Complete Idiot’s Guide to American History

by Alan Axelrod

  Back in Virginia, the Seven Days saw the placement of Robert E. Lee at the head of the South’s major army, which he renamed the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee led his forces in a brilliant offensive against the always-cautious McClellan, launching daring attacks at Mechanicsville, Gaines Mill, Savage’s Station, Frayser’s Farm, and Malvern Hill. In fact, Lee lost twice as many men as his adversary, but he won a profound psychological victory. McClellan backed down the peninsula all the way to the James River.

  Back to Bull Run

  Appalled and heartbroken by McClellan’s repeated failure to seize the initiative, Lincoln desperately cast about for a general to replace him. On July 11, Lincoln appointed Henry W. Halleck. It was not a good choice. Halleck dispatched a regrouped army into Virginia under John Pope, but Lee met him with more than half the Army of Northern Virginia. At Cedar Mountain on August 9, “Stonewall” Jackson drove Pope back toward Manassas junction, then Lee sent the “Stonewall Brigade” to flank Pope and outmarch him to Manassas. After destroying the Union supply depot, Jackson took a position near the old Bull Rijn battlefield. Pope lumbered into position to attack Jackson on August 29, just as Lee sent a wing of his army, under James Longstreet, against Pope’s left on August 30.

  The action was devastating. Pope reeled back across the Potomac. At this point, the “invading” Union army had been effectively swept out of Virginia, and the Confederates went on the offensive. For the North, it was the low point of the war.

  Perryville and Antietam

  Lee was a keen student of Napoleon Bonaparte’s strategy and tactics, the key to which was the principle of always acting from boldness. Thus Lee boldly conceived a double offensive: in the West, an invasion of Kentucky; in the East, an invasion of Maryland. Neither of these so-called “border states” had seceded, yet both were slave states, and capturing them would significantly expand the Confederacy. Moreover, if Louisville, Kentucky, fell to the Confederates, Indiana and Ohio would be open to invasion, and control of the Great Lakes might pass to the rebels. For the Union, the war could be lost.

  But things didn’t happen this way. Confederate general Braxton Bragg delayed, lost the initiative, and was defeated at Perryville, Kentucky, on October 8, 1862. In Maryland, Lee’s invasion went well—until a copy of his orders detailing troop placement fell into the hands of George McClellan (restored to command of the Army of the Potomac after Halleck’s disastrous performance at Second Bull Run). The Union general was able to mass 70,000 troops in front of Lee at Sharpsburg, Maryland, along Antietam Creek. On September 17, in the bloodiest day of fighting up to that time, McClellan drove Lee back to Virginia. Indeed, only the belated, last-minute arrival of a division under A.P. Hill saved Lee’s forces from total annihilation.

  Emancipation Proclaimed—More or Less

  Antietam was not the turning point of the war, but it was nevertheless a momentous battle. It provided the platform from which Abraham Lincoln issued the so-called “preliminary” Emancipation Proclamation.

  The fact is that Lincoln was no enthusiastic advocate of emancipation. To be sure, he personally hated slavery, but as president, he was sworn to uphold the Constitution, which clearly protected slavery in the slave states. More immediately, Lincoln feared that universally declaring the slaves free would propel the four slaveholding border states into the Confederate fold. For many Northerners, the moral basis of the Civil War was the issue of emancipation. But Lincoln moved cautiously.

  In August 1861, Lincoln prevailed on Congress to declare slaves in the rebellious states “contraband” property. As such, slaves could be seized by the federal government, which could then refuse to return them. In March 1862, Congress passed a law forbidding army officers from returning fugitive slaves. In July 1862, Congress passed legislation freeing slaves confiscated from owners “engaged in rebellion.” In addition, a militia act authorized the president to use freed slaves in the army. With these acts, Lincoln’s government edged closer to emancipation.

  Secretary of State William H. Seward warned that a proclamation of emancipation would ring hollow down the depressingly long corridor of Union defeats. It was not until Antietam, a Union victory—albeit a costly one—that Lincoln felt confident in issuing the preliminary proclamation on September 23, 1862. This document did not free the slaves, but rather, warned slave owners living in states “still in rebellion on January 1, 1863” that their slaves would be declared “forever free.” When that deadline came and passed, Lincoln issued the “final” Emancipation Proclamation-which set free only those slaves in areas of the Confederacy that were not under the control of the Union army (areas under Union control were no longer, technically, in rebellion); slaves in the border states were not liberated.

  Timid, even disappointing as the Emancipation Proclamation may seem from our perspective, it served to galvanize the North by explicitly and officially elevating the war to a higher moral plane: slavery was now the central issue of the great Civil War.

  The Least You Need to Know

  The Confederacy attempted to negotiate independence from the Union before commencing hostilities by firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor.

  Plagued by cautious or inept commanders, the Union Army performed poorly in the first months of the war.

  The Emancipation Proclamation was a fairly timid document, which reflected Lincoln’s first priority: to preserve the Union, not necessarily to free the slaves.

  Stats

  The popular vote was much closer than the electoral vote was much closer than the electoral vote. Lincoln received only 1,866,452 votes against 2,815,617 votes for his combined opponents.

