Chapter 14 “A New Birth of Freedom”: The Civil War, 1861–1865 THE BLOODIEST WAR OF ALL...

Chapter 14“A New Birth of Freedom”: The Civil War, 1861–1865

THE BLOODIEST WAR OF ALL AMERICAN WARS

The First Modern War-The Two Combatants

• The American Civil War has been called the *first modern war*. This was the first time mass armies fought with weapons forged by the Industrial Revolution, and the scale of casualties was unprecedented in American history.

The First Modern War-The Two Combatants

The North, including loyal border states, had a population of 22 million, while the South had only 9 million, 3.5 million of whom were slaves. The Union had far more manufacturing, railroad track, and financial resources.

THE FIRST MODERN WAR—THE TECHNOLOGY OF WAR

• The Civil War was the first major conflict in which the railroad moved troops and supplies. The war saw the famous battle between the Union vessel Monitor and Confederate Merrimac in 1862, which showed the advantage of ironclads over wooden ships and transformed naval warfare. The telegraph, observation balloons, and even hand grenades and submarines were used for the first time.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ABzaEHQ4Hg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7ffAvRpwwE















THE FIRST MODERN WAR-THE TECHNOLOGY OF WAR

• Most important was the revolution in arms manufacturing, which replaced the musket, accurate only at a short range, with the **rifle**, deadly at 600 or more yards because of its grooved barrel. This development produced the awful casualties of the war’s battles.

THE FIRST MODERN WAR-THE TECHNOLOGY OF WAR

• Medical care was primitive, and large numbers of Americans for the first time were captured and held as prisoners of war in camps, leading to high death rates. ***At least 620,000 died in the war, the equivalent of more than 6 million in today’s population***

THE FIRST MODERN WAR-MOBILIZING THE PUBLIC

• The Civil War was also modern in the use of propaganda by both sides to mobilize public opinion. Modern media, with newspapers, telegraphs, and especially photographs, for the first time captured the often shocking reality of war and communicated it to the public.

THE FIRST MODERN WAR-MOBILIZATION

• Both sides were unprepared for war. There was no national banking system, no tax system to raise revenue for the war, and few accurate maps of the South. After *Fort Sumter*, Lincoln enacted a blockade of the South, intended to destroy its commerce, but the navy at first had too few ships to enforce it.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9p7V7GrHjE

THE FIRST MODERN WAR-MOBILIZATION

• The problems of purchasing and distributing food, weapons, and other supplies for the armies were huge. While the Union Army eventually became the best-fed and best-supplied force in history, southern soldiers lacked food, uniforms, and shoes. Lacking sufficient industrial capacity, the Confederate government imported many items for the military from abroad and established its own arsenals.

THE FIRST MODERN WAR-MILITARY STRATEGIES

• Each side tried to exploit its advantages—the South, by adopting a **defensive strategy** to wear down the North, led by the **brilliant Robert E. Lee**, and the North, by using its superiority in manpower and technology.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AVMoo_PT40

THE FIRST MODERN WAR-MILITARY STRATEGIES

• Lincoln soon realized that capturing and occupying territory would not win the war; defeating the South’s armies would. Lincoln’s eventual embrace of emancipation acknowledged that **slavery was the basis of the Confederacy, and that to win the conflict, the Union had to make this institution, the *economic and social foundation* of the South, a military target**.

THE FIRST MODERN WAR-WAR BEGINS

• Most of the **war in the East** occurred in a narrow corridor between Washington and Richmond, as a series of Union generals led the North’s Army of the Potomac toward the Confederate capital, only to be repeatedly repulsed by the main Confederate army. The first significant clash at **Bull Run** ended in the defeat and chaotic retreat of Union forces.

THE FIRST MODERN WAR-WAR BEGINS

• George B. McClellan soon took command of the Union’s main army, but after thoroughly training this army’s tens of thousands of volunteer soldiers, he proved reluctant to commit them to battle. McClellan was a Democrat, and he hoped that compromise might end the conflict without many casualties or weakening slavery.

THE FIRST MODERN WAR-THE WAR IN THE EAST, 1862

• Pressured by public opinion, President Lincoln, and Congress, McClellan, in the spring of 1862, led his army of more than 100,000 men into Virginia. Approaching the Confederate capital on the peninsula southwest of Richmond, McClellan’s advance was ably deflected by Lee in a series of battles, forcing McClellan back to Washington, D.C


• After Lee won the second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862, he **invaded the North**, hoping to 1-bring border slave states into the Confederacy, 2-gain French and British recognition of southern independence, 3-influence the North’s elections in the fall, and 4-perhaps capture Washington, D.C.


