The American Civil War
Week 23: Emergence of Industrial Society IDs
Causes of the Civil War
· Slavery was at the root of economic, moral and political differences that led to control issues, states' rights and secession of seven states. The secession of four more states was a protest against
· Points of View
o North-
§ Southern secession and formation of the Confederacy greatly increased the risk of war prior to the opening of hostilities, as it was regarded as an act of rebellion, treason, and more importantly, the seizure of national territory.
§ Thus slavery caused secession which in turn made war likely, irrespective of the North's stated war aims, which at first addressed strategic military concerns as opposed to the ultimate political and Constitutional ones.
o South –
§ The secession of four more states was a protest against
· Questions such as whether the
· The debate of whether the federal government was supposed to have substantial powers or whether it was merely a voluntary federation of sovereign states added to the controversy.
· The states' rights theories were a response to the fact that the Northern population was growing much faster than the population of the South, which meant that the North controlled the federal government. Southerners hoped that a strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution would limit federal power over the states, and that a defense of states' rights against federal encroachments or secession would save the South.
· In 1860, Congressman Laurence M. Keitt of
· Until December 20, 1860, the political system had always successfully handled inter-regional crises. Congress had solved the admission of
· The South,
The South Secedes
· Confederate States-
o Seven states originally seceded, by February of 1861, and they were:
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
o In April and May of 1861 four more states seceded:
§
§
§
§
· Union States-
o The 23 states that remained loyal to the
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
War
·
· Confederates bombarded the fort with artillery on April 12, forcing the fort's capitulation.
· With the scale of the rebellion apparently small so far,
· Anaconda Plan
o Winfield Scott, the commanding general of the U.S. Army, devised the Anaconda Plan
§ blockade of the main ports would strangle the rebel economy
§ then the capture of the
§ Scott warned against an immediate attack on
·
· Although few naval battles were fought and few men were killed, the blockade shut down King Cotton and ruined the southern economy.
· Some British investors built small, very fast "blockade runners" that brought in military supplies (and civilian luxuries) from
· A march by Union troops under the command of Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell on the Confederate forces there was halted in the First Battle of Bull Run, or First
· In an attempt to prevent more slave states from leaving the Union, the U.S. Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution on July 25 of that year, which stated that the war was being fought to preserve the
· McClellan attacked
· McClellan's army reached the gates of
· General Robert E. Lee defeated him in the Seven Days Battles and forced his retreat.
· General John Pope was beaten spectacularly by Lee in the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Second Battle of Bull Run in August
· Emboldened by Second Bull Run, the Confederacy made its first invasion of the North, when General Lee led 45,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River into
· McClellan and Lee fought at the Battle of Antietam near
· Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside was soon defeated at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, when over twelve thousand Union soldiers were killed or wounded
· Burnside was replaced by Maj. Gen. Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker. Hooker, too, proved unable to defeat Lee's army; despite outnumbering the Confederates by more than two to one, he was humiliated in the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863.
· He was replaced by Maj. Gen. George Meade during Lee's second invasion of the North, in June. Meade defeated Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1 to July 3, 1863), the bloodiest battle in
· Pickett's Charge on July 3 is often recalled as the high-water mark of the Confederacy, not just because it signaled the end of Lee's plan to pressure
· While the Confederate forces had numerous successes in the Eastern theater, they crucially failed in the West. They were driven from
·
· Only the fortress city of
· General Braxton Bragg's second Confederate invasion of Kentucky was repulsed by Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell at the confused and bloody Battle of Perryville, and he was narrowly defeated by Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans at the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee.
· The one clear Confederate victory in the West was the Battle of Chickamauga. Bragg, reinforced by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's corps, defeated Rosecrans, despite the heroic defensive stand of Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas.
· Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant won victories at Forts Henry and Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh and the Battle of Vicksburg, considered one of the turning points of the war.
· At the beginning of 1864,
· Grant devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions:
o Generals George Meade and Benjamin Butler were ordered to move against Lee near
o General Franz Sigel (and later Philip Sheridan) were to attack the
o General Sherman was to capture
o Generals George Crook and William W. Averell were to operate against railroad supply lines in
o Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks was to capture
· Grant's battles of attrition at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and
· Grant was tenacious and, despite astonishing losses (over 66,000 casualties in six weeks), kept pressing Lee's Army of Northern Virginia back to
· He pinned down the Confederate army in the Siege of Petersburg, where the two armies engaged in trench warfare for over nine months.
· Grant finally found a commander, General Philip Sheridan, aggressive enough to prevail in the Valley Campaigns of 1864.
·
· The fall of
· Confederate General John Bell Hood left the
· Leaving
· Lee's army, thinned by desertion and casualties, was now much smaller than Grant's.
· Union forces won a decisive victory at the Battle of Five Forks on April 1, forcing Lee to evacuate
· The Confederate capital fell to the Union XXV Corps, comprised of black troops.
· Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House. In an untraditional gesture and as a sign of Grant's respect and anticipation of folding the Confederacy back into the Union with dignity and peace, Lee was permitted to keep his officer's saber and his near-legendary horse, Traveller.
· The last Confederate naval force to surrender was the CSS Shenandoah on November 4, 1865, in