  Stats

  The population of the of the South in 1861 was about 9 million people, including 3 million slaves (who were not military assets). The North had 22 million people.

  Real Life

  Rose O’Neal Greenhow was born in Port Tobacco, Maryland, in 1817, and moved to Washington, D.C., where, from early womanhood, she cast a powerful spell on men. She married a State Department official, through whom she met a circle of highly influential Washingtonians, including James Buchanan. Widowed in 1854, Greenhow became particularly intimate with the bachelor president. Although this relationship was probably platonic, Greenhow had many others that were anything but. Among her “gentleman callers” was a host of military and government officials, perhaps including a U.S. Senator.

  Greenhow was a highly intelligent woman who had nursed John C. Calhoun through his final illness when he was a resident at her aunt’s fashionable Capitol Hill boardinghouse. She imbibed Calhoun’s states’ rights theories and became a passionate partisan of the South. When the Civil War broke out, Greenhow was recruited by Confederate spy master Thomas Jordan to obtain Union military secrets. Using her many charms, she procured information that proved highly valuable to the Confederacy at First Bull Run.

  Arrested on August 23, 1861, by Alan J. Pinkerton, the man who virtually invented the profession of private detective, Greenhow was later paroled to the South, and on August 5, 1863, sailed to Europe on a mission to revive French and British support for the Confederate cause. There she met Napoleon III and Queen Victoria, and she published a best-selling memoir.

  Rose O’Neal Greenhow drowned in 1864 when the blockade-runner on which she was returning from abroad ran aground off Wilmington, North Carolina.

  Real Life

  No military figure in American history is more universally admired than Robert E. Lee, who not only served the Confederate cause as a brilliant commander but, in defeat, became an enduring example of courage and dignity.

  Lee was born on January 19, 1807, in Westmoreland County, Virginia, the son of Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, a fine cavalry officer during the American Revolution. Appointed to West Point in 1825, Robert E. Lee graduated at the top of his class in 1829 and, two years later, married Mary Ann Randolph Custis, great-granddaughter of Martha Washington by her first marriage. Lee served as an engineering officer under General Winfield
Scott during the Mexican War (1846-48) and, from 1852-1855, was superintendent of West Point. In 1859, Lee led the force that suppressed John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry.

  Robert E. Lee was anything but a Southern “fire-eater.” He deplored the extrimism—on both sides—that led to the Civil War. But Lee felt intense loyalty to Virginia, and when war came, he declined an offer to command the Union army, resigned his commission, and offered his services to Virginia.

  Lee repeatedly took the offensive against the North-and repeatedly attained victory against superior forces, achieving his greatest triumph at extremes (May 1863). But as the South ran short of men and money, the tide turned in favor of the North. Falling back into Virginia, Lee continued to wage war brilliantly. Finally trapped at Appomattox Court House, he surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, in what is considered the symbolic end of the Civil War.

  After the war, Lee became president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia. He died on October 12, 1870, a universally admired figure.

  Stats

  Although Antietam was a Union victory, McClellan lost more troops than Lee: 12,000 troops versus 10,000.

  Bloody Road to Appomattox and beyond

  (1863-1876)

  In This Chapter

  Gettysburg and Vicksburg: turning point of the war

  Lincoln’s ultimate commander: U.S. Grant

  “Total war”: Sherman’s March to the Sea

  The assassination of Lincoln

  Reconstruction and bitterness in the South

  Andrew Johnson’s impeachment; election of Rutherford B. Hayes

  No face in American history is more familiar, better loved, or more terrible than that of Abraham Lincoln. Fortunately for us, famed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady was there to photograph it. In the 16th president’s face, we see his character: the hard life of the backwoods, an infinite gentleness, an infinite sorrow. Lincoln’s burden is unimaginable; he had a mission to save the Union, even if doing so cost more than half a million lives.

  Through the long, terrible summer of 1862, the president despaired. Lincoln was no military man, but he had a sound and simple grasp of strategy, and he saw that Generals Don Carlos Buell and George B. McClellan failed to press their gains toward decisive victories. Frustrated, Lincoln removed Buell from command of the Army of the Ohio and replaced him with William S. Rosecrans in late October 1862. The next month, be put Ambrose E. Burnside in McClellan’s place as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Rosecrans scored a very costly victory at Murfreesboro, Tennessee (December 31, 1862-January 3, 1863), forcing Braxton Bragg out of Tennessee, but Burnside suffered a terrible defeat at Fredericksburg, Virginia. He tried to regain the initiative for the Union forces by renewing a drive on Richmond, but faltered at the Rappahannock River and was checked by Lee’s army. On December 13, Burnside hurled a series of assaults against the Confederate trenches. He not only failed to penetrate the Confederate lines but lost more than 12,000 men in the process.

