Major Battles and Campaigns of the War for Southern Independence

Tracy Irvin Wallace November 01, 2024

1861: The War Begins

After Fort Sumter was fired on in April, Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to invade “the rebelling States" and put a blockade on the South to starve them out and cut them off from foreign supplies. This resulted in four more States seceding (Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee). Lincoln started building an army and put Irwin McDowell in charge and when the recruits were trained McDowell was to march them from Washington DC to the new Confederate Capital Richmond and capture it to bring the “rebellion” to a quick end.

On July 16th, McDowell started marching. After crossing the Bull Run Creek near Manassas Junction, he was confronted by the Confederate army under the joint command of General Piere Gustave Tutant Beauregard and Joseph E. Johnston on July 21st. The Confederates held for a bit but eventually, McDowell broke through their ranks, and they started retreating except for a young Brigadier General Thomas Jackson. He unlike the others stood firm like a Stonewall and his gallantry inspired the men and rallied and then Jackson told them when they charged to “yell like furies” birthing the Rebel Yell. This sent the Union Army back across the Bull Run and all the way back to DC. The Battle of First Manassas was a Confederate Victory and the first major battle of the War with the Confederates taking 1,982 casualties and the Union taking 2,708. After the Battle Lincoln fired McDowell and put Geroge B. McClellan in charge of the Army of the Potomac.

In the Trans-Mississippi, Missouri and Kentucky both had large secession movements and Lincoln did all he could to keep them in. In response to Lincoln’s tyranny in those States, many men joined the Confederate army. In Missouri Generals Ben McCulloch and Sterling Price engaged a body of Union soldiers on August 10th at Wilson’s Creek driving them out of Missouri and taking 1,232 casualties and inflicting 1,317. The Battle of Wilson’s Creek was not only the second major battle of the War and the second Confederate victory. This gave the Confederates hope that they actually had a chance of winning the War and it made Lincoln realize the possibility he could lose it.

In the fall, Lincoln also tried to get the Western part of Virginia under control since it was Union-sympathetic and men from that part of Virginia took the Congressional and Senatorial seats of Virginia in DC. To get this under control President Jefferson Davis had General Robert Edward Lee march into Western Virginia to get it under Confederate control. Unfortunately, since the Generals under Lee were young and new they kept bickering with each other and didn’t listen to Lee. So Lee, unable to get his men to move, had to abandon the operation and Davis sent him to South Carolina to bolster the fortifications. He made the men dig in which they at first resisted saying it was “nigger work” but Lee made them do so anyway and in the months he was there the South Carolina coast was heavily fortified and fortified well. Davis took note of this and liked it.

In October McClellan sent some of his men to do some reconnaissance in Northern Virginia to see if the Confederates were occupying a position where they could threaten DC and they were ambushed by Confederates on October 21st and were driven back to DC. This especially scared the Government in DC because from where the Battle of Ball’s Bluff took place the Confederates could see DC. This further solidified the realization the North could lose the War and McClellan refused to march any further on Richmond and when the winter set in he could not until Spring.

The Winter of 1861 saw no major action and along the Potomac River in Virginia, it was all quiet. This inactivity inspired the song All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight, the first Song about the War for Southern Independence. The Year of 1861 ended with the North winning no major victories despite their better resources and superior numbers. When Lincon sent McDowell across the Potomac to take Richmond he and the rest of the North believed the War would be a quick victory and the North would be victorious but now it was obvious this War was going to last and the South could secure its Independence.

1862: The War Intensifies

The first major action in 1862 took place in the West, specifically Tennessee. Tennessee had a lot of Union sympathizers and there were Tennessee regiments who fought for the Union so the North tried to get that area under control like with Kentucky and Missouri. A young Brigadier General named Ulysses S. Grant led the charge and his goal was to get control of the Tennessee River. Fort Henry was on the river so Grant attacked there driving the Confederates out on February 6th making the Battle of Fort Henry the first major Union victory.

After Henry fell Grant attacked Fort Donaldson on the 11th which put up more of a fight. Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest a native Tennessean who had no previous military training, realized that Grant needed to be stuck before he could be reinforced because if he got reinforced they would lose the Fort but his commanding officers didn’t listen. On the 16th Grant got reinforcements and Confederates surrendered except Forrest. When the Generals told him they were surrendering Forrest said he “didn’t come here to surrender my command” and he took his Cavalry out of the fort before the surrender and joined up with Albert Sidney Johnston in Kentucky. The fall of Donaldson gave the Union Control of the Columbia River. These two battles were the first major victories the North had and gained them some control over one of the Confederate States and this caused Johnston to pull out of Kentucky and fall back to Nashville.

After falling back to Nashville the Yankees moved down the Tennessee and Columbia Rivers and Johnston fell back to Corinth Mississippi to rally more men and then go north and stop the Union’s advance. During this time Beauregard was sent to his army to help him on his mission to retake Tennessee. On April 6th Johnston set up headquarters in the Shiloh church in Tennessee as Grant landed at a spot on the Tennessee River called Pittsburg Landing and before he could get organized Johnston struck. Grant far outnumbered Johnston and because of how many bullets were flying through the trees the area where this engagement took place was called the Hornets Nest. The Confederates won this initial engagement but at a cost, Johnston got shot in the leg and bled out because he sent his surgeon to help the POWs. Beauregard took command and Forrest scouted Grant in the evening and he told Beauregard to strike now because Grant was getting reinforced but Beauregard was determined to continue the fight in the morning. Well, Grant with his reinforcements drove the Confederates from not only the battlefield but also out of Tennessee the next day. The Battle of Shiloh marked a major turning point in the War because it set the tone. Up to this point, both sides thought it would be a small deal and over shortly but Shiloh’s total casualties were more than all the American casualties from its previous wars combined. The Confederates lost 10,699 and the Union 13,047. Jefferson Davis believed this to be the turning point in the War because Johnston, a man who he admired very much and who had a great military history being a West pointer, head General, and Secretary of War for the Republic of Texas, a Mexican War veteran, as well as a Brigadier in the US Army died and from this point on the Confederate Army in the West never had a competent commander. Shiloh made it clear this was the bloodiest war in American history and it was only going to get worse.

Grant even though winning was not considered a hero, he was considered a butcher. He took not only more casualties but the battle overall produced the most in American history at that point and after Forrest thwarted Sherman’s attempt to stop the Confederate’s retreat at Fallen Timbers he was relieved of command and Old Brains Halleck was put in command. The only reason Grant stayed in the Army was Lincoln could not spare him because unlike his other Generals he fought. Halleck moved incredibly slowly at about a mile a day trying to be cautious but this allowed the Confederate army to make it back to Corinth and by the time Halleck got there they were already loaded up on the trains and gone. The Union Army in the West at this point was split up to cover the massive area of the Western Theater while the Confederates licked their wounds and recovered.

Back in the East McClellan was ready to march on Richmond but he had a different idea than Lincoln. His plan was instead of going from DC and marching south to Richmond he would go by sea to the mouth of the James River and march up that river to hit Richmond from its backdoor. Because he finally was willing to move, Lincoln approved and he started marching up the James on March 17th. By April 5th he ran into fortifications built by John B Magruder and even though he had far less men than McClellan he found an opening in the brush and pulled an old theater trick(Magruder was a performer in civilian life) where he had his men march in a circle so when they went by the opening McClellean thought it was one continuous line so he was too scared to attack successfully being tricked. Magruder eventually fell back to link up with Joe Johnston on May 5th and as McClellan went up the peninsula Johnston fell back lacking what he thought was sufficient strength to take on McClellan.

While McClellan marched up the James the Shenandoah Valley was wide open and Lincoln saw that as a shotgun barrel being pointed straight at DC so he sent about 45,000 men to take control of the Valley before the Confederates could use it against him. In response, Stonewall Jackson was sent with 16,000 men to meet this threat and he had to march all the way from the other side of Virginia to get to the Valley and he got there in March. Until early June, Jackson was in intense battles with the Union army in the Valley and his genius is what won them. The Union divided their troops to take each side of the 25-mile-wide valley to encircle Jackson but because of his smaller force, Jackson was able to move them incredibly fast and hit the flanks of the divided army with all of his force sending each part of the Union army back to DC.

