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A HOUSE DIVIDED---CIVIL WAR 1861-1865
The Election of Lincoln as president in 1860 was a turning point in relations between the
North and the South. The South felt they no longer had a voice in national events or policies.
The South feared that Congress would take this opportunity to abolish slaver and deny them
their states’ rights. Before Lincoln took the oath of office in March 1861, Southern states
began to take steps to leave the Union. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the
first state to secede from the U.S. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas
soon followed it. Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas would later join these
states in April of 1861. Many hoped that a civil war could be avoided. On April 12, 1861,
Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter South Carolina. The first shots at Fort Sumter
showed that the efforts at compromise were a failure. While no one was injured during this
skirmish, Union forces were forced to surrender the fort to the Confederacy. The Civil War
had begun.
Soon the country was preparing for war. Lincoln called 75, 000 volunteers to serve the
Union. His Confederate counterpart, Jefferson Davis, called for volunteers as well. President
Lincoln and General Winfield Scott sat down and talked strategy. The result of this
conversation was the Anaconda Plan (named for its resemblance to the death grip executed by
this South American snake). Step 1 required a blockade surrounding the South by land and
water to cut off its trade. In Step 2, the goal was to take control of the Mississippi River and
divide the South into two regions so that neither side could help the other. Step 3 required
the capture of Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy. The Union would also rely on
its superior advantages of population, transportation and manufacturing resources to win the
war.
Although the North was stronger, Southerners were motivated to fight to uphold their
way of life. The Confederacy did have an advantage with military experience. The South would
fight a defensive war with the hope that they would gain the support of cotton starved
European Nations like Great Britain.
Union blockades of southern ports led to a unique change in naval warfare, the ironclad
ship. Confederates took an abandoned ship, the Merrimac, and outfitted it with iron plates so
that it could go to battle with the Union ships that blockaded the coast. With the success of
the Merrimac, the Union struck back with its own ironclad, the Monitor. Despite a skirmish
between these two ships, which ended in a draw, the Union blockade held throughout the war.
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Many Northeners felt that the rebellion could be crushed with the capture of the
Confederate capital of Richmond. Union troops gathered in Washington, D.C. and prepared to
march to Richmond. At a Virginia creek known as Bull Run, Union forces clashed with Southern
forces on July 21, 1861. A group of politicians and society folks watched as the rebel lines held
firm against the Union attack. The inexperienced Union soldiers would flee the battlefield in a
panic. Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson forced the Union army to retreat in shame.
1. Run was an overwhelming victory for the South. For the North, it was a shocking blow.
Bull
Any conceptions that this rebellion would end quickly were completely wiped out. This was
going to be a long and bloody war.
The Union war plan called on the North gaining control of the Mississippi River. General
Ulysses S. Grant turned his attention to achieving this goal. Grant moved on to Shiloh, a town
where the Tennessee River flows into the Mississippi. At Shiloh on April 6, 1862, Grant was
able to defeat the Confederate forces and gain control of the northern Mississippi River. But
the price of victory was steep. New advancements in weapon technology made the death toll
rise higher than any war in human history. One general said “This is not war, this is murder.”
The new Minnie Ball bullets were accurate at much greater distances. Troops charging at
enemy lines would be fired upon with more accuracy, producing higher death tolls. Disease and
infections ultimately led to more deaths in the hospitals than on the battlefield.
In September 1862, General Lee went on the offensive against Union forces by marching
his troops into Maryland. Lee believed a Confederate victory in the North would crush the
enemy’s morale. But luck was not on Lee’s side. His battle plans were lost and then retrieved by
the enemy. On September 17, Union forces led by George McClellan pounded the severely
outnumbered Confederate forces led by Robert E. Lee. Under cover of darkness, Lee and his
troops slipped back across the Virginia border on September 18. Antietam was the single
bloodiest day of battle in American history with 24,000 casualties and 6,000 dead. Both sides
suffered severe losses. Robert E. Lee retreated to Virginia, but to Lincoln’s disappointment,
Union General McClellan did not pursue his forces.
