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American Civil War
(Grades 6-12)
| President Abraham Lincoln |
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American Civil War (1861–1865) was a major war between the United
States ("Union") and eleven Southern states ("Confederacy"), which declared that they had a right to secession and formed the Confederate States of America, led by President Jefferson Davis. The Union included free states and border
states and was led by President Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party. Although the border states were under Union control, they supplied the South with tens-of-thousands
of troops.
| President Jefferson Davis |
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Fighting commenced on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a
United States (Federal) military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the first state to secede. South Carolina, however, claimed that Fort Sumter was legally within its (territorial) waters.
During the American Civil War, the North generally named a battle after
the closest river, stream or creek, and the South tended to name battles after towns or railroad junctions. Hence the Confederate
name Manassas after Manassas Junction, and the Union name Bull Run for the stream Bull Run.
During the first year of the Civil War, the Union assumed control
of the border states and established a naval blockade as both sides raised large armies. In 1862, major bloody battles, such as Shiloh and Antietam, were fought causing massive casualties unprecedented in U.S. military history. In September 1862, Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation made the freeing of slaves in the South a war goal, despite opposition from Northern Copperheads who
tolerated secession and slavery. Emancipation reduced the likelihood of intervention
from Britain and France on behalf of the Confederacy. In addition, the goal also allowed the Union to recruit African Americans for reinforcements, a resource that the Confederacy did not exploit until
it was too late. The border states and War Democrats initially opposed emancipation, but gradually accepted it as part of
total war needed to save the Union.
| Map of the Union, Confederate, and Border States |
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European immigrants joined the Union Army in large numbers too. 23.4% of
all Union soldiers were German-Americans; about 216,000 were born in Germany. In the East, Confederate General Robert E. Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia and experienced a series of victories against the Army of the Potomac. However, Lee's best general, Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, was killed at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. Lee's invasion of the North was repulsed at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania in July 1863; Lee, however, managed an orderly retreat
to Virginia. The Union Navy captured the port of New Orleans in 1862, and Ulysses S. Grant seized control of the Mississippi
River by capturing Vicksburg, Mississippi, in July 1863, thus splitting the Confederacy (see:
Anaconda Plan: The United States Naval Plan of Divide and Conquer and Turning Points of the American Civil War).
| General Robert E. Lee |
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By 1864, long-term Union advantages in geography, manpower, industry, finance,
political organization and transportation were overwhelming the Confederacy. Grant fought a number of bloody battles with
Lee in Virginia during the summer of 1864. Lee's defensive tactics resulted in extremely high casualties for Grant's army,
but Lee lost strategically overall as he could not replace his casualties and was forced to retreat into trenches around the
Confederacy's capital, Richmond, Virginia. Meanwhile, General William Sherman, the leader of the Union Military Division of
the Mississippi, captured Atlanta, Georgia, during his March to the Sea. Sherman also destroyed a hundred-mile-wide
swath of Georgia. In 1865 the Confederacy collapsed after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House. All slaves in the Confederacy were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, which stipulated that slaves in Confederate-held areas, but not in border states or in Washington, D.C., were free. Slaves
in the border states and Union-controlled areas in the South were freed by state action or by the Thirteenth Amendment, although
slavery effectively ended in the United States in the spring of 1865. The
full restoration of the Union was the work of a highly contentious postwar and aftermath era known as Reconstruction.
Diseases and Napoleonic Linear Tactics, consequently, were the contributing factors for the high casualties during the American Civil War.
| General U. S. Grant |
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More than 10,500 battles and skirmishes occurred during the Civil War; 384 engagements (3.7 percent) were identified as the principal battles
and classified according to their historical significance.
The war produced an estimated 970,000
casualties (3% of the U.S. population, which today would equate to nearly 9,000,000
souls), including approximately 620,000 deaths—two-thirds by disease. Let's take a moment and think
about it on today's terms. To put it into perspective, 3% of the U.S. population equates to the combined population
of the present-day states of New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota,
Vermont and Wyoming.
The war accounted for more casualties than all other U.S. wars combined.
