Vicksburg Falls

1. Vicksburg Falls • Union forces wanted to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, in order to gain control of the Mississippi River. • Grant would land his troops south of Vicksburg. • He ordered his troops to forage for food as they marched to Vicksburg • Grant and his forces put Vicksburg under siege – cut off its food supplies and bombarded the city – until Confederate troops surrendered on July 4, 1863.

3. Gettysburg • Lincoln fired McClellan because he did not destroy Lee’s army at Antietam. Command was given to General Ambrose Burnside. • Union troops suffered heavy casualties south of Fredericksburg, Virginia. • Lincoln replaced Burnside with General Joseph Hooker. • Hooker lost to Lee at Chancellorsville and was forced to retreat. • In 1863 Lee and his troops invaded Pennsylvania. • Hooker failed to stop Lee • Lincoln replaced Hooker with General George Meade • Meade and his troops headed north to stop Lee

4. Gettysburg • On July 3, Lee ordered 15,000 men under General George Pickett and General A.P. Hill to attack the Union troops. • Pickett’s Charge – his forces led the attack • In less than an hour 7,000 casualties had occurred on the Confederate forces • The Union had 23,000 casualties at Gettysburg • The Confederate had 28,000 or a third of Lee’s army • The battle was the turning point of the war • Here in 1863 Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address – one of the best known speeches in American History

6. Grant Secures Tennessee • The Union wanted to capture Chattanooga in order to control a major railroad running south to Atlanta, Georgia. • Union General Rosecrans forced the Confederates to evacuate Chattanooga. • General Bragg forced the Union to retreat back to Chattanooga, after Bragg’s forces attacked the Union at Chickamauga Creek. • Lincoln made Grant the overall commander. • Grant took charge and defeated the Confederates at Lookout Mountain. • Grant ordered Sherman to attack Confederates north of Missionary Ridge. • Grant was made chief of Union forces for his important victories at Vicksburg and at Chattanooga.

7. Grant Versus Lee • General Grant started a campaign against General Robert E. Lee’s forces in which warfare would continue without pause. • Grant launched an all out assault at Cold Harbor near Richmond. Lee stopped Grant, whose army had suffered heavy casualties.

8. Union Victories in the South • The Union victory at Mobile, Alabama was the last major Confederate port on the Gulf of Mexico east of the Mississippi River. • Sherman’s march towards Atlanta ended with the burning of everything in the city of military value. • On November 15, 1864, Sherman began his March to the Sea. His troops cut a path of destruction through Georgia. They reached the coast and seized Savannah on December 21, 1864.

9. The South Surrenders • Lincoln was re-elected in the 1864 election. Lincoln viewed this as a mandate, or a clear sign, from the voters to end slavery by amending the Constitution. • The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, banning slavery in the United States, passed the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865. • General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April, 9, 1865. The terms of surrender guaranteed that the United States would not prosecute Confederate soldiers for treason. • On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot and killed Lincoln at Ford’s Theater.

10. Reconstruction • Union troops and cannons had devastated Southern cities and the South’s economy. • Reconstruction is the rebuilding of the South after the Civil War. • They also had to decide what terms and conditions the former Confederate states would rejoin the Union. • Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction called for a general amnesty, or pardon, to all Southerners who took an oath of loyalty to the United States and accepted the Union’s proclamations concerning slavery. • After 10 percent of the state’s voters in the 1860 election had taken the oath, the state could organize a new state government.

11. Reconstruction • Radical Republicans did not want to reconcile with the South. • They had three main goals: • To keep Confederate leaders from returning to power. • Republicans to become the dominant party in the South. • Use the Federal Government to help African Americans achieve political equality by guaranteeing them the right to vote in the South. • Moderate Republicans thought Lincoln’s plan was too lenient on the South and Radical Republicans’ plan was too harsh. • Wade-Davis Bill was introduced and passed in Congress. Lincoln thought the bill was too harsh, so he blocked the bill with a pocket veto. He did this by letting the session of Congress expire without signing the bill.

12. The Freedmen’s Bureau • Thousands of freed African Americans, known as freedmen, had followed General Sherman and his troops as they marched through Georgia and South Carolina. • As a result of the refugee crisis, Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau. • The Bureau was to feed and clothe war refugees in the South using army surplus supplies. • It also helped freemen to find work and negotiated pay and hours worked on plantations.

13. Johnson Takes Office • Vice President Andrew Johnson became president after Lincoln’s death. • Johnson issued a new Proclamation of Amnesty. This plan offered a pardon to all former citizens of the Confederacy who took an oath of loyalty to the Union and to return their property. • This made many members of Congress angry, especially when several former Confederate officers and political leaders were elected to Congress. • New Southern state legislatures passed laws, known as black codes, that severely limited African Americans’ rights in the South. They were written with the intention of keeping African Americans in conditions similar to slavery.

14. Radical Republicans Take Control • In March 1866, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. It gave citizenship to all persons born in the United States, except Native Americans. It also allowed African Americans to own property and to be treated equally in court. • The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. • The 15th Amendment to the Constitution was passed by the Republican-led Congress. It said that the right to vote could not be denied on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.