Part 2

Civil War Part II - for U.S. History & APUSH Classes.mp4

Civil War Part III_ APUSH & US EOC - Gettysburg Address to Appomattox.mp4

19 Battles of the Civil War_ Crash Course US History #19.mp4

21 The Civil War Part 2_ Crash Course US History #21.mp4

Civil War.mp4

By 1863, the Civil War had been going on two years.

At least 200,000 men had already died in the war.

Who was winning the war in 1863?

In 1863, both Union and Confederate leaders claimed their side was winning the war. Confederates argued that they had stayed independent for two years. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia had also won a series of battles against the Army of the Potomac.

After the Emancipation Proclamation was issued at the beginning of 1863, African American men could join the Union army. By the end of the war, about 180,000 African American people had volunteered.

However, Union leaders argued that they had captured a large amount of Confederate territory. President Lincoln also said that the Emancipation Proclamation would help the Union, since freeing enslaved people would hurt the Confederate economy and provide new recruits for the Union army.

As the Civil War entered its third year, both the Union and the Confederacy faced the challenge of supplying their armies. The pie charts below compare some of the Union and Confederate resources at the beginning of the war.

Why did the Confederacy have so little manufacturing?

The Southern states had taken advantage of their better climate and focused on growing cash crops instead. The economy of the Southern states was mainly agricultural, with cotton as the region's most valuable crop. On plantations, enslaved people were forced to grow and clean cotton. The cotton was then exported to places such as the United Kingdom.

In order to get more weapons, the Confederate government planned to trade with other countries.

Why use a snake to represent the Union military?

Some snakes squeeze their prey to death. Similar to these snakes, the Union navy squeezed the Confederate economy by surrounding the Confederate coast. The strategy of using ships to block trade is called a blockade.

How did the Confederacy respond to the blockade?

The Confederacy used small, fast ships to try to slip past the blockade. These ships, called blockade runners, attempted to reach European ports to sell cotton.

he goal of the Union blockade was to stop the Confederacy from trading with other countries. Even before the war, Northerners and Southerners predicted what would happen if the South's trade was blockaded. The passage below comes from an 1858 speech by the Southern senator James Henry Hammond.

Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should [the North] make war on us, we could bring the whole world to our feet. . . . What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? . . . England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her, to save the South. No, you dare not to make war on cotton. No power on the earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king.

furnished: exported or sold

England: the United Kingdom

Hammond predicted that if the North and South fought a war, then the United Kingdom would protect the South.

King Cotton

Cotton played an important part in the global economy of the 1800s. Plantation owners sent raw cotton to mills in places such as New England and the United Kingdom. These mills would then turn the cotton into clothing and bedding. From shippers to merchants to mill workers, hundreds of thousands of people outside the South depended on cotton to earn their livelihoods.

Confederate officials hoped that the Confederacy's role as the world's leading cotton producer would force the United Kingdom and other countries to help them achieve independence.

In order to manufacture clothing, the United Kingdom imported a large amount of cotton. Before the Civil War, the United Kingdom imported most of its cotton from the Southern states.

The graph below shows cotton imports for the United Kingdom. The graph's data starts with 1860, the year that Southern states began to secede, and ends with 1864, the last full year of the Civil War.

During the Civil War, the Union blockade stopped most U.S. cotton from reaching the United Kingdom. As the war continued, non-U.S. sources of cotton, such as Egypt and India, increased their cotton exports to the United Kingdom. However, in 1864 the United Kingdom was importing less than it had in 1860.

The Cotton Famine

Even though the Civil War was fought in the United States, it affected many other countries. For example, cities such as Manchester in the United Kingdom depended on the supply of cotton to keep their clothing mills working. As the supply of cotton decreased, thousands of factory workers lost their jobs. These unemployed workers struggled to feed their families. For much of the United Kingdom, the Civil War years were called the Cotton Famine.

The British people were divided about how to react to the American Civil War.

Did the British Empire have slavery?

In the 1600s and 1700s, the British Empire was a leading player in the slave trade, and many of its colonies in North America and the Caribbean depended on plantation-based slavery.

However, starting in the late 1700s, groups of British abolitionists campaigned against slavery. These abolitionists worked to convince British people that slavery was wrong. By 1833, the British Empire had banned slavery.

Abolitionist allies

American abolitionists saw British abolitionists as their allies in the battle against slavery. In the antebellum period, many free African American people considered August 1st, the anniversary of British abolitionism, to be a holiday of celebration. They hoped that eventually the United States would also ban slavery.

