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The American Civil War
South Carolina Leaves the Union
• Convinced that a Republican
administration would attempt to undermine
slavery by appointing antislavery judges,
postmasters, military officers, and other
officials, a secession convention in South
Carolina voted unanimously to secede
from the Union on December 20, 1860
• The convention held that the states were
sovereign entities that could leave the
Union as freely as they joined.
Secession
• Between January 9, 1861
and February 1, six states
of the Deep South joined
South Carolina in leaving
the Union: Georgia,
Florida, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana,
and Texas
• Sam Houston predicted:
"Our people are going to
war to perpetuate slavery,
and the first gun fired in
the war will be the [death]
knell of slavery."
Secession
• States of the lower South established a new
government, the Confederate States of America
• The new constitution specifically referred to
slavery, state sovereignty, and God.
• It explicitly guaranteed slavery in the states and
territories, but prohibited the international slave
trade.
• It limited the President to a single six-year term,
gave the President a line-item veto, required a
two-thirds vote of Congress to admit new states,
and prohibited protective tariffs and government
funding of internal improvements.
Secession
• Jefferson Davis
named President of
the Confederate
States
• The Confederate
states attempted to
seize federal property
within their
boundaries, including
forts, customs
houses, and arsenals.
Fort Sumter
• Late February, Fort Sumter had become a key symbol of
whether the Confederate states exercised sovereignty
over their territory.
• South Carolina demanded that President Buchanan
surrender Fort Sumter in exchange for monetary
compensation.
• To the rebels' surprise, he refused.
• As the following letter from Jefferson Davis makes clear,
any decision about forcing the surrender of the fort by
force carried profound consequences.
• Eight slave states in the Upper South remained in the
Union. But their stance would clearly depend on the
steps that South Carolina and the federal government
took toward Fort Sumter.
Fort Sumter
• Lincoln becomes President and received a letter
from Robert Anderson informing him that Fort
Sumter's supplies would be exhausted in four to
six weeks and that it would take a 20,000-man
force to reinforce the fort
• Lincoln decided to try to peacefully re-supply the
fort with provisions and to inform the
Confederate government of his decision
beforehand
Fort Sumter
• Lincoln hoped to make the Confederacy
responsible for starting a war.
• At 4:30 a.m. April 12, Confederate guns
began firing on Fort Sumter. Thirty-three
hours later, the installation surrendered.
Incredibly, there were no fatalities on their
side
• The Civil War had begun
Lincoln’s Response
• Lincoln was convinced that the Confederate
states had seceded from the Union for the sole
purpose of maintaining slavery
• He considered the Union to be permanent, an
agreement by the people and not just of the
states.
• Calling on the states to provide 75,000
militiamen for 90 days service. Twice that
number volunteered.
Southern Response
• The eight slave states still in the Union refused
to furnish troops, and four--Arkansas, North
Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia--seceded.
• Robert E. Lee was Winfield Scott's choice to
serve as field commander of the Union army, but
when the Virginia convention voted to secede,
he resigned from the U.S. army, announcing to
his sister that he could not "raise my hand
against my birthplace, my home, my children.
Save in defense of my native state, I hope I may
never be called on to draw my sword."
Northern Advantages
• Union States had 22.5 million people, compared to just 9
million in the Confederate states (including 3.7 million
slaves).
• It also had a larger navy, a more developed railroad
system, and a stronger manufacturing base.
• The North had 1.3 million industrial workers, compared
to the South's 110,000.
• Northern factories manufactured nine times as many
industrial goods as the South; seventeen times as many
cotton and woolen goods; thirty times as many boots and
shoes; twenty times as much pig iron; twenty-four times
as many railroad locomotives; and 33 times as many
firearms.
• A strong president in Abraham Lincoln
Southern Advantages
• Confederacy had only to wage a defensive war
and wait for northern morale to erode.
• In contrast, the Union had to conquer and
control the Confederacy's 750,000 square miles
of territory.
• Further, the Confederate army seemed superior
to that of the Union.
