Staying Fit
Political and social impact
1. 13th Amendment: slavery banned
AARP Membership— $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal
Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine.
2. 14th: citizenship for all born in the U.S.
3. 15th: voting rights for all male citizens regardless of race
4. Women's rights gain momentum
5. 1862 Homestead Act passed
6. Censorship of battlefield photos
7. Reconstruction laws passed
8. Ku Klux Klan organized
9. Jim Crow laws passed
10. Federal law trumps states' rights
Medical advances
In many ways the Civil War set the stage for modern medicine, providing thousands of poorly schooled physicians with a vast training ground:
11. Modern hospital organization
12. Embalming techniques
13. Safer surgical techniques
14. Improved anesthesia
15. Organized ambulance and nurses' corps
Cultural legacy
The war influenced our holidays and play:
16. Juneteenth holiday, also known as Emancipation Day
17. Memorial Day
18. Thomas Nast popularizes image of Santa Claus
19. Some 65,000 books on the conflict
20. Films such as Gone With the Wind, Glory and Cold Mountain
21. More than 70 National Park Service Civil War sites
22. Centennial toys: Civil War trading cards and blue & gray toy soldiers
A high-tech nation
The war years brought technological advances:
23. 15,000 miles of new telegraph lines, which reached the West Coast
24. Mass production of canned food
25. Battlefield photography
26. Transcontinental Railroad
Everyday things
Wartime helped devise or popularize parts of our daily lives:
27. Can openers
28. Home-delivered mail
29. Left and right shoes shaped differently
30. Standard premade clothing in sizes small, medium and large
31. National paper currency
Military advances
In what's considered the first modern war, both sides developed equipment and tactics that would be refined in later conflicts:
32. Minié ball bullets, cartridge ammunition
33. Repeating rifles
34. First machine guns
35. Submarines
36. Hot-air balloons
37. Soldier ID tags
38. Land mines
39. Ironclad ships
40. Trench warfare
Veterans legacy
In its wake, the war left a system to care for and honor those who fought:
41. First national cemeteries
42. Network of soldiers' homes later becomes the Veterans Administration
43. Social care for veterans' widows and orphans
Language
Last but not least, Civil War slang is still with us today:
44. Carpetbagger
45. Deadline
46. Horse sense
47. Shebang
48. Skedaddle
49. Smart like a fox
50. Greenback
