The Civil War

1861-1865

Slavery Issue in New States

• Missouri Compromise maintains balance of free and slave states in the Union

• Compromise of 1850

• Violence in Kansas & Dred Scott Decision inflamed tensions

Fugitive Slave Act

• Required all citizens to help catch runaway slaves

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/to-my-old-master.html

John Brown

The Election of 1860

• Lincoln carried the North and carried the election

• The Southern votes did not affect the outcome at all

• Lincoln’s name was not even on the ballot in 10 Southern states

A campaign banner for the Republican ticket.

To the South, Lincoln’s

election meant that they no longer had a

voice in national government.

Secession!

What issues divided the nation when the war

began?• Southerners believed they had a

right to leave the Union. They wanted to keep their way of life, especially the institution of slavery.

• Northerners believed they had to save the Union.

In August, 1862 Lincoln wrote a letter to Horace Greeley, an editor of the New York Tribune, who published an open letter insisting President Lincoln free the slaves immediately. In Lincoln's reply he wrote:

"If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I

would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the

slaves, I would do it, and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I

would also so that“(Voices of America, p.138).

North South

• 22 million people• Produced 90% of

nation’s manufactured goods

• 70% nation’s rails• Strong navy and

merchant fleet• Were advancing

into unfamiliar territory

• 9 million people (more than 1/3 were slaves)

• Believed they were fighting a war of independence

• Knew the countryside• Few factories• Few railroads• More emphasis on

states’ rights, therefore, not as united as the North

War Leaders

Abraham Lincoln –

President of the Union

Jefferson Davis – President of the South Robert E. Lee –

General of the Confederate army

Lincoln's 1861 Inaugural AddressLincoln's 1861 Inaugural Address

In In youryour hands, my dissatisfied hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not fellow-countrymen, and not in in mine,mine, is the momentous is the momentous issue of civil war. The issue of civil war. The Government will not assail Government will not assail you.you. You can have no conflict You can have no conflict without being yourselves the without being yourselves the aggressors. aggressors. YouYou have no oath have no oath registered in heaven to registered in heaven to destroy the Government, destroy the Government, while I shall have the most while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."protect, and defend it."

Did you know?

• Jefferson Davis had been inaugurated as the President of the Confederacy two weeks earlier.

• Lincoln would be the nation’s 16th president

Lincoln in 1860.Lincoln in 1860.

The crowd gathered before the east portico of the unfinished Capitol to glimpse Lincoln's inaugural ceremonies

“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the

institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no

lawful right to do so.”--Lincoln, Inaugural Address

March 4, 1861

On April 10, 1861, Brig. Gen. Beauregard, in command of the provisional Confederate forces at Charleston, South Carolina, demanded the surrender of the Union garrison of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Garrison commander Anderson refused. On April 12, Confederate batteries opened fire on the fort, which was unable to reply effectively. At 2:30 p.m., April 13, Major Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter, evacuating the garrison on the following day. The bombardment of Fort Sumter was the opening engagement of the American Civil War. Although there were no casualties during the bombardment, one Union artillerist was killed and three wounded (one mortally) when a cannon exploded prematurely when firing a salute during the evacuation.

Bombardment of Ft. Sumter

• Confederate troops in South Carolina shelled the fort held by federal troops

• Union ran out of ammunition and surrendered the fort

• No one was killed in the fight

Telegram was sent Telegram was sent by Major Robert by Major Robert Anderson at Anderson at 10:30am, April 18, 10:30am, April 18, 1861, announcing 1861, announcing the surrender of the surrender of Fort Sumter to Fort Sumter to confederate confederate General General Beauregard.Beauregard.

Border States

• Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri

• Slaveholding states that remained in the Union

• Maryland – put under martial law

The Battle of Bull RunJuly 21, 1861

• Union troops set out for Richmond, VA from Washington, DC., followed by hundreds of people who just wanted to watch “the show”

• General Jackson rallies the Confederates behind a stone wall, hence the nickname “Stonewall Jackson.”

• Union troops panicked and ran

General Stonewall Jackson

http://americancivilwar.com/pictures/stonewall_jackson_2.jpeg

This battle showed that both Union and Confederate soldiers needed

training.

It also showed that the war would be long and bloody.

Bull Run battlefield

General McClellan

•Transformed the new Union recruits into well-trained soldiers•Only one problem…he didn’t want to use them.

