War & Conquest

WAR & CONQUEST THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 1861-1865 1 V1 WAR & CONQUEST THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 1861-1865 CONTENT HISTORICAL BACKGROUND SPECIAL RULES SONDERREGELN FIELD ARTILLERY DEPLOYMENT Belligerents Commanders ARMY LISTS Union 1861 East Confederate 1861 East Union 1862 East Confederate 1862 East Union 1862 West Confederate 1862 West Union 1863-1865 West Confederate 1863-1865 West Union 1863-1865 East Confederate 1863- 1865 East BATTLES ORDERS OF BATTLE MISCELLANEOUS Community Manufacturers Thanks Books 2 V1 WAR & CONQUEST THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 1861-1865 3 V1 WAR & CONQUEST THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 1861-1865 4 V1 WAR & CONQUEST THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 1861-1865 developed by Sherman in Georgia, and of trench warfare around HISTORICAL OVERVIEW Petersburg foreshadowed World War I in Europe. It remains the deadliest war in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilian casualties. According to John Huddleston, "Ten percent of all Northern males 20–45 years of age died, as did 30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18–40."4 Victory for the North meant the end of the Confederacy and of slavery in the United States, and strengthened the role of the federal government. The social, political, economic and racial issues of the war decisively shaped the reconstruction era that lasted to 1877. Sourc: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War EASTERN THEATER The American Civil War (1861–1865) was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America, also known as "the Confederacy". Led by Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy fought for its independence from the United States. The U.S. federal government was supported by twenty mostly-Northern free states in which slavery already had been abolished, and by five slave states that became known as the border states. These twenty-five states, referred to as the Union, had a much larger base of population and industry than the South. After four years of bloody, devastating warfare (mostly within the Southern states), the Confederacy surrendered and slavery was outlawed everywhere in the nation. The restoration of the Union, and the Reconstruction Era that followed, dealt with issues that remained unresolved for generations. In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against the expansion of slavery beyond the states in which it already existed. The Republicans were strong advocates of nationalism and in their President Lincoln visiting the Army of the Potomac at the 1860 platform explicitly denounced threats of disunion as Antietam battlefield, September 1862. Photo by Alexander avowals of treason. After a Republican victory, but before the Gardner. new administration took office on March 4, 1861, seven cotton states declared their secession and joined together to form the Theater of operations Confederate States of America. Both the outgoing administration The Eastern Theater included the states of Virginia, West of President James Buchanan and the incoming administration Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, rejected the legality of secession, considering it rebellion. The and the coastal fortifications and seaports of North Carolina. other eight slave states rejected calls for secession at this point. (Operations in the interior of the Carolinas in 1865 are No country in the world recognized the Confederacy. considered part of the Western Theater.) Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces The Eastern Theater included the campaigns that are generally attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South most famous in the history of the war, if not for their strategic Carolina. Lincoln responded by calling for a volunteer army significance, but for their proximity to the large population from each state to recapture federal property. This led to centers, the major newspapers, and the capital cities of the declarations of secession by four more slave states. Both sides opposing parties. The imaginations of both Northerners and raised armies as the Union seized control of the border states Southerners were captured by the epic struggles between the early in the war and established a naval blockade that virtually Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, under Robert E. Lee, ended cotton sales on which the South depended for its wealth, and the Union Army of the Potomac, under a series of less and blocked most imports. Land warfare in the East was successful commanders. The bloodiest battle of the war inconclusive in 1861–62, as the Confederacy beat back Union (Gettysburg) and the bloodiest single day of the war (Antietam) efforts to capture its capital, Richmond, Virginia. In September were both fought in this theater. The capitals of Washington, 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made ending slavery D.C., and Richmond were both attacked or besieged. It has been in the South a war goal,2 and dissuaded the British from argued that the Western Theater was more strategically intervening.3 important in