• More Southerners had attended West Point or
other military academies, had served as army
officers, and had experience using firearms and
horses
The Art of Killing
• The Civil War was the deadliest war in American
history. Altogether, over 600,000 died in the
conflict, more than World War I and World War II
combined
• Cone-shaped bullets replaced musket balls, and
beginning in 1862, smooth-bore muskets were
replaced with rifles with grooved barrels, which
imparted spin on a bullet and allowed a soldier
to hit a target a quarter of a mile away.
The Art of Killing
• Soldiers used repeating rifles (which could
fire several shots without reloading),
breech loading arms (which were loaded
from behind the barrel instead of through
the muzzle)
• Automated weapons like the Gatling gun.
• The Civil War also marked the first use by
Americans of shrapnel, booby traps, and
land mines.
Bull Run
• After the surrender of Fort Sumter, two Union
armies moved into northern Virginia.
• At Bull Run in northern Virginia 25 miles
southwest of Washington, the armies clashed.
• While residents of Washington ate picnic
lunches and looked on, Union troops launched
several assaults.
• When Confederates counterattacked, Union
forces retreated in panic, but Confederate forces
failed to take up pursuit.
The Anaconda Plan
• Union strategy involved blockading Confederate
ports to cut off cotton exports and prevent the
import of manufactured goods; and using ground
and naval forces to divide the Confederacy into
three distinct theaters.
• These were the far western theater, west of the
Mississippi River; the western theater, between
the Mississippi and the Appalachians; and the
eastern theater, in Virginia
The War in the West
• Union forces in the West were to seize
control of the Mississippi River while Union
forces in the East tried to capture the new
Confederate capital in Richmond.
• In February 1862, gunboats under Grant's
command took Fort Henry and ten days
later, Grant's men took Fort Donelson,
forcing 13,000 Confederates to surrender.
The War in the West
• Battle of Shiloh.
– In two days of heavy fighting during which
there were 13,000 Union casualties and over
10,000 Confederate casualties, Grant
successfully pushed back the southern forces.
– By early June, Union forces controlled the
Mississippi River as far south as Memphis,
Tennessee.
The Capture of New Orleans
• While Grant was driving
toward the Mississippi
from the north, northern
naval forces under
Captain David G.
Farragut attacked from
the south.
• In April 1862, Farragut
steamed past weak
Confederate defenses
and captured New
Orleans.
The Peninsular Campaign
• In March 1862, Union General George
McClellan's plan was to land northern
forces on a peninsula between the York
and James Rivers southeast of Richmond
and then march on the southern capital.
• By May, McClellan's forces were within six
miles of Richmond.
• Robert E. Lee assumed command of the
Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
The Peninsular Campaign
• Then in a series of encounters between June 26
and July 2, 1862, known as the Seven Days'
Battles, Lee and Jackson forced McClellan, who
mistakenly believed he was hopelessly
outnumbered, to withdraw back to the James
River.
• Ten days later, Lee again repulsed a northern
advance. At the Second Battle of Bull Run,
Union General John Pope found his army almost
surrounded and retreated, giving the
Confederacy almost total control of Virginia.
The Antietam Campaign
• In a bold bid to win European support, the Confederacy
sought to win a major victory on northern soil.
• In September 1862, Lee launched a daring offensive into
Maryland.
• No one could be sure exactly what Lee planned to do.
• But in an incredible stroke of luck, a copy of Lee's battle
plan (which had been wrapped around three cigars) fell
into the hands of Union General George B. McClellan.
• After only a brief delay, on September 17, 1862,
McClellan forces attacked Lee at Antietam Creek in
Maryland.
The Antietam Campaign
• The Battle of Antietam (which is sometimes
referred to as the Battle of Sharpsburg)
produced the bloodiest single day of the Civil
War.
• Lee suffered 11,000 casualties; McClellan,
13,000.
• Lee was forced to retreat, allowing the North to
declare the battle a Union victory. But Union
forces failed to follow up on their surprise
success and decisively defeat Lee's army.
The Emancipation Proclamation
• With the victory at Antietam, Lincoln was
emboldened to think about emancipation
• The preliminary Emancipation
Proclamation that President Lincoln issued
on September 22 stated that all slaves in
designated parts of the South on January
1, 1863, would be freed.