As McClellan marched up the James, Johnston kept falling back until he eventually made it all the way back to Richmond. The Union army was so close could hear the church bells of the town, and because of this a first and one of the few times in his career Johnston took the offensive. The Battle of Seven Pines was a two-day affair that began on May 31 and ended on June 1st. During the Battle Jefferson Davis decided to watch it with his new military advisor who he brought up from South Carolina Robert E. Lee. McClellan was halted and pushed back a bit but during the Battle Johnston took a shell round to the side shattering most of his ribs and almost taking out a lung. He survived but was relieved of command and was out of commission recovering for months. The army needed a new commander so Davis put his military advisor in charge and McClellan had no idea what was in store for him.

The first thing Lee did when he was put in charge was reorganize the army and renamed it The Army of Northern Virginia. At this time Jackson just finished up in the Valley so Lee called him to move south to Richmond immediately to join the Army of Northern Virginia. When Lee got the army structured he sent Major General James Ewell Brown Stuart to recon McClellan’s army and he rode around his entire army in what is known as the Ride Around McClellan. Once he reported back to Lee with McClellan’s whereabouts and strength Lee made a plan. Lee had 101,434 men and McClellan had 112,200 but McClellan thought Lee had at least 200,000 and Lee used McClellan’s caution against him when he decided to pounce on him on June 25th. When Lee attacked he had his men dig in but like in South Carolina they resisted at first but eventually gave in and very quickly they became accustomed to it. The first day fighting McClellan was a failure because like in West Virginia Lee couldn’t get his men to listen to him but McClellan took enough casualties he fell back. In Napoleonic tradition when the defeated army retreated the victor was to let them go but Lee in an unprecedented move at the time stayed on McClellan’s heels and did not let up the pressure for seven days straight. Over the next 6 days Lee had more success except for the final day at Malvern Hill where McClellan fortified the hill and backed it up with heavy artillery and the combination blew Lee’s men away and the fact that when Jackson got there he didn’t move. After months of fighting in the Shenandoah Jackson was exhausted and didn’t have time to rest when he was called to Richmond and so instead of moving he just stood there as the men said at the time “like a damn Stonewall”, once a title for his gallantry now one for his immobility.

Eight battles took place during the Seven Days and if the Seven Days Battles were considered one it would be not only the bloodiest at that time but the second in the entire war with Lee taking 20,204 casualties and McClellan 15,855. Of the eight battles, Lee only lost the first and final ones but by Malvern Hill, McClellan was pushed back to where he started in March, and at that point, he took enough casualties he fell back to the coast and because he refused to move on Richmond without heavy reinforcements Lincoln fired him. After the Battle Lee reorganized the army again by sending the screw-ups to other States like Magruder and D. H. Hill and promoting the ones who did well like Longstreet and A. P. Hill. There was one General he did not know what to do with though and that was Jackson. Jackson had much success in the Valley and Manassas but messed up more than any other General during the Battle so Lee was torn. Even though most commanders would get rid of Jackson, Lee understood he was just tired and needed rest so he kept him on with hopes he would repeat his success in the Valley and Manassas further down the road.

After McClellan was fired and his army pulled back to DC, Lincoln put John Pope in charge of the Army of the Potomac since he had success in the Western Theater against the Confederates. Pope’s plan was the same as McDowell’s to march from DC to Richmond and take the Confederate Capital. Like with McDowell, Pope was stopped at Manassas by Stonewall Jackson who stopped his advance on August 30th. On the 31st Robert E. Lee was able to come up with reinforcements and combined with Jackson and knocked Pope back to DC. The Battle of Second Manassas had seven times the casualties as the First with the Confederates taking 7,298 and the Union 14,462. This battle was also the second in a row where Lincoln had fired and replaced the General and since the men loved McClellan so much he reluctantly put him back in command hoping to boost army morale. With this victory over the North with them being pushed back to DC and McClellan being put back in command, Lee thought he had the perfect opportunity to go on the offensive. He planned to invade Maryland hoping to round up Confederate sympathizers to grow his army and destroy Union rails to disrupt their supply lines. With this done he’d march through Pennsylvania to get to DC and threaten the enemy Capital so that the Union would recognize the South’s independence and bring the War for Southern Independence to a close.

Lee marched to Maryland in September. While he was there, he had Jackson take control of the Harpers Ferry arsenal. When he was finished with that, he rejoined Lee in Maryland. Lee had success in destroying the rails but the Marylanders didn’t want to join him so he wasn’t able to grow his army. McClellan was slow and cautious like in the Seven Days which Lee counted on allowing him to beat them in the minor fights they had and continue to destroy their rails. That was until one of Lee’s officers had a copy of Lee’s battle plans and wrapped them around a cigar and dropped it. McClellan found the cigar and read the plans and this gave him confidence and he pounced on Lee near the town of Sharpsburg on September 17th. Lee was taken aback by this and one of the bloodiest battles followed.

The battle was really three small battles taking place in the town. The first was in the northern part. By this time Jackson reunited with Lee and was with James Longstreet and when they engaged the Yankees they were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and pushed back to the woods until Brigadier General John Bell Hood arrived with the First Texas Infantry who pounced on the Yankees and drove them back through a cornfield. The First Texas took higher casualties than any regiment on either side of the War during this battle but succeeded in driving them back.

In the center, Colonel John B. Gordon held an area known as the sunken road and was told by Lee to hold it at all costs. During the battle he got shot first in the right calf then in the right leg, next in the right arm, then the shoulder but still stood firm and held the line until he got shot in the face and he fell from that. The bullet went out his cheek and if it wasn’t for that hole he would have drowned in his own blood. Gordon was taken off the field and miraculously survived and because of the overall bloodshed, the sunken road became known as the Bloody Lane. Even though command collapsed and the bloodshed was severe the Confederates held out and the Yankees eventually gave up.

The final part of the battle took place at the southern end of the field over Antietam Creek. General Burnside was told by McClellan to cross the bridge over the creek to drive the Confederates back but going single file across a bridge against an enemy position made the Yankees like fish in a barrel. So many Yankees were killed going over the bridge that one could walk across the creek because of how many bodies there were and the Confederates ran out of ammo from killing so many. The bridge was named Burnside’s Bridge because it was he who sent those men over it.

As a result of running out of ammo, Lee could no longer stay in Maryland and was forced to abandon his mission and return to Virginia bringing the bloody Battle of Sharpsburg to a close. Sharpsburg was the bloodiest day in American history with Lee taking 10,337 casualties and McClellan taking 12,410. It was also the eighth bloodiest battle in the War if Seven Days is not considered one battle. After the battle, McClellan went back to his cautious ways and refused to move on Lee and at that point, Lincoln had it with him and relieved him of command for good this time.

Meanwhile, in the West, the new commander of the Army of Tennesee Braxton Brag who was a close friend of Jefferson Davis which is why he got the position had a plan. His plan was similar to Lee’s which was to march the Army into Kentucky and recruit the Confederate sympathizers there, get the State fully under Confederate control, and when that was done march north of the Ohio River and sack northern cities like Cincinnati and Chigaco to threaten the north and motivate them to give up the fight. The march began in August and General Edmund Kirby Smith took Richmond Kentucky on August 30th. By September 2nd Bragg’s army had taken Kentucky’s Capitol Frankfurt and raised the Confederate flag on the grounds. Even though Bragg was having success he, like Lee, failed to recruit the locals. His campaign came to a head on October 8th and met the Union army of Ohio at Perryville which had 55,000 men while he had 16,000. Surprisingly the rough mountainous terrain gave Bragg an edge and he was able to win the battle with only 3,396 casualties while the north took 4,241. However, because the Yankees had far more men than he did he got cold feet and pulled out of Kentucky. This decision infuriated his men because they just won the Battle of Perryville and could have marched on north of the Ohio but Bragg withdrew to Tennessee and left Kentucky under Union control. This started Bragg’s reputation of being able to turn a victory into a defeat and this unfortunately was not the only time he did so.

