US History/Contents/Civil War
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[edit] Dixie's Constitution
By the end of March, 1861, the Confederacy had created a constitution and elected its first and only president, Jefferson Davis. The Constitution of the Confederate States of America was the supreme law of the Confederate States of America, as adopted on March 11, 1861 and in effect through the conclusion of the American Civil War. The Confederacy also operated under a Provisional Constitution from February 8, 1861 to March 11, 1861.
In regard to most articles of the Constitution, the document is a word-for-word duplicate of the United States Constitution. The original, hand-written document is currently located in the University of Georgia archives at Athens, Georgia. The major differences between the two constitutions was the Confederacy's greater emphasis on the rights of individual member states, and an explicit support of slavery.
[edit] Fort Sumter and the Beginning of the War
Several federal forts were seized and converted to Confederate strongholds. By the time of Lincoln's inauguration, only two major forts had not been taken. On April 11, Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard demanded that Union Major Robert Anderson surrender Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. The supplies of the beseiged forts would only last them a few weeks. The Union sent ships to resupply the fort that Lincoln claimed had no reinforcements, but the Confederacy did not believe him. Beauregard's troops fired on the fort. By April 14, Anderson was forced to capitulate.
On the very next day, President Lincoln declared formally that the US faced a rebellion. Lincoln called up state militias and requested volunteers to enlist in the Army. In response to this call and to the surrender of Fort Sumter, four more states, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina all seceded. The Civil War had begun.
Each side proceeded to determine its strategies. The Confederate Army had a defensive-offensive strategy. The Confederacy only needed to defend itself to gain independence, but occasionally when the conditions were right, they would strike offensives into the North. Meanwhile, the strategy of aging Union General Winfield Scott became popularly known as the Anaconda Plan. The Anaconda Plan, so named after the South American snake that strangles its victims to death, aimed to defeat the Confederacy by surrounding it on all sides with a blockade of Southern ports and the swift capture of the Mississippi River.
[edit] First Battle of Bull Run and the Early Stages of the War
Four slave states remained in the Union: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. The four border states were all important, and Lincoln did not want them to join the Confederacy. Missouri controlled parts of the Mississippi River, Kentucky controlled the Ohio river, and Delaware was close to the important city of Philadelphia. Perhaps the most important border state was Maryland. It was close to the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia, and the Union capital, Washington, was located between pro-Confederate sections of Maryland and seceded Virginia. Lincoln knew that he had to be cautious if he did not want these states to join the Confederacy.
Both sides had advantages and weaknesses. The North had more people, more factories, more supplies and more money than the South. The South had more experienced military leadership, more trained armies, and the ability to fight on familiar territory.
However, the Confederacy faced considerable problems. Support for secession and the war was not unanimous, and all of the southern states provided considerable numbers of troops for the Union armies. Moreover, the presence of slavery acted as a drain of southern manpower, as adult males who might otherwise join the army were required to police the slaves and guard against slavery.
On July 21, 1861, the armies of General Beauregard and Union General Irvin McDowell met at Manassas, Virginia. At the Battle of Bull Run, the North originally had the upper hand, but Confederate General Thomas Jackson and his troops blocked Northern progress, standing "as a stone wall" (the origin of the nickname "Stonewall Jackson"). As Confederate reinforcements arrived, McDowell's army began to retreat in confusion and was defeated thoroughly, leading the North to discard its overly optimistic hopes for quick victory.
The Union even faced the threat of complete defeat early in the war. The Confederacy appointed two persons as representatives to the United Kingdom and France. Both of them decided to travel to Europe on a British ship, the [w: RMS_Trent|Trent]. A Union Captain, Charles Wilkes, seized the ship and forced the Confederate representatives to board the Union ship. However, Wilkes had violated the neutrality of the United Kingdom. The British demanded apologies, and Lincoln eventually complied, even releasing the Confederate representatives. Had he failed to do so, the United Kingdom might have joined with the Confederacy and the Union might have faced a much more devastating fight.
