Passages History 1301 Chapter 15 Outline

Chapter Outline

People at War:  Spring 1863:  People in both the North and the South believed that the armies would make 1863 the final year of the war, but the war was not to end without involving virtually everyone in the efforts.

A.     Life in the Field:  Life for a soldier in the field was harsh, with poor food, harsh weather, social problems, and battle wounds; perhaps the hardest to deal with, however, were the diseases that, in the end, killed twice as many men as direct battle wounds.

B.     Purposes:  While the North said it fought for Union and democracy and the South for self-determination, civilians in both regions often questioned the true purposes of the conflict, especially when the North limited freedoms at home and the South moved toward a more centralized government.

C.     The Northern Home Front:    Not everyone in the North supported Lincoln, and as time passed his critics became more vocal.

D.     African American Soldiers:  The North finally began to allow black recruits to do some fighting, and armies on both sides were somewhat surprised with their successes.

The Battlefields of Summer: 1863:  The stage appeared set for some summer battles to end in victory for the North in 1863, but gritty determination and lessons learned helped the South to stay in the fight despite great losses.

A.     Vicksburg and Chancellorsville:  By the middle of May, General Grant had moved his forces across the Mississippi River and was poised to go after the pivotal city of Vicksburg, but the South won a significant victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville.

B.     Gettysburg:  In June Robert E. Lee led his troops into Pennsylvania, where the three days of fighting at Gettysburg defeated and demoralized his army just before Vicksburg fell to Grant.

C.     The New York City Draft Riots:  Despite these successes, losses were great, especially among immigrant volunteers, and in the summer draft riots broke out in New York City.

D.     Chickamauga:  A Union defeat at Chickamauga led Lincoln to place Grant in command of all Union armies east of the Mississippi River.

E.      The Gettysburg Address:  Despite his failure to bring an end to the war, a significant event occurred late in 1863, when Lincoln delivered his now famous Gettysburg Address at the dedication of a national cemetery there: Once and for all, the president tied the war to the liberation of blacks in America.

The Winter of Discontent:  1863  - 1864:  By wintertime, people on both sides were retreating to lick their wounds and prepare for what they hoped would, surely, be the last year of fighting.

A.     Politics North and South:  Politics began to play a more important role, as Lincoln proposed a plan for reinstating Confederate states after the war ended and Congress began to find fault with it; in the South, Congressional elections brought out opponents to Jefferson Davis.

B.     Prisons:  Prison camps on both sides were harsh, but no facility had as bad a reputation as the Confederate camp at Andersonville, Georgia, where more than one-third of the inmates died.

C.     Union Resolve:  Lincoln turned control of all Union forces over to Ulysses Grant in the spring of 1864, and the two agreed that attacks on all fronts in the South should be their strategy; when the Confederates continued to fight valiantly, Lincoln began to worry about his political future.

D.     The Northern Election of 1864:  Lincoln chose Andrew Johnson, a southerner still in Congress, as his running mate, but Johnson became superfluous when General Sherman seized Atlanta, Georgia, and reinvigorated northern support for the war, and for Lincoln.

E.      The March to the Sea:  Sherman’s March to the Sea demoralized the South even more, as he conducted a “scorched earth” policy that devastated the countryside.

From War to Reconstruction:  1865 – 1867:  With the war apparently nearing its end, Americans on both sides began to ponder what the future would be like, especially a future where emancipation would play a prominent role.

A.     War’s Climax:  Early in 1865, Sherman conducted mopping-up efforts in the Carolinas, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, and Lincoln was re-inaugurated.

B.     Appomattox and Assassination:  The war officially ended on April 9 at Appomattox Courthouse, when Lee surrendered his army to Grant.

1.       Some fighting continued, but for all intents and purposes the war was over.

2.       A mere five days later, Lincoln was assassinated.

C.     The Costs and Consequences of the War:  The costs of the war were devastating: over a million casualties, a devastated southern economy, and serious social problems with readjustment to peacetime conditions.

D.     Emancipation and the South:  Emancipation in the South took many forms, but most former slaves found it necessary to compromise with former slave-owners in order to survive, even with help from the Freedmen’s Bureau.

E.      Black Mobilization:  Some blacks began to mobilize to fight for their new rights and for equality, but from the beginning their major goal was to gain the right to vote.

F.      Andrew Johnson:  Johnson’s plans for reconstruction were even more lenient than those of Lincoln, and as time passed white Southerners began to fill important positions with former Confederate leaders and to institute “black codes” designed to keep blacks as a subservient labor force.

G.     Johnson and the Radicals:  Radicals in the Congress began to oppose Johnson, overriding his vetoes to pass Freedmen’s Bureau appropriations and the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed citizenship.

H.     The Reconstruction Act:  The Reconstruction Act of 1867 firmly seized control from Johnson, as Congress divided the South into five military districts and laid down firm guidelines for southern states to follow if they wanted to be re-admitted to the Union.

I.        Reconstruction Begins:  At that point, Congressional Reconstruction began in earnest, and Northerners began to enter the South to try to help blacks obtain their rights; in the North itself, however, conflicts over how blacks should be treated began to polarize that region.

Conclusion: The Civil War was the watershed event of the nineteenth century for the United States. Hundreds of thousands of young men died, a president was assassinated, slavery was abolished, and African Americans demonstrated their willingness and ability to fight for their freedom. Reputations were made and lost on the battlefields. Some questioned the worth of the struggle. Afterward, many people wrestled with the concept of “freedom.” What would it really mean for the newly-freed blacks? How would it change life for white Southerners, or for white Northerners, for that matter? The next few years would show just how difficult answering those questions would be.