The Civil War: Overview1861-1865

The Dred Scott Case

• Dred Scott was a Missouri slave, whose owner had taken him to live temporarily in Wisconsin

• 1857: Scott sued for freedom, claiming MO Compromise outlawed slavery in area

• President Buchanan asked Supreme Court to decide broadly, to end national debate over slavery

• 1857: Chief Justice Taney:– No African-American could be

citizen, free or slave

– Scott would not have won anyway, because Congress had no right to restrict slavery

– Missouri Compromise declared unconstitutional

– Chief plank of Republican party was ended

• Scott freed by owner in 1857; died of TB in 1858

Summary of Causes

• Compromises over slavery and new states

• Bleeding Kansas

• Both north and south were afraid that the other would change their way of life

• 1860 election: – Republicans (Lincoln)

opposed extending slavery

– Democrats favored states rights to choose

Slave Auction house in Atlanta

North vs South, 1861

Start of the War

• When Lincoln was elected, Southern states left the union (“seceded”)

– Did they have the right to leave the union?

– Did the North have the right to force them back?

• North had blue uniforms (USA or “Union”)

• South had gray (CSA or “Confederacy”)

• Fighting started at Fort Sumter, South Carolina

• Some slave states stayed loyal to the Union

Fort Sumter

Military Goals

• S needed to defend itself; N had to force S to return

• N could invade, or lay siege to S

• S could defend borders, or attack N to force N to quit

• Anaconda Plan; block southern coast and control Mississippi River

• N was far more self-sufficient than S Lincoln and Gen MacClellan at Antietam

Battles: the Terrifying Beginning

• July 1861: Bull Run (Manassas) near Washington showed how brutal war would be

• Sep 1862: Antietam, in Northern VA: bloodiest day of war, in draw: 26K died

• July 1863: Lee and Meade’s troops met by chance at Gettysburg in southern PA

• Grant took Vicksburg to control Mississippi

• 1863: Emancipation Proclamation changed tenor of war: abolish slavery (only in Southern areas not controlled by Union)

The End of the War

• 1864: Sherman’s March to the Sea: capture Atlanta and drive to Atlantic

• Burned cities, crops, homes

• “Total warfare” destroyed S’s desire to continue

• 1865: Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia

Destroyed depot in Atlanta

American Deaths in War