[edit] Technology and the Civil War
The Civil War was hallmarked by technological innovations that changed the nature of battle.
The most lethal change was the introduction of rifling to muskets. In previous wars, the maximum effective range of a musket was between 70 to 110 meters. Muskets, which were smoothbore firearms, weren't accurate beyond that. Tactics involved moving masses of troops to musket range, firing a volley, and then charging the opposing force with the bayonet, which is a sword blade attached to a firearm. However, a round (bullet) from an aimed rifled musket could hit a soldier more than 1300 meters away. This drastically changed the nature of warfare to the advantage of defenders. Massed attacks were less effective because they could easily be stopped from afar with a longer range.
The other key changes on land dealt with logistics (the art of military supply) and communications. By 1860, there were approximately 48,000 kilometers (30,000 miles) of railroad track, mostly in the Northern states. The railroads meant that supplies need not be obtained from local farms and cities, which meant armies could operate for extended periods of time without fear of starvation. In addition, armies could be moved across the country quickly, within days, without marching.
The telegraph is the third of the key technologies that changed the nature of the war. Washington City and Richmond, the capitals of the two opposing sides, could stay in touch with commanders in the field, passing on updated intelligence and orders. President Lincoln used the telegraph frequently, as did his chief general, Halleck, and field commanders such as Grant.
At sea, the greatest innovation was the introduction of ironclad warships. In 1862, the Confederate Navy built the CSS Virginia on the half-burned hull of the USS Merrimack. This ship, with iron armor, was impervious to cannon fire that would drive off or sink a wooden ship. The Virginia sank the U.S. frigate Cumberland and could have broken the blockade of the Federal fleet had it not been for the arrival of the ironclad USS Monitor, built by Swedish-American John Ericsson. The two met in May 1862 off Hampton Roads, Virginia. The battle was a draw, but this sufficed for the Union to continue its blockade of the Confederacy: the Virginia had retreated into a bay where it could not be of much use, and the Confederacy later burned it to prevent Union capture.
[edit] Things the Civil War had first
This is a list of things that the U.S. Civil War had first.
- Railroad artillery
- A successful submarine
- A "snorkel" breathing device
- The periscope, for trench warfare
- Land-mine fields
- Field trenches on a greater scale
- Flame throwers
- Wire entanglements
- Military telegraph
- Naval torpedoes
- Aerial reconnaissance
- Antiaircraft fire
- Repeating rifles
- Telescopic sights for rifles (Snipers)
- Long-range rifles for general use
- Fixed ammunition
- Ironclad navies
- A steel ship
- Revolving gun turrets
- Military railroads
- Organized medical and nursing corps
- Hospital ships
- Army ambulance corps
- A workable machine gun
- Legal voting for servicemen
- U.S. Secret Service
- The income tax
- Withholding tax
- Tobacco tax
- Cigarette tax
- American conscription
- American bread lines
- The Medal of Honor
- A wide-range corps of press correspondents in war zones aka battlefield correspondents
- Photography of battles and soldiers wounded and not wounded
- The bugle call, "Taps"
- African-American U.S. Army Officer (Major M.R. Delany)
- American President assassinated
- Department of Justice (Confederate)
- Commissioned American Army Chaplains
- U.S. Navy admiral
- Electronic exploding bombs and torpedoes
- The wigwag signal code in battle
- Wide-scale use of anesthetics for wounded
- Blackouts and camouflage under aerial observation
[edit] Shiloh and Ulysses Grant
While Union military efforts in the East were frustrated and even disastrous, West of the Appalachians, the war developed differently resulting in the first significant battlefield successes for the North.
Kentucky, on the border between the Union and Confederacy, was divided in its sentiments toward the two sides and politically attempted to pursue a neutral course. By autumn 1861, the state government decided to support the Union despite being a slave state. Kentucky's indecision and the divided loyalties of that state's population greatly influenced the course of military operations in the West as neither side wished to alienate Kentucky.
