1. Unit 3 Day 9 (1865) Quote: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.” - Abraham Lincoln (March 4th 1865)
Focus Question(s): How did the actions of political and military leaders influence the Civil War?
Specified Content: Fort Fisher, Wilmington, March through the Carolina’s, Appomattox, Civil War casualties
State Standards: Strand 1 Concept 6 PO 2

2. 1865
January 1865: Union forces capture Fort Fisher, NC. This allows the Union to also capture Wilmington, the last major port still in Confederate control. The Union blockade was now complete.

3. February-April 1865: General Sherman takes his army in Savanah, GA and marches through the Carolinas destroying everything in his path. His goal is to link up with General Grant in Virginia.

4. In April, the siege of Petersburg is broken and Lee’s army retreats
In April, the siege of Petersburg is broken and Lee’s army retreats. They will be pursued and on April 9th Lee will surrender his army to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.

5. On April 14th while attending a play with his wife President Lincoln will be shot in the back of the head by John Wilkes Booth. He dies the next morning. He is one of the roughly 750,000 Americans who died in the war.

6. Activity Write the following questions on a separate sheet of paper:
What was the “fearful trip”?
What does “the prize we sought is won” refer to?
Who is the “Captain”?
How does this part of the poem make you feel?

7. O Captain! My Captain!, Walt Whitman (November 1865)
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead