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Ulysses Grant was the 18th US President (1869-1877) and former Union Army commander. He worked closely with President Lincoln to lead the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy.

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Robert Edward Lee was an American military officer, military engineer, university rector, and Confederate army general during the American Civil War, serving as commander-in-chief.

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The South used slaves to support the war effort.

Black men and women were forced to build fortifications, work as blacksmiths and nurses, and work in factories and armories.

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The Southern states sought to assert federal authority to abolish unpopular federal laws.

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The South focused on agriculture, using slave labor, while the North was transitioning to a commercial and manufacturing economy, giving it an edge in war-making.

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The Whig Party's collapse, the Republican Party's founding, and Abraham Lincoln's 1860 presidential election were key political causes. Additionally, religious opposition to slavery grew, supported by ministers and abolitionists.

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Political reasons during american civil war

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For over 80 years, Northern and Southern states debated economic policies, cultural values, federal government power, and especially the role of slavery, ultimately leading to war.

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Frederick Douglass, escaped from slavery in Maryland, became a national leader of the 19th-century abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York. He gained fame for his oratory and writings, writing three autobiographies, including "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" (1845), which became a bestseller and promoted abolition

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Abraham Lincoln was the 16th US president, serving 1861-1865 and first Republican president. He was a lawyer, state official, and congressman before his election, failing in two previous senatorial runs.

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Jefferson Davis was a US soldier and statesman who served as the 1st and only president of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War

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The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1-3, 1863, in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War.

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The Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, saw 23,000 soldiers killed, wounded, or missing, ending the Confederate Army's Northern invasion.

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The Battle of Appomattox Court House was fought on April 9, 1865, near Appomattox Court House, Virginia, marking Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender of his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Lee's army had abandoned Richmond and Petersburg, but the short battle ended the four-year Civil War.

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The Battle of Fredericksburg was a significant and deadly Civil War battle, featuring the first opposed river crossing and urban combat, where Union and Confederate troops clashed in Fredericksburg's streets.

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The first land battle of the American Civil War took place on July 21, 1861, between Washington, DC, and Manassas. Witnessed by U.S. senators and fought between Northern and Southern forces, known as the Battle of Manassas (Southerners) and Bull Run (Northerners).

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Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, declaring all slaves in rebellious states to be free.

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Reconstruction (1865-1877) was a period after the Civil War when US administrations focused on rebuilding society in Southern states, particularly protecting the rights of newly freed black Americans.

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President Abraham Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865, shortly after 10 p.m. and died the next morning at 7:22 a.m., 158 years ago.

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The Anaconda Plan aimed to block Southern ports, control the Mississippi River region to split the Confederacy in half, and surround Confederate forces to win the war.

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The Anaconda Plan is the name applied to a strategy outlined by the Union Army for suppressing the Confederacy at the beginning of the American Civil War. Proposed by Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, the plan emphasized a Union blockade of the Southern ports and called for an advance down the Mississippi River to cut the South in two. Because the blockade would be rather passive, it was widely derided by a vociferous faction of Union generals who wanted a more vigorous prosecution of the war and likened it to the coils of an anaconda suffocating its victim. The snake image caught on, giving the proposal its popular name.

In the early days of the Civil War, Scott's proposed strategy for the war against the South had two prominent features. First, all ports in the seceding states were to be rigorously blockaded. Secondly, a strong column of perhaps 80,000 men should use the Mississippi River as a highway to thrust completely through the Confederacy. A spearhead, a relatively small amphibious force of army troops transported by boats and supported by gunboats, should advance rapidly, capturing the Confederate positions down the river in sequence. It would be followed by a more traditional army, marching behind to secure victories. The culminating battle would be for the forts below New Orleans. When they fell, the river would be in US hands from its source to its mouth, and the rebellion would be cut in two.

Scott's plan had elements similar to a plan created before the Civil War. That antebellum plan was intended to crush a limited domestic insurrection by closing ports and using the army to pressure civilians to demand surrender. It was not intended to deal with a new political organization with a regular army.

The complete strategy could not be implemented immediately since no warships of the type imagined for the Mississippi campaign existed. The US Navy was also too small to enforce the blockade in the first months of the war. It would take time to gather and train the forces needed to carry out the Mississippi thrust, and the critics of the plan were unwilling to concede that time. Hence, Scott's plan was subjected to a great deal of ridicule. His opponents called for an immediate overland campaign directed primarily at the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Their stated belief was that if a few strongholds were taken, the Confederacy would collapse.

The conflict was not the brief affair that Scott's critics had imagined. In the four years of the war, the US Navy enforced a blockade that certainly weakened the South by reducing its exports of cotton by 95% from pre-war levels, devaluing its currency and wrecking its economy. Furthermore, the Confederacy was split in two by a campaign based on the Mississippi River, and a consensus has now been established that the Southern defeat in the West contributed at least as much to the final collapse of the rebellion as the land battles in the East that had so long dominated the attention of both historians and the general public. The form of the Northern victory thus turned out to look very much like what Scott had proposed in the early days. Consequently, the Anaconda has been somewhat rehabilitated, and general histories of the Civil War often credit it with guiding President Abraham Lincoln's strategy throughout the period.

The Anaconda had a logical development, both in its origin and the way it played out in the experience of battle. The blockade had already been proclaimed by Lincoln. On April 19, 1861, a week after the bombardment of Fort Sumter that marked the outbreak of the war, he announced that the ports of all the seceded states, from South Carolina to Texas, would be blockaded; later, when Virginia and North Carolina also seceded, their coastlines were added. The executive order was not rescinded until the end of the war and so the blockade existed independently of Scott's plan.

In the early days of the secession movement, the status of the border states Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, all of which allowed slavery, was unclear. All except Delaware had strong pro-Southern interests. Missouri was torn by internal conflict that mimicked in miniature the larger war that was convulsing the nation, Maryland was kept in the Union by jailing many of the opposition faction, and Kentucky tried to keep the peace by proclaiming its neutrality by aiding neither the North nor the South if both would agree to leave the state alone.

Because Congress was not in session to authorize presidential initiatives to suppress the rebellion, the burden of raising troops for the war fell on the loyal state governments. Ohio was particularly active in doing so and early acquired the services of George B. McClellan, who was to serve as the commander of its militia, with rank Major General of Volunteers. In a few weeks, as the state militias were incorporated into the national service, the militias of Indiana and Illinois were added to his command. From this power base, he felt enabled on April 27, 1861, to write a letter to General Winfield Scott outlining his strategy. He proposed an immediate march on Richmond, by now the capital of the Confederacy, directed up the Kanawha River. Alternatively, if Kentucky were to leave the Union, a march directly across that state should take Nashville, and then, he would "act on circumstances."

Scott's endorsement of McClellan's letter, which he submitted to the President, shows that he considered it but not favorably. Firstly, the Kanawha was not suited for water transport and so the march on Richmond would have to be overland and thus subject to breakdowns of men, horses, and equipment. More seriously, western Virginia (West Virginia had not yet parted from Virginia) was still very much pro-Union; according to Scott's estimate, its populace stood five out of seven opposed to secession. An invasion as proposed would alienate many of them and subject both enemies and friends to the ravages of war. The same argument could be applied to Kentucky. Perhaps most damagingly, the war as proposed would subjugate the Confederacy piecemeal, with by necessity the border states bearing most of the burden, "instead of enveloping them all (nearly) at once by a cordon of ports on the Mississippi to its mouth from its junction with the Ohio, and by blockading ships on the sea board."

The germ of Scott's Anaconda Plan for suppressing the insurrection is seen in the endorsement. In a few days, he had given it more thought, and he submitted his own proposal in a letter to McClellan on May 3, 1861. A second letter, dated May 21, was his final outline of the plan.

