Download The Civil War (1861

1861-1865
The Civil War (1861-1865)
• a period of war between Northern +
Southern states
– Army of the Union (U.S.)- 23 states
– Confederate States of America (C.S.A.)- 11
states
• 600,000 soldiers died
– More than all the deaths of our other
campaigns!
– Over ½ die from disease than bullets
A Deeply Divided America
• 31,000,000 citizens
– 34 states (Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas)
– 3,000,000 slaves in South (½ of total
pop.)
– Blacks born & live in filth, disease,
ignorance
• Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan
were Presidents between 1849-1861
– Largely ineffective - inactions helped
further the cause for war
Differences between northern and southern states:
__________
industrial
economy
“_____
free states”
agricultural
__________
economy
“_____
slave states”
A Deeply Divided America
• Secession had been suggested many
times as only way to deal with slavery
• South felt slavery only way to preserve
economy - didn’t know what to do w/o
slaves
• Slavery had been in America so long
(1619) that it was called “a peculiar
institution”
Society’s Efforts to Stop Slavery
• “Uncle Tom’s
Cabin” (1852) violent slavery
story by Harriet B.
Stowe moves
many to join
abolitionists
 Sold 300,000
copies in
the first year.
 2 million in a
decade!
Society’s Efforts to Stop Slavery
• “Underground
Railroad” created by
Harriet Tubman +
conductors to evacuate
slaves from Southalmost 50,000 saved
by “railroad”
• Tubman rescued over
300 slaves after her
escape
The Issue of Slavery
RACISM RULED throughout country
– Abolitionists racist by modern standards –
Churches, schools, cemeteries wouldn’t
accept them – workers didn’t trust them –
worried about their own jobs
– Mistreated in South
• Girls used + sold as breeders for more slaves
• Southerners see their slaves as property,
which could be moved with them to new lands
The Wilmot Proviso (1846)
• Before Mexican War
was over, slavery’s
future in southwestern
lands caused strong
debate in the U.S.
• 1846: Wilmot Proviso
divides country along
sectional lines
An America Free, or Slave?
–Several attempts made to deal with
slavery – NONE WERE
SUCCESSFUL
–The Missouri Compromise (1820) –
Maine (FREE) and Missouri (SLAVE)
enter the Union
–The Compromise of 1850 – California
(FREE) and Congress makes no laws
regarding territories won in M/A War
Path to War (1850-1856)
• “Bleeding Kansas” (1856)
– Popular Sovereignty decides slavery in Kansas
(Henry Clay)
– FAILED - Lawrence burned by pro-slavery
radicals
– State collapsed into civil war - 200 people killed
– “…a territory of mobs and gangs, of lynchings,
shootings at night, rigged elections, and literally
murderous rivalries.”
• Debate spills over into violence in the
nation’s capital
Dred Scott Decision - FACTS:
• Dred Scott was a slave from Missouri. (MO)
Dred Scott
Dred Scott Decision - FACTS:
• Scott and his owner moved to Wisconsin for four years.
Dred Scott
Dred Scott Decision (1857) - FACTS:
• Scott’s owner died after returning to Missouri.
Dred Scott
Dred Scott Decision (1857) - FACTS:
* Scott sued for his freedom. He claimed that he should be a
free man since he lived in a free territory (WI) for four years.
Dred Scott
SUPREME COURT
DECISIONS:
Q: Was Scott a U.S.
citizen with the right to
sue?
A: NO
Q: Did living in a free
territory make Scott a
free man?
A: NO
Q: Did Congress have
the right to outlaw
slavery in any territory?
A: NO
RESULTS:
• Dred Scott was not given his freedom.
• The Missouri Compromise was found to be unconstitutional.
Open to
slavery
through
popular
sovereignty
(Compromise
of 1850)
Missouri Compromise line is declared
unconstitutional (Dred Scott Decision)
Open to
slavery
through
popular
sovereignty
(KS-NE
Act)
“The Final Straw” (1859-1860)
• John Brown’s
Raid (1859)
– Brown attacked
federal arsenal
at Harper’s Ferry
- hoped to use
weapons to free
all slaves
– Failed- captured,
hanged
Abraham Lincoln’s Election
• Lincoln’s election in 1860 angers South – slaveholders call him “The Black Republican” S. Carolina secedes on Dec. 20, 1860
1860
Election
Results
1860 Election: A Nation Coming Apart?!
Secession!: SC Dec. 20, 1860
The Union and Confederacy in 1861
Leadership during the War
Abraham Lincoln (US)
Jefferson Davis (CSA)
Realities of the Campaign
• Each side made critical errors in the early
years of the War
• Lincoln seriously underestimates the will of
the South – not prepared for response his
army receives in early years of the War
• The South wrongly assumes Britain will
come to its aid – all of Europe has banned
slavery by 1860
Ranking North v. South: 1861
R
e
s
o
u
r
c
e
s
• Population - 22 million
• 90% of industry - goods, esp. munitions
• Efficient railroad system
• Controlled the navy, which could be used to
blockade southern ports and shutdown the
South’s economy but would have to fight an
offensive war (long supply lines, unfamiliar
territory...)
