·
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was a
32-year-old college professor when the war began. In 1862, Joshua was offered a
year's travel with pay to study languages in Europe. He chose
to fight for the Union instead.
Determined to fight for the Union, he left
his job and took command of troops from his home state of Maine. Like most
soldiers, Chamberlain had to get accustomed to the carnage of the Civil War.
His description of the aftermath of one battle shows how soldiers got used to
the war's violence.
---A VOICE FROM THE PAST
“It seemed best to [put] myself between two dead
men among the many left there by earlier assaults, and to draw another
crosswise for a pillow out of the trampled, blood soaked sod, pulling the flap
of his coat over my face to fend off the chilling winds, and still more
chilling, the deep, many voiced moan [of the wounded] that overspread the
field.”
----Joshua
Lawrence Chamberlain, quoted in The Civil
War
·
During the war, Chamberlain fought
in 24 battles. He was wounded six times and had six horses shot out from under
him. He is best remembered for his actions at the Battle of Gettysburg, where
he courageously held off a fierce rebel attack.
The Road to Gettysburg
·
In September 1862, General McClellan
stopped General Lee's Northern attack at the Battle of Antietam. But the
cautious McClellan failed to finish off Lee's army, which retreated safely to Virginia. President
Lincoln, who was frustrated by McClellan, replaced him with Ambrose Burnside.
But Burnside also proved to be a disappointment.
·
At the Battle of Fredericksburg,
Virginia, in December 1862, Burnside attacked Confederate troops who had dug
trenches. The bloody result was 12,600 Union casualties. This disastrous attack
led General Lee to remark, "It is well that war is so terrible-we should
grow too fond of it!"
·
Lincoln replaced Burnside with
General Joseph Hooker, who faced Lee the following May at Chancellorsville, Virginia. The result
was yet another Union disaster. With half as many men as Hooker, Lee still
managed to cut the Union forces to pieces.
·
However, the South paid a high price
for its victory. As General "Stonewall" Jackson returned from a
patrol on May 2, Confederate guards thought he was a Union soldier and shot him
in the arm. Shortly after a surgeon amputated the arm, Jackson caught
pneumonia. On May 10, Lee's prized general was dead.
·
In spite of Jackson's tragic
death, Lee decided to head North once again. He hoped that a Confederate
victory in Union territory would fuel Northern discontent with the war and
bring calls for peace. He also hoped a Southern victory would lead European
nations to give diplomatic recognition and aid to the Confederacy.
The Battle of Gettysburg
·
In late June 1863, Lee crossed into
southern Pennsylvania. The Confederates
learned of a supply of shoes in the town of Gettysburg and went to
investigate. There, on July 1, they ran into Union troops. Both sides called
for reinforcements, and the Battle of Gettysburg was on. The fighting raged for three days. On the rocky
hills and fields around Gettysburg, 90,000
Union troops, under the command of General George Meade, clashed with 75,000
Confederates.
·
During the struggle, Union forces tried to
hold their ground on Cemetery Ridge, just south of town, while rebel soldiers
tried to dislodge them. At times, the air seemed full of bullets. "The
balls were whizzing so thick," said one Texan, "that it looked like a
man could hold out a hat and catch it full." The turning point came on
July 3, when Lee ordered General George Pickett to mount a direct attack on the
middle of the Union line. It was a deadly mistake. Some 13,000 rebel troops
charged up the ridge into heavy Union fire. One soldier recalled "bayonet
thrusts, saber strokes, pistol shots. . . men going down on their hands and
knees, spinning round like tops. . . ghastly heaps of dead men."
·
Pickett's Charge, as this attack
came to be known, was torn to pieces. The
Confederates retreated and waited for a Union counterattack. But once again, Lincoln's generals
failed to finish off Lee's army. The furious Lincoln wondered
when he would find a general who would defeat Lee once and for all. Even so,
the Union rejoiced over the
victory at Gettysburg. Lee's
hopes for a Confederate victory in the North were crushed. The North had lost
23,000 men, but Southern losses were even greater. Over one-third of Lee's
army, 28,000 men, lay dead or wounded. Sick at heart, Lee led his army back to Virginia.
THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
·
On November 19, 1863, President
Lincoln spoke at the dedication of a cemetery in Gettysburg for the
3,500 soldiers buried there. His speech was short, and few who
heard it were impressed. Lincoln himself called it "a flat failure."
Even so, the Gettysburg Address has since been recognized as one of the
greatest speeches of all time. In it, Lincoln declared
that the nation was founded on "the proposition that all men are
created equal"
·
He ended with a plea to continue the
fight for democracy so that "government of the people, by the people, for
the people shall not perish from the earth."
