U.S. History / Unit 4: Sectionalism, Civil War and Reconstruction
4.4 The Civil War
Notes
The war (1861 to 1865) killed roughly 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers, more than any other American war.
- Union advantages: larger population, most factories and railroads, a navy. Confederate advantages: fighting defensively on home ground, skilled generals like Robert E. Lee.
- The Union's Anaconda Plan used a naval blockade and control of the Mississippi to squeeze the South.
- Antietam (1862), the bloodiest single day of the war, gave Lincoln the chance to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
- The Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863) freed enslaved people in areas in rebellion. It did not apply to loyal border states, but it made ending slavery a war goal and let Black men join the Union army.
- About 180,000 Black soldiers served in the Union army, including the 54th Massachusetts.
- Gettysburg and Vicksburg (July 1863) were turning points. Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address in November 1863.
- Grant wore down Lee's army, and Sherman marched through Georgia. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House (April 1865). Days later Lincoln was assassinated.
Practice
Why did the Emancipation Proclamation NOT free enslaved people in the border states?
Lincoln issued it as a war measure against the Confederacy; slavery ended everywhere with the 13th Amendment.
Read this excerpt from the Gettysburg Address (1863): "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Lincoln is referring back to:
Eighty-seven years before 1863 is 1776, and the phrase "all men are created equal" comes from the Declaration.
Which was a major advantage of the Union?
The North's industry and population let it outlast the Confederacy.
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