Chapter 21 The Furnace of the Civil War

Chapter 21 The Furnace of the Civil War

Bull Run Ends the “Ninety-Day War” • When President Abraham Lincoln called for 75, 000 militiamen on April 15, 1861, he and just about everyone else in the North expected a swift war lasting about 90 days, with a quick suppression of the South to prove the North’s superiority and end this foolishness. • On July 21, 1861, ill-trained Yankee recruits swaggered out toward Bull Run to engage a smaller Confederate unit. They expected one big battle and a quick victory for the war. First Battle of Bull Run

First Battle of Bull Run – The atmosphere was like that of a sporting event, as spectators gathered in picnics to watch. – However, after initial success by the Union, Confederate reinforcements arrived and, coupled with Stonewall Jackson’s line holding , sent the Union soldiers into disarray. • The Battle of Bull Run showed the North that this would not be a short, easy war and swelled the South’s already too-large ego. Stonewall Jackson

“Tardy George” Mc. Clellan and the Peninsula Campaign • Later in 1861, command of the Army of the Potomac (name of the Union army) was given to 34 year old General George B. Mc. Clellan, an excellent drillmaster and organizer of troops, but also a perfectionist who constantly believed that he was outnumbered, never took risks, and held the army without moving for months before finally ordered by Lincoln to advance. George Mc. Clellan

Peninsula Campaign • At Lincoln’s urging, he finally decided upon a water-borne approach to Richmond (the South’s capital), called the Peninsula Campaign, taking about a month to capture Yorktown before coming to Richmond.

Peninsula Campaign • At this moment, President Lincoln took Mc. Clellan’s expected reinforcements and sent them chasing Stonewall Jackson, and after “Jeb” Stuart’s Confederate cavalry rode completely around Mc. Clellan’s army, Southern General Robert E. Lee launched a devastating counterattack—the Seven Days’ Battles—on June 26 to July 2 of 1862.

Lincoln’s first two Generals General Mc. Clellan General John Pope

Second Battle of Bull Run • The Second Battle of Bull Run, or, as it was called by the Confederacy, the Battle of Second Manassas, was fought August 28– 30, 1862. It was the culmination of an offensive campaign waged by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia against Union Maj. Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia, and a battle of much larger scale and numbers than the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) fought in 1861 on the same ground.

Planning Total War • With the quick-strike plan a failure, the Union strategy now turned to total war. Summed up, the plan was to blockade, divide, and conquer. The plan included… – Suffocate the South through an oceanic blockade. – Free the slaves to undermine the South’s very economic foundations. – Cut the Confederacy in half by seizing control of the Mississippi River. – Chop the Confederacy to pieces by marching through Georgia and the Carolinas. – Capture its capital, Richmond, Virginia. – Try everywhere to engage the enemy’s main strength and grind it to submission. – This was essentially General Winfield Scott’s “Anaconda Plan. ”

The War at Sea • The Union blockade started with many leaks at first, but it clamped down later. • Britain, who would ordinarily protest such interference in the seas that she “owned, ” recognized the blockade as binding, since Britain herself often used blockades in her wars. • Blockade-running, or the process of smuggling materials through the blockade, was a risky but profitable business, but the Union navy also seized British freighters on the high seas, citing “ultimate destination” (to the South) as their reasons; the British relented, since they might have to do the same thing in later wars (as they did in World War I).

The War at Sea • The biggest Confederate threat to the Union came in the form of an old U. S. warship reconditioned and plated with iron railroad rails: the Virginia (formerly called the Merrimack), which threatened to break the Union blockade, but fortunately, the Monitor arrived just in time to fight the Merrimack to a standstill, and the Confederate ship was destroyed later by the South to save it from the North. – The lessons of the Monitor vs. the Merrimack were that boats needed to be steam-powered and armored, henceforth.

Bloody Antietam • • In the Second Battle of Bull Run, Robert E. Lee crushed the arrogant General John Pope. After this battle, Lee hoped to thrust into the North and win, hopefully persuading the Border States to join the South and foreign countries to intervene on behalf of the South. – At this time, Lincoln reinstated General Mc. Clellan. • Mc. Clellan’s men found a copy of Lee’s plans (as wrapping paper for cigars) and were able to stop the Southerners at Antietam Creek on September 17, 1862 in one of the bloodiest days of the Civil War.

