U.S. History/American Studies
Mr. Mintzes
A Brief Outline/Chronology of the Civil War
Lincoln elected President – 1860 . He takes office in March, 1861
Southern states had threatened that they would secede from the Union if Lincoln were elected and took office.
Seven southern states seceded even before Lincoln’s inauguration,
South Carolina leads other southern states in secession– even though Lincoln says in his speech that he will support the right of the states to decide upon slavery inside their own borders.
Southern states form the Confederate States of America – establish first capital at Montgomery,
Alabama and elect Jefferson Davis as President – Davis had been a soldier, Secretary of War and a senator. The capitol is soon moved to Richmond, Virginia .
April 12, 1861 – Confederate troops fire on Ft. Sumter , a US fort in Charleston harbor – Charleston,
SC - first shot of the war. – Ft. Sumter surrenders after a lengthy bombardment
(typical of the relationships between the soldiers on the opposing sides, the Confederate commander was General PT Beauregard. The Union commander of the fort was Major Robert
Anderson who had been Beauregard’s artillery instructor and mentor at West Point years earlier.
Anderson had also served with Jefferson Davis in the Mexican War and the two had maintained a close friendship over the years)
Lincoln authorizes the raising of an Army of 75,000 to quell the rebellion – calls for volunteers to serve for three months – all that would be needed to put down the revolt – or so the Union thought.
Lincoln offers a senior Colonel in US Army the command of the Army of the Potomac. Robert E. Lee refuses, saying that he could not fight against his home state of Virginia, demonstrating the southern belief that loyalty to your state is greater than loyalty to the Union.
Lincoln approves the War Department’s plan to defeat the South. It is called the “Anaconda Plan” named for the huge snake that squeezes its prey to death. The plan involves a blockade by the navy of all southern ports to sever Confederate access to foreign products and money, a drive in the West to capture and control the entire length of the Mississippi River and cut the south in two, and a drive to capture Richmond.
July, 1861 – the Union and Confederate armies meet in pitched battle for the first time at Manassas,
Virginia on the banks of a small river known as Bull Run. It is close to Washington, D.C. and hundreds of civilians travel down from Washington in their carriages to watch the battle that would quickly end the rebellion.
The battle (1 st Battle of Bull Run) – a major defeat for the Union – sends a message to all concerned – that this war will be long and hard, and very different from any that anyone imagined. More than
5,000 men are killed or wounded on both sides, almost as many died in this one battle as died in the entire Revolutionary War. The Union Army retreats in panic towards Washington – often outrunning the civilians in their carriages.

(a quirk of fate – an example of being in the wrong place at the wrong time - happens to a family named McLean. The McLean house stood in the middle of the Bull Run battlefield. It served as a headquarters and a hospital. After the battle, McLean moved his family further south, away from the tide of battle and the war. He settles in Appomattox Station, Virginia, a quiet village west of
Richmond. In April, 1865 the war ends in his drawing room as General Grant meets General Lee in McLean’s house to accept the surrender of the southern army. McLean was there at the beginning and the end.)
Lincoln appoints a new commander of the Army of the Potomac – George McClellan – who builds a huge army – over 100,000 men – and invades the South – attempting to capture Richmond and end the war. His army gets bogged down, is outmaneuvered and he is tricked and bluffed into retreating by a much smaller Confederate army commanded by Robert E. Lee . Thousands of soldiers die on both sides but McClellan retreats and Lee is hailed as the greatest general since Napoleon. The army Lee commands is named The Army of Northern Virginia .
1862: McClellan is relieved and another commander leads the Union Army to another defeat at Manassas again. The Union looks like it could lose the war. England begins to quietly support the Southern cause and there is a chance that England might come to the aid of the Confederacy.
The north needs a victory. Lincoln needs a victory because he wants to issue a proclamation freeing the slaves.
McClellan is put in command again. In September 1862 Lee leads his army in an invasion of the North to bring pressure on the North to negotiate a peace and end the war. He meets the Union Army near
Sharpsburg, Maryland, on the banks of Antietam Creek in a battle that is the single bloodiest day in
American history (Battle of Antietam) . In one day over 23,000 men are killed or wounded. Neither said gains a decisive victory but Lee retreats. Lincoln proclaims a great victory and on January 1, 1863 issues the Emancipation Proclamation .
