Transcript The Civil War to 1863

The American Civil War: 1862-5
The Invasion of New Mexico
• General Sibley
(CSA) with 3,000
men go north
• Santa Fe falls to
them
• Defeated at Glorietta
Pass by Colorado
and New Mexico
forces
The War in the West
The Fall of the First Line of Defense:
Union Ascendant, Spring 1862
• Mill Spring: January, 1862
– Collapse of eastern anchor
• Forts Henry and Donelson: February 616, 1862.
– Collapse of the center
– Rise of Grant begins
• Pea Ridge: 6 Mar 1862 - 8 Mar 1862
– Collapse of the western anchor
– Missouri henceforth firmly in Union hands
Pea Ridge: Main Action
The Confederate Plan at Shiloh
Battle of Shiloh: April 6-7, 1861
• Albert Sidney Johnson + Beauregard
(45,000) vs. Grant (49,000)
• Initial Plan is Basically Stupid, but surprise is
total
• Grant driven back to Pittsburgh Landing
• Buell reinforces overnight (17,000); Johnson
dies
• Counterattack crushes Confederates
After Shiloh
• Halleck Takes Over
– Month-long crawl to
Corinth
• The Fall of New
Orleans (April-May,
1862)
– Victory for the Navy
The Peninsular Campaign (MarchJuly 1862)
• General McClellan goes south with 121,000
men
• Slow Progress up the Peninsula
• Battle of Seven Pines (May 31, 1862): Joe
Johnson (CSA, 55,000) vs. III and IV Corps
(33,000)
– Overly complex plan fails; many troops are lost;
Joe Johnson is injured and replaced by Robert E.
Lee.
The Valley Campaign (MarchJune 1862)
• Stonewall Jackson takes 17,000 men to
Shenandoah Valley to threaten Washington
• Fights off 50,000 soldiers in 5 battles
• Draws away strength from McClellan
• Then Returns to Help Lee
Seven Days' Battles (June 26thJuly 2, 1862)
Seven Days' Battles (June 26thJuly 2, 1862)
• Lee attempts to cut off and destroy pieces of
McClellan's army
• Stonewall Jackson is mostly useless
• Overly complex plans go awry
• McClellan escapes but his will to fight is
broken
Summer-Fall 1862: Lee’s
Counterattack
• Second Bull Run (August 29-30)
– General Pope is Crushed
– McClellan retreats to Washington
• Overreach—The Antietam Campaign
(September, 1862)
– Lee Invades Maryland
• Protect Virginia Harvest
• Hope for foreign intervention
Lee in Maryland
• Lee disperses to live off land; expects
McClellan to be slow
• But McClellan finds his plans and strikes fast
• Battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862)
– A tie, but Lee retreats
– Bloodiest Day of the Civil War
– Leads to Emancipation Proclamation and firing
of McClellan
Summer-Fall 1862: Bragg’s
Counterattack
• Bragg uses railroads to move to Eastern
Tennessee with great speed, unites with
Kirby Smith
• They invade Kentucky, forcing Union
General Buell to chase them into
Kentucky
• Kentucky does not rise to join
Confederacy as Bragg hoped.
Battle of Perryville (October 8,
1862)
• 16,000 Union vs. 22,000 Confederates
• Battle is a tie
• But Bragg retreats, afraid to press his
advantage
– This begins turning his subordinates against him
and will be a pattern
• Buell saves Kentucky, but the Union fails to
take Chattanooga and has lost ground.
A War Against Slavery?
• Most originally fight for Union, not end of
Slavery
• Some commanders try to enact anti-slavery
without authorization
• Confiscation Act of 1862—Seize land and
slaves of traitors!
The War To End Slavery!
• Antietam allows
Emancipation
Proclamation
– All slaves in
Confederate lands
are now free!
– But not ones in loyal
lands
Black Soldiers
•
•
•
•
180,000 soldiers
20,000 sailors.
80% were ex-slaves
Segregated Units
with White Officers • Corps d'Afrique
• Recruited in
Louisiana
• First Black Soldiers
Battery Wagner
• Subject of movie
“Glory”
• 54th Massachusetts,
first Northern Black
unit leads the attack
• 116 dead +
•
Unit
fights
on
Commander, 156
through 1865
Injured or Captured
The Life of the Soldier: Food
The Daily Ration (Union)
• (3/4ths of a pound of pork or bacon) or 1.25 pounds of
fresh or salt beef
• 18 ounces of fresh bread or .75 pounds of hardtack (2-3
large 'crackers') or 1.25 pounds of cornmeal
• Each 100 men get
– eight quarts of peas or beans or ten pounds of rice,
ten pounds of coffee or one and a half pounds of tea,
fifteen pounds of sugar, four quarts of vinegar, and
two quarts of salt.
