Transcript Document 7185013

Section I:The
Civil War
Begins
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ning-of-the-civil-war#civil-warsgreatest-myth
• As soon as the Confederacy was
formed on Feb. 4, 1861, Confederate
soldiers began taking over federal
installations in their states –
courthouses, post offices, and
especially forts.
• By the time Abraham Lincoln took
office, only four Southern forts
remained in the Union.
• The most important was Fort Sumter,
on an island in Charleston’s harbor.
• President Lincoln had indicated that
he would not invade the South but
would protect Federal property.
• Lincoln ordered that the Union
soldiers at Fort Sumter be resupplied.
• Confederate president Jefferson Davis
ordered that Fort Sumter be taken by
force before the resupplies arrived.
• On April 12, 1861, Confederate guns
opened fire on Fort Sumter.
• After 34 hours, Fort Sumter
surrendered without any deaths.
• The Confederates had fired the first
shots of the Civil War.
Jefferson Davis, President of the
Confederate States of America
• Lincoln immediately declared that the
southern states were in a state of
rebellion.
• He called for 75,000 volunteers for 90
days to put down a rebellion and to
restore the Union.
• Four states (Virginia, North Carolina,
Tennessee, and Arkansas) of the Upper
South joined the Confederacy following
Lincoln’s call for volunteers.
• Four other border slave states
(Delaware, Missouri, Kentucky, and
Maryland) remained in the Union.
• Lincoln had to use federal troops to
keep Maryland in the Union.
• To lose Maryland would have meant
to lose the Union capital, since
Maryland surrounded Washington,
D.C. on three sides.
• Later the western part of Virginia
indicated its loyalty to the Union and
in 1863 Congress admitted West
Virginia to the Union.
• The secession of Virginia involved a
personality of immense importance to
the future course of the war.
• Colonel Robert E. Lee had been
offered command of the U.S. Army
by President Lincoln.
General Robert E. Lee, CSA
• After wrestling with his conscience
for days, Lee stated that he could not
draw his sword against his native
Virginia and resigned his commission
in the U.S. Army.
• He became the commander of the
Army of Northern Virginia and one of
the most able military brains of all
time.
• Northerners and Confederates alike
expected a short, glorious war.
Soldiers left for the front with bands
playing and crowds cheering. Both
sides felt that right was on their side,
and both were convinced that their
opponents were boastful bluffers who
would collapse after a few whiffs of
gunpowder.
Advantages,
Disadvantages,
and Strategies
• In reality the two sides were unevenly
matched.
• The North was superior in nearly
every type of resource, including
manufacturing plants, merchant ships,
railroad tracks, banks, minerals, grain
crops and meat.
• The Confederacy had less than ½ as
many people as the North and more
than 1/3 of these were slaves.
• The South did have some
advantages:
• 1) They were fighting essentially a
defensive war on familiar
terrain
• 2) They had outstanding military
leaders commanding
experienced troops
• The Union’s military strategy was
simple:
• 1) blockade Confederate ports
• 2) invade the South and split into
thirds at the Mississippi River and
through Tennessee and Georgia
• 3) capture the Confederate capital
at Richmond, VA
• This strategy was designed by
Army Chief of Staff Winfield
Scott and was nicknamed the
Anaconda Plan, after the snake
that chokes its victims to death.
• Because the Confederacy’s goal
was its own survival as a nation,
its strategy was mostly defensive.
• However, Southern leaders
encouraged their generals to attack –
and even to invade the North – if the
opportunity arose.
• They believed that one large victory
on Northern soil would end the war.
• The South was also counting on their
European trade partners (England and
France) to fight with them to restore
the cotton trade.
• As it turns out, England and France
had surpluses of cotton and never felt
that the South could actually win the
war.
• The South’s war effort would also be
hampered by the very nature of their
government. The independence of the
states denied Jeff Davis the type of
power needed to conduct and win a
war.