Scott was not able to impose his strategic vision on the government. Aged and infirm, he had to retire before the end of the year. He was replaced as General-in-Chief by none other than George B. McClellan.

Under McClellan and his eventual successor in the West, Maj. Gen. Henry Wager Halleck, the Mississippi became a somewhat neglected theater for operations in the West. Halleck, with McClellan's approval, believed in turning the enemy's Mississippi River strongholds rather than attacking them directly, so he moved away from the river. As he saw it, the Tennessee rather than the Mississippi was the "great strategic line of the Western campaign."

The Navy Department, however, remained committed to the idea of opening the Mississippi. In the person of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Vasa Fox, it decided early on the capture of New Orleans by a naval expedition from the Gulf of Mexico, after which all other towns bordering the river would fall rather than face bombardment. The task of taking New Orleans was entrusted to Captain (later Admiral) David Glasgow Farragut, who followed his own plans for the battle; running his fleet past the forts that defended the city from the south on the night of April 24, 1862, he forced the city to surrender. After repairing his ships from the damage they had suffered while passing the forts, he sent them up the river, where they successively sought and obtained the surrender of Baton Rouge and Natchez. The string of easy conquests came to an end at Vicksburg, Mississippi, however, as the Confederate position there occupied bluffs high enough to render them impregnable to the naval gunnery of the day.

Following the loss of Island No. 10 shortly before Farragut took New Orleans, the Confederates had abandoned Memphis, Tennessee, leaving only a small rear guard to conduct a delaying operation. In early June, this was swept aside at the First Battle of Memphis by the gunboats of the Western Gunboat Flotilla (soon thereafter to be transformed into the Mississippi River Squadron) and the United States Ram Fleet, and the Mississippi was open down to Vicksburg. Thus that city became the only point on the river not in Federal hands.

Again, the Army under Halleck did not grasp the opportunity that was provided. He failed to send even a small body of troops to aid the ships, and soon Farragut was forced by falling water levels to withdraw his deep-draft vessels to the vicinity of New Orleans. The Army did not attempt to take Vicksburg until November, and then the Army was under the leadership of Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, after Halleck had been called to Washington to replace McClellan as General-in-Chief.

By the time that Grant became commander in the West, the Confederate Army had been able to fortify Vicksburg and Port Hudson to the south. This 130 mi stretch (210 km measured along roads, somewhat longer on the river), including the confluence of the Red River with the Mississippi, became the last contact between the eastern Confederacy and the Trans-Mississippi. Having no doubt of its importance, the government of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond strengthened both positions. Command at Vicksburg in particular passed from Brig. Gen. Martin L. Smith to Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn to Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton; the size of the defending army increased in step with the advancing rank of its commander.

The campaign for Vicksburg eventually settled into a siege, which terminated on July 4, 1863, with Pemberton's surrender of all the forces under his command. At that time, his army numbered approximately 29,500 men.

When word of the loss of Vicksburg reached the garrison at Port Hudson, Maj. Gen. Franklin Gardner, the commander there, knew that further resistance was pointless. On July 9, 1863, he surrendered the post and its garrison to the Federal Army of the Gulf and its commander, Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks. Henceforth, in the phrase of Abraham Lincoln, "The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea."

The Anaconda Plan as proposed by Scott relied on the blockade, as he stated it, "so as to envelop the insurgent States and bring them to terms with less bloodshed than by any other plan." Insofar as he foresaw direct combat, it was to be more or less confined to the central thrust down the Mississippi River. Almost surely he did not anticipate the level of violence that it provoked. For that matter, the blockade itself had to be modified by events, provoking much of the bloodshed that he hoped to avoid.

Scott's proposal for the blockade was not properly a strategy although it is often referred to as such by historians. It did not estimate the forces that would be needed to guard the at least 3000 mi (4800 km) of coastline in the seceded states. It did not consider an allocation of resources. It did not set out a timeline or even name points of particular concern. Much of that was later done by the Blockade Strategy Board, a group meeting at the request of the Navy Department but also with representatives from both the Army and the Treasury Department (Coast Survey). During the summer of 1861, the board issued a series of reports recommending how best to maintain the blockade, taking into account the topography of the coast, the relative merits of the various southern ports, the opposition likely to be encountered, and the nature of the ships that would be used by both sides. The board recommendations concerning the Gulf coast were rather rudimentary and largely ignored, but the blockade on the Atlantic coast followed their plan reasonably closely.

Atlantic blockade

All parties recognized from the start that the blockading ships would have to be powered by steam. The limited endurance of steamships then implied that one of the first requirements would be possession of a harbor that would serve as a coaling station near the southern end of the blockading line, as otherwise blockaders would spend too much of their time going to and from home port seeking replenishment. All suitable harbors south of the Chesapeake Bay, however, were held by seceded states. In order to establish the blockade, therefore, at least one of them would have to be taken by the Federal forces. Thus, the blockade was immediately transformed from a purely open-water operation to one of at least limited occupation of enemy territory.

Although the board recommended that Fernandina, Florida, be taken as the southern anchor of the blockade, two other positions were captured before Fernandina. A pair of minor forts on the Outer Banks of North Carolina near Cape Hatteras were taken by Union forces on August 28-29, 1861, and on November 7 a major fleet operation at Port Royal, South Carolina, resulted in the capture of a deep-water harbor midway between Savannah and Charleston. The Hatteras expedition had been planned as a raid; the plan called for it to be held only long enough to block up Hatteras Inlet. However, it was transformed into an incursion, and led early in the next year to a full invasion, the so-called Burnside Expedition, which included the capture of Roanoke Island and established the Union Army permanently in eastern North Carolina. Port Royal in Union hands was soon used a base to make the blockade of Savannah almost complete, but Charleston was not so easily sealed off. Use of its harbor by blockade runners was curtailed, but to close it completely required some of the bitterest and most persistent ground action of the war.

When Fernandina was seized in early March 1862, the war was almost a year old, and some important changes had taken place. Following the Confederate defeats at Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee and Roanoke Island in North Carolina, the War Department in Richmond decided to concentrate its armies in vital interior areas, removing them from much of the coast. Only a few major ports would be defended. Only three of these were on the Atlantic seaboard: Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah. In fact, only the first two were consequential; a mere eight steam-powered blockade runners entered Georgia or northern Florida ports throughout the entire war.

The blockade of Charleston merged into the campaign against the city waged by both the Army and the Navy, not completed until the last days of the war. (See Raising the Flag at Fort Sumter.) Rather early in the war, the Federal Navy tried to block the harbor entrance by sinking ballast-laden hulks in the channels, but this proved ineffective or worse. Later, ships used in the blockade were used for the abortive assault on Fort Sumter on April 7, 1863. They also provided artillery support for the infantry attacks on Battery Wagner on July 11 and July 18, 1863. After both of these attempts to take the battery failed, the ships remained active in the ensuing siege that eventually resulted in its capture. Then, the Union was able to mount its own guns at the mouth of the harbor, and although the city continued to resist, it was no longer the preferred terminus for blockade runners.

While all this was going on, the local defenders were not passive. Extensive efforts to break the blockade included the use of torpedoes (mines) and armored ships to sink or otherwise render inoperative the Federal vessels. Imaginative methods to achieve the same end resulted in the development and deployment of submarines and torpedo boats.

By contrast, the blockade of Wilmington was fairly conventional, and is the focus of most debate concerning the efficacy of the blockade. After the middle of July 1863, when Charleston was largely sealed off, most of the trade between the Confederacy and northern Europe was conducted through Wilmington. The port retained its primacy until near the end of the Rebellion, when Fort Fisher, at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, was captured by Union forces in January 1865.