• At the Battle of *Antietam*, McClellan and the *Army of the Potomac* repelled Lee’s invasion. In one day at *Antietam*, nearly 4,000 men were killed and 18,000 wounded.


• Northern triumph was short-lived. General Ambrose E. Burnside, who replaced McClellan, was repulsed by Lee’s army of Northern Virginia at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December 1862, with heavy losses.

THE FIRST MODERN WAR: THE WAR IN THE WEST

• The North had better luck in the West. There *Ulysses S. Grant*, a West Point graduate whose army career had been ruined by his excessive drinking, captured several important forts in Tennessee in early 1862.

THE FIRST MODERN WAR-THE WAR IN THE WEST

• In April 1862, naval forces under Admiral David G. Farragut steamed into New Orleans and captured that city for the Union, which now controlled the South’s largest city and its lucrative nearby sugar plantations. After *Grant* repelled a surprise Confederate attack at *Shiloh*, Tennessee, Union success in the West stalled.

The Coming of Emancipation—Slavery and the War

• At the war’s beginning, Lincoln* identified the North’s cause with the cause of *free labor.* Lincoln also initially stated that the conflict was ***not being fought to end or limit slavery, but to preserve the Union.*** He wanted to keep the ***border slave states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri in the Union*** and build the broadest possible base of support for the war in the North.

The Coming of Emancipation—THE UNRAVELLING OF SLAVERY

• As Confederates used slave labor for military purposes and blacks began to escape to Union lines, this initial policy of **ignoring slavery** became untenable. By the end of 1861, Union commanders had begun treating escaped slaves as **“contraband” of war**—*property of military value subject to confiscation*.

The Coming of Emancipation-Steps toward Emancipation

• Anti-slavery northerners pressed the federal government to realize that *slavery was the basis of the southern economy and its military capacities*, and they insisted emancipation was required in order to weaken the South. Abolitionists and Radical Republicans demanded, none more adamantly than Frederick Douglass, that abolition become a war aim.


• NOW, Congress, frustrated by military failures, *1-prohibited the army from returning fugitive slaves (March 1862), 2- abolished slavery in Washington, D.C., and the territories, and 3-passed the Second Confiscation Act, which freed slaves of disloyal owners in Union-occupied territory and slaves who escaped to Union lines.*


• But President Lincoln still reversed the policies of Union generals who declared emancipation in their districts, and he still endorsed colonization as a solution to slavery.

The Coming of Emancipation-Lincoln’s Decision

• However, in summer 1862, Lincoln decided that **emancipation had become a military and political necessity.** He delayed his intention to free the slaves until after a Union victory, and after the battle of *Antietam*, he issued a *preliminary Emancipation Proclamation*.

The Coming of Emancipation-Lincoln’s Decision

• The Democrats gained considerable political victories in some northern states, and Lincoln, now on the defensive, revived plans for gradual emancipation (compensated) and colonization and downplayed racial equality.

The Coming of Emancipation-The Emancipation Proclamation

• **On January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed and issued the Emancipation Proclamation.** The document **did not free all the slaves and at first applied to very few.** Based on Lincoln’s authority as military commander-in-chief, the proclamation **exempted areas under Union control.**


• Thus, it **did not apply to loyal border slave states that had not seceded or to parts of the Confederacy occupied by Union forces, such as Tennessee and parts of Virginia and Louisiana.** But it **declared free the vast majority of the South’s slaves, more than 3 million men, women, and children.**


• The Emancipation Proclamation altered the nature of the Civil War and the course of American history. It also represented a change in Lincoln’s thinking. Lincoln did not mention compensating slaveholders for the loss of their slaves, nor did he mention colonization.


• Now the Civil War,** begun to preserve the nation**, now promised a revolutionary transformation of southern life and a redefinition of American freedom. Without colonization, emancipation meant incorporating freed slaves into American life. A new system of labor, politics, and race relations would have to replace slavery.

TURNING POINTS-GETTYSBURG AND VICKSBURG

• Despite the apparent disintegration of slavery and eroding southern morale, the war’s outcome was uncertain in 1863 and 1864. In April 1863, “Fighting Joe” Hooker, a new union commander in the East, invaded central Virginia. Outnumbered two to one, Lee repulsed Hooker at Chancellorsville, though his most talented commander, *Stonewall Jackson*, was mortally wounded in the fight.


