Chapter 11: The Civil War: 1861-1865
American Studs and Honors US History : Mr. Voss
Chapter 10, Section 4 (pgs. 350-353)
 Abraham Lincoln elected 1860
 South Carolina is the first state to secede: December 20, 1860
 Confederate States of America established February 1861 (7 states)
Describe Abraham Lincoln’s 1st Inaugural Address. What was he trying to say?
What was the problem Lincoln had to solve with Fort Sumter?
How did Lincoln respond to the attack on and capture of Fort Sumter? (1st battle of the war!)
How did the South respond to the attack on Fort Sumter? (How many states now?)
What did both sides expect about the duration and outcome of the war?
Section 1: Resources, Strategies, and Early Battles (pgs. 360-366)
What advantages did the Union (North) have?
What advantages did the Confederacy (South) have?
What was the Confederate strategy for victory?
What was the Union strategy for victory?
The ‘Border States’:
Which states were they?
Why did Lincoln have to be so careful with them?
What new types of technology and warfare were used in the Civil War?
Early Battles of the Civil War
Bull Run (include date, generals, who won, significance)
What three battles did Grant fight in Tennessee? (include dates, significance, etc.)
Who captured the city of New Orleans? Why was it a major victory to capture New Orleans? (think
geography)
What was the significance of the Monitor vs. Merrimack (Virginia)?
Describe General George McClellan. What was Lincoln’s biggest problem with him? Examples?
Section 2: African Americans and the War (pgs. 367-372)
What were the ideas different people had in regards to the question “What do we do with slaves who
come under Union control?”
Battle of Antietam (date, generals, who won, significance)
What does the word ‘emancipation’ mean?
What did the Emancipation Proclamation officially do?
What was the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation on the war?
What was significant about the 54th Massachusetts Regiment?
What attitudes did people have about African American troops? Give examples where the troops
proved the skeptics wrong.
What do you find strange about the picture of Abraham Lincoln on page 372?
Section 3: Life During the War (pgs. 373-379)
What impact did the Civil War have on the economy in the North?
How did the government attempt to raise money to pay for the war?
What was the Homestead Act?
What is conscription?
Why did many people find the conscription laws unfair?
Who were the Copperheads?
How did Abraham Lincoln restrict civil liberties during the Civil War?
What economic problems did the South face during the Civil War?
How did soldiers die during the Civil War?
What was Andersonville?
How were women involved in the Civil War?
Who was Clara Barton?
What two songs served as the ‘anthems’ for the North and South during the war? Listen to them.
Section 4: Turning Points of the War (pgs. 380-389)
Vicksburg (date, generals, strategies, who won, significance)
Turning Point in the East
Robert E. Lee had two major victories in Virginia before the battle of Gettysburg.
Fredericksburg (date, generals, who won, significance)
Chancellorsville (date, generals, who won, significance)
Gettysburg: July 1-3, 1863 (be sure to read the ‘Events That Changed America’ section on pgs 38485)
What was General Lee hoping to accomplish with a victory at Gettysburg?
Who was the new general for the Army of the Potomac?
Besides Lee, who was the other major Confederate general at Gettysburg?
Who was the hero for the North on the second day of the battle on Little Round Top?
What did he do?
Who was the important Confederate general, and what did he lead on the third day of the
battle?
What was the impact of the Battle of Gettysburg? (look at the beginning of 386 for this as well)
This must be an important battle if we have this many questions about it, right?
How many times has Mr. Voss been to the Gettysburg battlefield?
What was the importance of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address?
Who became the new general of the entire Union army early in 1864?
What are some battles he fought against Robert E. Lee in?
What does the concept of ‘total war’ refer to?
Describe the impact of General William Tecumseh Sherman on the war in the South.
In 1864, Abraham Lincoln ran for election. Who was his opponent? (like Aaron Burr, this guy was a
tool)
What was the impact of Lincoln’s reelection on the war?
Section 5: The War’s End and Impact (pgs. 390-395)
What city was Grant trying to capture in the summer of 1864?
What city became the battle ground though because of its railroad significance?
What was the Thirteenth Amendment?
Where did Lee finally surrender to Grant?
Who killed Uncle Abe?
What impact did Lincoln’s death have on the country, the end of the war, and Abe’s legacy?
Why did the North win the Civil War?
Lasting Legacy of the War
Why was the Civil War unlike any war the nation had ever before experienced?
What was Mathew Brady’s role in the war?
How did the war help the economy in the North? (look at graph on chart 394)
How did the war hurt the economy in the South?
What impact did the Civil War have on American society?
What impact did the Civil War have on American government and politics?
The end.
Objectives and Goals for Civil War unit:
 Identify the underlying causes of the American Civil War.
 Identify the key events leading up to the outbreak of war.
 Identify the important events, people, and military engagements of the Civil War.
 Understand the key political developments, documents, and speeches throughout the Civil War
era.
 Identify the reasons for the eventual Union victory in the American Civil War and the
outcomes on America (political, economic, technological, and social).
The Words of Abraham Lincoln
From the 1st Inaugural Address: March 4, 1861
"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where
it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil
war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the
aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the
most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may
have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from
every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will
yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of
our nature.
Gettysburg Address: November 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.
Letter to Mrs. Bixby: Nov. 21, 1864.
Dear Madam,-I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of
Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the
grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be
found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the
cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly
a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln
2nd Inaugural Address: March 4, 1865
At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an
extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be
pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public
declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still
absorbs the attention, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented.
The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to
myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future,
no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an
impending civil war. All dreaded it--all sought to avert it. While the inaugeral [sic] address was being
delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in
the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissole [sic] the Union, and divide effects, by
negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation
survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but
localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew
that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this
interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the
government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party
expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated
that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each
looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible,
and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any
men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's
faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of
neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of
offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!"
If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God,
must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove,
and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the
offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in
a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty
scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by
the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of
blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand
years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether"
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the
right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who
shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish
a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
Civil War Timeline
1861
Confederate government formed
Lincoln takes office
Fort Sumter attacked
Four more Southern states secede
Trent Affair
First Battle of Bull Run (McClellan put in command of Army of Potomac)
1862
Grant takes Forts Henry and Donelson
Battle of Shiloh
McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign
Seven Days’ Battle
Merrimack vs. Monitor
Battle of Antietam (McClellan removed, Burnside in command)
Emancipation Proclamation announced
Battle of Fredericksburg (Burnside removed, Hooker in command)
New Orleans taken by Union
1863
Battle of Chancellorsville
Battle of Gettysburg (Hooker removed, Meade in command)
Fall of Vicksburg
Fall of Port Hudson
Grant named commander-in-chief
1864
Alabama sunk by Union warship
Sherman’s March to the Sea
Grant’s Wilderness Campaign (The Wilderness and Spotsylvania)
Battle of Cold Harbor
Lincoln defeats McClellan to win reelection
1865
Fall of Petersburg and Richmond
Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox
Lincoln assassinated
Civil War Map
1. Draw the boundary line between the North and South.
2. Locate the capital cities of both the North and South.
3. Identify new states since the last map.
4. Mark the locations of the major battles you read about and we discuss in class.