Below the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers where the Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri borders come together, Union Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, under command of Major General Henry W. Halleck, conducted a series of operations that would bring him national recognition. It was just across the Mississippi from Kentucky in Columbus, Missouri that Grant, later President of the United States, fought his first major battle.
The western campaigns continued into 1862 under Halleck's overall direction with Grant continuing into Western Tennessee along the Mississippi. In February, Grant attacked and captured the Tennessean Fort Donelson, providing a significant (though not necessarily major) victory for the North.
About two months after the victory at Fort Donelson, Grant fought an even more important battle at Shiloh.
Grant's troops killed Confederate General Albert Johnston and defeated the Confederate troops, but at a steep price. Approximately thirteen thousand Union soldiers and eleven thousand Confederate soldiers died, and Grant lost a chance of capturing the West quickly.
[edit] Further Reading on the Battle of Shiloh
[edit] Peninsular Campaign
General Stonewall Jackson threatened to invade Washington. To prevent Jackson from doing so, Union General George McClellan left over fifty-thousand men in Washington. Little did he know that the deceptive Jackson did not even have 5000 men in his army. McClellan's unnecessary fear caused him to wait over half a year before continuing the war in Virginia, earning him the nickname "Tardy George" and allowing enough time for the Confederates to strengthen their position. Jackson's deceptions succeeded when General McClellan led Union troops in the Peninsular Campaign, the attempt to take the Confederate capital Richmond, without the aid of the force remaining in Washington.
In early April 1862, McClellan began the Peninsular Campaign. His troops traveled over sea to the peninsula formed by the mouths of the York and James Rivers, which included Yorktown and Williamsburg and led straight to Richmond. (The Union strategy for a quick end to the war was capturing Richmond, which appeared easy since it was close to Washington.) In late May, McClellan was a few miles from Richmond, when Robert E. Lee took control of one of the Confederate Armies. After several battles, it appeared that McClellan could march to Richmond. But McClellan refused to attack, citing a lack of reinforcements. The forces that he wanted were instead defending Washington. During the last week of June, Confederate General Robert E. Lee initiated the Seven Days' Battles that forced McClellan to retreat. By July, McClellan had lost over fifteen thousand men for no apparent reason; there was little consolation in the fact that Lee had lost even more.
During the Peninsular Campaign, other military skirmishes occurred. Flag Officer David Farragut of the Union Navy easily took control of the Mississippi River when he captured the key port of New Orleans in April, providing a key advantage to the Union and practically depriving the Confederacy of the river.
[edit] Total War
If Richmond had indeed been captured quickly and the war had ended, slavery and the Southern lifestyle would probably not have changed significantly. After the unsuccessful Union attacks in Virginia, Lincoln began to think about the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Union changed its strategy, from a quick capture of Richmond, to the destruction of the South through total war. Total war is a war strategy in which both military and non-military resources that are important to a state's ability to make war are destroyed by the opposing power. It may involve attacks on civilians or the destruction of civilian property.
The Union strategy finally emerged with six parts:
- blockade the Confederate coastlines, preventing trade;
- free the slaves, destroying the domestic economy;
- disconnect the Trans-Mississippi by controlling the Mississippi River;
- further split the Confederacy by attacking the Southeast coast (Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina), denying access to foreign supply
- capture the capital of Richmond, which would severely incapacitate the Confederacy; and
- engage the enemy everywhere, weakening the armies through attrition.
[edit] Second Bull Run and Antietam
Meanwhile, a new Union Army under General John Pope was organized. Pope attempted to combine his army with McClellan's to create a powerful force. Stonewall Jackson attempted to prevent this danger by surrounding Pope's Army in Manassas. Both sides fought on August 29, and the Confederates won against a much larger Union force.
