American Civil War Flashcards

Advantage: Union (North) vs. Confederacy (South)

• Military Strategy:
  • Union: N/A
  • Confederacy: Defensive war; did not need to invade, just defend.
• Military Leadership:
  • Union: N/A
  • Confederacy: More experienced leaders like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
• Population:
  • Union: About four times that of the South.
  • Confederacy: N/A
• Naval Power:
  • Union: Robust navy to control seas and rivers.
  • Confederacy: N/A
• Economic Power:
  • Union: Most banks, manufacturing, and approximately 70% of America’s railroads.
  • Confederacy: N/A
• Political Power:
  • Union: Well-established central government.
  • Confederacy: Constitution eschewing centralized power led to struggles.

Mobilizing Economies and Opposition

• Both sides needed to mobilize their economies.
• Union:
  • Manufacturers rapidly modernized.
  • Figures like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller started by manufacturing goods for the Union effort.
• Confederacy:
  • Relied on tariffs and taxes on exports to raise revenue.
  • Union naval blockades hampered this plan.
• Opposition:
  • Confederacy:
    • Introduced a war tax, but many refused to fund it due to states’ rights.
  • Union:
    • New York City Draft Riots in 1863.
    • Men could pay 300 to avoid being drafted, which working-class men saw as an injustice.
    • Protests turned violent, resulting in at least 120 deaths.

Course of the War

• Lincoln did not want to start a war but would not stand for secession.
• Fort Sumter:
  • Federal possession in Confederate South Carolina.
  • South Carolinians cut off supply lines.
  • Lincoln announced he would send provisions.
  • The South fired on the Union suppliers, considered the first official act of war.
• The first part of the war belonged to the Confederacy.
• First Battle of Bull Run:
  • 30,000 Union troops marched to confront Confederate troops at Bull Run Creek in Virginia.
  • Civilians came to watch.
  • The Union initially mopped the floor with the Confederacy, but Confederate reinforcements under Stonewall Jackson routed the inexperienced Union soldiers.
  • Disabused both sides of the idea it would be a short war.

Strategies

• Union: Anaconda Plan.
  • Naval blockade of Southern ports.
  • Control of the Mississippi River to split the Confederacy.
• Confederacy: Relied on foreign help, especially from Britain and France.
  • Relied on exported southern cotton.
  • Southerners were confident that King Cotton would convince both countries to come to their aid.
  • However, both countries discovered that India and Egypt could produce cotton, and therefore King Cotton wasn’t as powerful as they thought.

Union Victory

• The Union ultimately succeeded due to:
  • Improvements in leadership and strategy.
  • Key battle victories.
  • Wartime destruction of the South’s infrastructure.

Leadership

• Lincoln struggled to find good generals.
• The rise of generals like Ulysses S. Grant, who rarely retreated, turned the tide.

Strategy: Emancipation Proclamation

• Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 freed enslaved people in states in active rebellion against the U.S. (the Confederacy).
• It did not free enslaved people in the Border States: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia.
• The Emancipation Proclamation was more a military strategy than a document of freedom.
• It changed the scope of the war to eradicating slavery.
• Effects:
  • Enslaved workers escaped to Union lines.
  • Prevented Britain and France from allying with the Confederacy.

Reasons for Union Success in the Civil War

• Emancipation Proclamation
  • Morally transformed the war into a fight against slavery.
  • Encouraged enslaved people to flee to the Union army.
  • Deterred British support for the Confederacy.
• Key Military Victories
  • Battle of Vicksburg: Union gained control of the Mississippi River, bisecting the Confederacy.

Devastation of Southern Infrastructure

• After capturing Vicksburg, General Grant sent General William Tecumseh Sherman to capture Atlanta.
• Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground.
• Sherman's March to the Sea:
  • Devastating march from Atlanta to Savannah.
  • Sherman's forces destroyed railroads and implemented a