- 54th Massachusetts Infantry: the first all-black army unit that saw combat during the Civil War
- Antietam: bloodiest battle of any US war; 4,800 dead and 18,500 wounded
- Appomattox Court House: place where Lee surrendered to Grant, ending the war after four years
- Crittenden Plan: proposed making slavery protected under the Constitution
- Draft Riots: reaction to the enrollment act; also a racist reaction by some
- Enrollment Act: called for the conscription of US citizens
- Fort Sumpter: in Charleston, SC; the first Southern attack occurred here
- Gettysburg: the US stops the Confederate's invasion of the North
- Manassas: first battle of the war; the South pushed the Union Army back to DC
- Sherman's March to the Sea: destroyed farms, towns, and crops; the "hard hand of war" was brought to the South
- US Sanitary Commission: founded to provide adequate health care and stop the spread of disease
- Vicksburg: Grant captures the Mississippi River for the Union
- copperheads: Democrats who advocated peace in the election of 1864
- habeas corpus: Lincoln suspends this right, jailing all dissenters at the start of the war
- legal tender: a piece of paper that has value guaranteed by the government; cash!
- the Emancipation Proclamation: frees all slaves in the South