• The President hoped that slave
emancipation would undermine the
Confederacy from within
The Emancipation Proclamation
• The Confederacy had assumed, mistakenly, that
demand for cotton from textile mills would lead
Britain to break the Union naval blockade.
• Nevertheless, there was a real danger of
European involvement in the war.
• By redefining the war as a war against slavery,
Lincoln hoped to generate support from
European liberals.
• He did risk that border states that had stayed in
the Union might bolt.
Lincoln Solidifies His Powers
• Lincoln assumes powers not specifically granted by the
Constitution.
• Among the "abuses" they denounced were his unilateral
decision to call out the militia to suppress the
"insurrection," impose a blockade of southern ports,
expand the army beyond the limits set by law, spend
federal funds without prior congressional authorization,
and suspend the writ of habeas corpus (the right of
persons under arrest to have their case heard in court).
• The Lincoln administration imprisoned about 13,000
people without trial during the war, and shut Democratic
newspapers in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago for
varying amounts of time.
COLUMBIA:
Mr. Lincoln, give me
back my 500,000
sons!!!
LINCOLN:
Well the fact is — by
the way that
reminds me of a
story!!!
(From an 1864
cartoon.)
Changes in America
• The Homestead Act of 1862 provided
public land free to pioneers who agreed to
farm the land for five years.
• The Morrill Act of 1862 helped states
establish agricultural and technical
colleges.
• Congress also authorized construction of
the nation's first transcontinental railroad.
Changes in America
• The Legal Tender Act of 1862 authorized
the federal government to issue paper
money.
• Because these notes were printed on
green paper, they became known as
greenbacks.
• The National Bank Act of 1863 created the
nation's first truly national banking system.
Hardships in the Confederacy
• Union blockade grew more effective and the
South's railroad system deteriorated
• In Richmond, food riots erupted in April 1863.
• Rampant inflation
• Imposition of a military draft in April 1862
produced protests that this was "a rich man's
war and a poor man's fight."
• Twenty Negro Law" in October 1862 which
exempted one white man from the draft on every
plantation with 20 or more slaves.
African Americans in Service
• 186,000 black soldiers served in the Union Army
and another 29,000 served in the Navy,
accounting for nearly 10 percent of all Union
forces and 68,178 of the Union dead or missing
• Three-fifths of all black troops were former
slaves. The active participation of black troops in
the fighting made it far less likely that African
Americans would remain in slavery after the Civil
War
Fredericksburg and
Chancellorsville
• Frustrated by McClellan's lack of
aggressiveness, Lincoln replaced him with
General Ambrose E. Burnside
• In December 1862, Burnside attacked 73,000
Confederate troops at Fredericksburg, Virginia.
• Six times Burnside launched frontal assaults on
Confederate positions.
• The Union army suffered nearly 13,000
casualties, twice the number suffered by Lee's
men, severely damaging northern morale.
Fredericksburg and
Chancellorsville
• After the defeat at Fredericksburg, Lincoln
removed Burnside and replaced him with
Joseph Hooker
• In May 1863, Hooker tried to attack Lee's forces
from a side or flanking position.
• In just ten minutes, Confederate forces routed
the Union army at the Battle of Chancellorsville.
• But the Confederate victory came at a high cost.
Lee's ablest lieutenant, Stonewall Jackson, was
accidentally shot by a Confederate sentry and
died of a blood clot.
Gettysburg
• In a bid to shatter northern morale and win
European recognition, Lee's army launched a
daring invasion of Pennsylvania.
• Lee assumed, mistakenly, that Union forces
were still in Virginia.
• When he suddenly realized that Union forces
were in close pursuit, he ordered his forces,
which were strung out from Maryland to
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to converge at
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, a central location
where a number of roads met.
Gettysburg
• July 1, 1863, a Confederate brigade ran into
Union cavalry near Gettysburg and the largest
battle ever fought in the West Hemisphere broke
out before anyone realized what was happening
• On the evening of July 1, most of Lee's army of
75,000 reached Gettysburg. Meanwhile, most of
the 90,000-man Union army of General George
Meade arrived at Gettysburg that same evening.