Back in the East Lincoln replaced McClellan with Burnside and in December he acted. He moved the army of the Potomac to occupy Fredericksburg and shelled the city with civilians in it. This was one of the first of many war crimes the Yankees would commit on the Southern citizenry. Lee occupied a hill called Marye’s Heights outside the town and had his men behind a stone wall for protection. On December 13th Burnside sent his men up the hill six times to take it and each time they were bloodily repulsed. At one point Burnside saw an opening where they could go around the wall and flank Lee but Lee saw it too and had Jackson there and he drove back Burnside’s men. The battle of Fredericksburg was one of the North’s most embarrassing defeats and it cost them 12,653 casualties while only inflicting 5,377. After this Burnside tried to go after Lee but the heavy rains of the winter of ‘62 made the terrain muddy and it was a hard march known as the mud march and the mud and the cold slowed them down so Burnside refused to go after Lee and Lincoln fired him.

1862 set the tone of the War and saw many bloody battles, the bloodiest in American history at this point. In the West, the North saw success but the East was overall a failure mainly due to the intelligence and leadership of Robert E. Lee. One thing that the year 1862 made clear is this is the bloodiest war in American history and it wasn’t going to end anytime soon and it would only get worse.

1863: The Bloodiest Year

The year of 1863 opened like 1862 with a Northern victory in the West. On December 31st of 1862 General William Rosecrans commander of the Army of the Cumberland caught Bragg off guard by attacking his flank on the Stones River in Tennessee. This culminated into a 3-day battle in which Bragg got the Yankees to retreat but following up on it he was bloodily repulsed by Union artillery and the North won the Battle of Second Murfreesboro. The battle cost Rosecrans 13,906 casualties and Bragg 11,739 making it the bloodiest battle in the War at that point. Even though Rosecrans took more casualties he still won the battle and it served to boost Union morale after the disaster of Fredericksburg and further showed Bragg’s incompetency.

With this morale boost, Lincoln had a new plan for 1863 to conquer the South and get it fully under Northern rule. He was to attack three major cities to bring the South down. Vickbug, known as the key to the South, was on the Mississippi side of the Mississippi River and whoever controlled Vicksburg controlled the River and it would cut the Trans-Mississippi off from the rest of the Confederacy splitting the Nation in two. Chattanooga Tennessee was a major railroad town that connected the Eastern and Western theaters and would stop reinforcements and supplies from going between the theaters as easily. Finally Richmond the capital, with the Confederate seat of Government under Union control so would the Confederacy as a whole. The Generals assigned to carry this out were Grant who’d take Vicksburg, Rosecrans who’d go for Chattanooga, and Fighting Joe Hooker to march on Richmond.

Another thing that would change in 1863 was the fact the Emancipation Proclamation would go into effect. Lincoln in the Summer of ‘62 wrote a proclamation to free the slaves in the rebelling States, specifically the parts that weren’t under Union control. The Battle of Sharpsburg was enough of a victory Lincoln issued it and it gave 100 days for the South to come back into the Union with its slave property intact. They didn’t so it went into effect on January 1st and with it the North started enlisting and forcefully constricting slaves to fight for them adding not only numbers to their army but men who knew the area they were trying to conquer. Another thing about the proclamation was it was done to prevent foreign intervention. At the time it was written the North was fighting to “Preserve the Union” but now the proclamation made it look like the cause was about slavery which the European nations specifically Britain and France who were helping the Confederacy but wavering on fully sporting them because they had slaves now couldn’t because they had outlawed slavery and them supporting the South would look like they were supporting a Nation who was fighting for it if their enemy was fighting to end it. Overall the Emancipation Proclamation was not a moral proclamation but a war measure to prevent foreign intervention and to get the slaves on the side of the North in effect trying to start a slave uprising in the South.

The first of the Generals to make a move was Grant which he started back in December to take Vicksburg. When Joe Johnston recovered from his injury at Seven Pines he was sent to the West and put in command of all Western Armies to help them after losing Albert Johnston. John C. Pemberton was put in command of the Army of Mississippi and Davis had him defend Vicksburg and he defended it with vigor. From December to March Grant tried seven times to get across the Mississippi to take Vicksburg but Pemberton had the town heavily fortified and the surrounding area and each time Grant failed but this would not deter him as long as he had breath and his lungs and the resources to keep up the fight he did. By April he went far enough south on the River to avoid Confederate troops and crossed it and he was now finally on the same side as Pemberton. Once across he marched northeast to Jackson which was defended by Johnston but he fell back on his retreating strategy since he didn’t believe he had the force to take Grant. Even though he went offensive during Seven Pines it was the exception that proves the rule because it cost him his command so whenever he didn’t have absolute assurance of victory Joe Johnston retreated. With this Jackson fell to the North on May 14 bringing another Confederate capital under Union control. After this victory Grant went west straight for Vicksburg and after being pushed back during the Black River battle, Pemberton holed up in Vicksburg and Grant laid in for a siege. When Grant besieged the city he dug a trench line and so did Pemberton making the Siege of Vicksburg the first engagement in world history trench warfare was used in a new age in warfare.

When Grant was trying to take Vicksburg, Joe Hooker, the new commander of the Army of the Potomac, went after Richmond. After Fredericksburg Lee entrenched himself near the town and sent Longstreet to fortify Richmond and Longstreet was the first in world history to use trench warfare to fortify the Capital. Because attacking the trenches head-on would be suicide, Hooker’s plan was to leave a small detachment of his army there to keep Lee unaware of his actual movements which were to go around his army and march straight for Richmond hoping to get Lee out of his entrenchments to attack him in the open and with Lee gone he could go for Richmond. Lee saw what he was doing and divided his army leaving some to deal with what Hooker left behind so he wouldn’t be reinforced and took Stonewall's Corp and met Hooker in the town of Chancellorsville in the Wilderness on May 1st. The Wilderness was an area in Virginia that was 156 square miles of forest so thick you couldn’t see three feet in front of you. On the 1st Jackson was scouting Hooker's position and saw one of his flanks was open and asked to attack it. When Lee asked with what Jackson responded his entire Corp, and this worried Lee because if it failed he wouldn’t have enough to defend himself but Jackson assured him if it worked Hooker would be driven back. Lee agreed the risk was worth it and made sure Jackson got plenty of sleep so as not to repeat his actions in Seven Days and on the 2nd he struck Joe Hooker with his entire Corp. This caught them completely off guard and sent the whole army running and even though Hooker tried to re-rally his men they ignored him and ran for their lives. Jackson continued this assault into the night which was a first for him but when it got too dark he went back to camp. Unfortunately on his way back some of his men who just finished repulsing a Yankee regiment couldn’t see through the dark and assumed the men they saw were the Yankees trying again so they fired not knowing this was Jackson. He tried to stop his men but got shot in the left arm twice and the second shot knocked him off his horse. His men who were with him took him off the battlefield and he was taken to a doctor who had to amputate his arm and this took him out of the fight.

The next day Lee kept up the assault and as a result, May 3rd was the second bloodiest day in the War. Lee stayed on Hooker’s heels until May 5th when Hooker pulled out of the Wilderness and withdrew his men from Fredericksburg. The Battle of Chancellorsville was known as Lee’s masterpiece because he divided his army of 60,298 and took a very long shot with sicking Jackson’s entire Corp on Hooker’s army of 106,000 but it all worked out by inflicting 17,287 while only taking 12,764 making this the 5th bloodiest battle in the War. But this victory cost Lee more than 12,764 men. While Stonewall Jackson was recovering he caught pneumonia and Lee said even though Jackson had lost his left arm he feared he would lose his right. When things took a turn for the worse he was asked if he wanted to see him before he passed and he said “No sir I won’t. Because my faith will not allow me to believe God will take him from us in a time we so desperately need him”. Sadly Lee was wrong and on May 10 Lieutenant General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson died from pneumonia. This was a loss Lee would never recover from. He never again had a general by his side like Stonewall and by the time he had someone close it was already too late to make a difference.