The political cartoon below was published in 1863 by a British magazine. John Bull was a symbol of the United Kingdom, and this cartoon represented the U.K.'s official policy toward the American Civil War.

Here is the caption from the bottom of the cartoon.

John Bull's Neutrality. "Look here boys, I don't care twopence for your noise, but if you throw stones at my windows, I must thrash you both."

twopence: a tiny bit

thrash: beat

Do you need any elephants?

Some foreign rulers supported the Union during the Civil War. For example, King Mongkut of Siam, which is present-day Thailand, approved of the Union's measures against slavery. In 1862, King Mongkut offered President Lincoln a supply of war elephants for the Union army. President Lincoln thanked the king, but he said he didn't think the war elephants would do well in the climate of the U.S.

Did any foreign rulers support the Confederacy?

Some rulers, such as Emperor Napoleon III of France, hoped the Confederacy would win the Civil War. Napoleon thought that if the United States were divided, France could more easily expand into North America.

In 1862, French forces invaded Mexico. For the next several years, Mexico fought against Napoleon III's army. Today, the holiday Cinco de Mayo celebrates a Mexican victory at the 1862 Battle of Puebla against the French army.

Most of the battles of the Civil War happened in three zones, which were called theaters.

In the Eastern Theater, armies fought around the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia and the Union capital of Washington, D.C. This theater was the smallest of the three, and yet the armies of the Eastern Theater suffered the highest casualties of the war.

In the Western Theater, armies fought to control major waterways and roads stretching through the middle of the Confederacy.

The Union army hoped that by controlling this theater they could cut the Confederacy in two.

In the Trans-Mississippi Theater, small armies fought in areas far away from the major eastern cities.

This theater was the farthest to the west, where there were fewer American settlers. It was called the Trans-Mississippi Theater because it was located beyond the Mississippi River.

In the Trans-Mississippi Theater, Native American people fought in both the Union and the Confederate armies. For example, in present-day Oklahoma, members of the Cherokee tribe were divided about whether to support the Union or the Confederacy.

Which side did the Cherokee end up supporting?

Both. Many Cherokee joined the Confederate army, while others fought for the Union. The war became a civil war within the Cherokee tribe, as families often found themselves on opposite sides. About one-third of the Cherokee died or were driven away from their land during the war.

After the war, the federal government freed the enslaved people owned by the Cherokee. Government officials also accused the tribe of helping secession, and they forced the Cherokee to sign a treaty that cost the tribe much of its land.

Stand Watie was a Cherokee leader who became a Confederate general. In June 1865, his army was the last Confederate army to surrender.

Chief John Ross was the main leader of the pro-Union Cherokee. Several of his sons fought in the Union army.

In the Western Theater, one of the main Union armies was commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant. The map below shows Grant's campaign in late 1862 and 1863.

Why was controlling the Mississippi River so important?

General Grant focused on controlling the Mississippi River for many reasons:

By taking the river, the Union would cut western states such as Arkansas and Texas off from the rest of the eastern Confederacy.
The Union could use the Mississippi to transport men and goods all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico.

General Grant's army spent several months trying to capture Vicksburg, the last major Confederate fort on the Mississippi River. On July 4th, 1863, the Confederate army at Vicksburg surrendered. The passage below comes from a Northern newspaper reporting on the surrender.

The number of prisoners . . . it is said, will be 18,000, of which 12,000 are in fighting condition now. The immediate cause of surrender is exhaustion of supplies and ammunition, and the failure of [the rest of the Confederate army] to come to their aid. At daylight our whole army will enter triumphantly and celebrate.

exhaustion: running out

In June 1863, Grant was trying to capture Vicksburg in the Western Theater. Meanwhile, in the Eastern Theater, Confederate commander Robert E. Lee launched an offensive, or an attack on the Northern states. Some Confederate leaders thought that an offensive was too risky.

During its 1863 offensive, the Army of Northern Virginia captured several dozen African American people whom they suspected had escaped slavery. The Confederate policy was to force these captured people back into slavery and move them farther south to make it harder to run away.

Why did the Army of Northern Virginia capture African American people?

The economy of the Confederate states was based around slavery. Confederates argued that escaped enslaved people were stolen property. As soldiers from the Army of Northern Virginia marched through towns in Maryland and Pennsylvania, they demanded that formerly enslaved people be returned to them.

By the end of the campaign, at least 40 African American people had been captured and sent back to the Confederate states.

