What was the civil war called at the time?
Considering this, what was the civil war originally called?
Abraham Lincoln used it on multiple occasions. In 1862, the United States Supreme Court used the terms "the present civil war between the United States and the so called Confederate States," as well as "the civil war such as that now waged between the Northern and Southern States".
Similarly, what did the union call the Confederates?
In the actual armed conflicts of the Civil War, the two sides had numerous nicknames for themselves and each other as a group and individuals, e.g., for Union troops "Federals" and for the Confederates "rebels," "rebs" or "Johnny reb" for an individual Confederate soldier.
The Northerners were called “Yankees” and the Southerners, “Rebels.” Sometimes these nicknames were shortened even further to “Yanks” and “Rebs.” At the beginning of the war, each soldier wore whatever uniform he had from his state's militia, so soldiers were wearing uniforms that didn't match.