This document provides brief biographies of over 80 notable individuals from the Civil War era, most of whom played important political or military roles in the United States or Confederate States of America during that time. The individuals described include politicians, statesmen, soldiers, activists, writers, and others who were pivotal figures on both sides of the war and the slavery debate.

1. Other Individuals

3. American Minister in London during the Civil War

5. Traveled the U.S. and Europe

9. “strong and independent spirit”

11. abolitionist

12. women’s rights activist

14. TN politician

15. attorney

16. plantation owner

17. served in both House of Representatives and Senate

19. lawyer

20. born a British subject in the West Indies

21. became a citizen of the U.S.

23. politician

24. helped organize the new Republican Party

25. influential in securing the 1856 nomination for John C. Fremont

26. supported the 1860 nomination of Lincoln

28. Union Army general

29. MO representative in both the House of Representatives and the Senate

31. MD politician and lawyer

32. loyal member of Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet

33. hot-tempered

35. assassinated Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre, Washington D.C on Apr 14, 1865

36. planned to kill Pres. Lincoln, VP Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William Seward to help Confederate cause

38. editor

39. Wisconsin politician

40. arrested for violating the Fugitive Slave Act by setting free Joshua Glover, a MO runaway slave, from prison

42. folk hero

43. leader of 1856 Pottawatomie Massacre in Bleeding Kansas

45. KY Representative and KY Senator

46. youngest VP at age 36

47. 1860 Southern Democrats candidate

48. CSA general and commander

50. converted to Baptism & became a “slave preacher”

51. fled from Richmond and was discovered and arrested during Pierce’s administration

53. 7th U.S. VP

54. leading SC politician

55. part of the “Great Triumvirate” along with Webster and Calhoun

56. advocate of

57. slavery

58. secession

59. states’ rights

60. limited government

62. jurist

63. Ohio U.S. Senator

64. Ohio Governor

65. Lincoln’s Secretary of Treasury

66. U.S. Chief Justice

67. coined the slogan of the Free Soil Party, “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men”

69. Ohio lawyer

70. Whig member of Congress

72. twice served as U.S. Attorney General

73. KY Representative and Senator

74. KY’s 17th governor

77. Pierce’s Secretary of War

78. MS Senator

79. argued against secession but

80. believed each state was sovereign and had the right to secede from the Union

81. charged with treason but not tried after the war

83. “The Great Pacifier”

84. statesman

85. orator

86. KY Representative and KY Senator

87. 1825 – 1829 Secretary of State

88. founder and leader of Whig Party

90. CSA’s First Lady

92. created the first generation of mental asylums

94. abolitionist

95. women’s suffragist

96. editor

97. orator

98. author

99. statesman

101. Illinois politician

102. 1860 Northern Democrat’s nominee

103. largely responsible for Compromise of 1850

104. creator of Kansas-Nebraska Act

105. supported Dred Scott Supreme Court decision

106. believed in democracy

108. served with the Union Army disguised as a man named “Franklin Flint Thomas”

109. first served as a male field nurse

110. participated in several campaigns under McClellan

111. became a Union spy

114. author of two books and numerous articles advocating slavery

115. social theorist

117. military officer

118. explorer

120. journalist

121. social reformer

122. editor of The Liberator

123. one of the founders of the American Anti- Slavery Society

126. lawyer

127. abolitionist

128. suffragist

129. An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South

131. writer

133. Governor of Maine

135. The Impending Crisis of the South

137. MD governor at the outbreak of Civil War

138. MD Senator

139. opposed abolitionists

140. supported slave-owners

142. member of U.S. House of Representatives

143. served as the youngest Speaker of the Senate

144. CSA Secretary of State (1861- 1862)

145. member of Confederate Senate (1862- 1865); at times, a caustic critic of the Davis administration

147. Union general and partisan

148. leader of “Jayhawkers” abolitionist movement in KS

149. Indiana Congressman (1853 – 1855)

150. elected as KS Senator twice

152. journalist

153. newspaper editor

154. murdered by Illinois mob for his abolitionist views

157. convicted and imprisoned for aiding and conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in 1865

158. pardoned by Andrew Johnson

160. reforming minister of the Unitarian church

161. abolitionist

163. Native American advocate

165. created the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, the first detective agency in U.S

166. solved a series of train robberies in the 1850s

168. planned and led a large slave rebellion in the Richmond area in 1800

170. CSA Secretary of War

172. prominent nurse to TN

173. treated the sick and injured at Fort Donelson

175. politician

176. served two terms in Congress for Democratic Party

178. NY Senator

179. Lincoln’s and Johnson’s Secretary of State

180. dominant figure in the Republican Party

181. played a role in preventing foreign intervention in the war

183. politician

184. U.S. Attorney General (1860 -61)

187. witty, sarcastic speaker

188. Stevens and Charles Sumners were prime leaders of the Radical Republican s during the Civil War

191. statesman

192. leader of the Radical Republicans in the Senate during the Civil War and Reconstruction

194. 5th Chief Justice

196. only African American woman to publish a memoir of her wartime experiences

198. appointed Confed. Secretary of Treasury

199. 1853 head of major cotton broker, John Fraser & Co.

200. became the CSA’s overseas banker

202. humanitarian

203. Union spy

204. helped John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry

205. active in women’s suffrage movement

208. worked on behalf of the Union

209. operated a spy ring

211. Senator

212. associated with Radical Republicans

213. witnessed the defeat of the Union Army at the First Battle of Bull Run

214. highly critical of Lincoln and Johnson

216. David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World

218. issued the orders for the firing of Ft. Sumter

220. abolitionist

221. prohibitionist

222. alleged spy

223. prisoner of war

224. surgeon

227. statesman

228. orator

229. “Great Triumvirate” alone with Calhoun and Clay

230. tried three times to achieve presidency

232. writer

233. editor

234. speaker

235. organizer

238. politician

239. orator

240. diplomat

241. leader of the Southern secession movement

242. a Fire-Eater

243. appointed by Jefferson Davis to head a diplomatic delegation to Europe in the attempt to secure formal recognition of Southern independence