...social, political, military and economic causes and repercussions of the war. James McPherson has continued this field of study in his book Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam. The book examined the importance of the Battle of Antietam on the results of the Civil War. On September 17th, 1862 the Battle of Antietam, the single bloodiest day in American history, was fought in Maryland. McPherson’s book examines not only the battle itself but also the events before and after the battle. The book focuses on the political, social and diplomatic repercussions of the battle for both the Confederacy and the Union. McPherson used newspapers, documents, correspondence, person letters, diaries, memoirs, images, maps and other books to prove how the Battle of Antietam may have not been the only deciding outcome of the Civil War but can be viewed as a pivotal turning point in the war. “Antietam was arguable,...
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...CHAPTER 21: THE FURNACE OF WAR Bull Run Ends the "Ninety Day War” Know: Bull Run, Stonewall Jackson 14. What effect did the Battle of Bull Run have on North and South? North (and South) expected a quick war – Union believed a quick move South to Richmond would end the war – South’s victory increased overconfidence • Soldiers deserted with trophies, many believed war was over • Enlistment rates decreased; preparations for long-term war slowed – North’s defeat was better (long-term) for the Union • Ended belief that war would be over quickly • Caused Northerners to prepare for long war "Tardy George" McClellan and the Peninsula Campaign Know: George McClellan, Peninsula Campaign, Robert E. Lee, "Jeb" Stuart, Seven Days' Battles, Anaconda Plan 15. Describe the grand strategy of the North for winning the war. Union turned to 6-part strategy of total war – Suffocate South by blockading its ports – Free the slave to undermine economy of South – Cut Confederacy in 1/2 by taking control of Mississippi River – Cut Confederacy into pieces by sending troops into Georgia and Carolinas – Take Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia – Engage the enemy everywhere and grind them into submission The War at Sea Know: Blockade, Continuous Voyage, Merrimac, Monitor 16. What was questionable about the blockade practices of the North? Why did Britain honor the blockade anyway? Blockade began with leaks and was strengthened was war went on ...
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...“Stonewall” Jackson, who had been well educated at military schools, the Confederacy was under the weak leadership of Jefferson Davis. The North had a long-established, unified government as opposed to the South’s weak one; the South also had to deal with the issue of states rights. Abraham Lincoln, the strong, tactical leader of the Union, was a strong orator. Lincoln’s goal during the war was to preserved the Union, and he successfully did so. At his famous Gettysburg Address in November of 1863, he spoke of the principles of human equality and the preservation of the Union; this address brought the North together. After the Battle of Antietam (a Union victory), Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This proclamation declared that all slaves in rebelling states were to be free (as of January 1, 1863). However, the proclamation was not in effect in the Border States that were not rebelling, for Lincoln was careful not to give them a reason to rebel like the other states. Although slavery was not made illegal until the 13th amendment (which outlawed slavery), the slaves were in fact set free at the end of the war, and ultimately, slavery was finally ended, a beautiful result of the end of the Civil War. Lincoln’s decision to emancipate the slaves was beneficial for the North in the Civil War, because as a...
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...Battle of Fredericksburg 1. Battle of Fredericksburg a. Who i. The Battle of Fredericksburg took place during a time were a new nation, America, was trying to find its identity after succeeding from Britain. Because of different viewpoints of the citizens in this new country, states started to succeed to sustain their way of living. The southern states in this new nations earned its living from agriculture, which heavily relied on slaves to tend the fields. The northern states were industrial for the most part during this time period and earned its keep by trade. President Lincoln had a different point of view of how the new nation should operate. He believed the nation would only be as strong as its weakest link, and wanted to stop the states from succeeding. This essentially caused the civil war, which was fought between the Union and the Confederacy. b. When ii. There were a number of battles that occurred on the eastern side of the United States that led to the Battle of Fredericksburg such as: the Battle of Hampton Roads, the Battle of Winchester, The Seven Days Battle, the Second Battle of the Bull Run and etc. All of these prior conflicts led to the Battle of Fredericksburg that began on December 11, 1862 and ended December 15, 1862. c. Where iii. The Battle of Fredericksburg started in the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia. This battle is considered the first urban assaults led by the Union army of this era; the...
