Download The Furnace of Civil War 1861-1865

Chapter 21
A.P. US History
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Jackson halted the Union
assault and counter
attacked –forcing them
into a panicked retreat all
the way to Washington,
D.C.
For his actions at ‘First
Manassas’ [First Bull
Run], he earned the
nickname ‘Stonewall
Jackson’ - but the greater
significance of Manassas
lay in the lessons both
sides drew from it
Major Civil War Battles, 1861-1862
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Southerners interpreted
their victory as proof of
(1) the superior fighting
ability of Confederate
soldiers, and (2) the
inevitability of
Confederate
independence
Lincoln and his military
leaders learned that
victory would not be
quick, easy, or cheap
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Lincoln also learned he
needed a new general –
replacing McDowell with
George B. McClellan to
lead the ‘Army of the
Potomac’
McClellan, a West Point
graduate and superb
organizer, had a high
opinion of himself and a
low opinion of Lincoln –
referring to him as the
“original gorilla”
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In the ensuing ‘Seven
Days Battles’ [June 25July 1, 1862], Gen. Lee,
assisted by Gen.
‘Stonewall’ Jackson and
James E.B. (Jeb) Stuart,
forced McClellan’s army
to retreat back down the
peninsula – a strategic
victory that saved
Richmond
Peninsula Campaign, 1862
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Lincoln fired McClellan
following his failed
‘Peninsula Campaign’ –
replacing him with Gen.
John Pope to lead the
‘Army of the Potomac’
At ‘Second Manassas’
[Second Bull Run, Aug.
29-30, 1862] Lee’s smaller
force crushed Pope’s
army – forcing Union
troops to again retreat
into Maryland
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At Antietam, McClellan
came into possession of a
copy of Lee’s orders to his
army – orders that had
been dropped by a careless
Confederate officer before
the battle began
With this information in
hand, McClellan succeeded
in halting Lee’s invasion –
forcing his battered army to
retreat into Virginia
Major Civil War Battles, 1861-1862
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Following ‘Antietam’, President Lincoln removed
McClellan of command for the second and final time –
angered at his failure to aggressively pursue and destroy
Lee’s army before it reached the safety of Virginia
Still, ‘Antietam’ was one of the most decisive battles in
U.S. history because (1) the Confederacy was never so
close to victory as on that day, (2) it demonstrated
unexpected Union power to the British and French
governments which were considering diplomatic
mediation, and (3) it gave Lincoln the victory he needed
to draft a preliminary ‘Emancipation Proclamation’ on
September 23, 1862 - giving the Union cause the tone of
a moral crusade
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It was in Tennessee that
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
emerged as the key
Union commander of
the war – a graduate of
West Point and a veteran
of the Mexican War,
Grant was working as a
dry-goods clerk in
Galena, Illinois when the
war began
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At the ‘Battle of Shiloh’
in Tennessee [April 6-7,
1862], Grant’s army
repulsed a ferocious
attack by Confederate
forces led by Gen. Albert
Sidney Johnston – a
costly victory which
compelled Grant to
conclude the Union
could not be saved
except by total and
complete conquest of the
South
Major Civil War Battles, 1861-1862
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From the beginning, Union strategy for winning the war
included a complete blockade of the southern coastline
from Virginia to Brownsville, Texas – a distance of 3,500
miles to patrol
For the North, implementing a blockade was complicated
early on by the lack of enough warships – the U.S. Navy
only had about three dozen ships when the war began
However, by 1863 the Union blockade proved increasingly
effective as the Navy commissioned a new warship almost
weekly – by 1865, the fleet numbered 150 ships and was
intercepting nearly 50% of the southern blockade runners
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Black soldiers faced various forms of discrimination,
including (1) segregated black regiments led by white
officers, (2) combat pay of $10/month instead of the $13
earned by white soldiers, (3) no opportunity to become
commissioned officers, (4) punishments similar to those
under slavery, and (5) frequent assignment to labor
battalions instead of combat units
Notions that black soldiers could not fight were finally
dispelled by their bravery under fire at the battles of Port
Hudson and Milliken’s Bend on the Mississippi River and
the assault on Fort Wagner in Charleston Harbor
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Despite discrimination,
(1) 71% of black men
between the ages of 18
and 45 in the free states
served in Union forces,
(2) by war’s end 179,000
black men had served the
Union, and (3) of those,
more than 38,000 were
killed, a mortality rate
higher than that of white
troops based on numbers
alone
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Confederate President Jefferson Davis faced immense
obstacles waging a war against the industrialized North –
among them were (1) recruitment problems to replace
heavy battlefield losses, (2) the Confederate Constitution’s
embodiment of ‘state’s rights’ that made it difficult for
Davis to centralize power, and (3) wartime economic
