Apush Final Review Pt. 7 (Chapters 13+14)

“Manifest Destiny”

• Advocates of expansion justified their goals with a carefully articulated set of ideas, an ideology known as this 

• Became one of the factors driving white Americans to look to the West 

• Reflected both the pride that characterized American nationalism in the mid 18th century and the idealistic vision of social perfection that fueled so much of the reform energy of the time 

• It rested on the idea that America was destined by God and history to expand its boundaries over a vast area (continent of North America) 

• Advocates of it disagreed about how far and by what means that nation should expand 

  • Some had limited territorial goals while others envisioned a vast new “empire of liberty” that would include certain nations and some dreamed the rest of the world 

  • Some believed America should use force to achieve its expansionist goals, others felt the nation should not expand at all

Henry Clay

• Prominent politician 

• He did not embrace the idea of Manifest Destiny 

• Said that territorial expansion would reopen the painful controversy over slavery and threaten the stability of the Union 

• His voice along with other politicians voices were barely audible over the clamor of enthusiasm for expansion in the 1840s

Stephen F. Austin

• The most successful of the intermediaries 

• Young immigrant from Missouri who had established the first legal American settlement in Texas in 1822 

• Him and other intermediaries were affected in recruiting American immigrants to Texas, but they also created centers of power in the region that competed with the Mexican government 

• Him and his followers wanted to reach a peaceful settlement that would give Texas more autonomy within the Mexican republic, while other Americans wanted to fight for independence 

• Imprisoned by the Mexican government because they claimed that he was encouraging revolts among his fellow American settlers in Texas

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna

• Instability in Mexico drove him to seize power as a dictator and impose a new, more autocratic regime on the nation and its territories 

• A new law increased the powers of the national government of Mexico at the expense of the state governments 

  • A measure that Texans from the US assumed he was aiming specifically at them 

• Led a large Army into Texas where the American settlers have having difficulties organizing an effective defense of their new nation

Alamo

• Mission where the Mexican forces annihilated an American garrison in San Antonio

• It was after a famous defense by a group of Texans patriots

Sam Houston

• General who managed to keep a small force together 

• Became the new president of Texas and his first act was to send a delegation to Washington with an offer to join the Union 

• There were supporters of expansion in the United States who welcomed these overtures, but there was also opposition

Battle of San Jacinto

• Near the present-day city of Houston 

• Houston defeated the mexican army and took Santa Anna prisoner 

• During the surrender, American troops killed many of the Mexican soldiers in retributions for the execution at Goliad

• Caused Snata Anna to sign a treaty giving Texas independence  

• The Mexican government refused the treaty and Mexican troops briefly occupied San Antonio in 1842 but were unable to win Texas back

John Tyler

• Texas leaders sought money and support from Europe and rivaling with the US and England and France quickly concluded trade treaties with Texas 

• Because of this, President Tyler persuaded Texas to apply for statehood again in 1844

California Gold Rush

• Attracted many single men which was different from Texas and Oregon which attracted family groups 

• Most of these men were relatively prosperous young people because poor people could not afford the expensive trip

• Groups headed for areas where mining or lumbering was the principal economic activity consisted mostly of men 

• All the migrants were in search of a new life but harbored many different visions of what that new life would be 

  • After the discovery of gold in California in 1848, some migrants hoped for quick riches

  • Others planned to take advantage of the vast public lands the federal government was selling at modest prices to acquire property for farming or speculation 

  • Others hoped to establish themselves as merchants and serve the new white communities developing in the West 

  • Some (like the mormons) were on religious missions or were attempting to escape epidemic diseases 

  • Most, however, were looking for economic opportunities

James K. Polk

• Strong supporter of annexation and was nominated by the democratic party to be their presidential candidate

• He had represented Tennessee in the House of Reps for 14 years, 4 of them as a Speaker, and had served as a governor

• By 1844, he had been out of public office and for the most part out of the public mind for 3 years 

• Had a clear set of goals when entering office, and John Tyler accomplished the first of Polk’s goals for him 

• Won congressional approval for the annexation of Texas

Zachary Taylor

• Louisiana 

• In 1845, Polk sent a small army led by this general to Texas to protect the claim against a possible Mexican invasion 

