The Furnace of Civil War

1861-1865

Chapter 21

Bull Run (Manassas Junction)

• The North expected a quick victory

• Lincoln and Northern Army defeated July 21, 1861 @ Bull Run

• Psychological and political victory for the South

George McClellan

• 1861 – After Bull Run, Lincoln gives McClellan control of the Army of the Potomac

• Good organizer and drillmaster

• Perfectionist who wouldn’t take risks

• Too cautious

Seven Days’ Battles

• June 26 – July 2, 1862• McClellan finally attacks the South toward

Richmond• Lee counterattacks McClellan and drove the

North back to the coast• UNION strategy becomes TOTAL WAR

– 1 – suffocate the South w/ blockade– 2 – liberate slaves to undermine South’s

economy

The War at Sea

• The Northern sea blockades were concentrated at the principal ports.

• Blockade was the chief offensive weapon of Britain.  Britain did not want to tie its hands in a future war with the U.S. by insisting that Lincoln maintain impossibly high blockading standards.

• In order to combat the strong blockades, ships were developed to run through them.  Some fast ships had the capability of running through blockades in order to make profits transporting cotton.  These ships were able to break the blockades up until the latter part of the war when blockades were strengthened.

• In 1862, the Confederates created the Merrimack, renamed the Virginia.  It was an old U.S. wooden ship that was plated with metal armor.  It was a great threat to the Northern blockades because it had the ability to crush through the wooden ships. 

• On March 9, 1862, the Union ironclad, the Monitor, and the Confederate Merrimack met and fought to a standstill.

The Pivotal Point: Antietam

Emancipation Proclamation

• In 1863 Lincoln declares that all slaves in Confederate States still in rebellion are free.

• Did not free a single slave.

Blacks Battle Bondage

Lee Towards Gettysburg

• Lincoln replaced McClellan with A.E. Burnside after loss at Antietam

• Dec. 13, 1862 – Fredericksburg (Southern victory)

• May 2-4, 1862 – Chancellorsville (Southern victory)

Lee Toward Gettysburg

• Lee wanted to follow big victories with an invasion of the North through Pennsylvania

• Gettysburg – General George Meade in charge of Union troops

• 92,000 Blue• 76,000 Gray• July 1-3, 1863 – Union victory broke the

heart of the Confederate charge

The War in the West

William Tecumseh Sherman• U.S. Grant takes

control of Union Army

• Grant wins at Vicksburg

• Georgia was open to invasion

• Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman led Union forces to Atlanta in Sept. 1864

Sherman’s Tear Through The South

• Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground in November 1864

• Cut a 60 mile path of horror from Atlanta to Savannah burning everything in his way

• Burned, stole, pillaged, and destroyed Georgia

• Sherman made it up through SC and into NC by the war’s end

The Politics of War

Election of 1864

• Republicans joined with War Democrats to temporarily create the Union Party

• Lincoln candidate for president• Andrew Johnson (TN) to be vice-president• Soldiers sent to oversee voting (and ensure

people voted for Lincoln)• Lincoln defeats George McClellan • 212-21 in Electoral College

Ulysses S. Grant

• 100,000 men under Grant set out for Richmond

• Cornered Lee at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia

• Lee surrenders in April 1865

Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

• April 14, 1865• 5 days after Lee’s

surrender• John Wilkes Booth, a

pro-Southern actor, shot Lincoln in the head

• Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.

The Civil War• 600,000 total dead

• 1,000,000 killed or wounded

• The USA lost the heart of its young male population

• $15 Billion cost of war

The Ordeal Of Reconstruction

1865-1877

Chapter 22

Reconstruction

• The challenge: How to reunite the nation?

• South was physically destroyed by war, and revolutionized socially by the emancipation of the slaves

• Jefferson Davis was arrested and imprisoned for two years, eventually released

Reconstruction

• All rebel leaders were pardoned by Andrew Johnson Dec. 25, 1868

• A CIVILIZATION HAD COLLAPSED

• The economic and social order of the South had been crushed!

