|
American Civil War
The American Civil War
(1861–1865) was a
separatist conflict
between the United
States Federal
government (the "Union")
and eleven Southern
slave states that
declared their secession
and formed the
Confederate States of
America, led by
President Jefferson
Davis. The Union, led by
President Abraham
Lincoln and the
Republican Party,
opposed the expansion of
slavery and rejected any
right of secession.
Fighting commenced on
April 12, 1861, when
Confederate forces
attacked a Federal
military installation at
Fort Sumter in South
Carolina.[1]
During the first year,
the Union asserted
control of the border
states and established a
naval blockade as both
sides raised large
armies. In 1862 large,
bloody battles began,
causing massive
casualties as a result
of new weapons and old
battlefield tactics. In
September 1862,
Lincoln's Emancipation
Proclamation[2] made the
freeing of the slaves a
war goal, despite
opposition from northern
Copperheads who
tolerated secession and
slavery. Emancipation
ensured that Britain and
France would not
intervene to help the
Confederacy. In
addition, the goal also
allowed the Union to
recruit
African-Americans for
reinforcements, a
resource that the
Confederacy did not dare
exploit until it was too
late. War Democrats
reluctantly accepted
emancipation as part of
total war needed to save
the Union. In the East,
Robert Edward Lee rolled
up a series of
Confederate victories
over the Army of the
Potomac, but his best
general, Thomas Jonathan
"Stonewall" Jackson, was
killed at the Battle of
Chancellorsville in May
1863.[3] Lee's invasion
of the North was
repulsed at the Battle
of Gettysburg in
Pennsylvania in July
1863;[4] he barely
managed to escape back
to Virginia. In the
West, the Union Navy
captured the port of New
Orleans in 1862, and
Ulysses S. Grant seized
control of the
Mississippi River by
capturing Vicksburg,
Mississippi in July
1863,[5] thus splitting
the Confederacy.
By 1864, long-term Union
advantages in geography,
manpower, industry,
finance, political
organization and
transportation were
overwhelming the
Confederacy. Grant
fought a number of
bloody battles with Lee
in Virginia in the
summer of 1864. Lee won
most of the battles in a
tactical sense but on
the whole lost
strategically, as he
could not replace his
casualties and was
forced to retreat into
trenches around his
capital, Richmond,
Virginia. Meanwhile,
William Tecumseh Sherman
captured Atlanta,
Georgia.[6] Sherman's
March to the Sea
destroyed a
hundred-mile-wide swath
of Georgia. In 1865, the
Confederacy collapsed
after Lee surrendered to
Grant at Appomattox
Court House and the
slaves were freed.
The full restoration of
the Union was the work
of a highly contentious
postwar era known as
Reconstruction. The war
produced about 970,000
casualties (3% of the
population), including
approximately 620,000
soldier deaths.
|