• On July 2, Lee tried to attack Union positions
from the left and right flanks, but northern troops
repelled the attack.
Gettysburg
• The next day, the Union army, which expected
Lee to attack again on the flanks, reinforced its
flanks. But Lee launched a frontal attack on the
center of the Union
• Lee launched a frontal attack on the center of
the Union lines, which came as a shock and a
surprise. However, a frontal assault against a
well-fortified defensive position on a hill was very
unlikely to succeed.
Pickett’s Charge
• Some 15,000 Confederate troops, led by
General George E. Pickett marched threequarters of a mile into withering Union rifle and
artillery fire.
• Although about a hundred Confederate soldiers
succeeded in temporarily breaking through the
Union defenses, the northern lines held firm.
• When Lee finally ordered a retreat back into
Virginia, it became clear that the Confederacy
had suffered a disastrous defeat
The Gettysburg Address
• "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought
forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created
equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing
whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so
dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great
battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a
portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who
here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But
in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot
consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave
men, living and dead who struggled here have
consecrated it far above our poor power to add or
detract.”
The Gettysburg Address
• “The world will little note nor long remember what we say
here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for
us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the
great task remaining before us--that from these honored
dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which
they gave the last full measure of devotion--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 government of the people, by the
people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
The Gettysburg Address
Background
• Daniel Webster's statement in 1830 that the
origin of our government and the source of its
power is "the people's constitution, the people's
government; made for the people, made by the
people, and answerable to the people."
• Supreme Court Justice John Marshall's opinion,
which states: "The government of the Union . . .
is emphatically and truly a government of the
people.
Vicksburg
• Beginning in mid-May, Ulysses S. Grant's troops
had begun a siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
• Located on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi,
Vicksburg allowed the Confederacy to control
river traffic between Memphis and New Orleans.
• The day after the defeat of Lee's army at
Gettysburg, Vicksburg surrendered.
• Five days later, Union forces captured Port
Hudson, Louisiana. These victories gave the
North complete control of the Mississippi River
President Lincoln’s Plan
« 10% Plan

Proclamation of Amnesty and
Reconstruction (December 8, 1863)

Replace majority rule with “loyal rule” in
the South.

He didn’t consult Congress regarding
Reconstruction.

Pardon to all but the highest ranking
military and civilian Confederate
officers.

When 10% of the voting population in
the 1860 election had taken an oath of
loyalty and established a government, it
would be recognized.
President Lincoln’s Plan
« 1864 “Lincoln Governments”
formed in LA, TN, AR

“loyal assemblies”

They were weak and
dependent on the
Northern army for
their survival.
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
« Required 50% of the number
of 1860 voters to take an
“iron clad” oath of allegiance
(swearing they had never
voluntarily aided the
rebellion ).
Senator
Benjamin
Wade
(R-OH)
« Required a state
constitutional convention
before the election of state
officials.
« Enacted specific safeguards
of freedmen’s liberties.
Congressman
Henry
W. Davis
(R-MD)
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
« “Iron-Clad” Oath.
« “State Suicide” Theory [MA Senator
Charles Sumner]
« “Conquered Provinces” Position
[PA Congressman Thaddeus Stevens]
President
Lincoln
Pocket
Veto
Wade-Davis
Bill
The 1864 Presidential Election
• Republicans and pro-war Democrats formed the
National Union Party, which re-nominated
Lincoln and selected Andrew Johnson (18081875), a former Democratic Senator from
Tennessee, for Vice President.
• Democrats chose General George B. McClellan,
who opposed the Emancipation Proclamation
and who ran on a platform which condemned
Lincoln for "four years of failure"
The 1864 Presidential Election
• The capture of Atlanta, a major southern
railroad and manufacturing center, in
September, electrified northern voters,
who gave Lincoln a resounding victory. He
received 55 percent of the popular vote to
just 21 percent for McClellan.
Grant Takes Command
• In March 1864, Lincoln gave Ulysses S. Grant
command of all Union armies.
