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Chapter 21 (13th Edition) Student Handout
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Chapter 21
The Furnace of the Civil War
~ 1861 – 1865 ~
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not
either to save or destroy slavery.
Abraham Lincoln, 1862
Introduction
In April, 1861, President Lincoln and just about everyone else in the North expected the War to last
about 90 days, with a quick suppression of the South to prove the North’s superiority
Lincoln made it clear he had “no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States
where it exists”
When the war was over 4 years later
Over half a million soldiers were dead (not to mention civilian casualties)
Slavery was ended forever
The nation had to reintegrate the defeated but still defiant South back into the Union
I.
Bull Run Ends the “Ninety-Day War”
A.
Northern newspapers anticipated a speedy defeat of the South and cried, “On to Richmond”
B.
30,000 Union troops drilled near Washington in the summer of 1861---not prepared for
battle, but public cried for action
C.
Lincoln thought an attack on the smaller Confederates at Bull Run (Manassas Junction)---30
miles south of Washington---might be worth a try
1. On July 21, 1861, ill-trained Yankee recruits marched to Bull Run to engage a smaller
Confederate unit
2. The atmosphere was like that of a sporting event
3. Union won at first but Confederate reinforcements arrived and Stonewall Jackson’s men
held their line
4. The Union lost
D.
The Battle of Bull Run was not militarily significant but had deep psychological and political
consequences
1.
Southern victory made the South overconfident
2.
Northern defeat burst Northern bubble of confidence and made Northerners buckle
down and prepare for the task at hand
3.
Showed both sides that this would not be a short, easy war
Chapter 21 (13th Edition) Student Handout
II.
“Tardy George” McClellan and the Peninsula Campaign
A
Later in 1861, command of the Army of the Potomac (name of the Union army) was given to
General George B. McClellan
1. Brilliant West Point graduate
2. Good organizer
3. Instilled great morale in troops
4. Experienced
5. BUT also a perfectionist
6. Hated to sacrifice his troops, overcautious
7. Didn’t like Lincoln
8. Held the army without moving for months
B
Finally, he decided upon a water-borne approach to Richmond, called the Peninsula Campaign
1.
“Jeb” Stuart’s Confederate cavalry rode completely around McClellan’s army
2. Southern General Robert E. Lee launched a devastating counterattack—the Seven Days’
Battles—on June 26 to July 2 of 1862 in which they drove the Army of the Potomac back
to the sea
3. Lee’s victory ensured that the war would drag on until slavery was uprooted and the Old
South was completely destroyed
C
The Union strategy now turned to total war---adopting parts of a battle plan originated by
Winfield Scott which was originally called the "boa-constrictor" plan and later the Anaconda
Plan---never officially adopted
1. Suffocate the South by blockading ports
2. Free the slaves to undermine the South’s very economic foundations
3. Cut the Confederacy in half by seizing control of the Mississippi River
4. Chop the Confederacy to pieces by marching through Georgia and the Carolinas
5. Decapitate it by capturing its capital, Richmond, Virginia.
6. Try everywhere to engage the enemy’s main strength and grind it to submission (this was
added by Ulysses Grant and was his great strength)
III.
The War at Sea
A
The Union blockade started leakily at first, but it clamped down later
1. Covered over 3,500 miles
2. Simplified by focusing on major ports
B
Britain would ordinarily protest such interference in the seas that she “owned” but didn’t
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Chapter 21 (13th Edition) Student Handout
C
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Blockade-running, or the process of smuggling materials through the blockade, was a risky but
profitable business
D.
1.
Possible 700% profit
2.
Favorite gathering place of blockade runners: Nassau in the (British) Bahamas
Union navy used high handed tactics to enforce blockade--- seized British freighters on the
high seas if they had supplies that seemed to be destined for Nassau, citing “ultimate
destination” [to the South] or “continuous voyage” as their reasons
E.
