Civil War
Union
Confederate
Population : 22 million
Population: 6 million (white)
Had to conquer the South ( offensive war) Defensive War
Considerably more factories, wealth; a
much more diverse economy than South
Economy is backwards and
underdeveloped; relied on demand of
cotton overseas
Strong Central Government
New and weak Central Government
Generals who understood overall war,
such as Grant and Sherman
Better General at first, such as Lee and
Jackson
Ft. Sumter
• Lincoln was left with a dilemma of what to do with federal
forts in the confederate lands
• He decided to keep control of them until the South decided
to come back to the Union.
• Ft. Sumter was running low on supplies so Lincoln alerted
the Confederate Government that he was going to resupply
the fort.
• Jefferson Davis issued an order of attack or obtain a
surrender
• April 12, 1861 confederates fired upon Ft. Sumter and the
Civil War began
• Union surrendered and were allowed to said back to the
North, no soldiers were killed in the battle
First Battle of Bull Run
• July 21, 1861; Union troops attacked the
Confederates at Manassas Junction, VA.
• At first the Union were driving the
Confederate troops back, until General
Thomas Jackson came with reinforcements
and drove the Union troops back
– “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall”
• Union troops fled back to Washington D.C.
Northern Army
• Lincoln gave command of the army to General
George B. McClellan
• He spent most of the fall and winter of 1861
preparing the troops
• Goal was to take Richmond, VA – which was
named the capital of the Confederate State.
Strategies of War
• North
– Anaconda Plan – Blockade of the Southern ports and
he Mississippi River
– Offensive battle, needed to conquer them to bring the
Union back together
• South
– Defensive offensive – did not feel they needed to win
the war, just take advantages of opportunities to
attack
– Use treaties with the Indians to fight in the war
against the Union in the West
War at Sea
• Late 1861, Union were controlling the ports
off the Coast of North and South Carolina
• Slaves started to escape as plantation owners
fled more inland.
• Many slaves started to fight for the Union,
however the Union did not yet recognized
their freedoms
• However they did use the slaves to help fight
Merrimack vs. Monitor
• Monitor was a ironclad Union ship
• Merrimack was an ironclad Union ship that was
seized by Confederate
• Although the battle between the two did not
have any significance on the war itself, it marked
the changing of navel boats and strategies
• Union was able to use such ships to smash
through wood log blockades on the Mississippi to
help conquer New Orleans
Battle of Shiloh
• Ulysses S. Grant (Union) – Union believed that if
they took two forts in Tennessee, they would
have a clear path to the heartland of the
Confederacy
• April 6, 1862 Grant got caught with his back to
the River waiting for reinforcements.
• Confederates attacked and inflicted heavy
damage to the Union
• Confederates almost won however their General
was shot and killed from his horse
Battle of Shiloh
• Union reinforcements did arrive and Grant
was able to force the Confederate troops to
withdraw.
• Neither side won this battle, however more
soldiers were lost in this 10 day battle than all
wars combined that the US had fought in
• North – 13,000
• South 11,000
Seven Day Battles
• General McClellan (U) – always believed he was
outnumbered, marched his troops down to Richmond, VA.
• General Lee (C) – Sent a Stonewall Jackson to march to
Washington to draw some of the Union troops away from
Richmond.
• Confederate carvery road 24 hours to flank the Union
Troops, they found the weak stop of McClellan army and
attacked.
• General McClellan rather than attacking the weakened
Richmond, believed he was outnumbered and retreated
back to Washington.
• Union lost – 20,614
• Confederate -15,849 – “It was not a war, it was murder”
Battle of Antietam
• Jefferson Davis decided to take the fight to the North.
He sent
• McClellan found a box with the Confederate plans
wrapped in cigar leaves.
• McClellan turned Lee back from Sharpsburg, Maryland
(battle of Antietam), were 5,000 men died and 18,000
were wounded.
• Known as the bloodiest day of the Civil War
• Lee retreated and rather than McClellan using his
larger force to crush Lee he allowed them to retreat.
