1864: The North Tightens Its Grip

In early 1864, the Federal Army made plans to destroy the Confederate military once and for all. Union armies led by Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) and William T. Sherman (1820–1891) launched offensives deep into Confederate territory with the specific purpose of wiping out the South's major remaining armies. This strategy enjoyed support throughout the North, which had become confident of victory after the Union triumphs of 1863. By midsummer, however, Northern confidence wavered as Confederate defiance stayed strong. Dissatisfaction with Grant's campaign was particularly strong, since he racked up very high casualty rates in his effort to break the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, led by Robert E. Lee (1807–1870).

As the 1864 U.S. presidential elections drew near, many people believed that war-weary Northerners would vote to replace President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) with Democratic candidate George B. McClellan (1826–1885), the former general of the Army of the Potomac. If McClellan won the election, many citizens believed he would enter into peace negotiations to end the war and provide the Confederacy with the independence it wanted. But a late flurry of Union victories vaulted Lincoln to victory in the November elections and smashed Confederate hopes of avoiding ultimate defeat.

Grant takes control

In the early months of 1864, the Lincoln administration took advantage of a quiet winter in the war to prepare the Union Army for the coming year. For example, Lincoln called for an additional five hundred thousand enlistees to join the military and appointed Ulysses S. Grant as commander of all Union forces.

Grant officially assumed his new position of lieutenant general on March 12. He immediately made big changes in the Union's war strategy. Convinced that Union military superiority had too often been wasted on unimportant missions in the past, Grant made it clear that he wanted to take a different approach. Rather than weaken his armies by diverting divisions all over Confederate territory, Grant proposed to keep his two primary armies together. These armies were the Army of the Potomac in the East, led by George Meade (1815–1872), and the newly created Military Division of the Mississippi in the West, led by William Sherman. Grant wanted to use these armies for the sole purpose of hammering the Confederate military to pieces.

The two primary rebel armies in 1864 were Robert E. Lee's famous Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of Tennessee, commanded by Joseph E. Johnston (1807–1891). Grant knew that these armies were dangerous. But both forces were operating under increasingly severe troop and supply limitations, and Grant wanted to squeeze the remaining life out of them. The Union commander recognized that if he could wreck these Confederate armies, the South would have no choice but to return to the Union under conditions set by the North.

The North launches twin offensives

In early May 1864, the primary Union armies of the East and West rolled forward in search of forces commanded by Lee and Johnston. Sherman's army in the West pushed toward Atlanta, Georgia, in hopes that Johnston would use his army to defend the city. Grant, meanwhile, rode with the Army of the Potomac as it began its march on the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. (George Meade remained the official head of the Army of the Potomac, but Grant exercised ultimate control over its actions.)

Grant knew that Lee would have to use his army to defend Richmond from invasion. The Union general reasoned that once the two sides met, his force of 115,000 soldiers would eventually crush Lee's army of 75,000 men. But before Grant could use his numerical superiority on an open field, Lee rushed to meet the advancing Union Army in a rugged northern Virginia region known as the Wilderness. Lee recognized that the Wilderness' dense woods, thick underbrush, and winding ravines would make it very difficult for Grant to make full use of his cavalry, artillery, and other advantages in firepower.

Battle of the Wilderness

On May 5, the two armies clashed in the brambles (prickly shrubs) and ravines of the Wilderness. The battle lasted for two days, as both sides engaged in a vicious struggle for survival. Desperate combat erupted all throughout the woods as opposing divisions crashed blindly into one another. A forest fire added to the terror and confusion of the battle. Many wounded men burned to death in the blaze, and billowing smoke made it even harder for the exhausted soldiers to find their way through the Wilderness.

The Battle of the Wilderness ended on May 7 in a virtual stalemate, with neither side giving ground. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia suffered losses of ten thousand soldiers in the fight, further weakening that valiant force. But the Union Army suffered more than seventeen thousand casualties in the clash without getting a mile closer to Richmond.

