Download The Civil War 1861-1865

The Civil War
1861–1865
Essential Questions
• What social, political, and economic issues tended to
divide Americans in the period prior to the Civil
War?
• Why did the election of Abraham Lincoln seem to
exacerbate sectional tensions in the prewar period?
• What impact did political and military leadership
have on the conduct of the war?
• How did the war affect minorities during the period
(women, free blacks, slaves, immigrants)?
• How did the Civil War “make” modern America?
Fundamental Causes of the War
• Sectionalism and states’ rights
• Slavery
• Economic issues
Electoral Votes in 1860
Secession
• South Carolina
was first to
secede
• Several other
states followed
soon after
• Virginia
seceded after
the Battle of
Fort Sumter
Seceding states appear in green
The Creation of the Confederacy
• Delegates met in
Montgomery, Alabama
• Formed the Confederate
States of America
• Jefferson Davis elected
president, with
Alexander Stephens as
vice president
CSA President Jefferson Davis
Buchanan’s Inaction
• Believed secession was
illegal, but that acting to
prevent it was also
illegal
• Decided to let the
incoming administration
handle the problem
President James Buchanan
Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address
•
•
•
•
March 4, 1861
Promised not to interfere with
slavery where it already existed
Attempted to reconcile with the
South
“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,
and I have no inclination to do
so.” – Abe Lincoln
A crowd listens to Lincoln’s speech at the
Capitol building
Lincoln and Fort Sumter
• Confederates demanded that the fort be surrendered
• Lincoln received urgent message from Ft. Sumter’s
commander
• Lincoln faced with dilemma of resupplying Sumter
• Decided to send only “food for hungry men”
Fort Sumter
The War Begins
• Bombardment began on April 12, 1861
• Anderson surrendered to Gen. Beauregard, a close
friend and colleague
Painting depicting
the bombardment of
Fort Sumter
The “Anaconda Plan”
The Union’s strategy:
• Naval blockade
from Louisiana to
Virginia
• Control of the
Mississippi River
Confederate strategy
primarily defensive
Cartoon about the “Anaconda Plan”
Advantages & Disadvantages:
The Union
A Massachusetts factory
Advantages:
• Industry and railroads
• Larger population
• Legitimate government
• Strong political
leadership
Disadvantages:
• Funding difficulties
• Offensive war
• Lack of skilled
military leaders
Advantages & Disadvantages:
The Confederacy
Advantages:
• Defensive war on home turf
• Common cause
• Strong military tradition and
outstanding leaders
Disadvantages:
• Weak economy
• Smaller population
• Ineffective central
government and leadership
Generals Robert E. Lee and
Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson
War Aims: North and South
• The North: to preserve the Union
• The South: safeguarding states’ rights, as well as
protecting the South from “Northern aggression”
Abraham
Lincoln
Horace
Greeley
Discussion Questions
1. Pretend you are a member of Buchanan’s cabinet.
How would you advise him to deal with the
secession crisis in the period before the next
president took office?
2. Do you think the “Anaconda Plan” was an effective
strategy for subduing the Confederacy? If not, what
strategy would you have recommended?
3. Which side’s goals for the war seem more
reasonable to you? Why?
Recruiting Soldiers
• Lincoln called
for 75,000
volunteers for
three months’
enlistment
• Response was
overwhelming
• Union also
encouraged
enlistment with
bounties
New Yorkers line up to enlist
Ethnic Recruitment
• Both sides appealed to
ethnic pride in order to
recruit
• Many nationalities
joined both sides
• Irish Americans among
the most common
An enlistment poster aimed at Irish
Americans
Antietam
• Attempt by Lee to invade the North
• Near Sharpsburg, Maryland
• McClellan tipped off to Lee’s plans when a soldier
found secret orders wrapped around cigars
• Single bloodiest day in American history
Artillery Hell, a
painting of
early morning
hostilities at
Antietam
Antietam: Battle Scenes
Dead soldiers await
burial after the
morning fighting in
the Miller cornfield
Antietam: Battle Scenes
A view of the
Burnside Bridge
from the
“Confederate side”
Antietam: Battle Scenes
An Army
field hospital
Antietam: Battle Scenes
Confederate dead
along the
Hagerstown
turnpike
Prelude to Emancipation
• At first, Lincoln did not
believe he had the
authority to end slavery
• However, every slave
working on a plantation
allowed a white
Southerner to fight
• Lincoln saw
emancipation as a
strategic issue as well as
a moral one
Slaves on a South Carolina plantation, 1862
The Emancipation Proclamation
• Lincoln announced
proclamation after Antietam
• Took effect on January 1, 1863
• Freed slaves only in “territories
in rebellion”
A cartoon celebrating emancipation
Advantages to Emancipation
Lincoln discussing emancipation with his cabinet
• Cause “union” in
the North by
linking the war to
abolishing slavery
• Cause disorder in
the South as slaves
were freed
• Kept Britain out of
the war
Women’s Roles in the War
Clara Barton
Dorothea Dix
Mary Bickerdyke
Dr. Mary Edwards Walker
Women Warriors
• Some women
posed as men in
order to fight
• Frances Clayton
(right) fought in
artillery and
cavalry units