Gulf blockade

The blockade of Confederate ports on the Gulf of Mexico was less important than that on the Atlantic. Not only were they farther from the centers of blockade-running activity in Bermuda and Nassau, but ships trying to reach them from the Atlantic Ocean would have to run past the Florida Keys, which remained in Federal control throughout the war and served as the base for the Gulf (later, East Gulf) Blockading Squadron. The same decision by the Confederate War Department that led to the abandonment of most of the Atlantic coast except for the major ports applied to the Gulf as well, with the result that only Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston were defended. ( Brownsville, Texas/ Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, at the mouth of the Rio Grande, is a special case that will not be treated here because of its international implications.) Galveston was captured by Federal forces on October 4, 1862, but was retaken by the Rebels on New Year's Day of the next year. It remained accessible to blockade runners for the rest of the war but, like all of the Trans-Mississippi, was rendered worthless to the Rebellion when the loss of Vicksburg completed Federal control of the Mississippi River.

The Blockade Strategy Board had recommended that Ship Island, which lies in the Gulf between Mobile and New Orleans, be taken and used as a base for the (West) Gulf Blockading Squadron. This was easily done, as on September 16, 1861, it was abandoned by its Rebel defenders, who feared that they might be cut off from the mainland. Their fears were justified; the next day, USS Massachusetts arrived and offloaded Federal troops to take possession. Almost immediately, however, the island was transformed from base and coaling station to a more important function; it became the staging area for the approaching attack on the Mississippi River forts that shielded New Orleans. Early in 1862, the Gulf Blockading Squadron was reconfigured into two separate entities, the East Gulf Blockading Squadron (EGBS) commanded by Flag-Officer James L. Lardner and the West Gulf Blockading Squadron (WGBS) led by Flag-Officer David G. Farragut.

After New Orleans fell to the Union fleet under Farragut on April 29, 1862, Mobile was the only serious problem for the blockade. It remained so, much like Wilmington, until late in the war. In August 1864, Farragut got permission from the Navy Department and troops from the War Department to seize the forts at the entrance to Mobile Bay. Following his famous "Damn the torpedoes" run past the forts, they fell and were occupied by Federal soldiers. Mobile itself remained in Confederate control, but it was no longer useful as a port. In July of 1862, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, wrote a letter to the commanders of both Gulf blockading squadrons that they would need to start recruiting freed blacks in order to keep up with labor demands.

Although a century and a half has elapsed since the end of the Civil War, the importance of the Anaconda Plan remains to some extent a matter of debate. Clearly, the war was not the relatively bloodless affair that General Scott promised in his original proposal. Most historians regard this as merely a modification of the basic strategy in the course of events. At least one historian, however, denies that there ever was anything like a coherent strategy for subduing the South. Rowena Reed contends that the central government in Washington was unable to impose its will on the field commanders, so that the war was a series of independent campaigns, each of which was conducted according to the whims of whatever general happened to be in charge. According to her view, the Anaconda is a later conceptual imposition on events for which order did not exist at the time that they took place.

For the historians who contend that a rational plan existed, the debate, like the plan itself, has two parts. The importance of the campaign to capture the Mississippi River and thereby lop off the Trans-Mississippi is acknowledged. Virtually all present-day historians agree that the Union's Western campaign was at least as significant as that in the East. To the extent that fighting in the West before mid-1863 can be regarded as preparing for or culminating in the capture of Vicksburg, the Anaconda has been validated.

The worth of the Union blockade, however, remains controversial. No one seriously contends that it alone would have won the war for the North. But while it is conceded not to have been sufficient, the question remains if it was necessary, i.e. whether the South would have endured had the blockade not sapped the strength of the Rebel armies beyond the tipping point.

Those who deny the importance of the blockade advance two principal arguments. First, it was never very effective. Over the course of the war, more than three quarters of all attempts to evade the blockade were successful. The one quarter that did not get through can be written off as operational losses. That was because the blockade runners were small and built for speed, rather than capacity.

Second and perhaps more important, the Southern armies were not hamstrung for lack of material, at least owing to the blockade. The supply problems they did face were most often caused by the poor condition of Confederate railroads. However much of the deterioration of the Southern railroads was caused by overloading due to the blockade disrupting normal coastal sea traffic and control of inland waterways by the Union Navy..

Those who believe that the blockade was decisive argue that the Southern forces were strangled at the end. They point out that the collapse of the Army of Northern Virginia, which in 1865 was virtually all that remained of the Confederacy, followed soon after the loss of Wilmington to the Union. The timing, they contend, was not merely coincidental. Furthermore, the defeat of its armies was not the only way that the South lost.

The blockade was not only to capture the ships that attempted to evade it but also to discourage others. The blockade runners may have been numerous, but they were built for speed rather than the ability to carry cargo. The more conventional cargo vessels, and their spacious holds, went elsewhere. As a result, Southern exports of cotton fell by 95% from pre-war levels, devaluing its currency, and wrecking its economy.

Additionally, the blockade disrupted coastal trade, overloading the marginal Southern railroads and prevented importation of salt, necessary for preserving food and tanning leather. Unable to sell goods (particularly cotton) on the world market, the Confederate government was already strained financially as early as 1862. As its economy steadily degenerated, it suffered from a general loss of confidence on the part of its citizens.

Abbreviations used in these notes:

ORA (Official records, armies): War of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate Armies.

ORN (Official records, navies): Official records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion.

1. Wolfe, B. Anaconda Plan. (2011, May 9). Retrieved from ^ Encyclopedia Virginia Web. 17 Oct. 2015

2. Carol Reardon, ^ "The Military Experience," in The Civil War Remembered, National Park Service Handbook, Virginia Beach, Virginia: The Donning Company Publishers, ISBN 978-1-57864-662-3, 2011.

3. Gideon Welles, "Admiral Farragut and New Orleans: with an account of the origin and command of the first three naval expeditions of the war," ^ The Galaxy, v. 12, pp. 669-683, 817-832 (November and December 1871).[1][2]

4. Solomon, I.D., Erhart, G. (1999). Race and Civil War in South Florida. The Florida Historical Quarterly, 77(3), pp. 320-341. Retrieved from ^ https://www.jstor.org/stable/30147583, 327

Anderson, Bern, By sea and by river: the naval history of the Civil War. New York: Knopf, 1962; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, n.d.

Browning, Robert M. Jr., From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: Univ. of Alabama Press, 1993.

Browning, Robert M. Jr., Success is all that was expected: the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War. Dulles, VA: Brassey's, 2002.

Dufour, Charles L., The night the war was lost. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1960, ISBN 978-0-8032-6599-8.

Elliott, Charles Winslow, Winston Scott: the soldier and the man. Macmillan, 1937.

McPherson, James M., Battle cry of freedom: The Civil War era (Oxford History of the United States). Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-503863-0.

McPherson, James M., War on the Waters: The Union & Confederate Navies, 1861-1865 University of North Carolina Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-8078-3588-3

Reed, Rowena, Combined Operations in the Civil War. Naval Institute Press, 1978.

Shea, William L., and Winschel, Terrence J., Vicksburg is the key: the struggle for the Mississippi River. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0-8032-9344-1.

Simson, Jay W., Naval strategies of the Civil War: Confederate innovations and Federal opportunism. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2001.

Tucker, Spencer C., Blue and gray navies: the Civil War afloat. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

Wise, Stephen R., Lifeline of the Confederacy: blockade running during the Civil War. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1988.