First Battle of
Bull Run
(Manassas)
• On July 21, 1861, the Union Army
invaded VA to capture Richmond.
• About 30 miles from Washington,
D.C., 30,000 Northern troops met a
smaller Confederate force near a
stream called Bull Run.
• Expecting victory and quick end to
the war, members of Congress and
Washington civilians came along to
picnic and watch the battle.
• What they saw was a confusing clash
of two untrained armies.
• Union troops fought well at first, but
the Confederates proved better
organized.
• Using the railroad and telegraph,
Confederate officers were able to
quickly supply reinforcements.
• Panic stricken Union soldiers and
civilians fled back to Washington.
• During the battle someone
observed the leader of the
Confederate reinforcements
standing in the midst of the battle
“like a stone wall.”
• Thus the nickname was given to
General Thomas “Stonewall”
Jackson, a very able and very
religious military leader.
General “Stonewall” Jackson, CSA
• Fortunately for the Union, the
Confederates were too
exhausted and disorganized to
follow up their victory with an
attack on Washington.
• Still, Confederate morale
soared.
The Peninsula
Campaign
• The day after Manassas, President
Lincoln appointed George McClellan
to command the major Union army in
the East – the Army of the Potomac,
named after the river that flows past
Washington.
• By the spring of 1862, McClellan had
built a huge, well-equipped army.
• But he was reluctant to attack.
• McClellan thought that going to
Richmond through Manassas would
be a mistake.
• So in the spring of 1862, he moved
the Army of the Potomac by ship to
the peninsula between the York and
James Rivers.
• He slowly marched towards
Richmond, and was met by Robert E.
Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
• McClellan had about 100,000
soldiers, about twice as many
as Lee had.
• Determined to save Richmond,
Lee moved against McClellan
in a series of battles
collectively known as the
Seven Days’ Battles.
• Although the Confederates had fewer
soldiers and suffered higher
casualties, Lee’s determination and
tactics so unnerved McClellan that he
backed away from Richmond and
headed down the peninsula to the sea.
• McClellan had gotten to within seven
miles of Richmond before he decided
that he could not advance any further.
Antietam
• Lincoln fired McClellan following the
Peninsula Campaign.
• General John Pope was placed in
charge of the Army of the Potomac
and was asked once again to march
“on to Richmond.”
• In the Second Battle of Bull Run
(Manassas), Lee and Jackson led the
Confederates to victory again.
• Lincoln relieved Pope of his command,
and McClellan was reinstated as
commander of the Army of the Potomac.
• Now that Richmond had been saved, Lee
moved tried to exploit the situation by
invading the North for the first time.
• A few days after the Second Battle of
Bull Run, Lee’s troops crossed the
Potomac into Maryland.
• At that point McClellan had a tremendous
stroke of luck. A Union corporal,
exploring a meadow where the
Confederates had camped found a copy of
Lee’s orders wrapped around a bunch of
cigars. The plan revealed that Lee’s and
Jackson’s armies were separated for the
moment.
• On Sept. 17, 1862, McClellan attacked
Lee at Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg,
Maryland.
• In the bloodiest single day of the war,
McClellan forced Lee to retreat into VA.
• The Confederates suffered 11,000
casualties; but McClellan lost 13,000, and
his army was too damaged to pursue Lee
and finish him.
• Within the space of seven hours, the
casualties nearly doubled the numbers
suffered in the War of 1812 and the
Mexican War combined. Lincoln fired
McClellan.
• The Union victory at Antietam was of
strategic importance because it made
Britain reluctant to respond to the
South’s request for aid.
• It also gave Lincoln the victory that
he needed to announce the
Emancipation Proclamation, which
changed the Union’s goal from
preserving the Union to ending
slavery.
The Western
Theater
• From the start the war was far better for
the Union in the West.
• In Feb., 1862, General Ullysses S. Grant
led an army into Tennessee and captured
two important forts – Fort Henry and Fort
Donelson.
