Grant versus Lee

1. Grant promises Lincoln he will relentlessly attack Lee’s forces until he surrenders • May 1864 the first battle erupts in the “Wilderness”, a densely forested area near Fredericksburg • Battle lasted two days even as the woods around the troops burned • The series of battles became known as the Wilderness Campaign Grant versus Lee

2. Much of the fighting had become hand-to-hand with little reinforcement or resupply • June 1864, Grant follows Lee to Cold Harbor, a strategic crossroads NE of Richmond, VA • Convinced Lee’s troops are fatigued, Grant launches an all-out assault • Union pay’s heavily for Grant’s miscalculation as they have 7K casualties compared to 1,500 for the Confederacy Cold Harbor

3. August 1864, David Farragut takes 18 ships to attack Mobile • Farragut moved his fleet past Confederate forts and destroyed the Confederate fleet defending Mobile Bay • Farragut failed to capture Mobile, but sealed off the bay • Blockade runners could no longer use any port in the Gulf of Mexico Farragut Attacks Mobile

4. Grant had made William Tecumseh Sherman his commander in the west • Sherman instructs his troops to cut the railways leading into the city and occupies Atlanta on Sept. 1, 1864 • Sherman orders civilians to leave and has his troops destroy everything of military value • Approximately a third of Atlanta is burned Fall of Atlanta

5. On November 15, 1864, Sherman begins his “March to the Sea” from Atlanta to Savannah • Sherman’s path of destruction was 60 miles wide in some places • Troops ransacked homes, burned crops and killed livestock • Sherman presented President Lincoln the city of Savannah as his Christmas present Sherman’s March to the Sea

7. The destruction of railroads and resources was devastating to the Confederate war effort • The march crippled Southern morale • The march helped Lincoln win re-election in the North Effects of the March to the Sea

8. Lincoln is opposed in the election of 1864 by General George B. McClellan, a Democrat • McClellan promised to stop the fighting and open negotiations with the South • Sherman’s march and the capture of Atlanta gave Lincoln the support he needed to win • Lincoln interpreted his reelection as a mandate to end slavery • On Jan. 31, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, banning slavery in the U.S., passed the House of Representatives and was sent to the states for ratification

9. Union troops cut off the road at Appomattox Courthouse, VA. and surrounded Lee’s forces • Lee surrenders to Grant on April 9, 1865 • Fives day’s later on April 14, 1865, while viewing a play at Ford’s Theater, Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth Southern Surrender and Assassination

10. Creation of a single, unified country (Nationalism) • End of slavery • Increased power of the central government-killed the issue of states rights • US now an Industrial nation • Western lands increasingly open to settlement • South was economically and physically devastated, w/ the plantation system crippled...thus Reconstruction (rebuilding the south) - but a deep hatred of the North remained... Effects of the Civil War