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Fighting at Fort Sumter
On April 12, 1861 president Lincoln received a message from Fort Sumter. The message said that the fort was low on supplies and the Confederates demanded for the fort to surrender. Lincoln then sent out a group of unarmed men to go give the fort more supplies. But before the Union could arrive Jefferson Davis order the Confederate forces to attack the fort. Also Union ships couldn't reach the fort because of high sea levels. So the Union had to surrender the on April 14th. -
Division in the Border States
Choosing sides in the civil war was easy for most states. But for the Border States it wasn't so easy because those states had close ties with both the North and the South. The Border States are Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. Also these states did allow slavery in their states at the time. These states were very important the Union but Maryland was the most important one of all. Because if Maryland sided with the South then the Union's capital would end up being surrounded. -
Strengths and Weaknesses
At the beginning of the war both of the sides had advantages. For an example the North advantages were that it had more of a larger population than the South. Also the North had more resources than the South to. But the South had excellent military leaders and a much more stronger fighting spirit. Also another advantage that the South had over the North. Was that most of the war was fought in the South which the southerners knew the land very well. -
The Goals of the War
Both the South and the North had different goals in the war. The Confederacy wanted to be a independent nation. To become a independent nation the south has to fight long enough and hard enough to convince the North that the cost of the war isn't worth it. The North's only goal was to restore the Union. To do this the North's forces has to invaded the south and force the south to end their quest for independents. -
Confederate's Strategies
The man strategies that the South had was a defensive war. So the South wanted hold as much territory as possible. The Southerners thought that if they showed determination to be independent. Then the Northerners would get tired of the war. Also the Southerners tried to get support from Britain and France hoping that they would pressure the North to end the war. -
Union Strategies
General Winfield Scott proposed the Anaconda Plan which was a plan to blockade the southerners ports. Which would keep supplies from reaching the Confederacy and prevent the South from exporting its cotton crop so they wouldn't make any money. -
Americans fighting Americans part 2
Even though the teenagers were accepted into the fight of the war. The Union refused the free African Americans to join the war at first because they worried that the White American soldiers wouldn't accept them. But later in the war the Union changed their mind and allowed African Americans in the fight. The Confederate army also didn't allow Africans Americans to join in the war until the end of the war when they were desperate. They did this because they were afraid of giving slaves weapons. -
Americans fighting Americans
The Civil war cause family members to fight each other in the war and many men rushed to enlist into the army's. Some of them enlisted out of excitement of the war and others enlisted because they thought that they would be called a cowards or they enlisted out of patriotism. Although many thought that the age of a average Civil war soldier was 20 or more. The average age was 18 years old or younger than 14. Many of the young men ran away from home to join the war and lied about their age. -
Who Where the Soldiers?
In the beginning of the war the majority of the soldiers for both sides of the army was farmers. By the summer in 1861 so around July and June the Confederate army had about 112,000 soldiers. The Confederate soldiers were called the Rebels. The Union had around 187,000 soldiers and they were called Yankees. by the end of the war the Union had about 2.1 million soldiers and the Confederate had about 900,000 men. Also the Union army had About 10,000 Mexican Americans served in the war. -
High Hopes
In the begin like in all wars both sides thought that they would win and that the other side didn't stand a chance and that the war well end quickly. They where wrong because they war lasted much long than the average american thought it would last. The Union thought that they would win because of their great amount of resources. The Confederate thought that they would win because of their strong fight spirit. -
A Soldier's Life
A soldier's life wasn't really the best life back in the Civil war. Many of the soldiers from both sides wrote about their discomfort, sickness, fear, and horror. Most of the time during the war the soldiers lived in camps and they didn't have good food to eat and had to march even during the rain. But one good thing is that sometimes the soldiers forgot that they fighting each other and talk to each other and help each other then they would have to go back fighting each other. -
First Battle of Bull Run
In the summer of July 21st, 1861 General Irvin McDowell led a Union army that had around 30,000 Union troops. To attack a smaller Confederate force led by General P.G.T. Beauregard. This fight toke place in northern Virginia and both sides of the fight didn't know how to fight in a battle. At first the Union drove the Confederates back, but then the Confederates then unleashed a savage counterattack that broke the Union lines. -
Control of the West
The Union's main goal in the west was to control the Mississippi River because if they could control it. Then they could prevent the Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas from helping supply the eastern Confederacy army. In 1862 the Union capture Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. Soon after capturing Fort Henry general Grant led an assault to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. Soon after Grant arrived the Confederates realized that they had no chance in saving the fort. -
A Battle Between Ironclads
The Confederate's planed to destroy the Union's blockade by fixing a ship that the Union abandon. Once they fixed the ship up they toke it to the Union's navy. Also they renamed the ship Virginia and attack Union ships in the Chesapeake Bay. After seeing the power of the Virginia some of the Union's leaders feared that the ship would destroy the Union's navy. But however the Union had their own ironclad and its called Monitor. On march 9th the ironclad's meet and both of them didn't survive.
