THE course

of the civil
WAR
1861-1865
 “No people ever warred for
independence with more relative
advantages than the confederacy” –
General Beauregard (CSA)

ACTIVITY: Using the graph, predict the outcome of

the Civil War. Support your answer with close
reference to the graph.
 Study the table below… why do you think the south expected to win?
Union
• 22 million people
• Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky & Missouri (slave states)
refused to secede and supported the Union. Also
contributed to Northern morale.
• Union had stronger pool of military experience. Most men in
the US regular army remained loyal to the Union. From
1820-1860 two thirds of all graduates at West Point had been
northerners. Also had naval superiority
• Union had no choice but to invade and attack (offense is a
more difficult option than defense) – war was mostly fought
in the South, so Union soldiers did not have the same
morale, commitment and enthusiasm as the South who were
defending their homes and land.
• Had six times as many factories as the South, ten times its
industrial productive capacity, twice as many miles of
railway track. Also produced more agriculturally.
Confederacy
• 9 million (approx 5.5 million whites)
• Four slave states remained loyal to the Union – this would’ve
added 80% to the Confederacy’s industrial capacity, although
thousands of pro-Confederates from these states fought for
the South.
• Southerners as better soldiers. Pre-war South placed more
emphasis on martial values than the North. In 1860 most of
USA’s military colleges were in slave states. Southerners also
had dominated senior posts in the army, and military experts
assumed farmers made better soldiers than industrial
workers.
• Sheer size was it’s greatest asset (2 million km2) - it would
be difficult to blockade and conquer. Any invading armies
would struggle to maintain supply lines
• Cotton was it’s greatest economic weapon. Cotton sales
should enable buying military supplies from Europe. Slavery
also enabled the South to raise more white manpower than
the Union, as slaves could work on the home front and
perform military tasks e.g. building fortifications.
Total war

•It was the first industrial war and one of the

first to be called a ‘total war’
• Industry became more important needing to
supply guns, uniforms and military equipment
• Farming produced food to feed armies
• Railways - transportation of soldiers and
supplies
 NATURE OF THE WAR: HOW PREPARED WERE THEY?
• Neither side was prepared for war – the Union
had 16,000 men, (most in the West), there was
no plan for mobilisation of troops and no
general staff
• Lincoln had no military experience and the
appeal for volunteers was insufficient, leading
Congress to agree to raise 500,000 men to
serve for three years.
• Confederacy began military preparations
from scratch: 300 experienced officers
resigned from regular army (Union) & joined
the CSA . Davis had some military
experience.
• State militias were better prepared than in
the North
• Congress agreed to raise 500,000 troops for
3 years service, but its major challenge was
equipping volunteers.
 What others have said…

• “Merely two armed mobs chasing each other around the

country, from which nothing could be learned…” (Helmuth von
Moltke, Prussian Chief of Staff)

• Union and CSA forces were amateurish: many of the chief officers
were ‘political generals’ (merits based on political criteria, not just
military skill. As a result, many were incompetent to lead armies.
• Lack of a tradition of military discipline amongst ordinary soldiers,
leading to widespread insubordination
• Few junior officers had military qualifications, many were appointed
by governors or elected by men under their command.
What does this
source suggest
about the nature of
the confederate
army?
 Key battles
of
the Civil War
1861-1863
Fort Sumter, South Carolina

• The First Battle of Fort Sumter

began on April 12, 1861, when
Confederate artillery fired on the
Union garrison.
• These were the first shots of the
war and continued all day, watched
by many civilians in a celebratory
spirit.
• The fort had been cut off from its
supply line and surrendered the next
day.
• The first victory went to the South.
The First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas)

• The First Battle of Bull Run (the name used by

Union forces), also known as the Battle of First
Manassas (the name used by Confederate forces),
was fought on July 21, 1861 in Prince William
County, Virginia, just north of the city of Manassas
and about 25 miles west-southwest of
Washington, D.C.
• It was the first major battle of the American Civil
War. The Union's forces were slow in positioning
themselves, allowing Confederate reinforcements
time to arrive by rail.
• Each side had about 18,000 poorly trained and
poorly led troops in their first battle. It was a
Confederate victory, followed by a disorganised
retreat of the Union forces.
 Battle of
Shiloh
(Pittsburg
Landing)
April 6, 1862 – April 7, 1862

Fought in South-western Tennessee

• General George McClellan was given command of the Army of
the Potomac. He promptly set about training this army
outside Washington, D.C., refusing to mount a campaign in
the East until convinced that the army was ready. But in the
West, the war was already moving forward.

