In the first two years of the war, neither side gained a
decisive victory over the other.
A long war can cause much death and destruction and leave a
bitter legacy.
ONE AMERICAN'S
STORY
· In the summer of 1861, President
Lincoln gave George McClellan command of the Union army in the East. The
Union army had recently been defeated at Bull Run. McClellan faced the task of restoring the soldiers'
confidence while organizing and training an army that could defeat the
Confederates.
· Within months, McClellan had
accomplished the task and won the devotion of his troops. The entire nation expected great
things. In November 1861, Lincoln made McClellan general in chief of
the entire Union army. But while Lincoln kept urging him to attack Richmond, McClellan kept drilling his
troops.
A VOICE FROM THE PAST
“Soon as I feel that my army is well organized and well disciplined and
strong enough, I will advance and force the Rebels to a battle on a field of my
own selection. A long time must elapse before I can do that.”
-General
George McClellan, quoted in Civil War Journal: The Leaders
· Lincoln said McClellan had "the slows." While McClellan was stalling in the East,
another general was winning victories in the West.
Union Victories in the West
· That victorious Union general in the
West was Ulysses S. Grant. In civilian life, he had failed at many things.
But Grant had a simple strategy of war: "Find out where your enemy is, get
at him as soon as you can, strike at him as hard as you can, and keep moving
on."
· 
In February 1862, Grant made a bold move to take Tennessee. Using ironclad gunboats, Grant's forces captured two
Confederate river forts. These were Fort Henry on the Tennessee and Fort Donelson on the nearby Cumberland. The seizure of Fort Henry opened up a river highway into the
heart of the South. Union gunboats could now travel on the river as far as
northern Alabama. When the people of Nashville, Tennessee, heard the forts were lost, they
fled the city in panic. A week later, Union troops marched into Nashville.
The Battle of Shiloh
· After Grant's river victories,
Albert S. Johnston, Confederate commander on the Western front, ordered a
retreat to Corinth, Mississippi. Grant followed. By early April,
Grant's troops had reached Pittsburg Landing on
the Tennessee
River. There he waited for more troops
from Nashville. Johnston, however, decided to attack before
Grant gained reinforcements. Marching his troops north from Corinth on April 6,
1862, Johnston surprised the Union forces near Shiloh Church. The Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee turned into the fiercest fighting
the Civil War had yet seen.
· Commanders on each side rode into
the thick of battle to rally their troops. One Union general, William Tecumseh
Sherman, had three horses shot out from under him. General Johnston was killed,
and the command passed to General Pierre Beauregard. By the end of the day,
each side believed that dawn would bring victory.
· That night, there was a terrible
thunderstorm. Lightning lit up the battlefield, where dead and dying soldiers
lay in water and mud. During the night, Union boats ran upriver to ferry fresh
troops to Grant's camp. Grant then led an attack at dawn and forced the
exhausted Southern troops to retreat.
· The cost of the Union victory was staggering. Union casualties at Shiloh numbered over 13,000, about
one-fourth of those who had fought. The Confederates lost nearly 11,000 out of
41,000 soldiers. Describing the piles of mangled bodies, General Sherman wrote
home, "The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war."
Congressmen criticized Grant for the high casualties and urged Lincoln to replace him. But Lincoln replied, "I can't spare this man-he fights."
The Fall of New Orleans
· The spring of 1862 brought other bad
news for the Confederacy. On April 25, a Union fleet led by David Farragut captured New Orleans, the largest city in the South. Rebel gunboats tried to ram the
Union warships and succeeded in sinking one. Farragut's
ships had to run through cannon fire and then dodge burning rafts in order to
reach the city. Residents stood on the docks and cursed the Yankee invaders,
but they were powerless to stop them.
· The fall of New Orleans was a heavy blow to the South. Mary Chesnut
of South
Carolina, the wife of an aide to President Davis, wrote in her
diary, "New Orleans gone-and with it the
Confederacy. Are we not cut in two?" Indeed, after the victories of General Grant and
Admiral Farragut, only a 150-mile stretch of the Mississippi remained in Southern hands. The Union was well on its way to achieving
its goal of cutting the Confederacy in two. But guarding the remaining stretch
of the river was the heavily armed Confederate fort at Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Lee Claims Victories in the East
· Meanwhile, also in the spring of 1862,
McClellan finally made his move to try to capture Richmond. He planned to attack the Confederate capital by way
of a stretch of land between the York and James rivers. McClellan succeeded in
bringing his troops within a few miles of Richmond.
