Transcript over 23000 soldiers were killed that day. While the Battle of Antietam

Civil War Battles
Fort Sumter
Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter,
on an island in Charleston harbor, on April
12, 1861, when US naval expedition
attempted to bring food to the fort. After 34
hours, Major Robert Anderson surrendered.
President Lincoln called for 75,000
volunteers to fight, and four more southern
states seceded from the Union.
Strategy
Southerners sought their
independence and prepared for a
defensive battle while Northerners
developed offensive campaigns to
preserve the Union.
The Union’s attention focused
directly on Richmond, Virginia,
the new capital of the
Confederacy. The Northern and
Southern capitals were within
100 miles of each other.
When Lincoln announced the call for troops, he
requested that the men sign three-month service
agreements. Neither side figured the war would last that
long. Southerners hoped that Northerners would tire of
the war and give in to the Confederacy’s demands.
Many Southerners theorized that European nations,
including Great Britain, would support their
independence. However, Great Britain chose not to
support the South since a majority of Britons detested
slavery. England and France did declare themselves
neutral and allowed merchants from the two countries to
trade with both Southern and Northern forces.
The Battle of Bull Run, or the First Manassas
With the beginning of the war still fresh in their minds,
and expectations that fighting would be intense but
short, Union troops were eager for action. Cries of “On
to Richmond” echoed across the hills surrounding
Washington as the troops advanced on Confederate
forces near Bull Run, approximately 30 miles southwest
of the northern capital. President Lincoln believed an
attack on a smaller Confederate unit would boost morale
and clear a path to Richmond, where he hoped to
capture the Confederate capital. A quick end to the war
would save the Union and avoid severe damage to the
economy.
The inexperienced Union troops, however,
encountered determined Confederate soldiers
who refused to give up their ground. On July 21,
1861, a Virginia brigade led by Thomas J.
Jackson blocked the Yankee advance like a stone
wall. Jackson became a southern war hero and
the nickname “Stonewall” Jackson stuck. The
counterattack by the Southerners effectively
pushed back the Union troops. Many Yankee
soldiers even dropped their guns and supplies in
their hasty retreat.
The impressive win at Bull Run greatly boosted the
Confederates soldiers’ confidence—and egos.
Southerners bragged about their victory and believed
they had proven their military superiority. A feeling of
pride swept through the south and many thought the war
was over. Southern enlistment numbers dropped
sharply, and plans to advance through northern territory
to capture Washington were slow to materialize.
Although the victory over the Union army at Bull Run
was a mighty success, it would later be discovered that it
actually harmed the cause of the Confederacy.
Battle of the Peninsula
The Peninsula Campaign called for McClellan and about
100,000 troops to slowly work their way up the James
River toward Richmond. In the spring of 1862, as the
Union soldiers moved along the eastern coastline toward
the peninsula, fighting in the area moved to the water.
The USS Monitor and the Confederate Merrimack
participated in history’s first fight between armored
ships. The powerful ironclads battled to a standstill when
the Merrimack began taking on water and returned to
Norfolk.
The Union’s naval technology and perseverance
secured the waterway for the North and helped
the Yankees capture Yorktown. McClellan
proceeded up the river where he was scheduled
to meet up with reinforcements before attacking
the capital. Lincoln, however, diverted the
reinforcements to attack Stonewall Jackson’s
regiment that was raising havoc in the
Shenandoah Valley and threatening the security
of Washington, D.C.
With the unexpected change in plans,
McClellan’s group stalled near Richmond.
The delay gave Robert E. Lee time to
launch an attack on the Union troops. The
Seven Days’ battles took place between
June 26 and July 2, 1862 and eventually
forced McClellan back to the coast.
More than 10,000 Union soldiers died
and nearly 20,000 Southerners lost
their lives in the week-long fighting.
Once again, the Confederacy pinned
an embarrassing loss on the North
and forced Union leaders to reevaluate their plans.
