US History

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, 1861 -1865

JOHN BROWN AND ABOLITIONISTS• Which Union officer put down the John Brown Rebellion?

• Colonel Robert E. Lee of the United States Army

• What did abolitionist believe?

• Slavery must be stopped

ABRAHAM LINCOLN•For the first time, his driving ambition for political success and his personal convictions about what was best for the country were easy to reconcile.

•Lincoln had long believed slavery was an unjust institution that should be tolerated only to the extent the Constitution and the tradition of sectional compromise required.

THE ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN• The man elected to the White House is 1860 was striking in appearance – he was 6 feet 4

inches and seemed even taller because of his disproportionately long legs and his habit of wearing a high silk “stovepipe” hat.

THE TWO COMBATANTS• The Union had many advantages (e.g., manufacturing, railroad mileage, and financial

resources), but it would need to conquer an area larger than western Europe to win.

• Confederate soldiers were highly motivated fighters.

• On both sides, the outbreak of war stirred powerful feelings of patriotism.

• As Lincoln put it in the Gettysburg Address, the only cause great enough to justify the enormous sacrifice of life on the battlefields was the struggle to preserve and extend the democratic ideal, or to ensure that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”

LINCOLN•Lincoln’s election provoked the secession of seven states of the Deep South but did not lead immediately to armed conflict. Before the sectional quarrel would turn from a cold war into a hot one, two things had to happen.

•A final effort to defuse the conflict by compromise and conciliation had to fail, and the North needed to develop a firm resolve to maintain the Union by military action.

SECESSION•The Deep South Secedes

•South Carolina, which had long been in the forefront of southern rights and proslavery agitation, was the first state to secede, on December 20, 1860, at a convention meeting in Charleston.

•The South Carolinians justified seceding at that time by charging that “a sectional party” had elected a president “whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.

THE DEEP SOUTH SECEDES

•The Deep South Secedes

•Secession: withdrawing officially

•When conventions in six other Deep South states met in January 1861, delegates favoring immediate secession were everywhere in the majority.

•By February 1, seven states had removed themselves from the Union: South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.

•Delegates from the Deep South met in Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4 to establish the Confederate States of America.

11 CONFEDERATE STATES• The Confederate States of America

Order State Seceded From Union Readmitted to Union

1. South Carolina Dec. 20, 1860 July 9, 18682. Mississippi Jan. 9, 1861 Feb. 23, 18703. Florida Jan. 10, 1861 June 25, 18684. Alabama Jan. 11, 1861 July 13, 18685. Georgia Jan. 19, 1861 July 15, 18702

6. Louisiana Jan. 26, 1861 July 9, 18687. Texas March 2, 1861 March 30, 18708. Virginia April 17, 1861 Jan. 26, 18709. Arkansas May 6, 1861 June 22, 1868

10. North Carolina May 20, 1861 July 4, 186811. Tennessee June 8, 1861 July 24, 1866

CIVIL WAR MAP

IMPORTANT FACTS:• The President of the Confederacy : Jefferson Davis

• The Capital for the North was Washington D.C.

• The Capital of the South was Richmond, Virginia

• Dred Scott Decision: Scott was property, not human

• Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad “conductors” defied : The Fugitive Slave Laws

AND THE WAR CAME

•During April and May of 1861 Confederate forces bombarded the United States’ base at Fort Sumter and Union forces surrendered.

•The seizure of Fort Sumter made Southerners believe the war would be over quickly

•Lincoln wished to preserve the Union. On April 15, he called for 75,000 troops from loyal states to short-term duty to put down the insurrection.

•Lincoln’s main concern when he entered the presidency was how to maintain federal authority without declaring war with the seceded states.

THE TECHNOLOGY OF WAR• Railroads were vital to the war effort.

• The introduction of the rifle changed the nature of combat.

• Modern warfare included POW camps and disease.

• http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/videos#civil-war-tech

THE PUBLIC AND THE WAR• Both sides were assisted by a vast propaganda effort to mobilize public opinion.

• The war was brought to the people via newspapers and photographs.

MOBILIZING RESOURCES• The outbreak of the war found both sides unprepared.

• Feeding and supplying armies was a challenge for both sides.

MILITARY STRATEGIES• The Confederacy adopted a defensive strategy.

• Lincoln realized that his armies had to defeat the Confederacy's armies and dismantle slavery.

