Station 1: Strategies of the North
The Anaconda Plan
(Scott’s Great Snake)
General William Tecumseh Sherman, Union Army
Sherman’s March to the Sea from Atlanta to the coastal town of Savannah was intended destroy the Confederacy’s
ability to wage war. For weeks, he had his men live off the land, seizing food and horses from the local populations
as they passed. He continued his strategy of destroying all military facilities in his path, along with all commercial
targets that could be used militarily. Railroad tracks were uprooted, heated over fires to make them soft, and then
twisted around tree trunks as "Sherman neckties" to insure they couldn’t be repaired. On December 21, 1864, his
troops took Savannah from the Confederates, and he dispatched a message to Lincoln that later became famous;
he offered the city as a Christmas present to the president.
He then turned his army north through the Carolinas. South Carolina had set the nation on the road to war when it
seceded and it was in South Carolina that the first shots were fired, at Fort Sumter. Sherman’s soldiers held a
special hatred for South Carolina and left a trail of destruction in their wake before crossing into North Carolina,
where they burned even the pine forests that provided tar for the state’s shipbuilding works. Sherman’s last battle
was Bentonville, North Carolina, March 19–21, 1865. Soon after, word arrived that Robert E. Lee had surrendered
to Grant, ending the war.
General Ulysses S. Grant, Union Army
Grant was promoted to Colonel in the Union army in June 1861. Grant soon got a reputation for having an "iron will"
to win. Grant became famous around the nation after capturing Fort Donelson in February 1862 and was promoted
to Major General by President Abraham Lincoln. After a series of decisive yet costly battles and victories at Shiloh,
Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General by President Lincoln in 1864 and given
charge of all the Union Armies.
Grant won favor because of his aggressive fighting style, although it led to large numbers of casualties for both the
Union and Confederate armies. Grant went on to defeat Robert E. Lee after another series of costly battles in the
Overland Campaign, Petersburg, and Appomattox. After the Civil War, Grant was given his final promotion of
General of the Armed Forces in 1866 and served until 1869. Grant's popularity as a Union war general enabled him
to be elected two terms as the 18th President of the United States.
Although January 1st, 1863, is the date most Americans identify as the day the Emancipation
Proclamation officially took effect, the ideals of the Proclamation had been carefully planned by
President Lincoln many months before.
Lincoln first proposed the idea of the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet in the summer
of 1862 as a war strategy to hurt the Confederacy. Lincoln felt that if the slaves in the Southern
states were freed, then the Confederacy could no longer use them as laborers to support the
army in the field, thus hurting the Confederate war effort. Lincoln needed to prove that the
Union government could enforce the Proclamation and protect the freed slaves. On September
22, 1862, following the Union “victory” at the Battle of Antietam, the Emancipation
Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863.
The Emancipation had an immediate and important effect on the course of the war. In addition
to saving the Union, freeing the slaves now became an official war aim, causing passionate
reactions from both the North and the South. The Proclamation also allowed for African Americans to join the Union’s armed forces, and by the end of the war nearly 200,000 would
honorably serve.
At first the Proclamation applied just to the states in rebellion (not the Border States), but it
paved the way for the 13th Amendment, adopted on December 6, 1865, which officially
abolished slavery in the United States.
Station 2: Strategies of the South
General Robert E. Lee, Confederate Army
Lee is probably the most famous and most widely respected of all Civil War commanders. Though he
opposed secession, he resigned from the U.S. Army to join the forces of his native state of Virginia,
and was named general-in-chief of all Confederate land forces. He repeatedly defeated larger Union
armies in Virginia, but his two invasions of Northern territory were unsuccessful.
With Ulysses S. Grant, he found an opponent who would not give up regardless of setbacks and
casualties, and Lee’s outnumbered forces were gradually reduced in number and forced into
defensive positions that did not allow him room to maneuver. When he surrendered the Army of
Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, it meant the war was virtually over.
Station 3: Resources of North and South
A
B
C
D
Station 4: Leaders
Presidential Controversy 1: Lincoln Suspends the
Right of Habeas Corpus
The right to Habeas Corpus is the constitutional guarantee of a day in
court for arrested persons.
Lincoln suspended it during the Civil War in areas where Southern
sympathizers were disrupting the Northern war effort.
Presidential Controversy 2: Lincoln says he is
willing to keep slavery in order to save the Union
“I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under
the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be
restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was."
….My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union,
and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save
the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could
save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save
it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do
that.”
Jefferson Davis faced problems such as:
 Outnumbered forces
 Fewer resources
 Difficulty in leading a loose
confederation of states
 Difficulty creating a strategy to
defend the entire South
 Several weak generals