President Lincoln needed a Union victory so he could issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Union victory at Antietam gave him the perfect opportunity. While Lincoln originally
believed he did not have the power to end slavery, he now believed he should do so to give the
war a moral purpose. He only freed the slaves in Confederate States, not in the loyal Border
States. With the announcement, Great Britain and France shied away from the Confederacy.
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In spite of several defeats, the South was not ready to throw in the towel. Lee was
willing to risk another invasion of the North in hopes of capturing a city and convincing the
enemy to seek peace. Union and Confederate troops met up at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on July
1, 1863. After three days of fighting, both sides faced great losses. But Robert E. Lee lost a
third of his army and was forced to withdraw back to Virginia on July 4. This would mark the
last time the Confederacy would ever invade the North. For the remainder of the war, the
South was only able to fight defensively. The war had reached its turning point.
Several months later, Lincoln attended a ceremony dedicating the cemetery at the battle
site. While Lincoln was not the main speaker, he used the occasion to give his noteworthy
speech, the Gettysburg Address. In this speech, he honored the dead and reaffirmed the
American ideals established in the Constitution.
While the Battle of Gettysburg was being fought in Pennsylvania, Union forces under
General Grant were moving on the town of Vicksburg, Mississippi, as they tried to gain complete
control of the Mississippi River. For six weeks, the Confederacy was able to hold off the Union
siege (a prolonged attack on a fortified place by an army in order to capture it) that bombarded
them on land and on the river by building trenches in the bluffs overlooking the river. Once food
and supplies were gone, the Confederate forces surrendered on July 4, 1863. The Confederacy
was now divided in two and another turning point in the war had been reached.
Many minorities also fought for the Union cause. Philip Bazaar (Hispanic) was a Navy seaman who
was awarded the United States' highest military award, the Medal of Honor — for having
distinguished himself during the battle for Fort Fisher. William Harvey Carney was an African
American soldier in the famous 54th Massachusetts. He received the Medal of Honor for his
actions during the Battle of Fort Wagner.
.
Several women played a significant role in the War. Clara Barton was a nurse who created the
American Red Cross to help wounded soldiers. Barton was known as the “Angle of the
Battlefield” for her work as a nurse on the battlefield. Julia Ward Howe wrote the “Battle
Hymn of the Republic” which was sung by Union troops on their way to battle.
Grant believed in total warfare (war on the enemy’s will to fight and its ability to support
an army). Therefore, he sent orders to his generals to inflict all the damage they could on the
enemy’s war resources. General William Tecumseh Sherman reached Atlanta (the South’s most
important rail and manufacturing center) in September 1864, and promptly tore up railroads, cut
telegraph lines burned down farms, businesses and villages After burning Atlanta, Sherman
continued on his march to the sea through Georgia and into the Carolinas destroying everything
in sight. By the end of October, a steady path of destruction through the three states was
complete.
All focus then turned to Richmond. After nine months of battering Lee’s forces, Grant’s
army was able to break through Confederate lines to capture the capital city. Lee escaped but
several days later on April 9, 1865, General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox
Courthouse, Virginia. Both generals signed the document of surrender. The war was finally over!
The Civil War was the deadliest war in American History. Almost 700,000 died and
another 500,000 were wounded. The nation was saved but at a huge cost. Reconstructing the
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union would not be easy.
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Fill in the missing parts of the Battle Chart from the information you just read.
Date
Battle
April 12, 1861
Fort Sumter
July 21, 1861
1st Bull Run (Virginia)
Victor
Confederacy
Significance
beginning of the Civil
War
Shiloh (Tennessee)
September 17-18, 1862
Antietam (Maryland)
July 1- 4, 1863
Gettysburg
(Pennsylvania)
July 4, 1863
(6 weeks)
Vicksburg (Mississippi)
Sherman’s March
(Georgia, South
Carolina, North
Carolina)
April 9, 1865
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Appomattox
Courthouse (Virginia)
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Updated 1/25/02
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