Georgia and the American Experience

Georgia and the American Experience Chapter 8: The Civil War, A Nation in Conflict Study Presentation

Georgia and the American Experience Section 1: The Road to War Section 2: The War on the Battlefield Section 3: Life for the Civil War Soldier Section 4: Life During the Civil War

Section 1: The Road to War • Essential Question • What strategies were selected to win the Civil War?

Section 1: The Road to War • What words do I needtoknow? • conscription • blockade • blockade runner • King Cotton Diplomacy • strategy

The War Begins • April 10, 1861, Major General P.G.T. Beauregard leads bombardment of Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor • Federal troops and laborers inside Fort Sumter surrender on April 13 • Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia secede from the Union • President Abraham Lincoln calls for 75,000 troops to put down the rebellion and protect Washington

Assembling Armies • Most soldiers volunteered at first, but later men were conscripted (drafted to serve in the armies) • Some men received bounties (money) to sign up; some signed up, received the bounty, then deserted • Poorer men sometimes accepted money to fight in place of wealthier men who didn’t want to serve

Resources, North and South • North had more people from which to create and resupply armies • North had more factories, better railroad system, and most of the nation’s farms and wealth • South had more experienced military leaders, and were highly motivated to defend their familiar homeland to win independence

Blockade Strategy • Union blockaded all Southern ports to prevent cotton exports and imports of weaponry from foreign countries • Privately operated blockade runners successfully slipped past Union ships to ship goods to and from Europe during the war • The Union Navy included many ironclads (armored ships)

Other Wartime Strategies • “Anaconda Plan”: To squeeze Confederacy to death by capturing the Mississippi River and cutting off Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas • Capturing Richmond, the capital, might have ended the war early, but General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army prevented that for years

Late War Strategy • Destroy Confederate armies on the battlefield • Lay waste to the Southern land, so that civilians would call for an end to the war • General William T. Sherman’s “March to the Sea” through Georgia was successful in the “lay waste to land” strategy

Southern Strategies • Wear down the Union armies, which would hasten the northerners’ desire to end the war • Use swift raiders to help break the Union blockade • King Cotton Diplomacy: Temporarily stop exports to England and France to inspire those nations to help break the Union blockade; France and England instead starting importing Egyptian cotton Click to return to Table of Contents.

Section 2: The War on the Battlefield • ESSENTIAL QUESTION • What were the major battles that took place in Georgia?

Section 2: The War on the Battlefield • What words do I need to know? • Chickamauga • Atlanta Campaign • Emancipation Proclamation

Freeing the Slaves • Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862 • Document gave the Southern Confederacy a choice: Quit the war and keep slavery alive or keep fighting and slaves would be forever free • Deadline was January 1, 1863 • The Confederate leaders continued the war and the slaves were declared free by the United States government in 1863

The Fall of Fort Pulaski • More than 100 battles or skirmishes in Georgia; 92 happened in 1864 during the Atlanta and Savannah campaigns • First battle, April 10, 1862, was at all-brick Fort Pulaski, near Tybee Island • Rifled cannon used by U.S. Army in warfare for the first time; the Confederates surrendered the fort in less than two days • No brick American forts were built after this battle

The Battle of Chickamauga • September 1863 • Seven miles south of Chattanooga, Tennessee • Chattanooga was major railroad center • Union troops were driven back to Chattanooga; Confederates did not follow-up on their victory • Union reinforcements later recaptured Chattanooga

The Atlanta Campaign • Late Spring/Early Summer 1864: Sherman’s Union Army fought series of battles against Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederate Army • Confederates continued to retreat further southward into Georgia • June 1864: Sherman attacked Johnston at Kennesaw Mountain; Sherman lost but continued toward Atlanta • July 1864: John Bell Hood replaced Johnston, battled Sherman, then concentrated defenses in Atlanta

The Battle of Atlanta • Sherman surrounded the city and laid siege • Hood wanted to lure Sherman into the city to fight, but that didn’t work • Fighting continued during July and August 1864 • Hood and Atlanta’s citizens finally vacate the city on September 1 • Sherman burns the city in mid-November then begins his march toward Savannah and the sea

The March to the Sea • Sherman’s Union army destroys everything in its path, 300 miles from Atlanta to Savannah • A sixty mile-wide area is burned, destroyed, and ruined during a two-month period • Estimated losses exceeded $100 million • Captured, but did not burn, Savannah in December 1864 • Loaded and shipped $28 million worth of cotton, stored in Savannah, to the North