The biggest Confederate threat to the Union came in the form of an old U.S. warship
reconditioned and plated with iron railroad rails: the Virginia (formerly called the Merrimack)
IV.
Threatened to break the Union blockade
2.
Union built their own ironclad, the Monitor
3.
Fought the Merrimack to a standstill
4.
Confederates later destroyed their ship to save it from the North.
The Pivotal Point: Antietam
A General Robert E. Lee headed north and defeated General John Pope’s men in the Second
Battle of Bull Run
B Then Lee hoped to thrust into the North (Maryland) and win in order to . . .
1. persuade the Border States to join the South
2. persuade foreign countries to intervene on behalf of the South
C. At this time, Lincoln reinstated General McClellan
D. McClellan’s men found a copy of Lee’s plans and were able to stop the Southerners at
Antietam on September 17, 1862 in one of the bloodiest days of the Civil War (1 in 4 soldiers
were killed---over 7,000 in all)
E. Antietam was a draw militarily but it was perhaps the most decisive battle of the Civil War,
because it was a display of power (“victory”???) that Lincoln needed to launch his
Emancipation Proclamation
1. By midsummer of 1862, Lincoln felt the remaining Border States would not leave the
Union, and he was ready to move---but all the military losses would make an
emancipation proclamation a joke --- so he waited
2. Antietam was enough of a victory for Lincoln to issue a preliminary Emancipation
proclamation
F.
V.
1.
A.
a. Didn’t actually free the slaves, but it gave hope
b. Said that on January 1, 1863 the president would issue a final proclamation
On January 1, 1863, Lincoln made his Emancipation Proclamation
1. War became more of a moral crusade --- fate of slavery and of the South was sealed
2. War became a “remorseless revolutionary struggle” (Lincoln)
3. After January 1, 1863, Lincoln said “The character of the war will be changed. It will be
one of subjugation . . . The (old) South is to be destroyed and replaced by new propositions
and ideas”
4. Now, the war wasn’t just to save the Union, it was to free the slaves a well
A Proclamation without Emancipation
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in which he declared “forever free” the slaves
in the Confederate states still in rebellion
1.
He freed the slaves in not-yet-conquered Southern territories
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2.
3.
B.
C.
D.
E.
VI.
A.
Slaves in the Border States and the conquered territories were not liberated
Criticism of Lincoln: He freed the slaves where he couldn’t and wouldn’t free the
slaves where he could
Emancipation Proclamation did succeed in one of its purposes: the undermine the labor of the
South as many slaves left their plantations when they heard of it
The Emancipation Proclamation strengthened the moral cause of the Union and foreshadowed
the doom of slavery
Public reactions to the Proclamation varied
The North now had a much stronger moral cause (preserving the Union and freeing the slaves)
and the moral position of the South was diminished
Blacks Battle Bondage
At first, Blacks weren’t enlisted in the army, but as Lincoln moved to emancipate the slaves,
he took steps to enlist blacks in the armed forces
B. As manpower ran low, black enlistees were accepted
C. By war’s end, Black’s accounted for about 10% of the Union army including two all black
regiments raised largely through the efforts of Frederick Douglass
1. Blacks won 22 Congressional Medals of Honor
2. Casualties were heavy---more than 38,000 died
D. Until 1864, Southerners refused to recognize Black soldiers as prisoners of war and often
executed them as runaways and rebels, and in one case at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, several blacks
who had surrendered were massacre
E. Confederacy could not bring itself to enlist blacks until a month before the war ended --- and
by then it was too late
F. Slaves also
1. Were forced into labor battalions
2. Built fortifications
3. Supplied the Union Army
4. Kept the farms going to feed the troops
G. Slaves did not support Confederacy, despite their involuntary labor to help it
H. In many ways, the Southern slaves hindered the Southern war effort
1. Fear of slave insurrections necessitated Confederate “home guards” taking able-bodied
young men away from the front
2. Slave resistance---slowdowns, strikes, open defiance
3. When Union troops neared, slave assertiveness increased
4. Slaves were “intelligent contraband”---served as Union spies, guides, and scouts or gave
shelter to escaped Union prisoners of war
5. By the end of the war, almost 500,000 slaves had abandoned their plantations
6. No violent uprisings, but they contributed to the collapse of slavery
VII. Lee’s Last Lunge at Gettysburg
A. After Antietam, General A. E. Burnside took over the Union army, but he lost badly after
launching a rash frontal attack at Fredericksburg, Virginia, on Dec. 13, 1862
B. “Fighting Joe” Hooker replaced Burnside and was badly beaten at Chancellorsville, Virginia
C. Lee now prepared to invade the North for the second and final time, at Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, but he was met by new General George G. Meade,
1. Union (92,000 troops) and Confederate (76,000 troops) armies fought a bloody and brutal
battle in which the North “won.”
2. Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863), General George Pickett led a hopeless, bloody, and
pitiful charge up a hill that ended in the pig-slaughter of Confederates
3. Pickett’s charge was called the “high tide of the Confederacy”
4. After Gettysburg, the Confederate cause was doomed, but the war dragged on for two years
Chapter 21 (13th Edition) Student Handout
D.
XI.
A few months later, Lincoln delivered his two-minute Gettysburg Address at the dedication
of a cemetery there
VIII. The War in the West
A. Lincoln finally found a good general in Ulysses S. Grant
1. Mediocre West Point graduate
2. Fought well in the Mexican War
3. Drank a lot and had to resign from Army
4. Failed at various businesses
5. Short, stooped, sloppy in dress and awkward
6. Managed to become a colonel in the volunteers in the Civil War
B. Grant won at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, where commander asked for terms and Grant
demanded “immediate and unconditional surrender”
C. Fought a hard battle at Shiloh (April 6-7, 1862)
D. Lincoln combated demands for the removal of “Unconditional Surrender” Grant --- Lincoln
said, “I can’t spare this man; he fights.”
E. In the spring of 1862, a flotilla commanded by David G. Farragut joined with a Northern army
to seize New Orleans
F. At Vicksburg, Mississippi, U.S. Grant besieged the city and captured it on July 4, 1863, thus
securing the important Mississippi River (Anaconda Plan: Cutting the snake in two.)
G. The Union victory at the Battle of Vicksburg came the day after the Union victory at
Gettysburg, and afterwards, the Confederate hope for foreign intervention was lost
Sherman Scorches Georgia
A. General Grant was transferred to east Tennessee where he liberated Chattanooga and cleared out
Tennessee---opened the way for an invasion of Georgia
1. General William Tecumseh Sherman was given command to march through Georgia
2. Sherman came up with idea of destroying infrastructure of South
3. Captured and burned down Atlanta in November, 1864
B. Then daringly left his supply base and completed his famous “march to the sea” at Savannah
1. His men cut a trail of destruction one-mile wide and 60 miles long, waging “total war”
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
XII.
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Burned buildings”
Tore up railroad tracks, heated them red-hot, and twisted them
Bayoneted family portraits
Ran off with valuable souvenirs
Burned fields
2. Purpose of march: to destroy supply lines and to demoralize Confederates by destroying
their homes
3. ”Sherman the Brute” was universally condemned in the South
4. However, only 600 people were killed on the march
C. Sherman and troops then veered into South Carolina with even more wrath and destruction
The Politics of War
A. The election of 1864 fell in the middle of the war
B. Much political infighting in the North --- factions in the Republican Party critical of Lincoln
1. Secretary of Treasury Salmon Chase was one of foremost critics
2. The Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War was created in 1861 was dominated
by “radical” Republicans and gave Lincoln much trouble
C. The Northern Democrats were the most dangerous to the nation
1. Split after the death of Stephen Douglas, into
a.
b.
