On July 21, 1861—a hot, sultry Sunday perfect for family outings—hundreds of people from Washington, D.C., picnicked along Bull Run near Manassas Junction, Virginia.  They had gathered to watch the first battle between the Union and Confederate forces.

“The spectators were all excited,” wrote one reporter, “and a lady with an opera glass who was near me was quite beside herself when an unusually heavy discharge roused the current of her blood:  ‘That is splendid!  Oh, my!  Is not that first-rate?’”

The spectators who came to Bull Run expected a short, exciting fight and a quick surrender by the rebel troops.  Unexpectedly, the Confederates routed the Union army.  A reporter with the Boston Journal, Charles Coffin, described the chaos:

“Men fall. ...  They are bleeding, torn, and mangled. ...  The trees are splintered, crushed, and broken, as if smitten by thunderbolts. ...  There is smoke, dust, wild talking, shouting; hissings, howlings, explosions.  It is a new, strange, unanticipated experience to the soldiers of both armies, far different from what they thought it would be.”

In the first months of the Civil War, President Lincoln was under great pressure to strike quickly against the South.  Confederate troops, led by General P.G.T.  Beauregard, were gathering 25 miles (40 km) south of Washington, D.C., near Manassas Junction, an important railroad center in northern Virginia.  Lincoln approved an assault on these forces, hoping that a Union victory would lead to a quick end to the conflict.

At first, the attack went well for the Union.  Its forces slowly pushed the Confederates back from their positions behind a stream called Bull Run.  During the fighting, Southern reinforcements from Virginia, led by Thomas J.  Jackson moved into the line.  As Confederate troops retreated past Jackson, their commander yelled: “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians!”

Afterward, Jackson became known as “Stonewall” Jackson, and he went on to become one of the most effective commanders in the Confederate army.  As Confederate reinforcements arrived, Union commander General Irwin McDowell decided to fall back.  The retreat quickly turned into a panic, although the exhausted Confederate troops did not pursue the Union forces very far.

The Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run made it clear that the North would need a large, well-trained army to defeat the South.  Lincoln had originally called for 75,000 men to serve for three months.  The day after Bull Run, he signed another bill for the enlistment of 500,000 men for three years.

At first, excitement about the war inspired many Northern and Southern men to enlist, swamping recruitment offices and training camps.  As the war dragged on and casualties rose, however, fewer young men volunteered, forcing both governments to resort to conscription.  The South introduced conscription in April 1862 for all white men between the ages of 18 and 35.  Exemptions were provided for key government workers, for teachers, and for planters who held at least 20 enslaved African Americans.

The North at first tried to encourage voluntary enlistment by offering a bounty—a sum of money given as a bonus—to individuals who promised three years of military service.  Congress also passed the Militia Act in July 
1862, giving Lincoln the authority to call state militias, which included drafted troops, into federal service.  Finally, in 1863, Congress introduced a national draft to raise the necessary troops.
 

. Same Battles, Different Names Many Civil War battles have two names. The Union usually named battles after the nearest body of water, while the Confederacy usually named them after the nearest settlement. Therefore, the battle known as the Battle of Bull Run (a creek) in the North was known as the Battle of Manassas (a town) in the South. Likewise, the Battle of Antietam was remembered in the South as the Battle of Sharpsburg. .

Summarizing
What was the significance of the First Battle of Bull Run?

The Naval War

While the Union and Confederacy mobilized their armies, the Union navy began operations against the South.  In April 1861, President Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of all Confederate ports.  By the spring of 1862, the Union navy had sealed off every major Southern harbor along the Atlantic coast, except for Charleston, South Carolina and Wilmington, North Carolina.  Lincoln intended to put as much pressure on the South’s economy as possible by cutting its trade with the world.

The Blockade

Although the Union blockade became increasingly effective as the war dragged on, Union vessels were thinly spread and found it difficult to stop all of the blockade runners—small, fast vessels the South used to smuggle goods past the blockade, usually under cover of night.  By using blockade runners, the South could ship at least some of its cotton to Europe in exchange for shoes, rifles, and other supplies.  The amount of material that made it through the blockade, however, was much less than the amount that had been shipped before the war.