• The war in the West focused on control over the key rivers of
the region—the Mississippi, Cumberland, and
Tennessee. These rivers were crucial to the South’s ability to
shuttle supplies and men to various parts of the Confederacy.
The aftermath

• Shiloh was the deadliest battle on American

soil to date:
• 13,000 Union and 10,000 Confederate
soldiers were either killed or wounded.

• Ulyses S. Grant came under enormous

criticism for his failure to anticipate the
Confederate attack.
• Northern papers wrote that the hard-
drinking general had been drunk when the
shooting started. Only Lincoln’s intervention
kept him in the field.
• Strategically, the South was dealt an almost
mortal blow as the North increased its grip
on the western theater and its vital
waterways.
Antietam (Battle of Sharpsburg)

• Fought on September 22, 1862 near Sharpsburg, Maryland and

Antietam Creek as part of the Maryland Campaign.
• It was the first field army–level engagement in the Eastern
Theater of the American Civil War to take place on Union soil and
is the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with a
combined tally of 22,717 dead, wounded or missing.
• It pitted Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern
Virginia against Union General George McClellan’s Army of the
Potomac and was the culmination of Lee’s attempt to invade the
north.
What was at stake?

• By mid-summer 1862, President Abraham Lincoln had the

Emancipation Proclamation - a document declaring
freedom for all slaves in the so-called rebellious states -
ready to go.
• Lincoln’s cabinet feared releasing the Emancipation
Proclamation at that time would seem desperate and be
difficult to enforce, so Lincoln decided to wait until
another decisive Union victory.
• Frustrated with Lincoln’s policies and the course of the
war, Democrats launched an anti-war campaign, hoping
to take over the U.S. House of Representatives.
• In Europe, France and Great Britain anxiously watched
America’s War Between the States. They’d remained on
the sidelines so far, but as they endured cotton shortages
and the south seemed to gain the upper hand, they
considered legitimising the Confederacy, a move with
potentially drastic implications.
The Emancipation Proclamation
The outcome…
Thousands of bodies littered the
sprawling Antietam battlefield and
both sides regrouped and claimed
their dead and wounded. Just
twelve hours of intense and often
close-range fighting with muskets
and cannons had resulted in around
23,000 casualties, including an
estimated 3,650 dead.
The next day, as Lee began the
painstaking job of moving his
ravaged troops back to Virginia,
McClellan, surprisingly, did nothing.
Despite having the advantage, he
allowed Lee to retreat without
resistance. From his point of view,
he’d accomplished his mission of
forcing Lee’s troops from Maryland
and preventing a Confederate win
on Union soil.
President Lincoln wasn’t pleased.
He thought McClellan missed a
great opportunity to kick the Army
of Northern Virginia while they
were down and potentially end the
war. After the war-weary general
repeatedly refused Lincoln’s orders
to pursue Lee’s retreating troops,
Lincoln removed McClellan from
command on November 5, 1862.
Major battles leading up to Gettysburg

Fredericksburg Vicksburg Siege of Port Hudson

13/12/1862
Confederate victory: Lee beats
back repeated frontal assaults by
Burnside.
18/5 – 4/7/1863
Union victory: the siege ends;
Grant accepts surrender of second
Confederate army under
Pemberton.
21/5 - 9/7/1863
Union victory: last Confederate
stronghold on Mississippi
surrenders; Gardner surrenders to
Banks.
The most important engagement of the
Civil War
Gettysburg July 1 to July 3, 1863
 Gettysburg July 1-3 1863.
• The Town of Gettysburg, population 2,000, was a town on the
rise. It boasted three newspapers, two institutes of higher
learning, several churches and banks, but no shoe factory or
warehouse. The ten roads that led into town are what brought
the armies to Gettysburg. The shoe myth can be traced to a
late 1870s statement by Confederate general Henry Heath.
• The first day’s fighting involved some 50,000 soldiers of which
roughly 15,500 were killed, wounded, captured or missing. The
first day in itself ranks as the 12th bloodiest battle of the Civil
War.
• The second day’s fighting involved at least 100,000 soldiers of
which roughly 20,000 were killed, wounded, captured or
missing. The second day in itself ranks as the 10th bloodiest
battle of the Civil War - with far more casualties than the
much larger Battle of Fredericksburg.
• While each of the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg
rank in the top 15 bloodiest battles of the Civil War -
the 160,000 troops present at Gettysburg are eclipsed
by the more than 185,000 at Fredericksburg.
• 63 Medals of Honor awarded to Union soldiers for their
actions at Gettysburg. The deeds spanned the
battlefield and were awarded from wartime into the
20th century. Eight were awarded for actions on July 1,
and 28 each for actions on July 2 and July 3.
• In November 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered
his most famous speech at the dedication of the
National Cemetery at Gettysburg, eloquently
transforming the Union cause into a struggle for liberty
and equality - in only 272 words.
Gettysburg – the impact

