1. US history survey
May 15, 2012
Civil War battles
aftermath of war

2. announcements
• final class: Tuesday, May 22.
• paper # 2 due Tuesday, May 22.
• I added 10 points to all midterm exams.
• final exam: Tuesday, May 29, noon. Eat first
or bring a snack with you.

3. 1861

4. battles of Civil War
• where did most of the fighting happen?

7. fighting 1861 – 1863
• Lincoln thought one battle would defeat S & war
would end.
• fighting in N Virginia; N goal to capture
Richmond, Confederate capital.
• neither side strong enough to win; both sides too
strong to be defeated.
• N strategy: control Mississippi River & blockade S
by ocean.
• N seized islands of N & S Carolina & captured
New Orleans.

8. historical re-enactors

9. fugitive slaves = “contrabands”
• slaves fled to Union armies when they
reached their areas.
• slave owner demanded return, but union
commander refused, said they were
“contrabands of war.”
• built fortifications, cooked, did other work.
• Contraband Relief Association, Washington,
DC, founded by Elizabeth Keckley, ex-slave,
seamstress to Mary Todd Lincoln.

10. contrabands, Virginia
Elizabeth Keckley, Contraband Relief Association

11. Corinth,
Mississippi
• Contraband Camp at
Shiloh Battlefield,
National Park.
• 6,000 ex-slaves lived
there.

12. contrabands employed by 13th
Massachusetts Infantry, 1862

13. Antietam, MD, 9/1862
Union victory

14. Emancipation Proclamation
• after Antietam victory, Lincoln stated, unless
rebellious states returned to Union by 1/1/1863,
he would declare their slaves free.
• “If I could save the Union w/o freeing any slave, I
would do it. If I could save it by freeing all the
slaves, I would do it. If I could free some & leave
others alone, I would also do that.”
• freed only slaves in areas of rebellion, not areas
Union controlled or in border states.
• recruited Black soldiers for 1st time.

15. Gettysburg, PA, 7/1 – 7/3/1863
• 160,000 troops; 51,000
dead, wounded,
missing, captured.
• could not ride across
field on horse, so many
bodies.
• Lincoln’s Gettysburg
Address, 11/1863,
dedication of cemetery.

16. 1864
• Sherman captures Atlanta.
• Lincoln wins re-election.
• voters supported his new policy of
unconditional surrender – no negotiated
peace.
• war continued.

17. Sherman’s march
to the sea
• destruction of Atlanta &
RR.
• 11 & 12/1864

18. Sherman’s march to
the sea, 1864
• seize, burn, destroy
everything; don’t harm
civilians.
• 60,000 troops. • 400,000 acres to be
• to cut off Mississippi, given to freed slaves,
Alabama, Georgia from 40-acre plots.
rest of Confederacy.

19. Petersburg, VA, 1865, before battle

20. soldiers’ daily lives
• volunteers w/ little • by end, Confederate
military training. troops starving.
• marched w/ 50 – 60 • Confederacy considered
pound packs. arming slaves near end.
• disease, hunger. • “If slaves make good
• 1/9 Confederates & 1/7 soldiers, our whole
Union soldiers deserted. theory of slavery is
Also AWOL. wrong. (Confederate
• early in the war, Congressman).
fraternization between
battles.

21. Black men picking up bones of dead

22. surrender at Appomattox Court House,
Virginia, April 9, 1865
• Lee surrendered to
Grant.
• Grant gave Confederate
troops parole – could
not be prosecuted for
treason.
• Jefferson Davis, Conf.
President, captured
• Confederate
May 10.
government fled
Richmond, early April.

23. enormous death toll of war – N & S
• improved weapons, but generals still relied on
old military doctrine of massed infantry
offensives (learned at West Point).
• medical ignorance – gangrene (infected wounds)
& disease (smallpox, dysentery, typhoid,
pneumonia, malaria).
• unprepared for health & supply needs.
• Andersonville, GA – Confederate prison camp for
Union soldiers. 100 died daily, summer 1864.

24. 620,000 military deaths =
2% of population
• equal to total fatalities of Revolution, War of
1812, Mexican War, Spanish-American War,
WW I & II, & Korean War combined.
• 1/5 white S men of military age died; 3 times
rate of N men.
• 2.1 million N & 880,000 S soldiers = 3 million
combatants.
• American Rev. – largest army was 30,000.

25. assassination of Lincoln, 4/14/1865

26. plans for Reconstruction
• Lincoln wanted to bring seceded states back to
Union asap (as soon as possible).
• respect private property (except slavery).
• full pardon if swear oath of allegiance.
• 10% Plan – once 10% swore allegiance, could
establish state government & ask to return.
• Congress disagreed; Lincoln vetoed 50% plan.
• Freedmen’s Bureau established 1865.

27. Freedmen’s Bureau school

29. Freedmen’s Bureau, 3/1865
• food, clothing, fuel to destitute.
• managed abandoned lands.
• could lease 40 acres abandoned or confiscated
land to freed slaves or white Unionists.
• 13th Amendment passed & ratified, 12/1865.
• abolished slavery.

30. plans change –
President Andrew Johnson
• granted amnesty &
pardons for officers.
• fall 1865, 10/11 S states
claimed they had met
• only S Senator loyal to requirements.
US, Democrat; VP ‘64. • Johnson opposed to
• Reconstruction political rights for
belonged to executive, freedmen.
not legislative branch.
• blamed planter elite.

31. Radical Republicans
• federal govt. should remake S society, especially civil
rights & suffrage for freedmen.
• S states passed Black codes, 1865, to restrict freedom
& keep as close to slavery as possible.
• Civil Rights Bill, 1866 – citizenship & rights of citizens
for Black people.
• enlarged Freedmen’s Bureau to schools & courts.
• Congress overrode Johnson’s veto of both.
• 14th Amendment – citizenship & due process of law
cannot be denied based on previous condition of
servitude.

32. Congressional Reconstruction
• 1st Reconstruction Act, 1867 – S divided into 5
military districts, under martial law.
• states had to call new constitutional
conventions, w/ universal manhood suffrage,
ratify 14th Amendment. Then readmitted.
• 7 states readmitted by 1868.
• Grant (Union commander) elected president.
• 15th Amendment, Black male suffrage, passed
1869, ratified 1870.

33. “40 acres & a mule”
• economic necessity for freedom.
• too radical to be implemented by Congress.
• former slave owners wanted compensation for
lost property (enslaved human beings).

34. Ku Klux Klan, 1866
• threatened, whipped, m
urdered Black & white
Republicans in S to
prevent voting.
• violence in 1868
election.
• KKK Act, 1871 – violent
infringement of civil &
political rights a federal
crime.

35. • Mississippi, Texas, Virginia required to ratify
14th & 15th Amendments.
• all states readmitted by 1870.

36. meanwhile,
elsewhere
• US purchases Alaska
from Russia, 1867.

37. 1st transcontinental RR, 1869
• Chinese workers started
in California.
• Irish immigrant workers
started in Omaha,
Nebraska.
• also Black workers.

38. Promontory Point, Utah, 1869

39. announcements
• final class: Tuesday, May 22.
• paper # 2 due Tuesday, May 22.
• I added 10 points to all midterm exams.
• final exam: Tuesday, May 29, noon. Eat first
or bring a snack with you.