The Super Summary of World History (43 page)

The Proclamation also helped the Union cause within the United States. It gave the Union something more to fight for, because “maintaining the Union” could not carry the weight of the war much longer. The body count required to maintain the Union was already too high for some. However, the proclamation
changed
the
war
aims
of
the
Union
. Now the
federal
forces
were
fighting
to
set
men
free
and the South to enslave men. This allowed the Union to withstand much higher casualties and keep fighting. In this Emancipation Proclamation stratagem, Lincoln showed himself to be a masterful politician achieving several significant goals at one stroke.

In the west, Union forces were attacking down the Mississippi River, and the Union Navy seized New Orleans cutting off a major supply route for the South.
Ulysses
S.
Grant,
placed in charge of the Western Theater of War, took the vital Mississippi River link of
Vicksburg
on July
4,
1863
in what was probably Grant’s best campaign. Now the Mississippi River was totally Union, and Texas, Arkansas, and nearly all of Louisiana were cut off from the rest of the South. The Union blockade was stopping all supplies flowing to the Confederate states from overseas. The South was finished, but its leaders demanded it fight on, ignoring the fact there was nothing left to win.

Gettysburg

The day before the capture of Vicksburg the Battle of
Gettysburg
ended in the north. Gettysburg’s took place from
July
1
to
July
3,
1863
, and the cost in men and material was enormous. The South lost
twenty-eight
thousand
men
(28,000)
in the confrontation and the North
twenty-three
thousand
(23,000)
. The North could afford to lose men at this rate, but not the South. Those twenty-eight thousand southerners were veterans of many battles and impossible to replace.

Gettysburg represents General Robert E. Lee’s second and last invasion of the North, and perhaps the last chance for victory by the battered South. Lee’s men were starving. The entire South was starving, and supplies of clothing, shoes, blankets, food, and other essentials (except gunpowder and bullets) were very low. By invading the North in July, he could forage off Union land rich with crops. In addition, he might be able to draw the Union Army of the Potomac into a decisive battle. Lee realized an overwhelming victory was necessary, one totally overthrowing the Army of the Potomac. Perhaps such a victory would gain foreign support and a peace deal from the Union. If he failed, the South faced grounding down like corn in a mill. After full considerations of the options, the invasion seemed the only reasonable course of action. By just waiting, the Union would come after them again; and Lee’s men and horses would have less food than before. By moving north Lee’s army could at least eat.

Figure 39 Gettysburg,—Pickett’s Charge—arrow labeled 3

Gettysburg was what military men call a meeting engagement; that is, an unplanned encounter where two armies just run into one another. This was the worst kind of battle for the Confederates to fight. Lee faced a much larger army led by
George
Meade
, who was cautious but determined. If nothing else, Meade knew good defensive ground when he saw it, and by taking up positions on Cemetery Ridge and Big and Little Round top he established an impressive defensive situation. At nearly any point before General Pickett’s famous charge Lee could have disengaged and looked for another battlefield. Lee needed to plan what to do before the engagement rather than making quick decisions during the engagement. Lee, however, decided to fight at Gettysburg. Why is not clear.

After a series of poor performances by his junior commanders on the flanks of the Union lines, he made a disastrous decision to attack the center of the enemy line on the high ground at Cemetery Ridge. Robert E. Lee had observed the results of mass assaults on prepared positions throughout the war.
This
decision
to
assault
a
dug
in
position
on
high
ground
defies
comprehension
.

Lee seldom made mediocre decisions.
[137]
Now he made a move that put an end to any hope of the northern invasion working at any level. The battle had been going on for two days when Lee looked to the high ground at the Union center as the place to strike. Not only that, his artillery was short of ammunition and federal cannons were in place opposite him that enjoyed a range and accuracy advantage.
[138]
Lee was therefore attacking a prepared position covered with artillery. The commander of Lee’s artillery told him he could not quiet the federal guns on the ridge before Pickett’s assault. One of Lee’s senior commanders (Longstreet) objected to the idea from the start, nevertheless, in his most injudicious move of the war, Lee ordered Pickett’s Charge.
[139]

Pickett’s men were a tough bunch. Through accurate rifle fire, grapeshot, and cannon shells pouring in on them from Union positions Pickett’s hardened veterans kept going. Somehow, they reached the ridge top achieving a small breakthrough, but Union reinforcements put an end to that and drove Pickett’s remnant down the ridge. After the failed attack, Lee feared a Union counterattack that might destroy his army. However, the cautious Meade remained cautious, and once more General Robert E. Lee escaped to continue the war. Meade’s caution allowed Lee’s escape, but it was that same caution that won the greatest battle to ever take place on American soil. Lincoln’s ire was up once more as he learned of Lee’s escape. He knew he still needed a fighting general, all the same, fate was turning his way.