President Lincoln visits General McClellan at his headquarters on October 4, 1862. Visible on the ground at the lower left is a captured Confederate battle flag.

Battle of the IroncladsMerrimack v. Monitor

In an attempt to reduce the North's great naval advantage, Confederate engineers converted a scuttled Union frigate, the U.S.S. Merrimack, into an iron-sided vessel rechristened the C.S.S. Virginia. On March 9, 1862 in the first naval engagement between ironclad ships, the Monitor fought the Virginia to a draw, but not before the Virginia had sunk two wooden Union warships off Norfolk, Virginia.

Officers on the Monitor. Notice the dents from cannon shells

• The Union eventually built more than 50 ironclads

• The South would never again be able to mount a serious attack against the Union navy.

• The Union blockade held for the rest of the war.

AntietamSeptember 1862

• General Lee takes the offensive, marches north into Maryland

• McClellan was slow to act• In the day-long battle, more than

23,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded.

• Neither side could claim victory.

Antietam battlefield

Dead soldiers along the Hagerstown Turnpike

This battle holds the Civil War record for the most people killed in one day of fighting.

General Ambrose Burnside•Appointed by Lincoln to replace McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac.

Battle of FredericksburgDecember 1862

• One of the Union’s worst defeats

• Confederate guns mowed down wave after wave of charging Union troops.

The War in the West

• 1961 – Kansas becomes a free state

• Dakota, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Montana territories added to secure the West for the Union

• Each territory headed by pro-Union officials

• Gold from California helped finance the north

• 90 engagements in the West

ChancellorsvilleMay 1863

• Took place on thickly wooded ground in Chancellorsville, VA.

• Lee and Jackson defeated Union troops in three days.

• Jackson was shot at by his own soldiers, who thought he was a Union soldier. He died days later.

Civil War letter written by Union officer John T. Norton (Lieutenant, 97th Regiment New York State Volunteers, Company G) to his father, Morgan Norton of Norway, Herkimer County, New York. The letter is dated May 23rd, 1863. Norton discusses the Battle of Chancellorsville and mentions the death of Stonewall Jackson , referring to him as "the bravest of the brave."

Camp, 9th Regt. N.Y.S.V.May 23d, 1863

Dear Father: On the 2d day of May the enemy opened upon us again with shell but did not much injury. All this below Fredericksburg. … On this day the 3d Sunday, the hottest of the fighting took place from 5 1/2 a.m. to 10 1/2 o'clock a.m. It was one continual roar of musketry and artillery which exceeded anything I ever heard. There were 4 cannon shots fired in a second. A brigade of rebels charged our position and about 50 men returned to tell the tale. This was a little on the left of our Corps. In the afternoon our Regiment went on picket. Next morning a rebel had the audacity to fire at me while eating breakfast.…. If the rebels call it a victory, it was a dear one to them for at the last calculation they lost two to one, and it would not take many such victories to end the rebellion. Besides losing one of their best Generals who is a host in himself, namely Jackson, the bravest of the brave.Hoping this will find you all in good health. Your affectionate son,

Lieut. John T. Norton

Union Success in the West

• General Ulysses S. Grant began moving to take control of the Mississippi.

• Was surprised by Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh

• Grant showed toughness, and the Union won.

The hornets nest, where the Union troops held off the Confederates for 6 hours.

Ulysses S. Grant

Emancipation Proclamation

• Freed slaves in the Confederate states

• Formally announced on January 1, 1863

• Changed the purpose of the war

• Won the sympathy of Europeans, especially workers, making it less likely that the South would get aid from Britain

Blacks in the Union Army

• Thousands of free blacks volunteered to join the army

• Congress had to change the law forbidding blacks to serve as soldiers

• The army assigned African American volunteers to all-black units, commanded by white officers.

• They didn’t even get equal pay as whites until late in the war.

• About 200,000 blacks had fought for the Union, nearly 40,000 lost their lives.

The 54th Massachusetts Regiment led an attack on

Fort Wagner near Charleston, South

Carolina.

Hardships of War

Civil War wounded

The deadliest thing that faced the Civil War soldier was disease. For every soldier who died in battle, two died of disease. Diarrhea and dysentery alone claimed more men than did battle wounds. The Civil War soldier also faced outbreaks of measles, small pox, malaria, pneumonia, or camp itch. Malaria was brought on by usually camping in damp areas (that were conductive to breeding mosquitos) while camp itch was caused by insects or a skin disease.

