Download Grant`s willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President

Grant's willingness to fight and ability to win impressed President Lincoln, who
appointed him lieutenant general in the regular army—a new rank recently
authorized by the U.S. Congress with Grant in mind—on March 2, 1864. On March
12, Grant became general-in-chief of all the armies of the United States. In
March 1864, Grant put Major General William T. Sherman in immediate command of
all forces in the
West and moved
his headquarters
to Virginia where
he turned his
attention to the
long-frustrated
Union effort to
destroy the Army
of Northern
Virginia; his
secondary
objective was to
capture the
Confederate
capital of
Richmond,
Virginia, but
Grant knew that
the latter would
happen
automatically once
the former was
accomplished.
The Overland Campaign was the military thrust needed by the Union to defeat the
Confederacy. It pitted Grant against the great commander Robert E. Lee in an
epic contest. It began on May 4, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac crossed the
Rapidan River, marching into an area of scrubby undergrowth and second growth
trees known as the Wilderness. At the beginning of April 1865, Grant's relentless
pressure finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond, and after a nine-day retreat,
Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.
After Union troops at Fort Sumter were fired upon and forced to surrender in
April 1861, Lincoln called on governors of every state to send detachments totaling
75,000 troops to
recapture forts,
protect the capital, and
"preserve the
Union," which in his view
still existed
intact despite the
actions of the
seceding states.
Congress in July
1862 moved to free the
slaves by passing
the Second Confiscation
Act. The goal was
to weaken the rebellion,
which was led and
controlled by slave
owners. This did
not abolish the legal
institution of
slavery (the 13th Amendment did that), but it shows Lincoln had the support of
Congress in liberating the slaves owned by rebels. Lincoln implemented the new law
by his "Emancipation Proclamation." After the Union victory at Gettysburg,
Meade's failure to pursue Lee, and months of inactivity for the Army of the
Potomac, Lincoln decided to bring in a western general: General Ulysses S. Grant.
Lincoln authorized Grant to destroy the civilian infrastructure that was keeping
the Confederacy alive, hoping thereby to destroy the South's morale and weaken
its economic ability to continue the war.
At the outbreak of war, Lee was
appointed to command all of Virginia's
forces, but upon the formation of the
Confederate States Army, he was
named one of its first five full generals.
June 1, 1862, Lee assumed command of
the Army of Northern Virginia, his first
opportunity to lead an army in the field.
Lee was pinned against the capital of
Richmond in 1864, when the new Union
general-in-chief, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S.
Grant sought to destroy his army by
attrition. Lee stopped each attack, but
Grant had superior reinforcements and
kept pushing each time a bit farther to
the southeast. On January 31, 1865, Lee was promoted to general-in-chief of Confederate
forces. As the South ran out of manpower the issue of arming the slaves became
paramount. By late 1864 the Army so dominated the Confederacy that civilian leaders
were unable to block the military's proposal, strongly endorsed by Lee, to arm and train
slaves in Confederate uniform for combat. Lee abandoned Richmond and retreated west.
His forces were surrounded and he surrendered them to Grant on April 9, 1865, at
Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Other Confederate armies followed suit and the war
ended.
In 1861, as the American Civil War broke out, Jackson
became a drillmaster for some of the many new recruits in
the Confederate Army.
Jackson rose to prominence and
earned his most famous nickname at the First Battle of Bull
Run (known by Southerners as First Manassas) in July 1861.
As the Confederate lines began to crumble under heavy Union
assault, Jackson's brigade provided crucial reinforcements
on Henry House Hill.
Brig. Gen. Barnard Elliott Bee, Jr.,
exhorted his own troops to re-form by shouting, "There is
Jackson standing like a stone wall.
die here, and we will conquer.
Let us determine to
Follow me."
of complications of pneumonia on May 10.
Jackson died
In his delirium,
his dying words were, "Let us cross over the river and rest
in the shade of the trees."
Upon hearing of Jackson's
death, Robert E. Lee mourned the loss of both a friend and
a trusted commander.
The night Lee learned of Jackson's
death, he told his cook, "William, I have lost my right
arm" (deliberately in contrast to Jackson's left arm) and
"I'm bleeding at the heart."
Jackson is considered one of
the great characters of the Civil War.
He was profoundly
religious, a deacon in the Presbyterian Church.
He
disliked fighting on Sunday, though that did not stop him
from doing so.
Douglass came to agree with Smith and
Lysander Spooner that the United States
Constitution is an anti-slavery document,
reversing his earlier belief that it was proslavery, a view he had shared with William
Lloyd Garrison. Douglass' change of
position on the Constitution was one of the
most notable incidents of a division that
emerged in the abolitionist movement. This
shifts in opinion, as well as some other
political differences, created a rift
between Douglass and Garrison. Douglass
further angered Garrison by saying that
the Constitution could and should be used
as an instrument in the fight against slavery. By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was
one of the most famous black men in the country, known for his oratories on the condition
of the black race, and other issues such as women's rights. At Abraham Lincoln's
memorial, Douglass was in the audience while a prominent lawyer was giving a tribute to
Lincoln. The tribute was not as successful as some of the audience there would have
hoped. Reluctantly, the people to stand up and speak goaded Douglass. At first out of
respect for the speaker he declined, but eventually he gave into the pressure and with no
preparation gave a fantastic tribute to the President for which he received much respect.
The crowd, roused by his speech, gave him a standing ovation. This is both a testimony to
the success of Douglass' tribute to Lincoln and also to the effect and influence of his
powerful oratory.
Four days after his resignation as Secretary of War, Davis was commissioned as Major
General of Mississippi troops. [3] On February 9, 1861, a constitutional convention at
Montgomery, Alabama named him provisional president of the Confederate States of
America and he was
inaugurated on February
18. In meetings of his own
Mississippi legislature,
Davis had argued against
secession; but when a
majority of the delegates
opposed him, he gave in.
Davis was elected to a six-
year term as president
of the Confederacy on
November 6, 1861. He
had never served a full
term in any elective
office, and that would turn
out to be the case on
this occasion as well. He
was inaugurated on
February 22, 1862. In
June, 1862, he assigned
General Robert E. Lee to replace the wounded Joseph E. Johnston in command of the Army
of Northern Virginia, On April 3, 1865, with Union troops under Ulysses S. Grant poised to
capture Richmond; Davis escaped for Danville, Virginia, together with the Confederate
cabinet, leaving on the Richmond and Danville Railroad. He issued his last official
proclamation as President of the Confederacy, and then went south to Greensboro, North
Carolina. President Jefferson Davis met with his Confederate Cabinet for the last time on
May 5, 1865 in Washington, Georgia, and the Confederate Government was officially
dissolved