The Civil War

The War Begins:1861

• April 12: Confederates open fire upon Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. The Civil War begins.

• April 15: President Lincoln issues a Proclamation calling for 75,000 militiamen.

• July 21:The Union Army is defeated at Bull Run, 25 miles southwest of Washington, DC. Union troops fall back to Washington.

Abraham Lincoln

1862• February 20:Lincoln’s 11 year old

son, Willie, dies from fever, probably caused by polluted drinking water in the White House.

• March : The Peninsula Campaign begins as the Union Army advances from Washington toward the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.

• April 6&7: Confederate attack on Union troops at Shiloh, Tennessee results in a bitter struggle with 13,000 Union killed and wounded and 10,000 Confederates, more men than in all previous American wars combined.

Gen. Ulysses S. Grant

The War will not end soon.

• August 29&30, 1862:75,000 Union troops are defeated by 55,000 Confederates at the second battle of Bull Run in northern Virginia. Once again the Union Army retreats to Washington.

• September 17, 1862:The bloodiest day in U.S. military history as Confederate armies are stopped at Antietam, Maryland by Union forces. By nightfall 26,000 men are dead, wounded, or missing.

Confederate Dead at Antietam

Lincoln can’t find a General

• November 7, 1862: Lincoln replaces General McClellan with Gen. Burnside as the new Commander of the Union Army. Lincoln had grown impatient with McClellan's slowness to follow up on the success at Antietam, even telling him, "If you don't want to use the army, I should like to borrow it for a while."

Gen. Ambrose Burnside, famous for his sideburns.

The South fights against odds.

• December 13, 1862 – The Union Army under Burnside suffers a defeat at Fredericksburg, Virginia with a loss of 12,653 men after 14 frontal assaults on well entrenched Rebels. Confederate losses are 5,309

• "It is well that war is so terrible - we should grow too fond of it," Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee – Confederate General

Emancipation Proclamation

• January 1, 1863: Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all slaves in territories held by Confederates and emphasizes the enlisting of black soldiers in the Union Army. The war to preserve the Union now becomes a revolutionary struggle for the abolition of slavery.

The North resorts to Conscription • January 25, 1863: Lincoln appoints

Gen. Joseph Hooker as Commander of the Union Army, replacing Burnside.

• March 3: The U.S. Congress enacts a draft, affecting male citizens aged 20 to 45, but also exempts those who pay $300 or provide a substitute.

• May 1-4: Union Army defeated by Lee's much smaller forces at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia as a result of Lee's brilliant and daring tactics. Union losses are 17,000 killed, wounded and missing out of 130,000. The Confederates, 13,000 out of 60,000.

Draft Riots in New York City

The South invades the North

• June 3, 1863: Lee with 75,000 Confederates launches his invasion of the North, heading into Pennsylvania in a campaign to capture Washington,DC.

• June 28: Lincoln appoints Gen. George Meade as commander of the Union Army, replacing Hooker. Meade is the 5th man to command the Army in less than a year.

Gen. George Meade

Four days that damage the South• July 1-3, 1863: The tide of war

turns against the South as the Confederates are defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

• July 4: Vicksburg, Miss. the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River, surrenders to Gen. Grant and the Army of the West after a six week siege. With the Union now in control of the Mississippi, the Confederacy is effectively split in two, cut off from its western allies.

Confederate soldiers captured at Gettysburg

Gettysburg Address

• November 19, 1863: Lincoln delivers a two minute Gettysburg Address at a ceremony dedicating the Battlefield as a National Cemetery

• November 23-25: The Battle of Chattanooga, Tenn. ends as Union forces under Grant defeat the Rebel army of Gen. Braxton Bragg.

“Four score and seven years ago…”

Total War

• March 9, 1864: Lincoln appoints Gen. Grant to command all of the armies of the United States. Gen. William T. Sherman succeeds Grant as commander in the west.

• May 1864 : The beginning of a massive, coordinated campaign involving all the Union Armies. Gen. William T. Sherman

“War is cruelty”

The South runs low on troops

• May 4, 1864 - In Virginia, Grant with an army of 120,000 begins advancing toward Richmond, VA to engage Lee's Army, now numbering 64,000.

• In the west, Sherman, with 100,000 men begins an advance toward Atlanta, GA to engage Joseph E. Johnston's 60,000 strong Rebel Army.

Bloody Cold Harbor• June 3, 1864 - A costly

mistake by Grant results in 7,000 Union casualties in twenty minutes during an offensive against fortified Rebels at Cold Harbor, Virginia.

• Many of the Union soldiers in the failed assault had predicted the outcome, including a dead soldier from Massachusetts whose last entry in his diary was, "June 3, 1864, Cold Harbor, Virginia. I was killed."

Cold Harbor – Confederate troops had dug trenches and Union troops ran across an open field to their deaths.

The Burning of Atlanta

• September 2, 1864 – Atlanta, Georgia is captured by Sherman's Army.

• November 8, 1864 - Abraham Lincoln is re-elected president, defeating Democrat George B. McClellan.

• November 15, 1864 - After destroying Atlanta's warehouses and railroads, Sherman, with 62,000 men begins a March to the Sea. "I can make Georgia howl!" Sherman boasts.

Sherman burned between 3,000 – 5,000 buildings in Atlanta.

March to the Sea

• December 21, 1864 - Sherman reaches Savannah, Georgia leaving behind a 300 mile long path of destruction 60 miles wide all the way from Atlanta. Sherman then telegraphs Lincoln, offering him Savannah as a Christmas present.

Sherman’s army destroyed railroads, burned farms, and destroyed any excess food.

The Fall of the South• January 31, 1865 - The U.S.

Congress approves the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, to abolish slavery.

• April 2, 1865 - Grant's forces break through Lee's lines at Petersburg, VA. Lee evacuates Petersburg and the Confederate capital, Richmond. Fires and looting break out. The next day, Union troops enter and raise the Stars and Stripes

Richmond, VA and other southern cities sustained heavy damage.

Surrender

• April 9, 1865 - Robert E. Lee surrenders his Confederate Army to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia. Grant allows Rebel officers to keep their side arms and permits soldiers to keep horses and mules.

• April 14, 1865 - Lincoln and his wife Mary see a play at Ford's Theater. During the third act of the play, John Wilkes Booth shoots the president in the head.

Generals Lee and Grant discuss terms.

The End

• April 15, 1865 - President Abraham Lincoln dies at 7:22 in the morning. Vice President Andrew Johnson assumes the presidency.

• April 18, 1865 - Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrenders to Gen. Sherman near Durham, North Carolina.

Abraham Lincoln – April 10, 1865