Essay Georgia's Role During the Civil War

Americans had been engaged in a Civil War which had been begun in April of 1861 with shots fired on a fort in South Carolina. In the summer of 1863 in a small town called Gettysburg, there would be a fierce battle fought between the Union Army of the Potomac led by General George G. Meade and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia led by General Robert E. Lee. The events of the battle would overcome the losses suffered by the Union and put the Confederacy on the run. “Over 165,000 men would converge, and before the fighting ended, the ground would run red with blood. The battle was fierce, and the casualties proved it. But the casualties that resulted would not be in vain, at least for the Union; the formidable power

Did you know that before the late sixteenth century few besides the Indian tribes knew of the Georgia territory? Even though, Hernando Desoto traveled through Georgia during his expedition in the 1500s, the growing interest in this area wasn’t until King Charles II granted Carolinas a land expansion in 1663. Georgia was not only the beginning of a new commonwealth, destined to become an important State of the American Union, but also the spirit and purpose led to the colonization of Georgia becoming one of the most significant events in its History. Even so, what was England’s purpose to partake in colonizing the thirteenth and final original colony? After much research, I found that there are many motives as to why England formed the colony of Georgia, but the significant intentions were to aid the unfortunates, to express the idea of mercantilism, and to set up defenses against Spanish Florida.

As the webpage, “Florida’s Role in the Civil War: “Supplier of the Confederacy”.” says, “An estimated 16,000 Floridians fought in the war…approximately 2,000 joined the Union army,” which really shows that about 14,000 of those Floridians who fought was in the Confederacy (“Florida’s Role in the Civil War”). There were about 5,000 of those Floridians, who did die because of the war. Then after President Lincoln signed off on the Emancipation Proclamation to end all of slavery, many of the slaves were freed and they were able to join the Union to fight against the Confederates. Since the Union became more powerful and the Confederate General, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to the General of the Union, General Ulysses S. Grant, which helped the Union to win the civil war. The Civil War ended in April 1865. It is known as one of the bloodiest wars in

By the outset of 1864, after three years of war, the Union had mobilized its resources for the ongoing struggle on a massive scale. The government had overseen the construction of new railroad lines and for the first time used standardized rail tracks that allowed the North to move men and materials with greater ease. The North’s economy had shifted to a wartime model. The Confederacy also mobilized, perhaps to a greater degree than the Union, its efforts to secure independence and maintain slavery. Yet the Confederacy experienced ever-greater hardships after years of war. Without the population of the North, it faced a shortage of manpower. The lack of industry, compared to the North, undercut the ability to sustain and wage war. Rampant inflation as well as food shortages in the South lowered morale.

There were several reasons for the defeat of the Confederacy which included no industrial base, (Donald 1996, p. 99) inadequate transportation net (Donald, 1996, p. 99), and bickering among the generals (McPherson & Hogue, 2009, p. 365) etc., but the overriding factor was that the Confederacy never became a nation (Donald, 1996, p. 100). That is, they seceded because the Southern states believed they had the right as independent States to do so (Donald, 1996, p. 7). The South lost because they never stopped believing this. No state could depend on any other for full support of the war. The Governor of Georgia specifically prohibited his troops from fighting outside the state for many months. Many governors set limits on how many

For four years, Americans fought against one another on the battlefield. This war would come to make up the bloodiest war in American history. Over the four years, over 620,000 soldiers died in the conflict. This war became one the most traumatic event in American History. Since the beginning of colonization to the 1860’s, the people in this country were slowly being divided. From 1850 to 1861, it was apparent that the union was separating into the North and the South and battle was soon to follow. With this division, peace could not continue amongst the country, for the country was filled with problems that affected the common Americans. With the events that led up to the war, the South felt like they had every reason to secede from the

The factors that allowed Abraham Lincoln to capture the election of 1860 with only 39% of the popular vote was the fact that he was able to win every state in the North except for New Jersey. The other candidates were not able to gather the large amount that Lincoln did. Breckinridge for example was only to win some states in the north which were North Carolina, Arkansas, Delaware, and Maryland. In the south he was able to win Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. Another candidate, Bell was only able to win Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia.

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 American Civil War began on April 12, 1861 when the Southern United States seceded from the union. The first battle, taking only thirty-four hours, caused Lincoln to officially rally troops against the South. Most Northern Americans would eventually learn to love Lincoln’s courage; however, many Southern Americans would despise Lincoln. Throughout the civil war many lives were lost, and many families were torn apart. Lincoln would remain a strong figure throughout the war. He would give his people hope, he would give his people courage, and he would give his people strength. Around the time the Civil War was drawing to a close, Lincoln was being reelected. The general of the Confederacy, Robert E. Lee, surrendered after a battle in Virginia. His troops surrendered in April, a little over a

An army of soldiers requires an enormous amount of supplies, so one would therefore need to have the means to thereby create those supplies. The North was well industrialized by the time of the Civil War, whereas the South was still highly dependent on slave labor, which hindered their ability to industrialize.4 When it came to producing weapons, uniforms, shoes, preserved food, tools for more effective farming to feed soldiers, the telegraph, and other necessities, the Union was way in the lead. They could not only create these products, but they could produce them in mass amounts in a fraction of the time it originally took to make them.5 The South had a hard time enduring the war because they did not have the factories necessary to produce the quality and mass amount of supplies they needed.

On February 18, 1861, the provisional Congress of the Confederate States made him provisional president. He was elected to the office by popular vote the same year for a 6-year term and was inaugurated in Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, on February 22, 1862. Davis failed to raise sufficient money to fight the American Civil War and could not obtain recognition and help for the Confederacy from foreign governments. He was in constant conflict with extreme exponents of the doctrine of states' rights, and his attempts to have high military officers appointed by the president were opposed by the governors of the states. The judges of state courts constantly interfered in military matters through judicial decisions. Davis was nevertheless responsible for the raising of the formidable Confederate armies, the notable appointment of General Robert E. Lee as commander of the Army of Virginia, and the encouragement of industrial enterprise throughout the South. His zeal, energy, and faith in the cause of the South were a source of much of the tenacity with which the Confederacy fought the Civil War. Even in 1865 Davis still hoped the South would be able to

It was a series of battles fought in the Western Theater of the American Civil War throughout north Georgia and the area around Atlanta during summer of 1864. In July, the Confederate president replaced Johnston with the more hostile John Hood, who began challenging the Union Army in a series of damaging frontal assaults. Hood's army was eventually besieged in Atlanta and the city fell in September speeding up the end of the war.

This complicated war full of bloodshed and death started merely by an assault of a Confederate left flank. Deemed the single most deadly day in American military history, the Union (who had more men) swept many attacks towards the Confederate army. Even though the South had more spirit and useful tactics the sheer numbers of the Union made this battle one to remember. They fought for many hours in Miller's cornfield to then make a last stand at Antietam Creek. With the only sign of cover being trees and the stone bridge which was worn by bullets and bodies you could tell this fight was going to be bad. The Union captured the bridge and with a final push and counter attack from another Union division the Union were victorious and were another

The American Civil War, which began in 1861 to 1865, has gone down in history as the one of the most significant events to have ever occurred in the United States of America, thus far. At that time, questions had arose wondering how the United States ever got so close to hitting rock bottom, especially being that it was a conflict within the country itself. Hostility steadily grew through the years dividing the nation further and further, and finally leading to the twelfth day in April 1861 in Fort Sumter, North Carolina. The American Civil War was an irrepressible battle and aside from the obvious physical effects of the war, the disagreement over states rights, the act of slavery, and the raising of tariffs played crucial roles in the

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.