THE CIVIL WAR VICTORY AT APPOMATTOX

A. Fredricksburg 1. December 1862, Union forces set out once again to head towards Richmond. 2. Union troops were led by General Ambrose Burnside.

3. Confederate General Robert E. Lee left the town to Burnside and Lee’s troops dug in on a hill above Fredricksburg. 4. Six times Burnside ordered his men to charge, and six times they were drove back.

5. This battle was one of the Union’s worst defeats.

B. Chancellorsville 1. In May 1863, Lee and Stonewall Jackson again outwitted the Union Army. 2. Although the South won the three day battle, the South suffered an enormous loss.

a. Stonewall Jackson was shot by a Confederate sentry, and he died of blood poisoning three days later. b. “I have lost my right arm,” Lee said.

3. Lee decided to keep the Union off guard and move north into Pennsylvania. a. If he was successful, Lee planned to capture Washington D.C.

XV. Lee At Gettysburg A. By accident, on June 30th, some of Lee’s men stumbled on Union soldiers at the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. B. Confederate troops drove the Union out of the town, but the Yanks took up positions on Cemetery Ridge.

C. Cemetary Ridge 1. On July 2, General James Longstreet, one of Lee’s best generals, did not like what he saw. The Union position looked too strong to risk a battle.

2. Lee disagreed. “The enemy is there, and I am going to attack him there.” a. “If he is there,” Longstreet replied, “it will be because he is anxious that we should attack him; a good reason, in my judgment, for not doing so.

b. Longstreet advised Lee to go South and find ground more favorable to the South. 3. Lee wanted to destroy the Union army, and ordered an attack on both ends of the Union lines.

a. The South suffered heavy casualties, but could not break the Union lines. 4. Lee ordered General George Pickett to directly assault Cemetery Ridge with 15,000 men.

a. To reach the Yankees, the men would have to cross an open field and then run up a steep slope. 5. In the end, Pickett’s charge failed. “It’s all my fault,” Lee said. 6. Lee had no choice but to retreat. The Confederates would never again invade the north. The war had reached its turning point.

III. Honoring the Dead at Gettysburg A. On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech at a ceremony dedicated to the cemetery at Gettysburg.

B. In a three minute speech, written on a train, Lincoln delivered one of the most memorable speeches in U.S. history. It is known as the Gettysburg Address:

“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

IV. TOTAL WAR A. For three years, Lincoln had searched for a general who could lead the Union to victory. 1. In 1864, after Grant’s victory at Vicksburg, Lincoln appointed Ulysses S. Grant commander of the Union forces.

B. Sheridan in the Shenandoah 1. To destroy the South’s ability to fight, Grant sent General Philip Sheridan into Virginia’s rich farmland, the Shenandoah Valley.

2. Grant ordered Sheridan: “Leave nothing to invite the enemy to return. Destroy whatever cannot be consumed. Let the valley be left so crows flying over it will have to carry rations along with them.”

C. Marching Through Georgia 1. Grant sent General William Tecumseh Sherman to capture Atlanta, Georgia. Sherman had the same orders as Sheridan, destroy everything useful to the South.

2. In September 1864, Sherman burned Atlanta and began his “march to the sea.” a. Sherman destroyed railroad lines, burned barns, homes, and factories.

D. New type of combat 1. Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan created a new type of warfare called “total war.” 2. In total war, everyone is affected as the army destroyed food and equipment that might be useful to the enemy.

V. The War Is Over A. On April 2, 1865, Richmond fell and Jefferson Davis and his cabinet had to flee the city.

B. Lee Surrenders 1. Lee was trapped by the Union Army at Appomattox Courthouse. 2. On April 9, 1865, Lee surrenders to Grant.

3. As southern soldiers surrendered, Union soldiers cheered. Grant ordered them to be silent: “The war is over. The rebels are our countrymen again.”