the official
national anthem until March 3, 1931, when President Herbert
Hoover signed a bill naming it so. |
| Alexander Stephens | Vice-president of the Confederate States of America. Initially a Whig, he became a Democrat when the Whig Party collapsed. He was opposed to secession but stayed loyal to his home state of Georgia and joined the Confederacy. He was present at the Hampton Roads peace conference. |
| Lucy Stone | Leader of the
movement to grant American women the right to vote, along
with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia
Mott. Together, they helped form the American Equal Rights
Association after the Civil War. Stone is also famous for
keeping her maiden name when she married Henry Blackwell in
1855. |
| Harriet Beecher Stowe | Novelist who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, which drew a vividly accurate and terrifying picture of the evils of slavery |
| Jeb Stuart | Confederate cavalry commander who rode circles around Union General George McClellan twice to do the same to Union General Joseph Hooker as the Southern army moved into Pennsylvania. Stuart's going missing for 10 days made possible the "accident" of Gettysburg. Still, he served General Robert E. Lee until Stuart died in 1864. |
| Suffrage Movement | Movement to
grant American women the right to vote, led by Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony,
and others. They were 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." Many men thought women
weren't smart enough to vote. The campaign for the vote went
on for another 70 years before the Nineteenth Amendment
finally granted women the vote (in 1920). |
| Sugar Act | 1764 Act that put a three-cent tax on
foreign refined sugar and increased taxes on coffee, indigo,
and certain kinds of wine. It banned importation of rum and
French wines. These taxes affected only a certain part of
the population, but the affected merchants were very vocal.
Besides, the taxes were enacted (or raised) without the
consent of the colonists. This was one of the first
instances in which colonists wanted a say in how much they
were taxed. |
| Sutter's Mill | Mill on the
American River near Coloma, California, where gold was
discovered by James Marshall on January 24, 1848. The mill
was owned by businessman John Sutter. The discovery of gold
at his mill sent a shockwave through the country, as
thousands of people flocked to California to find their
fortunes. |
