The Civil War 1861–1865

Essential Questions • What social, political, and economic issues tended to

divide Americans in the period prior to the Civil War?

• Why did the election of Abraham Lincoln seem to exacerbate sectional tensions in the prewar period?

• What impact did political and military leadership have on the conduct of the war?

• How did the war affect minorities during the period (women, free blacks, slaves, immigrants)?

• How did the Civil War “make” modern America?

Fundamental Causes of the War

• Sectionalism and states’ rights • Slavery • Economic issues

Electoral Votes in 1860

Secession • South Carolina

was first to secede

• Several other states followed soon after

• Virginia seceded after the Battle of Fort Sumter

Seceding states appear in green

The Creation of the Confederacy

• Delegates met in Montgomery, Alabama

• Formed the Confederate States of America

• Jefferson Davis elected president, with Alexander Stephens as vice president

CSA President Jefferson Davis

Buchanan’s Inaction

• Believed secession was illegal, but that acting to prevent it was also illegal

• Decided to let the incoming administration handle the problem

President James Buchanan

Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address • March 4, 1861 • Promised not to interfere with

slavery where it already existed • Attempted to reconcile with the

South • “I have no purpose, directly or

indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” – Abe Lincoln

A crowd listens to Lincoln’s speech at the Capitol building

Lincoln and Fort Sumter • Confederates demanded that the fort be surrendered • Lincoln received urgent message from Ft. Sumter’s

commander • Lincoln faced with dilemma of resupplying Sumter • Decided to send only “food for hungry men”

Fort Sumter

The War Begins • Bombardment began on April 12, 1861 • Anderson surrendered to Gen. Beauregard, a close

friend and colleague

Painting depicting the bombardment of Fort Sumter

The “Anaconda Plan” The Union’s strategy:

• Naval blockade from Louisiana to Virginia

• Control of the Mississippi River

Confederate strategy primarily defensive

Cartoon about the “Anaconda Plan”

Advantages & Disadvantages: The Union

Advantages: • Industry and railroads • Larger population • Legitimate government • Strong political

leadership Disadvantages:

• Funding difficulties • Offensive war • Lack of skilled

military leaders

A Massachusetts factory

Advantages & Disadvantages: The Confederacy

Advantages: • Defensive war on home turf • Common cause • Strong military tradition and

outstanding leaders Disadvantages:

• Weak economy • Smaller population • Ineffective central

government and leadership

Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson

War Aims: North and South • The North: to preserve the Union • The South: safeguarding states’ rights, as well as

protecting the South from “Northern aggression”

Horace Greeley

Abraham Lincoln

Discussion Questions 1. Pretend you are a member of Buchanan’s cabinet.

How would you advise him to deal with the secession crisis in the period before the next president took office?

2. Do you think the “Anaconda Plan” was an effective strategy for subduing the Confederacy? If not, what strategy would you have recommended?

3. Which side’s goals for the war seem more reasonable to you? Why?

Recruiting Soldiers • Lincoln called

for 75,000 volunteers for three months’ enlistment

• Response was overwhelming

• Union also encouraged enlistment with bounties

New Yorkers line up to enlist

Ethnic Recruitment • Both sides appealed to

ethnic pride in order to recruit

• Many nationalities joined both sides

• Irish Americans among the most common

An enlistment poster aimed at Irish Americans

Antietam • Attempt by Lee to invade the North • Near Sharpsburg, Maryland • McClellan tipped off to Lee’s plans when a soldier

found secret orders wrapped around cigars • Single bloodiest day in American history

Artillery Hell, a painting of early morning hostilities at Antietam

Antietam: Battle Scenes

Dead soldiers await burial after the morning fighting in the Miller cornfield

Antietam: Battle Scenes

A view of the Burnside Bridge

from the “Confederate side”

Antietam: Battle Scenes

An Army field hospital

Antietam: Battle Scenes

Confederate dead along the

Hagerstown turnpike

Prelude to Emancipation

• At first, Lincoln did not believe he had the authority to end slavery

• However, every slave working on a plantation allowed a white Southerner to fight

• Lincoln saw emancipation as a strategic issue as well as a moral one

Slaves on a South Carolina plantation, 1862

The Emancipation Proclamation

• Lincoln announced proclamation after Antietam

• Took effect on January 1, 1863 • Freed slaves only in “territories

in rebellion”