• After Slidell’s offer was rejected, Pol ordered Taylor’s army in Texas to move across the Nueces River to the Rio Grande 

• For months, Mexican troops refused to fight, but finally some Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande and attacked a unit of American soldiers

John Slidell

• Minister

• Polk was preparing for war and turned to diplomacy by dispatching Slidell to try to buy off Mexican leaders 

• Mexican leaders rejected Slidell’s offer to purchase the disputed territories

Stephen W. Kearny

• A small army under this colonel captured Santa Fe with no opposition

• He proceeded to California, where he joined a conflict already in progress that was staged jointly by American settlers, an exploring party, and the United states navy 

• Brought the disparate American forces together under his command and by the autumn of 1846, he had completed the conquest of California

John C. Fremont

• Led an exploring party (bear flag revolution) and was part of the conflict in progress seen by Kearny 

Winfield Scott

• Commanding general of the army and its finest soldier 

• Him and Polk launched a bold new campaign because Mexico still refused to concede defeat 

• He assembled an army at Tampico which the navy transported down the Mexican coast to Veracruz 

• He advanced 260 miles along the Mexican National Highway toward Mexico City, kept casualties low, and never lost a battle before finally seizing the Mexican capital

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

• Mexico agreed to cede California and New Mexico to the United States and acknowledge the Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas 

• In return, the US promised to assume any financial claims its new citizens had against Mexico and to pay the Mexican government $15 million

• The treaty was submitted to the Senate and it was approved, so the war was over and America had gained a vast new territory, but acquired a new set of troubling issues

Wilmot Proviso

• Wilmot’s amendment 

• Passed the house but fail the senate 

• It would be called up, debated, and voted on repeatedly for years

• An amendment to the appropriation bill prohibiting slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico

“Popular sovereignty”

• Other politicians supported this plan (originally known as “squatter sovereignty”) 

• It would allow the people of each territory to decide the status of slavery there 

• The debate over these various proposals dragged on for months and still remained unresolved when Polk left office in 1849

Free-Soil Party

• Opponents of slavery were discontent with the candidates for the election of 1848, so this party emerged 

• It drew from the existing Liberty Party and the antislavery wings of the Whig and Democratic Parties which endorsed the Wilmot Proviso 

• Its candidate was former president Martin Van Buren 

• They elected ten members to Congress 

• The emergence of their party was an important political force like the emergence of the Know Nothings and Liberty Parties before it 

• Signaled the inability of the existing parties to contain the political passions slavery was creating

Liberty Party

• Anti Slavery party that merged with parts of the democratic and whig parties to form the free-soil party 

Personal liberty laws

• Emergence in the northern states which barred police officers from helping to return runaway enslaved people to slaveholders 

• In response, Southerners created the Fugitive Slave Law

Fugitive Slave Law/Act

• A law that would require Northern states to return fugitive enslaved people to slaveholders 

• Northern opposition to it intensified after 1850 

• Mobs formed in some northern cities to prevent enforcement of the law, and several northern states also passes their own laws barring the deportation of fugitive enslaved people

Millard Fillmore

• Taylor suddenly died and Fillmore succeeded him 

• New York; dull handsome, dignified man who understood the political importance of flexibility

• He supported the compromise and used his powers of persuasion to swing Northern Whigs into line  

• Signed the compromise of 1850 and called it a just settlement of the sectional problem

Compromise of 1850

• Not a product of widespread agreement on common national ideals, but rather a victory of bargaining and self interest 

• California entered the Union as a free state

• Defined Texas's border in return for debt relief

• Established New Mexico and Utah as official territories

• Banned the Slave Trade in the DOC in return for the fugitive slave law

Ostend Manifesto

• In 1854, a group of Pierce’s envoys sent him a private document from Ostend, Belgium, making the case for seizing Cuba by force 

• When this was leaked to the public, it enraged many antislavery Northerners who charged the administration with conspiring to bring a new slave state into the Union

Transcontinental railroad

• As the nation expanded westward, the problem of communication between the old states and the areas west of the Mississippi River became more and more critical 

• As a result, broad support began to emerge for building a transcontinental railroad 

• The problem was where to place it and in particular, where to locate the railroad’s eastern terminus, where the line could connect with the existing rail network east of the Mississippi 