The Life of the Soldier: Food
The Daily Ration (Confederate)
• Same as Union ration...in theory. Often
smaller.
– Most commonly issued cornmeal for a grain
– Substitutions had to be made for items (such as
beer made from sassafras or potatos)
Other Food Sources
• Scavenging the Countryside
– Sometimes heavily restricted
– Sometimes officially sanctioned
• The Sutler
– Licensed vendor of food and other items
– Sometimes pillaged by angry soldiers
Military Food
• Coffee:
– Unground beans for Union
– Substitutes for Confederates: Acorns, Okra, etc.
• Hardtack: Union dry biscuit, often stale
– Skillygalee: salted pork fried with hardtack
crumbled into the mixture
– Confederates usually ate Johnnycake--made
with bacon grease, cornmeal, salt, sugar, and
water
Military Food II
• Fresh Bread: When armies camped, you got
fresh bread
• Salt Beef or Pork: Often hard to eat;
usually made into stew
• Scurvy: Diet was unhealthy
– Dehydrated vegetables added
– Dry vegetables (potatoes)
– Onions: Also used for powder burns
Canning
• Invented in
Napoleonic Wars
(1803-1815)
• Huge improvements
vastly raise
production
• Many brands still
exist today
Cooking
• 5 men / 100 would
cook
• Sandwiches and
Stews
• Tools had to be
improvised
Lee’s Reign of Terror: Two
Victories in the East
• Fredericksburg: December 13, 1862.
– Ambrose Burnside launches suicidal frontal
attack on Lee. 10% casualty rate
• Chancellorsville: May 1-4, 1863.
– Flank attack crushes “Fighting” Joe Hooker
– But Stonewall Jackson is killed
Gettysburgh
The Gettysburg Campaign
• Hubris and the desire for foreign intervention
send Lee north to Pennsylvania
• The armies stumble into each other at
Gettysburg
• 3 days of battle ensue (July 1-3, 1863)
• Both sides lose 23,000 men killed, captured
or wounded
• Lee retreats; glory days are over
Grant vs. Vicksburg (I)
• Attack from the North fails due to cavalry
raids
• Various expedients to bypass Vicksburg fail
• Grant's Gamble: Sail ships past Vicksburg
at night, then cross downstream
Grant vs. Vicksburg II
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•
•
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Grant: 44,000
Pemberton (CSA): 30,000
Joe Johnson (CSA): 6,000
April 29, 1863: Grant crosses the Mississippi and
takes Grand Gulf
• May 14, 1863: Grant crushes Johnson at Jackson;
Johnson flees east
• May 16-17th: Champion's Hill, Grant defeats
Pemberton, forces him west
Vicksburg and Port Hudson
• Downstream, General Banks besieges Port
Hudson
• Siege of Vicksburg: May 18-July 4, 1863
– Huge victory for the Union; Pemberton
surrenders whole army
Rosencrans vs. Chattanooga
• Rosencrans is very cautious, often slow as
a result
• Murfeesboro: (31 Dec 1862 - 2 Jan 1863).
– First offensive
– Huge tie battle of Bragg (CSA) vs Rosencrans
(USA)
– Armies hang out until September 1863
The Chickamauga Campaign
• September 1863: Rosencrans maneuvers
Bragg out of Chattanooga without firing a
shot.
• Reinforcements from Lee sent to Bragg.
• Battle of Chickamauga (September 19th,
1863): Bragg and Longstreet crush
Rosencrans
– Siege of Chattanooga begins
Grant Saves Chattanooga
• Grant comes East, takes command
• Grant breaks the siege
• Bragg heads south; Grant now commands
entire West.
Whiggism Triumphant
• The Homestead Act of 1862
– 160 acres of public land if you farm it 5 years
– 420,000 square miles given out by 1975.