  A month after Fredericksburg, Lincoln replaced Burnside with “Fighting Joe” Hooker, who led the Army of the Potomac at Chancellorsville (May 1-3, 1863) in the wilderness of northern Virginia, again aiming to take Richmond. Hooker was defeated—brilliantly—by Stonewall Jackson (who, however, lost his life in the battle, accidentally shot by one of his own troops). Lincoln replaced Hooker with George Gordon Meade on June 29, 1863—just two days before Union and Confederate forces would clash at an obscure Pennsylvania hamlet called Gettysburg.

  Four Score and Seven

  Anxious to move the war into Union territory, Lee invaded Pennsylvania with an army of about 75,000. He did not aim to do battle with the forces of the North in the vicinity of Gettysburg, a village distinguished only in that it was positioned at important crossroads, but the fact is that Lieutenant General A.P. Hill’s corps of Confederates needed shoes. Short of manufacturing capability, the South always had a difficult time keeping its soldiers shod. On June 30, while marching toward Gettysburg in search of shoes, Hill was engaged by cavalry under Union Brigadier General John Buford. The battle began in earnest on the next day, July 1.

  The encounter did not go well for the Union. Hill’s troops killed Major General John F. Reynolds, commander of the Union I Corps, almost as soon as he came onto the field. Despite shock and confusion, his troops held their ground until reinforcements arrived. But in the afternoon, Hill and Lieutenant General R.S. Ewell joined forces in an attack that routed the Federals through the town of Gettysburg. The forces regrouped and rallied on Cemetery Ridge, where they were joined by fresh troops from the south and east. The Confederates arrayed their forces in an encircling position, encompassing Seminary Ridge, parallel to Cemetery Ridge.

  Thus the field was set for the second day. Robert E. Lee attacked on July 2 but was unable to achieve a double envelopment of the Union forces—though he did inflict heavy casualties. On July 3, still holding the initiative, Lee committed what was for him a rare tactical error. Believing that a victory here and now, at Gettysburg, in Northern territory, might turn the war decisively in favor of the Confederacy, he ordered a direct attack—across open country—on the Union’s center.

  Fifteen thousand Confederate troops advanced against the Union position on Cemetery Ridge. Exploiting the advantages of high ground, the Union pounded the advancing rebels with heavy artillery and musket fire. Major General George Pickett’s division pressed the attack up to the Ridge. The division was decimated: two brigadiers fell, the third was severely wounded, and all 15 of Pickett’s regimental commanders were killed or wounded. Briefly, 1 SO men from the division, led by Brigadier General Lewis Armistead (who perished in the effort), raised the Confederate banner above Cemetery Ridge—only to be cut down or captured. In the end, “Pickett’s Charge,” perhaps the single most famous military action in American history, resulted in the death or wounding of 10,000 of the 15,000 men in Pickett’s division.

  Watching the survivors return from the failed assault that third awful day, Lee said to a subordinate: “it is all my fault.” Hoping, in effect, to win the war at Gettysburg, Lee had suffered a terrible defeat. Although the losses on both sides were staggering, they were hardest on the Confederates. One very simple fact was at the base of this very complex war: The North, with more men as well as more hardware than the South, could lose more of both and still go on fighting. Lee was right. The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point-but it did not turn the war in his favor. From here to the end, despite more Union defeats to come, it became increasingly clear that the North would ultimately prevail.

  Vicksburg and Chattanooga

  Northern attention focused most sharply on Gettysburg as the battle that foiled the Confederate invasion of the North. However, while that battle was being fought, Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant were bringing to a conclusion a long and frustrating campaign against Vicksburg, Mississippi, the Confederacy’s seemingly impregnable stronghold on the Mississippi River. The prize here was not just a fortress, but control of the great river. Once the South lost the Mississippi, the Confederacy was split in two, the western states unable to communicate with the East or to supply reinforcements to it. Grant had campaigned—in vain—against Vicksburg during the fall and winter of 1862-63, finally taking it on July 4, 1863.

  Grant next turned his attention to Chattanooga, which occupied a critical position in a bend of the great Tennessee River. Union forces under William S. Rosecrans had ousted Braxton Bragg from Chattanooga in early September 1863, but, reinforced, Bragg returned to engage Rosecrans at the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19-20. Bragg fielded 66,001) men against Rosecrans’s 58,000. By the second day of this bloody struggle along Chickamauga Creek in northwestern Georgia, the Confederates had driven much of the Union army from the field in disarray.

  Complete disaster was averted by General George H. Thomas, in command of the Union left flank. Moreover, Bragg failed to press his advantage, laying incom
plete siege around Chattanooga while also detaching troops to attack Knoxville. By failing to act with greater focus, Bragg allowed Grant sufficient time to arrive, on October 23, and reinforce the Army of the Cumberland (now under Thomas’s command). Sixty thousand Union troops now faced Bragg’s reduced forces—about 40,000 men—in two battles set in the rugged terrain overlooking Chattanooga. The Battle of Lookout Mountain (November 24) was called the “Battle Above the Clouds,” because it was fought at an elevation of 1,100 feet above the Tennessee River—and above a dense line of fog. The Battle of Missionary Ridge followed (November 25). In these two engagements, Thomas and Grant decisively defeated Bragg, with the result that Tennessee and the Tennessee River fell into Union hands.