THE CIVIL WAR Chapter 7

1
THE CIVIL WARChapter 7
2
The War Starts

• After Lincolns election in 1860, seven southern
  states seceded.
• Although in hindsight, the war seems inevitable,
  to most Americans at the time it was not. Armed
  conflict did not erupt until after a compromise
  effort had failed, shots were fired at Fort
  Sumter, and the North resolved to fight to
  preserve the Union.
• Southerners were divided over the process of
  secession as well as the need for it.
• The firing on Fort Sumter served to rally the
  North behind Lincoln and his call for troops. The
  call for troops prompted a second wave of
  secession conventions in the border South states
  with varying results.

3
A New Type of War

• The American Civil War was one of the earliest
  true industrial wars in human history.
• Railroads, steamships, mass-produced weapons, and
  various other military devices were employed
  extensively.
• The practices of total war and of trench warfare
  foreshadowed World War I in Europe.
• It remains the deadliest war in American history,
  resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers and
  an undetermined number of civilian casualties.
• Victory for the North meant the end of the
  Confederacy and of slavery in the United States,
  and strengthened the role of the federal
  government.

4
The War Begins The North

• At the outset of the war, the North benefited
  from greater resources of population, money,
  railroad mileage and manufacturing.
• Manufacturing was important because this was the
  first modern war whoever produces the most
  equipment would win.
• population was important because the North could
  replace their battlefield casualties, the South
  couldnt.
• The economies and societies of both the Union and
  the Confederacy had to make massive adjustments
  for the war adjustments that the North was
  better able to make.
• The majority of the best military commanders were
  from the south. Lincoln offered the command of
  the Northern armies to Robert E. Lee. Lee
  refused, saying that he couldnt raise his sword
  against his home state of Virginia.

5
The War Begins The South

• The South possessed some advantages including
  southern optimism about independence and
  dedication to protecting their homes and way of
  life. The vast majority of the best officers in
  the Army were from the south.
• The Souths strategy of waging an offensive
  defense was also an advantage. at first, though
  ultimately the Norths anaconda plan was more
  effective.
• the South also believed that England would come
  to their aid. They believed that the English
  textile industry would force the English
  government to help the South to get access to
  King Cotton.

6
The Legal Tender Act

• To finance the Civil War, the federal government
  in 1862 passed the Legal Tender Act, authorizing
  the creation of paper money not redeemable in
  gold or silver. About 430 million worth of
  greenbacks were put in circulation, and this
  money by law had to be accepted for all taxes,
  debts, and other obligations
• This created the first national currency of the US

7
CONSCRIPTION

• The United States first employed national
  conscription during the American Civil War. The
  vast majority of troops were volunteers,
  Resistance to the draft touched off the New York
  Draft Riots in July 1863.
• The Confederate president Jefferson Davis
  proposed the first conscription act on March
  28th, 1862, and the act was passed into law the
  next month
• resistance was both widespread and violent, with
  comparisons made between conscription and
  slavery.
• Both sides permitted conscripts to hire
  substitutes.
• In the Union, many states and cities offered
  bounties and bonuses for enlistment. They also
  arranged to take credit against their quota for
  freed slaves who enlisted.

8
MARYLAND

• Of the border states, the most important was
  Maryland.
• With Virginia having seceded, Union troops had
  to go through Maryland to reach Washington DC.
• If Maryland joined the Confederacy, Washington
  DC would have been totally surrounded.
• Lincoln had to do something. He suspended habeas
  corpus, meaning he could put someone in jail
  without formally arresting and charging them.
• He sent General Ben Butler to Baltimore with
  troops and ordered him to arrest anyone that
  preached secession.
• Lincoln was criticized heavily for this. People
  said that he was a dictator. He was, but the
  Constitution authorizes the suspension of habeas
  corpus in times of national crisis.

9
The Anaconda Plan

• The Anaconda Plan is the name of the strategy for
  subduing the South.
• It was proposed by General-in-Chief Winfield
  Scott, the plan was to blockade Southern ports,
  and called for an advance down the Mississippi
  River to cut the South in two.
• Scott likened it to the coils of an anaconda
  suffocating its victim.
• This was the first step in the war of attrition
  against the South. A war of attrition is a war
  in which one side simply wears down the other.

10
Battle of Bull Run

• The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as the
  First Battle of Manassas was fought on July 21,
  1861, near Manassas, Virginia. It was the first
  major land battle of the American Civil War.

11
Early Battles

• Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan took command of the
  Union Army of the Potomac on July 26 and the war
  began in earnest in 1862.
• Upon the strong urging of President Lincoln to
  begin offensive operations, McClellan attacked
  Virginia in the spring of 1862
• Although McClellan's army reached the gates of
  Richmond in the Peninsula Campaign. Albert
  SydneyJohnston halted his advance at the Battle
  of Seven Pines,
• then General Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson
  defeated McClellan in the Seven Days Battles and
  forced his retreat.
• The Northern Virginia Campaign, which included
  the Second Battle of Bull Run, ended in yet
  another victory for the
• Emboldened by Second Bull Run, the Confederacy
  made its first invasion of the North. General Lee
  led 45,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia
  across the Potomac River into Maryland on
  September 5.
• McClellan and Lee fought at the Battle of
  Antietam on September 17, 1862, the bloodiest
  single day in United States military history.
• Lee's army, checked at last, returned to Virginia
  before McClellan could destroy it.
• Antietam is considered a Union victory because it
  halted Lee's invasion of the North and provided
  an opportunity for Lincoln to announce his
  Emancipation Proclamation.

12
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

• The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by
  President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862.
  It declared the freedom of all slaves in any
  state of the Confederate States of America that
  did not return to Union control by January 1,
  1863.
• The proclamation did not name the slave-holding
  border states of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, or
  Delaware, which had never declared a secession,
  and so it did not free any slaves there.
• The state of Tennessee had already mostly
  returned to Union control, so it also was not
  named and was exempted.
• The Emancipation Proclamation was criticized for
  freeing only the slaves over which the Union had
  no power.

13
Civil War Battles

• While the Confederate forces had numerous
  successes in the Eastern Theater, they were
  defeated many times in the West.
• The Union's key strategist and tactician in the
  West was Ulysses S. Grant, who won victories at
  Forts Henry and Donelson
• The Battle of Vicksburg which cemented Union
  control of the Mississippi River and is
  considered one of the turning points of the war.

14
Civil War Battles

• At the beginning of 1864, Lincoln made Grant
  commander of all Union armies.
• Grant understood the concept of total war and
  believed, along with Lincoln and Sherman, that
  only the utter defeat of Confederate forces and
  their economic base would bring an end to the
  war.
• This was total war not in terms of killing
  civilians but rather in terms of destroying
  homes, farms, and railroads. Grant devised a
  coordinated strategy that would strike at the
  entire Confederacy from multiple directions.
• Generals Meade and Butler were ordered to move
  against Lee near Richmond
• General Franz Sigel and Philip Sheridan were to
  attack the Shenandoah Valley
• General Sherman was to capture Atlanta and march
  to the sea (the Atlantic Ocean
• Grant's battles of attrition at the Wilderness,
  Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor resulted in heavy
  Union losses, but forced Lee's Confederates to
  fall back repeatedly.
• Meade defeated Lee at the Battle of
  Gettysburg109 (July 1 to July 3, 1863). This
  was the bloodiest battle of the war, and has been
  called the war's turning point.
• Pickett's Charge on July 3 is often considered
  the high-water mark of the Confederacy because it
  signaled the collapse of serious Confederate
  threats of victory. Lee's army suffered 28,000
  casualties (versus Meade's 23,000).
• The fall of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, was a
  significant factor in the reelection of Lincoln
  as president.
• Sherman's army marched with an unknown
  destination, laying waste to about 20 of the
  farms in Georgia in his "March to the Sea".

15
Reconstruction

• The Reconstructioni Period stretches from 1865
  1877
• It is called the Reconstruction because the
  devastation of the war required a complete
  rebuilding of southern society

16
Republican control of the South

• In the years immediately following the civil war,
  the Republican party was the dominant political
  party.
• The Democratic party was weak and still under
  attack for their support of the war.

17
Carpetbaggers

• Carpetbaggers were northerners that came south
  right after the Civil war to take advantage of
  the economic opportunities. They were hated by
  the Southerners, but the Southerners still
  accepted the money.

18
Scalawags

• Scalawags were southerners that supported the
  Republican party.
• This was usually ex slaves

19
Reconstruction

• Another area that had to be rebuilt was the
  Southern social system. The freeing of the
  slaves created chaos for the southern planter
  class.
• Many responded by joining the KKK to suppress and
  control the ex-slaves