While the Siege of Vicksburg was going on it didn’t look like Pemberton was going to make it. Grant was shelling the city with civilians still in it killing many women and children(another war crime) and Johnston was supposed to relieve him but he didn’t think he could take on Grant so he left Pemberton to fend for himself. Jefferson Davis knew if Vicksburg fell the Confederacy would be split in two and its most major trading river would be under Union control so he asked Robert E. Lee to send some of his men to help Pemberton but Lee believed it wasn’t worth it since by the time they got from Virginia to Mississippi Vicksburg could have already fallen and they were needed in Virginia. But Lee had another plan. With Hooker pushed back he saw another opportunity to go offensive. He planned to march up the Shenandoah Valley and go to Pennsylvania to raid the countryside and take the Capital then go into DC from there and take the city forcing Lincoln to surrender and recognize the South’s independence bringing the war to a close.

On June 3rd Lee began his march north through the Shenandoah Valley driving out what remained of Joe Hooker’s army and made it into Pennsylvania by the end of the month. Once he made it to Pennsylvania he sent Stuart out to raid the countryside and get food and supplies for the army but also give the civilians script so when the war was over their property was returned. He also burned a few towns and was at the entrance to the Capital Harrisburg ready to take it but Lee got engaged in the South Western part of the State and this engagement required him to return to Lee though not knowing where he was didn’t join him until the end of the second day leaving Lee blind during the first two days of the battle.

On June 28th because of his failure to stop Lee, Hooker was relieved of command and George Meade took command of the Army of the Potomac. Hooker went after Lee while he was in Pennsylvania and on July 1st saw the first action of the bloodiest battle that ever took place on U.S. soil. A.P. Hill left Lee’s army to go to the town of Gettysburg to get shoes for his men but encountered Meade's men and engaged them. This was a bloody skirmish with Hill not only destroying one of Meade’s Corps but killing its commander General John F. Reynolds who was the Army of the Potomac’s best Corp commander and when Hill was reinforced by Richard Ewell, who took command of Stonewall’s old Corp after Chancellorsville they sent Meade’s men to Cemetery Hill winning the first day.

The second day of the battle saw the Union on Cemetery Ridge take up a fishhook-looking formation and used the hill’s natural terrain to protect themselves and Lee took up a position on Seminary Ridge across the way. When discussing how to handle the situation General James Longstreet, Lee’s Old Warhorse suggested that nothing stands between them and DC so they should go in that direction, take up a defensive position, and have the Yankees attack them but Lee said no because the enemy was here and he would fight them here. Lee’s plan was to have Longstreet’s Corp attack the South end of the fishhook at Little Round Top and Ewell's attack the curve at Culp's Hill.

When Longstreet attacked Little Round Top he sent John Bell Hood to go up what is known as the Devil's Den(called that because of the rough rocky terrain) and charge straight up the hill. Hood at first refused saying an uphill charge would be suicide and recommended flanking but Longstreet believed it would take too long to flank and since Lee’s orders were to take Little Round Top he ordered Hood to charge straight up the hill which he did but under protest. The charge was a bloody one because Union Colonel Joshua Chamberlain with the 20th Maine Regiment held the hill. Even though Hood kept getting repulsed he still charged up through the Devil’s Den and did this enough that Chamberlain ran out of ammo so he ordered a bayonet charge and this sent Hood’s men back to the Wheatfield and Peach Orchard but they held out there and sent the Yankees back ending that assault in a draw but it cost Hood the use of left arm and a lot of men on both sides. On the northern end of the fishhook, Ewell was able to get on Culp's Hill but didn’t drive the Yankees from it.

Lee, after hearing how the battle went down, strategized for the next day. He realized that he needed to concentrate his forces and use more artillery and the plan was to use George Picket’s division to attack the Union center figuring that with the attacks on the flanks that’s where Meade would reinforce and since Picket hadn’t seen action since Fredericksburg his men would be fresh and ready to fight. The plan was to have Colonel Alexander’s artillery barrage the Union center destroying their defenses and when that was done send Picket up the hill and once he broke through the Union’s defenses he would have Ewell attack their flanks and the two would basically encircle the Union and destroy the Army then nothing stood between them and DC.

Unfortunately for Lee Meade figured that since he attacked both of his flanks Lee would then go for the center so he reinforced the center which was under the command of General Winfield Scott Handcock who was the Army’s hardest-hitting Corp commander. Also on the beginning of the third day, Meade was able to drive Ewell off Culp’s Hill meaning Picket would not be reinforced and be left all alone. Lee still decided to go through with the assault and left Longstreet to carry it out but he didn’t believe it would succeed so he didn’t try to make it. Eventually when it came time Alexander fired on the Union forces and this was the largest artillery barrage in the history of the North American continent and also the first time indirect artillery was used. Even though the indirect artillery barrage was an advancement being a new tactic along with the amount of smoke caused by the barrage it became increasingly inaccurate causing them to mostly miss the stonewall the Union was behind and mainly hit the camp behind it with one of the shells almost hitting Meade. When Alexander started running low on ammo he told Longstreet he couldn’t keep up the assault and asked him to send Picket in because if he didn’t send him in now Picket would have no artillery support. Even though Longstreet didn’t want to, he ordered Picket up the hill but without being reinforced and the stonewall still being there his division was wiped out by the Union artillery and what didn’t get wiped out by the artillery and actually made it over the wall got blown away by the Union infantry. Pickett's charge was an absolute disaster and ended the battle.

The Battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle not only during the War for Southern Independence but the bloodiest on North American soil though not the bloodiest in U.S. history; that honor would go to the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium during World War II. The battle cost the Union Army 23,049 casualties and Lee 28,000 with a total of over 50,000 casualties. Lee after Pickett's charge told his men that the failure was all his fault and apologized but his men started yelling at him “No. No. It’s not your fault we can still whip them”. Too many casualties were taken for Lee to continue the fight so he pulled out of Pennsylvania the next day. Meade was slow to take up pursuit and heavy rains slowed him down which allowed Lee to get back to Virginia. Once back he submitted a letter of resignation to Davis for the failure but Davis reassured Lee that he was the best General he had and could not lose him just because of one mistake.

While Lee was going to Pennsylvania Pemberton’s men were starving. With the Siege of Vicksburg dragging on and the constant shelling more of his men started dying and Pemberton was running out of food and was eventually down to quarter rations. It was clear Johnston was not going to relieve him so he decided to end the Siege by surrendering so as to save his men from starvation. His plan was to surrender on the 4th of July because being a Yankee like Grant he believed he’d get better terms if he surrendered on Independence Day. Since no one came to relieve him Pemberton surrendered the Army of Mississippi and the town of Vicksburg to Ulysses S. Grant on July 4th. He was right about getting better terms because Grant parrolled all his men which was not only because of them surrendering on the 4th of July but because Pemberton had over 30,000 men under his command he couldn’t handle that many prisoners. Pemberton surrendering Vicksburg resulted in the Union gaining full control of the Mississippi and it split the Confederacy in two cutting off the Trans-Mississippi States from the rest which prevented them from sending troops and supplies East and it further strengthened the Union Blockade by gaining control of the South's best River for trade. This was the first of the cities Lincoln intended to take to fall under Union control and this was a major morale boost for the north.

Vicksburg was the first to fall and Chattanooga would be the second. General Rosecrans had not moved since his victory at Second Murfreesboro and this infuriated Lincoln and after enough pressure from him, Rosecrans decided to move on June 24th. Bragg through the whole campaign refused to engage Rosecrans because of the size of his army and this resulted in the Tullahoma Campaign being a mostly bloodless campaign with Bragg falling back to Chattanooga by July 3rd and Rosecrans threatening the city.

By August with the two major losses at Gettysburg and Vicksburg Bragg withdrew from Chattanooga and fell back to the Chickamauga River in Northern Georgia to take a better defensive position to destroy the Army of the Cumberland. This also resulted in the Confederates giving up all of Tennessee to the North and this decision panicked Davis. The South had already taken multiple major losses and could not afford another so this became an all-hands-on-deck situation and in September he made Lee detach Longstreet's Corp to reinforce Bragg. Longstreet was not only chosen because he was the best Corp commander in Lee’s army but because he was from North Georgia and knew the terrain the battle was going to take place. Longsteet’s reinforcements gave Bragg about 65,000 men which gave him the numerical advantage over Rosecrans who only had about 60,000.