Presently, the causes of the war, the reasons for its outcome, and even the name of the war itself are subjects of lingering
controversy. The main result of the war was the restoration of the Union. Also, approximately 4 million slaves were
freed in 1865. Based on 1860 United States census figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including
6% in the North and an extraordinary 18% in the South (also see: American Civil War Battles, Casualties, & Statistics and Organization of Union and Confederate Armies)
American Civil War
Date: April 12, 1861 – June 1865 ("Order of Surrendering Confederate Forces")
Location: Principally in the Southern United States
Result(s): Union victory; Reconstruction; Slavery Abolished
Combatants: United States of America (Union); Confederate States of America (Confederacy)
Theaters
of the American Civil War
Union blockade – Eastern – Western – Lower Seaboard – Trans-Mississippi
– Pacific Coast
| Lee and Grant Surrender Meeting at Appomattox |
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| (NPS) |
| Strength |
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(Union)
2,200,000 (estimate) |
(Confederate)
1,064,000 (estimate) |
Casualties |
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110,000 Killed in Action 360,000 total dead 275,200 wounded |
93,000 Killed in Action 258,000 total dead 137,000+ wounded |
Try our search engine, enter, for example, General Lee, Aftermath, Causes
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Highly Recommended Viewing: Ken Burns Award
Winning Series, "The Civil War"
Editorial Review: The most successful public-television miniseries in American history, the 11-hour "Civil War" didn't just captivate a nation, reteaching
to us our history in narrative terms; it actually also invented a new film language taken from its creator. This
documentary has definitely raised the standard...
Highly Recommended Reading: The History Buff's Guide to the Civil War (400 pages).
Description: Exploring
the Civil War can be fascinating, but with so many battles, leaders, issues, and more than 50,000 books on these subjects,
the task can also be overwhelming. Was Gettysburg the most important battle? Were Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis so different
from each other? How accurate is re-enacting? Who were the worst commanding generals? Thomas R. Flagel uses annotated lists
organized under more than thirty headings to see through the powder smoke and straighten Sherman’s neckties, ranking
and clarifying the best, the worst, the largest, and the most lethal aspects of the conflict. Major sections are fashioned
around the following topics:
• Antebellum: Investigates the critical years before the war, in particular the growing crises, extremists,
and slavery.
• Politics: Contrasts the respective presidents and constitutions
of the Union and Confederacy, the most prominent politicians, and the most volatile issues of the times.
• Military Life: Offers insights into the world of the common soldiers,
how they fought, what they ate, how they were organized, what they saw, how they lived, and how they died.
• The Home Front: Looks at the fastest growing field in Civil War
research, including immigration, societal changes, hardships and shortages, dissent, and violence far from the firing lines.
• In Retrospect: Ranks the heroes and heroines, greatest victories
and failures, firsts and worsts.
• Pursuing the War: Summarizes Civil War study today, including films,
battlefield sites, books, genealogy, re-enactments, restoration, preservation, and other ventures.
From the antebellum years to Appomattox and beyond, The History Buff’s
Guide to the Civil War is a quick and compelling guide to one of the most complex and critical eras in American history.
Highly Recommended Reading: Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction
(816 pages).
Description:
Pulitzer Prize winning author, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era and For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War , describes the causes and origins of the Civil War; motivations and experiences of common
soldiers and the role of women; social, economic, political and ideological conflicts; as well as a comprehensive study of
the Reconstruction Era and its consequences. Professor McPherson also includes many visual aids such as detailed maps and
comprehensive charts. “A must have for the Civil War buff!”
Editor's Choice: The Civil War Battlefield Guide: The Definitive Guide, Completely Revised,
with New Maps and More Than 300 Additional Battles (Second Edition) (Hardcover). Description:
This new edition of the definitive guide to Civil War battlefields is really a completely new book. While the first edition
covered 60 major battlefields, from Fort Sumter to Appomattox,
the second covers all of the 384 designated as the "principal battlefields" in the American Civil War Sites Advisory
Commission Report. As in the first edition, the essays are authoritative and concise, written by such leading Civil
War historians as James M. McPherson, Stephen W. Sears, Edwin C. Bearss, James I. Robinson, Jr., and Gary W. Gallager. The
second edition also features 83 new four-color maps covering the most important battles. The Civil War Battlefield Guide is
an essential reference for anyone interested in the Civil War. "Reading this book is like being at the bloodiest battles of
the war..."
American Civil War History, Summary, Overview, List of
Union and Confederate Generals, What caused the Civil War? List of Causes, Origins of the Civil War, Results, Aftermath, Reconstruction
Era
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