The Battle of Antietam – Jefferson Davis was never so close to victory as he was that day, since European powers were very close to helping the South, but after the Union army displayed unexpected power at Antietam, that help faded. – Antietam was also the Union display of power that Lincoln needed to announce his Emancipation Proclamation, which didn’t actually free the slaves, but gave the general idea; it was announced on January 1, 1863. Lincoln said the slaves would be free in the seceded states (but NOT the border states as doing so might anger them into seceding too). • Now, the war wasn’t just to save the Union, it was to free the slaves a well. • This gave the war a moral purpose (end slavery) to go with its political purpose (restore the union).

A Proclamation Without Emancipation • The Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in not-yet-conquered Southern territories, but slaves in the Border States and the conquered territories were not liberated since doing so might make them go to the South; Lincoln freed the slaves where he couldn’t and wouldn’t free the slaves where he could.

Blacks Battle Bondage • At first, Blacks weren’t enlisted in the army, but as men ran low, these men were eventually allowed in; by war’s end, Black’s accounted for about 10% of the Union army. • Until 1864, Southerners refused to recognize Black soldiers as prisoners of war, and often executed them as runaways and rebels, and in one case, at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, Blacks who had surrendered were massacred. – Afterwards, vengeful Black units swore to take no prisoners, crying, “Remember Fort Pillow!” 54 th Massachusetts

54 th Massachusetts • Regiments of the Union Army were overwhelmingly not Black, and this was the case for a good part of the war. This changed significantly with, among other things, the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation and the organization of an "experimental" all-Black regiment, the 54 th Massachusetts. This regiment was formed in March 1863, nearly two full years into the war, and organized by Robert Gould Shaw, a young (white) abolitionist. Among the recruits, who were mostly from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, were Charles Douglass and Lewis N. Douglass, sons of the former slave and famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

54 th at Fort Wagner • • After a few months of training exercises, the 54 th Massachusetts got their orders: They were to report to Hilton Head, South Carolina, where they arrived in early June. A month later, they saw their first combat action in a skirmish on nearby James Island. They saw the most severe action—and earned most of their fame—from the part they played in an attack on Fort Wagner, Georgia, on July 18. The fort was heavily defended, with both cannons and sharpshooters. Nonetheless, the order came for the 54 th Massachusetts to lead the way in storming the fort. They did just that, advancing through a withering storm of enemy fire. Many soldiers made it over the wall and into the fort. The vast majority, however, died in the attempt. That day, 281 men died, among them Colonel Shaw, who died urging his men to continue the advance.

Sergeant William Carney • • • One member of the 54 th Massachusetts who survived that day was Sergeant William Carney. He refused to let the flag of his regiment fall to the ground or be captured by the enemy. He was shot multiple times but survived and was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The heroism of the Black men who fought that day was relayed throughout the North (and South). Recruiting of Blacks in the North increased markedly. The 54 th Massachusetts was reinforced, and they fought several more times during the war, mostly in the South. One of their main successes was as part of the siege of Charleston. With the end of the Civil War, the 54 th Massachusetts was disbanded, in August 1865.

Massacre at Fort Pillow • According to Northern newspapers, and according to a U. S. Congressional hearing into the events, Confederate troops continued to kill Union soldiers as they attempted to surrender -- especially the ones that were black. "The blacks and their officers were shot down, bayoneted and put to the sword in cold blood -the helpless victims of the perfidy by which they were overpowered, " the New York Times reported. Because of such accounts, the incident became known as the Fort Pillow Massacre. "Remember Fort Pillow" thus became a rallying cry for many in the North, and for black Americans who heard the story.

Battle of Fredericksburg • After Antietam, A. E. Burnside (known for his sideburns) took over the Union army, but he lost badly after launching a rash frontal attack at Fredericksburg, Virginia, on Dec. 13, 1862.

Battle of Chancellorsville • “Fighting Joe” Hooker (known for his prostitutes) was badly beaten at Chancellorsville, Virginia, when Lee divided his outnumbered army into two and sent “Stonewall” Jackson to attack the Union flank, but later in that battle, Jackson’s own men mistakenly shot him at dusk, and he died.