• At Fort Donelson, Grant’s insistence that
his enemy surrender unconditionally
earned him the nickname “Unconditional
Surrender” Grant.
Ulysses S. Grant, Union
commander in the West
• Moving rapidly south on the
Tennessee River, Grant paused at
Shiloh Church near the Mississippi
state line.
• Grant knew that Confederate general
Albert Sidney Johnston and P.G.T.
Beauregard were nearby in Corinth,
Mississippi. He did not, however,
expect them to attack.
• Thus, on April 6, 1862, Grant’s
soldiers were caught by surprise as
thousands of Confederate forces
had pushed Grant’s men back to
the Tennessee River.
• The Confederate forces went to
bed confident that they could
finish off Grant’s army the next
morning.
• Early the next day, however, Grant
launched an attack.
• The Battle of Shiloh raged all
morning.
• By the middle of the afternoon,
Grant’s forces had subdued the
Confederates, and Beauregard
ordered a retreat.
• Both sides paid dearly: more than 13,000
Union casualties and 10,000 Confederate
casualties, including General Johnston.
• As Grant was pushing south toward the
Mississippi River, Union Admiral David
Farragut managed to gain control of the
port of New Orleans.
• Grant and Farragut were coming close to
achieving control of the Mississippi
River.
David Farragut, U.S. naval officer
Section II: The
Politics of War
• England decided to remain neutral in
the American Civil War for the
following reasons:
• 1) England didn’t need Southern
cotton as much as it needed grain
from the Midwest
• 2) England didn’t think the South
could win
• 3) England would not support a nation
of slaveholders
• In the fall of 1861, an incident
occurred to test the neutrality of
England
• Two Confederate diplomats traveling
to England on board a British
merchant ship, the Trent, were
arrested by Union naval officers.
• England threatened war against the
Union unless the men were freed.
• Lincoln decided to set the men free
rather than risk war with England.
• Although Britain did not recognize
the Confederacy, it did sell the South
ships with which to fight the Union
blockade.
• One ship, the Alabama, sank or
captured 64 merchant ships before it
was sunk.
Emancipation
Proclamation
• During war, the property (contraband)
of the enemy may be seized.
• Slaveholders had always insisted that
by law enslaved people were only
property.
• Early in the war, the Union Army
began to consider runaway slaves as
contraband. Runaways were put to
work helping to build Union
fortifications.
• “Contrabands” soon became a
common name for runaways.
• Meanwhile, Lincoln edged toward
emancipation.
• In the aftermath of the Union victory
at Antietam, Lincoln announced that
all slaves within rebel lines would be
freed unless the seceded states
returned to their allegiance by January
1, 1863.
• On that day, the Emancipation
Proclamation went into effect.
• Excluded from the terms were the
Union slave states and areas of the
Confederacy that were under Union
control.
• In all, about 830,000 of the nation’s 4
million slaves were not covered by its
provisions.
• Since Lincoln had justified his actions
on strictly military grounds, he
believed that there was no legal right
to apply it to areas not in rebellion.
• More than three years would pass
before slavery was abolished
everywhere in the U.S. by the
Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution in 1865.
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ning-of-the-civil-war#civil-warturning-point
• The Proclamation turned the war into
a moral crusade and aroused a
renewed spirit in the North.
• The number of African American
volunteers for the army increased
dramatically.
• The news of Union troops nearby
often inspired slaves to leave their
masters to follow the Union army.
African
Americans in
the Army
• By war’s end nearly 180,000 African
American men had served in the
Union army.
• The 166 all-black regiments fought
449 engagements, including 39 major
battles.
• They received less than half the pay
of white soldiers.
• White officers commanded every
black regiment.
• Captured black soldiers were
treated by the South as outlaws –
shot, hanged, or sold into slavery.
• The most famous of the black
regiments was the 54th
Massachusetts infantry which
suffered heavy casualties in its
efforts in South Carolina.
