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Chapter 21
The Furnace
of Civil War
Bull Run (Manassas)
• Lincoln thought an attack on the small confederate force at Bull
Run could demonstrate the power of the Union army and even
capture Richmond.
• On July 21, 1861 Union troops marched toward Bull Run
followed by Congressmen and spectators who brought along their
lunch baskets.
• The Union did well at first but Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and
his troops stood strong and Confederate reinforcements arrived.
• The inexperienced Union troops panicked and fled in confusion.
Instead of pursuing the Union, the exhausted Confederate troops
feasted on captured lunches.
• The victory inflated the already over-confident Confederacy and
gave them a false sense of security. Many soldiers left because
they thought the war was won.
• The Union realized the war would not be a short or easy one to
win.
The Army of the Potomac Marching up Pennsylvania Avenue,
Washington, D.C., 1861
In this painting Union troops parade before the Battle of Bull Run. Colorfully uniformed, they are a
regiment of Zouaves, who adopted the name and style of military dress from a legendarily dashing
French infantry unit recruited from Berber tribesmen in North Africa. But bright uniforms were not
enough to win battles, and these troops were soon to be routed by the Confederates.
Preparing for Battle
These troops of the 69th New York
State Militia, a largely Irish regiment,
were photographed attending Sunday
morning Mass in May 1861, just weeks
before the Battle of Bull Run. Because
the regiment was camped near
Washington, D.C., women were able to
visit.
Peninsula Campaign
• George McClellan was given command of the Army of the Potomac in
late 1861. He was a perfectionist, relied on inaccurate intelligence, and
was slow to advance toward Richmond.
• After receiving firm orders for Lincoln to advance, McClellan set out in
the Peninsula Campaign to seize Richmond.
• By Spring of 1862, he was just outside Richmond with 100,000 troops.
• Lincoln sent McClellan’s reinforcements to chase Stonewall Jackson
and the advance was stalled.
• Robert E. Lee attacked McClellan’s army during the Seven Days Battle
and pushed them back to the sea.
• Lincoln dismissed McClellan.
• If the North had been victorious, the Union would have probably been
restored with little to no changes to slavery.
• Lincoln began to draft the Emancipation Proclamation and Union
strategy shifted towards total war.
Peninsula Campaign, 1862
Civil War Scene (detail)
A Federal brigade repulses a Confederate assault at Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1862, as
the Peninsula Campaign presses toward Richmond. General Winfield Scott Hancock
commanded the troops. For his success in this action, Hancock earned the nickname
“The Superb.”
Main Thrusts, 1861–1865
Northern strategists at first believed that the rebellion could be snuffed out quickly by a
swift, crushing blow. But the stiffness of Southern resistance to the Union’s early
probes, and the North’s inability to strike with sufficient speed and severity, revealed
that the conflict would be a war of attrition, long and bloody.
War at Sea
• The Union blockade became more effective when it focused on the
most important ports.
• Blockade running became profitable and many made it through the
Union lines.
• The most significant Confederate threat to the Union blockade was the
construction of an iron clad ship. This ship the Merrimack (renamed the
Virginia) was an old U.S. warship that had been covered in old iron
railroad rails. It destroyed two wooden ships of the Union.
• The North built its own ironclad ship, the Monitor.
• For 4 hours on March 9, 1862 the Merrimack and the Monitor fought
each other to a standstill.
• Several months later, the South sank the Merrimack to keep it from
falling into Union hands.
• This was the beginning of the end of wooden warships.
Battle of the Merrimack and the Monitor, March 9, 1862
Antietam
• After a victory at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Lee pushed into Maryland. He
was hoping to encourage foreign intervention and convince the valuable Border
state to secede.
• Lincoln restored McClellan to command of the army due to popular pressure.
• Two Union soldiers found Lee’s battle plans wrapped around three cigars that
a careless Confederate soldier had stopped. This gave McClellan the
information he needed to stop Lee’s advance. He did so at Antietam Creek in
the bloodiest single day battle of the war.
• The battle happened on September 17, 1862 and was essentially a draw
however, Lee was forced to withdraw back behind the Potomac River.
• McClellan should have pursued Lee but he did not and was again fired by
Lincoln.
• Antietam is probably the most important battle of the war because the South
would never be so close to victory again. The British and French cooled off
their support of the South when the North showed their strength.
• It was viewed as a Northern victory due to the fact that the South had to
withdraw out of Maryland.
• It set the stage that Lincoln needed for his Emancipation Proclamation.