At the same time, Confederate ships operating out of foreign ports attacked Northern merchant ships at sea.  Two of the most famous Confederate raiders were the warships Alabama and Florida, both of which the Confederacy had built in Britain.  The Alabama captured 64 ships before a Union warship sank it off the coast of France in 1864.  The Florida destroyed 38 merchant ships before being captured at a harbor in Brazil.

The damage done by these two ships strained relations between the United States and Great Britain.  Union officials did not think Great Britain should have allowed the ships to be built, and they demanded Britain pay damages for the losses the Union suffered.

Farragut Captures New Orleans

While the Union navy fought to seal off the Confederacy’s Atlantic ports, it also began preparations to seize New Orleans and gain control of the lower Mississippi River.  In February 1862, David G.  Farragut took command of a Union force composed of 42 warships and 15,000 soldiers led by General Benjamin Butler.

At the time, Farragut was 60 years old.  He had gone to sea at age 9 and was a veteran of the War of 1812 and the war with Mexico.  His father had moved to the United States from Spain in 1776 and had fought in the Revolutionary War and served as governor of the Mississippi Territory.  Although born in the South, Farragut was a staunch supporter of the Union.

Farragut’s actions at the battle for New Orleans made him a hero in the North.  In early April, his fleet began bombarding Confederate forts defending the lower Mississippi River.  When the attack failed to destroy the forts, Farragut made a daring decision.  At 2:00 A.M.  on April 24, 1862, his ships headed upriver past the forts in single file, exposing themselves to attack.  The forts opened fire with more than 80 guns, while Confederate gunboats tried to ram the fleet and tugboats placed flaming rafts in front of the Union ships.  Remarkably, all but four of Farragut’s ships survived the battle and continued upriver.

On April 25, 1862, Farragut arrived at New Orleans.  Six days later, General Butler’s troops took control of the city.  The South’s largest city, and a center of the cotton trade, was now in Union hands.

Ironclads Clash at Sea, March 9, 1862

Southerners hoped to break the Union blockade with a secret weapon—an iron-plated ship built by covering the hull of the wooden ship Merrimack, a captured Union warship, with iron.  The armored vessel, renamed the Virginia, could easily withstand Union cannon fire.

On March 8, 1862, the Virginia sank two Union ships guarding the James River at Hampton Roads, Virginia.  On the worst day of the war for the Union navy, 240 sailors died.  The next day, the Union’s own ironclad ship, the newly completed Monitor, challenged the Virginia.

The two ships fought for hours, but neither could deliver a decisive blow.  Although the vessels never fought again, the Monitor’s presence kept the Virginia from breaking the Northern blockade.

Young boys known as “powder monkeys” often carried the explosive charges on Union naval vessels.

Explaining
How did the Confederates try to break the Union blockade?
 

The War in the West

In February 1862, as Farragut prepared for his attack on New Orleans, Union general Ulysses S. Grant began a campaign to seize control of two rivers: the Cumberland River, which flowed west past Nashville through Tennessee, and the Tennessee River, which flowed through northern Alabama and western Tennessee.  Control of these rivers would cut Tennessee in two and provide the Union with a river route deep into Confederate territory.

Backed by armored gunboats, Grant first seized Fort Henry, the Confederacy’s main fort on the Tennessee River.  He then marched his troops east and surrounded Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River.  With the fall of Fort Donelson and Fort Henry, all of Kentucky and most of western Tennessee came under Union military control.

Shiloh

After Grant’s victories at Fort Donelson and Fort Henry, his troops headed up the Tennessee River to attack Corinth, Mississippi.  Seizing Corinth would cut the Confederacy’s only rail line connecting Mississippi and western Tennessee to the east.

Early on April 6, 1862, Confederate forces launched a surprise attack on Grant’s troops, who were camped about 20 miles (32 km) north of Corinth near a small church named Shiloh.  Hearing the attack, Grant raced from his headquarters to the battle.  Although the Union troops were forced back, Grant rushed around the battlefield and managed to assemble a defensive line that held off repeated Southern attacks.