When Grant ordered his troops to prepare to pull out on the evening of May 7, depressed Federal soldiers assumed that they were going to retreat back to the North once again. After all, previous Union commanders of the Army of the Potomac had always retreated to lick their wounds after clashing with Lee. But as the Union Army left their camp, the soldiers suddenly realized that they were marching deeper into Confederate territory rather than retreating back to the North. Excited cheers broke out all along the Federal line. The soldiers who comprised the Army of the Potomac were sick of losing to Lee. They viewed Grant's decision to continue his push to Richmond as a vote of confidence in their abilities. Many of them vowed that the campaign would not end until Lee's army was broken.

The Battle of Spotsylvania

As the Army of the Potomac pushed forward, it moved around Lee's right flank and drew near a small Virginia village called Spotsylvania. But Lee quickly mobilized his troops and launched a night march that enabled the Confederates to reach the village first. The rebel army immediately prepared a system of trenches and other fortifications, then settled in to await the arrival of the Union Army.

Lee's troops did not have to wait very long. Grant's Union forces attacked Lee's defenses on May 8, and for the next several days the two sides repeatedly clashed together in deadly fighting. On May 12, the Union forces managed to break through the Confederate defenses at a point that came to be called Bloody Angle. But rebel troops rushed forward to close the breach (opening), and for eighteen solid hours the two sides struggled for control of the trenches. Their desperate rushes often ended in brutal hand-to-hand combat. By midnight, when the Confederate forces finally withdrew to newly built defenses to their rear, the trenches at Bloody Angle were piled with dead bodies. "I never expect to be fully believed when I tell what I saw of the horrors of Spotsylvania," admitted one Union officer after the war.

The fight for Spotsylvania lessened somewhat after the nightmarish struggle at Bloody Angle, but skirmishes continued for another week before Grant decided to move on. He resumed his march southward, pushing for Richmond while simultaneously looking for an opportunity to smash Lee's army, which escaped Grant's efforts to trap them in open-field combat.

Two wounded armies

By the end of May, Grant's plan to exert continuous pressure on the Army of Northern Virginia was taking a heavy toll on the rebels. In mid-May, Lee lost legendary cavalryman Jeb Stuart (1833–1864) in a battle with Union cavalry led by Philip H. Sheridan (1831–1888). In addition, some of Lee's most important officers died from illnesses or had nervous breakdowns. Even Lee was not immune to Grant's relentless pressure. At one point the Confederate general contracted a severe case of flu that left him too weak to mount his horse. Finally, Grant's aggressive style was slowly eating away at Lee's army. Each battle and skirmish added to the Confederate death toll and deepened the mental and physical exhaustion of survivors.

But the fighting took a heavy toll on the Union Army, too. From May 5 to May 12 alone, the Army of the Potomac suffered thirty-two thousand casualties. Continual skirmishes pushed the casualty rate ever higher. Grant pushed forward, however, and at the end of May he prepared for another major clash with Lee at a place called Cold Harbor, located ten miles northeast of Richmond.

The Battle of Cold Harbor

Lee adopted a defensive position at Cold Harbor. Recent reinforcements from other Confederate positions had increased the size of his army to almost sixty thousand men, but Lee knew that Grant's approaching force was much larger. The rebel army's only hope was to build defensive fortifications that could withstand a full assault from the Yankees.

Armed with reinforcements that increased the size of his army to almost 110,000 troops, Grant tried to use brute force to pry the Confederates out of their positions at Cold Harbor. On the evening of June 2, he ordered his troops to prepare for a full frontal assault on the rebel defenses the following morning. A ripple of fear and apprehension ran through the Federal camp when the soldiers learned of this plan, for they knew that many of them would be killed or wounded in the attack. In the hours leading up to the assault, hundreds of Union soldiers pinned pieces of cloth and paper with their names and addresses to their uniforms so their bodies could be identified after the battle.