• The northerners favored Chicago while southerners supported St. Louis, Memphis, or New Orleans

• This railroad became part of the struggle between the North and the South

James Gadsden/ Gadsden Purchase

• Southern railroad builder 

• Sent by Davis to Mexico 

• He persuaded the Mexican government to accept $10 million in exchange for a strip of land that today comprises part of Arizona and New Mexico and that would have facilitated a southern route for the transcontinental railroad 

• This Gadsden Purchase only accentuated the sectional rivalry

Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Douglas introduced a bill to organize a huge new territory, Nebraska

• In an effort to make the measure good for Southerners, Douglas inserted a provision that the status of slavery in the territory would be determined by the territorial legislature 

• Southern democrats demanded more, so Douglas agreed to an additional clause explicitly repealing the Missouri Compromise 

• Douglas also agreed to divide the area into two new territories, Nebraska and Kansas, instead of one 

• President Pierce supported the bill and it became law in 1854 with the unanimous support of the South and partial support of the North

Republican Party

• In 1854, the Anti-Nebraska Democrats and Anti-Nebraska Whigs formed a new organization and named it this 

• It instantly became a major force in American politics 

• The the elections of that year, the Republicans won enough seats in Congress to permit them, in combination with allies among the know-nothings, to organize the House of Representatives

John Brown

• One of the most fervent abolitionists in Kansas

• Fiercely committed foe of slavery who considered himself an instrument of God's will to destroy slavery 

• He moved to Kansas with his sons so that they could fight to make it a free state

Pottawatomie Massacre

• After the events in Lawrence, Brown gathered six followers (including four of his sons) 

• In one night they murdered five pro-slavery settlers, leaving their mutilated bodies to discourage other supporters of slavery from entering Kansas

• It led to more civil strife in Kansas; irregular guerrilla warfare conducted by armed bands, some of them more interested in land claims or loot than in ideologies

“Bleeding Kansas”

• Northerners and Southerners came to believe that the events in Kansas illustrated the aggressive designs of the other section 

• “Bleeding Kansas” became a symbol of the sectional controversy

Charles Sumner

• Massachusetts, militant and passionate opponent of slavery 

• Rose to give a speech title “The Crime Against Kansas” 

• After Brooks hit him with the cane, he rose in agony with such strength that he tore the desk from the bolts holding it to the floor 

• He collapsed bleeding and unconscious, and his injuries were so severe that he couldn’t return to the Senate for four years 

• He became a hero throughout the North, but a martyr to the barbarism of the South

Andrew P. Butler

• South Carolina senator 

• An outspoken defender of slavery

Preston Brooks

• Butler’s nephew, member of the House of Reps from South Carolina 

• Several days after Sumner’s speech, he approached Sumner at his desk in the Senate chamber during a recess, raised a heavy cane, and began beating him repeatedly on the head and shoulders

• Became a hero in the South 

• Censured by the House, he resigned his seat, returned to South Carolina, and stood successfully for reelection

James Buchanan

• Chosen as the democratic representative for election of 1856

• Pennsylvania

• Reliable democratic stalwart who as minister to England had been safely out of the country during the recent controversies 

• Became the oldest president in 1862, except for William Henry Harrison to have ever taken office 

• He was a painfully timid and indecisive president at a critical moment in history

Dred Scott v. Sandford

• One of the most controversial and notorious decisions in history 

• Handed down two days after Buchanan was inaugurated 

• Scott sued his slaveholder’s widow for freedom on the grounds that his residence in free territory had liberated him from slavery 

• Sanford went to the supreme court to justify that he could take ownership over Scott 

• When Scott appealed to the federal courts, Sanford’s attorneys claimed that Scott had no standing to sue because he was not a citizen, but private property 

• Few judicial opinions have ever created as much controversy 

• White southerners were elated: the highest tribunal in the land had sanctioned some of the most extreme Southern arguments

Roger Taney

• Chief Justice who wrote one of the majority opinions 

• Declared that Scott could not bring a suit in the federal courts because he was not a citizen 

• Argued that African Americans had no claim to citizenship and virtually no right under the constitution

Lecompton Constitution

• The pro-slavery territorial legislature called an election for delegates to a constitutional convention and won control of the convention

• The convention met at Lecompton, framed a constitution of legalizing slavery, and refused to give voters a chance to reject it 