• Lee soon decided on another invasion of the North, although the rationale for it today remains unknown. His army met and fought Union forces under General George G. Meade at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the first three days of July. *165,000 troops fought there, in the largest battle ever in North America. *


• A desperate frontal assault led by Major General George E. Pickett failed to break Union lines on July 3, and Lee, having regretted ordering Pickett’s charge and lost the battle, retreated. The “high tide of the Confederacy” had been reached, and Lee’s soldiers never again set foot on northern ground.

TURNING POINTS IN THE WAR-GETTYSBURG AND VICKSBURG

• Simultaneously, Union forces led by Ulysses S. Grant had laid siege to the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, Mississippi. On July 4, Confederate forces surrendered, and the entire Mississippi River fell to Union forces. Gettysburg and Vicksburg greatly diminished southern hopes for victory.

TURNING POINTS IN THE WAR

• In his November 1863 Gettysburg Address commemorating that battle’s dead, Lincoln reaffirmed that “all men are created equal” and stated the war heralded a “new birth of freedom.” Union soldiers’ sacrifices would ensure that **“government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”**

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCXUbQ4JjXI

TURNING POINTS-1864

• Given the command of Union forces in the East, Grant in 1864 initiated a war of attrition against Lee’s army in Virginia. Grant was willing to incur high numbers of casualties with the knowledge that the North could replenish its armies, while the South could not.

TURNING POINTS-1864

• In May 1864, Grant’s Army of the Potomac began a month of fierce fighting and campaigning. In the Battle of the Wilderness, both sides suffered great casualties, but instead of retreating, as had previous Union commanders, Grant pushed on, fighting Lee again at Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor.

TURNING POINTS-1864

• After six weeks Grant lost 60,000 men, an enormous number, but he inflicted 30,000 casualties on Lee’s army. This sustained fighting was a turning point in modern warfare and more resembled the modern trench warfare of World War I than the methods of 1861.

TURNING POINTS-1864

• Although Grant maintained the initiative, his strategy led to criticisms that he was a butcher. Victory was elusive. When Grant failed to capture Petersburg, a city that controlled the railways into Richmond, he laid siege to the city. At the same time, General William T. Sherman marched through Georgia, and took Atlanta in September 1864.

TURNING POINTS-1864

• With casualties skyrocketing in the spring and summer of 1864, northern morale sank to its lowest point in the war. Lincoln believed he would lose the presidential election in the fall. Radical Republicans nominated an alternative candidate on a radical plank, and General George B. McClellan, the Democratic candidate, called for a peace conference with the Confederacy.

TURNING POINTS-1864

• Ultimately Lincoln secured the Republican nomination, and with Sherman’s capture of Atlanta, won a sweeping victory. Lincoln’s re-election guaranteed the war would continue until the Confederacy had been crushed.

THE END OF THE WAR-SHERMAN MAKES GEORGIA HOWL

• In *November 1864, Sherman started a “March to the Sea” from Atlanta to the Georgia coast.* His forces *destroyed railroads, buildings, and food and supplies to deny their use by Confederate troops.* Sherman’s vision of destroying civilian property and resources as a way to win the war was controversial but very *modern.* Sherman continued his path of destruction into South Carolina, freeing slaves and ruining plantations.

THE END OF THE WAR-THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT

• **On January 31, 1865, Congress approved the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery throughout the entire Union.** In his March 1865 inaugural address, Lincoln called for national reconciliation.

THE END OF THE WAR-THE FALL OF RICHMOND

• On April 2, Grant finally pierced Lee’s lines at Petersburg, causing Lee to retreat and abandon Richmond, which was occupied by northern troops the next day.

THE END OF THE WAR-SURRENDER AT APPOMATTOX

• On April 4, Lincoln, ignoring his own safety, walked Richmond’s streets, accompanied by only a dozen troops. Slaves celebrated and praised him everywhere he went. Lee and his army headed west but were soon surrounded by Grant’s army. **Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, on April 9, bringing the Civil War to an end.**

THE END OF THE WAR-LINCOLN’S ASSASSINATION

• Only five days later, before Lincoln could announce plans to reconstruct the south, he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a celebrated actor, at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjxbb-tjSAA

Chapter 14 “A New Birth of Freedom”: The Civil War, 1861–1865 THE BLOODIEST WAR OF ALL...

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