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The Furnace of the Civil War, 1861-1865 Ch. 21, p.473-477. Grant Outlasts Lee. Grant was a general who was willing to send thousands of men out to die in order to ensure Confederate defeat because he knew that he could afford to lose twice as many men that Lee could.
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Grant was a general who was willing to send thousands of men out to die in order to ensure Confederate defeat because he knew that he could afford to lose twice as many men that Lee could. • In a series of wilderness encounters fought in the Virginia mountains, Grant fought Lee, with Grant losing about 50,000 men. • In one particular instance at the Battle of Cold Harbor, the Union sent soldiers into battle with papers pinned on their backs showing their names and addresses, and thousands died within a few minutes. • The public was outraged and shocked over this kind of gore and death, and demanded the relief of General Grant, but U.S. Grant stayed. Lincoln wanted somebody who’d keep the “axe to the grindstone,” and Grant was his man.
In February 1865, the Confederates finally attempted to negotiate for peace. • Lincoln met with Confederate representatives, but refused to accept less than complete “re-Union” and emancipation of the slaves. The Confederates, on the other hand, refused anything less than independence. • In the end, Grant and his men captured Richmond, burnt it, and finally cornered Lee at Appomattox Courthouse at Virginia in April of 1865, where Lee formally surrendered. The war was finally over.
The Burning of Richmond, April 1865 The proud Confederate capital, afterholding out against repeated Union assaults, was evacuated and burned in the final days of the war.
Prisoners from the Front, by Winslow Homer, 1866This celebrated painting reflects the artist’s firsthand observations of the war. Homer brilliantly captured the enduring depths of sectional animosity. The Union officer somewhat disdainfully asserts his command of the situation; the beaten and disarmed Confederates exhibit an out-at-the-elbows pride and defiance.
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down lyricsSongwriter: Robertson, Robbie;Virgil Caine is the name and I served on the Danville train'Til Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks againIn the winter of '65, we were hungry, just barely aliveBy May the 10th, Richmond had fellIt's a time I remember, oh so wellThe night they drove old Dixie downAnd the bells were ringingThe night they drove old Dixie downAnd the people were singingThey went, “Na, na, na…"Back with my wife in Tennessee, when one day she called to me"Virgil, quick, come see, there goes Robert E. Lee!"Now I don't mind choppin' wood, and I don't care if my money's no goodYa take what ya need and ya leave the restBut they should never have taken the very best
Like my father before me, I will work the landAnd like my brother above me, who took a rebel standHe was just eighteen, proud and brave, but a Yankee laid him in his graveI swear by the mud below my feetYou can't raise a Caine back up when he's in defeatThe night they drove old Dixie downAnd the bells were ringingThe night they drove old Dixie downAnd all the people were singingThey went, "Na, na, na…"The night they drove old Dixie downAnd all the bells were ringingThe night they drove old Dixie downAnd the people were singingThey went, "Na, na, na…"
On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth and died shortly after. • Before his death, few people had suspected his greatness, but his sudden and dramatic death seemingly erased his shortcomings and made people remember him for his dedication to restoring the United States. • The South cheered Lincoln’s death at first, but later, his assassination proved to be a total calamity for them, because he would have almost certainly treated them much more charitably than they were actually treated during the Reconstruction of the coming years. • - “With malice toward none, with charity for all”. • Abraham Lincoln
Artifacts from Abraham Lincoln's Person the Night He Was Assassinated
An interesting sidenote….”The Curse of Robert Todd Lincoln?” • Robert Todd Lincoln, the president's oldest son, was at Lincoln's side when he passed away in 1865. Years later, as Secretary of War, Todd Lincoln was present and ready to meet President James A Garfield, when Garfield was assassinated. And, when Todd Lincoln entered the Pan-American Exposition Hall in Buffalo, NY, President William McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist.
The Civil War cost 600,000 + men, $15 billion, and wasted nearly an entire generation of young men.
However, the Civil War gave America the supreme test of its democratic existence, and the U.S. survived, proving its strength and further increasing its growing power and reputation • And, of course, slavery was also eradicated forever.
The war paved the way for the United States’ fulfillment of its destiny as the dominant republic of the Western Hemisphere—and later, the world.