The Emancipation Proclamation frees the slaves in the states “currently” in rebellion against the US.
That means that the slaves were freed in those states that were still under the control of the Confederacy, the very slaves over which Lincoln had no control. It did not free all the slaves.
In an attempt to break the Union blockade near Richmond, the Confederates launch an “ironclad” warship, the Merrimack.
Because of its iron protection, it sinks a number of Union ships. The Union launches it own ironclad, the Monitor. The two ships meet at Hampton Roads, Virginia and fight a battle that lasts several hours. Neither ship damages the other. The battle between the two ironclads (the
Monitor and the Merrimack) ushers in a new era in naval warfare. Never again will wooden ships be the backbone of any navy.
New Union commanders in the East are poor generals who lead the Union Army of the Potomac to costly, bloody defeats in major battles in Virginia.
In the “West” a different general,
Ulysses S. Grant, leads the Union Army of the Tennessee to major victories at Forts Henry and Donaldson and at Shiloh and Chattanooga. Grant brings the only successes to the Union cause in 1862 and early 1863.
In early July 1863 Lee leads the Confederate Army north to Pennsylvania in an effort to threaten
Washington and force the Union to ask for a truce. Union and Confederate armies meet at Gettysburg
PA from July 1-3, 1863. Over 50,000 men on both sides are casualties , but the Confederate army is defeated. On the last day of the battle (July 3 rd
), Gen. Lee sends 15,000 men under Gen. Pickett in a

desperate attempt to break the Union line. The attack fails. “Pickett’s Charge” is often referred to as
“The High Tide of the Confederacy."
On July 4 th
, on the western front, General Grant captures the strategic city of Vicksburg on the Mississippi. The Union now controls the Mississippi, cutting the
Confederacy in two.
The two victories coming just one day apart signal the beginning of the end for the
Confederacy.
In July 1863, the first draft is instituted. Everyone must serve, but for $300 a man can buy himself a substitute who will serve in his place. In places like New York, the draft is not well received. Draft riots erupt in NYC and the poor immigrant population of the city takes out its anger at the draft and the government against the Blacks, who they blame for the war.
1864: General Grant, now General in Chief of the Union Army begins a new campaign against General
Lee. Although the North and South fight major costly battles in Virginia, and although Lee wins as many battles as he loses, Lee is forced to retreat south towards Richmond as the South cannot replace the soldiers killed and equipment destroyed while the North can.
Grant lays siege to Petersburg and
Richmond.
In the West, the Army is now commanded by General William Tecumseh Sherman.
Sherman’s armies capture the rest of Tennessee and invade Georgia. After a long siege and battle they capture Atlanta, a critical railroad junction, financial and industrial center and burn the city. Sherman then leads his army on “a march to the sea” with the objective of capturing Savannah, Georgia. In its march to the sea,
Sherman’s army destroys everything in his path – plantations, factories, homes, etc., and frees thousands of slaves.
Sherman coins the phrase “War is Hell”
meaning that, for the first time, civilians and private property will be involved in the war and will be destroyed. He believes in total war. His philosophy has been adopted and followed by every country and army since.
In April, 1865, Grant’s army captures Petersburg and Richmond and the Confederate army and government flee from the city. Lee’s army, now down to 25,000 men, is trapped between two Union armies numbering over 120,000. He surrenders to Grant in the living room of McLean’s house in
Appomattox, Va. (see page 1) on April 9, 1865, effectively ending the Civil War.
Grant, who once served under Lee during the Mexican War, allowed the defeated General to retain his sword, permitted Confederate officers to retain their side arms, and soldiers who owned their horses to keep them as well as they would be needed for spring planting. Upon receiving the news of
Lee’s surrender, Lincoln orders the Army band to play “Dixie” (the southern anthem) on the White
House lawn. These and other honorable acts of respect for a defeated enemy help to start the healing process after the Civil War ends.
On April 14, 1865 Lincoln is assassinated in Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC, by John Wilkes Booth , an actor (he wasn’t in the play) as part of a plot to also kill the Vice President (Andrew Johnson) and the
Secretary of State (William Seward).
As a result of the war, the south is devastated. Its railroads are all destroyed, it farms and plantations burned, 25% of its working age men were dead and thousands more had been wounded or permanently disabled, its cheap labor (slaves) are now free, and any industry it had is in ruins. The era of
Reconstruction begins.