A cartoon celebrating emancipation

Advantages to Emancipation

• Cause “union” in the North by linking the war to abolishing slavery

• Cause disorder in the South as slaves were freed

• Kept Britain out of the war Lincoln discussing emancipation with his cabinet

Women’s Roles in the War

Clara Barton Mary Bickerdyke

Dorothea Dix Dr. Mary Edwards Walker

Women Warriors

• Some women posed as men in order to fight

• Frances Clayton (right) fought in artillery and cavalry units

• Total number unknown

Civil War Espionage

Belle Boyd

Pauline Cushman

Rose Greenhow

Sam Davis

Dealing With Dissent

• Copperheads • Led by Rep. Clement

Vallandigham of Ohio • Lincoln suspends

habeas corpus

Rep. Clement Vallandigham

Manpower for the War

• Mostly volunteers • Conscription needed to

sustain troop levels • In the North, draftees

could hire substitutes or pay $300 to opt out

An illustrated sheet music cover protesting the inequities of the draft

New York Draft Riots

• July 1863 • Rioters mainly poor

whites and Irish immigrants

• Opposed to freeing slaves

• More than 100 people killed

Rioters loot a New York store

African American Enlistment

• Congress allowed black enlistment in 1862

• 54th Massachusetts commanded by Colonel Shaw

• Half of 54th killed in assault on Ft. Wagner

• Helped spur further enlistment

Col. Robert Gould Shaw

Memorial to the 54th Massachusetts

The Sanitary Commission

• Poor health conditions in army camps

• U.S. Sanitary Commission created

• Purposes included improving hygiene and recruiting nurses

• Developed better methods of transporting wounded to hospitals

A Civil War field hospital

Civil War Medicine

• Infection often deadlier than the wounds

• Amputations more common

• Anesthesia widely used

A surgeon at the Camp Letterman field hospital at Gettysburg prepares for an

amputation

Andersonville

• Confederate POW camp in Georgia

• 32,000 prisoners jammed into 26 acres

• One-third of all prisoners died

• Superintendent was executed as a war criminal Severely emaciated POWs rescued

from Andersonville

Gettysburg: Prelude

• Lee crossed into Pennsylvania

• Sent troops for supplies

• Confederates encounter Union force outside Gettysburg

Gettysburg battlefield: view from Culp’s Hill

Impact of Gettysburg

• Confederates lost 28,000 men (one-third of army)

• Union lost 23,000 men (one-quarter of army)

• Town overwhelmed by dead and wounded soldiers

• Lee unable to rebuild army • Turning point of the war

A Confederate soldier lies dead at “Devil’s Den”

The Gettysburg Address

• Lincoln invited to attend cemetery dedication

• Everett the principal speaker

• At the time, Lincoln’s two-minute speech was considered great by some, a failure by others

The only known picture of Lincoln (lower center) at the Gettysburg

Cemetery dedication

• 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 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.

Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think the loss of Stonewall Jackson was so devastating to the Confederacy?

2. Why was the Battle of Gettysburg such an important victory for the Union? How might things have been different had the Confederacy won the battle?

3. Should Lee have been relieved of command because of his strategy at Gettysburg? Why or why not?

Sherman’s “March to the Sea”

• Sherman sought to break the South’s ability to make war

• Captured Atlanta in September 1864

• Led the March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah

• Took Savannah by Christmas 1864

Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman

Election of 1864 • Lincoln sought

reelection • Democrats

nominated McClellan

• Union victories helped Republican campaign

• Lincoln won by large margin

A political cartoon shows Lincoln and Davis tearing a U.S. map while McClellan tries to intercede

The Fall of Richmond • Lee told Davis the

capital was in danger • Davis ordered

evacuation • Union forces took

Richmond • Lincoln toured the city

soon after

The remains of buildings after the Union invasion, April 1865

The 13th Amendment

• Proposed and co-authored by Senator Henderson of Missouri

• Approved by Congress in January 1865

• Ratified by 27 states by December 1865

• Abolished “involuntary servitude” Illustration depicting the Senate debate

over the 13th Amendment

Surrender at Appomattox • Lee realized his position was hopeless • Asked to meet with Grant • Met in Appomattox on April 9, 1865 • Lenient surrender terms

An artist’s rendition of the meeting

Lincoln’s Assassination

• April 14, 1865, at Ford’s Theater

• Shot by actor John Wilkes Booth

• Booth killed 12 days later

• Vice President Andrew Johnson became president

An illustration of Lincoln’s assassination

Impact of the War

Freedmen disinter bodies of soldiers killed at Cold Harbor for reburial after the war

Impact of the War: the Union • 111,000 killed in action • 250,000 killed by non-military causes (mostly

disease) • Over 275,000 wounded • Estimated cost in today’s dollars: $6.19 billion

Union dead at Gettysburg

Impact of the War: the Confederacy

• 93,000 killed in battle

• 165,000 killed by non-military causes

• Over 137,000 wounded

• Estimated cost in today’s dollars: $2.10 billion Destruction in Atlanta after Sherman’s

troops took the city

The Road to Reconstruction • Lincoln’s assassination led

to a change in political leadership.

• Conflict over how to best deal with the former Confederate state

• Reconstruction period brought about great political upheaval

• South “punished” for causing the war President Andrew Johnson

Discussion Questions

1. Why did Grant’s “total war” policy meet with resistance even in the North? Do you think the policy was a good idea? Why?

2. How did Grant and Sherman’s military campaigns help Lincoln win reelection in 1864?

3. What was the impact of Lincoln’s assassination on the North? On the South?