Sherman's March to the Sea

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.
--William Tecumseh Sherman

Sherman's March to the Sea is one of the most controversial aspects of the civil war. Ulysses S. Grant told Sherman to create chaos and to destroy resources that could benefit the Confederacy. Sherman began the Atlanta Campaign in May of 1864. After he captured Atlanta, he marched his army to the sea. On the way to the sea, the soldiers had permission to steal anything they would need from the farms of the Confederates. When he was on the borders of Savannah, he was in charge of fifty to sixty thousand men. He planned to bombard the city. Then, he continued marching up to South Carolina and afterwards, North Carolina.

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Sherman's Atlanta Campaign

During the summer of 1864 towards the end of the civil war, Union General Sherman fought Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John B. Hood in battles through north Georgia. Sherman wanted to destroy the Army of Tennessee, cut off supply lines to the Confederacy and capture Atlanta. Sherman failed to destroy the army, but he forced Atlanta to surrender in September of 1864. This greatly helped win votes for Lincoln's re-election and also boosted the soldiers of the Union's morale. Atlanta was now under Union control, and Sherman decided that he was going to march all the way to the sea. In which he would destroy most of the countryside and hurried the coming of the end of the war. Before he left, he ordered that all military supplies in Atlanta be burned. The soldiers got a little out of control and instead, burned the entire city. In which he would destroy most of the countryside and hurried the coming of the end of the war.

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Union blockade of GA's coast

The Union blockade was issued by Abraham Lincoln on April 19, 1861. The Union's plan was to stop supplies from getting in the South, and also to make it almost impossible for them to export. Some ships tried to make it around the Union's Blockade. These ships were called blockade runners. They were high-speed ships, but they had little capacity for goods on board. Five sixths of the time they were successful. But since they were carrying less cargo, there were less goods that made it into Georgia. Also, traders didn't want to take the chance of having their ship be intercepted. The end result of the blockade was that the Southern economy was failing and less supplies would make it into the country.

Chickamauga

The Battle of Chickamauga was the largest battle in the Western part of the Civil War, the second largest in the war following only Gettysburg. It was the worst loss for the Union in the 'Western Theatre', as they call it. The battle was the end of the Union's Chickamauga Campaign, it was technically a victory for the Confederacy. The Union Army discouraged going further into Georgia at the time. The Union, however, did capture Chattanooga. On the right is a picture of Major General William Rosecrans. His army was the Cumberland Army. He was one of the generals who helped the Union capture Chattanooga, which was a major chess piece in the game of war. Chattanooga was a big railway supply center for the rebels. The Union also had an advantage with the guns they were using, called 'Spencer Rifles'.

Gettysburg

Gettysburg was a battle that lasted for three days. It had the largest amount of casualties in one battle in the entire Civil War. In the battle, the Confederates were losing. They took one last desperate chance, Pickett's Charge. General Pickett led his soldiers to attack the center of the Union lines. It was a bad move. The rebels lost over fifty percent of their men in this one battle command. Gettysburg was a Union victory. If the Confederates had won, they might have won the war. That is how important this battle was. European powers would have probably come to help the rebels if they had won. The fate of the war was decided at this battle. After the battle, Lincoln came and gave his famous speech, The Gettysburg Address. It motivated all of the soldiers in the Union to fight even harder so that these dead did not die in vain.

Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation was put into effect on January 1st, 1863, but it had been in the works for months before. Lincoln first introduced the idea in summer of 1862. Lincoln thought if the slaves were free, the war would end because the South couldn't use slaves as laborers anymore. The only concern was if Lincoln could actually enforce the law and protect the free slaves. The proclamation was first issued a few days after the victory at Antietam. The Proclamation had a huge effect on the war. The Proclamation allowed African-Americans in rebel states to be free, border states were an exception. The Proclamation also allowed free blacks to join the Union army. By the end of the war, 200,000 blacks soldiers had served on the Union side. The Emancipation Proclamation led the way to the 13th Amendment, which officially abolished slavery.

Image from:  Memory.loc.gov

Antietam

The battle of Antietam was the bloodiest day of the civil war. 2,108 Union soldiers died that day, and 10,293 more were missing. In comparison to the bloodiest battle for the US in World War I, the losses of the Union at Antietam were double those of the losses at D-Day. The total of the Union and the Confederate losses was at least nine times the amount lost at D-Day. Confederates lost less men, 10,318 to be exact, Robert E. Lee lost a quarter of his army. At Antietam, Lee failed at his attempt to infiltrate the Union and lost any support he could have gained from Europe if he had succeeded. The War of 1812's casualties, the Mexican War's casualties, and the Spanish-American war's casualties, if combined and doubled, would equal the casualties of the one day in Sharpsburg. The First Texas Infantry lost 82% of its men in a cornfield in those 12-hours in Sharpsburg. This is the highest casualty rate in any Confederate regiment in one battle. This battle led to Lincoln creating the Emancipation Proclamation which freed slaves in the Confederate states and allowed slaves to fight in battle.

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