Chapter 16

A New Birth of Freedom,

1862-1865

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 Slavery and the War
• At outset: both Union and Confederate
leaders tried to keep the issue of slavery out
of the war
– South: if slavery is an issue, Southern non-
slaveholders would not be committed to cause
– North: if slavery is an issue, Democrats and
border-state Unionists would not fight
• Frederick Douglass

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 The “Contrabands”
• As Union forces moved into the South,
many slaves fled on foot over to Union lines
• Most Union commanders allowed escaped
slaves to enter their camps
– General Benjamin Butler
– Slaves considered “contraband of war”

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 The Border States
• Freemont frees slaves of Missouri rebels,
Lincoln hastily countermands that
• Lincoln’s offer of “compensated
emancipation” to the border states
– Congressional resolution offering federal
compensation to states that voluntarily
abolished slavery
– Border states rejected Lincoln’s ultimatum

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 The Decision for Emancipation
• Pushed by other Republicans and field
commanders
• Compromise with border states was futile
• Lincoln: prepared his Emancipation Proclamation
• Peace Democrats
– “Copperheads”
• Cabinet supports Lincoln almost unanimously

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 New Calls for Troops
• Lincoln called for 300,000 new 3-year
volunteers for the army
• Suspension of the writ of habeas corpus
– Rioters and antiwar activists arrested

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 The Battle of Antietam
• George B. McClellan
– Union soldiers found copy of Lee’s orders
– A cautious leader
• Robert E. Lee
• Sharpsburg, Maryland
– Union forces outnumbered Confederates
– 23,000 casualties in total

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 The Emancipation Proclamation

• Lincoln portrayed emancipation as a

means to saving the Union
• Did not go into effect until 1-1-1863
• Only freed slaves in areas under rebellion
– Excluded states that did not secede
– Excluded states that were occupied already-

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 A Winter of Discontent
• Ambrose E. Burnside
– Fredericksburg, Va.
• Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman
– Vicksburg, MS
• William S. Rosecrans vs. Braxton Bragg
– Stones River (Murfreesboro)
• Joseph Hooker

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 The Rise of the Copperheads
• Lincoln’s support waned significantly in winter,
1863
• Clement L. Vallandigham, of Ohio
– Powerful Peace Democratic spokesman
– Arrested and convicted for treason and aiding and
abetting the enemy
– Banished to the Confederacy for his sentence
– Runs for governor of Ohio from exile in Canada, but
loses

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 Economic Problems in the South
• South suffered from food shortages and
hyperinflation
• Richmond Bread Riot (1863)

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 The Wartime Draft and Class
Tensions
• Confederate draft
– Paid substitutes
– Twenty Negro Law
– “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight”
• Union draft
– Bounty jumpers
– Substitutes
– Democrats inflame tensions over draft
– New York City Draft Riot (1863)
• Class tensions
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 A Poor Man’s Fight?
• Property, excise and income taxes required
for war efforts weighed more on the
wealthy than the poor
• Wealthy southerners lost more than poor
• Southern planter class and northern middle
class volunteered in high numbers
• Substitution in the Confederacy
• Commutation fees

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 Blueprint for Modern America
• 37th Congress
– Homestead Act
– Morrill Land-Grant College Act
– Pacific Railroad Act

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 Women and the War
• Female casualties
• Clerical jobs open to women in the north
• Clara Barton
• Women’s Central Association for Relief
– Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell
– United States Sanitary Commission
• National Woman Suffrage Association
– Elizabeth Cady Stanton
– Susan B. Anthony

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 The Battle of Chancellorsville
• Army of the Potomac
• Army of Northern Virginia
– Won battle
– Lost “Stonewall” Jackson

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 The Gettysburg Campaign
• Lee invades north June 1863
• Lee’s forces meet Union army under
George Gordon Meade 7-1-1863
• James Longstreet
• Lee orders attacks on union flanks, they fail

• “Pickett’s Charge”: attack in the center, it

fails
• Lee retreats 7-4-1863
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 The Vicksburg Campaign
• Grant’s campaign and control of the
Mississippi River
• Joseph Johnston
– Confederate leader
– Surrendered Vicksburg 7-4-1863