Battle of Gettysburg • Lee now prepared to invade the North for the second and final time, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, but he was met by new General George G. Meade, who by accident took a stand atop a low ridge flanking a shallow valley and the Union and Confederate armies fought a bloody and brutal battle in which the North “won. ” – In the Battle of Gettysburg (July 13, 1863), General George Pickett led a hopeless, bloody, and pitiful charge across a field that ended in the pig-slaughter of Confederates.

Gettysburg Address • • "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate…we cannot consecrate…we cannot hallow…this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. . . that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. "

The Western Theater • Lincoln finally found a good general in Ulysses S. Grant, a mediocre West Point graduate who drank too much whiskey and also fought under the ideal of “immediate and unconditional surrender. ” • Grant won at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, but then lost a tough battle at Shiloh (April 6 -7, 1862), just over the Tennessee border.

Battle of Shiloh • In February 1862, the Union Army captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. This left the river undefended, and during the next few weeks the Union Army and Navy began working their way upstream with little resistance. Eventually, the commanders decided that they would try to take over Corinth, a small town in northeast Mississippi where two railroads intersected. The Union ground forces were divided into two parts. One, led by General Ulysses S. Grant, set up camp across the river and nine miles upstream from Savannah, Tennessee. There wasn't much there except for a few farms and a small church called Shiloh (a Hebrew word that means place of peace). Grant's forces waited for another army, led by General Don Carlos Buell, that was coming down from Nashville. The plan was for the two armies to join, then march together on Corinth. By the way, General Grant had absolutely no idea that his troops might be attacked while it camped near Shiloh. If he had, they would have dug trenches and gotten ready for an attack. But he didn't, so they drilled and relaxed while they waited for Buell.

Battle of Shiloh • Confederate General Albert S. Johnston had other ideas. Knowing what the Union generals had in mind, General Johnston decided to attack the Union army before dawn on April 6. It wasn't easy to move an army through the soggy marshes, thickets and flooded streams near the river; because of this, it took longer for the Confederate Army to attack than first planned. But they still had the element of surprise, and in the early part of the battle they forced the Union army back. Many Union soldiers were eating breakfast when the attack came. After they abandoned their camps, many of the attacking Confederates stopped to eat the food that the Union troops left behind. The Confederate army earned every yard. One regiment from Mississippi started across a valley with 425 men; by the time they reached the other side they only had a little more than 100. When General Grant arrived from Savannah, he found his troops retreating and panicking. Some of them were cowering below a cliff on the riverbank, having seen enough of a real battle.

Battle of Shiloh • There was, however, one place where the Union Army held fast. A Union general named Benjamin Prentiss ordered his men to defend a sunken road with a field in front of it. For nearly seven hours Confederate soldiers came in waves to attack the Union men along the road. The barrage of bullets that they encountered was so great the attacking troops started calling the area the "Hornet's Nest. "

Battle of Shiloh • There were eight separate Confederate charges over the course of five hours, and it is believed that around 2, 400 Confederates were killed or wounded in the process. Then the Southern army set up big guns and started firing those toward the Sunken Road. Finally, at about 5: 30 that afternoon, General Prentiss surrendered his remaining 2, 200 troops (about half the ones he had started with). But in the process Prentiss's men bought time for the larger Union force closer to the Tennessee River, at a place called Pittsburg Landing. They had time to regroup and reorganize.

Battle of Shiloh • While the fighting at the "Hornet's Nest" was taking place, something else occurred that may have turned the Battle of Shiloh. General Johnston was shot in the leg by a musket ball and bled to death. He almost certainly would have lived had he had any medical attention, because a simple tourniquet around his leg would have kept him alive. But the men who were with the general at the time (which included Tennessee Governor Isham Harris) didn't realize that the general was hurt until several minutes after he was shot, and they didn't know any first aid anyway. Johnston thus became the highest ranking general from either army killed during the Civil War.

Battle of Shiloh • The night of April 6 was a sad night. Thousands of soldiers from both armies lay on the battlefield dead or injured; there were so many bodies that entire fields were covered with them. There is, on the battlefield, a small pond. So many injured men crawled here to drink from it that night that the water turned red, and it became forever known as the Bloody Pond. • Nightfall was, however, a good thing for the Union Army. Here, at Pittsburg Landing, the Union Army received badly needed reinforcements that night from General Buell. And, by the way, the arrival of troops by way of boat brings up a rather important point about the Battle of Shiloh. The Union troops had gunboats and troop ships to support them with gunfire and bring them reinforcements. The Confederate troops had no naval presence during this battle.

