* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download The American Civil War
Battle of Fort Pillow wikipedia , lookup
Battle of New Bern wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Shiloh wikipedia , lookup
Economy of the Confederate States of America wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Stones River wikipedia , lookup
Red River Campaign wikipedia , lookup
Virginia in the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
Second Battle of Corinth wikipedia , lookup
Battle of White Oak Road wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Perryville wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Cumberland Church wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Wilson's Creek wikipedia , lookup
Border states (American Civil War) wikipedia , lookup
United Kingdom and the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Fredericksburg wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Appomattox Station wikipedia , lookup
Alabama in the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Harpers Ferry wikipedia , lookup
Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Malvern Hill wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Chancellorsville wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Sailor's Creek wikipedia , lookup
Eastern Theater of the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
First Battle of Bull Run wikipedia , lookup
Military history of African Americans in the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Antietam wikipedia , lookup
Northern Virginia Campaign wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Lewis's Farm wikipedia , lookup
Union (American Civil War) wikipedia , lookup
Cavalry in the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
Georgia in the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
Conclusion of the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Cedar Creek wikipedia , lookup
Maryland Campaign wikipedia , lookup
Battle of Seven Pines wikipedia , lookup
Mississippi in the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup
The American Civil War Aim To be able to identify and explain the key changes to warfare that occurred as a result of the American Civil War Starter – mind map What do you already know about the Civil War? Starter – mind map What do you already know about the Civil War? Key Event – the Battle of Gettysburg Leaders Technology Tactics Key features Significance Extra sources/detail from own research Task • As a group, use the handout to fill in the table looking at the leadership, technological development and tactics used in the American Civil War Key Battle - Gettysburg • The Battle of Gettysburg (1st-3rd July 1863) was fought in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, as part of the Gettysburg Campaign, and was the battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War and is often described as the war's turning point. Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee's invasion of the North. After his success at Chancellorsville in May 1863, Lee led his army through the Shenandoah Valley for his second invasion of the North, hoping to reach as far as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, or even Philadelphia, and to influence Northern politicians to give up their prosecution of the war. Day 1 • The two armies began to collide at Gettysburg on 1st July 1863, as Lee urgently concentrated his forces there. Low ridges to the northwest of town were defended initially by a Union cavalry division, which was soon reinforced with two corps of Union infantry. However, two large Confederate corps assaulted them from the northwest and north, collapsing the hastily developed Union lines, sending the defenders retreating through the streets of town to the hills just to the south. • ADVANTAGE LEE Day 2 • On the second day of battle, most of both armies had assembled. The Union line was laid out in a defensive formation resembling a fishhook. Lee launched a heavy assault on the Union left flank, and fierce fighting raged at Little Round Top, the Wheatfield, Devil's Den, and the Peach Orchard. On the Union right, demonstrations escalated into full-scale assaults on Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill. All across the battlefield, despite significant losses, the Union defenders held their lines. • DRAW Day 3 • On the third day of battle, 3rd July, fighting resumed on Culp's Hill, and cavalry battles raged to the east and south, but the main event was a dramatic infantry assault by 12,500 Confederates against the centre of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. ‘Pickett's Charge’ was repulsed by Union rifle and artillery fire, at great losses to the Confederate army. Lee led his army on a torturous retreat back to Virginia. Between 46,000 and 51,000 Americans were casualties in the three-day battle. • MEADE WINS The Gettysburg Address • • • Four score 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 battle-field 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 can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not 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 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 here 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 results of this victory are priceless. ... The charm of Robert E. Lee's invincibility is broken. The Army of the Potomac has at last found a general that can handle it, and has stood nobly up to its terrible work in spite of its long disheartening list of hardfought failures. ... Copperheads are palsied and dumb for the moment at least. ... Government is strengthened four-fold at home and abroad. • – George Templeton Strong, Diary • The Confederates lost politically as well as militarily. Negotiations with the North for peace and attempts to win foreign support, particularly from Europe, for their cause ceased immediately. Henry Adams wrote, "The disasters of the rebels are unredeemed by even any hope of success. It is now conceded that all idea of intervention is at an end." The reverses at Gettysburg and Vicksburg (the fall of this strategic Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi simultaneously to the battle of Gettysburg allowed Gen. Grant’s forces in the west to cut the Confederacy in two) in the summer of 1863 made the Confederacy’s eventual defeat appear inevitable to many even though they continued to resist for another 2 years. • Some economic historians have pointed to the fact that after the loss at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the market for Confederate war bonds dropped precipitously. "European investors gave Johnny Reb about a 42 percent chance of winning the war in early 1863 prior to the battle of Gettysburg. ... However, news of the severity of costly Confederate defeats at Gettysburg/Vicksburg led to a sell-off in rebel bonds and the probability of a Southern victory fell to about 15 percent by the end of 1863." • Throughout the campaign, General Lee seemed to have entertained the belief that his men were invincible. Most of Lee's experiences with the army had convinced him of this, including the great victory at Chancellorsville in early May and the rout of the Union troops at Gettysburg on 1st July. Since high morale plays an important role in military victory when other factors are equal, Lee did not want to dampen his army's desire to fight. The Army of Northern Virginia's collective blind faith allowed it to ignore the fact that it had new and inexperienced senior commanders (neither Hill nor Ewell, for instance, although capable division commanders, had previously commanded a corps). It had recently lost Stonewall Jackson, one of its most competent offensive generals. Also, Lee's method of giving generalized orders and leaving it up to his lieutenants to work out the details contributed to his defeat. Although this method may have worked with Jackson, it proved inadequate when dealing with corps commanders unused to Lee's style of command. • He not only made the case for invading the North, but also, when the battle was joined, he took great risks in an effort to win what he hoped would be a final, climactic battle in the vein of Napoleon's masterpiece at Austerlitz in 1806. He paid a terrible price when he did not achieve this ambitious goal. • What were the main similarities and differences between the Crimean War and the American Civil War?