US Navy Department, Official records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Series I: 27 volumes. Series II: 3 volumes. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922.

US War Department, A compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series I: 53 volumes. Series II: 8 volumes. Series III: 5 volumes. Series IV: 4 volumes. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1886-1901. The War of the Rebellion

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The Anaconda Plan is the name applied to a strategy outlined by the Union Army for suppressing the Confederacy at the beginning of the American Civil War. Proposed by Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, the plan emphasized a Union blockade of the Southern ports and called for an advance down the Mississippi River to cut the South in two.

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The Union blockaded Confederate ports during the Civil War to prevent cotton exports and war material smuggling.

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Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea campaign, from November 15 to December 21, 1864, destroyed Confederate military outposts, civilian properties, and pillaged Georgia's countryside

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Sherman's March to the Sea (also known as the Savannah campaign or simply Sherman's March) was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 until December 21, 1864, by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army. The campaign began with Sherman's troops leaving the captured city of Atlanta on November 15 and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. His forces followed a " scorched earth" policy, destroying military targets as well as industry, infrastructure, and civilian property, disrupting the Confederacy's economy and transportation networks. The operation broke the back of the Confederacy and helped lead to its eventual surrender. Sherman's decision to operate deep within enemy territory and without supply lines is considered to be one of the major campaigns of the war, and is considered by some historians to be an early example of modern total war.

Sherman's "March to the Sea" followed his successful Atlanta Campaign of May to September 1864. He and the Union Army's commander, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, believed that the Civil War would come to an end only if the Confederacy's strategic capacity for warfare was decisively broken. Sherman therefore planned an operation that has been compared to the modern principles of scorched earth warfare. Although his formal orders (excerpted below) specified control over destruction of infrastructure in areas in which his army was unmolested by guerrilla activity, he recognized that supplying an army through liberal foraging would have a destructive effect on the morale of the civilian population it encountered in its wide sweep through the state.

The second objective of the campaign was more traditional. Grant's armies in Virginia continued in a stalemate against Robert E. Lee's army, besieged in Petersburg, Virginia. By moving in Lee's rear, Sherman could possibly increase pressure on Lee, allowing Grant the opportunity to break through, or at least keep Southern reinforcements away from Virginia.

The campaign was designed by Grant and Sherman to be similar to Grant's innovative and successful Vicksburg campaign and Sherman's Meridian campaign, in that Sherman's armies would reduce their need for traditional supply lines by "living off the land" after consuming their 20 days of rations. Foragers, known as " bummers", would provide food seized from local farms for the Army while they destroyed the railroads and the manufacturing and agricultural infrastructure of Georgia. In planning for the march, Sherman used livestock and crop production data from the 1860 census to lead his troops through areas where he believed they would be able to forage most effectively. The twisted and broken railroad rails that the troops heated over fires and wrapped around tree trunks and left behind became known as " Sherman's neckties". As the army would be out of touch with the North throughout the campaign, Sherman gave explicit orders, Sherman's Special Field Orders, No. 120, regarding the conduct of the campaign. The following is an excerpt from the general's orders:

... IV. The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end, each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather, near the route traveled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn-meal, or whatever is needed by the command, aiming at all times to keep in the wagons at least ten day's provisions for the command and three days' forage. Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass, but during a halt or a camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, apples, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock of their camp. To regular foraging parties must be instructed the gathering of provisions and forage at any distance from the road traveled.

V. To army corps commanders alone is entrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, &c., and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.

VI. As for horses, mules, wagons, &c., belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may appropriate freely and without limit, discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or friendly. Foraging parties may also take mules or horses to replace the jaded animals of their trains, or to serve as pack-mules for the regiments or brigades. In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening language, and may, where the officer in command thinks proper, give written certificates of the facts, but no receipts, and they will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance.

VII. Negroes who are able-bodied and can be of service to the several columns may be taken along, but each army commander will bear in mind that the question of supplies is a very important one and that his first duty is to see to them who bear arms....

-  William T. Sherman, Military Division of the Mississippi Special Field Order 120, November 9, 1864.

The march was made easier by able assistants such as Orlando Metcalfe Poe, chief of the bridge building and demolition team. Sherman selected Poe as his chief engineer in 1864. Poe oversaw the burning of Atlanta, for which action he was honored by Sherman. Poe directly supervised the destruction of all buildings and structures in Atlanta that could be of any military value to the Confederates once Sherman abandoned the city. Rail depots, roundhouses, arsenals, and warehouses were torn down and the combustible materials then destroyed by controlled fires. (However, Poe was incensed at the level of uncontrolled arson by marauding soldiers not of his unit which resulted in heavy damage to civilian homes.)[citation needed ] He served in this capacity past the fall of Atlanta to the end of the war. Dozens of river crossings, poor or non-existent roads, and the extensive swamps of southern Georgia would have fatally slowed Sherman's force had not Poe's skills as leader of the bridge, road and pontoon building units kept the army moving. He also continued to supervise destruction of Confederate infrastructure. Promoted by Sherman by two steps in rank to colonel after the fall of Savannah, he continued in that capacity in the war's concluding Carolinas campaign as Sherman headed northwards from Savannah to link up with Grant and the Army of the Potomac in Virginia and to cut another swath through South and North Carolina.

Sherman, commanding the Military Division of the Mississippi, did not employ his entire army group in the campaign. Confederate Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood was threatening Sherman's supply line from Chattanooga, and Sherman detached two armies under Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas to deal with Hood in the Franklin-Nashville campaign. For the Savannah campaign, Sherman's remaining force of 62,000 men (55,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, and 2,000 artillerymen manning 64 guns) was divided into two columns for the march:

The Confederate opposition from Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee's Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida was meager. Hood had taken the bulk of forces in Georgia on his campaign to Tennessee in hopes of diverting Sherman to pursue him. Considering Sherman's military priorities, however, this tactical maneuver by his enemy to get out of his force's path was welcomed to the point of remarking, "If he will go to the Ohio River, I'll give him rations." There were about 13,000 men remaining at Lovejoy's Station, south of Atlanta. Maj. Gen. Gustavus W. Smith's Georgia militia had about 3,050 soldiers, most of whom were boys and elderly men. The Cavalry Corps of Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler, reinforced by a brigade under Brig. Gen. William H. Jackson, had approximately 10,000 troopers. During the campaign, the Confederate War Department brought in additional men from Florida and the Carolinas, but they never were able to increase their effective force beyond 13,000.

Both U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant had serious reservations about Sherman's plans. Still, Grant trusted Sherman's assessment and on November 2, 1864, he sent Sherman a telegram stating simply, "Go as you propose." The 300-mile (480 km) march began on November 15. Sherman recounted in his memoirs the scene when he left at 7 a.m. the following day:

... We rode out of Atlanta by the Decatur road, filled by the marching troops and wagons of the Fourteenth Corps; and reaching the hill, just outside of the old rebel works, we naturally paused to look back upon the scenes of our past battles. We stood upon the very ground whereon was fought the bloody battle of July 22d, and could see the copse of wood where McPherson fell. Behind us lay Atlanta, smouldering and in ruins, the black smoke rising high in air, and hanging like a pall over the ruined city. Away off in the distance, on the McDonough road, was the rear of Howard's column, the gun-barrels glistening in the sun, the white-topped wagons stretching away to the south; and right before us the Fourteenth Corps, marching steadily and rapidly, with a cheery look and swinging pace, that made light of the thousand miles that lay between us and Richmond. Some band, by accident, struck up the anthem of " John Brown's Body"; the men caught up the strain, and never before or since have I heard the chorus of "Glory, glory, hallelujah!" done with more spirit, or in better harmony of time and place.

