THE CIVIL WAR
Secession of Seven States from the Lower South(20 December 1860-1 February
1861)
- formation of the Confederacy(February-March 1861)
- Montgomery, Alabama - first Confederate national capital
- *Jefferson Davis
- seizure of federal forts in seceded states
Secession of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee from the Union
- occurred in the aftermath of the Confederate
attack on Fort Sumter
- transfer of Confederate capital from
Montgomery to Richmond, Virginia
*Anaconda Plan
- authored by Winfield Scott
- elements of Scott's approach to suppressing the rebellion
- blockade Confederate-held ports
- take control of the lower Mississippi River
- wait for Unionists to retake control of
the Confederate-held state governments
Theaters of Conflict:
- Virginia
- Tennessee/Mississippi River valley
- Confederate-held coastline
- trans-Mississippi West
Major Battles and Other Key Events
- *First Battle of Bull Run/Manassas(21 July 1861)
- *Monitor vs. Virginia(9
March 1862)
- Battle of Glorieta Pass(March
1862)
- Shiloh(6-7 April 1862)
- *Seven Days Battles(25
June-1 July 1862)
- key events
- General Joseph E. Johnston, commander of Confederate forces
defending Richmond, wounded and replaced by General Robert E. Lee.
- "Lee's" Army of Northern
Virginia repulsed McClellan's Army of the Potomac from Richmond
- impact - a key step in the development of
the Civil War into a revolutionary struggle
- Antietam(17 September
1862)
- culmination of the first Confederate
invasion of the North
- aftermath - Lincoln's announcement of the
Emancipation Proclamation
- Gettysburg(1-3 July
1863)
- culmination of the second Confederate
invasion of the North
- aftermath
- Lee's Army of Northern Virginia withdrew back to Virginia.
- Vicksburg(captured 4
July 1863)
- culmination of Union effort to take
control of the Mississippi River
- impact - Union forces now controlled the Mississippi River,
effectively
bisecting the Confederacy.
- Chickamauga(19-20 September 1863)
- Confederate victory
- aftermath
- Union forces retreated to Chattanooga where they were besieged by
Confederate General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee.
- Chattanooga(23-25 November 1863)
- consequences
- Chattanooga came under Union control to be used in the spring of
1864 as a staging area for the Atlanta campaign
- The Wilderness(5-6 May
1864)
- *Sherman's march through Georgia(Fall
1864)
- Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House(9 April 1865)
- Lincoln's assassination(14 April 1865)
Major, even Revolutionary, Changes brought about by the
War
- expansion of the power and authority of the
national government
- conscription laws
- "greenbacks"
- first U.S. income tax
- abolition of slavery
- advocates
- *Frederick Douglass
- *Radical Republicans
- steps toward abolition
- enlistment of African Americans in the U.S.
Army and Navy
- *Ulysses Grant's conduct of
the Union war effort, 1864-65
- Grant's approach - use all of the Union's
resources in a series of coordinated offensives against the Confederacy
in the key theaters of war
- *William Tecumseh Sherman's marches
- march from Atlanta to Savannah
- march through the Carolinas