What you should know about the Civil War…

• Significant people… • Differences/Basic facts… • Advantages for each… • Why did soldiers fight?

• Where/when were the first shots?

• Where was the first battle?

• What did most people expect the war to be?

• What was the result of the first battle?

• Where did Grant show early success?

• What was significant about Shiloh?

• What was significant about Antietam?

The Civil War

• •

Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere long, must be done again.

You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.

North vs. South

• The United States of America • The Union • Yankees • Billy Yank • Preserve the Union • President – Abraham Lincoln • The Confederate States of America • The Confederacy • Rebels • Johnny Reb • Independence – state’s rights • President – Jefferson Davis

Abraham Lincoln Jefferson Davis

Advantages North South • Bigger population • More soldiers • More Industry • Know the territory • Defending homes • Better military leaders

Soldiers

• Army splits as Southerners feel loyal to home states • Many officers fought together and gained experience during War with Mexico • Many soldiers on both sides had never been more than a few miles from home • Northern soldiers fight to preserve Union; Southern soldiers fight Northern aggression

Fort Sumter

• Union fort in Confederate territory • Confederacy demands surrender • Lincoln decides to re-supply the fort • First shots of the Civil War • April 12, 1861 • Fort defended by Maj. Robert Anderson instructor of the attacker, PGT Beauregard at West Point • One Union soldier killed as they fire cannon in salute • Lincoln gets Davis to start the war

First Battle of Bull Run

Bull Run

• First battle • 25 miles from Washington, D.C.

• Union troops led by Irwin McDowell • Union pushed Confederates back • Confederate troops rally behind General Thomas Jackson – earns the nickname “Stonewall” • Confederate reinforcements chase Union from the field, retreat all the way to D.C.

• Retreat slowed by people who came to watch the battle • Knew it would be a real war

Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson

• From Virginia • Instructor at Virginia Military Institute • Extremely religious • Robert E. Lee’s most trusted commander

“There stands Jackson like a stonewall” – Gen. Bee

Ulysses S. Grant

• West Point graduate • Failure as farmer, bill collector, real estate agent, store clerk • Decisive military commander • “Unconditional Surrender” Grant

Forts Henry and Donelson

Forts Henry and Donelson

• Union army invades western Tennessee • Led by General Ulysses S. Grant • Union victories • Forts held strategic importance on Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers

Shiloh – place of peace

Shiloh

• Grant attacked by Confederates and suffered huge losses • Grant counterattacks the next day with reinforcements • Confederates retreat • Both sides see they are in for a long and bloody war • ¼ of 100,000 men who fought there were killed, wounded, or captured

Robert E. Lee

• Gave up command of Union army to defend home state of Virginia • Became commander of Confederate army • Against secession • Brilliant military commander

George McClellan

• Made U.S. commander after Bull Run • Brilliant trainer • Slow to action • Frustrated Lincoln • Always felt he needed more men before he could attack • Lincoln said he had a case of “the slows”

Antietam

• George B. McClellan finds Robert E. Lee’s plans in a cigar wrapper – Lee and Jackson are split • Bloodiest single day in American history • Double number of deaths in War of 1812 and war with Mexico combined • Southern troops escape to Virginia • McClellan fails to follow • Lincoln fires McClellan

•

“to see what war was without romance. I cannot describe my feelings, but I hope to God never to see the like again.” - Northern soldier

Confederate dead at Antietam – bloodiest day in U.S. history

Trent Affair

• Britain declares neutrality • Confederacy sends diplomats to meet with Britain and France • Traveled on a British ship, the

Trent

• U.S. warship,

San Jacinto

, stops ship and arrests Confederate representatives • Britain sends 8,000 troops to Canada • U.S. releases prisoners

Fredericksburg

– Dec. 1862

• • • Virginia

Union army, under General Ambrose Burnside** Confederate victory**

• Burnside replaced

Chancellorsville

– May 1863

• • Virginia

Lee**

outmaneuvers new

Union commander Thomas “Fighting Joe” Hooker**

• •

Confederate victory**

Stonewall Jackson accidentally shot and

killed by his own men**

• Lee lost his most trusted advisor

Gettysburg

Gettysburg

• • July 2-4, 1863

Lee**

leads army into Pennsylvania to force the war into Union territory •

One of few major battles to take place in the North**

•

Began as a skirmish as Confederate troops going into town looking for shoes ran into Union cavalry**

• Shooting attracted more troops • July 2 – 90,000 Union;75,000 Confederate

George Meade

•

Commander of Union forces at Gettysburg**

• Replaced Burnside

James Longstreet

• Replaced Jackson as Lee’s top advisor

Day 2

• Union has the high ground on hills known as Cemetery Ridge, Big Round Top, and Little Round Top • Union troops mistakenly vacate Little Round Top – both sides rush to take it

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

• • Joshua Chamberlain, professor and colonel of Maine regiment, defends the hill

Running out of ammunition, he leads a daring bayonet charge and stops the Confederate attack

Day 3

• Robert E. Lee decides to attack the center of the Union line • Attack led by General George Pickett • Had to cross long exposed field – becomes known as

Pickett’s Charge

• Union troops were well entrenched • Pickett’s division suffers heavy losses

Result

•

Union victory**

• Total casualties appx. 30 % • Union – 23,000 killed or wounded • Confederate – 28,000 killed or wounded • Prove that Lee can be beaten • • Lee retreats back south and never again invades the North - Meade fails to follow up with pursuit

Considered by many to be the “turning point” of the war**

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.

Vicksburg

• • • Mississippi

Major port on Mississippi River July 4, 1863 - Surrenders to Grant after long siege

• •

Union victory Puts Mississippi River under Union control

• Along with Gettysburg, seems to suggest a shift in momentum

Grant and Lee in Virginia

• March 1864, Lincoln appoints Grant commander of all Union armies • Plans war of attrition against Lee – Wear him down – Attack Lee relentlessly – North could replace troops; South could not – From May 4 – June 18, 1864, Grant loses 60,000 men to Lee’s 32,000 • The Wilderness; Spotsylvania; Cold Harbor (Grant lost 7,000 men in one hour); Petersburg • Northern newspapers refer to Grant as a “butcher”

Sherman’s March to the Sea

• Grant appoints William Tecumseh Sherman as commander of part of the army • Plans on marching through Georgia, destroying everything in his path – Total War – Make the South “so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it.”

Appomattox Court House

• By late March, 1865, Grant and Philip Sheridan approaching Richmond, VA, from the west; Sherman from the south • Jefferson Davis and gov’t abandon capital • April 9, 1865 – Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, • Terms were generous, as per Lincoln’s request • Within two months, all remaining resistance collapses