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After a siege, Grant was able to capture Vicksburg, which led to Union control of the Mississippi, and he was able to decimate a large confederate army while also splitting up the Confederacy. The estimated casualties of the Confederacy was 32,363 while the Union only suffered an estimated 4,910 casualties.

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March 4, 1861
(War started April 12, 1861)

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- It gave the union control over the Mississippi River
- It broke up the Confederacy
- It made Ulysses S. Grant famous

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The Battle of Antietam was a major turning point because it led to Lincoln declaring the emancipation proclamation. Without a union victory in this battle or without the battle, Lincoln probably wouldn’t have had the confidence to declare the preliminary emancipation proclamation.

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The appointment of Ulysses S. Grant is a turning point in the Civil War because of the steps he took in the war giving the North headway above the South. His military tactics and decisive victories towards the latter half of the conflict is majorly attributable to his leadership as General-In-Chief of the Union Army during the Civil War.

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Did it set a precedent that was important for the war or did it represent the first in a pattern that emerges during the war?

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Did it set a precedent that was important for the war or did it represent the first in a pattern that emerges during the war?

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This did set a precedent because grants leadership led to aggressive battling throughout the war which was seen as a standard

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Counterfactual: if this event DID NOT happen, then how would this have had a dramatic impact on the course of the war?

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Counterfactual: if this event DID NOT happen, then how would this have had a dramatic impact on the course of the war?

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Grant made it so that he orth had a breakaway and took a lead in the fighting he had not been appointed this would have never happened or if it did it might have to take a lot more time.

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Confederate General John B. Hood leads Army of Tennessee out of Alabama toward Nashville

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Confederate General John B. Hood leads Army of Tennessee out of Alabama toward Nashville

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The Battle lasted one day and it was the deadliest battle to have ever happened to the US. On September 7, Robert E. Lee crossed the Potomac and entered Maryland, seizing Frederick. He hoped to take the federal capital of Washington, D.C.. Lee had specific political objectives: influencing the upcoming Northern Congressional elections, detaching Maryland from the Union, and more. He also wanted European Nations to recognize the Confederacy. (He was not successful in those endeavors). On September 16,th McClellan brought his men to the creek and set his plan in motion and the next day the battle commenced. There were more than 22,000 casualties in the war. This battle gave Abraham Lincoln the confidence to issue the Emancipation Proclamation after the battle ended. Lincoln loses trust in McClellan as he fails to pursue Lee on his withdrawal south. He appoints Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac a few weeks later.

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What subsequent important events did it directly lead to that would not have happened otherwise?

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What subsequent important events did it directly lead to that would not have happened otherwise?

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He took the war to the octet field and the railways he made it so that it was more involved. He pushed his troops and would do a lot more than those that had come before him.

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Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last major Confederate city on the Mississippi

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What did it represent that would become crucial to the outcome of the war?

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What did it represent that would become crucial to the outcome of the war?

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He was important because he made great breakthroughs in the war and led his fellow soldiers into the south fighting to end this war.

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The appointment of Ulysses S. Grant is a turning point in the Civil War because of the steps he took in the war giving the north headway above the south

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What was different BEFORE and AFTER the event?

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What was different BEFORE and AFTER the event?

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Leaders before Grant were tamer and by the books and they were less aggressive. When Grant came to power he took the war to more than the battlefields, he cut supply lines off and employed total war strategies to force the CSA to surrender.

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Summer of 1863 (May 18 - July 4)

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Unlike any other election, it only consisted of the states that didn’t secede from the union, mainly northern states.

It represented whether or not the war would continue and slavery would be allowed, as well as the preservation of the union

If McClellan got chosen, then the war would not have continued for as long and slavery would have been maintained with how he wanted for the war to end

It set a precedent with Lincoln being elected, enabling for the fight against slavery to continue on and proved that it was still an issue that needed to be taken care of and further solidifying the boundary between the North and the South

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Grant was a leader earning a reputation for himself through a series of campaigns. Grant was a confident and forceful leader, later known as “Unconditional Surrender” Grant. The most important of these was the capture of Vicksburg, as after this move he was appointed Lieutenant General by President Lincoln. Grant then led the US to the capitulation of the Confederacy and general Robert E Lee surrendered to Grant on April 6th, 1865, at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

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If Lincoln had lost the election, McClellan's presidency would have prolonged the issue of slavery and inflated the conflicts between the North and the South. His goal was to have peace between the North and South without abolishing slavery. This probably would have created more conflict.

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No Location Given

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About this Item

Title

Ulysses S. Grant's commission as lieutenant general signed by Abraham Lincoln, 10 March 1864.

Created / Published

10 March 1864

Subject Headings

- Presidents

- Presidential appointments

- Army officers

- Civil War, 1861-1865

- Grant, Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) (1822-1885)

- Halleck, H. W. (Henry Wager) (1815-1872)

- Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865)

- Military commissions

- Scott, Winfield (1786-1866)

- United States Army

- Manuscripts

Genre

Manuscripts

Notes

- Reproduction number: A38 (color slide)

- Army officer and United States president Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) was at his best in war. Although he was a professional soldier, the United States Army probably was not the career he would have chosen had the decision been his alone. He was temperamentally unsuited to army life in peacetime, which for most soldiers in the 1840s meant long years of duty at a remote outpost on the western frontier. But Grant was also intelligent, single-minded, and almost fearless, attributes that served him well in battle. He entered the Mexican War as a first lieutenant and emerged from that one-sided contest as a captain with two citations for gallantry and one for meritorious conduct.