• More than 20 African
American soldiers won the
Congressional Medal of
Honor.
• More than 32,000 African
American soldiers gave their
lives for the Union cause.
Dissent on the
Home Front
• Opposition to the war existed from
the very beginning in both North and
South.
• To carry on the war, President
Lincoln and President Davis each
exerted so much power that both men
were accused of acting like dictators.
• The Confederate government seized
mules, wagons, food, and slaves for
its armies.
• The Union government took over and
operated private telegraph lines and
railroads near war zones.
• Both presidents suppressed opposition to
the war by abusing the civil rights of
citizens.
• Both instituted martial law in certain
areas, and both suspended the right of
habeas corpus, which requires that person
who are arrested be brought to court to
show why they should be held.
• The North was a hotbed of discontent
about the war.
• Abolitionists were irate over Lincoln’s
slowness to act on making the end of
slavery a goal of the war.
• At the other extreme were the
Copperheads, mainly Democrats, who
called for ending the war at any price,
even if that meant welcoming the South
and slavery back into the Union or letting
the slave states leave in peace.
• Some Copperheads encouraged
Northerners to resist the war and
others openly supported the South.
• Many of the measures Lincoln used to
quiet opposition to the war violated
constitutional guarantees of free
speech, press, and assembly.
• He prevented a state legislature from
meeting.
• He denied some opposition
newspapers the use of the mails and
used the army to shut others down.
• And he ordered hundreds of suspected
Confederate sympathizers jailed
without the right of habeas corpus.
• He agonized over denying citizens
their civil rights, but believed that the
survival of the nation during an
emergency overrode the Constitution.
Conscription
• Both North and South were forced to
resort to conscription, or the drafting
of men for military service.
• The South, with less than half the
population of the North, began
drafting men aged 18 to 35 in April
1862. Later, as the need to maintain
its armies increased, the Confederate
congress raised the upper age to 50.
• In March 1863, the U.S. Congress created
a military draft in the North.
• In both North and South a draftee could
avoid military service by hiring a
substitute, and a Union draftee could buy
his way out by paying the government
$300.
• Such provisions aroused public criticism
everywhere that it was “a rich man’s war
and a poor man’s fight.”
• To those who enlisted, the North paid a
bounty, or lump sum of money, of as
much as $1,500 for a single three-year
enlistment.
• This led to the practice of bounty
jumping, whereby a man would enlist,
collect his bounty, and then desert, only
to enlist somewhere else.
• 92% of the approximately 2 million
soldiers who served in the Union Army
volunteered.
• In the North, opposition to
conscription caused a terrible draft
riot in New York City in July,
1863.
• Poor immigrant workers in NYC
felt it was unfair that they should
have to fight a war to free slaves
who they believed would then
move north and take all the jobs.
• For four days mobs assaulted
conscription offices, factories,
docks, and the homes of prominent
Republicans.
• But they directed most of their
anger at blacks.
• By the time federal troops ended
the riot, more than 100 people had
died.
Section III:
Life During
Wartime
Affect of the
War on the
Economy
• In the South there was a decline in the
plantation system. The shortage of
manpower led to a shortage of food
throughout the war.
• The Union blockade led to shortages
of other items, including salt, sugar,
coffee, nails, needles, and medicines.
• Some Southerners traded cotton to
Northerners for items that were in
short supply.
• In the North most industries boomed
during the war.
• The army’s need for uniforms, shoes,
guns, and other supplies supported
woolen mills, steel foundries, coal
mines, and many other industries.
• Wheat farmers in the Midwest used
machines, such as the labor saving
mechanical reaper, to produce large
supplies of food.
• Women in the North and South
replaced men on the farms and in
city jobs. Northern women
obtained government jobs for the
first time.
• In 1863 the U.S. government
collected the nation’s first income
tax, a tax that takes a specified
percentage of the income that an
individual earns.
Lives of the
Soldiers
• Army camp life was hard for both
“Johnny Reb” (the average
Confederate soldier) and “Billy
Yank” (the average Union soldier).
