The American Civil War

1861-1865

Vs.

Causes of the Civil War

• Regional differences b/w the largely industrial North and the agrarian South grow stronger (ex. Where Railroads should be built and the Protectionist tariff that favored the North)

• Slavery

• The Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Abraham Lincoln elected president

• Lower South secedes and creates the Confederate States of America

• The Confederacy attacks Fort Sumter

Union leader – President Abraham Lincoln

• 16th President (1861-1865)

• Born: Feb. 12, 1809

• Died: April 15, 1865 (four days after the war ended)

• Party: Republican

• Wife: Mary Lincoln

• Children: Robert, Edward, William, and Thomas (Tad)

Confederacy Leader – President Jefferson Davis

• Born: June 3, 1808• Died: 1889• Born in Kentucky, went to school

at the U.S. Military Academy• Later in life became a Planter

living in Mississippi• Served as U.S. Senator, Secretary

of War, and President of the Confederacy.

• Served as a P.O.W. for two years, U.S. dropped its case against him in 1868.

Timeline of the Civil War

Copy the following slides in a timeline format in your notes!

April 12-13, 1861

• Fort Sumter• Confederate General

P.G.T Beauregard opens fire on Fort Sumter. Major Robert Anderson surrenders.

• The fort was a federal fort in the South and the Confederacy did not want northerners in the south!

First Major Battle July 1861

• Union army marches on Southern capital, Richmond, Virginia.

• Routed by Confederate forces at Bull Run, it is forced to retreat to Washington.

• Union: Gen. McDowell

• Conf.: Gen. Johnston and “Stonewall” Jackson

February 1862

• Union forces under Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant capture key Southern strongholds of Fort Henry and Donelson in Tennessee.

April 1862

• Confederate army counter-attacks Grant at Shiloh, but he holds his ground and Southern forces retreat to Mississippi

• Union navy seizes New Orleans

July 1862

• Gen. George McClellan leads Union advance on Richmond, but is blocked by Con. Forces under Gen. Robert E. Lee during the “Seven Days’ Battles.”

Robert E. Lee

August 1862

• Lee defeats Union army at Second Battle of Bull Run, and drives Northern force out of Virginia, and proceeds to invade Maryland.

September 1862

• BATTLE OF ANTIETAM• McClellan blocks Lee’s advance at Battle of

Antietam Creek, Maryland, where 24,000 men die. • This is the “Bloodiest Single Battle” of the war.• Lee retreats to Virginia.

• Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation a few days later.

April-May 1863

• Union forces attack Lee in Virginia but are defeated at Chancellorsville and retreat.

• Lee invades the north once more in Pennsylvania.

July 1-3, 1863

• GETTYSBURG!• Lee’s forces runs into

Union army at Gettysburg, Penn.

• The ensuing battle results in over 50,000 casualties.

• Lee’s army retreats south.• Many historians believe

this is the beginning of the end for the south.

• The turning point of the war!

July 4, 1863

• After a two-month siege, Grant finally takes Vicksburg, Mississippi, bringing most of the region under Northern control.

• This is another nail in the coffin of the South.

November 1863

• On Nov. 19, Lincoln was asked to deliver just a few appropriate remarks to dedicate a military cemetery at Gettysburg.

• “Four score 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.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_hYZFUsOuw

November 1863

• Following the Battle of Chattanooga, Grant drives Lee out of Tennessee.

• The Union army is now led by General William T. Sherman and he takes Knoxville.

June 1864

• The tide has officially shifted and the North is almost in total control of the war.

• After a costly southward advance, Grant traps Lee’s forces at Petersburg, outside of Richmond, Virginia.

• The ensuing siege lasts for ten months.

September-December 1864• Sherman captures

Atlanta.• He cuts a swath of

destruction through Georgia and then captures Savannah.

• This becomes known as, “The March to the Sea.”

• On Christmas Day of 1864, Sherman orders his men to save Savannah from burning; he gives it to Lincoln as a Christmas present!

Atlanta Cyclorama- The Civil War, Battle of Atlanta 

April 1865

• Grant takes Richmond on April 3 and Lee surrenders six days later at the Appomattox Court House.

• April 9th, 1865 is the official end to the war between the states.

April 1865• Lincoln is assassinated

by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C. On April 14th and he died the next day.

• Booth yelled, “Sic semper tyrannis” in English means, “Thus be it ever to tyrants.”

• Booth broke his leg jumping from the balcony, and he died several days later after being burned in the barn he was hiding.

Lincoln’s Death

The Human Costs of the Civil War

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CivilWar

NorthSouthTotal Casualties

(Casualties by thousands)

The Economic Costs of the Civil War

Economic CostsEconomic Costs Federal loans and taxes to finance the war totaled

$2.6 billion. Federal debt rose to $2.7 billion. Confederate debt ran over $700 million. Union inflation reached 182% in 1864 and 179%

in 1865. Confederate inflation rose to 9,000% by the end of

the war.