Grant
and
Sherman
Destroy
the
South

General
Ulysses
S.
Grant
had been winning battles in the west for years. From Shiloh to Chattanooga he was unbeaten, and he was aggressive. Lincoln had found his fighting general. On March 12, 1864 Lincoln appointed General U S Grant general of the entire Union army, and Grant immediately appointed General William Tecumseh
Sherman
to command the west. Together they would form an unstoppable juggernaut devastating the South. Grant decided on coordinated assaults; thus, as he started toward Richmond, Sherman started toward Atlanta. Grant began his advance in May of 1864. Now called the
Overland
Campaign
, Grant was grabbing Robert E. Lee by the lapels and never letting go. Grant was determined to pummel Lee until his army was destroyed. US Grant was smart enough to know he could not outmaneuver Lee; nevertheless, his men could fight as well as the southerners, and Grant had a lot more of them. Grant knew he would take large casualties, but he never imagined how large they would be as he battered his way toward Richmond.

Grant

Grant first challenged Lee in the
Battle
of
the
Wilderness,
but when victory proved elusive he pulled out of the forested area and then
turned
south
toward Richmond. In fact, Lee had won a significant victory, but Grant refused to be beaten. This was a telling move. When the Army of the Potomac lost to the Army of Northern Virginia in previous campaigns the Union generals turned the troops back to Washington DC to lick their wounds and prepare for another try months down the line. Not so this time. When Grant ordered the troops to continue south a cheer went up. The troops (and Lincoln) knew what was necessary all along, now they had the man who would do it.

Lee perceived Grant was moving toward Richmond rather than retreating (proof of an excellent general), so he pulled out of his positions in the Wilderness and got ahead of Grant’s army to block him at Spotsylvania where Grant’s men again failed to break the southern line. Nevertheless, Grant did not stop. He ordered another flanking movement toward Richmond, and Lee to pulled out to meet the Union movement once more. This pattern continued as Grant moved south consistently. Lee’s army never broke, but Grant never quit. At Cold Harbor, Grant made the classic error of attacking a well-prepared fixed position across open ground, and the results were bloodcurdling. Grant ordered the attack hoping to catch the Rebels before they could prepare their defenses. In
eight
minutes
the Union lost
8,000
men—one thousand per minute! Grant swiftly ended the assault. Still, Grant did not stop. The Union casualties were piling up, but Grant moved ever forward to Richmond.

Figure 40 Grant’s Overland Campaign

In the course of
seven
weeks
, Grant lost
sixty-five
thousand
men.
[140]
As Grant moved to the east and south of Richmond to
Petersburg,
Lee’s men dug in, and the two armies became locked in trench warfare for nine months in a bloody and terrible prelude to World War I. The main difference between this trench warfare and World War I was equipment, such as the lack of machine guns, heavy howitzers, sophisticated artillery shells, and quick-firing bolt-action rifles. Even under conditions where the defense was muzzle-loaded rifles and cannons, the Union could not break through because of the intense defensive fire.

Think how much harder it would be against machine guns and modern rifles. The American Civil War was the first modern war, but the Europeans avoided studying the American Civil War calling it a fight between two armed mobs. The world missed what was going on.
This
was
modern
war,
and
it
would
only
get
worse.

A lesser president may have given up after seeing the casualties and the stalemate; however, Lincoln never faltered. Winning the war was all.

With Lee’s men in trenches to the front, Grant decided to extend his trenches causing the Confederates to do the same to protect their flanks. However, Grant was not flanking Lee, he was trying to thin out the Confederate line by making them cover additional ground. It worked, and in a surprise attack at
Five
Forks
on April 1, 1864, the Confederate line broke. Grant’s men flooded into Richmond, raising the stars and stripes over the Confederate capitol.

Sherman

To the west, as Grant began the Overland Campaign,
Sherman
started his attack to reach Atlanta, Georgia, and then the sea. No southern army could stop Sherman. General
Joseph
Johnson
commanded the Army of Tennessee and, conservative by nature, he avoided risking the loss of too many men in action. If Sherman were to destroy his army the South had nothing left. General Johnson attempted to force Sherman to attack prepared defenses, but Sherman avoided such attacks. Knowing assaults on prepared defenses was suicide, Sherman kept finding ways to circumvent Johnson’s defensive lines forcing the Rebels back toward Atlanta. In one instance, Sherman almost got a blocking force positioned to trap Johnson’s entire army, but a subordinate moved to an inappropriate location losing the chance to destroy the Army of Tennessee. Time after time, Sherman consistently forced Confederate retreats out of well prepared defensive lines, thereby winning battles without heavy fighting. Sherman’s campaign to win Atlanta was brilliant in all respects as he accomplished the goal of the campaign with few Union losses. No other civil war general did as much with so few losses, with the possible exception of Bedford Forrest, the commander of various Confederate cavalry units.