-  William T. Sherman, Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman, Chapter 21

Sherman's personal escort on the march was the 1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment, a unit made up entirely of Southerners who remained loyal to the Union.

The two wings of the army attempted to confuse and deceive the enemy about their destinations; the Confederates could not tell from the initial movements whether Sherman would march on Macon, Augusta, or Savannah. Howard's wing, led by Kilpatrick's cavalry, marched south along the railroad to Lovejoy's Station, which caused the defenders there to conduct a fighting retreat to Macon. The cavalry captured two Confederate guns at Lovejoy's Station, and then two more and 50 prisoners at Bear Creek Station. Howard's infantry marched through Jonesboro to Gordon, southwest of the state capital, Milledgeville. Slocum's wing, accompanied by Sherman, moved to the east, in the direction of Augusta. They destroyed the bridge across the Oconee River and then turned south.

The first real resistance was felt by Howard's right wing at the Battle of Griswoldville on November 22. Confederate Maj. Gen. Wheeler's cavalry struck Brig. Gen. Kilpatrick's, killing one, wounding two and capturing 18. The infantry brigade of Brig. Gen. Charles C. Walcutt arrived to stabilize the defense, and the division of Georgia militia launched several hours of badly coordinated attacks, eventually retreating with about 1,100 casualties (of which about 600 were prisoners), versus the Union's 100.

At the same time, Slocum's left wing approached the state capital at Milledgeville, prompting the hasty departure of Governor Joseph Brown and the state legislature. On November 23, Slocum's troops captured the city and held a mock legislative session in the capitol building, jokingly voting Georgia back into the Union.

Several small actions followed. Wheeler and some infantry struck in a rearguard action at Ball's Ferry on November 24 and November 25. While Howard's wing was delayed near Ball's Bluff, the 1st Alabama Cavalry (a Federal regiment) engaged Confederate pickets. Overnight, Union engineers constructed a bridge 2 miles (3.2 km) away from the bluff across the Oconee River, and 200 soldiers crossed to flank the Confederate position. On November 25-26 at Sandersville, Wheeler struck at Slocum's advance guard. Kilpatrick was ordered to make a feint toward Augusta before destroying the railroad bridge at Brier Creek and moving to liberate the Camp Lawton prisoner of war camp at Millen. Kilpatrick slipped by the defensive line that Wheeler had placed near Brier Creek, but on the night of November 26 Wheeler attacked and drove the 8th Indiana and 2nd Kentucky Cavalry away from their camps at Sylvan Grove. Kilpatrick abandoned his plans to destroy the railroad bridge and he also learned that the prisoners had been moved from Camp Lawton, so he rejoined the army at Louisville. At the Battle of Buck Head Creek on November 28, Kilpatrick was surprised and nearly captured, but the 5th Ohio Cavalry halted Wheeler's advance, and Wheeler was later stopped decisively by Union barricades at Reynolds's Plantation. On December 4, Kilpatrick's cavalry routed Wheeler's at the Battle of Waynesboro.

More Union troops entered the campaign from an unlikely direction. Maj. Gen. John G. Foster dispatched 5,500 men and 10 guns under Brig. Gen. John P. Hatch from Hilton Head, hoping to assist Sherman's arrival near Savannah by securing the Charleston and Savannah Railroad. At the Battle of Honey Hill on November 30, Hatch fought a vigorous battle against G.W. Smith's 1,500 Georgia militiamen, 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Grahamville Station, South Carolina. Smith's militia fought off the Union attacks, and Hatch withdrew after suffering about 650 casualties, versus Smith's 50.

Sherman's armies reached the outskirts of Savannah on December 10 but found that Hardee had entrenched 10,000 men in favorable fighting positions, and his soldiers had flooded the surrounding rice fields, leaving only narrow causeways available to approach the city. Sherman was blocked from linking up with the U.S. Navy as he had planned, so he dispatched cavalry to Fort McAllister, guarding the Ogeechee River, in hopes of unblocking his route and obtaining supplies awaiting him on the Navy ships. On December 13, William B. Hazen's division of Howard's wing stormed the fort in the Battle of Fort McAllister and captured it within 15 minutes. Some of the 134 Union casualties were caused by torpedoes, a name for crude land mines that were used only rarely in the war.

Now that Sherman had contact with the Navy fleet under Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, he was able to obtain the supplies and siege artillery he required to invest Savannah. On December 17, he sent a message to Hardee in the city:

I have already received guns that can cast heavy and destructive shot as far as the heart of your city; also, I have for some days held and controlled every avenue by which the people and garrison of Savannah can be supplied, and I am therefore justified in demanding the surrender of the city of Savannah, and its dependent forts, and shall wait a reasonable time for your answer, before opening with heavy ordnance. Should you entertain the proposition, I am prepared to grant liberal terms to the inhabitants and garrison; but should I be forced to resort to assault, or the slower and surer process of starvation, I shall then feel justified in resorting to the harshest measures, and shall make little effort to restrain my army-burning to avenge the national wrong which they attach to Savannah and other large cities which have been so prominent in dragging our country into civil war.

-  William T. Sherman, Message to William J. Hardee, December 17, 1864, recorded in his memoirs

Hardee decided not to surrender but to escape. On December 20, he led his men across the Savannah River on a makeshift pontoon bridge. The next morning, Savannah Mayor Richard Dennis Arnold, with a delegation of aldermen and ladies of the city, rode out (until they were unhorsed by fleeing Confederate cavalrymen) to offer a proposition: The city would surrender and offer no resistance, in exchange for General Geary's promise to protect the city's citizens and their property. Geary telegraphed Sherman, who advised him to accept the offer. Arnold presented him with the key to the city, and Sherman's men, led by Geary's division of the XX Corps, occupied the city the same day.

Sherman telegraphed to President Lincoln, "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." On December 26, the president replied in a letter:

Many, many thanks for your Christmas gift, the capture of Savannah. When you were about leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that 'nothing risked, nothing gained,' I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is yours; for I believe none of us went further than to acquiesce. And taking the work of General Thomas into the count, as it should be taken, it is indeed a great success. Not only does it afford the obvious and immediate military advantages, but, in showing to the world that your army could be divided, putting the stronger part to an important new service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the old opposing force of the whole - Hood's army - it brings those who sat in darkness to see a great light. But what next? I suppose it will be safer if I leave General Grant and yourself to decide. Please make my grateful acknowledgments to your whole army, officers and men.

The March attracted a huge number of refugees, to whom Sherman assigned land with his Special Field Orders No. 15. These orders have been depicted in popular culture as the origin of the " 40 acres and a mule" promise.

From Savannah, after a month-long delay for rest, Sherman marched north in the spring through the Carolinas, intending to complete his turning movement and combine his armies with Grant's against Robert E. Lee. After a successful two-month campaign, Sherman accepted the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston and his forces in North Carolina on April 26, 1865.

Letter, Sherman to Henry W. Halleck, December 24, 1864.

Sherman's scorched earth policies have always been highly controversial, and Sherman's memory has long been reviled by many Southerners. Slaves' opinions varied concerning the actions of Sherman and his army. Some who welcomed him as a liberator chose to follow his armies. Jacqueline Campbell has written, on the other hand, that some slaves looked upon the Union army's ransacking and invasive actions with disdain. They often felt betrayed, as they "suffered along with their owners, complicating their decision of whether to flee with or from Union troops". A Confederate officer estimated that 10,000 liberated slaves followed Sherman's army, and hundreds died of "hunger, disease, or exposure" along the way.

