The Civil War Begins

Differences between northern and southern states:

__________ economyindustrial

free

__________ economyagricultural

“_____ states”“_____ states”slave

More North/South differences

• North

• Wanted to abolish slavery

• Strong national

government

• Favored high tariffs

• Large cities

• Many private schools and

some public schools

• Thought they were the

best part of the country

• South

• Supported slavery

• States’ rights-right to rule

themselves

• Low tariffs

• Few cities

• No formal educational

system

• Their part of the country

was the best

New President

• Abraham Lincoln is

elected President of

the Untied States.

During the election,

he had spoken out

strongly against the

spread of slavery

and hoped that one

day it would end.

Remain United

Lincoln hoped to

prevent a war. “We

are not enemies, but

friends,” Lincoln told

Southerners after

taking the oath of

office. “We must

not be enemies.”

But time was

running out.

Picture Credit: http://www.historyplace.com/civilwar/cwar-pix/civmap.gif

Shortly after the election of Lincoln, South Carolina declared “the

United States of America is hereby dissolved” and seceded from

the Union. Six other states soon followed

A New Country Formed

• Together these seven

states formed a new

country. They called

the new country the

Confederate States of

America. They

elected Jefferson

Davis as President.

•T

Alexander Stephens

• He served in the U.S. House of

Representatives (1843 – 59), where he

defended slavery but opposed dissolution

of the Union. When Georgia seceded, he

was elected vice president of the

Confederacy.

• He was involved with the Georgia Platform

supporting the Compromise of 1850 because he

wanted the north to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act

and stop trying to prevent slavery in the western

territories. He also argued against immediate

secession after Lincoln was elected…but,

supported secession after the majority of the

convention voted on it.

Fort Sumter

• President Lincoln received word that supplies were running out at Fort Sumter, located off the coast of South Carolina. If supplies did not come soon, they would have to surrender the fort to the Confederacy.

Fort Sumter: April 12,

1861

A Difficult Decision

• Lincoln had to make

an important decision.

He made the decision

he thought would be

best. He would send

supplies ships to the

fort. Then he waited

to see what

happened.

Jefferson’s Response

• Now Jefferson Davis

had to make a

decision. He decided

to attack the fort

before the supply

ships arrived. On

April 12, 1861,

Confederates fired on

Fort Sumter.

Fort Sumter

• The first major battle

of the Civil War

began on April 12,

1861.

• After 2 days, the

North surrendered

to the South.

Picture Credit: http://library.thinkquest.org/3055/graphics/battles/images/sumteranim.gif

The Outcome

• The Civil War began.

Strategies to Win

• North• Anaconda Plan/Union

Blockade

• Destroy the land of

the South to break

their spirit.

• Conscription

• South• King Cotton

Diplomacy

• Blockade Runners

• Conscription

Anaconda Plan

The Anaconda Plan

• Squeeze the Confederacy to death just

like an anaconda squeezes its prey.

• North captures the Mississippi River,

leaving Texas, and Arkansas and

Louisiana stranded.

• Cut off supplies to the South by

surrounding the Confederacy.

Blockade runners

• Private ships that would sail out into open

waters to get imports and exports for the

South in an attempt to circumvent the

Anaconda Plan.

King Cotton Diplomacy

-the South thought that if they stopped

selling cotton to France and Britain that

these two countries would step in and

help break the blockade. This didn’t

work because the North pressured

France and Great Britain to stay out of

it so France and Britain began getting

cotton from Egypt.

Conscription

• The first time men were drafted to serve in

the military. Both the Union and

Confederacy had to conscript or draft

soldiers to fight the Civil War.

Freeing the Slaves

• Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862

• Document gave the Southern Confederacy a choice: Quit the war and keep slavery alive or keep fighting and slaves would be forever free

• Deadline was January 1, 1863

• The Confederate leaders continued the war and the slaves were declared free by the United States government in 1863

The Fall of Fort Pulaski

• More than 100 battles or skirmishes in Georgia; 92 happened in 1864 during the Atlanta and Savannah campaigns

• First battle, April 10, 1862, was at all-brick Fort Pulaski, near Tybee Island

• Rifled cannon used by U.S. Army in warfare for the first time; the Confederates surrendered the fort in less than two days

• No brick American forts were built after this battle

Antietam or Sharpsburg,

Maryland• September 17, 1862

• The general for the Confederates was Robert E. Lee.