• Total number
unknown
Civil War Espionage
Belle Boyd
Rose Greenhow
Pauline Cushman
Sam Davis
Dealing With Dissent
• Copperheads
• Led by Rep. Clement
Vallandigham of Ohio
• Lincoln suspends
habeas corpus
Rep. Clement Vallandigham
Manpower for the War
• Mostly volunteers
• Conscription needed to
sustain troop levels
• In the North, draftees
could hire substitutes or
pay $300 to opt out
An illustrated sheet music cover
protesting the inequities of the draft
New York Draft Riots
• July 1863
• Rioters mainly poor
whites and Irish
immigrants
• Opposed to freeing
slaves
• More than 100 people
killed
Rioters loot a New York store
African American Enlistment
Col. Robert Gould Shaw
Memorial to the 54th
Massachusetts
• Congress allowed black
enlistment in 1862
• 54th Massachusetts
commanded by Colonel
Shaw
• Half of 54th killed in
assault on Ft. Wagner
• Helped spur further
enlistment
The Sanitary Commission
• Poor health conditions in
army camps
• U.S. Sanitary
Commission created
• Purposes included
improving hygiene and
recruiting nurses
• Developed better
methods of transporting
wounded to hospitals
A Civil War field hospital
Civil War Medicine
• Infection often deadlier
than the wounds
• Amputations more
common
• Anesthesia widely used
A surgeon at the Camp Letterman field
hospital at Gettysburg prepares for an
amputation
Andersonville
• Confederate POW camp
in Georgia
• 32,000 prisoners
jammed into 26 acres
• One-third of all
prisoners died
• Superintendent was
executed as a war
criminal
Severely emaciated POWs rescued
from Andersonville
Gettysburg: Prelude
• Lee crossed
into
Pennsylvania
• Sent troops for
supplies
• Confederates
encounter
Union force
outside
Gettysburg
Gettysburg battlefield: view from Culp’s Hill
Impact of Gettysburg
• Confederates lost 28,000
men (one-third of army)
• Union lost 23,000 men
(one-quarter of army)
• Town overwhelmed by
dead and wounded soldiers
• Lee unable to rebuild army
• Turning point of the war
A Confederate soldier lies dead at
“Devil’s Den”
The Gettysburg Address
• Lincoln invited to attend
cemetery dedication
• Everett the principal
speaker
• At the time, Lincoln’s
two-minute speech was
considered great by
some, a failure by others
The only known picture of Lincoln
(lower center) at the Gettysburg
Cemetery dedication
•
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.
Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think the loss of Stonewall Jackson was
so devastating to the Confederacy?
2. Why was the Battle of Gettysburg such an important
victory for the Union? How might things have been
different had the Confederacy won the battle?
3. Should Lee have been relieved of command because
of his strategy at Gettysburg? Why or why not?
Sherman’s “March to the Sea”
• Sherman sought to
break the South’s ability
to make war
• Captured Atlanta in
September 1864
• Led the March to the
Sea from Atlanta to
Savannah
• Took Savannah by
Christmas 1864
Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman
Election of 1864
A political cartoon shows Lincoln and Davis tearing a
U.S. map while McClellan tries to intercede
• Lincoln sought
reelection
• Democrats
nominated
McClellan
• Union victories
helped Republican
campaign
• Lincoln won by
large margin
The Fall of Richmond
• Lee told Davis the
capital was in danger
• Davis ordered
evacuation
• Union forces took
Richmond
• Lincoln toured the city
soon after
The remains of buildings after the
Union invasion, April 1865
The 13th Amendment
Illustration depicting the Senate debate
over the 13th Amendment
• Proposed and coauthored by Senator
Henderson of Missouri
• Approved by Congress
in January 1865
• Ratified by 27 states
by December 1865
• Abolished
“involuntary
servitude”
Surrender at Appomattox
•
•
•
•
Lee realized his position was hopeless
Asked to meet with Grant
Met in Appomattox on April 9, 1865
Lenient surrender terms
An artist’s
rendition of the
meeting
Lincoln’s Assassination
• April 14, 1865, at
Ford’s Theater
• Shot by actor John
Wilkes Booth
• Booth killed 12 days
later
• Vice President Andrew
Johnson became
president
An illustration of Lincoln’s
assassination
Impact of the War
Freedmen disinter bodies of soldiers killed at
Cold Harbor for reburial after the war
Impact of the War: the Union
• 111,000 killed in action
• 250,000 killed by non-military causes (mostly
disease)
• Over 275,000 wounded
• Estimated cost in today’s dollars: $6.19 billion
Union dead at
Gettysburg
Impact of the War:
the Confederacy
• 93,000 killed in
battle
• 165,000 killed by
non-military
causes
• Over 137,000
wounded
• Estimated cost in
today’s dollars:
$2.10 billion
Destruction in Atlanta after Sherman’s
troops took the city
The Road to Reconstruction
President Andrew Johnson
• Lincoln’s assassination led
to a change in political
leadership.
• Conflict over how to best
deal with the former
Confederate state
• Reconstruction period
brought about great
political upheaval
• South “punished” for
causing the war
Discussion Questions
1. Why did Grant’s “total war” policy meet with
resistance even in the North? Do you think the policy
was a good idea? Why?
2. How did Grant and Sherman’s military campaigns
help Lincoln win reelection in 1864?
3. What was the impact of Lincoln’s assassination on
the North? On the South?