When the first day of the battle ended, several of Grant’s commanders advised him to retreat.

Knowing reinforcements were on the way, Grant replied: “Retreat? No.  I propose to attack at daylight and whip them.” Grant went on the offensive the next morning, surprising the Confederates and forcing General Beauregard, their commander, to order a retreat.  The Battle of Shiloh stunned people in both the North and the South.  Twenty thousand troops had beenkilled or wounded, more than in any other battle up to that point.  When newspapers demanded Grant be fired because of the high casualties, Lincoln refused, saying, “I can’t spare this man; he fights.”

Murfreesboro

Grant’s victory at Shiloh cheered Lincoln, but it was clear that the fighting was not over.  Confederate troops evacuated Corinth and quickly shifted east by railroad to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where they were placed under the command of General Braxton Bragg.

Bragg took his troops north into Kentucky, hoping the Union armies would follow.  He also hoped that his invasion of Kentucky would lead to an uprising of pro-Confederate supporters in the state.  Bragg’s invasion failed.  Union troops led by General Don Carlos Buell stopped Bragg’s forces at the battle of Perryville.

After Bragg retreated, General Buell was ordered to seize Chattanooga and cut the railroad lines that passed through the city.  Lincoln knew that eastern Tennessee was home to many Union sympathizers, and he wanted the region under Union control.  He also 
knew that by cutting the region’s rail lines, he would deprive the Confederacy of “hogs and hominy”—vital supplies of meat and corn that the South needed.  Buell’s slow advance across Tennessee frustrated Lincoln, who fired him and replaced him with General William S.  Rosecrans.

As Rosecrans’s forces headed south, Bragg’s forces attacked them west of the Stones River near Murfreesboro.  Although the Union lines fell back before the onslaught, they did not break, and the battle ended inconclusively.  Four days later, with Union reinforcements arriving from Nashville, Bragg decided to retreat.
 

. Federico Cavada 1832–1871 The Civil War introduced many innovations in warfare.  One of the most striking was the use of hot-air balloons for intelligence work. Cuban-born Federico Cavada was one of the Union soldiers sent aloft to sketch enemy positions.  Cavada had enlisted in 1861 and served during the Peninsula campaign.  It was during this campaign that his “balloon artistry” came in handy. Cavada was captured at the Battle of Gettysburg and then imprisoned at Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia.  He wrote sketches, with illustrations, of prison life on any scraps of paper he could find.  He hid these in his shoes and socks and got fellow prisoners to do the same.  Later he wrote up an account and published it as “Libby Life.” After the war, he returned to Cuba as U.S. consul.  Cavada was executed by a firing squad in July 1871 while supporting revolutionaries hoping to win Cuban independence. .

Evaluating
What was the significance of the Battle of Shiloh?

The War in the East

While Union and Confederate troops were struggling for control of Tennessee and the Mississippi River, another major campaign was being waged in the east to capture Richmond, Virginia.  After General McDowell’s failure at the First Battle of Bull Run, President Lincoln ordered General George B.  McClellan to lead the Union army in the east.

McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign

After taking several months to prepare his forces, McClellan began transporting his troops by ship to the mouth of the James River, southeast of Yorktown, Virginia.  From there he intended to march up the peninsula formed by the James and York Rivers toward Richmond, only 70 miles (113 km) away.

Although popular with the troops, McClellan proved overly cautious and unwilling to attack unless he had overwhelming strength.  He took 30 
days to capture Yorktown, giving the Confederates time to move their troops into position near Richmond.

As McClellan advanced toward Richmond, he made another mistake.  He allowed his forces to become divided by the Chickahominy River.  Seizing this opportunity, the Confederate commander, General Joseph E.  Johnston, attacked McClellan’s army, inflicting heavy casualties.  After Johnston was wounded in the battle, General Robert E.  Lee was placed in command.

In late June of 1862, Lee began a series of attacks on McClellan’s army that became known collectively as the Seven Days’ Battle.