The Killing Fields of Antietam
These Confederate corpses testify to the awful slaughter of the battle. The twelve-hour
fight at Antietam Creek ranks as the bloodiest single day of the war, with more than ten
thousand Confederate casualties and even more on the Union side. “At last the battle
ended,” one historian wrote, “smoke heavy in the air, the twilight quivering with the
anguished cries of thousands of wounded men.”
Emancipation Proclamation
• By the summer of 1862, Lincoln felt confident in the position of
the Border states and was ready to act on the issue of slavery.
• Lincoln wanted the announcement to follow a victory and so he
waited to see the result of Lee’s advance into Maryland.
• On September 23, 1862 he issued the initial proclamation. The
final proclamation would be issued on January 1, 1863.
• The Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves living in the
rebellious Confederate states.
• This gave the war a moral undertone. It also sought to punish
and change the South that had tried to destroy the nation.
• Lincoln stated that now the South had to be destroyed and
replaced by new ideas.
• Boosted morale in the North and made both sides realize a
compromise could never be reached.
• The war would be a fight to the finish.
Emancipation in the South
President Lincoln believed that emancipation of the slaves, accompanied by
compensation to their owners, would be fairest to the South. He formally proposed such
an amendment to the Constitution in December 1862. What finally emerged was the
Thirteenth Amendment of 1865, which freed all slaves without compensation.
A Bit of War History:
Contraband, Recruit, Veteran, by
Thomas Waterman Wood, 1865–
1866
This painting dramatically
commemorates the contributions and
sacrifices of the 180,000 African
Americans who served in the Union
army during the Civil War.
A Bit of War History:
Contraband, Recruit, Veteran, by
Thomas Waterman Wood, 1865–
1866
This painting dramatically
commemorates the contributions and
sacrifices of the 180,000 African
Americans who served in the Union
army during the Civil War.
A Bit of War History:
Contraband, Recruit, Veteran, by
Thomas Waterman Wood, 1865–
1866
This painting dramatically
commemorates the contributions and
sacrifices of the 180,000 African
Americans who served in the Union
army during the Civil War.
Gettysburg
• Lee wanted to follow up victories at Fredericksburg and
Chancellorsville with another invasion of the North in 1863.
• Chancellorsville is was Lee’s most brilliant battle but at a high
cost. Stonewall Jackson was mistakenly shot by his own men and
died a few days later.
• Lee wanted to invade Pennsylvania in hopes to encourage a
peace treaty and attract foreign intervention.
• General George Meade was given control of the Union army
only three days prior to the battle.
• The battle raged on from July 1-3, 1863. The Union had a force
of 92,000 and the Confederate had a force of 76,000.
• The battle was a seesaw up until the very end.
• The failed “Pickett’s Charge” broke the back of the Confederate
attack and the victory went to the Union.
• A Confederate peace delegation was moving toward Washington
D.C. but were forced to stop by Lincoln after the North’s victory.
The Battle of Gettysburg, 1863
With the failure of Pickett’s charge, the fate of the Confederacy was sealed—though the
Civil War dragged on for almost two more bloody years.
War in the West
• Grant has seen success at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in
Tennessee.
• The Confederate victory at Shiloh slowed down Grant’s march
toward the Mississippi River.
• In the spring of 1862, Union troops seized New Orleans. Now
Vicksburg, MS was the last Confederate hold out on the
Mississippi River.
• Grant was given command of the troops moving toward
Vicksburg.
• Grant lay siege to Vicksburg until the city was starved out and
surrendered on July 4, 1863, just one day after the Union victory
at Gettysburg.
• The South has suffered major losses in both the east and west
fronts.
• Shifted the momentum to the Union.
General Ulysses S. Grant
Trained at West Point, Grant proved to
be a better general than a president.
Oddly, he hated the sight of blood and
recoiled from rare beef.
General Robert E. Lee
Lee, a gentlemanly general in an
ungentlemanly business, remarked
when the Union troops were bloodily
repulsed at Fredericksburg, “It is well
that war is so terrible, or we should get
too fond of it.”
The Mississippi River and
Tennessee, 1862–1863
Sherman’s March
• Grant had won battles at Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, and
Missionary Ridge which left him in control of Chattanooga, TN and
it’s valuable railroads.
• He was rewarded with supreme command of the Union armies.
• General William Tecumseh Sherman replaced Grant and moved
into Georgia.
• He captured Atlanta in Sept 1864 and burned it when he left in
November.