• General Lee’s hopes of a victorious invasion of the North were

dashed.
• Lee waited for a Union counterattack on July 4, but it never
came. That night, in heavy rain, the Confederate general
withdrew his decimated army toward Virginia.
• The battle was a crushing defeat for the Confederacy. Union
casualties in the battle numbered 23,000, while the
Confederates had lost some 28,000 men–more than a third of
Lee’s army.
• The North rejoiced while the South mourned, its hopes for
foreign recognition of the Confederacy disappeared.
• Demoralised by the defeat at Gettysburg, Lee offered his
resignation to President Jefferson Davis, but was refused.
Though the great Confederate general would go on to win other
victories, the Battle of Gettysburg (combined with Ulysses S.
Grant’s victory at Vicksburg, also on July 4) turned the tide of
the Civil War in the Union’s favor.
The Gettysburg Address – short and sweet
• Invited to give a "few appropriate remarks," Lincoln was not the featured speaker at the dedication;
Edward Everett, a famous orator and former politician and educator, was.
• Everett spoke for two hours from memory before Lincoln took the podium.
• In about 260 words, beginning with the famous phrase "Four score and seven years ago," Lincoln
honored the Union dead and reminded the listeners of the purpose of the soldiers’ sacrifice: equality,
freedom, and national unity.

• The following day Everett wrote to Lincoln: "I

should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came
as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two
hours, as you did in two minutes.”

• Lincoln’s speech did not garner much attention

during his lifetime; in many ways it was forgotten
and lost to popular memory until the U.S.
centennial when its significance was reconsidered
in light of the war’s outcome and in the larger
context of the young country’s history.

• The Gettysburg Address is now recognised as one of

Lincoln’s greatest speeches and as one of the most
famous speeches in U.S. history.
• Gettysburg was the decisive
battle that ended Southern
hopes of victory. At the
cemetery, on the battlefield of
Gettysburg, Lincoln made a
short speech on 19 November
1863 expressing his belief in
freedom, democracy and the
significance of the Union.
• This is known as the famous
Gettysburg Address.
2nd Battle of Fort Wagner – not a major battle
but worth noting.

• The Second Battle of Fort Wagner, also known as the Second

Assault on Morris Island or the Battle of Fort Wagner, Morris Island,
was fought on July 18, 1863, during the American Civil War.
• Union Army troops commanded by Brig. Gen. Quincy Gillmore,
launched an unsuccessful assault on the Confederate fortress of
Fort Wagner, which protected Morris Island, south of Charleston
Harbor.
• The battle came one week after the First Battle of Fort Wagner.
A strategic loss for the Union but a moral
victory for the US.
• The 54th Massachusetts, an infantry regiment composed of African-American soldiers led by
Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, led the Union attack at dusk.
• The assault began at 7:45 p.m. and was conducted in three movements. The 54th
Massachusetts attacked to the west upon the curtain wall of Ft Wagner.
• When the 54th Massachusetts reached about 130 metres from the fort, the defenders opened
up with cannon and small arms, tearing through their ranks.
• By 10 p.m. the bloody struggle had concluded with heavy losses.
• The 54th Massachusetts's colonel, Robert Gould Shaw, was killed upon the parapet early in the
action. Some Confederate reports claim his body was pierced seven times, with the fatal
wound a rifle bullet to his chest.
• The men of the 54th Massachusetts were hailed for their valour. William Carney, an African-
American sergeant with the 54th, is considered the first black recipient of the Medal of Honor
for his actions that day in recovering and returning the unit's U.S. Flag to Union lines.
• Their conduct improved the reputation of African Americans as soldiers, leading to greater
Union recruitment of African-Americans, which strengthened the Northern states' numerical
advantage. In addition, the South recognised for the first time that captured African American
soldiers were to be treated as enemy combatants and not criminals.
So many battles, so many killed.
• This PowerPoint has focussed on a
small number of decisive battles
only.
• The Civil War consisted of nearly
10,500 battles, engagements, and
other military actions including
nearly 50 major battles and about
100 others that had major
significance.
• The remainder were skirmishes,
reconnaissance, naval
engagements, sieges,
bombardments, etc.
• Not only did the Union forces have to fight the
Confederates, but both had to battle with
native Americans (Apache & Sioux Indians) in a
number of battles and the Dakota Uprisings,
which continued well after the Civil War.
• In 1876 General George Armstrong Custer was
killed in the famous Battle of Little Big Horn
during the Great Sioux War – 11 years after the
Civil War had ended.