Civil War: The Capture Of New Orleans

The Battle of New Orleans was significant because it was the biggest part of the American Revolution for the United States. Andrew Jackson and his untrained army outsmarted the British, causing them to retreat and in result stopping the British from capturing New Orleans. The Battle of New Orleans was also important because it was the last major battle of the War of 1812. Andrew Jackson, America’s General who led the war, would be known as an American hero after this war. General Jackson heard about the British advancing towards New Orleans and he felt like he needed to save New Orleans. On January 8, 1815, American forces, under Major General Jackson, defeated the British forces trying to capture New Orleans. The battle, which takes place after the treaty of Ghent has been signed, was the most successful American victory of the war.

"When New Orleans fell in the spring of 1862, the triumvirate Vicksburg, Grand Gulf and Port Hudson was destined to become the last obstacle to the total Federal control of the Mississippi." Abraham Lincoln thought Vicksburg was 'the key,' so Vicksburg was the focal point of Union strategy. Obviously, Vicksburg was one of the most important objectives of the Union army. General Ulysses S. Grant was placed in charge of the Vicksburg campaign. He was an exceptional strategist and arguably one of the best generals this country has ever seen.

American independence from Great Britain was at first all just a dream from new American colonists. After years of war and key battles with British forces during the Revolutionary War, this dream became a reality. However, some issues promised to be fixed after the Revolutionary War were not corrected. Great Britain had agreements and treaties that were left unfulfilled in the eyes of Americans. One major battle served as a resolution to all American problems with Great Britain, and served as an ending statement in the triumphant War of 1812, the Battle of New Orleans. This battle served as a breaking point for the newly founded American country as well as a

1. The war in 1862 was only more than a year old and the people in both the Union and Confederate sides didn’t anticipate it would last that long, but it is going to go on. Close to the end of the summer in this same year, the Union has made huge progress in claiming confederate lands, winning some major battles. They have put the confederacy in the defensive. They have taken over New Orleans, with even black troops major on the ground of New Orleans. They have taken Missouri and are working hard to take over the Mississippi Valley and maybe even Richmond itself. Bruce Catton puts it this way in The Civil War, “Except for guerrilla activity, Kentucky and Missouri has been swept clear of armed confederates, Western Tennessee had been reclaimed, there was a Yankee army in Cumberland Gap, another one was approaching chattanooga, and a third was sprawled out from Memphis to Corinth, preparing to splice down through Mississippi and touch hands with the Union occupation forces in Baton Rouge and New Orleans” (85) So not only that they Union had taken over regions, they are advancing as well, but they did not win the way this year for some reason. Firstly, because they did not have generals and army heads capable of taking them to victory. General Halleck, chief of the Union Armies and Pope in charge of one of the Union armies in Virginia, were major examples of this.

The battle of Gettysburg gave the Union the upper hand because the Confederates retreated from Gettysburg. When the south retreated to Vicksburg this presented another opportunity to the north to take that as well. Lincoln says, see what a lot of land these fellows hold, of which Vicksburg is the key! The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket...We can take all the northern ports of the Confederacy, and they can defy us from Vicksburg.

The Civil War was full of blood, sweat and tears. But like any other competition, war, battle, combat, you name it, there always has to be a champion. In this specific war, the north was victorious over the south. There are many military factors that go into determining why the north won the Civil War. The battles that were fought showed the determination and the strength of the north. The leaders from the very beginning to the very end and their decisions through out the war showed courage and intelligence over the leaders of the south. The environments that the soldiers were surrounded by even had an impact on the outcome. Noticing how the north became an offensive threat and the south became a defensive threat become clear early on in the war. By paying attention to the timeline of events and the small details of the military factors of the war one can predict from the very beginning that the north was going to win the nation over the south.

In the battle, both sides of the war had massive casualties. The Union army had 8,452 wounded, 109 missing and 1,747 dead. The Confederate army had 7,812 wounded, 109 missing, and 1,553 dead. General Pope lost his reputation and relieved from command and was held responsible for the defeat.

be 5,600 casualties. The Union attacked the Confederate line a total of 5 times, each time retreating. However, eventually the Confederate line collapsed and the Union charged. They killed everyone in their path, except for the retreating Confederates. This decision to let the Confederates go was made by General McClellan, and is thought of as the second chance he had to finish the Civil War, and didn’t. The first chance he had was bigger and more apparent than the second, but the second chance was an option