· But in June 1862, Robert E. Lee took
charge of the Army of Northern Virginia and proceeded to turn the situation
around. Lee sent Jeb Stuart and his cavalry-soldiers
on horseback-to spy on McClellan. With about 1,000 men, Stuart rode around the
whole Union army in a few days and reported its size back to Lee. Lee then
attacked McClellan's army. The two sides clashed for a week, from June 25 to July
1, 1862, in
what became known as the Seven Days' Battles. The Army of Northern Virginia
suffered heavier losses, but it forced McClellan's army to retreat.
· In late August, the Confederates won
a second victory at Bull Run, and Union troops withdrew back to Washington. Within just a few months, Lee had
ended 
the Union threat in Virginia.
JEFFERSON DAVIS- 1808-1889
· Jefferson Davis expected to be given a military
command when the Confederacy was formed in 1861. But Davis was chosen President of the
Confederacy instead,
which stunned and saddened him. Because of his strong sense of duty and loyalty
to the South, Davis accepted the unwelcome post. He had to immediately
form a national government and prepare for war at the same time. Davis found it hard to compromise or
accept disagreement with his opinions.
Lee Invades the North
· Riding a wave of victories, General
Lee decided to invade the Union. He wrote to tell President Davis of his plan. Lee thought
it was a crucial time, with the North at a low point. Without waiting for Davis's response, Lee crossed the Potomac with his army and invaded Maryland in early September 1862.
· Lee had several reasons for taking
the war to the North. He hoped a victory in the North might force Lincoln to talk peace. The invasion would
give Virginia farmers a rest from war during the harvest season. The
Confederates could plunder Northern farms for food.
· Lee hoped the invasion would show
that the Confederacy could indeed win the war, which might convince Europe to side with the South. By this
time, both Britain and France were leaning toward recognizing the
Confederacy as a separate nation. They were impressed by Lee's military successes, and their
textile industry was now hurting from the lack of Southern cotton.
Bloody Antietam
· Soon after invading Maryland, Lee drew up a plan for his
campaign in the North. A Confederate officer accidentally left a copy of
Lee's battle plans wrapped around three cigars at a campsite. When Union
troops stopped to rest at the abandoned campsite, a Union soldier stumbled on
the plans. The captured plans gave McClellan a chance to stop Lee and his army.
· McClellan went on the attack, though
he moved slowly as always. On September 17, 1862, at Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland, McClellan's army clashed with
Lee's. The resulting Battle of Antietam was the bloodiest day in all of
American history. A
Confederate officer later described the battle.
A VOICE FROM THE PAST
“Again and again. . . by charges and counter-charges, this portion of
the field was lost and recovered, until the green corn that grew upon it looked
as if it had been struck by a storm of bloody hail. . . . From sheer
exhaustion, both sides, like battered and bleeding athletes, seemed willing to
rest.”
---John B. Gordon, quoted in Voices
of the Civil War
The Battle of Antietam, depicted
here, was a major battle of the American Civil War fought in Maryland. While attempting to invade the
North, General Robert E. Lee and his 50,000 Confederate troops were intercepted
by General George B. McClellan and his 70,000 Union soldiers on September
17, 1862,
at Sharpsburg, Maryland. General Lee’s troops were forced
to retreat after the ensuing battle that left 2,100 Union soldiers and 2,700
Confederate soldiers dead.
· After fighting all day, neither side
had gained any ground by nightfall. The only difference was that about 25,000
men were dead or wounded. Lee, who lost as much as one-third of his fighting
force, withdrew to Virginia. The cautious McClellan did not
follow, missing a chance to finish off the crippled Southern army. Lincoln was so fed up that he fired
McClellan in November, 1862.
- In the summer of 1861,
President Lincoln gave _______ ________command of the Union army in the
East.
- That victorious Union general
in the West was ______________ ____ ____________________.
- In February 1862, using
_________________________gunboats, Grant made a bold move to take Tennessee.
- On April 25, a Union fleet led
by David Farragut captured
________________________,the largest city in the
South.
- The fall of New Orleans was a heavy blow cutting the ______________into
two.
- In the spring of 1862,
____________________finally made his move to try to capture Richmond
- In June 1862, Robert E. Lee
took charge of the Army of ____________________________________.
- Riding a wave of victories,
General Lee decided to invade the ____________________________.
- A Confederate officer
accidentally left a copy of Lee's battle plans wrapped around
___________________at a campsite.