• His army had 60,000 men and left a path of destruction as they
marched through Georgia towards Savannah.
• They destroyed railroads and anything else that could be of use
to the South.
• Waged “total war”. Wanted to lower the morale of the rebel
troops by destroying their homes.
• Captured Savannah as a Christmas present for Lincoln in
December of 1864.
Sherman’s March, 1864–1865
Sherman’s March to the Sea, 1863–1864
Sherman’s army inflicted cruel destruction along its route, an early instance of a tactic
that came to characterize modern warfare, in which civilians are considered legitimate
targets.
A Study in Black and White
Soldiers of the 7th Tennessee Cavalry pose with their slaves—whose bondage the
Confederacy fought to perpetuate.
Union Party, 1864
The blue area represents the Union party.
McClellan as Mediator, 1865
This 1864 poster shows Presidents Lincoln and Davis trying to tear the country in half,
while former general George McClellan, the candidate of the Democratic party,
attempts to mediate.
Presidential Election of 1864 (showing popular vote by county)
Lincoln also carried California, Oregon, and Nevada, but there was a considerable
McClellan vote in each. Note McClellan’s strength in the Border States and in the
southern tier of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois—the so-called “Butternut” region.
Wilderness Campaign
• Grant pursued Lee in the Wilderness area of Virginia during May
and June of 1864.
• During this campaign, Grant suffered 50,000 casualties and Lee
even more.
• The public was horrified by the brutality of the fighting. On June
3, 1864 over 7,000 men were killed or wounded in only the first
few minutes of the war.
• The soldier wore paper pinned to their backs with their names
and addresses.
• The public criticized Grant for the “blood and guts” style fighting
but Lee actually had the highest rate of loss of any general in the
war.
• Lee dug in trenches in the wilderness and drug the battle out
until spring of 1865.
Grant’s Virginia Campaign, 1864–1865
The Wilderness Campaign pitted soldier against desperate soldier in some of the most brutal and
terrifying fighting of the Civil War. “No one could see the fight fifty feet from him,” a Union private
recalled of his month spent fighting in Virginia. “The lines were very near each other, and from the
dense underbrush and the tops of trees came puffs of smoke, the ‘ping’ of the bullets and the yell of
the enemy. It was a blind and bloody hunt to the death, in bewildering thickets, rather than a battle.”
Surrender at Appomattox
• The end came suddenly when the Union army captured
Richmond and cornered Lee in April 1865.
• Lee and Grant met at the Appomattox Courthouse on April 9,
1865. The South surrendered and were treated with much
respect by Grant and his troops.
• Southerners were allowed to keep their horses and the officers
kept their weapons.
• Grant told his troops “The war is over; the rebels are our
countrymen again.”
• Lincoln traveled to Richmond and sat in Jefferson Davis’ desk
just 40 hours after it was captured.
• Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865 at Ford’s Theater in
Washington D.C. at the height of his fame and victory.
• 600,000 died during the war and the cost totaled $15 billion.
The Burning of Richmond, April 1865
The proud Confederate capital, after holding out against repeated Union assaults, was
evacuated and burned in the final days of the war.
New York Mourns Lincoln’s Death, April 25, 1865
Lincoln’s body traveled by train to lie in state in fourteen cities before arriving at his final resting
place of Springfield, Illinois. In New York City, 160,000 mourners accompanied the hearse as the
funeral procession slowly made its way down Broadway. Scalpers sold choice window seats for four
dollars and up. Blacks were barred from participating, until the mayor changed his mind at the last
minute—but only if they marched at the rear.
Prisoners from the Front, by Winslow Homer, 1866
This celebrated painting reflects the artist’s firsthand observations of the war. Homer
brilliantly captured the enduring depths of sectional animosity. The Union officer
somewhat disdainfully asserts his command of the situation; the beaten and disarmed
Confederates exhibit an out-at-the-elbows pride and defiance.
Nora August: The Fruits of
Emancipation
An unidentified Union soldier carved
this ivory bust of the freedwoman Nora
August during the Civil War. Note the
elaborately braided hair—a direct
adaptation of a West African style. The
anonymous sculptor etched the
following legend into the base of the
statue: “Carved from life. Retreat
Plantation. Presented to the Nurses of
Darien GA in the year of Our Lord 1865.
Nora August (slave). Age 23 years.
Purchased from the Market, St.
Augustine, Florida, April 17th 1860.
Now a Free Woman.”