Although Lee was unable to decisively defeat the Union army, he inflicted heavy casualties and forced McClellan to retreat to the James River.  Together the two sides suffered over 30,000 casualties.  Despite McClellan’s protests, Lincoln ordered him to withdraw from the peninsula and bring his troops back to Washington.

The Second Battle of Bull Run

As McClellan’s troops withdrew, Lee decided to attack the Union forces defending Washington.  The maneuvers by the two sides led to another battle at Bull Run, near Manassas Junction—the site of the first major battle of the war.  Again, the South forced the North to retreat, leaving the Confederate forces only 20 miles (32 km) from Washington.  Soon after, word arrived that Lee’s forces had crossed into Maryland and begun an invasion of the North.

TURNING POINT
The Battle of Antietam

Lee decided to invade Maryland for several reasons.  Both he and Jefferson Davis believed that only an invasion would convince the North to accept the South’s independence.  They also thought that a victory on Northern soil might help the South win recognition from the British and help the Peace Democrats gain control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections.

By heading north, Lee could also feed his troops from Northern farms and draw Union troops out of Virginia during harvest season.  When he learned that McClellan had been sent after him, Lee ordered his troops to congregate near Sharpsburg, Maryland.  Meanwhile, McClellan’s troops took positions along Antietam (an·TEE·tuhm) Creek, east of Lee.  On September 17, 1862, McClellan ordered his troops to attack.

The Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest one-day battle in the war and in American history, ended with over 6,000 men killed and another 16,000 wounded.  Although McClellan did not break Lee’s lines, he inflicted so many casualties that Lee decided to retreat to Virginia.

The Battle of Antietam was a crucial victory for the Union.  The British government had been ready to intervene in the war as a mediator if Lee’s invasion had succeeded.  It had also begun making plans to recognize the Confederacy in the event the North rejected mediation.  Lee’s defeat at Antietam changed everything.  The British decided once again to wait and see how the war progressed, and with this decision the South lost its best chance at gaining international recognition and support.  The South’s defeat at Antietam had an even greater political impact in the United States.  It convinced Lincoln that the time had come to end slavery in the South.

Explaining
Why did President Lincoln choose General George B. McClellan after the Union’s failure at the First Battle of Bull Run?
 

The Emancipation Proclamation

Although most Democrats opposed any move to end slavery, Republicans were divided on the issue.  Many Republicans were strong abolitionists, but others, like Lincoln, did not want to endanger the loyalty of the slaveholding border states that had chosen to remain in the Union.  The war’s primary purpose, in their opinion, was to save the Union.

With Northern casualties rising to staggering levels, however, many Northerners began to agree that slavery had to end, in part to punish the South and in part to make the soldiers’ sacrifices worthwhile.  George Julian, a Republican from Indiana, summed up the argument for freeing the slaves in an important speech delivered early in 1862:

“When I say that this rebellion has its source and life in slavery, I only repeat a simple truism....  The mere suppression of the rebellion will be an empty mockery of our sufferings and sacrifices, if slavery shall be spared to canker the heart of the nation anew, and repeat its diabolical misdeeds.”

On September 22, 1862, encouraged by the Union victory at Antietam, Lincoln publicly announced that he would issue the Emancipation Proclamation—a decree freeing all enslaved persons in states still in rebellion after January 1, 1863.  Because the Proclamation freed enslaved African Americans only in states at war with the Union, it did not address slavery in the border states.  Short of a constitutional amendment, however, Lincoln could not end slavery in the border states, nor did he want to endanger their loyalty.
 

The Emancipation Proclamation By the President of the United States of America: A Proclamation. Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit: "That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. "That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States." Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit: Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued. And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh. By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. .

The Proclamation, by its very existence, transformed the conflict over preserving the Union into a war of liberation.  “We shout for joy that we live to record this righteous decree,” exulted Frederick Douglass.  Abolitionists rejoiced at the president’s announcement, and they looked forward to new energy among Union forces.  “We were no longer merely the soldiers of a political controversy,” recalled Union officer Regis de Trobiand.  “We were now the missionaries of a great work of redemption, the armed liberators of millions.”

Examining
Why did Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation?