Unit VI
Part 4
The Civil War and Reconstruction
The War
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Civil War
WWI
WWII
618,000 Americans Died
115,000 Americans Died
318,000 Americans Died
The Battles
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The North called battles by the names of nearby
landmarks (rivers, mountains)
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The South called battles by the names of nearby
towns
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For instance…The Battle of Bull Run (North)
was the Battle of Manassas (South)
You MUST know
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Antietam Sept. 1862…why important?
The bloodiest single day of the war
 Convinced Lincoln to change the reason for the war
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Gettysburg July 1863 Why important?
The bloodiest battle of the war
 Determined the outcome of the war
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You MUST know
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That the Iron Clad ships DID make a difference
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About the epic battle between the Monitor and
the Merrimac in March of 1862
The First Battle of Bull Run
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July 1861
North: McDowell with 37,000
South Beauregard with 35,000
“Stonewall” Jackson (S)
Joe Johnson (S)
Southern Victory…4500 killed (total)
Lincoln replaced McDowel with
McClellen
McClellen hung around Washington DC drilling
and parading his troops for a good long time
The Lincoln’s lost a son (again) and Mary went
over the edge
Sept 1861
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Lee and the Battle of Cheat Mountain
“Granny Lee”
Missouri
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Tried to leave the Union
North sent General Lyon to keep Missouri in
The Battle of Wilson’s Creek
Missouri remained in the Union
April 1862…The West
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Farragut (North) with the help of Iron Clads
took New Orleans!
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New Orleans: Largest city in the South and was
the banking center of the Confederacy
Cut off part of the South
First major Union victory
“Beast Butler”
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McCLellen
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Was still drilling, parading and training troops in
DC (slacker)
Grant
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February 6 and 16 1862…forts Henry and
Donaldson
Union victory with the help of iron clads
Ft. Henry …Albert Sydney Johnson (South) was
defeated in a surprise attack
Fort Donaldson was warned (South: Floyd,
Pillow, Buckner, and Nathan Bedford Forrest)
Nathan Bedford Forrest
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Founded the first KKK 1866
AKA the Butcher of Fort Pillow
Grant
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Was admired for his fighting spirit and grim
determination
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BUT troubled by gambling, drinking and
commanding officer…Henry Halleck
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Lincoln: Tell me what he drinks so I can send a
case of it to my other generals
McClellen was still in DC (slacker) with 120,000
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Grant
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Battle of Shiloh (Tenn) April 6 & 7
V Albert Sydney Johnson (died here) and
Beauregard
Union victory
13,000 Union dead
11,000 Confederates dead
The total was more than all 3 previous U.S. wars
combined
Battle of Murfreesboro
(Stone’s River)
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Late 1862-early ’63
North: Rosecrans and Buel
South Braxton Bragg: tried to recapture Tenn.
and Kentucky
The North won Chatanooga
McClellen’s Peninsular Campaign
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Battle of the Seven Days
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McClellen v Magruder, then Stuart, then
Stonewall Jackson and finally Lee
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Technical win for McClellen since he did not
withdraw BUT he failed to follow up
McClellen fell out of favor
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General Pope (North) v Lee
Second Bull Run August 1862
Pope was defeated
McClellen put back in charge
Antietam Sept. 1862
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McClellen with 90,000
Lee with 55,000 (marched all night, many
shoeless)
McClellen was made aware of Lee’s battle plans
but chose to wait to fight the next day!
