APUSH Chapter 21: The Furnace of the Civil War

Key Concepts

• How Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation changed the purpose of the war, enabled many African Americans to fight in the Union Army and helped prevent the Confederacy from getting full diplomatic support from European powers
• Confederate leadership showed initiative and daring early in the Civil War
• How the union ultimately succeeded due to improved military leadership, more effective strategies, key victories, greater resources and the wartime destruction of the Southern environment and infrastructure
• How the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and brought about the war's most dramatic social and economic change

Battles of the Civil War

• Bull Run (1861): Background: many, including Lincoln, wanted to end the war quickly, and some said directly attacking Richmond, VA (the Confederate capital) would accomplish this. Lincoln decides to instead capture Bull Run (Manassas Junction)., which was close to Richmond → the South wins, which makes them dangerously overconfident, while the North realizes the war will not be a swift victory.
• Peninsula Campaign (1862): Lincoln orders Union General George McClellan to seize Richmond, and he decides to attack by water. When he does, Confederate General Robert E. Lee successfully pushes him back → although it was a costly failure for the US, if they had won, the Union would have been restored with no effect on the institution of slavery domestically.
• Union strategy will now shift to a 5 part, total war plan

1. Blockade the South to prevent trading
2. Free slaves in order to undermine Southern economy
3. Get control over the Mississippi River to divide and conquer the Confederacy
4. Send troops to Georgia and the Carolinas
5. Capture Richmond and defeat the Confederacy’s biggest strength

• Soon, conflicts surrounding the blockade arose → a Confederate ship, the Merrimack, destroyed two Union ships enforcing the blockade and threatened to destroy the entire Fleet → Union fires back with Monitor ship and brings the conflict to a standstill.
• Antietam (1862): a bloody conflict on both sides, it ends in a draw, but shows the prowess of the Union army. Also prevents foreign intervention that would aid the South (countries knew they would get backlash from the North) and allows Lincoln to announce the Emancipation proclamation

Lincoln’s Focus Shifts to Slavery

• Emancipation Proclamation (1863): liberated slaves in Confederate states lany state in rebellion, which meant the border states could still keep their slaves. Lincoln wanted to release this after a Union victory so it didn't seem like he was only liberating slaves to use them in the army. The focus of the war has officially shifted from preserving the Union to abolishing slavery but ultimately did not do much to free slaves on its own.
• Slaves escape to Union states, and some even fight in the army, like the Massachusetts 54th Regiment. African American soldiers in this regiment were often subject to discrimination and lower pay → foreshadows the societal inequality even after the abolition of slavery. However, they hoped it would help them eventually gain citizenship by proving themselves capable.
• 13th amendment (1865): prohibited slavery/ involuntary servitude (more on this and other Reconstruction amendments later)

More Battles

• Battle of Gettysburg (1863): happened in Pennsylvania, marks another Union victory. Confederate General George Pickett charges at Northern lines (and fails). This marks true defeat for the South, who never again manage to invade the North→Southern cause is doomed.
  • Gettysburg Address (1863): Lincoln's speech at a cemetary for Gettysburg soldiers where he frames the war as a means of upholding liberty.
• Fort Henry and Fort Donelson (1862): battle in Tennessee where Union General Ulysses Grant demands the unconditional surrender of the Confederate army → this Union victory allowed them to also secure Kentucky
• Shiloh: Grant hopes to build up on his victory from Fort Henry, and wins this battle at the Tennessee-Mississippi border despite a strong Confederate counter attack.

End of the Civil War

• Siege of Vicksburg (1862): 2 month long siege of a Confederate fort that housed vital supplies like cattle and munitions. Vicksburg finally surrendered to Grant, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River and effectively splitting the South into two.
• Sherman's March (1864): Union General William Sherman, who was in charge of seizing Georgia, employed a 'total war' tactic as he burned down the area, destroying infrastructure and civilian property → diminished Southern morale and destroyed potential Confederate supplies.

Election of 1864

• Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War: made up of radical Republicans who disliked the immense power given to the President but agitated Lincoln to advocate for emancipation.

• Copperheads: Northern Democrats who obstructed the war effort by criticizing Lincoln, the draft, and emancipation. One notable member was Clement Vallandigham, who was even tried before a military tribunal for 'treasonable utterances (sedition)

• Vallandigham continued to condemn Lincoln and gained some political support, which inspired Edward Everett Hale to write A Man Without a Country (1863) which increased loyalty to the Union.

• Union Party: the Republican Party combined with the pro-war Democrats to run Abraham Lincoln as a candidate, with Andrew Johnson being his VP.

• At first, Lincoln's chances of re-election were slim: some accused him of being too ready to compromise, lacking force and generally losing the war.

  • However, after a series of Union victories, Lincoln is reelected, which further lowers Southern morale.

• Wilderness Campaign (1864): Grant launches a series of brutal and fatal attacks in VA, leading to public outcry against "Grant the Butcher."

• Appomattox Courthouse (1865): following the capture of Richmond, Lee's troops are forced to surrender hereofficial end to the Civil War, as Richmond is burned down.

• A few days after the war's end, when Lincoln is at the theater, a pro Southern man named John Wilkes Booth shoots Lincoln, eventually killing him. Although Southerners cheered at first, they soon came to realize that they would likely not be reintegrated into the Union as calmly and as moderately as Lincoln would have done.

• This violent and deadly conflict was the supreme test of the strength of American democracy

• Reform Bill of 1867: Britain becomes an established political democracy, which shows how the domestic success of the liberty had international impacts.

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