• The new legislature promptly submitted the Lecompton constitution to the voters, who rejected it by more than 10,000 votes 

• Many of the people of Kansas opposed slavery, but Douglas and other western Democrats refused to support Buchanan’s proposal of admitting Kansas under the Lecompton constitution 

• A compromise was made: if the constitution was approved, Kansas would be admitted to the Union, if it was rejected, statehood would be postponed

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

• These debates attracted enormous crowds and received wide attention in newspapers across the country

• By the time the debates ended, Lincoln’s increasingly eloquent and passionate attacks on slavery made him nationally prominent 

• At the heart of the debates was a basic difference on the issue of slavery 

• Douglas appeared to have no moral issue of slavery and said he thought it was one of the reserved rights of the state and said that white men should be dominant forever 

• Lincoln’s opposition to slavery was difference and said if the nation could exceptions that African Americans were not entitled to basic human rights, it could accept that other groups could be deprived of rights too

• He said that the nation’s future rested on the spread if free labor

U.S. arsenal in Harpers Ferry

• John Brown staged an even more dramatic episode than his previous one in the south 

• He made elaborate plans to seize a mountain fortress in Virginia from which, he believed, he could foment a slave insurrection in the South 

• He and a group of 18 followers attacked and seized control of an U.S. arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia 

• Brown was tried in a Virginia court for treason against the state, found guilty, and sentenced to death, six others were hanged with him

Election of 1860

• Had the most momentous consequences of any in American history 

• The democrats nominated Stephen Douglas, while disenchanted Southern Democrats met in Richmond and nominated John C. Breckinridge 

• Lincoln won the presidency with a majority of the electoral votes but only about ⅖ of the fragmented popular vote 

• The election of Lincoln became the final signal to many white southerners that their position in the union was hopeless

Abraham Lincoln

• Won the election of 1860 

• Spoke of American liberty as the Southern states began to secede 

• Mobilized the North for war 

• He assembled a cabinet representing every faction of the Republican Party and every segment of Northern opinion 

• Successful commander in chief because he realized that numbers and resources were on his side and he realized that his goal was the destruction of the confederate armies

Secession

• Withdrawing from the Union 

Confederate States of America

• By the time Lincoln took office, six other states from the lower South (Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas) had seceded

• In February 1861, representatives of the these states and SC announced the formation of a new nation: the Confederate States of America

James Buchanan

• Told Congress in 1860 that no state had the right to secede from the Union but suggested that the federal government had no authority to stop a state if it did

Fort Sumter

• On an island in the harbor of Charleston, SC

• Garrisoned by a small force under Major Robert Anderson

• South Carolina sent commissioners to Washington to ask for the surrender of Sumter but Buchanan refused to yield it 

• Buchanan ordered an unarmed merchant ship to proceed to Fort Sumter with additional troops and supplies 

• Shots were fired between the North and South, but neither section was ready to concede that war had begun 

• Its conditions began to deteriorate; union forces were running short of supplies

• Lincoln believed that if he surrendered Sumter, his commitment to maintaining the Union would no longer be credible 

• Lincoln sent a relief expedition to the fort, carefully informing the SC authorities that there would be no attempt to send troops unless the supply ships met with resistance

Union advantages

• Its population was more than twice as large as that of the South, so they had a much greater manpower reserve for both its armies and workforce 

• They had an advanced industrial system and were able to manufacture almost all its own war materials 

• They had a much better transportation system than the south 

  • More and better railroads: twice as much trackage as the Confederacy and a much better integrated system of lines

Confederacy advantages

• Fighting on its own land and thus had the advantage of local support and familiarity with the territory 

• The commitment of the white population of the South to the war was clear and firm 

• Many southerners believed that the dependence of the English and French textile industries on American cotton would require those nations to intervene on the side of the Confederacy

“Peace Democrats”/ “Copperheads”

• Laborers, immigrants, and Democrats who opposed the war 

• Occasionally opposition to the draft erupted into violence 

• They feared that the agricultural Northwest was losing influence to the industrial East and that Republican nationalism was eroding states’ rights

New York City draft riot

• Demonstrators against the draft rioted in New York City for four days after the first names were selected for conscription