Grant launched his assault on Cold Harbor on the morning of June 3. The decision was possibly the worst of his entire military career. The Confederate Army shattered the advance in a hail of gunfire, and the Union Army never came close to breaching the rebel defenses. By the early afternoon Grant had lost more than seven thousand men. The Confederates, on the other hand, lost fewer than fifteen hundred in the clash. Years later, Grant admitted that his order to attack had been a terrible decision. "I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made," he wrote. "At Cold Harbor no advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained."

Grant targets Petersburg

After the Union defeat at Cold Harbor, Grant changed tactics. He assigned two Union detachments under the command of David Hunter (1802–1886) and Philip Sheridan to undertake raids designed to cripple Confederate railroads and supply lines. He then removed the remainder of the Army of the Potomac from Cold Harbor and slipped southward across the James River. Grant's swift move to the south brought him close to Petersburg, Virginia, a city that supplied Richmond with much of its food and supplies. Grant knew that if the Union Army could capture the railroad yards of Petersburg, the Confederacy would have to abandon its capital city or risk mass starvation.

Once again, though, Lee's army reached Grant's target just in time to establish defensive positions. Grant tested the Confederate defenses, then ordered his men to prepare for a siege of the city. This siege began in mid-June 1864. It would not end until April 1865, when Lee finally abandoned the city.

Northern disillusionment with Grant's campaign

By midsummer 1864, many Northerners were questioning Grant's Petersburg strategy. At the beginning of the year, most Northern communities assumed that Grant would be able to destroy Lee's army and capture Richmond within a matter of weeks. But as the summer rolled by, the Army of the Potomac had not accomplished either goal.

The shockingly high casualty toll was another reason for Northern disillusionment with Grant's campaign. Within a month of setting out in pursuit of Lee's army, Grant's force had suffered sixty thousand casualties (Lee's Army of Northern Virginia lost approximately thirty-five thousand troops during this same period). These losses had a dreadful impact on public support for the war, for the release of each new casualty list triggered a new wave of heartbreak and mourning in hundreds of communities across the North. With each passing day, greater numbers of Northerners expressed doubts about the wisdom of continuing the war against the South. New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley (1811–1872) spoke for hundreds of thousands of Northerners when he stated in a letter to President Lincoln that "our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country . . . longs for peace—shudders at the prospect of fresh conscription [military draft], of further wholesale devastations, and of new rivers of blood."

Sherman chases Johnston

Over in the western theater, meanwhile, Sherman's initial attempts to demolish Joseph Johnston's Confederate Army of Tennessee also failed. Armed with nearly one hundred thousand troops, Sherman's force was considerably larger than the one led by Johnston. This advantage in firepower encouraged the Union commander to make repeated attempts to engage his Confederate foe on the field of battle.

But Johnston refused to be pinned down. Sometimes he used strategic retreats to avoid his Yankee pursuers. On other occasions, he stationed his rebel troops in strong defensive positions that could only be attacked with great difficulty and loss of life. By early summer, the Army of Tennessee had been pushed all the way from the Tennessee border to the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia, but Johnston's sly maneuvering kept his army largely intact.

Hood assumes command in the West

Johnston's strategy of evasion frustrated Sherman, who knew that a big Union victory would help reassure unhappy Northerners that a Confederate collapse was near. But while Johnston's retreats enabled him to avoid a showdown, they also angered Confederate president Jefferson Davis (1808–1889). Davis had long disliked Johnston, and he believed that battlefield victories were the best way to increase Northern dissatisfaction with the war and improve Southern morale. President Davis thus decided to replace Johnston with Lieutenant General John B. Hood (1831–1879), a battle-hardened officer with a reputation as a bold and aggressive leader.

Hood took over on July 17 and immediately went on the offensive. In the last two weeks of July, he ordered three different assaults on Union forces threatening Atlanta. All three attacks failed though, and Hood suffered thousands of casualties in the process. By August, Hood's tired army was trapped in the city of Atlanta, and Sherman had gained control of most of the surrounding countryside. Unwilling to order a full-scale assault on the city's defenses, Sherman decided instead to try to bomb and starve the city into submission.

