Download 4.2 The Civil War Begins

4.2 The Civil War Begins
How did the Civil War become the
conflict that divided the nation?
Union and Confederate Forces
Clash
• Lincoln called for troops to fight to restore
the Union; the Confederates attacked and
took Fort Sumter
• The fall of Fort Sumter united the North,
and was met with an overwhelming
response for soldiers
• Only four slave states remained in the
Union: Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, and
Missouri
Continued
• The North had many advantages over the
South: it had more people, more factories,
more food production, and better railroads
• The South’s advantages were the demand
for its cotton, better generals, soldiers
eager to defend their way of life, and the
fact that the North had to conquer
Southern territory to win
Continued
• The North had a three-part plan:
1.) to blockade Southern ports to keep out
supplies
2.) to split the Confederacy in two at the
Mississippi
3.) to capture the Confederate capital of
Richmond, VA
Battles
• The Confederates won the first battle of the war,
Bull Run, and were led by General Stonewall
Jackson
• In 1862, the Union, led by General Ulysses S.
Grant, captured Confederate forts in Tennessee
• Both sides suffered terrible losses in the Union
victory at Shiloh, and eventually the Union navy
captured the port of New Orleans
Continued
• Also in 1862, the Union army marched towards
Richmond; General Robert E. Lee successfully
defended the Confederate capital and then
marched towards Washington
• He was defeated by Union forces at Antietam,
Maryland, in the bloodiest battle of the war
• Union troops chose not to chase Lee back into
Virginia
The Politics of War
• The South hoped Britain would support them in the war,
but Britain needed supplies of wheat and corn from the
North, so they remained neutral
• More and more people in the North felt slavery should be
abolished; Lincoln did not feel he had the Constitutional
right to end slavery where it already existed
• On January 1, 1863, he signed the Emancipation
Proclamation, freeing all slaves behind Confederate
lines, not slave states still in the Union, because he
viewed slaves there as enemy resources contributing to
the war effort
Continued
• In the North, the Emancipation
Proclamation gave the war a high moral
purpose
• In the South, people became more
determined to preserve their way of life
• The high number of casualties forced both
sides to impose conscription, a draft that
forced men to serve in the army, and led to
draft riots in the North
Changes Due to War
• In 1862, Congress allowed African
Americans to serve in the Union Army;
many enlisted after the Emancipation
Proclamation and by the end of the war
they were 10% of the Union Army
• African Americans served in separate
regiments, were paid less than whites, and
suffered discrimination
Continued
• Soldiers suffered and died from battle wounds
• They also suffered from poor army food, filthy
conditions, and disease; war prisons were even
worse
• Early in the war, nurses like Clara Barton and
doctors set up a commission to improve sanitary
conditions for soldiers
• Congress later decided to impose an income tax
to help pay for the war