• Lincolns primary objective(s) during the war was-

• To free the slaves To uphold federal authority over the states

• To restore the Union All of these

• What was not a Confederate strength during the Civil War?

• A large population and army

• Compared to the South, what was the North’s weakness?

• Did not have Superior Military Commanders

THE WAR BEGINS• In the East, most of the war's fighting took place in a narrow corridor between Washington

and Richmond.

• The first Battle of Bull Run, a Confederate victory, shattered any illusions that war was romantic.

• After the First Bull Run, George McClellan assumed command of the Union army of the Potomac.

• http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/videos#civil-war

MORE FACTS:• What did the Emancipation Proclamation do?

• Freed slaves in secessionist states

THE WAR IN THE EAST, 1862• General Lee blunted McClellan's attacks in Virginia and forced him to withdraw to the

vicinity of Washington.

• Successful on the defensive, Lee now launched an invasion of the North.

• McClellan's Army of the Potomac stopped Lee at the Battle of Antietam (Maryland), the single bloodiest day in U.S. history (September 17, 1862).

• The bloodiest one-day battle of the war was Antietam.

•5000 killed and more than 18,000 wounded

THE WAR IN THE WEST• Ulysses S. Grant was the architect of early success in the West.

• In February 1862, Grant won the Union's first significant victory when he captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in Tennessee.

• Grant withstood a surprise Confederate attack at the Battle of Shiloh (Tennessee).

THE WAR YEARS• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ppOP3HaIfo&feature=related

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgVpMG55iMg&feature=related

BATTLES AND CASUALTIES: 620,000 DEAD.

NPS WEBSITE• http://www.nps.gov/civilwar/index.htm

NORTH CAROLINA• What role did North Carolina play in the Civil War?

• The state was the “Bread Basket” of the Southern Army

• The state provided more men (133, 905) for the Confederate cause, than any other state. This number comprised approximately one-sixth of the Confederate fighting force. Of that number, one sixth (approximately 20,000) became casualties of war. Disease took approximately 20,000 Tar Heels lives, too. According to historian Paul Escott, the state “had only about one-ninth of the Confederacy’s white population,” yet “it furnished one-sixth of its fighting men.” In sum, 30-percent (approximately 40,000) of those fighting for the Confederacy died during the war.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS• What Constitutional amendments were approved as a result of the American Civil War?

• The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were important to the Civil Rights Movement. The Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery in the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment allowed Blacks to have the same rights as Whites. The Fifteenth Amendment allowed Blacks to vote. Although many people were against the amendments at first, the amendments were very helpful for the Civil Rights Movement.

• Which amendment made slavery illegal in the United States? 13 th

• Which amendment guaranteed citizens the equal protection of the laws? 14 th

• Which amendment gave African-American men the right to vote? 15th

FINAL CIVIL WAR THOUGHTS•Who won the American Civil War?

•The North won the war mainly because it had shown a greater capacity than the South to organize, innovate, and modernize. Its victory meant the nation as a whole would now be ready to embrace the concept of progress that the North had affirmed in the war effort not only it advances in science and technology, but also it success in bringing together and managing large numbers of men and women for economic and social goals.

•The Civil War was thus a catalyst for the great transformation of American society from an individualistic society of small producers into the more highly organized and “incorporated” America of the late nineteenth century.

RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD: 1865-1877• Who won the presidential election of 1864?

• Abraham Lincoln

• Lincoln’s Reconstruction plan was known as? 10% Plan

• Lincoln tried to reestablish peace between the Union ("the north") and the Confederates ("the south"). He offered amnesty, or pardon, to all Southerners who pledged an oath of loyalty to the United States. When 10% of a state's voters had signed this oath, Congress would reinstate the state into the Union. He also urged that African Americans who could read and write gain the right to vote.

• Who killed Lincoln? John W. Booth

• Who is the next President after Lincoln? Andrew Johnson

THE END OF RECONSTRUCTION• What limited opportunities for the African Americans in the South after Reconstruction

ended?

• Jim Crowe Laws

• Jim Crow laws, in U.S. history, statutes enacted by Southern states and municipalities, beginning in the 1880s, that legalized segregation between blacks and whites. The name is believed to be derived from a character in a popular minstrel song. The Supreme Court ruling in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate facilities for whites and blacks were constitutional encouraged the passage of discriminatory laws that wiped out the gains made by blacks during Reconstruction.