Download Major Battles of the Civil War

Learning Objective: We will understand how the major
battles impacted the events and results of the Civil War.
1ST battle of the Civil War
 A Union army of 28,000 men
 Confederate army of 33,000, led by General Thomas
Jackson
 Union:
 Attempted to seize Manassas, VA, vital railroad
 Confederate troops aligned the creek waiting for Union
forces at Bull Run
 Confederate forces defeated the Union
Merrimack: An abandoned Union warship used by the South
 Salvaged the ship, covered it with thick iron plates, iron-clad.
 Renamed it the Virginia
 North’s wooden ships could not damage the Confederate ship
Monitor: North’s Iron-clad ship
 Ships could not sink each other
 North successful in keeping the Merrimack in harbor
Battle marked a new age for Naval warfare
 Used ships as models to build more iron-clad ships
 Single bloodiest day of the entire war
 Both armies suffered heavy losses, neither was destroyed
 Lee, Confederate General, retreated allowing Union to
claim victory
 Crucial victory for the Union
 British government ready to intervene as mediator if
General Lee’s invasion had been successful
 Impact on War
 Lincoln used the battle to take action against slavery
 5 days later Lincoln announced his plan to free all
enslaved people in the Confederacy
 Why do you think Lincoln waited until after the
victory at Antietam to announce the Emancipation
Proclamation?
 Vicksburg stood on high bluff above the Mississippi
River
 Gain control of the Mississippi River was a major war
goal
 Ulysses S. Grant forced Vicksburg surrendered
 Impact on War
 The Union had complete control of the Mississippi River
 Sealed Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas from the
Confederacy
 Cut the South in two
Largest battle of the war, lasting three days
Union was victorious
General Lee (Confederate): The defeat forced Lee to
withdraw his army toward Virginia
 Destroying Lee’s hope of carrying the fight further up
North
Gettysburg Address:
Lincoln beautifully addressed what the war had come to
mean
Helped war-weary Americans look beyond the images
of the battlefield and focus on their shared ideals
 Explain why the battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg
were the turning points in the Civil War.