U.S. Civil War 1856-62

Southern political leaders knew that the seceding states would not be able to exist without some form of federal organization. The creation of a new government became an urgent necessity, and delegates of the first six Southern republics met at Montgomery, Alabama on February 4, 1861 to discuss just how such ...

The role that the issue of slavery played in the coming of the American Civil War has been debated by historians and lay people since the completion of the war. Many have read or heard the words of President Lincoln: “A house divided against itself shall not stand.” Those words were ...

The cause of the American Civil War has been and will be debated forever. However, the inevitability of which side would win the war really came down to which side had the most men and which side could make the most guns and bullets and implements of war and which side ...

If the Union forces were going to be successful in defeating the Confederacy, they needed to seize the Mississippi River in order to cut the South into two. In order to achieve this goal, the port of New Orleans had to be captured. New Orleans was the South’s largest city and ...

In April of 1862, Albert Sidney Johnston made a decision. The Confederate commander decided to attack the Union army in wooded ravines on the west side of the Tennessee River near Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. It was there that 42,000 Union troops under U. S. Grant were encamped waiting for reinforcements. On ...

If the Union forces were going to be successful in defeating the Confederacy, they needed to seize the Mississippi River in order to cut the South into two. In order to achieve this goal, the port of New Orleans had to be captured. New Orleans was the South’s largest city and ...

McClellan’s hesitation, once again, cost the Union a chance to strike a fatal blow to the Confederacy. His boasting and lack of action gave him the repuation of all talk and no fight.

The Confederacy began the war with no navy at all. The man named to be the Confederate Secretary of the Navy, Stephen R. Mallory, was determined that the Confederacy should built a fleet of iron ships that could destroy wooden ships at will. By the fall of 1861, the steam frigate ...

Early on, Union leadership realized that the West would be an important battleground in winning the war. William Tecumseh Sherman commented on this importance: “Whatever nation gets control of the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri Rivers, will control the continent.” This became an opportunity for Ulysses S. Grant.

George McClellan had a well-fed, well-equipped army which outnumbered the nearest Confederate forces three to one. He had a great reluctance to risk failure which some historians attribute to a personality flaw. President Lincoln was exasperated.