On September 19th Rosecrans struck Bragg and at this time Longstreet had not arrived but he sent John Bell Hood ahead and he was with Bragg on the first day of the battle. On the first day Bragg held out against Rosecrans' assault and by nightfall Longstreet arrived and the two planned for the second day. The plan was to hit Rosecrans’ northern flank and when that was done swing south and destroy the rest of his army and though it started that way it didn’t end that way. Once his northern flank was hit Rosecrans’ reinforced it and that created an opening in his southern flank which Longstreet saw and asked to attack. Seeing the battle was not going his way Bragg basically started pouting because he’d rather lose the battle if he didn’t win it the way he wanted to. So because of Bragg’s inaction Longstreet took command and attacked the southern flank and did Bragg’s plan but in reverse and pushed back the Yankees. All retreated but one, Major General Geroge H. Thomas who held and because of this was given the nickname the Rock of Chickamauga but since the rest of the Army started retreating he eventually fell back too. With Rosecrans retreating Forrest told Bragg to follow up and crush the Army before they could get back to Chattanooga but Bragg refused and as a result, Forrest transferred out of the Army of Tennessee and sent to Mississippi costing the Army its best Cavalry commander.

The word Chickamauga is an Indian word meaning River of Death and the battle proved that to be true with Rosecrans taking 16,170 casualties and Bragg taking 18,454. If Seven Days is not considered one battle the Battle of Chickamauga was not only the second bloodiest battle of the War but the bloodiest the Confederates won and had the numerical advantage. Chickamauga also served to boost Southern morale because after the disasters of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, it gave them hope they could still win this war but Bragg’s decision not to listen to Nathan Bedford Forrest and follow up would cost him severely.

After the Union fell back to Chattanooga Bragg laid in for a siege and it looked to be hopeless for the Army of the Cumberland. Lincoln, not wanting to lose Chattanooga could not risk it falling so he sent the best man for the job to relieve Rosecrans from the siege and beat Bragg. This man was Ulysses S. Grant who as a result of Vicksburg was put in command of all Union forces in the West. When Grant took command he noticed an opening in Bragg’s lines(which if Bragg was competent wouldn't be there) and sent men through the opening on October 27 and by doing so opened a supply line called the Cracker Line to supply Rosecrans’ men with ammo, food, and reinforcements. The opening of the Cracker Line broke the siege because now Rosecrans wasn’t being starved out and had reinforcements.

Because Burnside was threatening Knoxville, Bragg sent Longstreet to deal with him(which ended in Longstreet losing and being sent back to Virginia) and Bragg attacked Grant with what he had. He took up a position on Missionary Ridge which was part of Lookout Mountain and heavily fortified it. Grant got more reinforcements under Sherman and by November 24th he struck Bragg in a series of battles around Lookout Mountain. The thing that hurt the Confederates is even though they had the high ground it was too much because the cannons had to point straight down and this just resulted in the ball falling out of the cannon. Without a major threat from artillery, the Yankees climbed up a practically 90-degree angle and pushed back the Confederates. The Union saw success in all of these battles along the ridge overwhelming the Confederates except at Tunnel Hill where Major General Patrick Cleburne used the high ground as an advantage against Sherman by dropping boulders on his men and then when they went up the hill his men repulsed Sherman’s. Tunnel Hill made Sherman the only Union General to lose but the battle of Missionary Ridge ended with Union victory and Bragg’s army being pushed back into Georgia. As Bragg retreated Grant sent Joe Hooker to cut him off but Clebourn took up a defensive position on Ringgold Gap and when Hooker tried to go up the hill he was bloodily repulsed and when he attacked his flanks Clebourn would just shift his men and repulse them again and this allowed the Army of Tennessee to live and fight another day. But it did result in Bragg being relieved of command because of his constant failures and his men demanding Davis relieve him. Since Bragg was good at coming up with battle plans(just not implementing them especially if something went wrong) Davis brought him to Richmond to serve in Robert E. Lee’s old position as his military advisor and Joe Johnston was put in command of the Army because the men loved him and Davis hoped this would boost their morale.

The year of 1863 saw some bloodiest battles of the War and major Union victories. With the Confederacy now split in two, the blockade anaconda tightening its grip on the South, it started to look like the North was going to win.

1864: The Beginning of the End

1864 began with little action with the armies on both sides settling in for the winter and waiting for spring. The first major thing to happen was because of Grant’s success in Vicksburg and Chattanooga Lincoln was able to get Congress to promote him to the rank of Lieutenant General in March making him the first man to officially hold the rank since George Washington and the second to ever hold it(Winfield Scott held it as an honorary not official rank). Now in command of the entire Union Army and Lincoln giving him free rein to do what he wanted he had a plan. Grant put his old right hand Major General William Tecumseh Sherman in command of all the Western Union forces and he planned to have General Banks go up the Red River to take control of Texas to prevent France(who was invading Mexico at the time) from helping the Confederacy, Sherman to take Atlanta, and he would station himself in Virginia to help Meade beat Robert E. Lee so they could take Richmond.

The first of these to happen would be Banks going up the Red. Banks hoped this would redeem himself from his failure to stop Jackson in the Valley and after this was done he’d march on Mobile Alabama and further solidify himself as a hero. Banks went up the Red via the Mississippi in March and followed it up to Mansfield Louisiana before General Edmund Kirby Smith the Confederate commander of the Trans-Mississippi sent all available forces to stop him and they did at the Battle of Mansfield on April 7th. This pushed Banks back and General Zachary Taylor stayed on his heels pushing him back. During the campaign, Sherman took about 10,000 men from Banks to help him take Atlanta because he was supposed to be done and on May 18th Banks was pushed back to the Mississippi and was pulled out of the area and was not allowed to command the operations to take Mobile. The Red River Campaign started in 1864 with Grant’s first part of his plan ending in failure and boosting Confederate morale giving them hope the War could still go in their favor.

The next major campaign would take place in Virginia in May. Back in the fall of ‘63, Meade pursued Lee(now back to his pre-Gettysburg strength) along the Mine Run River but Lee avoided him resulting in another failure and because of this Grant knew he was needed up there to beat Lee. During the winter Lee heavily fortified and entrenched himself and Grant knew it would be suicide to attack his trenches head-on so he planned to flank Lee and put himself between Lee and Richmond only question was whether to flank his left or right. He decided to flank his right but this resulted in him having to march through the Wilderness

When Grant took command Lee turned to his Old Warhorse Longstreet who made it back from Tennessee what to expect from Grant since the two were close friends pre-war. Longstreet said as long as Grant had breath in his lungs and resources to keep up the fight he would fight Lee to the last breath. To defend Richmond Lee kept an eye on the Army of the Potomac to see whether they’d move left or right and sent Longstreet to cover the left. When they went right through the Wilderness Lee made it clear he would not let Grant get out and pounced on him.

The Battle of the Wilderness began on May 5th with Ewells Corp seeing the first action on the northern end of the battlefield and he repulsed Grant’s men and decided to dig in instead of pursue. Hill on the southern end was sick so Lee was there with all of the Army’s logistics and artillery(the Wilderness was too thick to use cannon) and his line almost broke being hit by Handcock and the only reason it didn’t was that when night fell Handcock couldn’t keep up the fight. General Heth being on the front lines told Hill they needed to dig in if not Handock would shatter his line the next day but Hill told him no since the men were fighting all day and ordered Heth to go to bed.

Hancock told Grant that if he had another hour he’d shatter Hill’s line so Grant reinforced him and made sure to have Ewell pinned down so he couldn’t reinforce Hill. The Battle continued early in the morning the next day and Heth got up early to put the engineers to work but all was in vain and the line shattered. The main reason Hill didn’t dig in is that Longstreet was on his way to reinforce him but he didn’t know he was due to arrive in the afternoon. When the men retreated Lee got the artillery involved but mainly shot his own men and knowing without infantry support the day would be lost, the Army of Northern Virginia would lose its logistics and artillery and he could be captured or killed. But then through the smoke, Lee heard the high-pitched cry of the Rebel Yell and saw a large body of his men pounce on the Yankees. It was the 5th Texas Infantry from John Bell Hood’s Brigade(now under John Gregg since Hood stayed in Georgia) and they sent Handcock’s men back. Lee elated spurred his horse forward and tried to lead them but they stopped and started shouting at him to get to the back because it was too dangerous and a Sergeant grabbed the reins of Lee’s horse to stop him but when Longstreet showed up with the rest of his Corp Lee went back and let them handle it. They completely folded up Grant’s left flank and could have destroyed it if some men who got repulsed didn’t accidentally shoot Longstreet in the throat which took him out of the war until October.