• Capable mil. leaders, inc. Ulysses S. Grant
• Confederates had excellent generals too -Robert
E. Lee and Thomas Jackson
• Defending is always easier than attacking (familiar w/climate and territory, possible
psychological advantages)
• Farmers fight better than factory workers
• Profitable eco. based on cotton exports
• But disadvantages…a smaller pop. of 9 million
(inc. 3.5 million slaves)
• had to import industrial goods;
very little munitions production
Weapons of the Civil War
• Most soldiers were issued smoothbore
muskets that were difficult to load and could be
fired at an accurate range of only about 100
yards, only three times in one minute. Rifled
muskets were much more accurate and deadly
with a range of up to 500 yards.
Destruction from Artillery
• In the Civil War, some Cannons were rifled for
better accuracy and more power.
• Rifled cannons could accurately lob shells for
almost 2000 yards; that is almost one mile!.
• Smoothbore cannons were not as accurate
and could be lobbed 500 yards.
The Monitor
Key Battles
• Fort Sumter (1861): War starts
Battle of Bull Run (1st Manassas), July 1861
• Union defeat
• Forces both sides to
realize that the War will not
end quickly
Fort Donelson – February 1862
• Attacks by Ulysses S. Grant gave the Union its
first victory of the War
Shiloh - April 1862
• Union Victory (24,000 casualties)
Antietam, 1862
• Union Victory – largest loss of life during the War
(more than 25,000 casualties)
• January 1, 1863
• Freed the slaves
only in states
that seceded
from the Union.
• It did not free
slaves in border
states.
• Constitution
forbid Lincoln to
free slaves in the
Union
William Carney
• After the Emancipation
Proclamation blacks
began to join the Union
Army
• Initially they were only
used for manual labor
• Eventually, Blacks saw
live combat
• 54th regiment out of
Massachusetts
African-Americans in Civil War Battles
• Lee realized that the South was in dire straits and
decided that it was crucial to attack the North on its
own territory
• July 1-3, 1863 - BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, Pa.
• Confed. bombardment; Union held firm
• on July 3, General Pickett led 15,000 Confed.
Troops across open fields - Union mowed them
down (= "Pickett’s Charge")
• Lee was defeated and retreated to Virginia
• Gettysburg is the largest battle in the history of the
Western hemisphere.
• Over 100, 000 people died in 3 days It was the
last time the South invaded the North.
Vicksburg – July 1863
• won by U.S. Grant, cut South in 1/2 and gave the
Union control of Mississippi River
• Grant was then given control of all Union armies 
began a "scorched earth" policy to defeat the South
Sherman’s ‘Total War’ – March 1864
• General Sherman given task of taking Atlanta; his
"March through Georgia" saw total destruction
from Atlanta to Savannah – tore up rail lines,
destroyed crops, burned/looted towns
Presidential
Election of
1864 –
Sherman’s
Total War
Assures
Victory
Surrender at Appomattox – April 1865
• April 3, 1865 - Grant took Richmond Va. - final blow to
Lee's army
• Lee surrenders on April 9, 1865
• Terms of surrender were lenient – Lincoln didn't want a
humiliated South and further conflict
Casualties on Both Sides
Civil War Casualties
in Comparison to Other Wars
Effects of the Civil War
• Creation of a single unified country (nationalism)
• Abolition of slavery
• Increased power of fed. gov't – killed the issue of state’s
rights
• To cover war debts, Union gov't issued war bonds and
intro'd income tax
• In a further illustration of fed. gov't power, Lincoln's gov't
restricted civil liberties so nothing would detract from
Union war effort (suspended Habeas Corpus) - free
press/ speech also interrupted
• U.S. now an industrial nation
• W. lands increasingly opened to settlement
• South was economically and physically devastated, w/
the plantation system crippled...
Abraham Lincoln
• Lincoln was an outspoken opponent of
slavery
• Abraham Lincoln’s speeches help define
people’s perceptions of basic human rights
& the role of government in protecting it
Abraham Lincoln
• “A house divided
against itself cannot
stand. I believe this
government cannot
endure permanently
half-slave and halffree.” - (1858)
Abraham Lincoln
“The mystic chords of
memory, stretching from
every battlefield and
patriot grave to every
living heart and hearthstone all over this broad
land, will yet swell the
chorus of the Union,
when again touched, as
surely they will be, by the
better angels of our
nature." - 1st Inaugural Address
(1861)
Abraham Lincoln
"...that we here highly
resolve that these dead
shall not have died in
vain; that this nation,
under God, shall have a
new birth of freedom;
and that this government
of the people, by the
people, for the people,
shall not perish from the
earth." - Gettysburg Address
(1863)
Abraham Lincoln
"With malice toward none, with charity for
all, with firmness in the right as God gives
us to see the right, let us strive on to finish
the work we are in; to bind up the nation's
wounds; to care for him who shall have
borne the battle, and for his widow and his
orphan - to do all which may achieve and
cherish a just and lasting peace, among
ourselves, and with all nations." 2nd Inaugural
Address (1865)