But as Gaines Foster recounts in What's Not in a Name: The Naming of the American Civil War (Journal of the Civil War Era 8:3 Sept 2018), the general consensus around calling it the Civil War was effectively established around the start of the 20th century.
On three occasions, in 1905, 1907, and 1911, Congress took a stand on what to call the war. In March of 1905, with the Senate rushing to pass appropriation bills during the session’s final days, Louis E. McComas of Maryland entered an amendment giving preference in the Railway Mail Service to those who had served honorably “in the war of the rebellion.” Augustus O. Bacon of Georgia quickly proposed that he “strike out the words ‘war of the rebellion’ and insert ‘civil war.’” McComas readily agreed, although he defended his original choice by saying “war of the rebellion” was used “in the civil-service regulations.” Bacon reiterated his request, McComas again agreed to the change, at which point Edward W. Carmack of Tennessee recommended that “war of secession’” be inserted instead of “civil war.” “No,” Bacon replied, “The term ‘civil war’ is all right. That is now recognized as the courteous nomenclature.” ...After further discussion, the Senate agreed to use the "civil war" term in that instance. “'The best of feeling seemed to prevail after the sectional debate,' a reporter for the Washington Post wrote. One of his colleagues added that it looked as 'if the Senate would have a good, old-fashioned cry'." Foster writes about a third Congressional discussion:
In January of 1907, the Senate began a discussion of a pension bill for soldiers in the “war of the rebellion.” Both Bacon and Carmack objected to its use in the title, and Carmack moved that “civil war” be substituted. The bill’s sponsor, Porter J. McCumber, a Republican from North Dakota, observed that “war of the rebellion” was the usual term, but he had no objection to the substitution. It appeared the Senate would make the change quickly and easily, as it had in 1905. Then Hernando D. Money of Mississippi jumped to “his feet, clamoring to be heard.” More conservative than either Carmack or Bacon, Money insisted that the proper name for the war should be the “war between the States” because “it was a war between sovereign States.” Carmack quickly backtracked, saying he did not offer “civil war” as “embodying what I considered a correct definition or description of that war” but simply to conform “to what I believe has been the best practice and the usual descriptive words as employed in legislation and in official documents.” [my emphasis]
A similar, but briefer discussion occurred in 1911, this time in the House and not regarding the title of an act but a reference to the “war for the suppression of the rebellion” buried in a section of a bill to codify the laws. Charles L. Bartlett, from Georgia and the son of a Confederate veteran, moved to substitute “during the Civil War from 1861 to 1865.” When someone worried that the dates might complicate determining service, he changed it to just “Civil War.” Joseph W. Keifer, former Speaker of the House and a Republican from Ohio, asked “What is to be accomplished by that?” James R. Mann, an Illinois Republican, explained, “Good feeling, that is all; but that is worth something.” Bartlett then added, “We have got far enough away from that era in our history not to use the word ‘rebellion.’” [my emphasis]These Congressional discussions did not, of course, somehow required everyone to use a common name. Foster relates them as part of a longer story of how the general practice of refering to the conflict developed, a process which was quickly becoming a consensus early in the 20th century.
He stresses that the use of "Civil War" was part of the larger North-South reconciliation among whites at the expense of black citizens who continued to be seriously disadvantaged and even terrorized:
The postwar debate over the name reveals a white South less united and intransigent than many assume and suggests that Americans deemphasized slavery’s importance in the memory of the war. It also illustrates how the North willingly made concessions to the white South in hopes of fostering reunion and national reconciliation, even as it reveals the limit of those concessions. [my emphasis]Foster sums up the longer development as follows:
Both during and after the Civil War, northerners and southerners displayed an appreciation for the importance of naming the conflict. As the war started, Abraham Lincoln, Congress, and most northerners at first referred to a civil war or an insurrection, but quickly came to call it the “Rebellion,” a name they hoped would reinforce the goal of preserving the Union even as it stigmatized secession and the South. Frederick Douglass and others proposed alternatives that made slavery central to the war, such as “Abolition war” or the “Slaveholders’ Rebellion,” but few northerners adopted them. In the first decades after Appomattox, northerners continued to refer to the “Rebellion.” White southerners objected to that name and used others, including “Civil War” and the “War between the States.” By the end of the century, “Civil War” had become the most common public name, and between 1905 and 1911, Congress made it virtually the official name of the war. The United Daughters of the Confederacy then campaigned, but failed, to replace it with “War between the States.”Foster also comments about the United Daughters of the Confederacy that "many historians consider [the UDC to be] the real power in shaping southern memory.”
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