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...INVESTIGATIVE TEAM MEETING 1 WAS SLAVERY THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF THE CIVIL WAR? During the nineteenth century, slavery was the leading cause of the Civil War, due to differing views on this subject between the Northern and Southern states. The whole debate on slavery began during the Lincoln-Douglas Debate time period when Lincoln and Douglas debated on the Kansas-Nebraska Act stating that the state could choose for themselves the position their state was in for slavery. However, he was countered on his opinion when the Dred-Scott Decision passed through court that denied African American rights to be a citizen. This divided the country into further political parties which included Radical Abolitionists and “Fire-Eaters”, two extreme groups that fought for their beliefs on slavery. These political parties drove citizens to form strong beliefs and therefore split the country into two sides – the North and the South, the Free and the Slaves States, and the Republicans and the Democrats. INVESTIGATIVE TEAM MEETING 2 DOES LINCOLN DESERVE TO BE CALLED THE “GREAT EMANCIPATOR?”...
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...President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation speech was one of the greatest political movements in history. Even though many of Lincoln’s advisors did not support the proclamation it actually took Abraham two times to get the bill passed. After the battle of Antietam and the Union had won then Lincoln decided that that victory was enough standing ground to issue the Emancipation that took place five days later on September 22nd 1862 that only affected the rebellion states. The Emancipation was one of the greatest political movements because it changed the focus of one of the biggest wars in United States history. It changed the aim from being the conservation of the “Union” to the slaves becoming the main aim for the war after that...
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...(1) Explain Calhoun’s theory of nullification and his defense of it. Why did Jackson oppose Calhoun’s theory of nullification? How was the nullification crisis of 1832 settled? Nullification is a constitutional theory that gives an individual state the right to declare null and void any law passed by the United States Congress which the state deems unacceptable and unconstitutional. The nullification doctrine was John Calhoun's first line of defense for the protection of minority rights against the tyranny of the majority, particularly the rights of southern agricultural slave-owners against the rising power of northern capitalists. Nullification was a special instance of the older notion of "states' rights." He claimed that states have the right to refuse to enforce a federal law with which they do not concur. In South Carolina, however, the nullifiers threatened secession if the Tariff of 1828 was not withdrawn. President Andrew Jackson warned that he would use armed force to preserve the Union. President Andrew Jackson considered nullification to be treasonous during the Nullification Crisis, President Jackson said in a famous toast, "Our federal Union—it must and shall be preserved." In Vice President Calhoun's toast, he replied, "The Union; next to our liberty most dear!" The break between Jackson and Calhoun was complete, and, in 1832, Calhoun ran for the Senate rather than remain as Vice President. The Nullification crisis was settled through a compromise that...
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...Just after the mid 1800’s the newly unified United States was still going through the reconstruction of their nation after the civil war. While the country was coming together, questions were being raised about the revolutionary changes regarding social and constitutional ideas. A better understanding of whether there were any revolutionary changes as a result of the civil war can be gained by looking at the decisions made regarding state's power or federal power, black rights, and the untold racism at the time as a result of blacks gaining rights. On a political level a revolution occurred but because of the radical rise of racism after the civil war and even the amount of racism today, socially there is still a long way to go with the battle against racism. During and after the civil war the federal government realized it had to make a change and rule over the state governments. At the end of the secession from the north the government realized that they can not standby and watch the south become its own sovereign country...
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...the Civil War in the beginning, but one thing is certain. Everyone automatically defaults to pegging Lincoln as the savior of The Civil War. And although Lincoln was credited with freeing the slaves, he waited until 1863 to dedicate the Union to emancipation because he wanted to seem like a neutral presidential candidate, was not sure what to do with them after emancipation and what the effects would be and thought it would be considered unconstitutional. In 1832, Abraham Lincoln ran for political office for the first time. He was running for a spot in the House of Representatives, but lost as he had no qualifications, not even a degree that displayed he was capable of the position. In fact, Lincoln actually gave up politics for a short period of time after being elected into the House after another election in 1847 and only serving one term. In 1856 after the Whig party was dismantled he then joined the Republican party. (Abraham Lincoln online.org). Then, in 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator (United States Government). And since he was so established in his political career when he ran for president in 1861, it made sense for him to construct his speeches in a way that made him seem non-threatening to the South, but neutral and fair in the eyes of the North. In his inaugural address, even, he made sure the country saw him as neutral. He even went as far to say that the government had “no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the...
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...Background Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was born in Brewster, Maine on September 8th , 1828. Originally born Lawrence Joshua, he changed his name to Joshua Lawrence when he reached adulthood. Joshua was the eldest of three sons. Joshua’s father, Joshua Chamberlain Jr., was a farmer who held many political offices. Despite his father’s aspirations for him to become a soldier, Chamberlain wanted to be a missionary from a young age. Chamberlain attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine in 1848, where he met Harriet Beecher Stowe, a northern abolitionist writer. It was her book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel about the cruelty of slavery in America, that sparked his contempt for slavery. For the first two years of his college experience,...
