The American Civil War

The American Civil War is the war with more casualties than all the other wars America had fought all together! More than a million people died in the war and a lot of cities were destroyed. It all started when Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Lincoln, who was opposed to slavery, passed a law that banned slavery in the United States. The people who lived in the southern United States were outraged by this law, because they needed slaves to help them grow crops and pick cotton. Soon, the southern people decided to form an independent country of their own, which was called the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was elected president and Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia vice-president. Then, to make the North even more angry after it heard that the South had declared itself independent, the Confederates(the Southern people) began to attack Union forts(the forts of the people of the North). The American Civil War had begun.

[the attack on Fort Sumter]
The first fort the Confederacy attacked was Fort Sumter. General P.G.T. Beauregard and his troops began to bombard the fort at 4:30 A.M. on April 11, 1869. Major Robert Anderson, his eighty-five soldiers and forty-three laborers fought back with forty-eight cannons. The Union surrendered after two days of fighting and the federal flag was lowered. The soldiers who defended the fort were shipped to New York were all of them were welcomed as heroes.

[recruting armies and preparing for the worst]
After the fall of Fort Sumter, the two sides began raising armies and preparing for more invasions. On April 14, 1861, President Lincoln issued a call for loyal state governors to send 75,000 militia troops to protect Washington D.C. Then, in 1862 and 1863, the Confederate and the U.S. Congress approved conscription and the drafting of men in the army. The U.S. Congress also approved of paying bounties - cash awards paid to the people who volunteered to fight in regiments. At that time, radio and television were not invented yet. So, recruiting posters were hung in places where people often gathered, like town squares and markets. Some of the people who were recruited were actually criminals or people that had been put in jail after they did something wrong. They are called bounty jumpers. They will join, receive bounty money, and then desert the army. Later they will use an alias to join the army and receive more money. Some of the most well known militias are the Lowry Rifles and the 7th New York. New York provided the most Northern soldiers while North Carolina provided the most Southern troops.

[chaos in Bull Run]
Near Washington D.C., is Manassas, Virginia. A stream nearby is called Bull Run. The fields around the stream were the battlefield of one of the largest Civil War fights. On July 21, 1896, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard (who also attacked and captured Fort Sumter) and a 20,000-man army surrounded Manassas and threatened the Union Capital. President Lincoln sent General Irvin McDowell and 30,000 troops to defend Manassas. Many residents living near Bull Run wanted to see how the troops performed in combat, so they packed picnic lunches and went to the fields were the battle was expected. The fight started at dawn on July 21 and ended in the mid-afternoon. The soldiers on both sides were poorly trained and the battle seemed to edge towards a tie. However, Beauregard's men received reinforcements, who helped drive the Union soldiers away. As McDowell and his troops retreated, they were shelled. This frightened the people who were watching the battle, and they clogged the roads as they fled. This created a traffic jam that panicked the Northern Troops. Most of them dropped their weapons and ran for the safety of Washington's defenses and their lives.

[the siege at Vicksburg]
Vicksburg was a town on the east bank of the Mississippi River. The Confederate military greatly fortified Vicksburg and set up a lot of defenses there. For example, heavy cannons set up there could shoot any vessel passing the town. Trenches were also dug in front of the town to serve as a barrier between the town and the headquarters of the attacking army. The Union army had tried many times to invade Vicksburg. However, each attack failed. Sometimes, Union soldiers would rush at the Confederate trenches, trying to cross them and enter the town. Many of these soldiers were shot down by Confederate cannons or riflemen. They also hurled Ketchum hand grenades at the Confederates. The grenades would explode if the landed on detonation plates fixed to their "noses”. The Southerners fought back by catching the grenades in blankets and throwing them back at the attacking Union troops. After a few more failed assaults, Union commander Ulysses S. Grant maneuvered a small army behind Vicksburg. After a few small battles, Grant and his army drove Vicksburg's defenders into the town's trenches. Meanwhile, the Union navy started to shell the garrison from the Mississippi River. The town was besieged by Grants forces and no food entered in for forty days! Citizens and defending soldiers were reduced to eat rats and donkeys. Civilians lived in bomb shelters in hills. After a month of hunger, attacks and shelling from the Union army, Vicksburg finally gave in. Confederate General John C. Pemberton surrendered. The battle at Vicksburg was the first Union victory in the Civil War.

