CONTINUING THE U.S. ARMY HISTORY ---------- Civil War ------------------------------------------- Union Army and Confederate Army At the outset of the American Civil War the regular U.S. army was small and generally assigned to defend the nations frontiers from attacks by Native Americans. As one after another Southern state seceded many experienced officers and men resigned or left to join the Confederacy, further limiting the regular armys abilities. The attack on Fort Sumter by South Carolina militia marked the beginning of hostilities. Both sides recruited large numbers of men into a new Volunteer Army, recruited and formed by the states. Regiments were recruited locally, with company officers elected by the men. Although many officers in the regular army accepted commissions in the new volunteer units outsiders were not usually welcome as officers, unless they were surgeons whose value was obvious. Colonels – often local politicians who helped raise the troops – were appointed by the governors, and generals were appointed by President Abraham Lincoln. The Volunteer Army was so much larger than the Regular Army that entirely new units above the regimental level had to be formed. The grand plan involved geographical theaters, with armies (named after rivers such as the Army of the Potomac in the Eastern Theater) comprising brigades, divisions and corps headquarters. The rapidly growing armies were relatively poorly trained when the first major battle of the war occurred at Bull Run in the middle of 1861. The embarrassing Union defeat and subsequent inability of the Confederacy to capitalize on their victory resulted in both sides spending more time organizing and training their green armies. Much of the subsequent actions taken in 1861 were skirmishes between pro-Union and pro-Confederacy irregular forces in border states like Missouri and Kentucky. In 1862 the war became much more bloody, though neither side was able to gain a lasting strategic advantage over the other. However, the decisive battles of Gettysburg in the east and Vicksburg in the west allowed the momentum of the war to shift in favor of the Union in 1863. Increasingly, Confederate forces were outmatched by the more numerous and better equipped Union forces, whose greater population and economic resources became critical factors as the war became one of attrition. An increasingly effective naval blockade further damaged the Southern war economy. By 1864, long-term Union advantages in geography, manpower, industry, finance, political organization and transportation were overwhelming the Confederacy. Grant fought a remarkable series of bloody battles with Lee in Virginia in the summer of 1864. Lees defensive tactics resulted in higher casualties for Grants army, but Lee lost strategically overall as he could not replace his casualties and was forced to retreat into trenches around his capital, Richmond, Virginia. Meanwhile, in the West, William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta in 1864. His March to the Sea destroyed a hundred-mile-wide swath of Georgia, with little Confederate resistance. In 1865, the Confederacy collapsed after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomatox Courthouse. In all, 2.2 million men served in the Union army; 360,000 of whom died from all causes – two-thirds from disease. The Volunteer Army was demobilized in summer 1865. Black soldiers--------------------------------------------------------------------- Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, enabled both free blacks and escaped slaves, to join the Union Army. About 190,000 volunteered, further enhancing the numerical advantage the Union armies enjoyed over the Confederates, who did not dare emulate the equivalent manpower source for fear of fundamentally undermining the legitimacy of slavery. Black Union soldiers were mostly used in garrison duty, but they fought in several battles, such as the Battle of the Crater (1864), and the Battle of Nashville (1865). There was bad blood between Confederates and black soldiers, with no quarter given on either side. At Ft. Pillow on April 12, 1864 Confederate units under Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest went wild and massacred black soldiers attempting to surrender, which further inflamed passions.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 11:50:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015