A Journey Through the Civil War Pt. 4

A JOURNEY THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR

PART 4

Presented byGreg Caggiano, Instructor

Brookdale Community College

1863

SIEGE OF VICKSBURG

• Key river port city in Mississippi• Lasted from May 18- July 4, 1863• Union Army surrounded city and blocked anyone from entering or leaving• The army and civilians eventually ran out of food and surrendered• 33,000 Confederate troops captured in surrender

BLACK SOLDIERS IN THE UNION ARMY

• By 1863, the Union Army was finally allowing freed black men to serve• However, for many months, no one took them seriously and they were forced

to do hard labor such as digging trenches, latrines, and setting up camp• By July 1863, their white commander, Colonel Robert Shaw, was able to

convince generals in the army that they could fight

54TH MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENT

• First all-black regiment to fight in combat• Commanders were white• Wanted to prove that they were just as good as the white soldiers• Fought very bravely at a small battle on St. James Island, in South Carolina,

before they would become legendary at the battle of Fort Wagner several days later

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

• November 18, 1863• Was not even the featured speaker

• Asked to make “a few appropriate remarks”• Edward Everett main orator (13,000 words, 2 and a half hours)

• Lincoln did not think highly of his own speech

1864

TURNING TIDE

• After Gettysburg, the tide of war began to change and be against the Confederate Army

• Because Grant was so successful fighting out west, Lincoln moves him east to match him up against Lee

• The last two years of the war quickly became a game of cat and mouse between Grant and Lee

OVERLAND CAMPAIGN

• In an attempt to weaken Lee’s army, which is growing weaker by the month, Grant moves his men across Virginia to fight many different battles with Lee along the way

• Each battle, even if the Union loses more men, is still a victory, because the Confederates do not have the manpower or reserves to make up for their losses

BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS

• May 5-7, 1864• Before the battle, men from both sides snuck away from their camps to play

baseball against each other• Fighting occurred in the thick Virginia wilderness• Was so intense and close that on several occasions, the woods caught fire• Many wounded men became trapped and burnt to death

BATTLE OF COLD HARBOR

• May 31- June 12, 1864• Last major Confederate victory• Grant made one major mistake• He attacked a Confederate position protected behind a barricade, losing

2,000 men in 20 minutes• Most lopsided battle of the war

• CSA lost only 4,500 men, while the USA lost more than 12,000

ATLANTA CAMPAIGN

• May 7 to September 2, 1864• Led by General William T. Sherman in Georgia• Began with Sherman ordering his men to burn the city of Atlanta and march

from there to the east coast (Atlantic Ocean), destroying everything in their path

• They burned houses and business, killed livestock, destroyed railroad tracks• Many innocent people were also killed by Union soldiers• Sherman became a hero to the North, but a terrorist to the South

SIEGE OF PETERSBURG

• June 9, 1864 to March 25, 1865• Major Confederate town was sieged by 125,000 Union soldiers, while they

only had 50,000 men• Many different battles, but the most famous one would be known as “The

Crater”

ELECTION OF 1864

• Though Lincoln’s popularity had declined, several major Union victories before the election had given people the feeling he was still the right man for the job.

• The man he ran against was…

1865

A LOST CAUSE

• By 1865, all hope the Confederacy had of winning the war began to be lost• The amount of able men was shrinking, and the army was running out of

food and supplies• Still, they kept on fighting with desperation

LEE’S SURRENDER

• On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee knew they had no chance of winning the war. He did not want to see his men fighting and getting killed for nothing

• “There is nothing left for me to do than go and see General Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths.”

• Lee and several of his officers rode to a small house in Appomattox, Virginia, where Lee signed the terms of surrender to Grant, which ended the war in Virginia

THE END OF THE WAR

• The War officially ended a few weeks after Lee’s surrender, because Confederate forces under Joseph E. Johnston were still fighting. When they surrendered on May 2, the war officially came to a close

• All total, combined losses between both sides during the four year war were 800,000+ dead, and nearly 2 million wounded. It remains the bloodiest civil war in modern history

THE PRESIDENCY AND ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

MR. LINCOLN

• Born in 1809 in Kentucky• Lawyer in Illinois from 1847-1849• “Prairie lawyer”• Was very tall for his time (6ft, 4in) and had a very large, yet lanky frame• Voice was very high-pitched, a backwoodsy, country twang. Initially caught

people off guard but was described as very soothing

VIEWS ON SLAVERY

• Views on the issue were divided his entire life• Originally opposed BOTH slavery AND abolition:

• "The Institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils.“ (1837)

• By the time he was running for president, he was still not against slavery, he was just against its expansion

VIEWS DURING FORMULATIVE YEARS

•  “In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border”

• “I think slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union” (Lincoln, 1859).