With the right flank getting folded in, Lee decided to check on Ewell and General John B Gordan told Lee that he saw Grant’s right flank was opened and asked for permission to attack it. Lee quickly told him yes and Gordon folded that flank up and the only reason he didn’t destroy it was the same Handcock didn’t destroy Hill’s the previous day, nightfall. With having both of his flanks folded up Grant spent until midnight reestablishing them and even cried because of the stress and relief. The battle cost Grant 17,666 casualties and Lee 11,033 making it the fourth bloodiest in the War. Lee after the battle spent the time entrenching himself and Grant knew it would be suicide to stay but vowed to never retreat so he decided to flank Lee again and go for Spotsylvania Courthouse to get Lee out of the trenches and attack him in the open. For the first time, the Army of the Potomac had a commander who didn’t retreat or give up after a loss.

When Lee saw Grant had pulled out and realized he didn’t retreat he decided he was going for Spotsylvania because that is what he would do. This began an intense race starting on the 7th and Lee had Stuart’s cavalry knock down trees, tear up railroads, and throw the libs and rails in the road to slow Grant down and on the 8th it was neck and neck and both armies dashed for Spotsylvania. Lee got there first and with the rails that were torn up he made a makeshift fortification that blew Grant away. Grant, realizing his men were tired from the hard marching of the race, he decided to let his men sleep and deal with Lee in the morning. This was a grave mistake because Lee dug a trench line, unlike anything the world had seen. It was four miles long in the shape of an inverted U and the head of it was a mile long and called the Mule Shoe. The trenchline was lined with an abitis which were wooden spikes along the front to repulse infantry charges and there was a ditch between the trench and the abitis for the bodies to fall into. When the battle began the Confederates were shooting at Grant so much that they eventually killed General John Sedwick who was the highest-ranking soldier to die in the North and after this Grant started trying to break the trench line. He started off by attacking it head- on but the abitis did most of the work and slaughtered the infantry. Next, he tried flanking it but Lee just extended the trench line. On the 10th Colonel Emory Upton found a weak spot on the trench line and overwhelmed it with the amount of men he had, forcing the Confederates to a stronger part of the line. Grant had a plan now seeing Upton’s success. He was to have General Handcock attack the head of the Mule Shoe and give him so many men they could overwhelm the trenches and have his other men attack the sides.

While this was going on Grant had the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry commander Phill Sheridan raid Lee’s supply lines and he was the first cavalry commander in that army to have success. During this raid, JEB Stuard tried to intercept him but in the battle of Yellow Tavern on May 11th Stuart was killed. This was yet another loss Lee never recovered from and his Cavalry was never as effective.

On May 12th Grant was ready to enact his plan and it was a disaster. Even though Hancock’s attack initially worked the problem was by the time he could overwhelm and get his men inside the trench line, the amount of men needed to do this was too many and resulted in them being so tightly packed together that they couldn’t even move their arms to use their guns making them fish in a barrel and they just got slaughtered. Grant’s men attacking the sides couldn’t even get close to the line being blown away by the artillery. Though the Bloody Angle assault failed Grant tried for a few more days to break Lee but with no success and by May 21st Grant pulled out. The Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse was the third bloodiest battle in the War with Lee taking 12,687 casualties and Grant taking 18,399. The battle was so intense many trees in the area were shot down by a single shot rifle fire further showing the intensity of the battle.

Grant, pulling out of Spotsylvania tried his old trick again, flank Lee’s right get him out of his trenches, and attack him in the open and the spot he chose was North Anna. Grant had become too predictable now so Lee seeing that Grant had pulled out he went to North Anna and like with Spotsylvania he beat him and dug in. Learning their lesson from Spotsylvania Grant’s men didn’t attack and the Battle of North Anna was really a standstill so Grant pulled out and flanked Lee’s right again and went to Cold Harbor. Lee beat him there too but this time made his trench line less intimidating hoping Grant would attack it and he took the bait and all hell was unleashed. In the first 8 minutes, Grant took 7,000 casualties and by the end of the Battle of Cold Harbor, he took 12,738 while Lee only took 5,287. This was the only charge Grant ever regretted ordering and this ended the Wilderness Campaign.

During the campaign Grant lost over 50,000 men which was more the Lee had in his army and he realized he was dealing with a different caliber of General than he was back west. Grant realized he couldn’t beat Lee on the battlefield but he had to attrit him and he decided to do this by attacking Petersburg. Petersburg was a railroad town that was south of Richmond and was the main railroad town for the Capital if Petersburg fell then Richmond fell. So on June 24th Grant pulled out of the Wilderness ending the campaign after 40 bloody days and doing this forced Lee into a siege. Robert E. Lee. knew the army couldn’t survive a siege and seeing Grant go to Petersburg it wasn’t a matter of if he would lose but a matter of when. Petersburg was already defended by PTG Beareguard and Grant couldn’t break his trench line and every time he flanked it, it was just extended so he dug in too like in Vicksburg, and when Lee got there with the Army of Northern Virginia the Siege of Petersburg had begun.

When Grant engaged Lee in the Wilderness, Sheman decided to march on Atlanta. He left Chattanooga on May 7th and started engaging Joe Johnston in north Georgia. The problem was Johnston was using trench warfare too and Sherman was too scared to attack it much preferring a fight out in the open so he could use his numbers so he kept flanking Johnston to his left but Johnston would take up a better defensive position and entrench it. By June 27th Johnston took up a position on Kennesaw Mountain and Sherman, tired of flanking him, decided to attack the trench line on all sides and got slaughtered. Sherman lost 3,000 men and Johnston lost 1,000 making this Johnston’s masterpiece and reaffirmed his retreat and let the enemy attack him attitude instead of going offensive. Sherman decided to flank Sherman again but as a result of his constant flanking Johnston was pushed further back and closer to Atlanta and by July 10th Johnston was at Atlanta and willing to give up the city. Jefferson Davis was already tired of him constantly retreating but him giving up Atlanta was the last straw and he fired him and wanting someone who is aggressive and would go offensive he put John Bell Hood in command of the Army of Tennessee on July 18th. Though Hood lost the use of his left arm at Gettysburg and lost his right leg at Chickamauga, he didn’t lose his aggressive spirit and with this command, he was ready to unleash hell on Sherman and drive him out of Georgia.

Hood had four battles to defend Atlanta and sadly all failed and for the same reason. Hood had solid plans but his men being used to retreating and not fighting were slow to enact them and the slowness allowed Sherman to close whatever gaps were open or reinforce weak spots in his lines so when he was attacked he bloodily repulsed Hood. By the end of August Hood realized he had done all he could and pulled out of Atlanta and Sherman occupied it on September 2nd. Because of the bloodshed over the years Lincoln was losing public support and McClellan was running against him for president vowing to end the war and letting the South go. The fall of Atlanta was enough to sway the Northern people into thinking the war was still worth fighting and this secured Lincoln’s victory in the election that November.

Back in the East Grant had a plan to end the Siege and break Lee’s trench line by blowing it up. For this, he brought Burnside to the Army of the Potomac and put him in charge. The plan was to dig under Lee’s line and fill it with 4 tons of black powder and when that went off Burnside would take a regiment of Black soldiers to take the high ground and blow away the Confederates. The first problem began with Grant last last-minute forbidding the Blacks from fighting because if it went bad then it would look like they were using the Blacks as cannon fire so Burnside couldn’t use the men he was training for this and had to rely on men who weren’t. The next thing to go wrong was on July 30th when the bomb was supposed to go off it went off late and even though it blew up resulting in the largest explosion in world history until World War One, Burnsides men were too slow in taking the high ground which the surviving Confederates took so they decided to go into the Crater and go up the hill. This resulted in them getting shot like fish in a barrel and the Crater’s walls were too steep to climb so they were sitting ducks. The Battle of the Crater was an absolute disaster resulting in the Union taking 3,798 casualties and the Confederates only taking 1,491. From this point on Grant decided to play the long game because he knew Lee wouldn’t be relieved and didn’t have the supplies to keep up the siege for very long.

