The Furnace of Civil War
1861–1865
Bull Run Ends the “Ninety-Day War”
• Also known as the Battle of Manassas Junction
• July 21, 1861
• General “Stonewall” Jackson turned the tide
against the Union forces
• Ended thoughts of a quick war
– War will become one of attrition
“Tardy George” McClellan and the
Peninsula Campaign
• Army of the Potomac- name for the Union
forces near D.C.
• McClellan was overcautious
• Lee repulsed McClellan near Richmond
• Lincoln relieved McClellan of command
• After the failed Peninsula Campaign in 1862,
Union strategy turned toward total war
Map 21-1 p437
Union Strategy
-Blockade the South
-Liberate the slaves to undermine economic
foundations of South
-Control the Mississippi and cut the Confederacy in
half
-Send troops through Georgia and the Carolinas
-Capture Richmond
-Wear down the Confederacy’s main forces
Map 21-2 p439
The War at Sea
• Union blockaded Southern ports
• British ships were seized if carrying war
supplies
Monitor and Merrimack
The Pivotal Point: Antietam
• Confederate General Robert E. Lee decided to
strike into Maryland
– Hoped to encourage foreign support and cause
the Border States to join the Confederacy
• Confederate plans were found by Union
soldiers
• September 17, 1862 General McClellan
(returned to command) stopped Lee’s forces
at Antietam Creek
Casualties
Results of Battle
• While basically a draw, the Battle of Antietam had
significant consequences
• “The landmark Battle of Antietam was one of the
decisive engagements of world history- probably
the most decisive of the Civil War. (Kennedy, et.
al.)”
• Britain and France had been getting closer to
proposing mediation, but held off after the battle
• The battle gave Lincoln the opportunity he had
been waiting for in order to issue the
Emancipation Proclamation
• 1861- Congress had declared that rebel
property used in the war effort, including
slaves, could be confiscated
• 1862- second Confiscation Act- declared that
the slaves of “traitors” were “captives of war”
and were forever free
• The North still hesitated to go further, though,
for fear of losing the Border States
• September 23, 1862- Preliminary
Emancipation Proclamation issued
The Emancipation Proclamation
• January 1, 1863
• "That on the first day of January, in the year of
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within
any State or designated part of a State, the
people whereof shall then be in rebellion
against the United States, shall be then,
thenceforward, and forever free. . . .”
• The Emancipation Proclamation transformed
the Civil War into a moral crusade against
slavery
• Reactions in the North were mixed
– Abolitionists complained that Lincoln had not
gone far enough
– Some Northerners opposed a war of abolition
• The Emancipation Proclamation helped
prevent Britain from supporting the South
Map 21-3 p442
Blacks Battle Bondage
• As Lincoln moved to emancipate slaves, he took
steps to enlist blacks in armed forces:
• Black enlistees finally allowed
• By 1865, some 180,000 blacks served in Union army, most
from slave states, but many from free-soil North
• Blacks accounted for about 10% of total enlistments in Union
forces on land and sea
• Two Mass. Regiments raised largely through efforts of exslave Frederick Douglas
– Saw service as a way to gain eventual full citizenship
• (South would begin to enlist slaves a month before the war
ended)
• 16 Black soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor
– In many ways Southern slaves hamstrung
Confederate war efforts:
• Fear of slave insurrection necessitated “home guards,”
keeping many white men from front
• Slave resistance (slowdowns) diminished productivity
• When Union troops neared, slave assertiveness increased
• Slaves often served as Union spies
• Almost 500,000 revolted “with their feet”
• Slaves contributed powerfully to collapse of slavery and
disintegration of antebellum way of life
p443
p447
Lee’s Last Lunge at Gettysburg
• Lee invaded North
– Hoped to encourage Northerners who wanted
peace
– Wanted to encourage foreign intervention
• July 1-3, 1863
• “High tide of Confederacy”
– Broke back of South
Map 21-4 p444
The Gettysburg Address
• November 19, 1863
• "Fourscore 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.”
Fourscore 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 battlefield 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 cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
cannot 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.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvA0J_2Z
pIQ
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN-MZhX9mE
The War in the West
p446
p446
Map 21-5 p448
The War in the West
– Vicksburg, Mississippi:
• South's lifeline for supplies from west
• Grant commanded Union forces at Vicksburg:
• His best-fought campaign
– Union victory at Vicksburg came day after Confederate defeat
at Gettysburg
– Reopened Mississippi quelled Northern peace advocates
– Twin victories tipped diplomatic scale in favor of North
– Britain stopped delivery of Laird rams to Confederates
– Confederate hope for foreign help irretrievably lost
Sherman’s March to the Sea
– General William Tecumseh Sherman
• Captured and burned Atlanta in 1864
• Sherman with 6,000 troops cut a sixty-mile swath of
destruction through Georgia
• Major purposes of Sherman's march:
– Destroy supplies destined for Confederate army
– Weaken morale of men at front by waging war on their homes
– Total War
• Brutal, but may have shortened war and thus saved
lives in the long run
Map 21-6 p450
p451
The Election of 1864
• Lincoln faced attack by those who wanted
peace
• Republican party briefly merged with War
Democrats to form the Union party
Democrats nominated General McClellan
Figure 21-1 p452
Copperheads
• Conservative democrats who wanted peace
• Believed in strict construction of the
Constitution
• Some were southern sympathizers
p453
Map 21-7 p454
Map 21-8 p455
• Appomattox Courthouse:
– End came with dramatic suddenness:
• Northern troops captured Richmond and cornered Lee
at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, April 1865
• Grant met with Lee on April 9th
• Granted generous terms of surrender
– Hungry Confederates allowed to keep horses for spring plowing
– Tattered Southern veterans wept as they took leave of their
beloved commander
• Lincoln traveled to Richmond just days after
Jefferson Davis left it
The Martyrdom of Lincoln
• Lincoln's death:
• On April 14, 1865 (Good Friday) only five days after
Lee's surrender, John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln
at Ford's Theater in Washington
• Lincoln died following morning
– Dramatic death erased memory of his shortcomings and
caused his nobler qualities to stand out in clearer relief
– Lincoln’s death had significant consequences for
the South
p459
The Aftermath of the Nightmare
•
•
•
•
•
600,000 died
$15 billion cost
Union preserved
Preservation of democratic ideals
Concepts of nullification and secession were
finished
• Slavery ended (officially with the 13th
Amendment 1865)
p463