The March to the Sea was devastating to Georgia and the Confederacy. Sherman himself estimated that the campaign had inflicted $100 million (about $1.6 billion in 2020 dollars) in destruction, about one fifth of which "inured to our advantage" while the "remainder is simple waste and destruction". The Army wrecked 300 miles (480 km) of railroad and numerous bridges and miles of telegraph lines. It seized 5,000 horses, 4,000 mules, and 13,000 head of cattle. It confiscated 9.5 million pounds of corn and 10.5 million pounds of fodder, and destroyed uncounted cotton gins and mills. Military historians Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones cited the significant damage wrought to railroads and Southern logistics in the campaign and stated that "Sherman's raid succeeded in 'knocking the Confederate war effort to pieces'." David J. Eicher wrote that "Sherman had accomplished an amazing task. He had defied military principles by operating deep within enemy territory and without lines of supply or communication. He destroyed much of the South's potential and psychology to wage war."

According to a 2018 National Bureau of Economic Research paper which sought to measure the medium- and long-term economic impact of Sherman's March, "the capital destruction induced by the March led to a large contraction in agricultural investment, farming asset prices, and manufacturing activity. Elements of the decline in agriculture persisted through 1920."

Union soldiers sang many songs during the March, but it is one written afterward that has come to symbolize the campaign: " Marching Through Georgia", written by Henry Clay Work in 1865. Sung from the point of view of a Union soldier, the lyrics detail the freeing of slaves and punishing the Confederacy for starting the war. Sherman came to dislike the song, in part because he was never one to rejoice over a fallen foe, and in part because it was played at almost every public appearance that he attended. It was widely popular among US soldiers of 20th-century wars.

Hundreds of African Americans drowned trying to cross in Ebenezer Creek north of Savannah while attempting to follow Sherman's Army in its March to the Sea. In 2011 a historical marker was erected there by the Georgia Historical Society to commemorate the African Americans who had risked so much for freedom.

During the Jim Crow Era, several writers claimed that Sherman's March set a precedent for the total war waged during World War II. Other historical analysis however rejects the comparison.

Mark E. Neely rejects the notion that the Civil War was a "total war." W. Todd Groce, the president of the Georgia Historical Society, stated that the "hard war" practiced by Sherman did not prefigure the "total war" practiced in World War II. He argues:

But "hard war" was not total war. While the march destroyed property and infrastructure and visited suffering and fear on the civilian population, it lacked the wholesale destruction of human life that characterized World War II. Sherman's primary targets - foodstuffs and industrial, government and military property - were carefully chosen to create the desired effect, and never included mass killing of civilians.... He was fighting to bring rebels back into the Union, not to annihilate them.

Sherman, William T. Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman. 2nd ed. New York: Library of America, 1990. ISBN 0-940450-65-8. First published 1889 by D. Appleton & Co.

U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880-1901.

Savannah Campaign Union order of battle (Official Records, Series I, Volume XLIV, pages 19-25)

Savannah Campaign Confederate order of battle (Official Records, Series I, Volume XLIV, pages 875-876)

Davis, Burke, Sherman's March, Random House Publishing Group, 1980 / 2016. ISBN 978-1-5040-3441-8

Frank, Lisa Tendrich (2015). The Civilian War: Confederate Women and Union Soldiers During Sherman's March. Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 9780807159965. OCLC 894313641.

Rhodes, James Ford. "Sherman's March to the Sea" American Historical Review 6#3 (1901) pp. 466-474 online free old classic account

Rubin, Anne Sarah (2014). Through the Heart of Dixie : Sherman's March and American Memory. The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9781469617770. OCLC 875742477.

Secrist, Philip L. 2006. Sherman's 1864 Trail of Battle to Atlanta. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.

Smith, David, and Richard Hook. Sherman's March to the Sea 1864: Atlanta to Savannah Osprey Publishing, 2012. ISBN 9781846030352 OCLC 74968763

Welch, Robert Christopher. "Forage Liberally: The Role of Agriculture in Sherman's March to the Sea." Iowa State University thesis, 2011. online

Whelchel, Love Henry (2014). Sherman's March and the Emergence of the Independent Black Church Movement: From Atlanta to the Sea to Emancipation. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137405173. OCLC 864501780.

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Sherman's March to the Sea (also known as the Savannah campaign or simply Sherman's March) was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 until December 21, 1864, by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army.

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The Battle of Vicksburg was a decisive Union victory during the American Civil War that divided the Confederacy and cemented the reputation of Union General Ulysses S. Grant.

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Vicksburg's strategic location on the Mississippi River made it a critical win for both the Union and the Confederacy. The Confederate surrender there ensured Union control of the Mississippi River and cleaved the South in two.

How it ended

Union victory. After a 47-day siege, Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton's Confederate troops surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Together with the Union victory at Gettysburg just a day before, Vicksburg marked a turning point in the fortunes of the Union army.

In context

The Mississippi River was the primary conduit for supplies and communication through the south as well as a vital lifeline for goods going north. To Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Vicksburg was the "nailhead that holds the South's two halves together." President Abraham Lincoln remarked, "Vicksburg is the key! The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket." The Vicksburg Campaign began in 1862 and ended with the Confederate surrender on July 4, 1863. With the loss of Confederate general John C. Pemberton's army after the siege at Vicksburg and a Union victory at Port Hudson five days later, the Union controlled the entire Mississippi River and the Confederacy was split in half. Grant's victory led to his continued command in eastern Tennessee and his eventual appointment as general-in-chief of the Union armies.

Before the Battle

In the spring of 1863, Grant marches the Army of the Tennessee down the west side of the Mississippi River. The troops must rendezvous with the Union navy, which will provide transport for the river crossing into Confederate territory. On the evening of April 16, Rear Adm. David Dixon Porter sneaks his Union fleet past the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg to meet up with Grant. As the boats round De Soto Point, they are spotted by Confederate lookouts who spread the alarm. Although each vessel is hit by Confederate fire. Porter's fleet successfully fights its way past the Confederate batteries and meets up with Grant.

On April 29, Union troops attempt to cross the Mississippi at Grand Gulf. The Union fleet bombards Confederate defenses for five hours, but Grant's troops are repulsed. Grant moves farther south in search of a more favorable crossing point and eventually finds one in Bruinsburg. In the early morning hours of April 30, infantrymen of the Twenty-fourth and Forty-sixth Indiana Regiments step ashore on Mississippi soil. The two sides clash at Port Gibson and Raymond. By May 14, the state capital of Jackson, Mississippi, is in Union hands. On May 16, Grant encounters Pemberton's army and they exchange fire at Champion Hill. They clash again on May 17 at the Big Black River. Both battles result in Union victories and force the Confederates to retreat to their fortifications at Vicksburg with the Federals in hot pursuit.

During the Battle

May 18. Looking for a quick victory and not wanting to give Pemberton time to settle his garrison, Grant orders an immediate assault. Of his three corps, only Maj. Gen William T. Sherman's Fifteenth Corps, stationed northeast of the city, is in a position to attack.

May 19. Sherman's assault focuses on the Stockade Redan, named for a log stockade wall across the Graveyard Road connecting two gun positions. Here, the Twenty-seventh Louisiana Infantry, reinforced by Col. Francis Cockrell's Missouri Brigade, mans the rifle pits. Sherman's men move forward down the road at 2 p.m. and are immediately slowed by the ravines and obstructions in front of the redan. The combat is fierce and bloody outside the Confederate works. The Thirteenth United States Infantry plants its colors on the redan but can advance no further. Sherman's men pull back. Undaunted by this failure, Grant makes a more thorough reconnaissance of the defenses prior to ordering another assault.

May 22. Early in the morning, Union artillery opens fire and for four hours bombards the city's defenses. At 10 a.m. the guns fall silent and Union infantry advances on a three-mile front. Sherman attacks again down the Graveyard Road, Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson's Corps move against the center along the Jackson Road, and Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand's Corps attack to the south at the Second Texas Lunette and the Railroad Redoubt, where the Southern Railroad crosses the Confederate lines. Surrounded by a ditch 10 feet deep and walls 20 feet high, the redoubt offers enfilading fire for rifles and artillery. After intense hand-to-hand fighting, Federals breach the Railroad Redoubt, capturing a handful of prisoners. The victory, however, is the only Confederate position captured that day.

Grant's unsuccessful attacks give him no choice but to invest Vicksburg in a siege. As weeks go by, Pemberton's defenders suffer from shortened rations, exposure to the elements, and constant bombardment from Grant's army and navy gunboats. Reduced in number by sickness and casualties, the garrison of Vicksburg is spread dangerously thin. Civilians are hard hit, with many forced to live in crudely dug caves due to the heavy shelling.

June 25. Following Grant's orders to dig tunnels and set explosives under the Confederate works, Union sappers detonate a mine with 2,200 pounds of black powder, causing a huge explosion. After more than 20 hours of hand-to-hand fighting in the 12-foot deep crater left by the blast, Union regiments are unable to advance and withdraw back to their lines. The siege continues.

July 3-4. With the situation dire for the Confederates, Grant and Pemberton meet between their lines. Grant insists on an unconditional surrender, but Pemberton refuses. Later that night Grant reconsiders and offers to parole the Confederate defenders. On July 4, the 47-day siege of Vicksburg is over.

Aftermath

At 10:00 a.m. on Independence Day, some 29,000 Confederates march out of their lines, stack their rifles, and furl their flags. With Vicksburg in Union hands and the Mississippi in their control, Lincoln has great cause for optimism. On July 7, 1863, three days after the fall of Vicksburg and four after a victory at Gettysburg, the president writes to his General-in-Chief: "Major Genl Halleck: We have certain information that Vicksburg surrendered to General Grant on the 4th of July. Now, if Gen. Meade can complete his work so gloriously prosecuted thus far, by the litteral(sic) or substantial destruction of Lee's army, the rebellion will be over. Yours truly, A. LINCOLN"

Unfortunately, Lee's army escapes Meade's clutches on July 14 and crosses the Potomac River at Williamsport, Maryland, into Virginia. At a low point, a dispirited Lincoln sits down and writes to Meade "... my dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war...." Lincoln never sends this angry message to his general, and the Civil War drags on.

Vicksburg: Featured Resources

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Warren County, MS | May 18, 1863

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Our Battle of Vicksburg page includes history articles, battle maps, photos, helpful web links, recommended books, and more on this important 1863 Civil War battle in Mississippi. Learn more about Grant's victorius Vicksburg campaign.

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President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the US civil war approached its third year.

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Women actively participated in the American Civil War, serving as nurses and laundresses for both Union and Confederate armies, and rushing to city hospitals to care for wounded soldiers.

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Virginia had the most refugees, around 200,000, during the American Civil War. Three groups fled their homes: slaves, white Unionists and dissidents, and Confederates. While they shared similar difficulties, their war experiences were vastly different.

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Refugees and displaced persons american civil war

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Slaves

Following the controversial lead of Benjamin F. Butler at Fort Monroe, Virginia, in 1861, Union officials designated slaves who escaped to Union lines as "contraband," refusing to return them to their owners despite the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The term "contraband" was a mere political convenience, however. These African Americans are more properly understood as a class of refugees.

Take, for instance, the case of John M. Washington, a slave from Fredericksburg, Virginia. Hired out in the Confederate capital of , Washington heard rumors of slaves using the war as a means to freedom. In his 1872 memoir, Memorys of the Past, he wrote that by late in 1861 it had "become a well known fact that slaves was daily making their Escape into the union lines."

Washington kept abreast of war news and plotted to place himself closer to, or in the path of, the Army of the Potomac. Washington's employer in Richmond allowed him to travel home to Fredericksburg in December 1861 and expected him back after the Christmas holiday. Once in Fredericksburg, Washington hired himself out as a steward and bartender, and his employer planned to take him farther into the Confederate interior. "I made them believe I was most anxious to go," Washington wrote. "In fact I made them believe that I was tereblely afred of the Yankees, any way. My Master was well satisfied at my appearant disposition and told me I was quite Right, for if the Yankees were to catch me they would send me to Cuba or cut my hands off or otherwise maltreat me. I of course pretended to beleive all they said but knew they were lieing all the while."

Washington secretly resolved to remain in Fredericksburg until his employer prepared to leave, then conceal himself and await the arrival of the Union army. Washington's calculations paid off when Union troops arrived in April 1862. After serving as an army guide, he eventually found freedom in Washington, D.C. Blacks who escaped to Union lines also found employment with the Union army as carpenters, masons, teamsters, blacksmiths, laborers, nurses, and washers.

When white Northerners objected to the influx of black refugees, military officials relocated thousands to so-called contraband camps in occupied Virginia, including the abandoned Arlington estate of Confederate general Robert E. Lee and his wife, Mary Custis Lee. Black refugees in these camps had difficulty securing adequate housing, food, clothing, and medicine, which sometimes resulted in starvation, disease, and death. Low wages and poor treatment led to disputes between black refugees and military officials. In these camps, however, refugees found education and freedom. Northern missionaries attempted to inculcate their notions of proper work, health, and religious values to a population they presumed to be lazy, unhygienic, and licentious. But the camps also served as political schools as blacks learned about issues like emancipation and equal rights. Military authorities attempted to relieve overcrowding by resettling refugees on government farms, like those near Hampton and Norfolk, but thousands remained dependent upon government aid and unable to secure an independent livelihood.

White Dissidents

Southern Unionists, often Northern-born, fled to the North to escape Confederate persecution during the war. Vigilance committees warned prominent Unionists to cease their "treasonous" speeches and activities or face expulsion from the community. In addition to general harassment, including violence and imprisonment, Unionists faced confiscation of their property under the Confederate Sequestration Act passed on August 30, 1861. The act permitted authorities to confiscate all property owned by alien enemies residing in the Confederacy.

Harassment prompted many white Unionists to sell their property and relocate to the North early in the war. George R. Herrick of Alexandria had moved from New England to Virginia in 1858. He fled to the North after the First Battle of Manassas in July 1861 to escape persecution he endured as a result of his vote against . He settled in Washington, D.C., where he secured a position on the police force.

In the latter years of the war, whites became refugees to evade Confederate conscription. Edwin K. Kane of Caroline County evaded the conscript guard until December 1863. Confederate authorities finally captured him and forced him into the army. Kane shot himself in the foot to avoid Confederate service, but the conscript guard arrested him anyway and, "carrying one boot which I was unable to wear," Kane was sent to the front nevertheless. He the Confederate army and secured transportation north from the Union army. Kane's wife, Mary, sold all their perishable property. They settled in a refugee community in Washington, D.C.

Refugees like Kane did not necessarily support the Union cause; they primarily did not want to support the Confederate cause by risking their lives on the battlefield. As refugees in the North, white dissidents often fared better than blacks. While blacks were often confined to "contraband camps," white Northern-born refugees could capitalize upon family connections to secure livelihoods throughout the North. White Northerners were often more sympathetic to and accommodating of white refugees than black refugees.