The Sieges of Vicksburg and Port Hudson were turning points in the war. US Grant charged into Vicksburg and General Banks moved to the Mississippi River to take down the Confederates based at Port Hudson. The attacks were repulsed and on May 27 the federals went into a siege that lasted 48 days. On June 14 Banks tried to get revenge but the defenders fought them off.. After hearing what happened at Vicksburg, on July 9, the confederates at Port Hudson surrendered. The Union takes control of the Mississippi River. They now have a source to New Orleans. The siege happened when Nyulassy S. Grant was besieging Vicksburg up river while General Nathaniel Banks was ordered to capture and gain control of the Confederate stronghold of Port Hudson. Banks

Both sides, Confederate and Union, saw the Mississippi River, a key to the end of the Civil War. In the Battle of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, the Union goal is to gain full possession of the Mississippi River. Gaining

The Battle of Vicksburg, Mississippi was what needed to slice the Confederacy in half and to keep the south separate from each other made it easier for the Union end the war faster when General Grant was ordered by President Lincoln to come from the Western Campaign to the Eastern Campaign and engage General Lee the way General Grant engaged the Generals in the Eastern Campaign. General Grant took Vicksburg by laying siege to the city and he did this for three months, in doing this the Union gained control of the Mississippi River which was the goal because it separated the western side of the Confederacy from the eastern side; this also cut the Confederacy off from the Gulf of Mexico because the Union had a blockade in the Gulf of Mexico. General Grant came to the Eastern Campaign to fight in a campaign that would end the Civil War for good after four years of fighting and would in in the Union victory with General Grant cornering General Lee in Richmond, Virginia and the treaty or end official end of the war happening at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. General Grant was chosen by President Lincoln because he did not back down and kept

Failure to attack would have been a marked change from the aggressive tactics used by Lee in the rest of the campaign and may have given McClellan the confidence to remain in Virginia, which would be a major blow to the Confederacy. The entire Army of Northern Virginia would be needed to contain these Union forces, and even on the coast the enemy was near Richmond, the heart of the Confederate cause. Any threat to Richmond had to be removed immediately as the fall of Richmond would act as a symbol for the fall of the Confederacy and would boost the willingness of the North to continue to prosecute the invasion of the Southern states. Given the lack of industry and manpower in the South, the best hope was simply to break the Union's will to fight since the Confederacy was incapable of sustaining war for as long as North. As if this blow would not be enough, a significant portion of the South's limited industry was located in Richmond (“Capital Cities of the Confederacy”). Already outmatched by the North, loss of this industrial base would prove nearly as devastating as the symbolical fall of the capital. Therefore, on an operational and

The Civil War was not the defeat of a hopeless rebellion. The Confederates had legitimate opportunity to win independence, but they failed to capitalize on it. The South’s chances at victory were not remote; rather they could expect to win. The ultimate cause of the South’s failure was a lack of aggression in all aspects. The two times the Confederates attacked the North at Antietam and Gettysburg, the results were catastrophic because of a lack of strategy. An offensive plan of war does not necessarily mean charging right at an opponent, who in this case had more than three times the number of men as the Confederates. Rather, an effective form of offense would be to attack northern factories, farms, and cities. This would damage the

The Union’s layout for winning the war included several main strategies. Utilizing its superior navy, the North would blockade Southern ports to prevent supplies from reaching the South, as well as to impede the South from earning revenue by exporting cotton. Cotton remained a significant factory in the establishment of slavery and South’s agricultural economic system. Raw materials, especially cotton were shipped to a textile mill in the North but the majority of what the South produced was exported. Gaining control of the Mississippi River was another significant and necessary Union strategy as it would fracture Southern lines. Finally, the North planned to capture Richmond, the Confederate capital. The South’s primary aim was to maintain

In all honesty, I was not very good at keeping up with the war. Since I was not fighting in the war, I did not hear about many battles. Through the grapevine, I was able to hear about some of the major battles, especially the Confederate victories. It seemed like in the east, the Confederacy would always come out victorious: The First Manassas, The Seven Days’ Battles, The Second Manassas, the Battle of Fredericksburg; in the west, the Union beat us: Shiloh, New Orleans. I almost thought the Confederacy had this war in the bag: “We’re going to win this!,” I would hear a lot of people say. But, there was one battle everyone heard about: the Battle of Sharpsburg in September of 1862, or the Battle of Antietam, as the Northerners like to call it. Supposedly it was the bloodiest battle in the entire war. It was a Union victory. Though I was not there, this battle changed my life. This single battle led to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. This law banned slavery. I lost all of my slaves. At this point, I thought “We already lost.” The whole point of us fighting this war was to maintain our rights and independence from the Union. They had just removed our right to own property. Yet, the war was nowhere near over.