CIVIL WAR

the Union's three-part strategy of blockading ports, controlling the Mississippi, and capturing Richmond to win

Anaconda Plan

The day after he was inaugurated, Lincoln received a dispatch from Major Robert Anderson, the commander of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. He was low on supplies and the Confederates were demanding that he surrender the fort..

April 12 -- Attack on Fort Sumter 4

Lincoln informed the governor that he was sending supplies but would not "throw in men, arms, or ammunition" unless they were fired upon. Confederate president Jefferson Davis ordered his forces to fire on the fort early on April 12. Union forces held out for 33 hours before surrendering.

April 12 -- Attack on Fort Sumter P.2 4

The attack on Fort Sumter prompted four more states to join the Confederacy. Beginning in April, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee all seceded from the Union. With Virginia's secession, Richmond was named the Confederate capital.

April to June -- Four More States Secede 5

For the Confederacy, the primary goal was to win recognition as an independent nation. Independence would allow Southerners to preserve their traditional way of life - one that included and preserved slavery.

CONFEDERATE GOALS

Overseeing the Southern effort was Confederate president Jefferson Davis, a West Point graduate and soldier in the Mexican-American War. Prior to being elected, Davis served as Secretary of War under president Franklin Pierce and was a Mississippi Senator who supported the expansion of slavery westward. As president of the Confederacy, he struggled to manage the war effort, support the South's economy, and keep the new nation united.

CONFEDERATE PEOPLE THE PRESIDENT

The Confederate army had about 112,000 soldiers, or Rebels, in mid-1861. The number would total 850,000 by the end of the war. Although there are a few records of enlisted African Americans fighting for the Confederacy, including two companies that never went into battle, the South did not allow African Americans to fight for fear of arming slaves, or even free blacks.

CONFEDERATE PEOPLE THE SOLDIERS

The Confederacy was made up of all of the states that seceded. This originally included South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. When Lincoln issued a call for troops after the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas also seceded and joined the Confederacy.

CONFEDERATE STATES

To win independence, the South worked out a defensive strategy. They would try to maintain control of their territory for as long as possible in hopes the North would get tired. The South expected Britain and France to put pressure on the North to end the fighting and restore their cotton supplies. During the war, some Southern leaders would take an offensive approach and attack Northern cities in hopes to end the war more quickly.

CONFEDERATE STRATEGY

One of the main strengths for Southerners was fighting in familiar territory - defending their land, their homes, and their way of life. For almost the entirety of the war, the battles would be fought in Confederate territory. The military leadership of the South was also superior to the North's. Southern families had a strong tradition of military service, and military college graduates provided the South with a large pool of officers

CONFEDERATE STRENGTHS

The South also faced some disadvantages. It had a smaller population of free men to draw upon in building an army. It also possessed few factories to manufacture weapons and other supplies and it produced less than half as much food as the North since their agrarian economy had been built on farming cash crops such as tobacco and cotton. There were also less than half the miles of tracks and much fewer trains in the South, which made it difficult to transport food, weapons, supplies, and men throughout the war.

CONFEDERATE WEAKNESSES

While passionate support for the war remained strong in the South, the belief in states' rights - a founding principle of the Confederacy - also hampered the South's efforts. The individual states refused to give the Confederate government sufficient power. As a result, the federal government found it difficult to fight the war effectively.

CONFEDERATE WEAKNESSES p.2

the nation formed by the eleven states that seceded from the Union?

Confederacy

In 1861, the Union launched its blockade of southern ports. By the end of the year, most southern ports were closed to foreign ships. The Confederacy asked Britain for help in protecting its ships. The British refused and as a result, the South could not export its cotton to Europe nor import much needed supplies.

December -- The Union Blockade 8

the decree that granted freedom to slaves in all Rebel states?

Emancipation Proclamation

The Confederacy seized a Union ship called the Merrimack and rebuilt it using iron plates on top of the wood. They then attacked a group of Union ships off the coast of Virginia. The North's wooden ships couldn't damage the ironclad so the North sent the Monitor, their own ironclad ship to fight the Merrimack. Neither ship sank.

Event 10 [Video] March -- Monitor vs. Merrimack

On April 6, Confederate forces attacked Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant at Shiloh, Tennessee. By the end of the day, the Union troops were almost defeated. During the night, reinforcements arrived, and by the next morning the Union commanded the field. When Confederate forces retreated, the exhausted Union forces did not follow. Casualties were heavy -- roughly 20,000 men were killed or wounded in the two day battle.

Event 11 April 6 & 7 -- The Battle of Shiloh

A few weeks after Shiloh, the North won another important victory. On April 25, David Farragut captured New Orleans, Louisiana, the South's biggest city. This defeat meant that the Confederacy could no longer use the Mississippi to carry its goods to sea.