In July 1863, the Army of Northern Virginia's offensive ended in the Battle of Gettysburg, named after a nearby Pennsylvania town. From July 1st to July 3rd, the Union and Confederate armies fought the bloodiest battle in American history.

What was the town of Gettysburg like?

At the time of the battle, Gettysburg was a small college town. The people who lived there had no idea that a massive battle was going to happen.

John L. Burns is a resident of the town of Gettysburg. A veteran of the War of 1812, the 69 year old Burns volunteered to fight for the Union army in the Battle of Gettysburg. During the battle, he was wounded and left behind Confederate lines. Eventually, he crawled to the cellar of a nearby house, where he hid until he could get help and and medical treatment.

Burns survived the battle and became famous in the Union states.

Below is a letter written by Elbert Corbin, a Union soldier who fought at Gettysburg. Read the passage.

I was sent to work assisting . . . the wounded rebels . . . . [I helped] to wound and kill men then patch them up[.] I could show more suffering here in one second than you will see in a life . . . . It is strange how I have disciplined my feelings to see dying and suffering men and have no feelings only a passing thought.

rebels: Confederates

patch: medically treat

disciplined: trained

What was medicine like in the Civil War?

The Civil War has been called "a modern war fought in the medical dark ages." Soldiers had modern weapons such as rifles and cannons. However, doctors didn't know much about how to treat the wounds those weapons caused.

Civil War surgeons did not know about germs, so they couldn't prevent a wound from becoming infected. Infection was considered more dangerous than a bullet, since after an operation on even a minor wound, soldiers would often grow sick and die. Because of the risk of infection, surgeons would would often amputate, or cut off, an arm or leg that had been hit by a bullet.

The table below shows the estimated sizes of the Union and Confederate armies at the Battle of Gettysburg, along with the number of casualties from each side. Casualties are people who are killed, wounded, or captured in battle. Notice that there is some missing data in the table.

A higher percentage of Confederate soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured.

The Union army suffered more casualties than the Confederate army.

Which side won the Battle of Gettysburg?

The Union and Confederacy both came close to winning at different points of the battle. Eventually, after three days of fighting, the Union forced the Confederate army to retreat. Many historians hold that the Battle of Gettysburg and the surrender of Vicksburg were the key turning points in the war.

The battle was incredibly costly, with over 50,000 Union and Confederate soldiers killed, wounded, and captured. The Battle of Gettysburg remains the bloodiest battle in American history.

In November 1863, four months after the Battle of Gettysburg, President Lincoln traveled to the Gettysburg battlefield to give a speech. The speech was meant to honor the soldiers who had fought in the battle.

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

resolve: promise

in vain: for nothing

perish: die

When soldiers died of disease and combat, both the Union and Confederacy drafted men to replace them. In a draft people are forced to join the army. In July 1863, a series of riots broke out in New York City to protest the draft. In the New York Draft Riots, mobs attacked people and organizations that they blamed for the war.

Why did the rioters attack African American people?

Slavery was an important cause of Southern secession, and the rioters blamed enslaved African American people for the war. They also hated the idea of competing for jobs with freed African American people. During the week of the riots, dozens of African American people were attacked and killed.

How deadly were the New York Draft Riots?

The New York City draft riots remain the most deadly riots in United States history. Over 120 people were killed in the riots. After three days of rioting, regiments from the Union army restored order.

Diaries from the Civil War help historians understand how the conflict shaped people's daily lives. The following passage is an 1864 diary entry from Dolly Sumner Lunt, a white Southern woman living in Georgia. Imagine you are a historian interested in the economic effects of the Civil War on civilians.

A new year is ushered in, but peace comes not with it. Scarcely a family in the land has but given some of its members to the bloody war that is still decimating our nation. Will another year find us among carnage and bloodshed? Shall we be a nation? Or will we be annihilated? The prices of everything are very high. Corn seven dollars a bushel, salt, sixty dollars a hundred, cotton from sixty to eighty cents a pound.

ushered: guided

decimating: destroying

annihilated: destroyed

A historian interested in the economic effects of the war would be looking for specific economic data. Lunt provided this when she mentioned the high prices of specific goods like corn and salt. As the Union army and navy surrounded the Confederacy, many goods became hard to get. As they became hard to get, their prices went up.

In 1864, the United States held its first wartime presidential election. President Lincoln ran for re-election on the Republican ticket. The Democrats nominated General George B. McClellan, a former Union army commander.

