Chapter 6 mississippi studies 10 6-14

Chapter 6Civil War and Reconstruction

Confederate States of America Formed Feb. 4, 1861

• MS and NC, SC, AL, LA, TN, GA, FL, AR, VA, and TX combined to form the CSA. Jefferson Davis of MS was chosen President.

• Confederates fired on Fort Sumter April 12, 1861, signaling the beginning of the Civil War.

• MO, KY, MD, and DE did not secede, but they were still slave states.

What fraction represents the number of Confederate states to the number of slave states?

The Union Objective• Developed by Mexican War veteran General Winfield Scott, many northern newspaper publishers poked fun at the plan, calling it the Anaconda Plan, but it worked.

Which principal trade partner would be cut off from Mississippi?

The Anaconda Plan

Blockade ports Split the South in two by way of the Mississippi River; cut off railroads

“Squeeze” the South into submission

Fort Massachusetts, 12 miles off the MS Gulf Coast on Ship Island, kept an eye out for Union ships. Click the picture for more information.

The Union Plan Against MississippiBlockade the Gulf Coast.

Take control of the MS River, its cities, and major roads and railroads leading to it.

Major Union campaigns for control of Corinth/ Shiloh, TN, and Vicksburg included more battles and skirmishes, but also included leaving utter devastation in their wake.

Section 1

General Grant at Oxford

The funny thing is that this picture comes from the Grant Library located at MSU in Starkville!

Corinth and Shiloh, April 1862

• Corinth: Crossroads of the South. Two fairly new major railways crossed here.

At the Corinth Interpretive Center, this incredible water feature tells the story from the birth of a nation chronologically through the Civil War and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Click for the pic for the video!

• Through Corinth the Confederates would accumulate and move supplies for the troops.

• General Ulysses S. Grant (USA) wanted to cut off CSA supplies.

This present-day map may make it easier to see the distance between Corinth and Shiloh.

• CSA’s General P.G.T. Beauregard and Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston brought up 40,000 men to stop Grant’s army of 45,000 at Shiloh, TN, about 22 miles from Corinth.

• A horrible, bloody battle ensued, and at the end of the first day, the CSA thought it possible to defeat Grant and his intentions.

The Bloody Pond at Shiloh-The story goes that the wounded and dying made the pond red with their blood in that first day of fighting. Shiloh Battlefield is today a National Park.

Want to know more about Shiloh Battlefield Park? Click the picture below.

• Grant was reinforced overnight, and Shiloh became one of the nastiest battles of the war, with 23,000 casualties.

CSA retreated to Corinth, which became a hospital town under siege of the USA.

Click the picture to link to the story in the words of a Confederate soldier at Shiloh.

• Gen. Earl Van Dorn tried months later to retake Corinth and failed.

• He then raided Holly Springs, MS, where the USA had stockpiled train car loads of supplies for Union forces. Grant was occupying Oxford at the time. His wife, who was in HS, was almost captured!

• The raid slowed Grant’s plans by making him reroute to Memphis, but it also made him see the value of living off the land.

The following May, Van Dorn was shot and killed by a jealous husband!

Vicksburg

• President Lincoln summed it up: “Vicksburg is the key.”

• Vicksburg was stopping trade to the Midwest states and USA saw it had potential to halt CSA trade.

• It sat high on a bluff over the MS River, where the USA’s Farragut’s bombardments from gunboats had secured Natchez, but not Vicksburg.

The USS Cairo was sunk in the Yazoo River at Vicksburg, and it has recently been restored. You can see it at the Vicksburg National Military Park. http://www.nps.gov/vick/index.htm

• General John C. Pemberton’s job was to hold Vicksburg for the Confederates.

• As supplies were running out and gunboats were shooting at the city from the river, some of the townspeople had begun to build cave houses into the bluffs.

What was the inside like? Click on the picture to find out!

Section 2

The Vicksburg Campaign

Chapter 6 Section 2 Vicksburg Campaign

Click on the picture to see an animated map that explains this campaign.

• Union troops were under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant.

• General William Tecumseh Sherman was another Union General at Vicksburg.

The win at Vicksburg would catapult both men in their later careers.

Sherman became known for his infamous “March to the Sea.”

Grant became head of the Union Army, and later, President of the U.S.

First attempts to take Vicksburg• Riverboat ironclads of the Union navy (Brown Water Navy) led by Admiral Farragut on the Mississippi River captured Natchez and other cities, but not Vicksburg.

• Sherman’s troops dug a canal from the Yazoo Pass to Moon Lake, but were pushed back by CSA’s Pemberton’s men.

Grant’s risky move• He took his men down the Louisiana side of the MS River and ferried his men across below Vicksburg.

• Meanwhile, Porter’s Union ships went downstream to meet him. They hugged the banks near Vicksburg so that they would not be such easy targets from the bluffs above.

Chimneyville• General Grant knew that the Confederates might be reinforced by General Joseph Johnston, so he got to Jackson and destroyed railroads and other structures. There were so many charred remains that a visitor called the place Chimneyville. In recent years the old stories of Jackson being reduced to just chimneys have been contested.

Champion Hill• Pemberton moved some of his men to meet Grant before coming back toward Vicksburg. They fought at Champion Hill near Bolton, and the remainder of Pemberton’s troops had to retreat to Vicksburg. Grant would be able to lay siege to Vicksburg.

The Siege of Vicksburg May 23- July 4, 1863• http://misspreservation.com/2013/

06/04/vicksburgs-balfour-house-1863/

• http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/articles/215/vicksburg-during-the-civil-war-1862-1863

• Many diarists kept records of dwelling in caves and living through deprivation. Civilians were trapped in Vicksburg along with the soldiers.

July 4, 1863• Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg to Grant.

• Soldiers were allowed to be paroled.

• Meanwhile, Confederates were also defeated at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Click the picture for a look at a Vicksburg parole document.

More Union campaigns in MS

• Sherman raided rail lines to Meridian.

• Grant went NE to Tupelo.

• Grierson went from North Central and E to SW.

Emancipation Proclamation/ Day of Jubilee January 1, 1863• Lincoln declared freedom for all slaves in Confederate states.

• He did not declare freedom for those in border states.

• Results:Border states remained with the Union.Ending slavery could be a stronger objective and motivation for the Union in the war.

More slaves left their owners.A year after the war ended, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery entirely.*This is chronologically out of order, but it is in your text

this way. This happened before the fall of Vicksburg.

• As Union troops came through the South, many slaves left their owners to join the Union Army.

• Black troops served honorably through the Civil War, most notably for MS at Milliken’s Bend, just north of Vicksburg, in that campaign.

Did you know that there is an African American Civil War Museum in Washington, D.C.? http://www.afroamcivilwar.org/education/education-resources.html

3rd US Colored Cavalry of MS• They fought from Canton to Vaughan along the MS Central Railroad in 1864.

• There were 186,000 “free men of color” and former slaves serving in the US Navy and Army during the Civil War.

• Wilson Brown of Natchez even won the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Want to know a little more? Click on this picture for a 4-monute video from Hari Jones, curator for the AACW museum.

The War Ends• The day before the Fall of Vicksburg, Robert E. Lee’s Confederates had another enormous loss at Gettysburg.

• Sherman pursued his March to the Sea.

• The war dragged on until April 9, 1865. Lee surrendered his troops to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.

• MS and LA troops surrendered about 3 weeks later.