During this four-year struggle, eleven southern states and parts of other states tried to break away from the United States of America to set up the independent Confederate States of America. After thousands of battles and skirmishes that cost some 600,000 American lives, from as far afield as New Mexico, Florida, and Vermont, the issue was decided in favor of preserving the Union. Slavery, too, became a major issue of the war, and with the Union victory, slavery was abolished within the same year.
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Almost immediately following Fort Sumter’s surrender, after more than thirty-two hours of bombardment, President Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand volunteers to quell what he regarded as open rebellion. This left the states of the upper south and border regions in a quandary, and each state had to determine its own allegiance in the days to come. Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia voted for secession, but the last three of these states did so only by narrow margins. Maryland
The North faced more challenging strategic decisions than did the South, as the North had to take the initiative to invade and conquer Southern territories to force the rebel states into submission. By contrast, the Confederacy’s strategy was simply to resist Northern invasion until the North was compelled, either by outside interference or by lack of resolve, to abandon its efforts to preserve the union.
The Northern military commanders were driven by two basic schools of thought. General Winfield Scott
Meanwhile, the Confederacy sought diplomatic recognition from Great Britain and France through its King Cotton diplomacy. The Confederates hoped that the Northern blockade of cotton exports to British and French factories would cause sufficient economic hardship in Europe to move those countries to intervene in the American war. What ultimately frustrated that plan was the opposition of French and British popular opinion toward Southern slavery and the development of alternative sources for cotton.
Because of the substantial disparity in Union and Confederate staffing, resources, and provisions, the Confederacy’s ability to carry out attacks into Northern territory was limited. However, leading Confederate commanders, such as Robert E. Lee, saw possibilities in carefully timed invasions that might produce victories on Union soil that might undermine Northern morale and force the Union to recognize Southern independence. Such attempts were made in the fall of 1862 and summer of 1863.
It was clear that a lengthy war of attrition would favor the North, which had a population of twenty-two million people, compared to only nine million in the South. The North also had a markedly superior infrastructure, with highly developed urban centers, heavy industries, shipyards, highways, railroads, and canals. So long as the war continued, it appeared almost certain that the South would eventually be worn down.
The first significant battle of the war was the First Battle of
At the end of 1861, Confederate territory remained largely intact. However, after the New Year, a series of devastating Union offensives brought the Union close to victory by the middle of 1862. Joint army-navy
The major clash between ironclad naval vessels, an event that revolutionized warfare, occurred at Hampton Roads,
At Seven Pines, or Fair Oaks (May 31-June 1), Joseph Johnston failed to drive McClellan
The Second Battle of Bull Run
On September 22, 1862, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Effective on January 1, 1863, it declared freedom for all slaves still held in rebel territory. The main object of the proclamation was to claim a strong moral position for the Union on the slavery question and thereby lessen the chance of European intervention on behalf of the South. Meanwhile, a parallel Confederate invasion into Kentucky was turned back at Perryville on October 8. However, the year ended horrendously for the Union, as Burnside sacrificed his men in suicidal attacks on Lee’s impregnable positions at the Battle of Fredericksburg
In Tennessee, the fiercely contested clash at Stones River, or Murfreesboro (December 31, 1862-January 2, 1863), forced the Confederates to withdraw from the central portion of the state. Burnside’s successor, General Joseph Hooker
On July 4, 1863, the Confederate garrison at Vicksburg, Mississippi, surrendered to Grant after a lengthy Union siege. The loss of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, Louisiana (July 9), meant that Union control of the Mississippi Valley was complete and Confederate territory was finally split. The Union army pushed the Confederates out of Tennessee but then suffered a significant setback at Chickamauga Creek, Georgia (September 19-20). Grant, however, was appointed to command in Tennessee and drove the Southern army back into Georgia by lifting the Siege of Chattanooga (November 23-25).
As the war entered its fourth year in 1864, its end seemed as far away as ever. Most of Confederate territory remained intact. This was a presidential election year in the Union, and rising casualty lists were boosting public dissatisfaction with Lincoln’s leadership. Meanwhile, on March 10, Lieutenant-General Grant took overall command of all U.S. forces and proposed an all-out assault on all fronts, with the major thrusts directed against Richmond, where Grant himself would confront Lee, and in Georgia, where Sherman
From May to June, 1864, Grant doggedly pushed his Army of the Potomac toward Richmond in a series of battles known as the Overland Campaign, only to find himself bogged down by year’s end in a lengthy siege of the crucial nerve center of Petersburg, Virginia, while sustaining twice as many casualties as his opponents. Sherman too, was frustrated by the wily Johnston’s strategic retreat into Georgia.
The fall of Richmond to Union troops in early April, 1865, marked the effective end of the Confederacy.
With war-weariness becoming a major political issue, the ousted Union commander George B. McClellan accepted the Democratic nomination for president against the embattled Lincoln. Shortly afterward, however, the tide of the war turned in the Union’s favor. On July 17, the Confederate general Johnston was replaced as the leader of the Army of Tennessee by the reckless John Bell Hood
After the election, Hood’s desperate attempt to invade the North through Tennessee failed when his army was shattered at Nashville on December 15-16. Meanwhile, Sherman was leading his army on his famous march to the sea, from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia (November 15-December 10), leaving in his wake a swath of destruction. The Union’s top naval commander, Farragut,
After reaching Savannah, Sherman
The U.S. Civil War was the most profound event of nineteenth century American history. It settled any lingering constitutional vagueness about the nature of the union and established both the indivisibility of the United States and the supremacy of federal over state law. Although slavery was not a primary issue of the war when the conflict began, the progress of the war made slavery a central issue, and the Union victory ensured that slavery would finally be abolished. That issue was settled, once and for all, by the first of the so-called Civil War amendments—the Thirteenth Amendment, which was ratified on December 18, 1865.
After the war reunified the United States, the nation entered into a period of unparalleled economic and technological growth, to emerge as a global power by the late nineteenth century. The South, however, did not fully share in these developments. The federal government’s attempts at postwar Reconstruction in the South helped foster an unresolved legacy of bitterness and racial division that would continue to spawn serious problems for generations to come.
The U.S. Civil War was also a turning point in military history. In many ways, it was the first modern war. Many of its technological advances—rapid-fire weapons, telegraphic communication, high-speed rail transportation, and ironclad warships—prefigured the technology of twentieth century warfare.
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Davis, William C., and Bell L. Wiley, eds. Civil War Album: A Complete Photographic History of the Civil War—Fort Sumter to Appomattox. New York: Tess Press, 2000. Richly illustrated with some four thousand photographs, this invaluable volume also contains very detailed textual material. -
Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative. 9 vols. New York: Random House, 1958. Perhaps the best-written and most impartial account from the Southern viewpoint, this comprehensive history of the war avoids glamorizing the conflict, while bringing out relevant and engaging anecdotal material. -
Fowler, William M., Jr. Under Two Flags: The American Navy in the Civil War. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990. Thorough examination of the Civil War’s naval campaigns and the largely overlooked significance of Union sea power and the blockade as markedly contributing to the Confederacy’s defeat. -
Groom, Winston. Shrouds of Glory: From Atlanta to Nashville, the Last Great Campaign of the Civil War. New York: Grove Press, 1995. Account of the planning, execution, and failure of the November-December, 1864, Tennessee campaign, which marked the last major Confederate assault on Union-held territory. -
Hendrickson, Robert. Sumter: The First Day of the Civil War. New York; Dell, 1991. Describes the background behind the Confederate siege of Fort Sumter and the events and personalities that led the two sections of the nation to the war’s first clash of arms. -
Horn, John. The Petersburg Campaign, June, 1864-April, 1865. Conshohocken, Pa.: Combined Books, 1993. Amply supplied with illustrative material and sidebars, this account chronicles and analyzes the longest and most decisive siege of the war and military operations and innovations that prefigured twentieth century warfare. -
McPherson, James. The Illustrated Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Nearly definitive one-volume history of the war that covers the conflict in its entirety. The author skillfully intermingles the politics with the military campaigns, and maintains a particularly balanced appraisal of both sides. -
Pratt, Fletcher. A Short History of the Civil War. New York: Pocket Books, 1961. Brief but highly readable and articulate exposition on the Northern point of view that presents particularly favorable views of the leadership of Ulysses S. Grant, George H. Thomas, and Philip Sheridan. -
Tucker, Phillip Thomas. The Final Fury: Palmito Ranch, the Last Battle of the Civil War. Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2001. Explores the largely overlooked story of the Civil War in Texas and the composition and mentality of those who waged the conflict in its far western theater even after the fall of the Confederacy. -
Ward, Geoffrey C. The Civil War: An Illustrated History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990. Attractively illustrated and engagingly written companion volume to the eleven-hour documentary Ken Burns made for the Public Broadcasting System. Burns’s Civil War—in which historian Shelby Foote figures prominently—is available in several video formats. -
Weighley, Russell F. A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. Solid general history emphasizing the lack of unanimity in the South as heavily contributing to the Confederate defeat, and the interplay of social factors alongside the more traditionally cited military and political elements.
Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry
Lincoln Is Elected U.S. President
Establishment of the Confederate States of America
Lincoln Is Inaugurated President
First Battle of Bull Run
Battle of the Monitor and the Virginia
Lincoln Issues the Emancipation Proclamation
Union Enacts the First National Draft Law
Battles of Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga
Reconstruction of the South
Sherman Marches Through Georgia and the Carolinas
Surrender at Appomattox and Assassination of Lincoln
Watie Is Last Confederate General to Surrender
Treaty of Washington Settles U.S. Claims vs. Britain
Jefferson Davis; Ulysses S. Grant; Stonewall Jackson; Robert E. Lee; Abraham Lincoln; William Tecumseh Sherman; Alexander H. Stephens; Harriet Beecher Stowe.