Pope's battered Army did eventually combine with McClellan's. But the Second Battle of Bull Run had encouraged General Lee to invade Maryland. In Sharpsburg, Maryland, McClellan and Lee led their armies against each other. On September 17, 1862, the Battle of Antietam (named for a nearby creek) led to the deaths of over ten thousand soldiers from each side; no other one-day battle led to more deaths in one day. McClellan's scouts had found Lee's battle plans with a discarded packet of cigars, but he did not act on the intelligence immediately. The Union technically won the Pyrrhic victory; McClellan lost about one-sixth of his Army, but Lee lost around one-third of his. This was the victory needed for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, so that it did not appear as an act of desperation.
[edit] The Emancipation Proclamation
President Lincoln liked men who did not campaign on the abolition of slavery. He only intended to prevent slavery in all new states and territories. On the 22n'd of August, 1862 Lincoln was coming to the decision that abolishing slavery might help the Union, in a letter from that time he wrote "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.". Doing so would especially disrupt the Confederate economy. In September, 1862, after the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln and his Cabinet agreed to emancipate, or free, Southern slaves. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states "forever free."
The constitutional authority for the Emancipation Proclamation cannot be challenged. The Proclamation did not abolish slavery everywhere; it was restricted to states "still in rebellion" against the Union on the day it took effect. The Proclamation, technically, was part of a military strategy against states that had rebelled; this was to prevent internal conflict with the border states. Still, all the border states except Kentucky and Delaware had abolished slavery on their own. Naturally, the proclamation had no way of being enforced: the Executive in the form of military action was still trying to force the Confederacy to rejoin. Nonetheless, many slaves who had heard of the Proclamation escaped when Union forces approached.
The Proclamation also had another profound effect on the war: it changed the objective from forcing the Confederacy to rejoin the Union to eliminating slavery throughout the United States. The South had been trying too woo Great Britain (which relied on its agricultural exports, especially cotton, for manufacturing) into an alliance; now all hopes for one were eliminated. Great Britain was firmly against the institution of slavery, and it had been illegalised throughout the British Empire since 1833. In fact, many slaves freed via the Underground Railroad were taken to Britain, since it was safe from bounty hunters (Canada was too close to the U.S. for some).
Although the Union initially did not accept black freedmen for combat, it hired them for other jobs. When troops became scarce, the Union began enlisting blacks. At the end of the war, the 180,000 enlisted blacks made up about 10% of the Union forces. Until 1864, the South refused to recognize captured black soldiers as prisoners of war, and executed several of them at Fort Pillow as escaped slaves. Lincoln believed in the necessity of black soldiers: in August 1864, he said if the black soldiers of the Union army all joined the Confederacy, "we would be compelled to abandon the war in three weeks." See Black Americans and the Civil War below for more on this subject.
[edit] Fredricksburg and Chancellorsville
Meanwhile, General McClellan seemed too defensive to Lincoln, who replaced McClellan with General Ambrose Burnside. Burnside decided to go on the offensive against Lee. In December 1862, at Fredricksburg, Virginia, Burnside's Army of the Potomac assaulted built-up Confederate positions and suffered terrible casualties to Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The Federal superiority in numbers was matched by Lee's use of terrain and modernized firepower. "Burnside's Slaughter Pen" resulted in over ten thousand Union casualties, largely due to the ill-considered use of Napoleonic tactics against machine guns. Burnside then tried another attempt to move to capture Richmond, but the movement was foiled by winter weather. The "Mud March" forced the Army of the Potomac to return to winter quarters.
In 1863, Lincoln again changed leadership, replacing Burnside with General Joseph Hooker. Hooker had a reputation for aggressiveness; his nickname was "Fighting Joe". From May 1 to May 4, 1863, near Chancellorsville, Virginia, General Lee, again outnumbered, used audacious tactics — he divided his smaller force in two in the face of superior numbers, sending Stonewall Jackson to the Union's flank, and defeated Hooker. Again, the Confederacy won, but at a great cost. Stonewall Jackson was accidentally shot by Confederate soldiers who didn't recognize him in the poor evening light and died shortly after the battle of Chancellorville.
[edit] Vicksburg
The North already held New Orleans. If they could take control over the entire Mississippi River, the Union could divide the Confederacy in two, making transportation of weapons and troops by the Confederates more difficult. General Winfield Scott's strategic "Anaconda Plan" was based on control of the Mississippi; however, planning control was easier than gaining the control.
