Events
1861
South Carolina attacks Fort Sumter
Confederacy defeats Union at First Battle of
Bull Run
1862
Union defeats Confederacy at Shiloh and Antietam
1863
Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation
Union defeats Confederacy at Gettysburg and VicksburgLincoln delivers Gettysburg Address
Key People
-
Abraham Lincoln
16th
U.S. president; ordered Union naval blockade of the South; delivered
landmark Gettysburg Address
-
Robert E. Lee
General
who turned down Lincoln’s offer to command Union forces in favor of
commanding the Army of Northern Virginia for the Confederacy
-
George McClellan
Young general who commanded the Union’s Army of the
Potomac but was later fired after criticizing Lincoln publicly and
failing to engage Lee’s forces
-
Ulysses S. Grant
Top Union general after McClellan’s termination;
waged total war against the South starting in 1863,
including major victory at Vicksburg
Preparing for War
After
the seizure of Fort Sumter in April 1861,
both the North and the South prepared for war. The North had a distinct economic advantage because
almost all of the nation’s factories were been located in the Northeast
and Mid-Atlantic states. The Union also had nearly twice the South’s population and
thus a larger pool of young men to serve in the army.
Lack of Leadership in the North
However, the North’s new recruits were largely untrained,
and most of the best military commanders had been from the South. Abraham Lincoln offered
command of the main Union army to Robert E. Lee, but
Lee, though he disapproved of secession, felt compelled to fight for
his home state of Virginia.
George McClellan
Lincoln therefore ended up putting General George
McClellan in command of the Army of the Potomac.
“Little Mac,” as he was called, though still only in his thirties,
was probably the most popular man in the army in his day. Despite
McClellan’s popularity with the troops, however, he was poorly regarded
among civilian leaders in Washington and had a reputation for having
a rather large ego. Throughout the war, McClellan proved timid,
and he always made some excuse to avoid engaging Lee’s Army
of Northern Virginia.
The First Battle of Bull Run
War preparations took some time, so it was not until three
months after Fort Sumter that Union and Confederate troops met again
at the First Battle of Bull Run in Virginia, between
Washington, D.C., and Richmond. Still believing that the war was
a trifling matter that would be over quickly, a number of government
officials and spectators from both sides came to “observe” the battle,
some even packing picnic lunches. By the end of the day, Union forces
had lost and were forced to retreat. The loss shocked Northerners
out of their complacency and prompted them to prepare more seriously for
the struggle ahead. Meanwhile, many Southerners interpreted the
victory as an indicator of an early end to the war and as decisive proof
that most Northerners didn’t have the will to fight.
Shiloh
Just as Northerners were shocked into reality
by the First Battle of Bull Run, so too were Southerners by the Battle
of Shiloh. In April 1862, Union
General Ulysses S. Grant engaged Confederate forces
at Shiloh, Tennessee, in an incredibly bloody battle. Tens of thousands
of men died. By the end of the bloodbath, Grant had won and demonstrated
to the Confederates that Lincoln was serious about maintaining the Union.
Southerners got the message and dug in for a longer war.
Antietam
Rather than wait around for the enemy to attack him, Lee
made an aggressive push into the border states to try
to defeat the Union on its own turf. He also hoped that a Confederate
victory in Maryland would convince the state legislature to secede.
In September 1862, Lee’s
army met General George McClellan’s troops at the Battle
of Antietam, which resulted in more than 23,000 casualties—the bloodiest
single day of battle of the entire war. Lee was forced to retreat
back to Confederate territory.