Many posters circulated stating that electing McClellan would be a disaster for the country.

Copperheads

Many Democrats believed that the Republicans had led the country into a bloody and pointless war. Republicans called these antiwar Democrats copperheads. Copperheads are a type of poisonous snake. Republicans saw the antiwar Democrats as disloyal and poisonous to the Union.

In August 1864, a couple of months before the presidential election, Lincoln wrote the following note to his advisors. Read the note.

This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the President-elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration.

exceedingly: extremely

Administration: the president and his cabinet

Why did Lincoln think he might lose?

Despite the Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in 1863, the Confederacy continued to fight. By 1864, many Northerners were growing frustrated with the war. More and more families were losing loved ones, and the end of the war seemed nowhere in sight. So, Lincoln thought the voters would replace him with General McClellan, the Democratic nominee for president.

President Lincoln and other Republicans worried that bad war news would lead voters to support Lincoln's political opponents.

"War is Cruelty"

The capture of Atlanta, Georgia in September 1864 was good news for the Union. For months, a Union army under the command of William Tecumseh Sherman had been working to capture the city. Atlanta was an important railroad center, and its loss greatly hurt the Confederacy.

Once he had captured Atlanta, Sherman ordered all the civilians of the city to leave. The mayor of the city protested the order, arguing it was cruel to send families away from their homes. Sherman responded that "all war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it." Sherman believed that the harder the war was on the Confederate population, the faster they would surrender.

Below is an 1864 electoral map. The seceded states did not vote.

How did Lincoln win the election?

Historians argue that several factors helped Lincoln win the election:

The Democrats were divided on what to do about the war. Some wanted to make peace with the Confederacy, while others wanted to continue the war. This split made it easy for Republicans to criticize the Democrats as unable to lead the country.
The Union military won several victories, including the capture of Atlanta, Georgia. So, Northern voters became more optimistic about the Union's chances of winning the war.
Most Union soldiers wanted the war to continue until the Confederacy was defeated. Lincoln won a majority of votes from the hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers.

The Civil War was fought between the Union and the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865.

Which side was winning the war in 1864?

It wasn't entirely clear who was winning. In 1864, the Union army controlled more land than the Confederacy.

However, many Northerners were weary of the bloodshed. Confederate leaders hoped that if the Confederacy kept fighting, the Union would eventually negotiate for peace.

The map below shows the progress the Union army made each year of the war.

Sherman's March to the Sea

In September 1864, a Union army under the command of William Tecumseh Sherman seized the major railroad center of Atlanta, Georgia. Next, Sherman decided to march through Georgia and take Savannah, a port on the Atlantic coast. By taking Savannah, Sherman planned to cut off Alabama, Mississippi, and other Deep South states from the rest of the Confederacy.

In late 1864, a Union army under the command of General William Tecumseh Sherman marched through the state of Georgia. The passage below comes from a letter that Sherman wrote to the War Department about his march.

We are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies. I know that this recent movement of mine through Georgia has had a wonderful effect in this respect.

hostile: enemy

people: the civilians, or people not in the military, of the Confederacy

By "a hostile people," Sherman meant the civilians living in the Confederate states. Sherman felt that the enemy included both civilians and enemy soldiers.

Sherman argued that the Union army should make life hard for Confederate civilians in order to win the war. According to Sherman, the harder the war was on the Confederate people, the faster they would want the war to end, even if that meant surrendering.

Living far away from the armies did not guarantee safety. Union and Confederate guerrillas, or small groups of raiders, often attacked targets in enemy territory.

This illustration shows a 1863 Confederate raid on the Union town of Lawrence, Kansas. The illustration was made by someone who opposed the Confederacy. By showing Confederate raiders attacking civilians, the illustrator wanted to make his audience angry.

While guerrillas raided in small bands, larger groups of Confederate and Union cavalry also raided deep into enemy controlled territory. In April 1864, a force of Confederate cavalry attacked Fort Pillow, a Union fort in Tennessee held by African American soldiers. The passage below comes from a Union naval officer who interviewed participants after the battle.

One of the wounded negroes told me that he hadn't done a thing, and when the rebels drove our men out of the fort they (our men) threw away their guns and cried out that they surrendered; but the rebels kept on shooting them down until they had shot all but a few.

negroes: African American people

rebels: Confederates

Why did Confederate soldiers kill African American soldiers at Fort Pillow?

At Fort Pillow, Confederate soldiers were enraged that formerly enslaved people were fighting against them. Over 300 African American soldiers were killed, most when they tried to surrender.