Democrats nominate McClellan for president

Back in the North, meanwhile, President Lincoln's chances of winning the upcoming presidential election seemed to grow dimmer with each passing day. Taking advantage of widespread disgust and discontent with the war, the Democrats promised voters that they would put an end to the bloodshed if their candidate—former Union general George McClellan—was elected president. The party was dominated by antiwar Democrats known as "Copperheads," possibly because some members wore buttons made from copper coins with a picture of the goddess of liberty. They declared the war a failure and made it clear that it was willing to give up on efforts to restore the shattered Union in return for peace.

McClellan objected to some elements of his party's campaign platform (statement of policies and actions that will be taken). "The Union must be preserved at all hazards," he wrote in a letter accepting the Democratic nomination for president. "I could not look in the face of my gallant comrades of the army and navy, who have survived so many bloody battles, and tell them that their labor and the sacrifice of so many of our slain and wounded brethren had been in vain." Despite such statements, however, most Northerners believed that a vote for McClellan in the upcoming election would be a vote for ending the war.

By August, Lincoln himself was certain that he would not be reelected. At that time, neither Grant nor Sherman had succeeded in destroying their enemies, and both Petersburg and Atlanta remained in Confederate hands. Moreover, news from other regions of the country deepened the feeling that a final Union victory was as distant as ever. In Louisiana, Confederate forces smashed a Union bid to invade Texas. Over in northern Mississippi and southern Tennessee, Confederate cavalry raiders led by Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877) tormented Union forces throughout the summer. Further north, in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, fourteen thousand Confederate troops under the command of Jubal Early (1816–1894) marched to within a dozen miles of Washington, D.C., before being turned back.

Certain that Northern disillusionment and sorrow had finally exhausted the nation's will to fight, Lincoln prepared for the November elections with a heavy heart. His dream of restoring the Union and ending slavery seemed doomed. But then, within the space of a few weeks, the military situation in the South changed in dramatic fashion.

Farragut captures Mobile Bay

During the course of the Civil War, the North's naval blockade of Southern ports had choked off most Confederate efforts to obtain badly needed supplies from Europe and elsewhere. But a few Confederate ports remained open to rebel blockade runners (ships that tried to carry supplies through gaps in the Union's naval blockade). One of the most important of these ports was located on the Gulf of Mexico at Mobile, Alabama. By the summer of 1864, the Union Navy had neutralized every Confederate port along the Gulf of Mexico except for the harbor at Mobile. The port thus became a Union target of prime importance, and in August the Yankees moved to shut it down.

On the morning of August 5, Rear Admiral David Farragut (1801–1870)—the hero of the Battle of New Orleans—led a fleet of fourteen ships and four heavily armored warships known as monitors into Mobile Bay. Farragut knew that his mission to seize control of Mobile Bay would not be easy. Confederate defenses in the bay included Fort Morgan, three gun-boats, an armored vessel called the C.S.S. Tennessee, and a deadly under-water minefield. As Farragut's fleet cruised up the bay, the guns from Fort Morgan and the rebel ships opened fire on the invaders. The Union fleet returned fire, and the smoke from the guns became so thick that Farragut lashed himself to a mast high above the deck of his ship so that he could see what was going on.

As the Union fleet plowed through the bay, one of its four monitors—the Tecumseh—struck an under-water mine. The mine (then known as a torpedo) blew a huge hole in the ship, and it quickly sank to the bottom of the bay with its captain and ninety-two sailors still trapped on board. The other Union vessels hesitated when the Tecumseh went down, but Farragut ordered them forward, shouting "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"

Farragut's charge eventually pushed the other Union ships through the minefield and out of the range of Fort Morgan's guns. He quickly defeated the outnumbered Confederate ships. Over the next three weeks, Union forces took control of Fort Morgan and two other rebel strongholds on Mobile Bay. The city of Mobile remained in Confederate hands, but Farragut's capture of the bay effectively ended its usefulness as a blockade-running port.

