Civil War Summary

While the Confederate forces had some success in the Eastern theater holding on to their capital, fortune did not smile upon them in the West. Confederate forces were driven from Missouri early in the war, holding that key strategic state for the Union.

Nashville, Tennessee fell to the Union early in 1862. The Mississippi was opened, at least to Vicksburg, with the taking of Island No. 10 and New Madrid, Missouri and then Memphis, Tennessee. New Orleans was captured in January, 1862, allowing the Union forces to begin moving up the Mississippi as well.

The Union's key strategist and tactician was Ulysses S. Grant, who won victories at Fort Donelson, Battle of Shiloh, Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee. Grant understood the concept of total war and realized, along with Lincoln, that only the utter defeat of Confederate forces would bring an end to the war. At the beginning of 1864, Grant was given command of all Union armies.

He chose to make his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac although Meade remained the actual commander of that army. Union forces in the East attempted to manuver past Lee and fought several battles during that phase of the Eastern campaign: the Battle of the Wilderness, the Spotsylvania, and the Cold Harbor.

An attempt to outflank Lee from the South failed under Generals Butlet and Smith, who were 'corked' into the Bermuda Hundred river bend. Grant was tenacious and kept pressing the Army of Northern Virginia under the command of Robert E. Lee.

He extended the Confederate army, pinning it down in the Siege of Petersburg and, after two failed attempts (under Siegel and Hunter), finally found a commander Phillip Sheridan who could clear the threat to Washington DC from teh Shenandoah Valley.

Meanwhile, General William Tecumseh Sherman marched from Chattanoga on Atlanta and laid waste to much of the rest of Georgia after he left Atlanta and marched to the sea at Savannnah. When Sherman turned North through South and North Carolina to approach the Virginia lines from the South, it was the end for Lee and his men, and with them, for the Confederacy.

The Northern states (the Union) had won. Advantages widely believed to have contributed to the Union's success include:

• The North's strong, industrial economy

• The North's larger population

• The North's possession of the U.S. merchant marine fleet and naval ships

• The North's established government

• The North's moral cause (the Emancipation Proclamation) given to the war by Abraham Lincoln mid-way during the war and encouraged international support.

The war ended in 1865. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on 9 April 1865 at Appomattox Court house. Joseph E. Johnston, who was commanded Confederate forces in North Carolina, surrendered his troops to Sherman shortly thereafter.

The Battle of Palmito Ranch, fought on May 13, 1865 in the far south of Texas was the last land battle of the war and ended with a Confederate victory. All Confederate land forces had surrendered by June 1865. Confederate naval units surrendered as late as November of 1865.

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