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...The Union rejected secession, regarding it as rebellion. Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Lincoln responded by calling for a large volunteer army, then four more Southern states declared their secession. In the war's first year, the Union assumed control of the border states and established a naval blockade as both sides massed armies and resources. In 1862, battles such as Shiloh and Antietam caused massive casualties unprecedented in U.S. military history. In September 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made ending slavery in the South a war goal, which complicated the Confederacy's manpower shortages. In the East, Confederate commander Robert E. Lee won a series of victories over Union armies, but Lee's reverse at Gettysburg in early July, 1863 proved the turning point. The capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson by Ulysses S. Grant completed Union control of the Mississippi River. Grant fought bloody battles of attrition with Lee in 1864, forcing Lee to defend the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia. Union general William Sherman captured Atlanta, Georgia, and began his famous March to the Sea, devastating a...
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...Certina Rolle 10 Henry History Assignment American Civil War Causes of the American Civil War The American Civil War was a war fought within the United States of America between the North (Union) and the South (Confederacy) starting from 1861 and ending in 1865. There were many said causes that led to the American Civil War. They were social, political and economic, however, the root of the Civil War was slavery. There were many factors that contributed to the onset of the Civil War. Socially, the North and the South were built on different standards. The South, or the Slave States, was a slave-based community that followed a class-based system. This system consisted of upper classes, middle class and then slavery. Many depended on slaves and were accustomed to this way of life, which was hard to change. Plantation owners had slaves working for them, and those who could not afford to own slaves would work on their own farm. The North had more immigrants settling in its areas, where labor was needed, but not the labor of slaves. Therefore it had a more developed society where most people worked in factories, and did not follow a class system. The Northerners opposed to Slavery as a body in the South, as the Confederate States were the only region in the world that still legalized the ownership of slaves. This angered the Southerners and threatened their way of life. Economic differences also developed between the two regions. The Southern states were farming states...
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...Congress passed the First Confiscation Act, authorizing the confiscation of any property—including slaves—used in the rebellion against the U.S. government. Later that month, Union major general John C. Fremont, commander of the Department of the West, issued an order declaring martial law in Missouri and freeing all slaves held by Missouri secessionists. In a letter dated September 11 that was published in Union newspapers, Lincoln ordered Fremont to change his order to conform to the First Confiscation Act, afraid that linking abolition with the war would cause the slave-holding border states to rebel. When it became clear that Fremont would not revoke or amend the order, Lincoln removed him from command and revoked the order himself. Under political pressure, he later appointed Fremont to the newly formed Mountain Department in West Virginia. A second unauthorized emancipation proclamation was issued on May 9, 1862, by Maj. Gen. David Hunter. This proclamation not only declared to be free all slaves in areas of South Carolina, Georgia, and...
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...He states “The proclamation became necessary to hold his remaining supporters and to forestall English Recognition of the Confederacy” (Hofstadter 168-169). Despite the Proclamation’s glory that exists today, Hofstadter argued that the political component played an integral role in Lincoln’s decision to pass the Emancipation Proclamation. While today we see Lincoln’s Emancipation as a heroic act of morality, we must not let that cloud our vision of the impact that war measures had on Lincoln’s decision to pass the Emancipation Proclamation. I wholeheartedly support Hofstadter’s argument and believe that the complicated nature of the Emancipation Proclamation lends well to my argument that the future interpretations are also more complicated than they might seem upon first glance. In the same way that the circumstances surrounding Lincoln’s presidency such as battle victories and English recognition of the Confederacy impacted his decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, the context of future presidencies also affected the way certain president's viewed the...
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...technically non-slaveholding, the amount of settlers from the South led them to support the Southern cause. War Democrats: Members of the Democratic Party who advocated for a more militant approach toward the Confederacy: they generally supported Lincoln’s policies. Peace Democrats/Copperheads: The War Democrats’ more level-headed counterparts who advocated for peace between the Union and the Confederacy. Clement L. Vallandingham: Ohio Democrat who was a strong advocate for the anti-war peace position of the Peace Democrats. Lost Cause: A literary movement used to effectively create an aggregate representation between Antebellum South and the Confederacy. 1. Why was the battle of Antietam “probably the most decisive of the Civil War’? After the South had had a key string of victories, a major victory at Antietam likely would have spelled disaster for the North and its morale levels. When the North prevailed, morale was increased, Europe was dissuaded from assisting the South, and Lincoln had a healthy climate for the Emancipation...
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