Tommy's Notes Repository

5 3-5 Civil war part 2

4 min read

Essential Questions

  1. To what extent did Abraham Lincoln secure the authority of the national government and increase the power of the presidency during the civil war?
  2. Why are specific Civil War events considered turning points ?

Turning Points

SPEECHES Throughout the war, several speeches swayed public opinion, guided strategies, and significantly altered the course of the United States.

BATTLES

During the course of the war, several battles changed the tide of the war.

END OF THE WAR

1865 brought about the end of the war but not the end of the animosity.

Radical Republicans

  • Thaddeus Stevens was the leader of the Radical Republicans; slave labor provides south with supplies
    • Fortifications, food
  • Convince Lincoln to make war over slavery
  • Lincoln becomes abolitionist
    • Strategic – get support from Britain & slow Southern production
  • Lincoln’s new war aim was to abolish slavery ” If that’s what it took” to preserve the Union
  • British support

Emancipation Proclamation

  • Freed slaves in Confederate states not under Union control
    • Doesn’t really free anyone – symbolic freedom
  • Slavery maintained in border states
    • Why? They did not want to alienate them and send them to joining the confederacy
  • Gives war moral cause
    • More support from Europe
  • Davis: determined to fight until the end, no turning back

Lincoln Struggles with Recruitment

  • By early 1863, the number of men volunteering for military service declines to almost none.
  • Lincoln issued conscription - the Civil War Military Draft Act
  • The Confederacy also enacted a draft

The 54th Regiment *All African American Regiment from Massachusetts by Robert Shaw

  • Recruited mainly from Boston
    • Positive response
    • Mostly educated men
  • Refused pay in protest to unequal pay
    • 3$ was withheld from pay for uniform expenses - White soldiers did not have to pay this

Draft Riots, 1863

  • “Rich man’s war – poor man’s fight”
  • Riots in NY 100 dead
  • Direct result of conscription
  • Mainly in North

Battle of Antietam

  • Part of the Maryland Campaign
  • Single bloodiest day in American history, with a combined tally of 22,717 dead wounded or missing.
  • Union suffered heavy losses, but resulted in a Union Victory and considered a major turning point.

Vicksburg

  • Grant ordered destruction of rail lines to distract South away from port city
    • 47 days of constant bombardment
  • Turning Point of the War
    • Coupled with Gettysburg this helps turn the war in favor of the Union
  • Confederate soldiers asking to give up (no food)
  • Union victory, control Mississippi River
    • Divide Confederacy

Gettysburg

  • Lee knew it was essential to invade the North
  • Union victory
  • Turning point of the war
  • Lee’s worst defeat
    • Attempted to resign, but Jefferson Davis refused to accept.
  • Crushed Southern morale

Ulysses S Grant

  • Given command of the entire Union force in march 1864
    • Answerable only to President Lincoln
  • Used attrition
    • South would run out of men 1st
    • 60,000 dead in first fight
  • South thought about arming slaves
  • Believed in Unconditional Surrender
    • No negotiations, immediate.
  • “Unconditional Surrender” Grant

William T Sherman

  • Union general who introduced modern warfare
  • Total War: Destroy everything
    • Attack civilian targets, not civilians

Election of 1864

  • Lincoln’s popularity slumping
    • Length of war, # dead
  • Lincoln wins, despite negative appeals
    • Hid facts of Battle of Cold Harbor
  • Andrew Johnson: V.P.
    • Southerner
  • Lincoln working on a plan to reunite the nation after the war, but he will never live to see it set into motion

March to the Sea

  • Sherman leads Union troops through Georgia and up through South Carolina
  • Total War: Expelled civillians from Atlanta and burned the city
    • Destroyed rail lines, warehouses, fields, etc.
    • Crushed Southern morale
  • Liberated 25,000 slaves
  • Gave food & supplies to NC
    • Did not destroy Wilmington
  • Northern Victory

The Fall of Richmond

  • Sherman & Grant marching to Richmond
  • Davis flees & sets city on fire
  • Richmond falls 1865
    • Last of the Anaconda Plan to be achieved

Appomattox Courthouse

  • Lee surrenders to Grant
  • Within 1 month, all remaining Confederate resistance collapsed

The Assassination of Lincoln

  • 5 days after the end of the war Lincoln is assassinated by John W Boothe while watching the play Our American Cousin
  • Lincoln dies the next day
  • Andrew Johnson becomes President of the US