CIVIL WARAMERICAN

MAJOR EVENTS LEADING TO THE CIVIL WAR

PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1860

HOW DOES THIS WAR COMPARE TO OTHER AMERICAN WARS?

Abraham Lincolnserved as the 16th president of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He issued his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and promoted the passage of the �irteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, he was mostly self-educated. He became a countrylawyer, an Illinois state legislator, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives, but failed in two a�emptsat a seat in the United States Senate.

was an American statesmen and leader of theConfederacy during the American Civil War;serving as the President for its entire history.A West Point graduate, Davis fought in the Mexican-American War as a colonel of a volunteer regiment, and was the United States Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. He served as a U.S. Senator representing the state of Mississippi. As a senator, he arguedagainst secession, but did agree that each state was sovereign and had an unquestionableright to secede from the Union.

was the 18th President of the United Statesas well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods.Under command, the Union Army defeatedthe Confederate military and ended theConfederate States of America. A�er the war, on July 25, 1866, Congress promoted Grant to the newly created rank of General of the Army of the United States, a form of the rank General of the Armies of the United States.

was a career United States Army o�cer and combat engineer. He became the commanding general of the Confederate Army in the American Civil War and a postwar icon of the South’s “lost cause.” Lee's numerous victories against superior forces won him enduring fame as a cra�y and daring ba�le�eld tactician, but some of his strategic decisions, such as invading the North in 1862 and 1863, have been criticized by many military historians.

*Combat deaths refers to troops killed in action or dead of wounds. Other includes deaths from disease, privation, and accidents, and includes losses among prisoners of war. Wounded excludes those who died of their wounds, who are included under Combat Deaths. Confederate Army statistics are incomplete and estimated due to missing records.

Je�erson Davis Ulysses S. Grant Robert E. Lee

DEADLIESTBATTLES

CASUALTIES

1861-1865

WAR BETWEENTHE STATES

A COUNTRY DIVIDED

�e American Civil War was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America, also known as “the Confederacy.” Led by Je�erson Davis, the Confederacy fought against the United States

Between 1861 and 1865, Americans made war on each other and killed each other in great numbers — if only to become the kind of country that could no longer conceive of how that was possible. What began as a bi�er dispute over Union and States' Rights, ended as a struggle over the meaning of freedom in America. At Ge�ysburg in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said perhaps more than he knew. �e war was about a "new birth of freedom."

(the Union), which was supported by all the free states (where slavery had been abolished) and by �ve slave states that became known as the border states. �e American Civil War was one of the earliest true industrial wars. Railroads, the telegraph and mass- produced weapons were employed

1 GETTYSBURG

(Union and Confederate killed, wounded, missing, captured totals)

2 CHICKAMAUGA3 CHANCELLORSVILLE

4 SPOTSYLVANIA 5 ANTIETAM

6 WILDERNESS7 BULL RUN

8 STONES RIVER9 SHILOH

10 FORT DONELSON

COMBATDEATHS

OTHER

WOUNDED

TOTAL

51,11236,624

30,09927,399

26,13425,41625,251

24,64523,741

19,455

1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860

Mexican War EndedWith new territories added to theUnion, it posed a di�cult task for thegovernment--would these new states be free or slave? Congress passed theCompromise of 1850 which let statesdecide whether it would allow slavery.

Fugitive Slave ActPart of the Compromise of 1850, thisact forced any federal o�cial who didnot arrest a runaway slave liable to pay a �ne. It caused many abolitioniststo increase their e�orts against slavery,as well as increased Underground Railroad activity.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin released�is book was wri�en by Harriet Beecher Stowe, an abolitionist. It helped further the cause of abolitionby showing the evils of slavery.Abraham Lincoln recognized this book as one of the events that led tothe outbreak of the Civil War.

Bleeding Kansas�e Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, which allowed those territories to decide for themselves whether they wanted to be free or slave. Kansas soonbecame a hotbed of violence as pro-and anti-slavery forces fought over thestate’s future.

Charles Sumner a�ackedPro-slavery congressman PrestonBrooks a�acked Charles Sumner onthe U.S. Senate �oor a�er he had given a speech a�acking the pro-slavery forces for the violenceoccurring in Kansas.

Dred Sco� decisionDred Sco� lost his case proving he should be free because he had been held as a slave while living in a free state. �e court ruled that he could not be seen because he holds no property. Even though he was taken by his ‘owner’ into a free state, he was still a slave because they were considered as property of their owners.

