The Furnace of Civil War 1861-1865
Bull Run Ends the Ninety-Day War On July 21, 1861, ill-trained Yankee recruits marched out toward Bull Run to engage a smaller Confederate unit and hey expected one big battle and a quick victory for the war However, after initial success by the Union, Confederate reinforcements arrived and, coupled with Stonewall Jackson s line holding, sent the Union soldiers into disarray The Battle of Bull Run showed the North that this would not be a short, easy war Battle of Bull Run
McClellan and the Peninsula Campaign Later in 1861, command of the Army of the Potomac (name of the Union army) was given to 34 year old General George B. McClellan At Lincoln s urging, McClellan finally decided upon a waterborne approach to Richmond (the South s capital), called the Peninsula Campaign Southern General Robert E. Lee launched a devastating counterattack the Seven Days Battle on June 26 to July 2 of 1862 Lincoln and McClellan
Peninsula Campaign, 1862
Main Thrusts, 1861 1865 The Anaconda Plan Monitor and Merrimack
The Pivotal Point: Antietam General McClellan and the Union forces were able to stop the Southerners at Antietam Creek on September 17, 1862 in one of the bloodiest days of the Civil War Antietam was the Union display of power that Lincoln needed to discourage European interference and announce his Emancipation Proclamation, which would go into effect on January 1, 1863 Now, the war was not just to save the Union, it was to free the slaves as well, which gave the war a moral purpose (end slavery) to go with its political purpose (restore the union) Lincoln with McClellan and staff at the Grove Farm after the battle.
Blacks Battle Bondage By war s end, Black s accounted for about 10% of the Union army Until 1864, Southerners refused to recognize Black soldiers as prisoners of war, and often executed them as runaways and rebels Many Blacks did not cast off their chains when they heard the Emancipation Proclamation, but many others walked off of their jobs when Union armies conquered territories that included the plantations that they worked on The 54th Massachusetts at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863
Lee s Last Lunge at Gettysburg In the summer of 1863, Lee prepared to invade the North for the second and final time, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, but he was met by General George G. Meade In the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863), General George Pickett led a hopeless, bloody, and pitiful charge across a field that ended in the slaughter of Confederates and sealed the victory for the Union In November 1863, Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address, which added moral purpose to the war saying a new goal was to make sure those who had been killed had not died in vain Photograph of the aftermath at Gettysburg
The Road to Gettysburg, December 1862 July 1863
Battle of Gettysburg, 1863
The War in the West Lincoln finally found a general who would act in Ulysses S. Grant, and he fought under the ideal of immediate and unconditional surrender At Vicksburg, Mississippi, U.S. Grant besieged the city and captured it on July 4, 1863, thus securing the important Mississippi River General William Tecumseh Sherman captured and burned down Atlanta before completing his infamous March to the Sea at Savannah His men cut a trail of destruction one-mile wide, waging total war by cutting up railroad tracks, burning fields and crops, and destroying everything Sherman Grant
The Mississippi River and Tennessee, 1862 1863
Sherman's March, 1864 1865
Union Party, 1864
Presidential Election of 1864 (showing popular vote by county)
Grant Outlasts Lee Grant engaged the Confederates in battles because he knew that he could afford to lose twice as many men as Lee In a series of wilderness encounters, Grant fought Lee, with Grant losing about 50,000 men Finally, Grant and his men captured Richmond, burnt it, and cornered Lee at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia in April of 1865, where Lee formally surrendered Grant and Lee at Appomattox Courthouse
Grant's Virginia Campaign, 1864 1865
The Martyrdom of Lincoln On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth and died the next day The Civil War cost 600,000 men, $15 billion, and eradicated the institution of slavery The Civil War also gave America a supreme test of its existence proving its strength and further increasing its growing power and reputation Lincoln's assassin, Booth, is goaded by a hideous Mephistophelian figure to shoot the President, who is visible in a theater box beyond.