Lincoln Called for 75,000 Volunteers to Serve 90 Days
The Civil War
Showdown at Fort Sumter
*The first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to serve 90 days.
Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee seceded.
They would not provide troops to fight against fellow southerners.
The Border states- slaveholding states still in the Union- had to choose sides.
Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky stayed with the Union.
*Lincoln’s goal for the North was to preserve the Union.
The South’s war goals were to be left alone with slavery unchanged.
The North was better prepared for the war, having more factories and rail lines.
The Confederates were fighting to defend their way of life.
The finest military officers were from the South.
Both sides hoped for foreign help.
Generals had all been trained at West Point Military Academy.
The Civil War weapons were more deadly than ever before.
Rifles were more accurate, and new weapons such as exploding shells, flamethrowers and even machine guns were used.
Observation balloons, camouflage, and the telegraph marked the Civil War as the last of the old-time wars and the first of the modern ones.
The Battle of Bull Run near Washington D.C. was the first major battle. It was chaos, and ended hopes of a short war.
General Ulysses S. Grant led Union troops to victory at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.
*The Battle of Shiloh forced the North to acknowledge that the rebellion would not collapse on its own.
Union Admiral David Farragut captured New Orleans and other cities along the Mississippi River.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee won the second Battle of Bull Run because of Union General George B. McClellan’s delay in attacking.
General McClellan’s caution allowed the Confederates time to organize at the Battle of Antietam. It was the bloodiest day of the Civil War. Combined casualties exceeded 23,000.
Soldiers and civilians in the North and South were presented with challenges, hardships and opportunities during the war.
Slave labor provided food in the South. Many slaves escaped to join Union troops.
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamationon Jan. 1, 1863.
Slaves in all areas that were in rebellion against the United States were declared free.
*Slaves in the border states that remained in the Union were not emancipated.
African Americans that served the Union in segregated units numbered 180,000.
Soldiers faced poor sanitation, polluted water, disease, and battle wounds.
Women worked as nurses and volunteered in the U.S. Sanitary Commission, distributing food, clothing, and medical supplies.
Some women disguised as men enlisted in the Army.
Women took over work that the men left behind, running farms and businesses, and government offices.
3,000 women served as nurses for the Union.
Clara Barton began the American Red Cross, cared for wounded on the battlefield.
Civilians had to sacrifice, prisoners of war endured very poor conditions.
Most of the fighting was done on Southern soil. Food and goods were in short supply.
The value of the Confederate dollar plummeted.
The Confederate Congress enacted the first military draft in U.S. history.
Union draft also initiated. *The military draft in the North did not lead to increased support for the war.
Anti-war supporters were called Copperheads.
American Society was torn apart.
The Union blockaded Southern ports. Blockade runners brought in goods, medicine and military supplies.
*The Confederates built an ironclad ship to break the Union blockade.
They remade the captured Union ship, the USS Merrimack, into an ironclad renamed the Virginia that could withstand cannon fire.
The Union made Monitorfaced the Virginia in the first battle between ironclads.
In the West, Californians joined the Union.
More than 10,000 Native Americans took part in the war.
Union General Joseph Hooker commanded three major battles.
*The Battle of Chancellorsville was General’s Lee’s greatest victory for the Confederate army.
The Battle of Gettysburg lasted three days. The Union casualties numbered 23,000, Confederate, 28,000.
*The Battle of Gettysburg was the scene of Pickett’s charge, in which thousands of Confederate soldiers died.
*Lee retreated to the south after the Battle at Gettysburg.
Union General Grant carried on a siege in Vicksburg.
Confederate Braxton Bragg trapped Union army in Chattanooga, but General Grant arrived with reinforcements.
Lincoln appointed Grant to command all Union armies.
Grant named William T. Sherman to take his place on the western front.
Grant persisted despite heavy losses.
Sherman marched on Atlanta destroying everything in his path.
Sherman burned much of Atlanta as he left, slaughtered livestock, destroyed crops, and looted homes and businesses.
The Union’s capture of Atlanta gave Lincoln a victory in the election of 1864.
Congress passes the Thirteenth Amendment, ending slavery in the United States.
Lincoln intended to be forgiving of the South and wished to heal the wounds of war, which was nearing its end.
General Lee found himself surrounded by Union troops in Virginia, and surrendered.
*Lee surrendered to avoid further loss of life.
The civil and generous terms were presented at Appomattox Court House, April 9, 1865.
Lee’s troops simply turned in their weapons and left.
Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865.
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