• Banks and businesses closed, runaway inflation, factories closed, and transportation was completely broken down

Reconstruction

• Agriculture was almost hopelessly crippled• Slave-labor system collapsed• Not until 1870 did the South produce 1860

harvest numbers (because of new western farms)

• Planter aristocrats humbled• Lost investment and capital of slaves –

worthless land

Black Churches Spring Up

Black Baptist Church – 500,000 members by 1870

• African Methodist Episcopal Church – 400,000 members by 1870

The Freedmen’s Bureau

• Primitive welfare organization to provide food, clothing, medical care, and education for blacks and poor whites.

• Bureau taught 200,000 blacks to read and write

Andrew Johnson• Lincoln’s Union Party running mate to gain

support of War Democrats

• Intelligent, able, forceful, honest, devoted to duty and people

• Champion of states’ rights

• buried with a copy of the Constitution

Presidential Reconstruction“10 percent” of voters from the 1860

presidential election had to take an oath of loyalty and the state could be readmitted to the Union

• Johnson agreed with Lincoln’s plan

• Radical Republican tried to push the Wade-Davis Bill through Congress– called for 50% to take the oath

• Lincoln pocket-vetoed the bill

Reconstruction Republicans

• 1- Moderate Group – (majority)

• Majority of Republicans agreed with Lincoln to restore states as quickly as possible (10% plan)

• 2 – Radical Group (minority)

• Believed South should suffer punishment before being restored

• Radicals wanted to uproot Southern structure, punish planters, and protect blacks with federal power

Black Codes

• Laws designed to regulate affairs of emancipated blacks

• Aim: to ensure a stable and subservient workforce

• Created tough work contracts with severe penalties to keep blacks in their place

Congressional Reconstruction

• 3/5 Compromise abolished with 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments

• Blacks now 5/5 of a person – 1 whole

• South had more political power

• Dec. 6, 1865 – Johnson announces that South had met requirements for re-entry

• Congress vehemently disagreed

Johnson’s Clash with Congress

• March 1866 – Civil Rights Bill – passed by Republicans, which gave blacks American citizenship and struck against Black Codes

• Johnson vetoes the bill

• April 1866 – Congress overrides Johnson’s veto

14th Amendment

• 1- conferred rights, citizenship (no vote), to blacks

• 2 – reduced proportion of representation if a state refused blacks the right to vote

• 3 – disqualified former Confederate leaders from holding office who served then seceded.

• 4 – guaranteed the federal debt, and repudiated Southern debt

Radical Republican Leaders

Senator Charles Sumner Congressman Thaddeus Stevens

Radicals

• Radicals wanted to keep the South out of the House and Senate as long as possible to keep federal power

• They wanted to bring drastic change to the South’s society and economy

Military Reconstruction Act 1867

• South broken into 5 military districts

• Each commanded by a Union general

15th Amendment

• Passed by Congress in 1869

• Ratified in 1870

• Gave adult black males the right to vote

• By 1877, all federal forces leave the South

• “Stolen Election”

Blanche K. Bruce

• 1868-1876

• 14 black congressmen

• 2 black senators

• Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce become Senators from Mississippi

The Ku Klux Klan

• # of secret societies are formed in post-war South

• “Invisible Empire of the South” or KKK

• Founded in Tennessee in 1866 by Nathan Bedford Forrest – ex-Confederate officer

Nathan Bedford Forrest• Flogged, mutilated, and

murdered many

• Tried to keep blacks from exercising their new freedoms

• Force Acts (1870-1871) – federal troops given permission to stamp out secret societies – KKK too well organized

Impeachment

• Congress was annoyed by Johnson’s obstruction and vetoes

• Tenure of Office Act – 1867 – kept president from firing cabinet members

• Johnson fired Edwin M. Stanton in 1868

Impeachment

• US House votes 126-47 to impeach Johnson for “high crimes and misdemeanors”

• Articles of impeachment for disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt and reproach

• Johnson NOT impeached by Senate by a margin of one vote

Alaska• 1867 – Russian Alaska

had been over hunted and became an economic liability for Russia

• Secretary of State William Seward signed a treaty to buy Alaska for $7.2 million

• “Seward’s Folly” was ridiculed