Neglect of camp hygiene was a common problem as well. Ignorance of camp sanitation and scanty knowledge about how disease was carried led to a sort of "trial and error" system. An inspector who visited the camps of one Federal Army found that they were, "littered with refuse, food, and other rubbish, sometimes in an offensive state of decomposition; slops deposited in pits within the camp limits or thrown out of broadcast; heaps of manure and offal close to the camp.“

Lack of shoes and proper clothing further complicated the problem, especially in the Confederacy as the War progressed. The diet of the Civil War soldier was somewhere between barely palatable to absolutely awful. It was a wonder they did not all die of acute indigestion.

A deserted camp and wounded soldier

At the critical battle of Antietam, Clara Barton assisted at a makeshift

hospital in a farmhouse that was under enemy fire. It was at Antietam that Miss Barton earned her reputation as "the

angel of the battlefield," a nickname given to her by Dr. James Dunn. Putting her own

life in serious danger, she nursed and comforted the

wounded men as Confederate shells flew overhead and

exploded around the house. In these harrowing

circumstances, Miss Barton experienced some of the most

memorable moments of the war.

A man lying upon the ground asked for drink — I stooped to give it, and having raised him with my right hand, was holding the cup to his lips with my left, when I felt a sudden twitch of the loose sleeve of my dress the poor fellow sprang from my hands and fell back quivering, in the agonies of death — A ball had passed between my body — and the right arm which supported him — cutting through the sleeve, and passing through his chest from shoulder to shoulder.

-Clara Barton, "Works and Incidents," quoted in Voices of the Civil War: Antietam (1996).

“The art of war is simple. Find out where your enemy is, get at him as soon as you can, and strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.”

--Ulysses S. Grant

Fall of Vicksburg

• Union triumph in the West

• Grant’s forces lay siege to the city for 6 weeks, until the Confederates surrendered

• The entire Mississippi was now under Union control

Union Victory at Gettysburg, PA

• 3 day battle

• Pickett’s charge fails to take the Union upper ground

• The Confederates would never try to invade the North again

• 60,000 casualties (Union and Confederate)

Pickett’s Charge

““General, I have no division.”General, I have no division.”--Gen. George Pickett--Gen. George Pickett

““It’s all my fault. It is I who It’s all my fault. It is I who lost this fightlost this fight

--Gen. Robert E Lee--Gen. Robert E Lee

Gettysburg Address

• 50,000 dead or wounded• Lincoln said the Civil War

was a test of whether or not a democratic nation could survive

• Entire speech 10 sentences long, 3 minutes to deliver

Grant’s Plan for Total War

• Destroy food, equipment, anything that the South used to survive

• Did not discriminate between civilian and military possessions

General Sheridan

• Destroyed farms and livestock in Virginia’s rich Shenandoah Valley

• Burned 2,000 barns filled with grain

Sherman’s March to the Sea

• Captured Atlanta, Georgia and marched to the Atlantic Ocean, destroying everything in his path

• Ripped up railroad tracks, built bonfires with the ties and then heated and twisted the rails

• Burned barns, homes, bridges, factories

Civil War Ends

• Lincoln is reelected

• 13 Amendment – ends slavery everywhere

• Richmond is besieged and falls to Grant

• Robert E Lee surrenders at Appomattox Court House

““With malice toward With malice toward none, with charity none, with charity

for all, with firmness for all, with firmness in the right as God in the right as God gives us to see the gives us to see the

right, let us strive on right, let us strive on to finish the work we to finish the work we are in, to bind up the are in, to bind up the

nation’s wounds.”nation’s wounds.”--Lincoln’s Second Inaugural

Address, March 4, 1865

Surrender

Turning Point

• 360,000 Union soldiers died• 250,000 Confederate soldiers died• No war has ever resulted in more American deaths• War cost 20 billion dollars• Democrats lost influence, Republicans in power• Put an end to slavery• The idea of secession was dead

The Civil War holds the dubious distinction of having the highest costs in total American deaths of any war in American history including World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Korean War combined.

Resources

• http://www.civilwar.com/

• http://www.civil-war.net/