Event 12 April 25 -- New Orleans Falls

In the East, General George B. McClellan led the Union's Army of the Potomac. Their goal was to capture Richmond, Virginia - the Confederate capital. McClellan hesitated again and took weeks as opportunities to attack slipped away. The delays gave the Confederates a chance to prepare their defense of Richmond.

Event 13 March to June -- McClellan Hesitates

At the end of June, Union forces attempted to capture Richmond. Confederate General Robert E. Lee was in command of the army opposing McClellan's. Lee's cavalry leader circled around the Union army, gathering information about Union positions. Confederate forces drove the Yankees back and Union troops failed to capture Richmond in the series of skirmishes known as the Seven Days' Battles.

Event 14 June -- The Seven Days' Battles

Although Union forces were pushed back from Richmond, they were still only 25 miles away. Lincoln ordered McClellan to move his army to join forces with Major General John Pope to protect Washington, D.C. Jackson's forces moved north to attack Pope's and joined up with Lee's forces. The two armies met in a battle that resulted in a Confederate win and now Rebels were within reach of Washington, D.C

Event 15 August -- Second Battle of Bull Run

On September 17, General Lee decided to use the momentum from his recent win to confront General McClellan near Sharpsburg, Virginia. This battle proved to be the bloodiest day in American history with roughly 23,000 casualties. The battle had no clear winner, but because General Lee withdrew to Virginia the next day, McClellan was considered the victor. Lincoln, who had told McClellan to "destroy the rebel army" was furious when McClellan chose not to pursue the retreating Confederate troops; he removed McClellan from his command and replaced him with General Ambrose Burnside.

Event 16 [VIDEO] September -- Battle of Antietam

Although Lincoln considered slavery immoral, he was reluctant to move against it because of the border states. Lincoln knew that the issue of slavery would divide the people and make the war less popular. Up until this point, the main goal of the war was to preserve the Union, not end slavery. As the war went on, more and more Northerners believed that slavery was helping the South's effort to win. Enslaved people in the South raised crops used to feed the armies and did the heavy work in the trenches at the army camps. The North began to realize that ending slavery would create many obstacles for the South

Event 17 January 1 -- Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863. It stated that all slaves living in states that were in rebellion against the United States were to be considered now and forever free. Although the effects of the decree were limited, by the end of the war, one-sixth of the slave population had fled into areas controlled by Union armies to escape the bonds of slavery.

Event 17 Continued P.2 January 1 -- Emancipation Proclamation

In April, the Confederate Congress passed a draft law requiring men between 18 and 25 to serve in the army for three years. The North passed a similar law called the First Conscription Act, requiring men ages 20 - 45 to register their names in the pool. Violent protests broke out in New York City as many were angered by the draft.

Event 18 April -- First Conscription Act

The city of Vicksburg sat on a high bluff above the Mississippi River, which the Union was still working to gain total control of. For weeks, Grant had laid siege to the town. Finally, on July 4, Vicksburg surrendered. With the surrender of Port Hudson in Louisiana, the Union now held the entire Mississippi. Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas were sealed off from the rest of the Confederacy.

Event 20 May to July -- The Vicksburg Campaign

On the second day, the Confederates worked to find weak spots in the Union position, but the Union lines held firm. Meade set up headquarters atop a small hill called Little Round Top and laid his men out in a defensive position resembling a fish hook around the hill. Despite heavy losses, the Union held their line. On the third day, Lee ordered an all-out attack. Cannons filled the air with smoke and thunder. Confederate Major General George Pickett led 15,000 soldiers across the low ground that stood between the two armies. Pickett's Charge marked the northernmost point reached by southern troops but his men suffered heavy losses at the hands of Union soldiers.

Event 21 July -- The Battle of Gettysburg (Days 2-3)

Despite their loss of Jackson, Lee moved north in June with an army of 75,000. He hoped a victory on Union soil would persuade Britain and France to aid the Confederacy, and hoped to take Washington, D.C. to end the war quickly. Meanwhile, General George Meade was put in charge of the Army of the Potomac. His army met Lee's on July 1, 1863 near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. After a brief skirmish, Meade's men occupied four miles of high ground along an area known as Cemetery Ridge. About a mile west, 75,000 Confederate troops gathered.

Event 21 July 1-3 -- The Battle of Gettysburg (Day 1)

Lee knew that after Pickett's Charge, the battle was lost. These men had been easy targets for the Union soldiers and barely half of the Rebels returned from the charge. "It's all my fault", Lee told his troops as they retreated back to Virginia. From here, he would only wage a defensive war on southern soil. The losses at Gettysburg were staggering; the most of any Civil War battle. Between the three days of fighting, there were an estimated 50 thousand casualties including roughly 10,000 deaths.

Event 21 [VIDEO] July -- The Battle of Gettysburg (Day 3)

the agency that helped former slaves transition into free life?

Freedmen's Bureau?

In March 1864, Lincoln made General Grant the commander of the Union forces. He devised a plan to attack the Confederacy on all fronts. The Army of the Potomac would try to crush Lee's army in Virginia. During a series of battles - Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor - the Confederate lines held, but Grant always resumed attacking quickly. In August, General William Tecumseh Sherman's army would advance to Atlanta and capture the key city, renewing the Union's spirit and boosting Lincoln's popularity.

Event 23 May to August -- The Union Advances

Any hope for the South now lay in the defeat of President Lincoln in the election of 1864. Lincoln was doubtful he would win reelection but two northern victories, including General Sherman's capture of Atlanta, came just in time to reassure voters that the conflict was soon to be over. Lincoln won with fifty-five percent of the popular vote.

Event 24 November -- Lincoln is Reelected

After leaving Atlanta in ruins, Sherman - with Grant's approval - implemented a bold plan called "total war" in which all the South's infrastructure and resources became targets. As Sherman's army advanced through the South, they destroyed everything of value. They lived off the land, took what they needed, burned what they couldn't use themselves, and destroyed railroad lines along the way in an effort to weaken the South in any and all ways possible. They left a path of destruction sixty miles wide as they marched.

Event 25 December -- Sherman's March to Sea

Meanwhile, Grant planned a final attack on Richmond. For nine months, Grant's forces battered Lee's army at Petersburg, the gateway to Richmond. On April 1, Union forces finally broke through Confederate lines to capture the city. Grant's soldiers quickly surrounded Lee's army. On April 9, 1865 General Lee, in full dress uniform, arrived at Wilmer McLean's house in the village of Appomattox Court House. There, he surrendered to General Grant.

Event 26 April -- Grant Captures Richmond

Union troops celebrated by shooting their guns and cheering wildly. Grant told them to stop celebrating. "The war is over," he said, "the rebels are our countrymen again." Grant's terms of surrender were generous. Confederate soldiers could go home safely if they promised to no longer fight. They could take supplies and weapons with them. He also ordered that Lee's half-starved men receive food.

Event 26 Continued [VIDEO] April -- Surrender at Appomattox

On April 14, President Lincoln was watching a performance of "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., when he was shot by John Wilkes Booth, an actor from Maryland obsessed with avenging the Confederate defeat. Lincoln died the next morning. Booth escaped to Virginia. Eleven days later, cornered in a burning barn, Booth was fatally shot by a Union soldier. Nine other people were involved in the assassination; four were hanged, four imprisoned, and one acquitted.

Event 27 April 14 -- The Assassination of Lincoln

By December of 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was officially adopted. It said that, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Slavery was finally abolished in the United States

Event 28 December -- Thirteenth Amendment

On November 19, at a ceremony dedicating a cemetery at Gettysburg, President Lincoln rededicated the war. The "great civil war" was testing whether a nation "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...can long endure." He called on Americans to remain "dedicated to the great task remaining before us...that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government, of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Event: 22 Nov.19 The Gettysburg Address

The Civil War pitted brother against brother, parents against children, and neighbors against neighbors. Mary Todd Lincoln, the president's wife, had several relatives who fought for the Confederacy. A Senator from Kentucky had two sons who became generals in the war - one on each side. Officers on both sides, including Robert E. Lee and William Tecumseh Sherman had attended West Point together, never to guess that they would later command opposing armies.

FAMILIES DIVIDED

When the war began, each side expected an early victory. One Confederate soldier from Alabama expected the war to be over within a year because "we are going to kill the last Yankee before that time if there is any fight in them still." Northerners were just as confident they would beat the South quickly.

FAlse hope for c

Some leaders saw the situation more clearly. Union general William Tecumseh Sherman wrote, "I think it is to be a long war - very long - much longer than any politician thinks." Sherman was right. From the first battle on, both sides would realize there was no quick victory to be had.

False hope for u

One goal of the Union was to gain control of the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers; this would split the South in two and hinder their ability to transport goods. Union commander Ulysses S. Grant moved against Confederate forces. With the aid of a fleet of ironclads, Grant captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. When the Confederate commander at Fort Donelson asked Grant for his terms, Grant's reply was "no terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted".

February -- Early Union Victories 9

At a convention in Montgomery, Alabama, the seven seceding states created the Confederate Constitution, a document similar to the United States Constitution, but with greater stress on the autonomy of each state. Jefferson Davis was named as president of the newly formed Confederate States of America.

