AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
CIVIL WAR
The Civil War in the United States began in
1861, after decades of simmering tensions between northern and southern states
over slavery, states’ rights and westward expansion. The election of Abraham
Lincoln in 1860 caused seven southern states to secede and form the Confederate
States of America; four more states soon joined them. The War Between the
States, as the Civil War was also known, ended in Confederate surrender in
1865. The conflict was the costliest and deadliest war ever fought on American
soil, with some 620,000 of 2.4 million soldiers killed, millions more injured
and much of the South left in ruin.
-DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO ARMIES
Some key aspects of these organizations are
summarized below. On the Union side, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, in
addition to being the commander of all of the Union forces arrayed against the
Confederacy, commanded all Union forces in the eastern theater of operations
that fought in the Overland Campaign. His main force was Major General George
G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac, which initially consisted of three infantry
corps and one cavalry corps. An additional infantry corps, the IX Corps under
Major General Ambrose E. Burnside, began the campaign as a separate corps
reporting directly to Grant, but was later assigned to the Army of the Potomac.
Major General Franz Sigel commanded a Union army in the Shenandoah Valley that
had only an indirect role in the Overland Campaign. On the other hand, Major
General Benjamin F. Butler’s Army of the James was more directly involved in
the campaign. His army consisted of two infantry corps and about a division’s
THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR
In an event that is generally regarded as
marking the end of the Civil War, Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of
Confederate forces west of the Mississippi, signs the
surrender terms offered by Union negotiators. With Smith’s surrender, the last
Confederate army ceased to exist, bringing a formal end to the bloodiest four
years in U.S. history.
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