The city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, was located on high bluffs on the eastern bank of the river. At the time, the Mississippi River went through a 180-degree U shaped bend by the city. Guns placed there could prevent Federal steamboats from crossing. It was also on one of the major railroads running east-west through the Confederacy. Vicksburg was therefore the key point under Confederate control.
Major General Ulysses Grant marched on land from Memphis, Tennessee, while Union General William Tecumseh Sherman and his troops traveled by water. Both intended to converge on Vicksburg, Mississippi. Both failed, at least for the time being in December, 1862, when Grant's supply line was disrupted and Sherman had to attack alone.
The Union forces made several attempts to bypass Vicksburg by building canals to divert the Mississippi River, but these failed.
Grant decided to attack Vicksburg again in April. Instead of approaching from the north, as had been done before, his army approached Vicksburg from the south. Grant's Army of the Tennessee crossed from the western bank to the Eastern at Big Bluff on April 18, 1863 and then in a series of battles, including Raymond and Champion's Hill, defeated Confederate forces coming to the relief of Confederate general Pemberton. Sherman and Grant together besieged Vicksburg. Two major assaults were repelled by the defenders of Vicksburg, including one in which a giant land mine was set off under the Confederate fortifications.
From May to July, Vicksburg remained in Confederate hands, but on July 3, 1863, one day before Independence Day, General Pemberton finally capitulated. Thirty thousand Confederates were taken prisoner, but released after taking an oath to not participate in fighting the United States unless properly exchanged (a practice called parole}.
This victory cut the Confederate States in two, accomplishing one of the Union total war goals. Confederate forces would not be able to draw on the food and horses previously supplied by Texas.
This victory was very important in many ways.
- The Union now controlled all of the Mississippi river.
- Controlling the Mississippi meant that the Union had now spilt the Confederacy into two, depriving Confederate forces of the food and supplies of Texas.
The people of Vicksburg would not celebrate Independence Day on July 4th for another 81 years.
[edit] Gettysburg
Concurrent with the opening of the Vicksburg Campaign, General Lee decided to march his troops into Pennsylvania for several reasons:
- He intended to win a major victory on Northern soil, increasing Southern morale, encouraging Northern peace activists, and increasing the likelihood of political recognition by England and France.
- He intended to feed his army on Northern supplies, reducing the burden on the Confederate economy.
- He intended to pressure Washington, DC, forcing the recall of Federal troops from the Western Theater and relieving some of the pressure on Vicksburg.
Using the Blue Ridge Mountains to screen his movements, Lee advanced up the Shenandoah Valley into West Virginia and Maryland before ultimately marching into south-central Pennsylvania. The Union forces moved north on roads to Lee's east. However, Lee did not know of the Federal movement, because his cavalry commander and chief scout, Jeb Stuart, had launched a raid eastward intending to "ride around" the Union army. On July 1, 1863, a Confederate division (Henry Heth's) ran into a Federal cavalry unit (Buford's) west of the city of Gettysburg. Buford's two brigades held their ground for several hours, until the arrival of the Union 1st Corps, and then withdrew through the town. The Confederates occupied Gettysburg, but by then the Union forces had formed a strong defensive line on the hills south of town.
For the next three days, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia faced the Union Army of the Potomac, now under the command of General George G. Meade, a Pennsylvanian who replaced Hooker, who had resigned as commander. (Hooker was given a corps command in the Army of the Cumberland, then in eastern Tennessee, where he performed satisfactorily for the remainder of the war.)
South of Gettysburg are high hills shaped like an inverted letter "J". At the end of the first day, the Union held this important high ground, partially because the Confederate left wing had dawdled moving into position. One July 2, Lee planned to attack up Emmitsburg Road from the south and west, hoping to force the Union troops to abandon the important hills and ridges. The attack went awry, and some Confederate forces, including Law's Alabama Brigade, attempted to force a gap in the Federal line between the two Round Tops, dominant heights at the extreme southern end of the Union's fish hook-shaped defensive line. Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, commander of the 20th Maine Regiment, anchored this gap. He and the rest of his brigade, commanded by Colonel Strong Vincent, held the hill despite several hard-pressed attacks, including launching a bayonet charge when the regiment was low on ammunition.
Meanwhile, north of the Round Tops, a small ridge immediately to the west of the Federal line drew the attention of General Daniel Sickles, a former New York congressman, who commanded the Third Corps. He ordered his corps to advance to the peach-orchard crested ridge, which led to hard fighting around the "Devil's Den," Wheatfield, and Peach Orchard. Sickles lost a leg in the fight.
On the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Lee decided to try a direct attack on the Union and "virtually destroy their army." Putting Lieutenant General James Longstreet in charge of the three-division main assault, he wanted his men, including the division of Major General George Pickett, to march across a mile and a half up a gradual slope to the center of the Union line. Lee promised artillery support, but any trained soldier who looked across those fields knew that they would be an open target for the Union soldiers--much the reverse of the situation six months before in Fredericksburg. However, the choice was either to attack or withdraw, and Lee was a naturally aggressive soldier.
By the end of the attack, half of Longstreet's force was dead, wounded or captured and the position was not taken. George Pickett never forgave Lee for "slaughtering" his men. Pickett's Charge, called the "High Water Mark of the Confederacy," was practically the last hope of the Southern cause at Gettysburg.
Lee withdrew across the Potomac River. Meade did not pursue quickly, and Lee was able to reestablish himself in Virginia. He offered to Confederate President Jefferson Davis to resign as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, saying, "Everything, therefore, points to the advantages to be derived from a new commander, and I the more anxiously urge the matter upon Your Excellency from my belief that a younger and abler man than myself can readily be attained." Davis did not relieve Lee; neither did Lincoln relieve Meade, though he wrote a letter of censure, saying "Again, my dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely."
The battle of Gettysburg lasted three days. Both sides lost nearly twenty-five thousand men each. After Gettysburg, the South remained on the defensive.
[edit] Black Americans and the Civil War
The view of the Union towards blacks changed during the previous two years. At the beginning of hostilities, the war was seen as an effort to save the Union, not free slaves. Several black slaves who reached Federal lines were returned to their owners. This stopped when Major General Benjamin F. Butler, a New Jersey lawyer and prominent member of the Democratic party, announced that slaves, being the property of persons in rebellion against the United States, would be seized as "contraband of war" and the Fugitive Slave Act could not apply. "Contrabands" were, if not always welcome by white soldiers, not turned away.
However, as the struggle grew more intense, abolition became a more popular option. Frederick Douglas, a former slave, urged that the war aim of the Union include the emanciplation of slaves and the enlistment of black soldiers in the Union Army. This was done on a nationwide basis in 1863, though the state of Massachusetts had raised two regiments (the 54th and 55th Massachusetts) before this.
Confederate President Jefferson Davis reacted to the raising of black regiments by passing General Order No. 111, which stated that captured black Federal soldiers would be returned into slavery (whether born free or not) and that white officers who led black soldiers would be tried for abetting servile rebellion. The Confederate Congress codified this into law on May 1, 1863. President Lincoln's order of July 30, 1863 responded:
It is therefore ordered that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war.
Eventually the Federal forces had several divisions' worth of black soldiers. Their treatment was not equal to white soldiers: at first, for example, black privates were paid $10 a month, the same as laborers, while white privates earned $13 a month. In addition, blacks could not be commissioned officers. The pay difference was settled retroactively in 1864.
The Confederate States also recruited and fielded black troops. It has been estimated that over 65,000 Southern blacks were in the Confederate ranks. Over 13,000 of these met the enemy in combat. Frederick Douglas reported, "There are at the present moment many Colored men in the Confederate Army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but real soldiers, having musket on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down any loyal troops and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government and build up that of the rebels."
The issue of black prisoners of war was a continual contention between the two sides. In the early stages of the war, prisoners of war would be exchanged rank for rank. However, the Confederates refused to exchange any black prisoner. The Union response was to stop exchanging any prisoner of war. The Confederate position changed to allowing blacks who were born free to be exchanged, and finally to exchange all soldiers, regardless of race. By then, the Federal leadership understood that the scarcity of white Confederates capable of serving as soldiers was an advantage, and there were no mass exchanges of prisoners, black or white, until the Confederate collapse.
[edit] Chickamauga and Chattanooga
In September 1863, Union Major General William Rosecrans decided to attempt the takeover of Chattanooga, a Confederate rail center in the eastern part of Tennessee. Controlling Chattanooga would provide a base to attack Georgia. The Confederates originally gave up Chattanooga, thinking that they could launch a devastating attack as the Union Army attempted to take control of it. Rosecrans did not, in the end, fall into such a trap. However, on November 23, 1863, the Union and Confederate Armies met at Chickamauga Creek, south of Chattanooga, upon which a rail line passed into Georgia.
The battle of Chickamauga was a Confederate victory. The Army of the Cumberland was forced to withdraw to Chattanooga, but Union General George Thomas, "the Rock of Chickamauga," and his troops prevented total defeat by standing their ground.
After Rosecrans withdrew to Chattanooga, the Confederates under General Braxton Bragg decided to beseige the city. Rosecrans was relieved of command; Lincoln's comment was that he appeared "stunned and confused, like a duck hit on the head." Meanwhile, by great effort, the Federal forces kept a "cracker line" open to supply Chattanooga with food and forage. Ulysses Grant replaced him.
Grant's forces began to attack on November 23, 1863. On November 24 came the Battle of Lookout Mountain, an improbable victory in which Union soldiers, without the initiative of higher command, advanced up this mountain, which overlooks Chattanooga, and captured it. One of the authors of this text had an ancestor in the Confederate forces there; his comment was when the battle started, he was on top of the hill throwing rocks at the Yankees, and when it was over, the Yankees were throwing rocks at him.
By the end of November, Grant and his troops had pushed the Confederates out of East Tennessee and begun operations in Georgia.
[edit] Ulysses Grant As General-in-Chief
Lincoln recognized the great victories won by Ulysses Grant. In March, 1864, the President made Grant the general-in-chief of Union Forces, with the rank of Lieutenant General (a rank only previously held by George Washington). Grant decided on a campaign of continual pressure on all fronts, which would prevent Confederate forces from reinforcing each other.
He went east and made his headquarters with General Meade's Army of the Potomac (although Grant never took direct command of this army). The Army of the Potomac's chief mission would be to whittle down the manpower of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee's army. In May 1864, the two sides met in Virginia near site of the previous year's Battle of Chancellorsville. The terrain was heavily wooded and movement to attack or reinforce was particularly difficult.
During the Battle of the Wilderness, the Union lost eighteen thousand soldiers, while the Confederates lost eleven thousand. Nevertheless, the Union pushed on. The two Armies fought each other again at Spotsylvania Court House and at Cold Harbor. In each case, the Union again lost large numbers of soldiers. Grant then hatched a plan to go around rather than through the Confederate Army in order to capture Richmond. At the last second, due to a hesitation by Major General "Baldy" Smith, the Army of Northern Virginia blocked the Union troops at Petersburg. Grant then decided to siege the city (and Lee's forces) and force it to surrender; if Lee could not move, he could not help other Confederate armies.
The siege took almost one year.
[edit] The Georgia Campaign
[edit] Battles for Atlanta
[edit] The March to the Sea
Once Atlanta was taken, General Sherman and four army corps disconnected themselves from any railroad or telegraphic communicaitons with the Union and headed through the state of Georgia. Their objective was Savannah, Georgia, a major seaport. Sherman's strategy was to inflict as much damage on the civilian population of Georgia, short of killing people, as possible. To accomplish this, he issued orders to "forage liberally on the country." Many of his soldiers saw this as a license to loot any food or valuable property they could. Sherman officially disapproved of this.