Battle of Shiloh • On the night of April 6 it rained and Grant originally tried to spend that night in a cabin by the river. But the cabin had been turned into a field hospital, and the cries of the wounded kept him awake, so the general walked out and slept while leaning against an oak tree that used to be here. • By the next morning, the reinforced Union Army was a lot larger than the Confederate Army. General Grant then ordered his troops to advance and recapture the territory that they had lost the day before. And they largely did just that. By the middle of the day the Confederate Army retreated back towards the South, having lost thousands of their comrades, but having gained a large number of Union prisoners.

Sunken Road Hornet’s Nest

Graves at Shiloh

Capturing New Orleans • In the spring of 1862, a flotilla commanded by David G. Farragut joined with a Northern army to seize New Orleans.

Twin Victories of Vicksburg and Gettysburg • At Vicksburg, Mississippi, U. S. Grant besieged the city and captured it on July 4, 1863, thus securing the important Mississippi River. Grant redeemed himself here after blundering at Shiloh. – The Union victory at the Battle of Vicksburg came the day after the Union victory at Gettysburg, and afterwards, the Confederate hope foreign intervention was lost.

Sherman’s March to Sea • After Grant cleared out Tennessee, General William Tecumseh Sherman was given command to march through Georgia, and he delivered, capturing and burning down Atlanta before completing his infamous “March to the Sea” at Savannah. – His men cut a trail of destruction one-mile wide, waging “total war” by cutting up railroad tracks, burning fields and crops, and destroying everything.

Total War

The Politics of War • • The “Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War” was created in 1861 and was dominated by “radical” Republicans and gave Lincoln much trouble. The Northern Democrats split after the death of Stephen Douglas, as “War Democrats” supported Lincoln while “Peace Democrats” did not. – Copperheads were those who were totally against the war, and denounced the president (the “Illinois Ape”) and his “nigger war. ” – The most famous of the Copperheads was Clement L. Valandigham

1864 Presidential Election • In 1864, the Republicans joined the War Democrats to form the Union Party and re-nominated Abe Lincoln despite a bit of opposition, while the Copperheads and Peace Democrats ran George Mc. Clellan. – The Union Party chose Democrat Andrew Johnson to ensure that the War Democrats would vote for Lincoln, and the campaign was once again full of mudslinging. – Near election day, the victories at New Orleans and Atlanta occurred, and the Northern soldiers were pushed to vote, and Lincoln smoked his opponent in the Electoral College, 212 -21. • The popular vote was closer: 2. 2 million to 1. 8.

Grant’s Wilderness Campaign • Grant was a man who could send thousands of men out to die just so that the Confederates would lose, because he knew that he could afford to lose twice as many men while Lee could not. – In a series of wilderness encounters, Grant fought Lee, with Grant losing about 50, 000 men. – At Cold Harbor, the Union sent soldiers to battle with papers pinned on their backs showing their names and addresses, and over 7, 000 died in a few minutes. – The public was outraged and shocked over this kind of gore and death, and demanded the relief of General Grant, but U. S. Grant stayed. Lincoln wanted somebody who’d keep the “axe to the grindstone, ” and Grant was his man.

Southern Surrender • Finally, Grant and his men captured Richmond, burnt it, and cornered Lee at Appomattox Courthouse at Virginia in April of 1865, where Lee formally surrendered; the war was over.

The Death of a President • • • On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth and died shortly after. Before his death, few people had suspected his greatness, but his sudden and dramatic death erased his shortcomings and made people remember him for his good things. The South cheered Lincoln’s death at first, but later, his death proved to be worse than if he had lived, because he would have almost certainly treated the South much better than they were actually treated during Reconstruction.

Death of the Great Emancipator

John Wilkes Booth

Booth Conspirators

The Aftermath of the War Between the States • • The Civil War cost 600, 000 men, $15 billion, and wasted the cream of the American crop. However, it gave America a supreme test of its existence, and the U. S. survived, proving its strength and further increasing its growing power and reputation; plus, slavery was also eradicated. The war paved the way for the United States’ fulfillment of its destiny as the dominant republic of the Western Hemisphere—and later, the world. Secession / compact theory / nullification give way to supreme federal government.