John Brown raided Harper’s FerryJohn Brown was a radical abolitionist who was involved in anti-slavery violence in Kansas. He led 17 people to raid the arsenal located in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. His goal was to start a slave uprising using the captured weapons. �ey were eventually killed or captured by Colonel Robert E. Lee. Brown was tried and hung for treason.

Abraham Lincoln elected presidentSouth Carolina, followed by 6 other states, seceded from the Union with Lincoln’s election. Lincoln agreed with the majority of the Republican Party that the South was becomingtoo powerful, and made it part of their pla�orm that slavery would not be extended to any new territories or states added to the Union.

UNION CONFEDERATE

175,000

15,000 30,000 45,000

0

0

350,000 525,000 700,000

110,070

249,458

275,175

634,703

74,524

124,000

137,000

335,524

extensively. �e practices of total war and of trench warfare around Petersburg foreshadowed World War I in Europe. It remains the deadliest war in American history, resulting in the deaths of thousands of 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. �e social, political, economic and racial issues of the war decisively shaped the reconstruction era that lasted to 1877.

DAI 523 Information Design IInstructor: Pino TroguDesign and Industry DepartmentCollege of Creative ArtsSan Francisco State UniversityCalifornia, USA – December 2010

Case Study No. 9 Designed by Mary Kay Hickox

The 34x44 poster can be folded down to 8.5x11 as shown on the grid.

BACKCOVER

FRONT COVER

250,000

750,000

1,000,000

1775

1780

1785

1790

1795

1800

1805

1810

1815

1820

1825

1830

1835

1840

1845

1850

1855

1860

1865

1870

1875

1880

1885

1890

1895

1900

1905

1910

1915

1920

1925

1930

1935

1940

1945

1950

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

34

6

2

8

TEXAS

LOUISIANA

MISSISSIPPI ALABAMA GEORGIA

FLORIDA

SOUTHCAROLINA

NORTHCAROLINA

VIRGINIA

TENNESSEE

KENTUCKY

INDIANAILLINOIS

MISSOURI

IOWA

KANSAS

MINNESOTA

WISCONSIN

MICHIGAN

OHIO

PENNSYLVANIA

NEW YORK

MAINENEW HAMPSHIRE

MASSACHUSETTS

RHODE ISLAND

VERMONT

ARKANSAS

CONNECTICUT

MARYLAND

UNION STATES

DELAWARE

NEW JERSEY

9

10

5

7

CALIFORNIA

DAKOTATERRITORY

WASHINGTONTERRITORY

OREGON

INDIANTERRITORYNEW MEXICO

TERRITORY

UTAHTERRITORY

CONFEDERATE STATES

BATTLE SITES

500,000

1

1 REVOLUTIONARY WAR 10,6232 WAR OF 1812 6,7653 MEXICAN-AMERICAN WAR 17,4354 CIVIL WAR 970,2275 SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 4,1086 WORLD WAR I 320,7107 WORLD WAR II 1,078,1628 KOREAN WAR 136,9359 VIETNAM WAR 211,471

10 WAR ON TERROR 54,800

�e Confederate States of America (also called the Confederacy, the Confederate States, and the C.S.A.) was an unrecognized state set up from 1861 to 1865 by eleven southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S. �e Confederacy's control over its claimed territory shrank steadily during the course of the war, as the Union took control of much of the seacoast and inland waterways.

Two percent of the US population died in the Civil War. Only World War II claimed the lives of more Americans. �e proportion of casualties to the total number of soldiers who fought was extremely high by military standards. �is was in large part due to the weapons used (small arms �re accounted for more than three-quarters of the deaths) and to the high rate of disease.

One out of every ten able-bodied northern males was killed or injured by the war; one out of every four southern males (including blacks) was killed or injured. Blacks counted for twenty percent of the Union death toll. Of the 21,000 Cherokee, most of whom fought for the Confederacy, a third died.

Secessionists argued that the United States Constitution was a compact among states that could be abandoned at any time without consultation and that each state had a right to secede. A�er intense debates and statewide votes, seven Deep South co�on states passed secession ordinances by February 1861 (before Abraham Lincoln took o�ce as president), while secession e�orts failed in the other eight slave states.

Delegates from the seven formed the

C.S.A. in February 1861, selecting Je�erson Davis as temporary president until elections could be held in 1862. Talk of reunion and compromise went nowhere, because the Confederates insisted on independence which the Union strongly rejected.