Civil War Notes
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Transcript of Civil War Notes
Civil War Notes
AntietamSharpsburg, MarylandSeptember 17, 1862
Lee’s 1st invasion of the North
o Lee hoped to win Maryland’s support (and supplies) for the South and win European support
o Lincoln needed a Northern victory to issue an Emancipation Proclamation
o The North knew Lee’s plans but Lee was able to rebound quickly
o The battle was a draw, but Lee retreated South of the Potomac
*Bloodiest Day in American History*
AntietamEngaged 85,000Casualties 12,410
Engaged 45,000
Casualties 11,172
Results of Battle:•South’s hopes of foreign aid were dashed•Lincoln issued preliminary Emancipation
Proclamation
GettysburgGettysburg, Pennsylvania
July 1-3, 1863
• Turning Point of the Civil War
• Lee had several goals:– Draw the Union army out
of Virginia– Fuel anti-war feeling in the
North– Feeding and supplying his
troops– Last-ditch effort to win
foreign aid
• The first two days fought to a draw, Lee made a bold attempt to win– Pickett’s Charge, sending thousands marching over a mile across an open field and in which more the 50% of the Rebels died
• Lee was never able to recover from this loss of men- Gettysburg is the bloodiest battle of the war, the worst ever fought on American soil.
Engaged 95,000Casualties 23,000
Engaged 80,000
Casualties 28,000
Gettysburg
Confederate Dead at Devil’s DenThe hand-to-hand fighting was fierce – one in every
three men in the 4th Maine was killed
Union dead July 1st and 2nd
Gettysburg Address
This crowd at the dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery in November, 1863 hears Lincoln utter, in less than three minutes, one of the greatest political speeches in American history.
Sherman’s March to the SeaAtlanta to Savannah, Georgia
July to December, 1864
• Sherman wanted to break the South’s will to fight
• Sherman cut his army from supply lines and lived off the land
• The army cut a sixty-mile wide path of destruction, virtually destroying the state
All of these incidents stemmed from the same root question:
Who is more important, the states or the Federal government?
Appomattox Court HouseApril 9, 1865
Appomattox Court House, Virginia
• Lee surrendered his starving troops to Grant• Grant gave Lee and his men generous terms• The Union soldiers, cheering the end of the war,
were stopped by Grant to show respect to the Confederates
The Human Cost of the War
Dead WoundedTotal
North 364,511 288,881 646,392
South 260,000 194,000 454,000
Total 624,511 475,881 1,100,392
The Union armies had from 2,500,000 to 2,750,000 men. Their losses, by the best estimates:
Battle deaths: 110,070
Disease, etc.: 250,152
Total 360,222
The Confederate strength, known less accurately because of missing records, was from 750,000 to 1,250,000. Its estimated losses:
Battle deaths: 94,000
Disease, etc.: 164,000
Total 258,000
Confederate losses by states, in dead and wounded only, and with many records missing (especially those of Alabama):
North Carolina 20,602
Virginia 6,947
Mississippi 6,807
South Carolina 4,760
Arkansas 3,782
Georgia 3,702
Tennessee 3,425
Louisiana 3,059
Texas 1,260
Florida 1,047
Alabama 724
(Statisticians recognize these as fragmentary, from a report of 1866; they serve as a rough guide to relative losses by states).
In addition to its dead and wounded from battle and disease, the Union listed:
Deaths in Prison 24,866
Drowning 4,944
Accidental deaths 4,144
Murdered 520
Suicides 391
Sunstroke 313
Military executions 267
Killed after capture 104
Executed by enemy 64
Unclassified 14,155
The Economic Cost of the War
• In dollars and cents, the U.S. government estimated Jan. 1863 that the war was costing $2.5 million daily. A final official estimate in 1879 totaled $6,190,000,000. The Confederacy spent perhaps $2,099,808,707. By 1906 another $3.3 billion already had been spent by the U.S. government on Northerners' pensions and other veterans' benefits for former Federal soldiers