• On average, soldiers spent 50 days in
camp for every day in battle.
• Camp life was often unhealthy as well
as unpleasant.
• Body lice, dysentary, and diarrhea
common.
• In fact, disease, infection, and
malnutrition were responsible for
more than 65% of troop deaths during
the war.
• Army prison camps were terrible. The
worst Confederate camp, at
Andersonville, GA, jammed 33,000
men into an area of 26 acres, or about
34 square feet per man.
• About a third of the prisoners died at
Andersonville.
• After the war, camp commander
Henry Wirz was executed by the
North as a war criminal.
• Northern camps were only slightly
more humane. It is estimated that 15%
of Union prisoners died, while 12% of
Confederate prisoners died.
Section IV: The
North Takes
Charge
Fredericksburg
• After Antietam, McClellan was
replaced with General Ambrose
Burnside and the Union army again
tried to take Richmond.
• Burnside sent 110,000 across the
Rappahannock River near
Fredericksburg, VA.
• General Lee and some 75,000 soldiers
controlled the hills above the town.
General Ambrose Burnside, USA
• Reasoning that Lee would not expect
a frontal attack, General Burnside
ordered his men across the open plain
toward the hills on the morning of
Dec. 13.
• This was a major blunder by
Burnside.
• From the high ground, the
Confederates could easily pick off the
Union soldiers as they crossed the
open fields.
• As Lee’s artillery commander
told him, “A chicken could not
live on that field when we
open on it.”
• The Union army suffered over
12,000 casualties in the Battle
of Fredericksburg, the
Confederates some 5,000.
Chancellorsville
• Lincoln transferred Burnside and gave
command of the eastern forces to
General Joseph “Fighting Joe”
Hooker.
• Outnumbered as usual, Lee broke two
rules of good generalship: he divided
his forces, and he attacked a larger
army instead of waiting to be
attacked.
Gen. Joseph Hooker, USA
• Lee sent Stonewall Jackson and his
men on a long, risky march to
strike Hooker from behind.
• The strategy worked brilliantly.
• Lee beat the Union army at
Chancellorsville, even though the
Union army was twice the size of
his own.
• Among the many Confederate dead at
Chancellorsville was Stonewall
Jackson, who was wounded by his
own men in the confusion and died a
week later.
• When Lee heard the news, he
exclaimed, “He lost his left arm, but I
have lost my right.”
• The North lost about 17,000 men and
gave up its hopes for a short war.
Gettysburg
• Following the victory at
Chancellorsville, Lee decided to
invade the North again.
• Not only would this spare war-weary
VA from further fighting, but it would
allow Lee to resupply and feed his
hungry troops as the Union had done
in the South – by taking was was
needed from the enemy.
• In early June 1863, Lee crossed into
Pennsylvania with some 75,000
troops.
• Lincoln urged Hooker to attack the
Confederates before they could
consolidate their troops, which
Hooker failed to do.
• Convinced Lincoln had lost
confidence in him, Hooker resigned.
• Lincoln appointed General George
Meade commanding general.
• By the end of June the
Confederates were near the town
of Gettysburg, PA
• When scouts reported that there
was a supply of shoes in the town,
the Confederates organized a
raiding party.
General George Meade, USA
• What the troops did not know was
that two Union brigades had
positioned themselves on high
ground northwest of Gettysburg.
• As the Confederate raiding party
approached Gettysburg on July 1,
it was met by Union fire.
• On the first day of the Battle of
Gettysburg, the Confederates pushed
the Union line back to Cemetary
Ridge.
• The Confederates held Seminary
Ridge, a lower line of hills about a
half mile away.
• But Lee knew that the fighting was
not over as long as the North held the
higher ground.
• On July 2, General Lee attacked the
Union left, trying without success to
capture a globe-shaped hill called
Little Round Top.