Union lost 12,000
South lost 11,000
McClellen a technical win but again did not
follow through and was replaced by Burnside
March 1862
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The 4-hour battle of the Ironclad ships
The Monitor and the Merrimac (aka the
Virginia)
Norfolk ship yards
The Virginia attacked the Cumberland and the
Congress and then went after the Minnesota
The Monitor showed up
No winner
Fredericksburg (Va)
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North: Burnside v Lee
Burnside made 7 separate attacks that failed and
lost 7,000
The South lost 1200
Burnside resigned
Was replaced by Hooker
May 1863
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Chancellorsville
Was the inspiration for The Red Badge of Courage
Hooker had 90,000 (lost 17,000)
Lee had 60,000 (lost 13,000)
A win for the South but Stonewall Jackson was
wounded and died
Spring of 1863
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Grant went after Vicksburg, Mississippi (was
one of the 2 Confederate strongholds in the
South)
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Grant bombarded the city for 6 long weeks
The people were starving, lived in caves
Surrendered July 4..Grant fed the town
Port Hudson fell soon after (Louisiana)
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Gettysburg
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Lee decided to bring the war to Pennsylvania
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First: he hoped to give some relief to Vicksburg
(maybe Grant would be called in to defend the North)
Second: to show England that the South COULD
win (like Saratoga and the French during the
Revolutionary War
Third: to show Northerners what war was really like.
He had hoped that there would be popular demand
for an end to the war
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Gettysburg
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July 1-4 1863
The bloodiest battle of the war
Union Army 90,000 was commanded by Meade
(Grant was still in Vicksburg)
Confederacy: Lee with 75,000 (Longstreet,
Stuart, others)
Confederates lost 28,000
North lost 23,000
The bodies! The Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address
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.
Meade
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Held the ground but failed to go after Lee
In the meantime
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The first Black union regiment was formed and
set to fight at Battery Wagner, SC
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Union lost
Frederick Douglass lost two sons
Was the basis for Glory
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Tennessee
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September 1863
The Battle of Chickamauga
Grant saved Chattanooga from Bragg
Grant called to take command of the Army of
the Potomac 1864
Grant divided the Union Army
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Meade with 115,000 in pursuit of Lee with
75,000
Grant stayed with Meade
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Sherman given 90,000 to go against (S) Joe
Johnson’s 75,000
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Grant and Sherman
Battles Grant v Lee
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Battle of the Wilderness
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
Both wins for Lee BUT Lee’s #’s were thinning.
Lee kept his army between Northern army and
Richmond
Grant (and Meade) just kept going
By June of 1864 North had 55,000 killed or captured,
South 31,000
Petersburg (Va)
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Both armies at Petersburg for 9 months
A stalemate
But Burnside was there and had a plan
A disaster for the North
But Grant and Meade will keep on keeping on
to Richmond
In the South
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Sherman v Johnson
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June 27: Battle of Kennesaw Mountain
Johnson won but Sherman kept going
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Sept. 2 Atlanta fell to Sherman
Sherman went to Nashville and defeated Hood
(S)…Then…Sherman’s March to the Sea
Sherman’s March to the Sea
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Sherman’s army cut a 60-mile wide path of
destruction from Nashville to Savannah
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Savannah surrendered Dec. 22
Sherman continued North to Richmond
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April 1865
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Grant captured a RR junction near Richmond
Lee sent word to Davis…Get out of town…I
can’t hold Grant off much longer
Davis and others boarded a train going South
Lee hoped to take what was left of his army
(25,000) and hook up with Joe Johnson in the
South
BUT
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Lee was forced to surrender to Grant April 9,
1865 at Appomattox Court House
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NO TREATY (why?)
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Sherman and Johnson continued the fight for 9
more days
After Lee surrendered but before
Johnson surrendered
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Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth
while the Lincolns were attending a play, Our
American Cousin at Ford’s theater
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The Grants had been invited but had declined
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Seward’s home was also attacked and Seward
was wounded
Jefferson Davis
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Was caught and jailed
Never went to trial
Spent 720 days behind bars
Horace Greeley and others paid his bail so the
country could heal
Why wasn’t Davis put on trial?
Holy Christmas
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Lincoln’s Vice-president was a War Democrat!
Big trouble down the road with congress
POW Camps
Andersonville was the most notorious (in
Georgia)
BUT Elmira (in New York) was awful as well
Blacks rarely survived to be taken prisoner in the
first place
Taney died in 1864
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Lincoln named Chase (former Sec. of Treasury)
to the Court