Most African American soldiers in the Union army were formerly enslaved people. The Confederate government saw these Union soldiers as stolen property. They refused to treat the captured African American people like other prisoners of war.

General Nathan Bedford Forrest commanded the Confederate soldiers at the Fort Pillow massacre. Many people believed Forrest was a war criminal, though he was never punished for his actions at Fort Pillow.

Even if their surrender was accepted, soldiers faced many risks in prisoner-of-war camps. The most well-known prisoner-of-war camp was in Andersonville, Georgia. Over the course of the war, Andersonville Prison held over 45,000 Union prisoners.

War crimes at Andersonville

By the end of the Civil War, over 13,000 Union prisoners had died at Andersonville Prison.

After the war, the Confederate commander of the camp, Henry Wirz, was put on trial for the deaths of the Union prisoners. Wirz argued that the food shortages of the Confederacy, not his orders, caused the suffering at Andersonville. Wirz was convicted of war crimes and hanged.

What was life like for captured Confederate soldiers?

Confederate prisoners in the Union usually did not starve, since the Union did not face food shortages like the Confederacy. However, Confederate prisoners also faced hard conditions in prisoner-of-war camps. For example, during the war, over 4,000 Confederate prisoners died from disease while being held at Camp Douglas in Illinois.

In January 1865, the United States Congress debated an amendment to the Constitution. This law was later ratified as the Thirteenth Amendment. Supporters of the amendment argued that it was necessary to settle the issues that caused the war. Below is the first section of the amendment.

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.

whereof: of which

party: person

Didn't the Emancipation Proclamation already ban slavery?

No. The Emancipation Proclamation legally freed enslaved people in the areas still supporting the Confederacy. It did not free the enslaved people in the border states, or the states that did not secede. The Thirteenth Amendment legally freed all of the four million enslaved people living in the United States.

Why did some Northerners favor keeping slavery?

Northern opponents of the Thirteenth Amendment had several motivations, including the following:

- Some white Northerners feared economic competition from formerly enslaved people.
- Other white Northerners believed that African American people were naturally inferior to white people.

White and African American abolitionists worked hard to try to convince Americans that these prejudices were wrong.

To be passed, the Thirteenth Amendment needed to be approved by a supermajority, or two-thirds, of each house of Congress. The Senate passed the amendment easily. The amendment then had to be passed by the House of Representatives. Look at the pie chart of the parties in the House of Representatives in 1865.

Convincing some members in the other political parties to vote for the amendment

To pass the amendment, Republicans needed two-thirds of the members of each house of Congress to vote for it. But Republicans controlled less than half the seats in the House of Representatives. So, Republicans needed to get support from House members of the other political parties.

The actions of many groups contributed to the weakening of slavery and the eventual ratification, or adoption, of the Thirteenth Amendment.

When did other countries ban slavery?

Here is a list of the years that different countries officially banned slavery:

The British Empire (1833)
The French Empire (1848)
Brazil (1888)
China (1906)
Mauritania (1981)

Does slavery exist today?

Yes. Today, every country in the world officially bans slavery. However, the United Nations estimates that over 20 million people are held in some kind of forced labor. Often these forced laborers must work until they pay off a debt.

By the spring of 1865, the Union and Confederate armies had been fighting for four years. The chart below shows estimates of the total number of men that served in the Union and Confederate armies for each year of the war.

Throughout the war, the Union army was the larger of the two armies. Over the four years of the war, the size difference between the two armies grew.

Why was the Union army so much larger than the Confederate army?

The Union's population was over twice as large as that of the Confederacy. The Union had more men to recruit into the army. Also, about one-third of the Confederate population was enslaved African American people. Few of these enslaved people supported the Confederacy.

How did the Confederacy find new soldiers?

By 1865, almost all the young white men of the seceded states had served in the Confederate military. Hundreds of thousands of them had been killed, wounded, or captured. In the last battles of the war, Union soldiers were shocked to find that many Confederate troops were old men and teenagers.

The Confederacy grew desperate for new soldiers. So, it decided to allow enslaved men to join the army. The Confederacy promised to free the enslaved soldiers after the war. But the war ended before the Confederacy could send any African American regiments into battle.

The map below shows the movements of two Union and Confederate armies during the last two years of the war. General Ulysses S. Grant commanded the Army of the Potomac, a Union army. General Robert E. Lee commanded the Army of Northern Virginia, a Confederate army.