[the "crazy" fight at Gettysburg]
Gettysburg is a small town in Pennsylvania, a few miles north of Maryland. In 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee led 75,000 men north to invade Union territory. They wandered into Gettysburg, looking for supplies. There, a small force of Union cavalry met and fought them until reinforcements arrived. The commander of the reinforcements, General George Meade, led more than 88,000 men to combat the Confederates. The next day, Meade's and Lee's troops fought a large scale battle, the largest ever fought in North America. A hill called Little Round Top, a grove of trees called Peach Orchard, a farm called Wheat Farm, and a rise near a grave called Cemetery Hill were all battlefields and important spots that bordered the town. These combats were actually so immense that each was like a separate fight. On July second, two brigades from Confederate General Jubal Early's troops rushed to a number of Union soldiers gathered around Gettysburg’s cemetery. They almost succeeded in pushing Meade's men off Little Round Top. Union
reinforcements soon came and drove the Confederates away with many casualties. Next, at dusk, another Confederate General, Harry Hays, led another band of troops to try to capture Little Round Top. They were defeated. On the next day, 3rd July, Lee ordered a division commanded by General George Pickett to attack the center of Meade's battle lines. That attack was remembered as Pickett's Charge. Hundreds of thousands of Confederate soldiers ran directly at Union riflemen and cannons. A lot of Confederate soldiers were killed immediately. This disaster forced Lee to surrender. He ordered his army to retreat south on 4th July. His battle with Meade was the second Union victory in the Civil War and it marked a start for a "Union Comeback" in the war.

[how did they treat the wounded?]
If a Civil War soldier became ill or was wounded in battle, he was in serious trouble. In the mid-19th century, there were no medicines to fight infections and no one knew what a germ is. The bullets of the rifles used at that time were very heavy and powerful. They usually smashed the arm or leg bones of a victim. Doctors could not repair bone injuries, so damaged limbs were usually cut off. Whisky, ether and chloroform were the only painkillers available. A strange method to heal infected wounds was to put fly eggs on the wound. When baby flies, or maggots hatched, medical workers hoped they would eat the infected flesh. Amazingly, this cure sometimes worked. However, most wounded soldiers actually died of poor camp conditions rather than wounds or disease. Polluted drinking water gave wounded soldiers diphtheria and cholera. Moldy or infested food gave them food poisoning and intestinal diseases. At that time, the only treatment for these illnesses was narcotic opium. This drug eased a victim's intestinal discomfort and stopped him from dying of dehydration. Even with this drug, a lot of troops died of these diseases as well as measles, mumps, malaria and yellow fever. The cures of these diseases were discovered a lot of years later.

[camp life]
Civil War soldiers spent most of their time traveling. When on campaigns,
they rested in log cabins, huts or tents at night. Sometimes, they may simply lie down on the ground and sleep. They ate meals prepared by army cooks who cooked on portable ovens and kept themselves warm by burning firewood to make a fire. Burning fires also served as distress signals when someone needed help. In camp, soldiers spent their leisure time writing letters to their families, sketching, reading, taking photographs with their fellow soldiers and even gambling by playing cards. Still, they had to do chores, practice fighting and repair worn equipment and uniforms. Sometimes they cheered up themselves by listening to band music and chatting to fellow soldiers.

[war not on land but on the water]
The navies of the Union and Confederate armies played big parts in the success of the two sides in the war. On one hand, Southern ships attacked Union merchant ships all around the world and stole their cargo. On the other hand, Northern ironclads - ships covered in iron armour - blocked Southern ports and fought the Confederates on rivers and lakes. The CSS Alabama was the only sailing ship to enter the war. The first ironclad, CSS Virginia, was built from the burned remains of USS Merrimac. Then, the USS Monitor was built. Soon, many more ironclads were built, marking a new era in sea-warfare. However, iron armour is not fully protective for a warship. Shells or cannonballs fired at close range splintered the metal plates. Flying pieces on iron and wood often injured or killed the soldiers inside. Then, Confederate engineers invented mines, which threatened ships entering Southern waters. Northern engineers, however, invented mine-sweeping boats such as USS Saugus, to cope with mines. Also, submarines were invented to attack enemy
ships in harbors. American Civil War had actually started a new wave of technology to change the designs of ships, the way they battle and the defenses to cope with an attacking warship.

[the march to the sea]
Union General William T. Sherman had started a major campaign to conquer almost all of Confederate states in hope to make the Confederates surrender. The first part of his campaign was to conquer Atlanta, and soon, all of Georgia. His troops marched south from Chattanooga, Tennessee, in the summer of 1864, fighting a lot of battles with Southern forces. Sherman's troops pinned the Confederates in Atlanta, then forced them to leave. His troops rested there for roughly three months, then burned the city. Sherman and his men marched to the city of Savannah, burning homes of Southern civilians and taking their food. The Southern people he left behind were hungry and homeless. After some fighting in Savannah, Sherman and his soldiers captured the city and soon, other towns, giving the North a big boost of winning the war and giving them more hope that the Confederates would surrender.

[the surrender and the end of the war.]
Northern troops besieged Confederate forces in Petersburg, Virginia. Meanwhile, Union General William T. Sherman took over North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina. The Union troops overcame the Confederates in two major battles, leading to the fall of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's defenses. Lee's forces then retreated to Appomattox Court House, Virginia,
where Grant's troops surrounded the Confederates. On April 9, Lee surrendered in a small house beside the Court House. Many Confederate generals dropped their weapons soon afterwards. After four intense years of bloodshed and fighting, the American Civil War had finally ended.