When Grant went to Petersburg Lee saw an opportunity. With Grant south of Richmond, nothing stood between him and Washington so he thought the third time might be the charm but he was needed at Petersburg so the question was who would lead the assault. If Stonewall was alive he’d be the natural choice but since he wasn’t Lee decided Jubal Early and put him in command of Jackson’s old Army of the Valley to threaten DC. He knew Early didn’t have the force to take the city being as heavily fortified as it was but he hoped either to scare the North enough to end the war or at the bare minimum get Grant to detach a significant amount of men from Petersburg to relieve the stress on him.

The first battle Early had was Monocasy on July 9th in Maryland and even though he won this battle resulted in the troops at DC being ready for him when he arrived and at the Battle of Fort Stevens just outside DC he was repulsed which would have happened anyway. This did scare the North with how close Early was to DC and during Fort Stevens Lincoln almost got shot during the battle so the scare was successfully put into them enough that Grant detached Sheridan to deal with Early. This is exactly what Lee wanted because the North was scared and Sheridan leaving Petersburg relieved some of the stress on him. Early continued to raid and went as far north as Chambersburg Pennsylvania burning towns and destroying Union supply lines but when Sheridan went after him he started losing. Grant had Sheridan’s men armed with the new Henry Repeater, a cartridge firing rifle that could fire 14 rounds without reloading. Early called it “That damn Yankee rifle you could load on Sunday and shoot all week” and Early being armed with single-shot black powder rifles didn’t stand a chance. But on October 19th John B Gordon saw an opportunity and told Early to attack Sheridan’s men who were sleeping in the Shenandoah Valley before they could react and this resulted in them retreating. Gordan wanted to follow up and destroy Sheridan’s army but Early believed they won and there was no point. This was a mistake because by that afternoon Sheridan re-rallied his men and they attacked the Confederates who were celebrating their victory and being caught off guard they got destroyed. The Battle of Cedar Creek though starting off as a Confederate victory ended as a Union one with the Army of the Valley the army that made Jackson famous being destroyed. Gordon was so mad at Ealy that he left him and by the end of the year rejoined Lee in Petersburg with what remained. With Early defeated Grant ordered Sheridan to lay waste to the valley and leave nothing left. He not only destroyed the crops(which could have fed Lee’s army) but the towns, homes, and churches of the Valley and killed many civilians. The sad thing was the civilians in the Valley were mostly Union sympathizers and pacifists. Very few were Confederate sympathizers but Sheridan and Grant didn’t care they didn’t want the Valley to be usable.

After pulling out of Atlanta, Hood went north and started wrecking Sherman’s supply lines. When Sherman pursued him, Hood would sneak past him and destroy another one of his rails or supply lines and not being able to pin Hood down, Sherman decided to go south. Lincoln wanted Sherman to join up with Grant to crush Lee at Petersburg if he wasn’t going after Hood but Sherman told Lincoln that brining going to Savannah he would being the theater of war to the civilian population saying “There is a class of people men, women, and children who must be killed or banished before we can hope for peace and order”. Hearing this Lincoln gave him the go ahead hoping to crush the spirit of the people of the South making them more submissive to Northern rule. Sherman intended to make Georgia howl and that is what he did. He burned crops and killed livestock causing the civilians and slaves to starve, burned down homes, plantations, and slave shacks leaving many white and slaves homeless, murdered women and children(white and slave), and his men even raped many women. This was not limited to the whites or the rich planters Sherman treated the slaves with the same brutality. With the crops and livestock killed many slaves followed Sherman’s army hoping they’d drop food so they could have something to eat and Sherman’s men would shoot them for fun and Sherman said watching his men kill these slaves was a favorite pastime of his. This was a brutality unseen in the Western world being the first time civilians were the main targets and Sherman’s march could be seen by the miles of chimneys because they were the only part of the houses that didn’t burn. By December Savannah fell and Sherman wrote Lincoln saying he got him a Christmas gift after he won the presidential election.

When Sherman went South he left General George Thomas the Rock of Chickamauga in Tennessee to deal with Hood. Hood decided to go into Tennessee to not only destroy Sherman’s main supply line(which didn’t matter at that point because Sherman was feeding his army with the food he stole from civilians) but to reclaim the State the army he commanded was named for. By November Hood invaded Tennessee and Forrest rejoined the Army of Tennessee to help him retake the State. Because Hood’s men didn’t perform well trying to defend Atlanta with his flanking maneuvers and attacking the openings of Sherman’s army he decided to take the Union army head on and what resulted was an absolute disaster. Hood engaged General Schofield who Thomas sent out to stop Hood from advancing to Nashville on the 30th. Schofield entrenched himself at Franklin and Hood found out the same way Grant did at Spotsylvania what happens when you attack a trench line head-on. The battle of Franklin not only cost Hood 6,252 but 12 of those were Generals being the most amount of Generals killed during a battle during the war and one of those was Patrick Cleburne the best Division commander in the Army of Tennessee. Schofield only took 2,326 and after the Battle of Franklin, he went back to Nashville to reinforce Thomas.

Even though the Battle of Franklin was a major setback Hood went on to Nashville and because he was vastly outnumbered and Nashville was heavily fortified and entrenched Hood decided to dig a counter-trench line on the flank of Thomas’ hoping to overtake it. Though this was a solid plan and the best thing Hood could do he did not have near the manpower to pull this off and knowing this Thomas on December 15th surrounded Hood’s line and by the 16th he practically destroyed the Army of Tennessee. To avert total destruction Forrest was able to repurpose supply wagons to carry the injured infantrymen and this allowed what remained of the army to get away unscathed but the Army of Tennessee was never an effective fighting force again.

1864 saw the real turning point of the War for Southern Independence with Lee being forced into siege and Atlanta falling securing Lincoln’s victory in the election. Gettysburg is typically seen as the turning point but it was just a bloody battle. Lee by August regained his pre-Gettysburg strength, the battle of the Wilderness almost saw him destroy Grant’s army, and by sending Early to DC he still remained offensive and able to invade the North which did scare the Northern population but the fall of Atlanta undid that. Petersburg trapped Lee and as the siege dragged on Lee went through supplies he couldn’t replace, when Grant tried to break his line which each time he failed( one was so bad Handcock resigned out of embarrassment) Lee lost men he couldn’t replace, and as winter set in his men started freezing as well as starving. At this point it wasn’t a matter if the South would lose, it was only a matter of when.

The two pictures above from Petersburg showing complex prepared trenches are indicative of how the nature of modern war changes during the war to account for dramatically improved weapons. This was foreshadowing WWI.

1865: The End of the War

1865 began with Sherman turning his attention to the Carolinas. South Carolina was the birthplace of secession and the State Sherman and many of the Yankees blamed for the War so this was their chance to take out pay. Sherman plundered the countryside allowing his men to rob, rape, and murder the civilians stealing everything and burning what they didn’t steal. Like in Georgia this terror was not just limited to the whites, the slaves suffered the same fate. During this time Joe Wheeler’s cavalry and local militia troops tried to resist Sherman but were nowhere near the force needed to stop him and Robert E. Lee dispatched his cavalry from Petersburg now under Wade Hampton but they still weren’t much help. On February 17th Sherman reached Columbia, South Carolina, the State’s capital, and burned the city to the ground leaving an entire third of it in ashes. What remained, the soldiers plundered and robbed. By March Sherman entered North Carolina and started doing the same and when he was done the plan was to combine his army with Grant’s in Virginia and crush Lee.

With things getting desperate the Confederacy did two things at the beginning of the year. One was at the request of Robert E. Lee and that was to allow the slaves to enlist in the Confederate army. Blacks free and slave have been in the army from the start of the War not just as cooks and medics but as actual soldiers but them acting as soldiers was typically due to officers just bringing their slaves into State units and nationally they weren’t allowed to enlist but this finally allowed the slave population as a whole to join. The other thing was Davis promoted Lee to be the General in Chief of the Confederacy giving him command of all Confederate armies. With this Lee was able to get the Army of Tennessee somewhat reorganized and put Joe Johnston in charge and he was sent to North Carolina to deal with Sherman. Apart from that there was little Lee could do in this position given the conditions of Petersburg but this was done to hopefully boost the morale of the Confederate citizenry and get more to enlist.

