Download The American Civil War, 1861-1865

The American Civil War,
1861-1865
Comparison of Union and CSA
Union
CSA
Total population
22,000,000 (71%)
9,000,000 (29%)
Free population
22,000,000
5,500,000
1860 Border state slaves
432,586
NA
1860 Southern slaves
NA
3,500,000
Soldiers
2,200,000 (67%)
1,064,000 (33%)
Railroad miles
21,788 (71%)
8,838 (29%)
Manufactured items
90%
10%
Firearm production
97%
3%
Bales of cotton in 1860
Negligible
4,500,000
Bales of cotton in 1864
Negligible
300,000
Pre-war U.S. exports
30%
70%
Union Strengths
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Manufacturing and population
advantages
Centralized government institutions
and traditions
Loyal opposition (Democrats)
Existing Army and Navy
Investment capital and stable food
supply
Significant internal development
(communication, transport)
Union Weaknesses

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Long supply lines
Occupation of hostile populations
Early indecisiveness of commanders
Confederate Strengths

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Defense of home soil
Military leadership
Confederate Disadvantages
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Lack of manufactured goods
Blockaded coast and price inflation
Lack of food and investment capital
No diplomatic recognition
No developed governmental traditions
(political infighting)
Fear of slave rebellions
Small free population
Lack of sizeable Navy
Union War Strategies
Anaconda Plan
 Take Mississippi River to split the
Confederacy
 Blockade southern coast
 Take Richmond
 Multiple front war
 Burning campaigns
(late war)

Confederate Strategies
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Defensive perimeter, shift reserves
to different fronts
Wear down Northern fighting spirit
Strike North to relieve pressure on
Richmond
Encourage peace movement in North
Gain diplomatic recognition of France
and/or England (cotton diplomacy)
Modern War

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The rifled bullet, repeating rifle
(Winchester)
Tactics do not keep pace with
technology
1861

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Union defeat at Bull Run (July 1861)
McClellan takes command, drills
troops through the fall
1862
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Union capture of New Orleans in April (Farragut)
The Peninsular Campaign (April-July)
Pope defeated at Second Bull Run (August)
Robert E. Lee takes command, invades North
Battle of Antietam (24,000 casualties) forces
Lee’s retreat
Burnside and Fredericksburg defeat (Nov-Dec)
Union forces advance in the West (control
Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers,
Memphis)
The Emancipation Proclamation
and its Effects
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Delivered after Antietam
(September 22, 1862)
Frees slaves in rebelling states in 1863
War becomes one of abolitionism as well
as Union preservation
Appeals to international liberals to prevent
foreign intervention
Creates more opposition to war in the
north (draft riots)
Increases enlistment of Black soldiers
(10% of Union army by 1865)
1863
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Joseph Hooker defeated at
Chancellorsville (May 1-5)
Lee strikes north, Armies meet at Gettysburg
(July 1-3)
Pickett’s Charge repulsed(1,123 killed, 4,019
wounded, 3,750 captured of 12K soldiers)
Total Gettysburg casualties
• 23,001 Union killed, missing, or wounded
• 20,448 Confederate killed, missing, or wounded

Vicksburg falls in July after prolonged siege
(Mississippi River effectively controlled by Union
forces under U.S. Grant)
1864
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U.S. Grant moved east to
command Union forces
William Tecumseh Sherman
commands in Tennessee
Methodical war of attrition
Sheridan’s burning campaigns
Battles of the Wilderness (May 5-7) and
Cold Harbor (June 1-3)
Bypassing Richmond and the siege of
Petersburg (June 15 to March 25, 1865)
The War in the Deep South
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Atlanta falls to Sherman (September
2)
Sherman’s March to the Sea (Atlanta
to Savannah)
The Election of 1864
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Fall of Atlanta aids Lincoln at the polls
Lincoln creates Union Party (Republicans
and War Democrats)
Andrew Johnson as Union
Party Vice President
McClellan runs as peace
Democrat (Copperheads)
Soldiers vote in the fields
War Opposition in the North
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Immigrants fear Black emancipation
Civil War draft riots
(July 1863)
States rights ideology
Profiteering the hiring of
substitutes
Copperhead leader Clement
Vallandigham exiled (February 1864)
1865
Petersburg and
Richmond fall (MarchApril)
 Lee surrenders at
Appomattox (April 9)
 Lincoln assassinated (April 14)
 Johnston surrenders Confederate
Army in North Carolina (April 18)
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War Costs

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Southern social and economic
devastation
One in five mobilized are killed
(620,000 men)
Civil War Effects
Slavery abolished in 1865
(13th Amendment)
 Union indivisible, not a
collection of sovereign states
 Racial questions in the South remain
unresolved through the 1960s
 Enhances industrialization in the
North
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Main Issues of the Post Civil War
Era
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How to re-admit states into the
Union?
Should ex-confederates be punished
or treated leniently?
How to create a new southern
society incorporating freedmen into
its culture?
The Civil War and the American
South
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War devastation (Sherman’s March, siege
warfare)
Lack of towns and industry
Illiteracy
Lack of capital
Crop monocultures
War pensions
Redeemers and enduring racism
Reconstruction (1865-1877)
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Lincoln plan (leniency toward
southerners)
Congressional plans (occupation and
reordering society)
The Civil War Amendments
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Abolition of slavery
Due process of law
Voting rights for freedmen
The Election of 1876
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Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden
Withdrawal of Union troops from the
South
Symbolic end of Reconstruction