CIVIL WAR BATTLES

CIVIL WAR BATTLES

Objective: What event specifically sparked the U.S. Civil War.

The Birth of the Republican Party

Democratic Party – still alive but weaker

New party – Republican Party - emerges Who are these Republicans?

Election of 1860:Main Candidates

Abraham Lincoln

(Republican)

Stephen Douglas (Northern Democrat)

John Breckinridge

(Southern Democrat)

John Bell(Constitutional

Union)

* Lincoln won the election.

• In response to Lincoln’s victory, the southern states seceded from the Union in 1861, forming the Confederate States of America.

Secession:

Original Confederate flag Eventual Confederate flag

A PERSONAL VOICE WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN

“ This country will be drenched in blood. . . . [T]he people of the North . . . are not going to let this country bedestroyed without a mighty effort to save it. . . . Besides,where are your men and appliances of war to contendagainst them? . . . You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical and determined people on earth—right at your doors. . . . Only in spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared.”

—quoted in None Died in Vain

• Jefferson Davis was named the president of the Confederacy.

• Fort Sumter, South Carolina, was important because it guarded Charleston harbor

* The Civil War had now begun!

Fort Sumter

• Therefore, the Confederates attacked, defeating the Union soldiers.

Civil War: Union v. Confederacy

Ruffin, Pvt. Edmund, Confederate soldier who fired the first shot against Fort Sumter

Anderson, Maj. Robert, defender of Fort Sumter

Bombardment of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor April 12 and 13, 1861

Fort Sumter, S.C., April 4, 1861, under the Confederate flag.

Objective: To examine the advantages, disadvantages, and strategies of both the Union and the Confederacy.

• Who had the advantage at the start of the Civil War, the Union or the Confederacy, and why do you think so?

Union Advantage

• small population of 9 million, of which 1/3 were slaves

• large population of 22 million

Confederate Disadvantage

• excellent railroad system

Confederate Disadvantage

Union Advantage

• poor railroad system

• defending their homeland

• The North invaded unfamiliar territory.

Audio Excerpt:

Union and Confederate Advantages

Confederate Advantages• fought a defensive war at home

Union Disadvantages• The South was a huge area to conquer.

· seize control of the Mississippi River, trying to split Confederacy in two

Strategies for VictoryUnion plans:

· blockade Southern ports

· capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia

· The South counted on European money and supplies.

Confederate plans:· To stay at home and fight a defensive war.· The South believed that the North would quickly tire of fighting and give up.

FIRST BATTLES: Objective: To examine the role of the navy and the battles of Bull Run and Antietam.

· 1st Union attack on the Confederacy in July of 1861.

Battle of Bull Run - Animation

•It also showed that the war would be long and bloody.

•Confederate moral soared

· The Confederates, led by Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, won the battle.

SIGNIFICANCE:

*This battle showed each side that they needed training.

July 21, 1861 - Ruins of the Stone Bridge over which Northern forces retreated until it was blown up by a Rebel shell adding to the panic of the retreat, with the Federals returning to Washington as "a rain-soaked mob."

· Therefore, the South created an ironclad ship called the Merrimack to attack the Union navy.

Naval Action· The Union blockade on Southern ports hurt the South.

• In response, the North created an ironclad ship called the Monitor.

* Ironclad ships changed naval warfare forever!

The U.S.S. Monitor was the first Union iron-clad ship. This picture shows the deck and the turret of the U.S.S. Monitor.

USS Monitor in action with CSS Virginia, 9 March 1862

The Hunley – The world’s first submarine, designed and used in the Civil War by the Confederacy.

Illustration of the H.L. Hunley submarine with its bow-mounted spar torpedo.

H. L. Hunley, suspended from a crane during its recovery from Charleston Harbor, August 8, 2000.

Friends of the Hunley

How did Lincoln respond to loss at Bull Run?

1. Stepping up enlistments2. Appointed Gen. George McClellan to lead

forces near DC.3. Increased Union fighting in west for control

of Mississippi River4. By Feb 1862, invades Tennessee under led by

Gen. Ulysses Grant

· The Confederate General Robert E. Lee decided to attack the Union in Maryland, on Union soil, in September of 1862.

Antietam(Ann-Tee-Tum)

· Over 23,000 Union and Confederate troops were killed or wounded.

Dead Confederate soldiers after the Battle of Antietam (from Starke's Louisiana Brigade)

Lincoln with McClellan and staff after the Battle of Antietam. Notable figures (from left) are 6. McClellan; 10. Lincoln; 16. Capt. George Armstrong Custer.

President Lincoln and Gen. George B. McClellan in the general's tent near the Antietam battlefield, October 3, 1862.

What about foreign powers?

• Many thought because of cotton, Great Britain would recognize confederacy as an independent nation – this was not the case.

• South continued to pursue foreign recognition

What’s going on with the abolitionists?

• As Jefferson Davis’s Confederacy struggled in vain to gain foreign recognition, abolitionist feeling grew in the North.

What was Lincolns position?• disliked slavery, he did not believe that the

federal government had the power to abolish it where it already existed. However, as the war continued….