Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background, of this war; and it is best they should not.

1
The Civil War
"Future years will never know the seething hell
and the black infernal background, of this war
and it is best they should not.  The real war
will never get in the books." Walt Whitman

NCSCOS Goal 3 Page 22

2
Shots Fired
-War begins at Fort Sumter, S.C., 1861 -Bull
Run/ Manassas -July 1861 -Southern
victory -did not pursue the retreating Union
army -citizens watched the battle Approximately
500 from Washington, DC South could have
captured capital, but too disorganized

"Our Southern brethren have done grievously, they
have rebelled and have attacked their father's
house and their loyal brothers. They must be
punished and brought back, but this necessity
breaks my heart." Major Robert Anderson,
Union defender of Fort Sumter in April of 1861

3


"You are green, it is true but they are green
also. You are all green alike." - Abraham
Lincoln gave this description of the Union Army
to its commander, Irvin McDowell, while urging
McDowell to attack the Confederates shortly
before First Bull Run


"There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Let
us determine to die here, and we will conquer.
Follow me." Brigadier General Bee, First Bull
Run
4


"They came in all manner of ways," wrote a Union
officer, "some in stylish carriages, others in
city hacks, and still others in buggies, on
horseback, or even on foot. Apparently everything
in the shape of vehicles in and around Washington
had been pressed into service for the occasion."
5
Shiloh
Shiloh Hebrew word for place of peace

• -April 1862 (Tennessee)
• Some of the most difficult fighting of the
  entire war
• Confederate commander Albert Sidney Johnson
  killed in fighting
• -costly victory for Grant
• -demonstrated the cost of victory would be great

"The rebels are out there thicker than fleas on a
dog's back!!" - An excited Union officer used
these words to report the advance of Confederate
forces at Shiloh-

6

Casualties Union 13, 047 Confederate 10, 694
Bloody Pond of Shiloh Accounts say that the
water of the pond turned red with the blood of
soldiers and animals following the battle

7
Antietam


-Sept. 1862 (Maryland) -Bloodiest single day
of the war Union Casualties 12,410
Confederate Casualties 10,316 -Union victory
for McClellan Lees first move on offensive
into North McClellan could have crushed CSA but
moved too slowly

Lincoln visits Antietam shortly after the battle,
disappointed with McClellans slow movement of
troops. McClellan is dismissed shortly
afterwards.
8
"I have heard of 'the dead lying in heaps', but
never saw it till this battle. Whole ranks fell
together." -Captain Emory Upton, 2nd U.S.
Artillery at Antietam-

"Every stalk of corn in the northern and greater
part of the field was cut as closely as could
have been done with a knife, and the slain lay in
rows precisely as they stood in their ranks a few
minutes before." - A Union officer s
description of the destruction of a Confederate
force at Antietam.-
9
Vicksburg

-Nov. 1862 (Mississippi) -Grant surrounds city
on the Mississippi -try to split the south
Begins long siege of town (surrounds and tries to
starve out) Bombards the city, soldiers and
civilians, continuously
Northern lines were so tight not even a cat
could get out.


10
The town's food supply grew dangerously low as
the siege wore on. Cooks served mule meat at the
dinner table. An anonymous citizen, refusing to
surrender a sense of humor, wrote a fictitious
menu advertising such local delicacies as "Mule
Head Stuffed a La Mode" and "Mule Tongue Cold a
La Bray." Many were forced to live in caves to
escape bombardments.


What is to become of all the living things in
this place when the boats commend shelling--God
only knows--shut up as in a trap--no ingress or
egress--and thousands of women and children
Diarist Emma Balfour, civilian of Vicksburg

11
Confederate Victories
-Confederates greatly outnumbered but Lee still
wins -Dec. 1862 (Virginia) -Fredericksburg
(Union slaughter) (Confederates use
trenches) -May 1863 (Virginia) -Chancellorsvi
lle -Thomas Stonewall Jackson is killed (By
his own men)
Fredericksburg Casualties US 12,653 CS 5,309


It is well that war is so terrible--we should
grow too fond of it" - Robert E. Lee gave this
observation while watching thousands of Union
soldiers sent to the slaughter at Fredericksburg
12