Confederates

Most Confederates became refugees in order to escape the Union army and the indignities of Union occupation, but some left their homes in response to food shortages-especially after 1863-and forcible evacuation by Union or Confederate authorities, as in Fredericksburg in December 1862. (The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought December 11-14.) Evacuation and relocation posed many challenges, which proved difficult, even impossible, to overcome. Confederate civilians contemplated Union troop movements in attempts to predict which areas might be the safest, fearing that the Union army might target their new locations, as well.

They agonized about the timing of their moves. Leaving with the first inkling of Union movement could be dangerous because rumors were often premature and even altogether incorrect. But waiting too long posed risks, as well. Families who delayed sometimes found that a rapid Union approach cut off their escape routes. Meanwhile, families who did escape could not always find transportation for their possessions or afford it if they could. Any property left behind was lost to the Union army, to the Confederate army, and to looters, including their own slaves.

Once in a new locale, refugees often could not secure an adequate livelihood. Farmers had to rent or buy farms or find employment to pay for their foodstuffs. Others struggled to find positions, often without the benefit of references or connections. Refugees faced particularly difficult times in cities, which could not always support the influx of population. The population of Richmond doubled in the first year of the war alone. Petersburg, Fredericksburg, , , and Charlottesville also served as major refugee centers.

Urban areas, in particular, lacked the resources to feed and house refugees, resulting in charges of extortion and speculation by the newcomers. In addition, crowded conditions resulted in household tensions. Confederates Will and Betty Maury are a case in point. They had fled Washington, D.C., in June 1861 for Virginia. The Maurys eventually found refuge with their relatives the Magruder family in Richmond. The Magruders, however, sent them a notice to vacate in February 1863.

Betty Maury complained that "Cousin Hite and Mr. Magruder scarcely speak to us! They have never asked where we are going, or what we intend to do, or expressed the slightest interest in us. It is all a mystery. We cannot imagine what has caused the change." Maury's husband stayed in Richmond while she, pregnant and feeling "homeless and forlorn," set out for Charlottesville. En route to her destination, she gave birth to her second child. Maury's experience as a refugee provides a poignant demonstration of the unfortunate breakdown in communal and familial ties during the war. Still, that same suffering-as experienced by white refugees-also became a powerful symbol of Confederate identity during the war years. When Richmond appeared on the verge of falling in 1865, an Albemarle County woman bemoaned, "my own brave Virginia! My own loved, long-suffering Virginia."

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Refugees during the Civil War - Encyclopedia Virginia

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Slaves Following the controversial lead of Benjamin F. Butler at Fort Monroe, Virginia, in 1861, Union officials designated slaves who escaped to Union lines as "contraband," refusing to return them to their owners despite the provisions of the . The term "contraband" was a mere political convenience, however.

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Revolutionary Firepower: Muskets & Rifles

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The Day an Ironclad Warship Changed Naval History

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Civil War balloons like Intrepid, Union, and Gazelle were used for reconnaissance and directing artillery fire. They reached 1,000 feet, offering a great vantage point for miles around.

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Trench warfare involves land combat where forces use trenches for cover, well-protected from enemy fire.

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The Reconstruction Amendments, which include the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the US Constitution, were adopted between 1865 and 1870.

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Reconstruction Amendaments american civil war

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Exploring the 14th Amendment: Reconstruction to Issues Today

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Explore the historical and contemporary significance of the 14th Amendment, pivotal in Reconstruction. Discover its implications for today's debates.

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Long-term effects on American society after the civil war

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As we've discussed previously on the Battlefield Tours of Virginia Blog, the legacy of the American Civil War is still being felt today. With around 750,000 casualties and a country divided between North and South, the world's first major industrialized conflict has unsurprisingly left deep scars.

However, the war was also the final answer to a series of debates and divisions that had been stirring since the very founding of the United States, none more important than the question of slavery.

Below, we'll address some of the momentous changes the Civil War brought about that continue to shape our society.

At Battlefield Tours of Virginia, we organize private battlefield tour experiences led by expert guides. If you are interested in touring key Civil War sites in Virginia, please explore our range of Civil War Battlefield Tours.

The Civil War Ended Slavery

The issue of slavery in the United States was at the core of all the divisions that led to the beginning of the conflict. (To learn more, read our article What Were the Main Reasons for the Civil War?). That the conflict finally sounded the death knell of the peculiar institution is undoubtedly the biggest change resulting from the war.

The Civil War raged for two years when President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. It declared that all enslaved people in Confederacy were free. Though it did not go so far as to free all enslaved people in the United States, it paved the way for the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery everywhere in the U.S. on January 31, 1865.

War had brought a complete end to the institution which had threatened the very existence of the United States itself.

The Civil War Empowered the Press

One of the most important rights in American society is freedom of speech, which includes political opinions and criticism of government officials.

The right to free speech is today essential to American democracy because it allows citizens to hold their leaders accountable by voicing concerns about how they are running things. It also encourages people to think critically about what's happening around them, which can help them improve society as a whole.

During the Civil War, there were many limitations on what you could say publicly. Some critics complained that these restrictions were unfair, but ultimately, the federal government restricted constitutional freedoms during the war for what they believed was the greater good.

Fear of too much information getting released into the public domain (such as military plans) and unwanted propaganda led to Union generals taking measures to control what newspapers would print.

Conversely, many Confederate troops needed to check the papers in the war's final days to keep up to date with events; their generals were refusing to relay information about Confederate losses for fear of damaging morale.

However, the Civil War took the press to new heights in the United States. It could easily be argued that this was the first glimpse of the rolling news we're so accustomed to today. During the war, newspapers provided a captivated public with a stream of war reportage the likes of which had not been seen before.

This boom in the press's significance would continue after the war, leaving a new print media that could greatly influence national politics and public opinion.

The Civil War Affected Women's Rights

The American Civil War was a milestone in the history of women's rights. Women played a major role on both sides of the conflict, and their actions helped to bring about many changes in society.

While thousands of men went off to fight in the war, women began working jobs that needed filling, including learning to farm and do other manual labor. Furthermore, many women got involved in societies to help their soldiers at war.

These organizations would make uniforms for soldiers, prepare food and other supplies, and even campaign to ensure soldiers were kept in decent, hygienic conditions while at war.

As with aid organizations, an unprecedented number of women became involved in nursing. Over 20,000 women enlisted as nurses and leading figures, such as Clara Barton, became known as the angels of the battlefields. Barton introduced the Red Cross to the United States in 1881.

Then, the women actively fought in the war or acted as spies. It's estimated that up to 1,000 women fought in the war, though we will never know the true number as they were disguised as men. However, the war was a time during which traditional gender roles were being challenged.

With the immense numbers of women working for charities or as nurses, clerks, and farm laborers, there was no question that the war would have a lasting impact on the lives of women in the United States.

Finally, it was during the Civil Women that many women first became politically active, and in the wake of the war, during Reconstruction, women began voting for the first time. In 1869, Congress passed an amendment forbidding states from restricting women's right to vote (though it took another twenty years before all forty-five states ratified it).

In conclusion, the American Civil War has had a lasting impact on almost every aspect of life in the United States. It influenced society, culture, politics, economics, and social structure.

If you want to further your knowledge of this chapter in American history, there's no better way than turning American Civil War battlefields in the company of an expert guide. Browse our Battlefield Tours, Combo Tours, and Custom Tour options.

If you have any questions, please get in touch.

(Want to continue reading about the history of the American Civil War? Read What Makes the American Civil War Unique in History? next.)

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How Did the American Civil War Change American Society? | Battlefield Tours of Virginia

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Join Battlefield Tours of Virginia as we discuss how the American Civil War changed American society.

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The Civil War sparked the movement for African American equality, but the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments struggled to achieve equality in practice despite being easy to promise in theory.

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Photos, videos from the Padlet.