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The Civil War Begins
Differences between northern and southern states:
__________
industrial
economy
“_____
free states”
agricultural
__________
economy
“_____
slave states”
More North/South differences
• North
• Wanted to abolish slavery
• Strong national
government
• Favored high tariffs
• Large cities
• Many private schools and
some public schools
• Thought they were the
best part of the country
• South
• Supported slavery
• States’ rights-right to rule
themselves
• Low tariffs
• Few cities
• No formal educational
system
• Their part of the country
was the best
New President
• Abraham Lincoln is
elected President of
the Untied States.
During the election,
he had spoken out
strongly against the
spread of slavery
and hoped that one
day it would end.
Remain United
Lincoln hoped to
prevent a war. “We
are not enemies, but
friends,” Lincoln told
Southerners after
taking the oath of
office. “We must
not be enemies.”
But time was
running out.
Shortly after the election of Lincoln, South Carolina declared “the
United States of America is hereby dissolved” and seceded from
the Union. Six other states soon followed
Picture Credit: http://www.historyplace.com/civilwar/cwar-pix/civmap.gif
A New Country Formed
• Together these seven
states formed a new
country. They called
the new country the
Confederate States of
America. They
elected Jefferson
Davis as President.
Alexander Stephens
• He served in the U.S. House of
Representatives (1843 – 59), where he
defended slavery but opposed dissolution
of the Union. When Georgia seceded, he
was elected vice president of the
Confederacy.
• He was involved with the Georgia Platform
supporting the Compromise of 1850 because he
wanted the north to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act
and stop trying to prevent slavery in the western
territories. He also argued against immediate
secession after Lincoln was elected…but,
supported secession after the majority of the
convention voted on it.
Fort Sumter: April 12, 1861
Fort Sumter
• President Lincoln
received word that
supplies were running
out at Fort Sumter,
located off the coast
of South Carolina. If
supplies did not come
soon, they would
have to surrender the
fort to the
Confederacy.
A Difficult Decision
• Lincoln had to make
an important decision.
He made the decision
he thought would be
best. He would send
supplies ships to the
fort. Then he waited
to see what
happened.
Jefferson’s Response
• Now Jefferson Davis
had to make a
decision. He decided
to attack the fort
before the supply
ships arrived. On
April 12, 1861,
Confederates fired on
Fort Sumter.
Fort Sumter
• The first major battle
of the Civil War
began on April 12,
1861.
• After 2 days, the
North surrendered
to the South.
Picture Credit: http://library.thinkquest.org/3055/graphics/battles/images/sumteranim.gif
The Outcome
• The Civil War began.
Strategies to Win
• North
• South
• Anaconda Plan/Union
Blockade
• Destroy the land of
the South to break
their spirit.
• Conscription
• King Cotton
Diplomacy
• Blockade Runners
• Conscription
Anaconda Plan
The Anaconda Plan
• Squeeze the Confederacy to death just
like an anaconda squeezes its prey.
• North captures the Mississippi River,
leaving Texas, and Arkansas and
Louisiana stranded.
• Cut off supplies to the South by
surrounding the Confederacy.
Blockade runners
• Private ships that would sail out into open
waters to get imports and exports for the
South in an attempt to circumvent the
Anaconda Plan.
King Cotton Diplomacy
 -the South thought that if they stopped
selling cotton to France and Britain that
these two countries would step in and
help break the blockade. This didn’t
work because the North pressured
France and Great Britain to stay out of
it so France and Britain began getting
cotton from Egypt.
Conscription
• The first time men were drafted to serve in
the military. Both the Union and
Confederacy had to conscript or draft
soldiers to fight the Civil War.
Freeing the Slaves
• Lincoln issued the Emancipation
Proclamation on September 22, 1862
• Document gave the Southern Confederacy a
choice: Quit the war and keep slavery alive or
keep fighting and slaves would be forever
free
• Deadline was January 1, 1863
• The Confederate leaders continued the war
and the slaves were declared free by the
United States government in 1863
The Fall of Fort Pulaski
• More than 100 battles or skirmishes in
Georgia; 92 happened in 1864 during the
Atlanta and Savannah campaigns
• First battle, April 10, 1862, was at all-brick
Fort Pulaski, near Tybee Island
• Rifled cannon used by U.S. Army in warfare
for the first time; the Confederates
surrendered the fort in less than two days
• No brick American forts were built after this
battle
Antietam or Sharpsburg,
Maryland
• September 17, 1862
• The general for the
Confederates was Robert
E. Lee.
• The general for the
Yankees was McClellan.