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 Chickamauga and Chattanooga
• Confederates abandon Knoxville and
Chattanooga, losing only East-West rail
link
• Chickamauga: Confederate ambush
• Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge
• Grant appoint general-in-chief of union
army

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 Black Men in Blue
• Frederick Douglass
– Blacks fighting for union would guarantee
citizenship
• Field commanders start forming Black
regiments from slaves they freed
– Non-combat roles
– Paid less than whites
– Officers were white

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 Black Men in Combat
• Port Hudson
• Milliken’s Bend
• 54th Massachusetts Infantry
– Robert Gould Shaw
 Emancipation Confirmed
• 1863 elections endorse Emancipation
• Thirteenth Amendment
– Final Congressional passage after 1864
elections
– Ratified by states December 1865

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 The Year of Decision
• Southern defeatism
• Political uncertainty in the Confederacy
– Hostility towards Davis administration

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 Out of the Wilderness
• Spring of 1864: renewed determination in
the Confederacy
– War of attrition
• Grant vs. Lee in Virginia
– The Wilderness
• Sherman vs. Johnston in Georgia

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 Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor

• Trench warfare
• Stalemate in Spotsylvania
• Lee skillfully anticipated Grant’s move and
blocked his offensive strikes
• Cold Harbor

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 Stalemate in Virginia

• Confederates hold at Petersburg

• Grant continued to move on the offensive
• Huge Union losses:
– 65,000 casualties in only 6 weeks
– Siege instead of offensive

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 The Atlanta Campaign
• Sherman’s army in Georgia
– Accomplished more at less cost than Grant
• Kennesaw Mountain
• John Bell Hood
– Replaced Johnston
– Three counterattacks left Confederates defeated

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 Peace Overtures
• Horace Greeley
– U.S. sentiments yearned for peace
• Lincoln refused to drop the Emancipation
Proclamation as a condition of peace
• Democrats nominated McClellan for
President
– Peace campaign

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 The Prisoner-Exchange
Controversy
• Prisoner exchanges for 1st part of war, no large
prison camps needed
• Exchange ends after Confederates threat to kill
Black soldiers and their white officers
– Fort Pillow Massacre
– Generally not enforced, Blacks returned to their
masters
• Prison camps
– Overcrowded, poorly constructed
– 12% of Confederate prisoners died, 16% of Union
– Andersonville
• Lincoln refuses to renew exchanges unless Black
and White prisoners treated the same
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 The Issue of Black Soldiers in the
Confederate Army

• Winter of 1864-65: Confederates desperate

• Confederate government agrees to recruit
slaves

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Lincoln’s Reelection and the End
of the Confederacy
• Voters made choice based on battlefield
situation
• Fall of 1864 better for Union armies
 The Capture of Atlanta

• Month-long stalemate at Atlanta front

• Sherman’s army attacked and captured
railroad into Atlanta
• Atlanta falls to Sherman September 1864

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 The Shenandoah Valley
• Philip Sheridan vs. Jubal Early
• Fisher’s Hill
• Union destroys Shenandoah Valley crops
• Cedar Creek
• Lincoln reelected
– Sherman and Sheridan’s victories
– Large absentee soldier vote for Lincoln

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 From Atlanta to the Sea
• Union armies destroy Confederate property,
railroads, factories, farms that supported the
Southern Army
• Sherman’s forces burned one-third of
Atlanta and marched to Savannah, wrecking
most everything along the way

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 The Battles of
Franklin and Nashville

• Hood invades Tennessee, hoping to win it

for the Confederacy
– Disastrous defeat

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 Fort Fisher and Sherman’s March
through the Carolinas

• Fall of Fort Fisher ends blockade running

• Sherman’s march of destruction from
Savannah into South Carolina
• War could not end until Confederate
forces surrendered

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 The Road to Appomattox

• Sheridan’s cavalry and Five Forks

• Lee Abandons Richmond and Petersburg
• Lee surrenders to Grant
– Wilmer McLean

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 The Assassination of Lincoln

• Ford’s Theatre, April 1865

• John Wilkes Booth
• Confederate armies continued to
surrender April – June
• Jefferson Davis: captured in Georgia

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 Conclusion
• Civil War cost 625,000 lives
• Since 1865, no state has seriously
threatened secession
• 1865: Thirteenth Amendment abolished
slavery and ensured liberty of all Americans
• Regional transfer of power from South to
North

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