Sherman's army destroyed public buildings and railroad tracks whereever they went. One way to do this was through "Sherman's neckties", caused by heating a railroad section to red heat and twisting them around a tree.
The Confederate forces were unable to take on Sherman's forces, which, though separated from the Union army, had plenty of arms and ammuntion. He reached the city of Savannah on December 24, 1864, and telegraphed President Lincoln "I present to you the city of Savannah as a Christmas present."
[edit] Moving through the Carolinas
[edit] Hood's Invasion of Tennessee and the Battle of Nashville
[edit] Spring Hill
[edit] Franklin
[edit] Nashville
[edit] The End of the Confederacy
[edit] The Siege of Petersburg
[edit] The Crater
[edit] Retreat from Richmond
[edit] Appomattox
Sherman did not stop in Georgia. As he marched North, he burnt several towns in South Carolina, including Columbia, the capital. (Sherman's troops felt more anger towards South Carolina, the first state to secede and in their eyes responsible for the war.) In March 1865, Lincoln, Sherman, and Grant all met outside Petersburg. Lincoln called for a quick end to the Civil War. Union General Sheridan said to Lincoln, "If the thing be pressed I think Lee will surrender." Lincoln responded, "Let the thing be pressed."
On April 2, 1865, the Confederate lines of Petersburg, Richmond's defense, which had been extended steadily to the west for 9 months, broke. General Lee informed President Davis he could no longer hold the lines; the Confederate government then evacuated Richmond. Lee pulled his forces out of the lines and moved west; Federal forces chased Lee's forces, annihilated a Confederate rear guard defense, and finally trapped the Army of Northern Virginia. General Lee requested terms. The two senior Confederate officers met each other near Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. Grant offered extremely generous terms, requiring only that Lee's troops surrender and swear not to bear arms till the end of the War.
General Sherman met with Confederate General Albert Johnston to discuss the surrender of Confederate troops in the South. Sherman initially allowed even more generous terms than Grant. However, the Secretary of War refused to accept the terms because of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by the Confederate John Wilkes Booth. By killing Lincoln at a theater, Booth made things worse for the Confederacy. Sherman was forced to offer harsher terms of surrender than he originally proposed, and General Johnston surrendered on April 26 under the Appomattox terms. All Confederate armies had surrendered by the end of May, ending the Civil War.
Side note: A Virginian named Wilmer McLean had no luck escaping the Civil War. The first battle of the war, Bull Run, was fought right in front of his house, and the generals slept there, too. Hoping to get away from the war, he then moved to Appomattox. It was in his parlor that Lee surrendered to Grant.
[edit] Besides the Fighting
Not all the important events of the Civil War took place on the battlefield.
On May 20, 1862, the United States Congress passed the Homestead Act, which had been delayed by Southern legislators before secession. According to the provisions of the Act, any adult American citizen, or a person intending to become an American citizen, who was the head of a household, could qualify for a grant of 160 acres (67 hectares) of land by paying a small fee and living on the land continuously for 5 years. If a person was willing to pay $1.25 an acre, the time of occupation dwindled to six months.
Other vital legislature were the Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864, which enabled the United States Government to make a direct grant of land to railway companies for a transcontinental railroad, as well as a payment of $48,000 for every mile of track completed and lower-than-prime rate loans for any railway company who would build such a railway. Two railways, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific, began to construct lines. The two railways finally met 4 years after the war, in Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869.
The federal government started a draft lottery in July, 1863. Men could avoid the draft by paying $300, or hiring another man to take their place. On Monday, July 13, 1863, between 6 and 7 A.M., the Civil War Draft Riots began in New York City. Rioters lynched black men, burned down the Colored Orphan Asylum on 5th Avenue between 43rd and 44th Streets, and forced hundreds of blacks out of the city. Members of the 7th New York Infantry and 71st New York Infantry subdued the riot.