Lincoln then fired McClellan.
Antietam
On September 16, 1862, Maj. Gen. George B.
McClellan and his Union Army of the Potomac
confronted Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern
Virginia at Sharpsburg, Maryland. At dawn on
September 17, Maj. General Joseph Hooker’s
Union corps mounted a powerful assault on
Lee’s left flank that began the Battle of
Antietam, and the single bloodiest day in
American military history; over 23,000
soldiers were killed that day.
While the Battle of Antietam is considered a
draw from a military point of view, Abraham
Lincoln and the Union claimed victory. This
hard-fought battle, which drove Lee’s forces
from Maryland, would give Lincoln the
“victory” that he needed before delivering the
Emancipation Proclamation - a document that
would forever change the course of the
American Civil War, because the cause
became not just to keep the Union together,
but to abolish slavery.
Gettysburg
After Antietam, Lincoln appointed a series of generals to
lead the Army of the Potomac, and each commander
was just as successful in failure as his predecessor. In
late June, 1863, General George Meade was handed
the reins of the army. He and Lee were friends and
served together during the Mexican War. Meade took
command of nearly 100,000 men at Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania where the soldiers were battling 76,000
Confederate troops. For three days, between July 1 and
July 3, momentum shifted from the South to the North
and back to the South.
On July 3, when Union guns went silent and
Confederate soldiers thought they had the upper
hand, Southern General George Pickett led a
charge against Union lines. However, as the
Confederates marched closer and closer, Union
forces sprang back to life and annihilated the
advancing divisions. The Union suffered more
than 23,000 casualties, the South 28,000. The
Battle of Gettysburg became the bloodiest battle
of the Civil War.
Later that year on a cold autumn day, President
Lincoln visited the site where so many men lost
their lives. He was scheduled to dedicate the
cemetery and offer a short speech. Lincoln’s
Gettysburg Address was quickly branded as
“ludicrous” and “silly” by critics, but it would
become one of the most famous speeches ever
spoken.
Vicksburg
After northern forces seized New Orleans, Grant led his
army to attack Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Confederacy
used an area between Vicksburg and Port Hudson,
Louisiana to transport cattle and other supplies from the
west to southern cities. After intense fighting, Grant
seized Vicksburg on July 4, 1863. Grant’s victory,
coupled with the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg,
shifted the tide of momentum in the Union’s favor. The
change of events forced England and France to cancel
major contracts to supply weapons and ships to the
South.
Petersburg, Crater
After weeks of preparation, on July 30, 1864, the
Federals exploded a mine, blowing a gap in the
Confederate defenses of Petersburg. Unit after unit
charged into and around the crater, where soldiers
milled in confusion. The Confederates quickly recovered
from the blast and launched several counterattacks. The
break was sealed off, and the Federals were repulsed
with severe casualties. One division of black soldiers
was nearly destroyed. This may have been Grant’s best
chance to end the Siege of Petersburg. Instead, the
soldiers settled in for another eight months of trench
warfare. Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside was relieved of
command for his role in the debacle.
Appomattox
On April 3, 1865, Grant ordered more than
100,000 troops to surrounded Lee and his 30,000
men outside Richmond. The decorated
Confederate leader realized the end was near
and resistance was futile. On April 9, 1865, Lee
and Grant met at Appomattox Court House to
agree to the terms of surrender. Per Lincoln’s
orders, the Union’s only requirement was to have
the Confederate soldiers lay down their arms.
After fours years of fighting and 600,000 soldiers
killed—totaling nearly as many lives lost than all
American wars combined—the Civil War finally
ended. One out of every four Confederate
soldiers died or suffered debilitating injuries while
one in ten Union troops lost their lives. The year
following the surrender, Mississippi allocated onefifth of its budget to buy artificial limbs for its
veterans. The South, which lost one-fourth of its
white male population between the ages of 20
and 40, vowed to rebuild its land and remember
its heroes.