The American Civil War began in 1861 following decades of tensions between northern and southern states over slavery and states' rights. Southern states seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America after Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Major battles included Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Petersburg. The Union blockade and capture of the Mississippi River helped turn the tide. Ultimately, the war ended in 1865 with the Confederacy's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse after a long siege of Petersburg and Sherman's March to the Sea through Georgia and the Carolinas.

1. The
American
Civil War

3. 1860 Presidential Election

4. Republican Party Platform:
• Protective tariff
• Transcontinental railroad
• Free western land for settlers
• No expansion of slavery into
western territories

5. Secession!: SC Dec. 20, 1860

6. Lincoln’s reaction to secession
“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere
with the institution of slavery in the States where it
exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have
no inclination to do so.”
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in
mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government
will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being
yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in
heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the
most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it.”
- Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861

7. Battle of Fort Sumter, Charleston, SC
April 12, 1861

8. “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the
Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If
I could save the Union without freeing any slave I
would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the
slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing
some and leaving others alone I would also do that.
What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do
because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I
forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help
to save the Union.”
- Lincoln, August 22, 1862

9. Basic Causes of Southern Secession
1. Slavery
2. States’ Rights vs. Federal Government
3. Economic Differences
4. Cultural Differences
Lincoln’s Reason for Fighting the War:
1861-1862: PRESERVE UNION
1863-1865: PRESERVE UNION + END SLAVERY

11. Union and Confederate Resources, 1861

14. Anaconda Plan:
• U.S. Navy blockades CSA coast
• U.S. riverboat and ground forces
captures Mississippi River
• U.S. Army captures Richmond, VA

15. Battle of First Bull Run
Manassas, VA, July 21, 1861
USA: Irvin McDowell vs. CSA: Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson

16. Peninsular Campaign, southeast VA, March-July 1862
USA: George McClellan vs. CSA: Robert E. Lee

17. Battle of Hampton Roads
Chesapeake Bay, March 1862
USA: USS Monitor vs. CSA: CSA Virginia

18. Battle of Antietam, Sharsburg, MD, September 17, 1862
USA: McClellan CSA: Lee

20. Battle of Antietam, Sharsburg, MD, September 17, 1862
USA: McClellan CSA: Lee

22. Battle of Gettysburg, PA
July 1-3, 1863
USA: George Meade
Vs.
CSA: Lee

24. Siege of Vicksburg, MS
May 18, 1863 - July 4, 1863
USA: Ulysses S. Grant
vs.
CSA: John Pemberton

25. 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.
We are met here on a great battlefield of that
war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it
as a final resting place for those who here gave
their lives that that nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we should do
this.

26. But in a larger sense we can not dedicate - we
can not consecrate - we can not hallow this
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled, here, have consecrated it far above
our poor power to add or detract. The world
will little note, nor long remember, what we say
here, but can never forget what they did here.

27. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated
here to the unfinished work which they have,
thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us
to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us - that from these honored
dead we take increased devotion to that cause
for which they here gave the last full measure
of devotion - that we here highly resolve that
these dead shall not have died in vain; that this
nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and
that this government of the people, by the
people, for the people, shall not perish from the
earth.

28. Overland Campaign, eastern VA, May 4-June 24, 1864
USA: Grant CSA: Lee

29. Siege of Petersburg, June 15, 1864 - April 2, 1865
USA: Grant CSA: Lee

30. Atlanta Campaign, GA, May 7, 1863-September 2, 1864
USA: William T. Sherman
CSA: Joseph E. Johnston and John B. Hood

31. March to the Sea and Carolina Campaign, GA, SC, NC
November 15, 1864-April 26, 1865
USA: Sherman vs. CSA: William Hardee, Joseph Wheeler, Johnston

32. Appomattox Courthouse, VA, April 9, 1865
USA: Grant CSA: Lee