February -- The South Creates a Gov't 2

the amendment that protected African American males' right to vote

Fifteenth Amendment

the amendment that granted citizenship to all people born in the U.S.

Fourteenth Amendment

the speech Lincoln gave that encouraged a "new birth of freedom"?

Gettysburg Address?

The first major battle took place in Manassas Junction near Bull Run River. Inexperienced Union troops attacked inexperienced Confederate troops. At first, they were able to drive the Rebels back but after receiving reinforcements from General Thomas Jackson, the Rebels surged forward with a scream that became known as the "Rebel yell". Jackson fought "like a stone wall" and was afterwards known as Stonewall Jackson. The Union army was forced to hastily retreat back to Washington, D.C.

July 21-- First Battle of Bull Run 7

Residents of the western counties of Virginia did not wish to secede along with the rest of the state. This section of Virginia was admitted into the Union as the state of West Virginia on June 20, 1863. Despite their acceptance of slavery, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri did not join the Confederacy. Although divided in their loyalties, these "border states" chose not to secede.

June -- More States Choose a Side 6

At Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, the new president said he had no plans to end slavery in those states where it already existed, but he also said he would not accept secession. He hoped to resolve the national crisis without warfare.

March 4 -- Lincoln's Inauguration 3

In May, Union General Hooker launched a campaign against General Lee. Lee split his army, attacking a surprised Union army in three places and almost completely defeating them. Hooker withdrew across the Rappahannock River, giving the South a victory, but it was the Confederates' most costly victory in terms of casualties; they also lost Stonewall Jackson. After seven days of fighting, the casualties totaled 24,000.

May -- The Battle of Chancellorsville

the Supreme Court ruling that segregation was constitutional?

Plessy v. Fergusion decision

the post-war period in which the South was rebuilt physically and politically?

Reconstruction?

When Abraham Lincoln, a known opponent of slavery, was elected president, the South Carolina legislature perceived a threat. Calling a state convention, the delegates voted to remove the state of South Carolina from the union known as the United States of America. The secession of South Carolina was followed by the secession of six more states.

The South Secedes - January 1

the amendment that abolished slavery in the U.S.

Thirteenth Amendment

The two sides entered the war with different goals. The main goal of the North was to bring Southern states back into the country, thus preserving the Union. Ending slavery was not a major northern goal at first, but this would change as the war waged on.

UNION GOALS

One Northern advantage was not obvious at the start of the war. Both sides greatly underestimated Union president Abraham Lincoln. His dedication and intelligence would ultimately lead the North to victory. Lincoln made effective use of the North's greater power of industry, network of railways, and used the telegraph extensively to stay updated and send directives to his commanders

UNION PEOPLE THE PRESIDENt

Soldiers came from every region and all walks of life. Almost half of the North's troops had owned or worked on farms. The Union army did not permit African Americans to join at first, but this would change later. By the summer of 1861, the Union had about 187,000 soldiers, or Yankees as they were also known. Ultimately, 2.1 million men would fight for the North. This included about 200,000 African Americans and 10,000 Hispanic soldiers.

UNION PEOPLE THE SOLDIERS

The Union's plan for winning the war included three main strategies. First, they would blockade Southern ports to prevent supplies from reaching the South and to prevent them from earning money exporting cotton. Second, they worked to gain control of the Mississippi River, thereby cutting Southern supply lines and dividing the Confederacy. Third, they planned to take control of Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital. This strategy was nicknamed the "Anaconda Plan".

UNION STRATEGY

When the war began, both sides had advantages and disadvantages. How they would capitalize on those would determine the war's outcome. The North enjoyed a larger population, more industry, and more abundant resources than the South. It had a better banking system, which helped raise money for the war. The North also possessed more ships and had a larger, more efficient railway network

UNION STRENGTHS

For the North, a clear disadvantage was that in order to bring the Southern states back into the Union, they would have to invade the South - a large area filled with a hostile population. To win the war, the North would have to occupy the Confederacy's territory. One of the North's greatest struggles throughout the war would be finding good military leadership that could accomplish just that.

UNION WEAKNESSES

The Union was made up of the states of Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, California, Nevada, and Oregon. It would also gain West Virginia after it separated from the rest of the state.

Union

the states that remained loyal to the United States during the Civil War?

Union

The Union also included four "border states" that allowed slavery: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. These states were divided over who to support and most of them had such strong support for the South that they teetered on the brink of secession. Lincoln had to act carefully not to lose these strategic states. They were important to controlling the Mississippi River and railroad routes as well as keeping Washington D.C. from being surrounded

Union. p.2

Black Codes

the laws designed to limit the rights and freedom of blacks in the South?