HOW SHOULD THE CIVIL WAR BE REPRESENTED?

Transcription

1 8 th Grade Inquiry into The Civil War HOW SHOULD THE CIVIL WAR BE REPRESENTED? "The Monitor and Merrimac: The First Fight Between Ironclads", produced by Louis Prang & Co., Boston, Supporting Questions 1. What events in the mid-1800s contributed to a dividing nation? 2. What new types of technologies and warfare emerged during the Civil War? 3. What were some of the costs and sacrifices of the Civil War? 1

2 Featured Source Source A: Railroad lines in the North and the South This map is meant to provide a visual sense that the Northern and Southern transportation technologies were very different. The North was more industrialized, symbolized by the greater number of railroads, whereas the South more agricultural and dependent on slave labor, and cotton production. The Civil War was the first war to use railroads, encouraged by President Lincoln himself a former railroad lawyer who understood how vital they were for moving men and supplies. The North had a distinct advantage, with superior infrastructure (20,000 miles of track), better equipment and their own locomotive factory. Whereas the South had just 9,000 miles of track and had converted its locomotive works into an armaments factory. The trains allowed generals to move their soldiers, supplies and armaments to where they were most needed. Rail centers and railroad infrastructure soon became targets for attack. While the South's rail system was weak, they were the first to use trains to their advantage, transporting supplies and soldiers to vital areas. The North was stymied by railroad owners more concerned with how much they could charge, than how quickly they could aid the cause. In fact, Secretary of War Simon Cameron was forced to resign when it was discovered he was trying to profit from War Department contracts for railroad shipping. 2

3 Featured Source Source B: Ironclad Warships: The Monitor vs. The Merrimac, 1862 "The Monitor and Merrimac: The First Fight Between Ironclads", a chromolithograph of the Battle of Hampton Roads, produced by Louis Prang & Co., Boston, The March 9, 1862, battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack (CSS Virginia) during the American Civil War ( ) was history s first duel between ironclad warships. The engagement, known as the Battle of Hampton Roads, was part of a Confederate effort to break the Union blockade of Southern ports, including Norfolk and Richmond, Virginia, that had been imposed at the start of the war. Though the battle itself was inconclusive, it began a new era in naval warfare. For centuries before the Civil War, large naval battles had not changed dramatically. Conflicts in the Age of Sail were fought by wooden, sail-driven ships carrying as many cannon as possible, which would generally pummel each other until one of them became so damaged that it could not keep up the fight. The developments in artillery and propulsion led to another key innovation: the ironclad. Realizing how tremendously vulnerable wooden ships were to destruction by long range, explosive cannon fire, naval architects began to dramatically improve ships' defenses by plating them with iron or steel. This casing made shells bounce off the ship, allowing ironclads to survive repeated direct hits. Ironclads were extremely heavy, so powerful steam engines took the place of sails, which were weaker and vulnerable to enemy fire. 3

4 Featured Source Source C: U.S.S. Monitor Revolving Gun Turret, 1862 T The Monitor crew poses with the ship in 1862 (note the dents in the Monitor's turret sustained during the Battle of Hampton Roads. Image courtesy of the Naval Historical Center). The revolving gun turret is the most famous feature of the USS Monitor. While the ship's designer, John Ericsson, was not the first to envision a revolving turret, his design for the Monitor was the first completed turreted naval vessel to be built. The turret is 21 1/2 feet in diameter and nine feet tall. It was constructed of eight one-inch-thick iron plates that, with the exception of the first two layers, were bolted together so that they could be easily replaced if needed. It weighed about 120 tons and was able to rotate with the help of two steam engines that used a crank to turn four gears. 4

5 Featured Source Source D: Section View of U.S.S. Monitor Revolving Gun Turret, 1862 Engraving published circa 1862, based on John Ericsson's drawings, and measurements taken from the ship. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. The U.S.S. Monitor incorporated many innovative naval designs, but its rotating, armored turret may have been the most important. 5

6 Featured Source Source E: Hot Air Balloons during the Civil War, 1861 Professor Lowe's military balloon near Gaines Mill, Virginia, 1861 (engraving). The Union and the Confederate armies both used Hot Air Balloons for spying and aerial reconnaissance of battlefields during the Civil War. A Balloon Corps was established by President Lincoln early on. The maiden voyage of the first official Union balloon occurred in late August, Balloon operators used another wartime innovation, the telegraph, to let commanders on the ground know of Confederates movements. This allowed Union guns to be repositioned and fired accurately at troops more than three miles away a first in military history. Union Chief Aeronaut Thaddeus Lowe, creator of the Union Army s Balloon Corps, built the first mobile hydrogen gas generators so that he could fill his balloons anywhere he needed to. These balloons were able to climb up to 5,000 ft into the air. One of Lowe s balloons was shot down on November 16, Lowe was not keeping orders so he resigned from balloon corps on May 8, By August 1861 the corps disbanded. Lowe also designed an aircraft carrier that was used to transport hot air balloons and allow them to be used in areas closer to the battles. They would launch a tethered balloon and make observations while the balloon was being towed down the river. The Confederate Army also made use of balloons, but they were gravely hampered by supplies due to the embargoes. They were forced to fashion their balloons from colored silk dress-making material, and their use was limited by the infrequent supply of gas in Richmond, Virginia. By the summer of 1863, all balloon reconnaissance of the Civil War had ceased. 6

7 Featured Source Source F: Scorched Earth Policy Engraving depicting Sherman's march to the sea, Alexander Hay Ritchie, A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy that targets anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area. Specifically, all of the assets that are used or can be used by the enemy are targeted, such as food sources, transportation, communications, industrial resources, and even the people in the area. From November 15 until December 21, 1864, Union General William T. Sherman led some 60,000 soldiers on a 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. The purpose of this March to the Sea was to frighten Georgia s civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause. Sherman s soldiers did not destroy any of the towns in their path, but they stole food and livestock and burned the houses and barns of people who tried to fight back. The Yankees were not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, Sherman explained; as a result, they needed to make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war. The strategy of destroying the food and water supply of the civilian population in an area of conflict has been banned under Article 54 of Protocol I of the 1977 Geneva Conventions. The relevant passage says: It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive. 7