The most common name for the American Civil War in modern American usage is simply "The Civil War". Although rarely used during the war, the term "War Between the States" became widespread afterward in the Southern United States. During and immediately after the war, Northern historians often used the terms "War of the Rebellion" or "The Great Rebellion", and the Confederate term was "War for Southern Independence", which regained some currency in the 20th century but has since fallen out of use. The name "Slaveholders' Rebellion" was used by Frederick Douglass and appeared in newspaper articles during that era. "Freedom War" is used to celebrate the war's effect of ending slavery in the United States. During the Jim Crow era of the 1950s, the term "War of Northern Aggression" developed under the Lost Cause of the Confederacy movement by Southern historical revisionists or negationists. This label was coined by segregationists in an effort to equate contemporary efforts to end segregation with 19th-century efforts to abolish slavery. Several names also exist for the forces on each side. The Union practice was to name their armies for the river valleys where they initially operated, while the Confederacy generally used state names. For example, the Army of the Tennessee was a Union army named for the river, while the Army of Tennessee was a Confederate army, named for the state. The opposing forces named battles differently as well. The Union forces frequently named battles for bodies of water that were prominent on or near the battlefield, but Confederates most often used the name of the nearest town.
Enduring names
Civil War In the United States, "Civil War" is the most common term for the conflict and has been used by the overwhelming majority of reference books, scholarly journals, dictionaries, encyclopedias, popular histories, and mass media in the United States since the early 20th century. The National Park Service, the government organization entrusted by the United States Congress to preserve the battlefields of the war, uses this term. Writings of prominent men such as Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, P. G. T. Beauregard, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and Judah P. Benjamin used the term "Civil War" during the conflict. Abraham Lincoln used it on multiple occasions. Outside the United States, historians writing in the English language usually refer to the conflict as the "American Civil War". Such variations are also used in the United States if the war might otherwise be confused with another civil war such as the English Civil War, the Russian Civil War, or the Spanish Civil War.
War Between the States
The term "War Between the States" was rarely used during the war but became prevalent afterward among proponents of the "Lost Cause" interpretation of the war. The Confederate government avoided the term "civil war", which assumes both combatants to be part of a single country, and so referred to it in official documents as the "War between the Confederate States of America and the United States of America". European diplomacy produced a similar formula for avoiding the phrase "civil war". Queen Victoria's proclamation of British neutrality referred to "hostilities ... between the Government of the United States of America and certain States styling themselves the Confederate States of America". After the war, the memoirs of former Confederate officials and veterans (Joseph E. Johnston, Raphael Semmes, and especially Alexander Stephens) commonly used the term "War Between the States". In 1898, the United Confederate Veterans formally endorsed the name. In the early 20th century, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) led a campaign to promote the term "War Between the States" in the media and public schools. UDC efforts to convince the US Congress to adopt the term began in 1913 but were unsuccessful. Congress has never adopted an official name for the war. The name "War Between the States" is inscribed on the USMC War Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. The name was personally ordered by Lemuel C. Shepherd Jr., the 20th Commandant of the Marine Corps.
American president Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to the Civil War as "the four-year War Between the States". References to the "War Between the States" appear occasionally in federal and state court documents, including in Justice Harry Blackmun's landmark opinion in Roe v. Wade. The names "Civil War" and "War Between the States" have been used jointly in some formal contexts. For example, to mark the war's centenary in the 1960s, the State of Georgia created the "Georgia Civil War Centennial Commission Commemorating the War Between the States". In 1994, the US Postal Service issued a series of commemorative stamps, "The Civil War: The War Between the States".
Historical terms in the United States
War of the Rebellion/Slaveholders' Rebellion
During and immediately after the war, US officials, Southern Unionists, and pro-Union writers often referred to Confederates as "Rebels". The earliest histories published in the northern states commonly refer to the war as "the Great Rebellion" or "the War of the Rebellion", as do many war monuments, hence the nicknames Johnny Reb (and Billy Yank) for the participants. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass delivered a speech entitled "The Slaveholders' Rebellion" on July 4, 1862, in Himrod, New York, and John Harvey wrote The slaveholders' rebellion, and the downfall of slavery in America in 1865. The official US war records refer to the war as the "War of the Rebellion". The records were compiled by the US War Department in a 127-volume collection, The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, which was published from 1881 to 1901. Historians commonly refer to the collection as the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.
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