• The general for the Yankees was McClellan.

• -23,000 died and McClellan’s Union forces pushed back Lee’s confederate forces over the Potomac and into the Shenandoah Valley.

Picture Credit: memory.loc.gov/.../newsletter/ august01/feature.html

Antietam

• The battle is known as

the single bloodiest day

in the Civil War.

• Because the casualties

were so high, Lincoln

said that if the South

didn’t stop the war, he

would free the

slaves…and he did.

• South won the battle.

Picture Credit: www.trubador.com/bridge.htm

Battle of Gettysburg

• turning point of the war…no more major

Confederate victories on northern soil

The Battle of Chickamauga

• September 1863

• Seven miles south of Chattanooga, Tennessee

• Chattanooga was a major railroad center

• Union troops were driven back to Chattanooga; Confederates did not follow-up on their victory

• Union reinforcements later recaptured Chattanooga

The Atlanta Campaign

• June 1864: Sherman attacked Johnston at Kennesaw Mountain;

Sherman lost but continued toward Atlanta

• ends the war by splitting what’s left of the Confederacy….

The Battle of Atlanta

• Sherman surrounded the city and laid siege

• Hood wanted to lure Sherman into the city to fight, but that didn’t work

• Fighting continued during July and August 1864

• Hood and Atlanta’s citizens finally vacate the city on September 1

• Sherman burns the city in mid-November then begins his march toward Savannah and the sea

Sherman’s March

• Major General William Tecumseh Sherman

• On November 12, 1864, Sherman marched out of Atlanta toward the Atlantic coast.

• Tracing a line of march between Macon and Augusta, he carved a sixty-mile wide swath of destruction in the Confederacy's heartland.

The March to the Sea

• Sherman’s Union army destroys everything in its path, 300 miles from Atlanta to Savannah

• A sixty mile-wide area is burned, destroyed, and ruined during a two-month period-WHY????

• Estimated losses exceeded $100 million

• Captured, but did not burn, Savannah in December 1864

• Loaded and shipped $28 million worth of cotton, stored in Savannah, to the North

The Civil War Ends

• January 13, 1865: Fort Fisher in North Carolina captured;the last Confederate blockade-running port

• General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Virginia cannot defeat Union General U.S. Grant at Petersburg; he surrenders his army at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865

• Confederate President Jefferson Davis flees and is eventually captured in Irwinville, Georgia

Civil War Prisons

• Both North and South had prisons for captured soldiers; thousands of men on both sides died in these prisons

• Andersonville Prison, in southwest Georgia, was overcrowded, and offered poor food, contaminated water, and poor sanitation; 13,700 Union soldiers are buried there

• Captain Henry Wirtz, Andersonville Prison commander, was later hanged for “excessive cruelty”

• Andersonville is now home to the National Prisoner of War Museum Click to return to Table of Contents.

Women in the Civil War

• Food, items for clothes, and basic items were

in short supply, especially in the South

• Staples like flour, coffee, and sugar were very

expensive or hard to acquire

• Women tried to keep their families fed and

sheltered despite the difficulties

• Many fought disguised as men; others served

as spies; many worked in factories

• Female nurses were much valued

Clara Barton

• In July and August of

1865, Clara Barton,

founder of the American

Red Cross, along with a

detachment of laborers

and soldiers and

Dorence Atwater, came

to Andersonville to

identify and mark the

graves of the Union

dead.

Children During the War

• Most did chores at home to help their

families or contribute to the war effort

• Children in the South had basically no

public schools; wealthy families could

continue with private tutoring

• Boys as young as 10 served in both

armies; thousands of soldiers were

between 14- and 16-years-old

The Aftermath

• 620,000 people died during the war;

about two-thirds died from diseases,

wounds, or military prison hardships

• Healing of emotional wounds took far

longer than the war itself

• The North or the South would never be

the same again

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