The Siege of Vicksburg
·
On July 4,1863, the day after
Pickett's Charge, the Union received
more good news. In Mississippi, General
Ulysses S. Grant had defeated Confederate troops at the Siege of Vicksburg. The previous
year, Grant had won important victories in the West that opened up the Mississippi
River for travel deep into the South. Vicksburg was the
last major Confederate stronghold on the river. Grant had begun
his attack on Vicksburg in May
1863. But when his direct attacks failed, he settled in for a long siege.
Grant's troops surrounded the city and prevented the delivery of food and
supplies. Eventually, the Confederates ran out of food. In desperation, they
ate mules, dogs, and even rats. Finally, after nearly a month and a half, they
surrendered.
·
The Union victory fulfilled a major
part of the Anaconda Plan. The North had taken New
Orleans the previous spring. Now, with
complete control over the Mississippi River, the South
was split in two. With the victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, the tide
of war turned in favor of the North. Britain gave up all
thought of supporting the South. And, in General Grant, President Lincoln found
a man who was willing to fight General Lee.
Sherman's
Total War
·
In March 1864, President Lincoln
named General Grant commander of all the Union armies. Grant then developed a
plan to defeat the Confederacy. He would pursue Lee's army in Virginia, while
Union forces under General William Tecumseh Sherman pushed through the Deep South to Atlanta and the
Atlantic coast.
·
Battling southward from Tennessee, Sherman took Atlanta in
September 1864. He then set out on a march to the sea, cutting a path of
destruction up to 60 miles wide and 300 miles long through Georgia. Sherman waged total
war: a war not only against enemy troops, but against everything that supports
the enemy. His troops tore up rail lines, destroyed crops, and burned and
looted towns.
·
Sherman's triumph
in Atlanta was
important for Lincoln. In 1864, the
president was running for reelection, but his prospects were not good.
Northerners were tired of war, and Democrats who had nominated George McClellan
stood a good chance of winning on an
antiwar platform. Sherman's success
changed all that. Suddenly, Northerners could sense victory. Lincoln took 55
percent of the popular vote and won re-election. In his second inaugural
speech, Lincoln hoped for a speedy end to the war: "With
malice towards none; with charity for all; . . . let us strive on to finish the
work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; . . . to do all which may
achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace."
·
In December, Sherman took Savannah, Georgia. He then
sent a telegram to Lincoln: "I
beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 150
heavy guns and. . . about 25,000 bales of cotton."
Grant's Virginia Campaign
·
After taking Savannah, Sherman moved north
through the Carolinas seeking to
meet up with Grant's troops in Virginia. Since May
1864, Grant and his generals had been fighting savage battles against Lee's
forces.
·
In battle after battle, Grant would
attack, rest, then attack again, all the while moving south toward Richmond. At the Battle of the
Wilderness in May 1864, Union and
Confederate forces fought in a tangle of trees and brush so thick that they
could barely see each other. Grant lost over 17,000 men, but he pushed on.
"Whatever happens," he told Lincoln, "we
will not retreat."
·
At Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor, the
fighting continued. Again, the losses were staggering. Grant's
attack in June, at Cold Harbor, cost him
7,000 men, most in the first few minutes of battle. Some Union troops were so
sure they would die in battle that they pinned their names and addresses to
their jackets so their bodies could be identified later. In June 1864, Grant's
armies arrived at Petersburg, just south
of Richmond. Unable to
break through the Confederate defenses, the Union forces dug trenches and
settled in for a long siege. The two sides faced off for ten months.
·
In the end, though, Lee could not
hold out. Grant was drawing a noose around Richmond. So Lee
pulled out, leaving the Confederate capital undefended. The Union army
marched into Richmond on April 3. One Richmond woman
recalled, "Exactly at eight
o'clock the Confederate flag that fluttered
above the Capitol came down and the Stars and Stripes were run up. . . . We
covered our faces and cried aloud."
Surrender at Appomattox
·
From Richmond and Petersburg, Lee
fled west, while Grant followed in pursuit. Lee wanted to continue fighting,
but he knew that his situation was hopeless. He sent a message to General
Grant that he was ready to surrender.
·
On April 9, 1865, Lee and
Grant met in the small Virginia town of Appomattox
Court House to arrange the
surrender. Grant later wrote that his joy at that moment was
mixed with sadness.
I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the
downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so
much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which
a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. I do not
question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to
us.
· Ulysses S.
Grant. Personal Memoirs
WILMER MCLEAN
·
The first major battle of the Civil
War was fought on the property of Wilmer McLean. McLean lived in Manassas, Virginia, the site
of the Battle of Bull Run. After the battle, McLean decided to
move to a more peaceful place. He chose the village of Appomattox
Court House.
When Lee made the decision to surrender in April 1865, he sent Colonel
Charles Marshall to find a location for a meeting with Grant. Marshall stopped
the first man he saw in the deserted streets of Appomattox Court House. It was
Wilmer McLean. McLean reluctantly offered his home. Thus, the war that began
in McLean's back yard ended in his parlor.
·
Grant offered generous terms of
surrender. After laying down their arms, the Confederates could
return home in peace, taking their private possessions and horses with them.
Grant also gave food to the hungry Confederate soldiers. After four long years,
the Civil War was coming to a close. Its effects would continue, however,
changing the country forever.