changes, including high inflation, which hurt the war
effort
Initially, the South was able to build an army relatively
easily as hundreds of officers resigned their commissions
to serve in the Confederate army – hundreds of
thousands of young southern men volunteered to serve as
well
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In the South, manpower shortages, hyperinflation, and
food shortages were felt by everyone – but they fell
hardest on the poor
Inflation made necessities like salt outrageously expensive
– in the first year of war salt increased from $2 to $60 a
bag
The South’s heavy draft of military age men depopulated
farms – leaving women and children to grow their own
food, 10% of which was taken by government agents for
military needs
As the war progressed, hardships and deprivations back
home led increasing numbers of Confederate soldiers to
desert and put family before defense of the ‘cause’
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President Davis failed to convince most white yeoman
farmers that the war’s burdens were being shared equally –
a hard sell to poor people forced to give up necessities
while the planters only had to make do without luxuries
The Confederate draft law itself became an issue because
(1) it allowed a man with money to hire a ‘substitute’ to
take his place, a practice also allowed in the Union army,
and (2) it exempted one white man on every plantation
with 20 or more slaves
Non-slaveholding southern white men considered such
exemptions unjust when poor white women were plowing
fields while they had to serve in the military
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With the exception of New England textiles, northern
industries prospered and reaped huge profits during the
war – workers however, hit by rising inflation and taxes,
saw their standard of living fall
Women in northern cities also moved into jobs vacated by
men drafted into military service – by 1865, they held
one-third of the manufacturing jobs, and new positions
as government secretaries and clerks
Middle-class white women contributed to the war effort in
traditional ways as well – sewing, wrapping bandages, and
selling homemade goods to raise money
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In both North and
South, thousands of
women defied traditional
notions of female roles
by serving in army field
hospitals nursing the
wounded and dying – in
the North, many served
in the U.S. Sanitary
Commission
U.S. Sanitary Commission
Brandy Station, Virginia, 1863
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In April 1861, Dorothea
Dix, a pioneer in pre-war
efforts to reform insane
asylums, became
superintendent of female
nurses – one of many
women who volunteered
and became paid military
nurses
Clara Barton, another
volunteer field nurse, later
founded the American Red
Cross
Wounded Men at Savage’s Station
Field Hospital
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Opposition to the draft intensified because (1) a draftee
with money could pay $300 to hire a substitute, and (2)
many Irish and northern Democrats objected to linkage
between the draft and emancipation
Northern Democrats considered the draft an
unconstitutional law designed to achieve emancipation
which they also considered unconstitutional
In the summer of 1863, many northern cities, including
New York City, witnessed violent anti-draft and anti-black
riots in which many were killed – the Irish, already
suffering at the bottom of society, were especially
opposed to fighting to free slaves
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The riots shocked black
Northerners and served
notice that significant
progress toward black
equality would be not be
achieved during the war –
at best it would have to
wait until the war ended
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In the spring of 1863,
the Confederacy stood at
high tide with victories
including (1)
‘Fredericksburg’
[December 13, 1862]
where Lee defeated
Burnside’s Army of the
Potomac in Virginia, and
(2) ‘Chancellorsville’
[May 2-4, 1863] in which
Lee and Jackson again
defeated the Army of the
Potomac commanded by
Gen. Hooker
The Road to Gettysburg,
Dec. 1862 – July 1863
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In the West, Gen. Grant
continued efforts to gain
control of the Mississippi
River from Memphis,
Tennessee to New
Orleans – a stretch
linking Texas, Louisiana,
and Arkansas to the rest
of the South
Standing between him
and complete control of
the river stood Vicksburg
– a heavily fortified
Confederate position
The Mississippi River & Tennessee
1862-1863
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Vicksburg, situated high atop a cliff overlooking a horseshoe-shaped bend in the Mississippi, was defended by
swampy terrain to its north and Confederate armies to its
west – southern military leaders considered it
unconquerable
In May 1863, Gen. Grant initiated an elaborate plan to
capture Vicksburg – marching his entire army more than
100 miles south beyond the western bank of the
Mississippi River
Then, in a daring move, Union ironclad gunboats ran the
gauntlet of Vicksburg’s guns at night – after meeting up
with Grant’s army they were used to carry his army across
to the eastern side of the river
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Driving west from Jackson,
Mississippi Grant’s army
encircled and besieged
Vicksburg [May 22-July 4,
1863]
On July 4, 1863, Grant
received the unconditional
surrender of Gen.
