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II. The Civil War: Causes, Conflicts, Consequences

candidate General George B. McClellan, whom Lincoln had fired. McClellan cam- Cross-curricular paigned on a platform to end the war through peace negotiations. Many Teaching Idea Northerners were weary of a war that the Union seemed unable to win, and Mathew Brady took many photographs McClellan was willing to allow slavery to continue if the war could be ended. of the Civil War. Have students do However, once Sherman had split the Confederacy, and other Union gener- research about Brady in print or online als, including Grant, began destroying Confederate forces, it began to appear to sources. Note that many of Brady’s pho- be only a matter of time until the South capitulated. Although the election was tographs are graphic representations of close, Lincoln was reelected. With ultimate victory in mind, Lincoln spoke of war and may not be appropriate for stu- what should happen to make the Union whole again. In his Second Inaugural dents. You may wish to select several Address, he said images beforehand and allow students With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as to choose from those. (You may also God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, use Art Resource 19, Brady’s photo- to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the graph Battery at Attention. See the dis- battle and for his widow and orphan, to do all which may achieve and cher- cussion in the Visual Arts section ish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. 61 “American Art: Nineteenth-Century United States” on pp. 350–360.) Have Fall of Richmond to Union Forces students choose a photograph and copy Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy. In the first two years of the war, it from a book or download it from the battles had been fought to take the city, but the Union forces had always failed due Internet. Then have students write a to the timidity of McClellan and other Union generals. In May 1864, Grant—now paragraph describing what they see in in command of the Union army—moved aggressively to take Richmond. He the photo. Encourage them to describe pushed Lee and his army ahead of him and by August, Lee had been forced back as many details as possible. to Petersburg, not far from Richmond. For nine months, Grant besieged Lee’s army at Petersburg. Finally, on April 2, 1865, when Grant launched an attack, Lee aban- doned Petersburg. Later that day, the Union army marched into Richmond. Teaching Idea Surrender at Appomattox When Grant’s troops heard that Lee had surrendered, they began to cheer. Grant Even though Jefferson Davis had left Richmond with what was left of the is said to have silenced them with the Confederate government, once the capital had fallen it was only a matter of days words, “The war is over. The rebels are until the Confederacy collapsed. Lee and his army had retreated across Virginia to our countrymen again.” the little town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, where they were trapped by Ask students whether they think that Union forces. On April 9, Lee said to his fellow officers, “There is nothing left for Lincoln would have agreed with Grant. me but to go and see General Grant, and I had rather die a thousand deaths.” Lee What about the Radical Republicans? raised the white flag, Grant and Lee agreed to surrender terms, and the Civil War Ask students to provide evidence to was effectively over. support their opinions. The surrender terms were generous: • Officers and enlisted men could go free. • Rifles had to be surrendered, but officers could keep their side arms (pis- tols and swords). • Any soldier who had a horse could keep it, as it would be needed for plowing. Assassination of Lincoln On April 14, 1865, less than a week after Lee’s surrender, Lincoln and his wife Mary attended a comedy at Ford’s Theater in Washington. When Lincoln arrived, the play was already in progress. One of the actors saw the presidential party arrive and began to applaud. The audience looked up to the balcony where the Lee surrendering to Grant Lincolns were seated, saw the president, and took up the clapping. The orchestra at Appomattox struck up “Hail to the Chief,” and Lincoln acknowledged the salute. The presi- 286 Grade 5 Handbook dent took his seat in the state box and the play continued. CK_5_TH_HG_P231_324.QXD 2/13/06 1:56 PM Page 287

During the third act, a young actor named John Wilkes Booth gained Teaching Idea entrance to the presidential box with a note. He waited until laughter filled the theater and then moved toward the President. He drew out a pistol, shot the Have students create a time line of President once, and leaped from the balcony down to the stage. Breaking his leg Lincoln’s life, from the beginning as he fell, John shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis,” meaning “Thus, always to through to his assassination. Name tyrants,” the motto of Virginia. Booth was a Confederate supporter and saw other presidents that have been Lincoln as a tyrant who had not allowed the South to secede from the Union. He assassinated. had planned his assassination of Lincoln as a counterblow to Lee’s surrender days earlier. In the screaming and confusion that followed, Booth got away. He was

later traced to a barn in Virginia. What happened next is unclear. He either shot Name Date himself or was shot by his pursuers. 62 Time Line Lincoln died of his wounds the following morning, April 15, 1865. C. Reconstruction The South in Ruins When Lee surrendered to Grant, the South lay in ruins. Unlike the North, where there was little direct impact from battles except in central Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) and Maryland (Antietam), little of the South had escaped the fight- ing. Grant had battered first the Mississippi Valley and then Virginia, and Sherman had marched right through the heart of the Confederacy, destroying everything in his path. Directions: Write dates for each event in time order from top to bottom on the left. Add details about the event along the line to the right. Copyright ©Core Knowledge Foundation Copyright ©Core While 360,000 Union soldiers had died, 250,000 Confederate soldiers had Master 82 Grade 5: Teacher Material been killed. Although smaller in number, a larger percentage of the Southern male population was lost. In all, one in 20 Southern whites had been either killed or Use Instructional Master 82. wounded. Four million slaves who had been freed had nowhere to go and no way to make a living. Parts of the South had been devastated by Union troops in an effort to keep supplies from reaching the Confederate army. Homes, farms, shops, and factories had been set afire, and farm tools and machinery had been Cross-curricular destroyed. Two-thirds of the railroad system in the South had been torn up, or the Teaching Idea tracks had been bent so that they were useless. The economy was in no better Walt Whitman’s poem “O Captain, My shape than the landscape. Banks failed and creditors went without payment as the Captain,” was written shortly after collapse of the government made Confederate money worthless. the assassination of Lincoln and pays tribute to Lincoln. You may wish to Struggle for Control of the South teach the poem after discussing the Before his death, Lincoln had drafted a policy toward the South that was assassination. lenient and very much in the spirit of his second inaugural: “with malice towards none.” His policy had an eye towards “binding up the nation’s wounds” rather than pouring salt in them. Among its provisions were that the states were to be readmitted to the Union after ten percent of the male citizens took an oath of loy- alty to the United States. New state constitutions that banned slavery had to be written, and the states had to agree to establish schools to educate African Americans. Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Virginia accepted Lincoln’s pro- visions and established new governments. A group in Congress known as “Radical Republicans” disagreed with Lincoln’s plan. While the Radical Republicans did not control the Republican party, and the members of the group sometimes disagreed with one another, the group was able to influence Congress and succeeded in pushing through many of History and Geography: American 287