• The next day, he ordered some 15,000
men under the command of George
Pickett to rush the Union center on
Cemetery Ridge (Pickett’s Charge).
• Only half of the Confederate soldiers
made it back.
• The loss of life at Gettysburg was
staggering. After three days of
fighting, Union casualties
numbered more than 23,000;
Confederate casualties more than
20,000.
• Although the Union army emerged
victorious, once again it failed to
end the war while it had the
opportunity.
• On July 4, 1863, Lee retreated
back into VA.
• Having lost over 1/3 of his men,
Lee would never again be able to
take the offensive.
• For this reason, the Battle of
Gettysburg is viewed as the
turning point of the Civil War.
• In November, 1863, President Lincoln
helped to dedicate a cemetery at the
Gettysburg battlefield.
• Lincoln spoke for only a few minutes,
but his Gettysburg Address remains a
classic statement of democratic ideals.
• The speech also helped the country
realize that it was not just a collection
of individual states; it was a single
nation.
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e-of-gettysburg/videos#gilderlehrman-gettysburg-address
Vicksburg
• While the armies clashed in the
East, a Union army in the West
attempted to capture the city of
Vicksburg, Mississippi.
• Vicksburg was one of the last
Confederate strongholds
preventing the Union from taking
complete control of the Mississippi
River.
• Vicksburg seemed safe from attack. Not
only was the city built on hills high above
the Miss. River, but its defenders had
built fortifications along the bank to the
north, creating an extended platform from
which they could rain cannon shells down
on Union ships.
• Rail lines to the east linked Vicksburg
with the state capital at Jackson 50 miles
away.
• General Grant knew that the best
way to capture Vicksburg was to
attack from the land side.
• But he had not been able to reach
that side from his position north of
the city, because Vicksburg was
protected by the swamps and
backwaters of the Yazoo River.
• Grant marched his men around
Vicksburg was able to cut off
Vicksburg’s supply lines coming from
Jackson.
• Once Vicksburg’s supply lines were
cut, Grant’s forces headed toward
Vicksburg.
• Grant found that he could not take the
city by a direct attack.
• A siege would be necessary – a
form of prolonged attack in which
a city is surrounded and starved
into submission.
• Hour after hour, day after day for
47 days, the people of Vicksburg
endured relentless bombardment
by 300 Union cannon.
• The conflict between the North and
South had now become total war. In
this form of war, opponents strike not
only against one another’s soldiers,
but against civilians and the entire
economic system of the enemy.
• Food supplies ran so low that people
ate dogs and mules.
• A few hardy souls ate fried rats.
• At last some of the starving
Confederate soldiers defending
Vicksburg sent their commander a
petition saying, “If you can’t feed us,
you had better surrender.”
• On July 3, 1863, the same day as
Pickett’s Charge, the Confederate
commander of Vicksburg asked Grant
for terms of surrender.
• The city fell on the
of July.
• The Union now completely controlled
the Mississippi River, thus cutting the
Confederacy in half.
• Texas and Arkansas, for all practical
purposes, were lost to the
Confederacy.
• Lincoln placed Grant in command of
all Union troops west of the
Appalachians.
th
4
• Grant promptly took charge of
the fighting around
Chattanooga, TN, where
Confederate advances,
beginning with the Battle of
Chickamauga, were
threatening to develop into a
major disaster for the North.
• Shifting corps commanders
and bringing up fresh units,
Grant won another decisive
victory at Chattanooga in
November 1863.
• This cleared the way for the
invasion of Georgia.
Grant Takes
Command
• In March 1864, Lincoln summoned Grant
to Washington, named him lieutenant
general, and gave him supreme command
of the armies of the United States.
• While he launched a major offensive
against Lee in VA, William Tecumseh
Sherman, who replaced Grant in the
West, looked to drive a diagonal wedge
through the Confederacy from Tennessee
across Georgia.
Gen. William Tecumseh
Sherman, USA
• Grant instructed Sherman to “get into the
interior of the enemy’s country as far as
you can, inflicting all the damage you can
against their war resources.”
• Grant understood that the North had
advantages over the South in terms of
soldiers and supplies.
• His strategy was to use these advantages
against the enemy that was reeling from
shortages.
• Grant told Lincoln that he would
march on Richmond, take his losses,
and press on.
• He knew that the North could sustain
casualties longer than the South
could, simply because the North had
more men.
• This strategy is called a war of
attrition, fighting on until the enemy
runs out of men, supplies, and will.
• Starting in May 1864, Grant threw
his troops into battle after battle,
the first in a wooded area, known
as the Wilderness, near
Fredericksburg, VA.
• The fighting was brutal, made
even more so by fire spreading
through thick trees.
• The string of battles continued at
Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor (where Grant
lost 7,000 men in one hour), and finally,
Petersburg, which would remain under
siege from the Union army for 10 months.
• During the period from May 4 to June 18,
1864, Grant lost 65,000 men – which
Grant could replace – to Lee’s 35,000 –
which the South could not replace.
• Democrats and Southern
newspapers called Grant “the
Butcher.”
• However, Grant kept going
because he had promised
Lincoln, “Whatever happens,
there will be no turning back.”
Sherman’s
March to the Sea
• While Grant was working his way
toward Richmond, Sherman
moved some 100,000 troops out of
Tennessee toward Atlanta, GA, in
early May 1864.
• The Confederates fell back , and
Sherman entered Atlanta on Sept.
2, 1864.
• By capturing the city, Sherman had
cut the only Confederate railroad link
across the Appalachians.
• Sherman ordered the evacuation of
Atlanta and burned a significant
portion of it.
• The fall of Atlanta gave a significant
boost to Lincoln’s reelection
campaign.
• Up until then, it appeared as if he may
not even get his party’s nomination.
• Many Republicans were upset that the
war had dragged on for so long.
• Sherman’s success, however, gave
many hope that the conflict would
soon be over.
• As a result, Lincoln won a substantial
victory in the election of 1864 against
Democrat George McClellan.
• Lincoln had selected a southern Democrat
who had remained loyal as his new Vice
President – Andrew Johnson of
Tennessee.
• After the burning of Atlanta, Sherman
marched rapidly toward the port city of
Savannah, GA.
• Cut off from their supply line, Sherman’s
men stole what supplies they could and
destroyed anything that might be useful to
the Confederates.
• They uprooted crops, burned
farmhouses, slaughtered livestock,
and tore up railroad tracks, leaving
nearly bare a 60 mile wide path 300
miles long.
• Sherman’s actions left deep scars
across the South.
• On Dec. 10, 1864, Sherman and his
men reached Savannah, where they
were resupplied by the Union navy.
• In February 1865 Sherman and his
troops turned north to link up with
Grant and fight a final battle.
• As the army marched through South
Carolina in 1865, it inflicted even
more destruction than it had in
Georgia.
• The army burned almost every house
in its path.
• While Lincoln was delivering his
second inaugural address in March
1865, Grant was pressing in on
Richmond and Sherman was
marching through the Carolinas.
• Aware that the situation was hopeless,
General Lee advised President Davis
that he could no longer defend
Richmond.
• The Confederate government fled
south, and Lee’s army finally
evacuated the city.
• On April 4, 1865, Lee and Grant met
at a small village called Appomattox
Court House in central VA.
• Grant offered Lee generous terms:
Southern soldiers could go home if
they pledged not to fight again.
• The officers would keep their pistols
and the men their horses.
• When Lee’s army came to lay down
their arms, Union troops saluted each
division as it appeared. There was no
cheering by the Union army.
• By June 1865, all other Confederate
generals had surrendered.
Section V: The
Legacy of the War
Political Changes
• After the war, the federal government
assumed supreme national authority
and no state threatened secession
again.
