Transcript The Hardest Thing for a Historian

Chapter 14, Henretta
THE CIVIL WAR
Important strands in Chapter 14
1. The Nation Divides
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The Deep South secedes while the Upper South wavers
(Dec 1860-April 1861) *
The Confederacy is formed
South Carolina forces the issue: Fort Sumter (April 1861)
The Upper South secedes (April-May 1861)
Lincoln struggles to keep the border states in the Union
(Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia) *
Questions:
(a) Why would the Deep South be quicker to secede than states
like Virginia and South Carolina?
(b) Why would Lincoln find it so important to keep each of these
states in the Union: Maryland/Delaware, Kentucky/West
Virginia, Missoui?
Important strands in Chapter 14
2. What Kind of War Will This Be? … A Short One (1861)
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Simply capture Richmond (Battle of Bull Run, July 21)
3. What Kind of War Will This Be? … A Long One (1862)
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In the East: North and South threaten each others’ capitals
(Battles of Fredericksburg, Seven Days, Antietam)
In the West: Control the Mississippi and Split the
Confederacy (Shiloh, Mobile Bay, New Orleans) *
Brilliant generals (South), not-so-brilliant generals (North)
The Emancipation Proclamation
o only freed slaves in states then at war with the Union
Questions:
(a) Does the Norths strategy in the West remind you of anything
from the Revolutionary War?
(b) What should the South do to win this kind of war?
Important strands in Chapter 14
4. Turning Point of the War (July 1-4, 1863)
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Vicksburg (the Union captures the Mississippi River)
Gettysburg (the Union destroys one third of Robert E. Lee’s
army on his boldest push into the North)
5. Slowly Grinding Toward Total Victory (1864-1865)
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Gen. Ulysses Grant becomes the American commander. He
and Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman pummel the South, at
a huge cost in Union lives
Sherman captures Atlanta on his destructive march to the
sea (1864)
Grant forces Lee to surrender at Appomattox Court House,
Virginia (April 9, 1865)
Lincoln is assassinated (April 15, 1865)
Important strands in Chapter 14
6. The Transformed Republic
The North had huge advantages at the beginning of the war:
more people, more railroads, more factories. Lincoln
compounded them in many, many ways by war’s end
• A stronger central government: conscription, imprisonment
without trial, a huge bureaucracy
• A much bigger government, too: enormous debt, new taxes,
the broad sale of war bonds
• More powerful capitalism: big business, big railroads, the
rise of an enormously wealthy upper class
• A new system of banking: new federal regulations, the rise
of the great financiers
The youngest of us
are never again to see
the republic in which
we were born.
-Wendell Phillips
abolitionist
Americana Trivia Question for Nov. 26, 2014
Who invented the holiday of Thanksgiving?
Americana Trivia Question for Nov. 26, 2014
Who invented the holiday of Thanksgiving?
Lincoln paused from fighting
the Civil War long enough to
issue a proclamation (Oct. 8,
1863) setting aside the last
Thursday of November as a
day of praise and Thanksgiving
to God.
“The year,” he said, “has been
filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies …
peace has been preserved with all nations … harmony has
prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict.”