Transcript The Civil War - Dream History

The Civil War
Presidents of the Opposing Sides
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The Union
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The Confederacy
Lincoln’s Aims and Actions
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PRESERVE THE UNION
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“Nothing more than Shay’s Rebellion or the Whiskey
Rebellion”
Constitutional issue – Not a war over slavery
Calls out state militias
Increases the size of the Navy
Naval Blockade of South
Increased military spending without Congress’ okay
Lincoln’s Aims and Actions
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Habeas Corpus Suspended
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Lincoln has Southern sympathizers arrested in areas
not in rebellion
Declares martial law, which leads to the arrests of
thousands suspected of disloyalty
Lincoln did this to ensure Maryland’s loyalty
Between 15,000-20,000 arrested
Constitutional Questions
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Was Lincoln’s expansion of executive power
constitutional?
Did Lincoln’s actions fall under the scope of
wartime powers?
Did Northerners sympathizing with South
deserve civil rights limitations?
Did Lincoln set a precedent?
Other Government Actions
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Homestead Act of 1862
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Government offered 160
acres of land for a cheap
price, often for free, to
promote westward
settlement
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Morrill Land Grant Act
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Federal Government gave
land to the states and
territories for agriculture,
engineering, and military
science colleges
(development of state
universities)
Resources
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North
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Larger population
90% of railroads
Industrialization
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South
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Self sufficient in food
Best military minds of
19th Century
Fighting on “home turf”
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Don’t have to worry
about supply lines
The Major Battles
Battle of Antietam (1862)
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Single bloodiest day in
American Military History
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5,000+ dead
17,000+ wounded
Union could’ve ended war, but
Gen. McClellan allowed Lee to
retreat
Bloody Lane
Gettysburg (1863)
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Most costly battle of war
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Three Day Battle
In total over 50,000 dead and
wounded
Last time Confederacy
attempted to attack Union
Open field amputation
Emancipation Proclamation
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Freed all the slaves in areas still in rebellion
against the Union
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Symbolic
Union could not enforce the proclamation
Changes the goal of the war
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Humanitarian objective
Gettysburg Address
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Lincoln summarizes the meaning of the civil war
“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.
“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 battle-field 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 that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not 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 Soldiers: Human Devastation
The Soldiers: Blacks Troops
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Over 180,000 African
Americans join Union
Army.
Over 85% of eligible
Blacks join Union army
Blacks Fighting in the Civil War
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This is what Blacks
were fighting about:
Women in the Civil War
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Many women, particularly
in South had to become
head of their household
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Belle Boyd
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Francis Clalin
Widowocracy South
become matriarchal society
of widows
Some 400 women fought in
the war dressed as men
Many acted as scouts and
spies
Women in the Civil War: Nursing
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Clara Barton
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Founds Red Cross
“Ambulance after ambulance drove up
with our wounded…Under every shed
and tree, the tables were carried for
amputating the limbs…The blood lay in
puddles in the grove; the groans of the
dying and complaints of those
undergoing amputation were horrible.”
~Janie Smith, North Carolinian
Sherman’s March to the Sea
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Decisive theatre at the end of the war
Complete and total destruction of the South
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“The fields were trampled down and the road was lined
with carcasses of horses, hogs, and cattle that the
invaders, unable either to consume or to carry with them,
had wantonly shot down to starve our people and prevent
them from making their crops. The stench in some places
was unbearable.”
Sherman’s March to the Sea
Surrender at Appomattox
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South had been fighting defensive war
since Gettysburg
Lee surrenders to Grant at the Appomattox
courthouse
Civil War Tidbits
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Thanksgiving was
created as a National
Holiday in November
1863 to lift the moral in
the North.
Thanksgiving
disappeared for a while
and returned under
FDR during the Great
Depression
Civil War Tidbits
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Government levied an
income tax for the first time
Excise tax on cigarettes and
tobacco
US Secret Service was
created to stop counterfeit
currency
Sinking of a ship by a
submarine