• The state’s rights theory would rise
again in the 1950s and 1960s during
the debate over federal power to
guarantee civil rights to minorities in
the South.
• The war greatly increased the
power of the federal
government.
• During the war, the federal
government had taxed private
incomes and drafted men into
the army.
Economic Changes
• Between 1861 and 1865, the federal
government did much to help
business.
• The federal government encouraged
the building of railroads by giving
money and land for construction.
• The government also passed the
National Bank Act of 1865, which set
up a system of federally chartered
banks.
• Many government suppliers
grew rich and thus had money
to invest in new businesses
after the war was over.
• The economy of the North
boomed.
• The war devastated the South
economically.
• It not only marked the end of slavery
as a labor system, but it also wrecked
most of the region’s industry, wiped
out 40% of the livestock, destroyed
much of the South’s farm machinery
and railroads, and left thousands of
acres of uncultivated farmland in
weeds.
• The economic gap between North and
South widened drastically.
•Before the war, Southern
states held 30% of the
nation’s wealth; in 1870
they held only 12%.
•The economic disparity
between the regions would
th
not diminish until the 20
century.
Warfare
Changes
http://www.history.com/videos/mea
ning-of-the-civil-war#civil-wartech
• The two deadliest technological
improvements were the rifle and
the minie ball.
• Rifles were more accurate than
old-fashioned muskets, because
grooves inside the barrel forced the
bullet to spin at a great speed,
which made it fly straighter and
farther.
• The minie ball was a soft lead bullet
that was more destructive than earlier
bullets and contributed to a higher
casualty rate.
• Massed assaults on fortified positions
became more difficult.
• Nine out of ten infantry assaults failed
during the war.
• Horses became much less important
in combat.
• Trench warfare, like that used at
Petersburg, gave the defender a great
advantage in mass infantry attacks.
• Trench warfare became common in
WWI.
• Two other modern weapons used in
the Civil War were hand grenades and
land mines.
• The ironclad ship was first
used during the war.
• Even though the battle
between the the North’s
Monitor and the South’s
Merrimack ended in a draw, it
signaled the end of wooden
warships.
Freedom for
the Slaves
• The Congress proposed the
Thirteenth Amendment in early
1865.
• By the end of the year, 27 states,
including 8 from the South, had
ratified it.
• The U.S. Constitution now
prohibited slavery.
Assassination
of Lincoln
• Just 5 days after Lee’s surrender,
President and Mrs. Lincoln went to
Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. to
watch a play.
• In the middle of the performance, a young
actor named John Wilkes Booth broke
into the presidential box overlooking the
stage and shot the President in the head.
• He then leapt down onto the stage and
escaped.
• Federal officials immediately began
to hunt Booth down.
• They soon learned he was a member
of a group of southern sympathizers
who had plotted to murder all the high
officials of the federal government.
• Within days, the army had tracked
Booth to a barn in VA; he died of
wounds he received resisting arrest.
• Seven other conspirators were caught
and hanged.
• Lincoln did not die instantly; he
lingered until the morning of April 15,
1865, though he never gained
consciousness.
• When he perished, the South lost not
only its most powerful opponent, but
also the man who would probably
have become its most powerful friend
and protector.
• Lincoln had already begun to
insist that the reunion of the
nation after the war should be
based on fairness and mercy,
not anger and vengeance.
• In his second inaugural
address, Lincoln had said:
• “With malice toward none, with
charity for all … let us strive to finish
the work we are in, to bind up the
nation’s wounds; to care for him who
shall have borne the battle, and for his
widow, and his orphan.”
• Lincoln, too, now became a victim of
the war that had divided the nation.
• Like Lincoln, many of the soldiers on
both sides did not live to return home.
• Some 360,000 Union and 260,000
Confederate soldiers died of disease,
wounds, or poor medical treatment.
• For years, armless and legless
veterans were a common sight on the
nation’s streets and roads.
http://www.history.com/topics/battl
e-of-gettysburg/videos#civil-war