Pemberton’s army of
30,000 men at Vicksburg –
that same day, Union forces
defeated Lee’s Army of
Northern Virginia at
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
and forced him to retreat
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On June 28, 1863, Gen.
George G. Meade led the
90,000 man Army of the
Potomac into
Pennsylvania to intercept
Lee - arriving first at the
town of Gettysburg, his
army occupied the high
ground along Cemetery
Ridge
In three days of fighting
[July 1-3, 1863], Lee’s
75,000 man army failed
to break the Union lines
Battle of Gettysburg - July 1863
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At the ‘Battle of Chattanooga’ [Nov. 23-25, 1863], Grant
broke the siege and routed rebel forces – opening the
door to a northern invasion of Georgia
In March 1864, President Lincoln appointed Ulysses S.
Grant general-in-chief of all Union armies – rewarding
him for his performance in the West and his ability to win
on the battlefield
Afterwards, Grant implemented his grand strategy to
bring the war to a rapid conclusion – initiating a war of
total destruction that combined a series of coordinated
assaults against remaining Confederate armies from
Virginia to Louisiana
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The ‘Siege of Petersburg’
[June 1864-Apr. 1865]
stalled both armies for 9
months – in February,
Lincoln rejected
Confederate efforts to
negotiate a peace treaty
In May 1864, Grant
ordered Gen. William T.
Sherman and his army of
100,000 men to move
against 65,000 rebels in
northern Georgia
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At ‘Kennesaw Mountain’
[June 27, 1864],
Sherman’s army won a
pitched battle against the
Confederates and
continued moving south
In September, Atlanta fell
to Sherman’s powerful
army - on Nov. 15th, he
led an army of 62,000
men and began his
famous ‘March to the
Sea’, leaving behind a
path of destruction 60
miles wide
Sherman’s March Through Georgia
& the Carolina’s 1864-1865
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By December 22nd,
Sherman’s army had
traveled 285 miles and
entered undefended
Savannah, Georgia on the
Atlantic coast – sparing
the town from burning,
he offered it to President
Lincoln as a Christmas
gift
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Republicans renominated Lincoln and changed their name
to the ‘Union Party’ to make it easier for pro-war
Democrats to vote for Lincoln - Andrew Johnson of
Tennessee, a Southerner and Unionist, became his new
running mate
Northern Democrats nominated Gen. George McClellan,
a war Democrat, to run on a peace platform demanding
immediate cessation of hostilities
Many voters viewed the Democrat’s peace platform as a
sellout, especially after Sherman’s capture of Atlanta on
September 2nd
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Lincoln won in a
landslide victory [212
electoral votes and 55%
of the popular vote to
McClellan’s 21] enabling the Republican’s
to pick up voting
majorities in the
Congress
The election returns also
gave Lincoln a political
mandate to pursue the
war until both slavery
and the Confederacy
were dead
The Election of 1864
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Grant pursued Lee for
100 miles to Appomattox
Court House, Virginia –
there, on April 9, 1865,
Lee surrendered and,
with all hope gone, the
remaining Confederate
armies surrendered
within two weeks