• Lincoln removed McClellan as the commander of the
Union Army
Change in the South
• Jefferson Davis knew that the Confederate States
of America had to start to be more organized
• He put all the state army under his control
• People were not volunteering as they did in the
beginning, so he issued a draft
• Raised taxes in the south, which could be paid in
farm products
• Forced farmers to stop producing cash crops and
start to produce food crops
• These concepts went against State Rights
Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
• Freed Slaves in Confederate States if Southern
states did not come back to Congress
• Political Genius of Lincoln:
– Changes war to moral crusade/one of liberation
• While maintaining loyalty of the Border States
– Ensured war would not be mediated end, but fight to
the finish
– …but costs Lincoln and Republicans in 1862 elections;
desertions increase in north
– Wins support of working class in Europe
– More than anything…doomed Confederacy to defeat
Gettysburg: July 1-3, 1863
Union defeated at
Fredericksburg and
Chancellorsville…but
Confed. lose Stonewall…
Why would Lee look to
launch massive offensive in
the North at this time?
Union/ Confed. forces
converge in Gettysburg, PA
Union: Meade v. Confed: Lee
Gettysburg Address (11/19/1863)
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation,
conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so
conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that
war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who
here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we
should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above
our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we
say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be
dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—
that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they
gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall
not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and
that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the
earth.
Vicksburg July 4, 1863
• Vicksburg July 4, 1863
– Turning point in the war (along w/ Gettysburg)
• Ensures no foreign intervention
• Britain refuses to release Laird Rams to Confederate
• French w/draw sale of 6 naval ships
– Allows the Union to take control of the Mississippi
and divide the South in half
– Big win for Ulysses S. Grant…earning Lincoln’s
confidence
– Quiets anti-war movement in North
NYC Draft Riots (July 13-16, 1863)
• Volunteer army until 1863…
• Riots: Response to draft calls by Lincoln
– Rioters: Primarily working class-Irish men
• Resent wealthy men, who could avoid the draft by paying $300 to hire a
substitute.
• Turns into ugly race riot
– Over 100 African Americans killed, 2000 injured
• Largest civil insurrection in US History (besides Civil War itself)
1864-1865
• Ulysses S. Grant
– Helps Break Confederate lines in NW Georgia following Union def. at
Chickamauga
– Appointed Union Commanding General
– William T. Sherman: Grant’s most trusted subordinate
• Sherman Uses Total War
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–
–
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Psychological Warfare…crush Southern morale
Intimidate Southern soldiers so they flee to protect families…
Destroy all industry, cotton fields, railroads
Plunder food sources
Sherman’s March to the Sea
(Nov. 15-Dec. 21 1864)
• Led 60,000 Union troops Atlanta to Savannah, GA
(then up thru SC and NC)…employs total war
• Significance:
– Sherman’s “Christmas Present to Abraham Lincoln”…why?
– Captured Atlanta
• South’s most Industrialized and RR hub
– Left path of destruction throughout GA, SC, and
NC…Crushed Southern Morale
– Symbolized impending defeat for Confederacy
Battle of Appomattox courthouse
• After abandoning Richmond in the aftermath of
siege of Petersburg on April 2 lee planed to pull
back to Appomattox where supply's would be
waiting
• After being chased relentlessly by union forces
lee was cornered by general grants army, lee
made a last stand
• He successfully fought grants cavalry but after
the arrival of grants infantry lee decided to fight
was hopeless and on April 9 1865 he surrender
Confederate Surrender!
• Fall of Richmond April 3, 1865
• Appomattox Courthouse April 9, 1865
– Lee surrenders to Grant, ending the Civil War.
Assassination of Lincoln April 14 1865
• In an attempt to reinvigorate the confederate
cause well known actor John Wilkes Booth
• Originally part of plan to kill president Lincoln,
secretary of state William H. Seward , and vice
president Andrew Johnson
• At 10:15 P.M as Lincoln was watching the play
our America cousin, John Booth snuck into
balcony where Lincoln, his wife, major Henry
Rathbone, and his wife where watching. then
shot Lincoln in the back of his head with his
Philadelphia Deringer pistol