Lincoln called for a blockade of the 3500 miles southern coastline. At the war’s initial major engagement The First Battle of Bull Run outside Washington, the confederates wilted the Federals. Bull Run showed that both armies required serious reorganization.
The union called on George McClellan who was great enthusiasm whipped the northern regiments into shape. After much delay, McClellan began his drive against the Confederate capital of Richmond sweeping up the Virginia Peninsula with a massive army. But Robert E. Lee unleashed his dazzling Corp Commander Thomas Stonewall Jackson in a daring campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. Jackson demoralized union forces and threatened Washington.
In the seven days battles Lee displayed his military genius driving McClellan from the outskirts of Richmond. Then Lee won a decisive victory at The Second Battle of Bull Run and invaded Maryland. In the West, rebel armies rolled into Kentucky where union forces stayed off their advance at Perryville.
On September 17 1862, the bloodiest day of the Civil war, McClellan turned back Lee at Antietam Creek, Maryland. Although a tactical draw Antietam gave Lincoln the political opportunity to issue the emancipation proclamation and thereby to endow the union cause with a high moral purpose, the struggle to end slavery.
Federal armies had better luck in the vast open spaces of the west gaining access to rivers leading directly into the south. Ulysses S. Grant captured two key forts and in one of the bloodiest battles of the war, Shiloh which caused 23,000 casualties, Grant held off a fierce southern assault.
To man the southern offensive at Shiloh the confederacy left its largest city New Orleans undefended. By May, almost all of the vital Mississippi Valley fell to union forces. At the Battle of Chancellorsville in May, Lee fought his masterpiece but Chancellorsville was a picric victory. It cost the life of Stonewall Jackson. Without Jackson, Lee’s bid for a victory on northern soil failed at Gettysburg.
Meanwhile Grant had tightened the noose surround Vicksburg in a six-week siege. A day after Gettysburg, a whole confederate army of 33,000 surrendered to Grant. Union control of the Mississippi split the confederacy in two and in November federal forces scored dramatic victories in Tennessee opening the south heartland for an invasion in the spring.
In March, Lincoln appointed Grant General-in-chief of all union armies. Grant considered the military problem to be simple. The capture of strategic cities and territory meant little. The armies of the south had to be destroyed. In May, Grant led 118,000 men into Virginia. Grant suffered a series of chilling reversals at Spotsylvania and at Cold Harbor where he lost 7000 men in a single hour. But Grant’s sense of purpose never wavered he kept punching at Lee forcing him to pull back to a defensive Petersburg and Richmond.
Meanwhile union forces under William Tecumseh Sherman stormed into Georgia. When John Hood ventured recklessly into Tennessee where he hoped Sherman would chase him Sherman chose to march unopposed to the sea. Hood’s army was eventually wrecked as Sherman troops caught a fiery swat through Georgia.
In 1865, Sherman carried his war of terror north while federal troops broke through at Petersburg. Lee evacuated Richmond hoping to make a last ditch effort by linking with the southern forces in North Carolina. But Grant quickly cut-off Lee’s escape and Lee was forced to surrender.
The number of soldiers who died in the Civil War nearly equals the total number of American deaths in all of the nations wars combined. Yet with the Civil War came to triumph of an idea that the United States was not just a cluster of member states but a national state.
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