- Grant's achievements during the Civil War were nothing less than spectacular. Having resigned his commission in 1854, partly to avoid court-martial, Grant reentered the army in 1861 as a colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Largely through successive victories by the troops under his command, he rose steadily in rank until he commanded all Union land forces. Shown here is Grant's commission as lieutenant general, which was presented to him by President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) on 10 March 1864, shortly after Congress had revived the rank at Lincoln's request. Only two men, George Washington (1732-1799) and Winfield Scott (1786-1866) had held the rank before Grant, and Scott's commission was by brevet. With this appointment, Grant essentially replaced his former nemesis, Gen. Henry W. Halleck (1815-1872), as "General in Chief of the Army" and was subject only to the Lincoln as commander in chief. Halleck was relegated to chief of staff.

Source Collection

Ulysses S. Grant Papers

Repository

Manuscript Division

Online Format

image

IIIF Presentation Manifest

Manifest (JSON/LD)

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Ulysses S. Grant's commission as lieutenant general signed by Abraham Lincoln, 10 March. 10 March, 1864. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/mcc.017/.

APA citation style:

(1864) Ulysses S. Grant's commission as lieutenant general signed by Abraham Lincoln, 10 March. 10 March. [Manuscript/Mixed Material] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mcc.017/.

MLA citation style:

Ulysses S. Grant's commission as lieutenant general signed by Abraham Lincoln, 10 March. 10 March, 1864. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/mcc.017/>.

More Manuscripts/Mixed Material like this

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Ulysses S. Grant's commission as lieutenant general signed by Abraham Lincoln, 10 March 1864.

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Title Ulysses S. Grant's commission as lieutenant general signed by Abraham Lincoln, 10 March 1864. Created / Published 10 March 1864 Subject Headings - Presidents - Presidential appointments - Army officers - Civil War, 1861-1865 - Grant, Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) (1822-1885) - Halleck, H. W.

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- Although the proclamation did not immediately free a single slave, it sparked ideas in African Americans of freedom, transforming the war that was once a “War for the Union” a “war for Freedom”

- The slaves in the confederacy became free (the slaves in the union weren’t affected). Lincoln disliked slavery, but he also didn’t want the union to fall apart, so he came to a compromise. The symbolic power of the proclamation was the true effect, though, it changed the focus of the war and eventually led to further slave moments, including the installation of the 13th amendment.

- It encouraged slaves to actually fight in the union army

-

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It was the start of William Tecumseh Sherman's march to the sea. He killed and burned cities in the south all the way to Savannah, Georgia.

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The Battle of Antietam: a Philadelphia soldier’s experience

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(Republican)

Had 55% of the popular vote

212-21 electoral vote

Only 25 states participated (11 Confederate states did not participate)

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This event was crucial because it significantly improved Lincoln's chances of reelection. In the Election of 1864, Lincoln easily defeated the Democratic nominee, McClellan, because the Union was happy with him and their success in the war so far.

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SUMMARY: The presidential proclamation given by prescient Lincoln that issued all enslaved people who were engaged in the Confederacy would be free. However, this proclamation only applied to the enslaved people in the Confederacy, not those in the border states. It changed the goal of the war and pushed the Union to fight for the freedom of slavery.

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- strengthened the Republican Party
- preserved the union
- Emancipation Proclamation was signed (free slaves)

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This greatly improved northern Union morale.

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Antietam Creek in Sharpsburg, Maryland

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Abraham Lincoln (Republican/National Union Party) beats General George B McClellan (Democrat)

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DATE: January 1, 1863

LOCATION: The National Archives in Washington, DC

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September 17, 1862

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March 10, 1864

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July 21, 1861

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Prince William County, Virginia at Bull Run Creek

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The first major battle of the American Civil War

35,000 Union troops marched from the capitol to clash with 20,000 Confederates

While the union force was striking at bull run, more troops crossed the river at Sudley Ford in an attempt to hit the Confederate left flank

The confederates fought on the defensive side and were able to break the right flank of the Union army

The Union army retreated Washington and the Confederates won

The south gained a lot of confidence from this early win in the war and also shocked the north

also showed the war was not going to be over soon

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First look at the major violence that the Civil War would involve with the appearance of countless fatalities

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What was different BEFORE and AFTER the event?

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What was different BEFORE and AFTER the event?

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Before: Petty disagreements among the north/south

After: Violence between the north and south over their varying opinions. There was also a change in power after this event.

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America (Nationwide)

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The Union won battles in Atlanta and were able to cut off the main supply center for the Confederate side.

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Washington D.C.

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July 22, 1864

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November 8, 1864

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Just Southeast of Atlanta, Georgia