What was General Grant's strategy?

General Grant hoped that by keeping pressure on General Lee's army, he could stop Lee from rebuilding the Army of Northern Virginia. This strategy led to a series of bloody battles. Unlike other Union generals, Grant kept attacking after each battle.

Grant's critics called him a butcher because they thought he was reckless with soldiers' lives. Grant's supporters argued that he was doing what was necessary to end the war.

Much of Richmond burned down in April 1865.

General Lee gives up the Confederate capital

In April 1865, General Lee decided his army was too weak to keep protecting the Confederate capital of Richmond. Retreating Confederate soldiers burned military buildings to keep advancing Union soldiers from using those resources. The fires got out of control, and a large part of the city burned down.

In April 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant sent the following note to General Robert E. Lee. The last part of the note has been removed.

The result of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood, by asking of you . . .

effusion: loss

Soon after the surrender at Appomattox, a group of Confederate supporters, including an actor named John Wilkes Booth, planned to kill the leaders of the Union government. This group hoped that killing Union leaders would save the Confederacy.

The assassination of President Lincoln

On April 14th, 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln while the president was watching a play at Ford's Theater. A few hours later, President Lincoln died.

Booth's plan to kill other federal officials failed. Another member of Booth's group stabbed Secretary of State William Seward several times, but Seward survived. The planned attack on Vice President Andrew Johnson never happened.

Who became president after Lincoln was killed?

Vice President Andrew Johnson became president. Johnson was a Southerner from Tennessee. Lincoln had chosen Johnson as his vice president in hopes of unifying the country.

Andrew Johnson did not like the power of slaveholders in the Southern states, but he also had strong prejudices against African American people. Republicans and African American leaders worried that Johnson would oppose measures to help formerly enslaved people.

Historians use a variety of historical sources to learn about the aftermath, or consequences, of the American Civil War.

What did enslaved people do after the war?

Enslaved people celebrated the news of emancipation.

Some formerly enslaved people left their plantations. Many tried to find family members who were sold away in the past.

However, most freed people continued to work on plantations. They did not own any land, so they often had to work for the same families who had owned them during slavery.

Historians disagree about how many people died in the Civil War. Some estimate that around 620,000 people died. Others think the number is closer to 750,000, or even higher.

America's bloodiest war

Even by the lowest estimates, the Civil War was by far the bloodiest war in United States history. Since it was a civil war, Americans fought and died on both sides.

So many soldiers died in the war that many new memorial sites and cemeteries had to be established. In 1864, the Union government established Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C.

The passage below comes from an April 1865 diary entry by Joseph Addison Waddell. Waddell was a Southern civilian during the war.

I have not a cent of money, and no prospect of getting any. Can't buy anything to eat or to wear. Confederate notes are of course, entirely worthless. . . . Soldiers have been taking off [with] horses and cattle.

notes: dollars

What did the Confederate economy look like after the war?

The economy collapsed. Almost all of the Civil War battles were fought in the South. Armies marched through and took supplies that were useful. They often burned everything else.

Most Southern railroads were destroyed. Almost half of Southerners' livestock had been killed, including valuable animals such as pigs and cows.

After the war, Americans wondered how to rebuild the South.

The 1865 cartoon below shows two wounded veterans: one white Confederate veteran and one African American Union veteran.

What happened to African American veterans after the war ended?

Over 180,000 African American men served in the Union army during the Civil War. Most of those soldiers were formerly enslaved people. Many African American veterans returned to the Southern states, often to find family members.

African American veterans often faced prejudice after the Civil War, including from Confederate veterans who wished African American people had remained in slavery. Still, African American veterans celebrated their service to the Union by marching in parades and forming social clubs. These veterans argued that freed people deserved to have their rights protected by the country they had fought for.

The historical period after the Civil War is known as Reconstruction. During the period, Americans worked to reconstruct the country.

What happened to freed people during Reconstruction?

There were both successes and defeats for formerly enslaved people after the Civil War. A series of laws were passed to protect the rights of freed people. The Fourteenth Amendment said that freed people were citizens and had rights that could not be violated, while the Fifteenth Amendment gave African American men the right to vote.

However, groups of white Southerners such as the Ku Klux Klan tried to take away those rights. These groups attacked and killed many African American people. Eventually, Southern state governments succeeded in taking away many of the rights of African American people.

Still, the experiences of the Civil War and Reconstruction helped inspire a future generation of activists during the civil rights movement of the 20th century.

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