The Civil War

By: Terrence Burse, Avery Bundy, Ryan Dixon

The Battle of 1st Bull Run• In July 1861 the northern

newspapers pressured President Lincoln to bring a quick end to the rebellion of the southern states. Adding to the strain was Lincoln's awareness that the ninety-day enlistments of the recruits who had responded to his call to arms after the attack on Fort Sumter were rapidly coming to an end. Something had to be done, and soon. Lincoln pressed for action. The Union troops were indeed inadequately trained. It took over two days for them to march twenty-two miles south.

The Battle of Ft. Sumter• In 1860, South Carolina became the

first state to secede from the United States. As more states followed suit and the Confederate States of America took shape, many federal installations in the South were taken over by state governments. Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, continued to fly the U.S. flag, even as Confederate forces surrounded it. Lincoln decided to resupply the fort but not reinforce it, unless resistance was met. After negotiations failed, the first shot was fired on April 12, 1861, in a bombardment that resulted in the fort's surrender. With that shot the Civil War began.

The Battle of Gettysburg• On June 24, 1863, General Robert E.

Lee led his Confederate Army across the Potomac River and headed towards Pennsylvania. In response to this threat President Lincoln replaced his army commander, General Joseph Hooker, with General George Mead. As Lee's troops poured into Pennsylvania, Mead led the Union Army north from Washington. Meade's effort was inadvertently helped by Lee's cavalry commander, Jeb Stuart, who, instead of reporting Union movements to Lee, had gone off on a raid deep in the Union rear. This action left Lee blind to the Union's position. When a scout reported the Union approach, Lee ordered his scattered troops to converge west of the small village of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The Emancipation Proclamation • resident Abraham Lincoln issued the

Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

• Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory.

• Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.

The Battle of Chancellorsville 1863

• he Battle of Chancellorsville occurred between April 26, 1863 through May 6, 1863. It is considered by many to be Robert E. Lee's greatest victory in the United States Civil War. As the Confederate commander-in-chief of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee gained a victory at Chancellorsville through aggressive strategy using a smaller army then the opposing Union forces. He also had the assistance of valuable generals such as Jubal Early and "Stonewall" Jackson.

• Lee's opponent in this battle was Joseph Hooker. He had been made commander of the Army of the Potomac in January 1863. Success for the Union forces had been evasive and the army was suffering from low morale, especially following the Union defeat at Fredericksburg. Desertion and insubordination was high in the Army of the Potomac. Joseph Hooker soon raised morale and the number of soldiers to almost 134,000 troops with over 400 artillery pieces. This was over twice the size of the 60,000 troops under Robert E. Lee.

The Battle of the Ironclads, 1862

One of the North's first acts at the outset of the Civil War was the attempt to force the Confederacy into submission by blockading its ports. The objective was to deny the South access to supplies and to shut down its export of cotton to England - its major source of revenue. To counter this threat, the Confederacy began to build a fleet of ships clothed in iron panels that made them impervious to enemy cannon fire. Armed with an underwater ram, these ships were designed to slam into and sink the enemy's wooden vessels.

Virginia Secedes

• April 12, 1861,Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, located off the coast of South Carolina. Fort Sumter was one of the few forts in the South that was still controlled by the Union.  Union troops were forced to surrender the fort to the Confederates. Virginians celebrated this Confederate victory but President Lincoln viewed the attack as an act of civil war.  A civil war is a war between two groups in the same country.  Lincoln called for volunteers to join the Union army to take back Fort Sumter.  The decision to use force against the Southern states had far-reaching effects.

•     On April 17, 1861, Virginia decided to secede from the Union.  Many delegates, especially those from the eastern counties of Virginia, felt that Lincoln's decision to use force was an act of war.  The leaders of the Confederate Army was so grateful for Virginia's support, they immediately moved the capital of the Confederacy from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia.

•     Virginia became the largest Confederate state.  It had as many factories as the rest of the Confederate states put together. An iron works in Richmond would make most of the bombs, cannon balls, and heavy ammunition used by the Confederate army. 

The South Secedes• When Abraham Lincoln was elected

as president in 1860. Southerners thought the government was becoming too strong. They did not think the government had the right to tell them how they should live. Southerners felt if they stayed in the United States, the North would control them. Some southern states decided they had no choice. They decided to secede, or leave, the United States. South Carolina was the first to leave the Union and form a new nation called the Confederate States of America. Four months later, six other states seceded. They were Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana. Later Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee joined them. The people of these states elected Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederacy.

The Battle of shiloh,1862 • In April 1862 General Ulysses S.

Grant's army was encamped along the Tennessee River just north of the Mississippi border; poised to strike a blow into the heartland of the South. Grant had been at this location for about a month, awaiting the arrival of additional troops under General Buell before he began his march southward. Twenty miles to the south, in Corinth, Mississippi, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston ordered his troops northward with the plan of attacking Grant before Buell arrived. The stage was set for one of the Civil War's bloodiest battles.

Gettysburg Address, 1863• Fourscore 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 battlefield 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.

Appomattox

• (April 9, 1865) was the final engagement of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia before it surrendered to the Union Army under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant near the end of the American Civil War.

The Assassination of Lincoln• April 14, 1865

Shortly after 10 p.m. on April 14, 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth entered the presidential box at Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C., and fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln. As Lincoln slumped forward in his seat, Booth leapt onto the stage and escaped through the back door. A doctor in the audience rushed over to examine the paralyzed president. Lincoln was then carried across the street to Petersen's Boarding House, where he died early the next morning.