• Vowing to end the war within a year, Grant
launched three major offenses.
–
General Philip H. Sheridan's task was to lay waste
to farm land in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, a
mission he completed by October.
– Meanwhile, General William Tecumseh Sherman
advanced southeastward from Chattanooga and
seized Atlanta, a major southern rail center,
– while Grant himself pursued Lee's army and sought to
capture Richmond, the Confederate capital.
Grant in Virginia
• Grant started his offensive with 118,000 men
• By early June, half of his men were casualties.
• But Lee's army had been reduced by a third to 40,000
men. But Confederate losses were heavy--and southern
troops could not be replaced.
• At the Battle of the Wilderness, in northern Virginia,
Lee's army suffered 11,000 casualties; at Spotsylvania
Court House, Lee lost another 10,000 men. After
suffering terrible casualties at Cold Harbor--12,000 men
killed or wounded--Grant advanced to Petersburg, a rail
center south of Richmond, and began a nine-month
siege of the city.
Sherman’s March to the Sea
• Sherman, with a force of 100,000 men, marched toward
Atlanta from Chattanooga, and captured the rail center
on September 2, 1864.
• After leaving Atlanta in flames, Sherman's men marched
across Georgia toward Savannah.
• In order to break the South's will to fight, Sherman had
his men destroy railroad tracks, loot houses, and burn
factories.
• Sherman seized Savannah December 21, and then
drove northward, capturing Charleston and Columbia,
South Carolina, then heading through North Carolina to
Virginia.
• Sherman summed up the goal of his military maneuvers
in grim terms: "We cannot change the hearts of those
people, but we can make war so terrible...[and] make
them so sick of war that generations would pass
away before they would again appeal to it."
Surrender at Appomattox
• By April 1865, Grant's army had cut off Lee's
supply lines, forcing Confederate forces to
evacuate Petersburg and Richmond.
• Lee and his men retreated westward, but Grant's
troops overtook him about a hundred miles west
of Richmond.
• Recognizing that further resistance would be
futile, Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court
House, Virginia.
• The aristocratic Lee wore a full-dress uniform,
with a ceremonial sash and sword, while Grant
wore a private's coat.
Surrender at Appomattox
• Three-quarters of the Confederate white male
population of military age had fought in the war,
but by 1865, the North had four times as many
troops as the Confederacy.
• At the time he surrendered, Lee's entire army
had shrunk to just 35,000 men, compared to
Grant's total of 113,000.
• Lee's decision to surrender, however, probably
helped to prevent large-scale guerrilla warfare.
Assassination of Lincoln
• On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, a few
minutes after 10 o'clock, John Wilkes
Booth ,a young actor and Confederate
sympathizer (who had spied for Richmond
and been part of a plot to kidnap Lincoln),
entered the presidential box at Ford's
Theater in Washington and shot the
President in the back of the head.
Assassination of Lincoln
• Simultaneously, a Booth accomplice, Lewis
Paine, brutally attacked Secretary of State
William Seward at his home with a knife.
• Lincoln was carried unconscious to a
neighboring house. He was pronounced dead at
7:22 a.m., April 15. A few minutes later,
Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton stepped
outside and announced to the assembled crowd,
"he belongs to the ages."
Capture of Booth
• John Wilkes Booth and David E. Herold
were sleeping in a tobacco barn owned by
Richard H. Garrett on the morning of
Wednesday, April 26, 1865, when Union
cavalry finally caught up with them. In the
vicinity of 2:00 A.M. the soldiers
surrounded the barn which was located
about 60 miles south of Ford's Theatre
near Port Royal, Virginia.
Capture of Booth
• Booth yelled, "Well, my brave boys, you can prepare a
stretcher for me! I will never surrender!"
• After a short time, David Herold's voice was heard
saying he wanted to give up. Herold slowly came out
and was slammed to the ground by the soldiers. He
was hauled to a nearby tree and tied up with rope.
• Using straw and brush, the cavalry set the barn on
fire.
• Booth through the neck.
• Booth’s last words “Tell Mother I died for my country."