“War Democrats,” who supported Lincoln and
“Peace Democrats,” who did not
2. At the extreme were Copperheads were those who totally against the war
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D. The most famous of the Copperheads was Clement L. Valandigham
1. Southern partisan, demanded end to “wicked and cruel” war
2. Tried in military tribunal, then banished to the South
3. Came back to Ohio illegally but was not further punished, and also inspired the story “The
Man without a Country” (Edward Everett Hale)
XIII. The Election of 1864
A. Lincoln’s re-election depended on keeping Republican support and spiking threat from Peace Democrats and
Copperheads
B. In 1864, the Republicans joined the War Democrats to form the Union Party
1. Republican Party passed temporarily out of existence
2. Re-nominated Abe Lincoln
3. Chose Democrat Andrew Johnson as Vice Presidential nominee
a. From Tennessee, small slaveowner
b. No regard to the fact that Johnson would become President if anything should happen to Lincoln
C. Copperheads and Peace Democrats ran George McClellan
D. Seemed Lincoln might lose but
1. Near Election Day, the victories at Mobile, Alabama, Atlanta, Georgia, and Shenandoah Valley of Virginia
2. Northern soldiers were pushed to vote
3. Lincoln defeated his opponent in the Electoral College, 212-21
XIV.
Grant Outlasts Lee
A Grant was brought in to replace Meade after Gettysburg
1. Lincoln needed a general who had the guts to drive forward despite the casualties ---meat grinder warfare
2. Grant’s philosophy: attack the enemy’s armies simultaneously, so that they could not assist one another
B Grant could send thousands of men out to die just so that the Confederates would lose
1.
In a series of wilderness encounters, Grant fought Lee---Grant lost about 50,000 men.
2.
At Cold Harbor over Union soldiers 7000 died in a few minutes
C In February, 1865, Confederates tried to negotiate an end to the war as a peace between two “countries”
1. Lincoln met with Confederate representatives on a Union ship off coast of Virginia
2. Lincoln could accept nothing short of emancipation and Union and Southerners could accept nothing
short of independence
D Finally, Grant and his men captured Richmond, burning it, and cornered Lee at Appomattox Courthouse at
Virginia in April of 1865, where Lee formally surrendered; the war was over
XV. The Martyrdom of Lincoln
A. On April 14, 1865 Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head at Ford’s theater by actor John Wilkes Booth
B
C
D
XVI.
1. Lincoln died the next morning
2. “Now he belongs to the ages” said Secretary Stanton
Lincoln died at the very pinnacle of his fame
Before his death, few people had suspected his greatness
The South cheered Lincoln’s death at first, but later, his death proved to be worse than if he had lived
The Aftermath of the Nightmare.
A. The Civil War cost 600,000 men, $15 billion (plus pensions and other costs)
B. However it gave American democracy the supreme test of its existence and whether a nation dedicated to
such principles “can long endure”
C. The “Lost Cause” of the South, the romantic notion that the South fought heroically for states’ rights,
was lost, but few would argue it was not for the best
D. It paved the way for the US to fulfill its destiny as the dominant republic of the world
Words, Terms, and Concepts to Note in Recall Margin
1.
Battle of Bull Run/Manassas Junction
2.
Army of the Potomac
Chapter 21 (13th Edition) Student Handout
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
George B. McClellan
Peninsula Campaign
“JEB” Stuart
total war
Anaconda Plan
“ultimate destination”
“continuous voyage”
Merrimack
Monitor
Second Battle of Bull Run
Battle of Antietam
Emancipation Proclamation
13th Amendment
Fort Pillow
General George G. Meade
Battle of Gettysburg
General George Pickett
Pickett’s Charge
Gettysburg Address
Ulysses S. Grant
unconditional surrender
Battle of Vicksburg
General William Tecumseh Sherman
Sherman’s “march to the sea”
“War Democrats”
“Peace Democrats”
Copperheads
Clement L. Valandigham
“The Man without a Country”
Union Party
Andrew Johnson
Appomattox Courthouse
John Wilkes Booth
“Lost Cause”
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Chapter 21 (13th Edition)
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