The “new birth of Freedom” 13th 14th 15th” Amendment

• 13th Neither slavery• nor involuntary servitude,• except as a punishment for crime• whereof the party shall have been• duly convicted, shall exist

• within the United States,• or any place subject• to their jurisdiction.14th All persons born or• naturalized in the United States,• and subject to the jurisdiction• thereof, are citizens of the United• States and of the State wherein• they reside. 15th The right of citizens• of the United States to vote• shall not be denied or abridged• by the United States or by any State• on account of race, color,• or previous condition of servitude.

Grants victory at Vicksburg• The Civil War divided our nation, Americans

fighting Americans, brother against brother. The war lasted four long years before the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, VA. Many historians say that a key battle fought westward was the turning point in the war: the Battle of Vicksburg. President Abraham Lincoln had declared "Vicksburg is the key...the war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket."

• On bluffs 250 feet high, the city of Vicksburg, MS, overlooks the Mississippi River on the Louisiana-Mississippi state boundary. The river was a key supply route for the Confederate forces in the West. These forces at Vicksburg, commanded by Lieutenant General John Clifford Pemperton, obtained soldiers and supplies from Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, and the Mississippi Yazoo Delta district. Vicksburg was one of the war’s great fortified strongholds. On the high bluffs, Confederate forces positioned artillery batteries ready to challenge the passage of Union ships. Gaining control of Vicksburg and the Mississippi River would open a major supply artery for the Union forces. The Union Navy accepted the Vicksburg challenge.

Sherman’s “ march to the sea”• Sherman's March to the Sea.

General Grant arranged two campaigns for the year 1864. One, under his own immediate direction, was for the seizure of Richmond, the Confederate capital; the other was for the seizure of Atlanta, Ga., the focus of several converging railways. The latter expedition was led by General Sherman. His army numbered nearly 100,000 men, comprising the Army of the Cumberland, led by Gen. George H. Thomas; the Army of the Tennessee, commanded by Gen. J. R. McPherson: and the Army of the Ohio, led by Gen. J. M. Schofield.

Grant’s Campaign in Virginia, 1864

• Grant's final plan for the great 1864 campaign pressed the Confederacy on all sides. In the eastern theater, the Army of the Potomac would advance against General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Two smaller forces would "hold a leg": Major General Franz Sigel would advance up the Shenandoah Valley while Major General Benjamin F. Butler would conduct an amphibious operation against the Richmond-Petersburg area. Unfortunately, Sigel and Butler were political generals, men of little or no military ability who held important commands exclusively because they had strong influence with constituencies important to the Union war effort. (Sigel was a hero among the German-American community, Butler an important Democrat.) Grant would have been justified in expecting nothing at all from these men. Instead he pinned many of his hopes for the upcoming Virginia campaign on the belief that both would perform capably. Grant gave Butler an especially significant role: he anticipated that Butler's army would be able to seize the important railroad town of Petersburg and perhaps even capture Richmond itself.

The Battles for the capitals: 7-days and Antieham

• The year 1862 began with high hopes in Washington that the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, would be captured and the war brought to a successful conclusion. A large, well-equipped force, the Army of the Potomac, had been organized and in the spring set out for the Union enclave at Fort Monroe, Virginia. Commanded by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, the Army of the Potomac then marched up the Virginia peninsula to lay siege to Richmond; other smaller commands remained in northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley to maintain security for the Federal capital.

• However, instead of Union success, the spring and summer saw a string of Confederate victories in Virginia. In May and June a small Confederate force commanded by Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson separately defeated three small union commands in the Shenandoah Valley, threatening the security of Washington. To better defend the capital and possibly assist in the attack on Richmond, President Abraham Lincoln ordered that these three commands be consolidated into a force to be known as the Army of Virginia.

Grant appointed Commander of all Union forces( Sherman and Total

War• Sherman served under General

Ulysses S. Grant in 1862 and 1863 during the campaigns that led to the fall of the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River and culminated with the routing of the Confederate armies in the state of Tennessee. In 1864, Sherman succeeded Grant as the Union commander in the western theater of the war. He proceeded to lead his troops to the capture of the city of Atlanta, a military success that contributed to the re-election of President Abraham Lincoln. Sherman's subsequent march through Georgia and the Carolinas further undermined the Confederacy's ability to continue fighting. He accepted the surrender of all the Confederate armies in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida in April 1865.

changes to the nation: political,economic,costs of the war

1865• Total war has been the costliest pastime of

the total state in the twentieth century. Recognizing war as “the health of the state,” modern nation-states have enhanced their power by waging war, and they have achieved total power in part by successfully waging total war. The modern state’s ability to wage sustained total war depends directly on its ability to mobilize its physical resources over extended periods, demanding of its people as much of their labor and wealth as they will tolerate surrendering without rebellion. As Bertrand de Jouvenel observed at the end of the Second World War, under these conditions “the whole nation becomes a weapon of war wielded by the state; and the proportion engaged on warlike tasks is limited only by the need to keep it alive" Total war in the twentieth century has entailed the mobilization of industry, finances, and manpower, and even of the media, the arts, the academy, and the church. Every tangible and intangible resource has become a potential resource for warfare among governments unwilling to recognize the difference between soldier and civilian, public and private, war and peace.