As the siege of Petersburg dragged on it depleted Lee. Even though Grant tried multiple times to break his trench line each time he was repulsed but this forced Lee to extend his trench line and every one of these fights when Lee lost men he couldn’t replace them but Grant could. When Lee started the siege he had about 60,000 under his command and by March he had about 30,000 and this was also due to the cold winter and starvation which caused a lot to die and a lot to desert. With Gordon back in his army Lee tried one more time to go offensive by having him take Fort Steadman on March 25th and though Gordon initially captured the Fort Grant had over 100,000 men at this point and was able to detach enough to overwhelm Gordon and push him out. On April 1st with Sheridan rejoining Grant he attacked Pickett's division at Five Forks and this drove him back(Picket was eating dinner during the assault and unprepared for it). By April 2nd Grant saw an opportunity. When the siege began Lee only had 10 miles of trench line now it was over 40 and Lee did not have the manpower to properly man it. He was stretched out so thin Grant decided to snap him. He attacked Lee from all sides and the resulting battle cost Lee over 5,000 casualties including A.P. Hill, his most aggressive Corp commander. With this loss, Lee knew he couldn’t hold out in Petersburg anymore and told Davis to evacuate Richmond and that night Lee snuck out of Petersburg by way of the Appomattox River.

Once Petersburg fell Richmond fell with it and the Yankees occupied it immediately and even Lincoln showed up to see the former Confederate capital now under Union control. Lee pulling out had a simple plan. He was to follow the Appomattox to a supply house to feed his men and when they were finally fed he would go South to combine with Joe Johnston in North Carolina and the combined army would take out Sherman. Then they would go back north to take out Grant and with Grant gone nothing stood between them and DC and they would march on DC and finally bring this bloody war to an end. The first problem arrose when the supply house Lee was heading for was empty. His men needed food and many collapsed from starvation on the march and many deserted but Lee kept on for another one that was at the town of Appomattox Courthouse. When marching Grant caught up to him and Ewell stayed back to slow him down but all were either killed or captured. The Battle of Sayler's Creek known as Black Thursday in the Confederacy cost over 7,000 POWs and the amount of Confederates killed isn’t known. Because of these men’s gallant sacrifice, Lee was able to fight another day but by the time he got to Appomatox Sheridan was waiting for him and without any other choice on April 9th he fought. Eventually, the rest of Grant’s army showed up and being completely overwhelmed and seeing no way out Lee surrendered. At first, the Union army ignored it and killed the surrendering Confederates but eventually Grant made them stop and met with Lee in the parlor of a local resident. The house they negotiated the surrender in belonged to Wilmer McLean whose house in Manassas was used by Joe Johnston as a headquarters in the first battle and in the second the house got hit with a shell so he moved to the town of Appomattox Court House because he didn’t believe the war would reach him there. When Lee surrendered, Grant’s terms were for them to just lay down their arms, swear loyalty to the Union, and just go back to their private lives, pay their taxes, and contribute to society. Lee agreed and on April 9th the Army of Northern Virginia was formally surrendered(though the men were still willing to fight) and the war in Virginia was over.

Davis still tried to keep the fight going and tried to re-rally the army under Joe Johnston but he didn’t believe the Confederacy could win and he surrendered the Army of Tennessee to Sherman on April 25th. Davis made a dash for the West to continue the fight with Edmund Kirby Smith but when he heard Yankee troops under General Wilson were near his family in Georgia (he sent his family ahead of him so if he was captured they wouldn’t be) and went there to protect his family. When he made it to his wife and children Union troops were right behind him and his wife tried to hide his face with a shawl but to no avail, he was recognized and captured on May 10th. The last battle in the War took place in Brownsville Texas when Grant ordered men to take the Lone Star State but Confederate Cavalry under Colonel Rip Ford repulsed them on May 13th in the Battle of Palmito Ranch Lee surrendered and Davis captured this victory meant nothing. On June 2nd Edmund Kirby Smith surrendered the Army of the Trans-Mississippi in Galveston, June 23rd General Stand Watie(the only Indian General in the War) surrendered in the Indian Nations being the last Confederate General to surrender, July the Chickasaw tribe surrendered being the last Confederate soldiers to surrender and in November the CSS Shenandoah docked in England lowered its Confederate flag and fired the last shots of the War for Southern Independence before the crew went back to civilian life. The War for Southern Independence after four incredibly bloody years was over.

This is a live video from the Southern Rock group "The Outlaws" recounting the Battle of Cold Harbor

Conclusion

So that is the War for Southern Independence by far the bloodiest war in American history with a total of 1,094,453 casualties with the North taking 623,026 of those 365,000 were fatalities and the South taking 417,427 of those 256,000 were fatalities. If civilian casualties are included as well as deaths from disease and injury that were received during the war but didn’t kill until after the death toll is well over 1 million and it’s also quite possible the battle casualties were higher since Generals didn’t want to break public morale and also keep their jobs. The War saw a total of 10,000 military actions from Arizona to Vermont and in the sea from England to Brazil and even in the Pacific. There were 76 full-scale battles, 310 engagements, 6337 skirmishes, and numerous raids, sieges, and expeditions.

There are many reasons why this is the bloodiest war in American history. The most common answer given is it was Americans fighting Americans which is true since they are the only ones who would be casualties and the fact that Americans have a bloody fighting style in the first place and both sides fighting like that produces a lot of bloodshed but the real reason is the weaponry was outpacing the tactics. Stonewall Jackson said at the start “The war will be won with the bayonet” but the end of the war saw trench warfare in a true World War One style. With rifling being in full use in not just handguns but artillery(specifically heavy artillery), heavy advanced fortifications, and by the end of the war repeating cartridge guns like the Henry, Spencer, and Smith and Wesson, as well as trench warfare the Napoleonic tactics of bayonet charges and head on infantry assaults were just getting slaughtered by these advancements. Lee learned this at Malvern Hill, Grant in the Wilderness, Sherman at Kennesaw, and Hood at Franklin. The War for Southern Independence saw a new age of warfare dawn that was bloodier than anything before and because of this many historians consider it the first modern war. But also it was because the North couldn’t beat the South intellectually so they decided to attrit them. The North could take the casualties and re-supply and the South couldn’t, so they just threw men at the South until the South had no men to throw back. Grant also when taking command in ‘64 forbade prisoner exchange to further dwindle the South’s numbers and this resulted in the POW camps getting overcrowded with Yankees since they just threw men at the South and this resulted in thousands of deaths in the POW camps since the overcrowding resulted in breeding grounds for disease and the North also forbade medicine going into the South that would help and the blockade around the South also contributed to these men starving.

Not only did technology change but the targets of war did too. For the first time in Western history the theater of War was brought to the civilians and innocent men, women, and children of all classes and colors of the South suffered the horrors of war but unlike the soldiers they couldn’t fight it they just were slaughtered. This was also a shift in why the U.S. fought wars. Most wars before this one America fought to defend itself but this was the first it fought as an invading power to bring a foreign nation into submission by conquest and bloodshed. After the South was conquered America became an ever-expanding globalist empire destroying practically everything in its path with the only goal of power and wealth being in the minds of politicians and generals who fought in the wars after. War became profitable and a way to become rich and powerful so to keep the American Empire in its position of power it needs to demonstrate it. The America that was founded on Liberty and the State’s Rights to sovereignty govern themselves died at Appomattox Courthouse. The South was America’s last chance to remain a Union that was founded on Liberty but the North winning abolished that Union and consolidated the formerly sovereign States into one vast empire that has unfortunately become aggressive abroad and despotic at home. Hopefully, the knowledge of how the War for Southern Independence went down and what resulted from it can if enough people know about it and act on it reverse the horrors that have come from it and get America back to a land of Liberty not of conquest and bloodshed.

Sources

Civil Narrative Volume 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville by Shelby Foote

Civil Narrative Volume 2: Fredericksburg to Meridian by Shelby Foote

Civil Narrative Volume 3: Red River to Appomattox by Shelby Foote

When the Yankees Come compiled by Paul C Graham

Lincoln’s Quest for Empire