• The Morrill Land Grant College Act of
1862
– Each state given 30,000 acres of land per
Congressman as of 1860 to fund co-ed colleges
focused on military tactics, agriculture, and
science
Whiggism Triumphant II
• The Protective Tariff of 1862
– Triples taxes on imported European goods
– Raises money for war; protects US industries
• National Bank Act of 1863
– Creates Office of Comptroller of the Currency
• The Office charters and regulates 'National' Banks
• Used to create a uniform currency and ensure higher
banking standards
Whiggism Triumphant III
• Government tends to back strikebreaking
• Government war contracts make some superrich and there is a lot of graft in contracting
• Unlike the South, the North can easily buy
war goods without mass economic regulation
Suppressing Dissent
• The New York Draft Riot
• Civil Liberties Curtailed
– Suspensions of Habeas Corpus
– Suppression of Free Speech and Assembly
• Copperheads
• Radical Republicans
Grant Takes Command: March
1864
• Simultaneous Onslaught
• Army of the Potomac (Meade) moves south towards
Richmond
• Army of the James (Butler) moves to the Peninsula and
moves up it to take Richmond from the rear.
• Armies of the Ohio, Cumberland, and Tennessee (united
under Sherman) move together against Atlanta.
• Banks’ Corps moves from Louisiana to invade the gulf and
attack Mobile.
• Hunter’s Corps moves against Southwestern Virginia.
• Grant Goes South
“We cannot withstand a siege”:
Grant Takes Virginia
• Many in Army of Potomac resent Grant's presence.
• Lee must win fast; his reserves are low
• The Wilderness: May 5-6.
– Lee attempts to break Grant
– But Grant just shrugs and heads South
• Spotsylvania Courthouse: 7 May 1864 - 19 May 1864.
– From here on out, Lee must fortify; no more
offensives.
The Siege of Richmond and
Petersburg
•
•
•
Grant suffers high casualties (55,000 in
one month)
Lee's back is to the wall
Grant besieges Petersburg, which controls
Richmond's rail connections
–
–
A battle of attrition
In the long term, Lee cannot win this
The Battle of the Crater—June 30,
1864
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•
•
Dig a tunnel under the Confederate line
and blow a hole open!
Initial explosion works
But the attack is not followed up properly,
so failure
War in Georgia
“War is Hell”: Sherman
Invades Georgia
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•
•
Sherman's Three Armies: 98,500-112,000
Joe Johnson: 50-65,000
Mission: Take Atlanta; destroy Johnson
Defensive War: May-Mid-July, slow
advance
Johnson is now fired at the gates of
Atlanta
John Bell Hood
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•
•
One of Lee's
Generals
Loses arm and leg
Hired because he
is aggressive
The Battles of Atlanta (July 20September 1)
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•
•
•
Hood launches four aggressive Lee-style
attacks on Sherman
Each time it fails—officers perform poorly
and his plans are over-ambitious
Atlanta falls and Hood withdraws
Leads to Lincoln's re-election
Discontent and the Election of
1864
• The Union Ticket—War Democrats +
Republicans – Lincoln + Johnson
• Peace Democrats – George McClellan?
• Lincoln’s Victory
–
55% Popular, 212 to 21 Electoral
• Thirteenth Amendment—End of Slavery
The Confederacy Unravels
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•
•
•
•
Loss of Confidence in Davis
Economic Collapse
Loss of Resources
Arming the Slaves
Deserters Take Over
Sherman's March to the Sea
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•
•
Sherman now
heads for the sea
Cuts a 60 mile
wide swathe of
destruction
Then invades the
Carolinas
The Gallant Hood Fails in
Tennessee (Fall-Winter 1864-5)
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Hood invades in November with 39,000 to
try to force Sherman to pull back
He is sick and leads poorly
Wasted lives at Battle of Franklin
December 15-6: General Thomas
CRUSHES Hood at Battle of Nashville
The Fall of Richmond
• After April 1, 1865, Richmond cannot be
held
• Lee Evacuates Richmond
• Lee Surrenders at Appomattox: April 9,
1865
• Lincoln Dies: April 14, 1865
John Wilkes Booth
From a famous acting
Family
Kills Lincoln because
he is ProConfederacy
Killed on the run
The Ends
• April 26, 1865: Joe Johnson surrenders in
North Carolina.
• May 10, 1865: Union forces capture Davis.
• May 26, 1865: Kirby Smith surrenders the
Trans-Mississippi forces.
Why did the South lose?
• Inferiority in virtually every resource
• Constantly having to watch for slave revolt
• Rest of world content to sit back and watch the
South lose
• Gradual loss of top command staff
• The South had no reasonable hope of winning by
force unless North lost will to fight.