The Civil War Ends • January 13, 1865: Fort Fisher in North Carolina captured;the last Confederate blockade-running port • General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Virginia cannot defeat Union General U.S. Grant at Petersburg; he surrenders his army at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865 • Confederate President Jefferson Davis flees and is eventually captured in Irwinville, Georgia

Civil War Prisons • Both North and South had prisons for captured soldiers; thousands of men on both sides died in these prisons • Andersonville Prison, in southwest Georgia, was overcrowded, and offered poor food, contaminated water, and poor sanitation; 13,700 Union soldiers are buried there • Captain Henry Wirtz, Andersonville Prison commander, was later hanged for “excessive cruelty” • Andersonville is now home to the National Prisoner of War Museum Click to return to Table of Contents.

Section 3: Life for the Civil War Soldier • ESSENTIAL QUESTION • What was life like for the common soldiers of the Civil War?

Section 3: Life for the Civil War Soldier • What words do I need to know? • Sutler wagon • rations • common soldier

The Civil War Soldier • Most were under the age of 21; over 250,000 were 16-years-old or younger • Most came from lower socioeconomic groups; wanted to seek adventure or escape boredom of farm life • Rations (portions of food) were generally better for Northern soldiers than Southern soldiers • Sutler wagons followed troops, and sold soldiers a variety of goods and foods; their items were very expensive, however

Uniforms and Supplies • In the early months of the war, troops wore a variety of uniforms; sometimes armies were hard to tell apart • The Confederate soldiers eventually wore gray pants or butternut-dyed homemade clothes • Union soldiers wore blue uniforms, most mass produced in factories

Weaponry • Forty-inch barrel Springfield rifles replaced single-shot, muzzle-loading .54 caliber rifles • Confederate soldiers often fought with foreign rifles, but when they broke, they depended on rifles they could gather from the battlefield • Infantry on both sides carried long fighting blades

Camp Life • Boredom between battles was common • Men wrote and read letters, played practical jokes, played games, or sang • Many men whittled, carving items out of wood, bone, and other material • Games of baseball were common • Religious gatherings, including Bible and singing were popular

Black Soldiers • Some 178,985 enlisted men served in black regiments during the Civil War • The 54th Massachusetts, led by Col. Robert Shaw (a white officer) led an assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina in 1863; the battle proved the value of black troops • 3,500 black men from Georgia fought in the Union Army • The Confederate government in 1865 passed a law allowing black slaves to fight in Southern armies; the war ended before a black regiment was organized

Latino Service • Many immigrants from Spain and Latin America were recruited for the Union Army • Admiral David Farragut, a Latino, became first U.S. Naval Admiral; he was a hero for capturing Mobile Bay and other ports • Loreta Velazquez fought for the Confederacy (disguised as a man) and served as a Confederate spy • Several states contributed entire Latino battalions Click to return to Table of Contents.

Section 4: Life During the Civil War • ESSENTIAL QUESTION • What was life like for civilians during the Civil War?

Section 4: Life During the Civil War • What words do I need to know? • hardships • shortages • volunteers

Women in the Civil War • Food, items for clothes, and basic items were in short supply, especially in the South • Staples like flour, coffee, and sugar were very expensive or hard to acquire • Women tried to keep their families fed and sheltered despite the difficulties • Many fought disguised as men; others served as spies; many worked in factories • Female nurses were much valued

Women of Note • Phoebe Pember of Savannah helped administer a division in a major Richmond hospital • Captain Sally Tompkins ran a Southern military hospital • Clara Barton, a Union nurse supervisor, later founded the American Red Cross • Mary Boykin Chesnut of South Carolina left a prized written record of the wartime life

Children During the War • Most did chores at home to help their families or contribute to the war effort • Children in the South had basically no public schools; wealthy families could continue with private tutoring • Boys as young as 10 served in both armies; thousands of soldiers were between 14- and 16-years-old

The Aftermath • 620,000 people died during the war; about two-thirds died from diseases, wounds, or military prison hardships • Healing of emotional wounds took far longer than the war itself • The North or the South would never be the same again Click to return to Table of Contents.

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Georgia and the American Experience