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Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a book written on slavery by Harriet Beecher Stowe. She wrote a fictional story on slave lives and it was the second-best-selling book in America during the 19th century. It showed readers more about how terrible slavery was and moved people to see the real issue with it. The book widened the division between the North and the South.
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Abraham Lincoln was running on behalf of the Republican Party which made its official decision that they wanted to limit the enlargement of slavery. Votes were cast on November 6, 1860 but his victory was not determined for months. Lincoln won 40% of the popular vote and 180 electoral votes. His opponents got 133 electoral votes combined. His election was certified by Congress on February 15, 1861 and he was inaugurated in March of 1861.
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President Abraham Lincoln sent that he was going to send food to the fort, to which the Confederates fired on April 12. Major Robert Anderson and his 128 men were working on the fort. There was a 33-hour bombardment from Confederate cannons to which Anderson decided to raise a white flag ending the first engagement of the war. No one had been dead until before leaving, when the Union soldiers fired a gun salute and one soldier was killed. This started the Civil War.
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It was the first major land battle located in Manassas, Virginia. The Confederate troops met with the Union troops at a small river named Bull Run and battled for majority of the day. Both the Confederates and the Union sent for reinforcements on Henry Hill where the most aggressive fighting of the war occurred. Jackson, a confederate general, held his ground as he was fired at on Henry Hill. The Confederates took the win as the Union retreated, ending the first battle of the war.
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Charles Wilkes was a U.S. Navy Officer and he captured two confederate envoys on a British mail ship called the Trent. A diplomatic crisis took place between the U.S. and Great Britain from November to December because the British had not yet taken sides in the war. They were mad and said the capturing of a neutral ship was a violation of international law. President Abraham Lincoln was able to administer a release for the envoys, avoiding an armed conflict with Britain.
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This was the first naval battle between ironclad warships which were regular ships covered in iron, and took place on March 9, 1862 in Virginia. The Union had a blockade of Southern ports. These included Norfolk and Richmond Virginia. The Confederacy tried to break the blockade but the battle was inconclusive because no damage could be done to the ships since the cannons deflected off them. However, it started a new era of naval warfare.
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The battle of Shiloh took place in Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee on April 7, 1862. It was a two-day battle and at the time was considered the bloodiest battle in American history. It was won by Grant leading the Union Army and was a crucial win for them. Additionally General Albert Sidney Johnston who was a leader of the Confederate Army was killed.
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This was one of the longest and most successful campaigns for the Union Army since it divided the Confederacy. They were able to surround and seal the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi which was a 47-day process that took place from May 18, 1862 - July 4, 1863. This allowed the Union to have control over the Mississippi River which cut off trade for the Confederacy.
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The Second Battle of Bull Run occurred on August 29-30 1862 in Manassas Virginia. It was a Confederate victory causing the Union arm to go to eastern Virginia setting up the Confederate invasion of Maryland. There were 14,000 Union casualties and 8,000 Confederate casualties from the battle that took place on an unfinished railroad grade.
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This battle was very significant for constructing America’s future. However it is also the deadliest one-day battle in the military history of America. First, the Union troops fired and started the battle. The Confederates tried not to be overrun, as they were outnumbered, and in the end it was 12 hours of bitter and fierce close-range fighting. There were about 3,650 dead included in the 23,000 casualties. The Union won the battle but it's considered a stalemate by some.
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This battle occurred on the 13th of December, 1862. It was the largest gathering of troops in any of the Civil War battles with 200,000 combatants. The Army of the Potomac was lead by a new commander named Ambrose Burnside. In was a loss for the Union resulting in casualties of 13,000 and lowered their mood, raising the Confederacy’s. It had been a two-pronged attack in northern Virginia targeting Robert E. Lee’s Army.
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The Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863. We were in the third year of the Civil War and the proclamation had declared that any person held as a slave in one of the rebellion states are now and forever free. This applied only to the Confederate States because by freeing these slaves, Lincoln was freeing people who he could not control directly. However, this freedom depended on the Union winning the war.
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This battle took place from April 30-May 6. General Joseph Hooker had a much bigger force than General Lee. Both Generals decided to split their troops causing them to meet. General Hooker commanded his troops to go back to their defensive positions. This opened the door for Lee to create an offensive plan, the most brilliant of his career. General Robert E. Lee won the battle but lost his right hand man Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.
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Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his army had been traveling to defeat the Union army on their Northern soil. They met the opposing side at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on July 1st. Lee tried to attack the Union center on July 3 at Cemetery Ridge but left with heavy losses known as Pickett’s Charge. The Union won and Lee’s invasion failed. This is considered the bloodiest single battle and turning point of the war.
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Abraham Lincoln read the speech to dedicate a plot of land to all the lives lost in the battle of Gettysburg. Although it was a short speech, it is one of the most important speeches in American history. It not only discussed the land but also reminded people of the foundations of human equality in the Declaration of Independence. He connected it to the sacrifices made during the ongoing war and how it will have a “new birth of freedom”.
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General William T. Sherman wanted to cut off Confederate supply lines in Atlanta by destroying the Army of the Tennessee. The Confederate troops left Atlanta and surrendered the city the next day. Sherman and his men continued to defend it until in mid November. Sherman conducted that the resources, factories, mills, and railway yards were burned, before his March to the Sea, and the fire got out of control. Atlanta was left in ruins.
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The March to the Sea began when General William T. Sherman led 62,000 soldiers on a march from Atlanta to Savannah Georgia. It was a 285 mile march that took place from November 15 to December 21, 1864 when they captured the port of Savannah. They wrecked tunnels and bridges, and twisted and broke railroad tracks to make the railroads unusable, and burned the houses of people who fought back. They left life in Georgia miserable causing the people of Georgia to want an end to the war.
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After Lincoln was reelected the amendment, which was previously proposed, was being reconsidered in December of 1864. Lincoln took it into his own hands and met with many representatives to talk about the amendment and he put pressure on border-state Unionists who had originally disagreed. The 13th Amendment was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865 and it was ratified on December 6, 1865. It abolished slavery in the United States.
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The Appomattox Court House is located in Virginia and is the location of where Robert E. Lee surrendered ending the Civil War. His 28,000 troops were surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant. Lee had lost over half of his army and he decided that surrendering would help prevent unnecessary ruin in the South.
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A famous actor and supporter of the Confederates named John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln after the war had ended. Lincoln had gone to Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. to see the performance of “Our American Cousin”. To watch the show, Lincoln sat in a private box above the stage which Booth had snuck into and fired his single shot pistol hitting Lincoln in the back of the head. Lincoln was seen as the best person to heal the wounds of the war, but now he lied dead.