ANTI-SLAVERY, BUT ANTI-EQUALITY• "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in

any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." (Debate at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858)

RUMBLINGS OF “BACK TO AFRICA”

• "A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation but as an immediate separation is impossible the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas. That is at least one self-evident truth." ...... "Such separation, if ever effected at all, must be effected by colonization…Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be. The children of Israel, to such numbers as to include four hundred thousand fighting men, went out of Egyptian bondage in a body." (Speech on the Dred Scott Decision, June 26, 1857)

UNION, FIRST AND FOREMOST

• “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”

WHY DO WE IGNORE SUCH QUOTES?

• Eric Foner writes in The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery:• “The problem is that we tend too often to read Lincoln’s growth backward, as an

unproblematic trajectory toward a predetermined end. This enables scholars to ignore or downplay aspects of Lincoln’s beliefs with which they are uncomfortable” 

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

• Most misunderstood document in American history• Textbooks have long given it credit for “freeing the slaves”, which technically

it did not• Only freed the slaves in rebellious southern states, which he currently had

no power over• Could not free slaves in border states for fear of them seceding

ON EMANCIPATION

• "I have urged the colonization of the negroes, and shall continue. My Emancipation Proclamation was linked with this plan. There is no room for two distinct races of Whites and blacks in America. I can think of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the negro into our social and political life as our equal. Within twenty years we can peacefully colonize the negro..under conditions in which he can rise to the full measure of manhood. This he can never do here. We can never attain the ideal union our fathers dreamed with millions of an alien, inferior race living among us, whose assimilation is neither possible nor desirable." (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 1953, v5, p371-5)

ANTI-LINCOLN NORTHERNERS

• Copperhead anti-war movement • Opposed Lincoln, supported slavery

• Made up of democrats (the conservatives of the time)• Was widespread in New York and New Jersey• Wanted as quick an end to the war as possible, by either a truce or

Confederate victory (Union victory seemed out of the question)• Strongest in 1862/early 1863

JULY 1863: PERCEPTION CHANGED

• From 1861 to 1863, Lincoln was not a popular president• The Union Army suffered disaster after disaster• He was worried he would lose the election of 1864• After a major victory at Gettysburg and the capture of Vicksburg in the West,

public opinion again began to shift• Union Army was now more popular with Grant in charge, and the end of the

war was in sight for the first time

ELECTION OF 1864

SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS

• March 4, 1865• Offered hope that the war would soon be over• Was very accepting and peaceful towards the south• “With malice toward none, and charity for all”• Lincoln photographed with assassin

THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT

• With the end of the war in sight, an official ending of slavery was seen as a way to put the final nail in the south’s coffin• Hope to break their spirit and their hopes

• Faced severe opposition and many people believe he had people paid off to vote for the amendment

• Key to passing: The idea that the war could not end without it!!!

SPOTLIGHT: THADDEUS STEVENS

THE END IS NEARDid Lincoln know he was going to die?

THE ORIGINAL PLOT

• In 1864, Booth and a few associates had planned to kidnap the president and hold him hostage, either by exchanging him for all Confederate prisoners or by forcing a truce to end the war

• Lincoln was no good to them dead at this point in the war• Plot eventually fell through after Lincoln changed his travel plans at the last

minute when attending a play near Booth’s residence

BUILDING UP TO THE ASSASSINATION

• With the amendment passed and Lee surrendering in early April, the war was almost officially over, and Lincoln could finally relax

• Had many dreams that he would be assassinated, including one where he saw his own body laying in state

THE ASSASSINATION

• With the war over, Booth let his anger get the best of him• He and his co-conspirators, some of whom were involved in the kidnapping

plot, looked to send America into chaos and inspire the other Confederate soldiers who had not surrendered yet

• Plotted in the home of Mary Surratt

CONTINUED…

• While Booth was to kill Lincoln at Ford’s Theater, Lewis Powell was supposed to kill Secretary of State William Seward and George Atzerodt was to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson• Only Booth succeeded

• The play was Our American Cousin, which he knew well. He also knew the layout of the theater, and timed his movements and final gunshot with when the audience would be laughing.

“SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS”

• Not Booth’s finest moment as he shouts this phrase before leaping off the balcony, and breaking his leg

• His cover was blown, and now everybody knew who he was• Expected to be treated as a hero in the south and receive protection as he

fled, but southerners were almost more enraged at the assassination than northerners

THE END OF OUR JOURNEY

• What happened to…• Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: President of Bowdoin College and Governor of Maine• Robert E. Lee: Would die from illness in 1870 having never written memoirs• Ulysses S. Grant: President of the United States; memoir is gigantic success• George McClellan: Governor of New Jersey• James Longstreet: Publicly derided by ex-Confederate generals for embracing reconstruction• Nathan Bedford Forrest: Helps found KKK before denouncing it 5 years later

• The “Lost Cause” Mythology of the “Old South” was born in the late 1800’s• The Nation tries desperately to forget the damage caused by the Civil War