• -23,000 died and
McClellan’s Union
forces pushed back
Lee’s confederate
forces over the
Potomac and into the
Picture Credit: memory.loc.gov/.../newsletter/ august01/feature.html
Shenandoah Valley.
Antietam
• The battle is known as
the single bloodiest day
in the Civil War.
• Because the casualties
were so high, Lincoln
said that if the South
didn’t stop the war, he
would free the
slaves…and he did.
• South won the battle.
Picture Credit: www.trubador.com/bridge.htm
Battle of Gettysburg
• turning point of the war…no more major
Confederate victories on northern soil
The Battle of Chickamauga
• September 1863
• Seven miles south of Chattanooga,
Tennessee
• Chattanooga was a major railroad center
• Union troops were driven back to
Chattanooga; Confederates did not follow-up
on their victory
• Union reinforcements later recaptured
Chattanooga
The Atlanta Campaign
• June 1864: Sherman attacked Johnston at Kennesaw Mountain;
Sherman lost but continued toward Atlanta
• ends the war by splitting what’s left of the Confederacy….
The Battle of Atlanta
• Sherman surrounded the city and laid siege
• Hood wanted to lure Sherman into the city to
fight, but that didn’t work
• Fighting continued during July and August
1864
• Hood and Atlanta’s citizens finally vacate the
city on September 1
• Sherman burns the city in mid-November
then begins his march toward Savannah and
the sea
Sherman’s March
• Major General William
Tecumseh Sherman
• On November 12, 1864,
Sherman marched out of
Atlanta toward the
Atlantic coast.
• Tracing a line of march
between Macon and
Augusta, he carved a
sixty-mile wide swath of
destruction in the
Confederacy's heartland.
The March to the Sea
• Sherman’s Union army destroys everything in its
path, 300 miles from Atlanta to Savannah
• A sixty mile-wide area is burned, destroyed, and
ruined during a two-month period-WHY????
• Estimated losses exceeded $100 million
• Captured, but did not burn, Savannah in
December 1864
• Loaded and shipped $28 million worth of cotton,
stored in Savannah, to the North
The Civil War Ends
• January 13, 1865: Fort Fisher in North Carolina
captured;the last Confederate blockade-running
port
• General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Virginia cannot
defeat Union General U.S. Grant at Petersburg;
he surrenders his army at Appomattox
Courthouse on April 9, 1865
• Confederate President Jefferson Davis flees and
is eventually captured in Irwinville, Georgia
Civil War Prisons
• Both North and South had prisons for
captured soldiers; thousands of men on both
sides died in these prisons
• Andersonville Prison, in southwest Georgia,
was overcrowded, and offered poor food,
contaminated water, and poor sanitation;
13,700 Union soldiers are buried there
• Captain Henry Wirtz, Andersonville Prison
commander, was later hanged for “excessive
cruelty”
• Andersonville is now home to the National
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Prisoner of War Museum
Women in the Civil War
• Food, items for clothes, and basic items were
in short supply, especially in the South
• Staples like flour, coffee, and sugar were very
expensive or hard to acquire
• Women tried to keep their families fed and
sheltered despite the difficulties
• Many fought disguised as men; others served
as spies; many worked in factories
• Female nurses were much valued
Clara Barton
• In July and August of
1865, Clara Barton,
founder of the American
Red Cross, along with a
detachment of laborers
and soldiers and
Dorence Atwater, came
to Andersonville to
identify and mark the
graves of the Union
dead.
Children During the War
• Most did chores at home to help their
families or contribute to the war effort
• Children in the South had basically no
public schools; wealthy families could
continue with private tutoring
• Boys as young as 10 served in both
armies; thousands of soldiers were
between 14- and 16-years-old
The Aftermath
• 620,000 people died during the war;
about two-thirds died from diseases,
wounds, or military prison hardships
• Healing of emotional wounds took far
longer than the war itself
• The North or the South would never be
the same again
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