defeating the Confederacy, but it is inconceivable Confederate commander Robert E. Lee won battles in Virginia, that the civilian populations of both sides could have considered but in 1863 his northward advance was turned back with heavy the war to be at an end without the resolution of Lee's surrender casualties after the Battle of Gettysburg. To the west, the Union at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865. gained control of the Mississippi River after their capture of The theater was bounded by the Appalachian Mountains and the Vicksburg, Mississippi, thereby splitting the Confederacy in two. Atlantic Ocean. By far, the majority of battles occurred in the The Union was able to capitalize on its long-term advantages in 100 miles between the cities of Washington and Richmond. This men and materiel by 1864 when Ulysses S. Grant fought battles terrain favored the Confederate defenders because a series of of attrition against Lee, while Union general William Tecumseh rivers ran primarily west to east, making them obstacles rather Sherman captured Atlanta and marched to the sea. Confederate than avenues of approach and lines of communication for the resistance ended after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Union. This was quite different than the early years of the Court House on April 9, 1865. Western theater, and since the Union Army had to rely solely on The American Civil War was one of the earliest true industrial the primitive road system of the era for its primary wars. Railroads, the telegraph, steamships, and mass-produced transportation, it limited winter campaigning for both sides. The weapons were employed extensively. The practices of total war, Union advantage was control of the sea and major rivers, which 5 V1 WAR & CONQUEST THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 1861-1865 would allow an army that stayed close to the ocean to be minor battles, General Robert E. Lee, who, despite his excellent reinforced and supplied. reputation as a former U.S. Army colonel, had no combat The campaign classification established by the United States command experience, gave a lackluster performance that earned National Park Service1 is more fine-grained than the one used in him the derogatory nickname "Granny Lee". He was soon this article. Some minor NPS campaigns have been omitted and transferred to the Carolinas to construct fortifications. some have been combined into larger categories. Only a few of The first significant battle of the war took place in eastern the 160 battles the NPS classifies for this theater are described. Virginia on June 10. Union Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler, based at Boxed text in the right margin show the NPS campaigns Fort Monroe, sent converging columns from Hampton and associated with each section. Newport News against advanced Confederate outposts. At Big Bethel, near Fort Monroe, Colonel John B. Magruder won the Principal commanders of the Eastern Theater first Confederate victory. First Bull Run (First Manassas) In early summer, the commander of Union field forces around Washington was Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell, an inexperienced combat officer in command of volunteer soldiers with even less experience. Many of them had enlisted for only 90 days, a period soon to expire. McDowell was pressured by politicians and major newspapers in the North to take immediate action, exhorting him "On to Richmond!" His plan was to march with 35,000 men and attack the 20,000 Confederates under Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard at Manassas. The second major Confederate force in the area, 12,000 men under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston in the Shenandoah Valley, was to be held in place by Maj. Gen. Robert Patterson with 18,000 men menacing Harpers Ferry, preventing the two Confederate armies from combining against McDowell. On July 21, McDowell's Army of Northeast Virginia executed a complex turning movement against Beauregard's Confederate Army of the Potomac, beginning the First Battle of Bull Run (also known as First Manassas). Although the Union troops enjoyed an early advantage and drove the Confederates back, the battle advantage turned that afternoon. Col. Thomas J. Jackson inspired his Virginia brigade to withstand a strong Union attack, and he received his famous nickname, "Stonewall" Jackson. Timely reinforcements arrived by railroad from Johnston's army; Patterson had been ineffective in keeping them occupied. The inexperienced Union soldiers began to fall back, and it turned into a panicky retreat, with many running almost as far as Washington, D.C. Civilian and political observers, some of whom had treated the battle as festive entertainment, were caught up in the panic. The army returned safely to Washington; Beauregard's army was too tired and inexperienced to launch a pursuit. The Union defeat at First Bull Run shocked the North, and a new sense of grim determination swept the United States as military and civilians alike realized that they would need to invest significant money and manpower to win a protracted, bloody war.

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