• It was among the most violent urban uprisings in American history 

• More than 100 people died and Irish workers were at the center of the violence 

• Rioters lynched a lot of African Americans, burned down homes and businesses, and destroyed an orphanage for African American children

Lincoln’s ‘stretching’ of the Constitution

• Lincoln moved boldly to use the war powers of the presidency, ignoring what he considered inconvenient parts of the Constitution because he said it would be foolish to lose the whole by being afraid to disregard a part 

• He sent troops into battle without asking Congress for a declaration of war 

• Lincoln insisted on calling the conflict a domestic insurrection, which required no formal declaration of war

• To ask for declaration would, he believed constitute implicit recognition of the Confederacy as an independent nation 

• Lincoln increased the size of the regular army without receiving legislative authority to do so 

• He unilaterally proclaimed a naval blockade of the South

Border states

• Lincoln used the methods of Habeas Corpus in sensitive areas such as these 

Clement L. Vallandigham

• Ohio Congressman and the most prominent Copperhead in the country 

• Was seized by military authorities and exiled to the Confederacy after he made a speech claiming that the purpose of the war was to free African Americans and enslave white people 

• Lincoln defied all efforts to curb his authority to suppress opposition, even those of the supreme court

Ex parte Merryman

• Required Lincoln to release an imprisoned Maryland secessionist leader, but Lincoln ignored it 

Ex parte Milligan

• In this, the supreme court ruled that military trials in areas where the civil courts existed were unconstitutional 

Union Party

• Union leaders called the new organization the Union Party

• In reality, it was little more than the Republican Party and a small faction of War Democrats

War Democrats

• Members of the democratic party who supported the Union 

Andrew Johnson

• Tennessee 

• War Democrat who hap opposed his state’s decision to secede, for the vice presidency 

• Republican VP candidate for the election of 1864

George B. McClellan

• Democratic candidate for election of 1864 

• A celebrated former Union general who had been relieved of his command by Lincoln 

• The democratic party adopted a platform denouncing the war and calling or a truce, but McClellan repudiated that demand 

• Lincoln replaced Winfield Scott with him for chief that could orchestrate the Union war effort

Radical Republicans

• The Republicans disagreed sharply on the issue of slavery

• These radicals wanted to use the war to abolish slavery immediately 

• Conservatives favored a slower, more gradual process for ending slavery (conservatives had the president's support at first)

• As a result of emancipation, the Radicals increased their influence with the Republican Party which did not go unnoticed by the president who decided to seize the leadership of the rising antislavery sentiment himself

Thaddeus Stevens

• One of the radical republicans 

Charles Sumner

• One of the radical republicans

Battle of Antietam Creek

• Instead of attacking quickly before the Confederates could recombine, McClellan delayed and gave Lee time to pull most of his forces together behind Antietam Creek, near the town of Sharpsburg 

• There on September 17, in the bloodiest single-day engagement of the war, McClellan’s army repeatedly attacked Lee’s force of 50,000 with many casualties on both sides

• Late in the day, just as the Confederate line seemed ready to break the last of Jackson’s troops arrived from Harpers Ferry to reinforce it 

• McClellan might have broke through with one more assault, but instead he allowed Lee to retreat into Virginia 

• It was technically a Union victory, but in reality, it was a wasted opportunity

Emancipation Proclamation

• Declared forever free enslaved people in all areas of the Confederacy except those under Union control (Tennessee, western Virginia, and southern Louisiana) 

• The proclamation did not apply to the border slave states, which had never seceded from the Union and therefore were not subject to the president’s war powers 

• On the day of it, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a “Boston Hymn”

• The immediate effect of the proclamation was limited, since it applied only to enslaved people still under Confederate control 

• The document clearly established the war was being fought not only to preserve the Union but also to eliminate slavery 

• The proclamation eventually led directly to the freeing of thousands of enslaved people 

• Once it was issued, AA enlistment increased rapidly and the Union military began actively to recruit AA soldiers and sailors both in the north and south (where possible)

13th Amendment

• It abolished slavery as an institution in all parts of the United States 

• After more than two centuries, legalized slavery finally ceased to exist in the US

54th Massachusetts Infantry

• Some of the freed African American soldiers were organized into fighting units and this is the best known fighting unit 

• The commander of it was Robert Gould Shaw

Jefferson Davis

• Mississippi 

• He was named the provisional president at the confederate constitutional convention 

• Chosen by the general electorate without opposition for a six year term 

• A moderate secessionist before the war 

• In the end, he was an unsuccessful president and he rarely provided genuinely national leadership

Alexander H. Stephens

• Georgia

• Chosen as the provisional vice president at the confederate constitutional convention 

• Chosen by the general electorate without opposition for a six year term

• Argued against secession before the war

States’ rights

• The greatest sources of division in the South, however, were differences of opinion over the doctrine of states’ rights 

• States’ rights had become such a cult among many white southerners that they resisted all efforts to exert national authority, even those necessary to win the war 

• They restricted Davis’s ability to impose martial law and suspend habeas corpus and obstructed conscription 

• Recalcitrant governors tried at times to keep their own troops apart from the Confederates forces and insisted on hoarding surplus supplies for their own states’ militias

Blockade

• Once the Northern naval blockade became effective in 1862, the South experienced massive shortages of almost everything 

• The southern region did not grow enough food to meet its needs 

• Despite the efforts of women and enslaved laborers to keep farms functioning, the departure of white male workers diminished the region’s ability to keep up what food production there had been 

• Doctors, blacksmiths, carpenters, and craftsmen were in short supply

Army of the Potomac

• What the Union armies in the East were called, led by McClellan 

Ulysses S. Grant

• A general appointed by Lincoln that he trusted to command the war effort 

• He shared Lincoln’s belief in making enemy armies and resources, not enemy territory, the target of military efforts

Committee on the Conduct of the War

• Lincoln and Grant’s handling of the war effort faced constant scrutiny from this committee 

• It was a joint investigative committee of the two houses of Congress and the most powerful voice the legislative branch had ever had in formulating war policies 

• It constantly complained of the insufficient ruthlessness of Northern generals, which Radicals on the committee attributed to a secret sympathy among the officers for slavery 

• Their efforts often seriously interfered with the conduct of war

Robert E. Lee

• President Davis failed to create an effective command system, so he named this general as his principal military advisor 

• After a few months, he left Richmond to command forces in the field and for the next two years, Davis planned strategy alone

William Tecumseh Sherman

• Military officer like Grant 

• The most successful officers were ones like him and Grant who were able to see beyond their academic training and envision a new kind of warfare with destruction of resources

Merrimac/Virginia

• One of the confederates’ bold attempts to break the blockade with new weapons 

• It was an ironclad warship constructed by plating with iron a former U.S. frigate (the Merrimac) which Yankees had scuttled in Norfolk harbor when Virginia succeeded 

• In 1862, the refitted Merrimac, remanded the Virginia, left Norfolk to attack a blockading squadron of wooden ships at nearby Hampton Roads 

• It destroyed two of the ships and scattered the rest , but the Union government had already built ironclads of it

Monitor

• One of the ironclads, the Monitor, arrived off the coast of Virginia only a few hours after the Virginia’s dramatic foray 

• The next day, it met the Virginia in the first battle between ironclad ships 

• Neither vessel was able to sink the other, but the Monitor put an end to the Virginia’s raids and preserved the blockade

William Seward

• Benjamin's counterpart in Washington 

• Gradually became one of the great American secretaries of state

Trent affair

• Two confederate diplomats (John M.Mason and John Slidell) had slipped through the ineffective Union blockade to Havana, Cuba 

• In cuba, they boarded an English steamer, the Trent, for England 

• Wilkes stopped the British vessel and imprisoned the people on it and the British government demanded the release of the prisoners, reparations, and an apology 

• Lincoln and Seward stalled the negotiations until American public opinion had cooled off, then released the diplomats with an indirect apology

Manassas/First Battle of Bull Run

• McDowell commanded a Union army and Beauregard commanded a smaller Confederate army 

• Mcdowell marched his inexperienced troops toward Manassas and Beauregard moved his troops behind Bull Run, a small stream north of Manassas, and called for reinforcements, both armies now the same size 

• Almost succeeded in dispersing Confederate forces, but the southerners stopped a last strong Union assault and then began a counterattack 

• The Union troops suddenly panicked, they broke ranks and retreated chaotically 

• McDowell was unable to reorganize them, and he had to order a retreat to Washington, a disorderly withdrawal complicated by the presence of many civilians who had ridden down from the capital to watch the battle 

• The battle was a severe bow to Union morale and to President Lincoln’s confidence in his officers

David G. Farragut

• Commanded a Union squadron of ironclads and wooden vessels 

• Him and his crew gathered in the Gulf of Mexico, then smashed past weak Confederate forts near the mouth of the Mississippi

New Orleans

• From the Mississippi, Farragut and crew sailed up to New Orleans 

• It was defenseless because the Confederate high command had expected the attack to come from the north  

• The city surrendered on April 25, the first major Union victory and an important turning point in the war 

• From then on, the mouth of the Mississippi was closed to Confederate trade; and the South’s largest city and most important banking center was in Union hands

Battle of Shiloh

• With about 40,000 men, Grant now advanced south along the Tennessee River to seize control of railroad lines vital to the Confederacy 

• From Pittsburg Landing, he marched to nearby Shiloh, Tennessee, where a force almost equal to his own (commanded by Johnston and Beauregard) caught him by surprise 

• The result of this was this battle 

• In the first day’s fighting, the Southerners drove Grant back to the river 

• The next day, reinforced by 25,000 fresh troops, Grants recovered the lost ground and forced Beauregard to withdraw

Peninsular Campaign

• During the winter of 1861-1862, McClellan concentrated on training his army of 150,000 men near Washington 

• He designed a spring campaign whose purpose was to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond 

• Instead of heading overland directly toward,\ Richmond, McClellan chose a complicated, roundabout route that he thought would circumvent the Confederate defenses 

• The navy would carry his troops down the Potomac to a peninsula east of Richmond, between the York and James RIvers 

• The army would approach the city from there and it became known as the Peninsular campaign

Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson

• McClellan persuaded Lincoln to promise to send him the additional men, and that Washinton was safe as long as he was threatening Richmond 

• Before the president could do so, a Confederate army under this General changed his plans 

• He staged a rapid march north through the Shenandoah Valley, as if he were planning to cross the Potomac and attack Washington

Battle of the Seven Days

• With a combined force of 85,000 to face McClellan’s 100,00, Lee launched a new offensive, known as the Battle of Seven Days

• Lee wanted to cut McClellan off from his base on the York River and then destroy the Union army 

• McClellan fought his way across the peninsula and set up a new base on the James 

• McClellan was now only 25 miles from Richmond, with a secure line of water communications, and thus in a good position to renew the campaign

Vicksburg

• In 1863, Ulysses S. Grant was driving at here in Mississippi, one of the Confederacy’s two remaining strongholds on the MI River 

• It was well protected, surrounded by rough country on the north and low with good artillery coverage of the river itself  

• Grant boldly moved men and supplied to an area south of the city, where the terrain was better and then he attacked Vicksburg from the rear 

• Six weeks later, Vicksburg surrendered because its residents were starving

Battle of Gettysburg

• Lee and Meade’s armies finally encountered each other at the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania 

• Meade’s army established a strong, well protected position on the hills south of the town, and Lee decided to attack them, but all his attempts failed

• Lee withdrew from Gettysburg, another major turning point in the war 

• Never again were the weakened Confederate forces able to threaten Northern territory seriously

March to the Sea

• Sherman’s army cut a sixty-mile wide swath of desolation across Georgia 

• He wanted to not only deprive the Confederate army of war materials and railroad communications but also break the will of the Southern people, by burning towns and plantations along his route

• Sherman captured Savannah, but left it largely undamaged 

• Sherman continued his destructive march northward through South Carolina 

• Sherman was virtually unopposed until he was well inside North Carolina, whee a small force under Johnston could do no more than cause a delay

Appomattox Court House

• Grant’s army of the Potomac captured a railroad junction southwest of Petersburg and Lee could no longer defend Richmond after being cut off

• Lee moved west in hope of finding a way around the Union forces so that he could head south and link up with Johnston in NC 

• The Union army pursued him and blocked his escape route 

• Finally recognizing that further bloodshed was futile,, Lee arranged to meet Grant at a private home in this small town in Virginia 

• There on April 9, Lee surrendered what was left of his forces and nine days later Johnston surrendered to sherman