Prior to the Battle of Fredericksburg, Longstreet
lost three of his children to a Scarlet Fever
epidemic in Richmond within one week. This
incident made dedication to his troops became top
priority.
Then and Now The Wall at Maryes Heights

"General, if you put every Union soldier now on
the other side of the Potomac on that field to
approach me over the same line, I will kill them
all before they reach my line." - General James
Longstreet made this vow to Robert E. Lee as
countless Federal assaults were beaten back by
Longstreet's men at the Battle of Fredericksburg.
13
"My religious belief teaches me to feel as safe
in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for
my death. I do not concern myself about that, but
to always be ready, no matter when it may
overtake me."- Stonewall Jackson


Give General Jackson my affectionate regards,
and say to him he has lost his left arm but I my
right. Robert E. Lee
14
Gettysburg
-July 1863 (Pennsylvania) -Lee invades North
(First time ever on offensive) -Little Round
Top -Cemetery Ridge -Picketts Charge -turning
point of the war as Lee is defeated -Gettysburg
Address given by Lincoln several months later

Lt. Col. Joshua Chamberlains 20th Maine
regiment holds off Confederates, keeping Union
line from folding
15
Official Union photographer Alexander Gardner
took these photos in the days after the Battle of
Gettysburg. Like other Civil War photographers,
Alexander Gardner sometimes tried to communicate
both pity and patriotism with his photographs,
reminding his audience of the tragedy of war
without forgetting the superiority of his side's
cause. Sometimes, the most effective means of
elevating one's cause while demeaning the other
was to create a scene -- by posing bodies -- and
then draft a dramatic narrative to accompany the
picture. The top photo shows a staged photograph
of the Home of the Rebel Sharpshooter, while
the bottom is the true scene of the aftermath.
The soldier was probably actually an
infantryman, killed while advancing up the
hillside. After taking pictures of the dead
soldier from several angles, the photographer
noticed the picturesque sharpshooter's den --
forty yards away -- and moved the corpse to this
rocky niche and photographed him again. The type
of weapon seen in these photographs was not used
by sharpshooters. This particular firearm is seen
in a number of Gardner's scenes at Gettysburg and
probably was the photographer's prop.
16
The Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter. By Alexander
Gardner On the Fourth of July, 1863, Lee's
shattered army withdrew from Gettysburg, and
started on its retreat from Pennsylvania to the
Potomac. From Culp's Hill, on our right, to the
forests that stretched away from Round Top, on
the left, the fields were thickly strewn with
Confederate dead and wounded, dismounted guns,
wrecked caissons, and the debris of a broken
army. The artist, in passing over the scene of
the previous days' engagements, found in a lonely
place the covert of a rebel sharpshooter, and
photographed the scene presented here. The
Confederate soldier had built up between two huge
rocks, a stone wall, from the crevices of which
he had directed his shots, and, in comparative
security, picked off our officers. The side of
the rock on the left shows, by the little white
spots, how our sharpshooters and infantry had
endeavored to dislodge him. The trees in the
vicinity were splintered, and their branches cut
off, while the front of the wall looked as if
just recovering from an attack of geological
small-pox. The sharpshooter had evidently been
wounded in the head by a fragment of shell which
had exploded over him, and had laid down upon his
blanket to await death. There was no means of
judging how long he had lived after receiving his
wound, but the disordered clothing shows that his
sufferings must have been intense. Was he
delirious with agony, or did death come slowly to
his relief, while memories of home grew dearer as
the field of carnage faded before him? What
visions, of loved ones far away, may have hovered
above his stony pillow! What familiar voices may
he not have heard, like whispers beneath the roar
of battle, as his eyes grew heavy in their long,
last sleep! On the nineteenth of November, the
artist attended the consecration of the
Gettysburg Cemetery, and again visited the
"Sharpshooter's Home." The musket, rusted by many
storms, still leaned against the rock, and the
skeleton of the soldier lay undisturbed within
the mouldering uniform, as did the cold form of
the dead four months before. None of those who
went up and down the fields to bury the fallen,
had found him. "Missing," was all that could have
been known of him at home, and some mother may
yet be patiently watching for the return of her
boy, whose bones lie bleaching, unrecognized and
alone, between the rocks at Gettysburg.
17
"All this has been my fault."- Robert E. Lee
repeatedly spoke this line to the survivors of
Pickett's Charge as they stumbled back to
Confederate lines.-





Picketts Charge Time50 minutes Confederate
Casualties 5,600 Casualties from Picketts
Division Alone 3,000
General Lee, I have no division. Pickett
to Lee following the infamous charge.
18
Following the war and the death of Robert E. Lee,
James Longstreet, Lees second in command, would
become the scapegoat for the Souths loss at
Gettysburg. He argued against a Confederate
frontal attack at Gettysburg but Lee did not heed
his advice.

"I do not want to make this charge. I do not see
how it can succeed. I would not make it now but
that General Lee has ordered it and expects
it." - James Longstreet on Picketts Charge
Error lives but a day. Truth is eternal. James
Longstreet
19
Four score and seven years ago our fathers
brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation,
conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that "all men are created equal." Now
we are engaged in a great civil war, testing
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived,
and so dedicated, can long endure.
20
South is Split

-July 1863 -Grant captures Vicksburg after long
siege -Grant is called to command Union
armies Nickname The Butcher Two parts of
the Anaconda Plan are now complete

Tell me what brand of whiskey that Grant drinks.
I would like to send a barrel of it to my other
generals. -Abraham Lincoln-
21
Shermans March

"War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform
it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be
over" - Union General William T. Sherman-
-1864 -March to the Sea (From Georgia to
Atlantic Ocean) -Total War Take the war to
civilians War is Hell -burning of
Atlanta -destroy the will to fight Citizens
suffer most
22
"Yes, I am one of those whom Sherman's shells
drove from a dismantled city. He has made some of
us women wade through seas of pain and suffering,
I can tell you but as much as we have suffered
from his cruelty, there isn't one of us who would
exchange places with him in the next world for
all the wealth and stores he has allowed his men
to steal from we poor down-trodden rebels, as he
terms us." -- Henrietta Barnes
Atlanta Depot

"I dont see any horns. You are supposed to have
horns" A child's answer to Sherman's question of
why he repeatedly was staring at his head.
23
Grant in Pursuit
-1864 -Lee in retreat -Grant attacks repeatedly
at great loss of life Examples Cold Harbor
and Petersburg -Lincoln wants speedy end
to war Can replace killed men with immigrants

• "The dead covered more than five acres of ground
  about as thickly as they could be laid."
• A Confederate survivor so described the Union
  dead at the Battle of Cold Harbor in 1864.
• Union Casualties at Cold Harbor 13,000
• Confederate Casualties at Cold Harbor 2,500

24
Petersburg Battle of the Crater The Union Army
dug a mine shaft under the Confederate lines and
planted explosive charges directly underneath a
fort in the middle of the Confederate line. If
successful, this would not only kill all the
defenders in the area, it would also open a hole
in the Confederate defenses. Upon explosion, a
crater (still visible today) was created, 170
feet long, 60 to 80 feet wide, and 30 feet deep.
Between 250 and 350 Confederate soldiers were
instantly killed in the blast A Union division
went across the field to the crater and, instead
of moving around it, thought it would make an
excellent rifle pit and it would be well to take
cover and so they moved down into the crater
itself, wasting valuable time while the
Confederates, gathered as many troops together as
they could for a counterattack. In about an
hour's time, they had formed up around the crater
and began firing rifles and artillery down into
it, in what was later described as a "turkey
shoot". Union Casualties 5,300 Confederate
Casualties 1,032
Then and Now Petersburg Crater
25
Wars End
-April 1865 -Grant surrounds Lee outside
Richmond -Surrender at Appomattox Troops Go
Home Pardoned Feed Confederate Army
"General, unless he offers us honorable terms,
come back and let us fight it out!"- James
Longstreet to Robert E. Lee -

26
"What General Lee's feelings were I do not know,
as he was a man of much dignity, with an
impassable face, it was impossible to say whether
he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally
come, or felt sad over the result," wrote Grant.
"But my own feelings, which had been quite
jubilant on the receipt of his letters, were sad
and depressed . . . Our conversation grew so
pleasant that I almost forgot the object of our
meeting . . . General Lee called my attention to
the object. Ulysses S. Grants Memoirs
"Men, we have fought the war together, and I have
done the best I could for you. You will all be
paroled and go to your homes until exchanged. My
heart is too full to say more. Robert E. Lee
to troops after surrender