Atlanta falls to Sherman

A few weeks after Farragut's dramatic victory, disaster struck the Confederacy again as Atlanta fell into Union hands. Throughout the month of August, Sherman's siege of the city had made life very difficult for the citizens and troops huddled behind its fortifications. But Atlanta resisted Sherman's forces until the end of the month, when Yankee troops seized control of the last of the railway lines providing supplies to Atlanta. Hood launched a desperate offensive to regain control of the rail line, only to receive a sound thrashing at the Battle of Jonesboro.

Sherman's capture of the last rail line connecting Atlanta to the rest of the Confederacy signaled the end of that city's resistance to the Yankee invaders. Hood hastily evacuated his army from the city on September 1, and the Union Army marched down its streets a day later. Within hours of his arrival in Atlanta, Sherman issued a series of harsh orders designed to evict all of the city's citizens and transform it into a Union stronghold. "If the people [of Atlanta] raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty," wrote Sherman, "I will answer that war is war, and not popularity-seeking. If they want peace, they and their relatives must stop the war."

Atlanta mayor James Calhoun tried to convince Sherman to change his mind, but the Union general did not budge. "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it," he told Calhoun. "You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable [unavoidable], and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride."

Northern confidence returns

When Northerners first learned of Farragut's dramatic victory, they did not react with great emotion. They recognized that the seizure of Mobile Bay would make it much more difficult for the South to obtain desperately needed provisions. But the public's attention remained focused on Petersburg and Atlanta, where Union military progress seemed hopelessly stalled.

Given this state of affairs, it is not surprising that news of Sherman's capture of Atlanta electrified communities all across the North. Only days before, public opposition to the Civil War had been so great that even some fierce Lincoln supporters expressed doubts about continuing the fight. But the victory at Atlanta revived Northern confidence and dramatically enhanced Lincoln's prospects for reelection. Sherman's triumph also triggered a reassessment of Farragut's exploits in Mobile Bay. Before the victory in Atlanta, most people viewed the victory in Alabama as an isolated win of no real importance. After Atlanta fell, however, Northerners referred to the triumph at Mobile Bay as a sure sign that the Confederacy was finally crumbling.

In the South, meanwhile, the loss of Atlanta stunned war-weary Confederate citizens. Many of them had come to believe that they would gain independence from the Union only if Lincoln was defeated in the upcoming presidential election. They recognized that defeats such as the one at Atlanta not only hurt the Confederate Army and citizenry, but also improved the Republican's chances of retaining his office. "Since Atlanta I have felt as if all were dead within me, forever," lamented Southern diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut (1823–1886). "We are going to be wiped off the earth."

Sheridan goes to the Shenandoah Valley

Even as Southerners tried to come to grips with the disasters at Mobile Bay and Atlanta, Confederate misfortunes spread into the Shenandoah Valley, a longtime rebel stronghold. The Confederate Army had used the Shenandoah Valley to their advantage ever since the war began. Stretching across northern Virginia between the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains, the valley's abundant farmlands had been tapped by Robert E. Lee and other Southern commanders to feed their armies. In addition, rebel armies had often traveled through the heavily forested valley on their way to conduct raids of Northern farms, towns, and supply centers. Finally, the valley had twice been used by the Confederates as an invasion route into the North.

The Confederates made skillful use of the Shenandoah Valley during the summer of 1864 as well. After conducting a series of raids on Union positions, a rebel army under the direction of Lieutenant General Jubal Early retreated into its dense woodlands to hide. A Federal force of forty-five thousand men spent a good part of the summer chasing Early around the valley, but with little success.

Grant then ordered General Philip H. Sheridan to take command of the Union troops and pursue Early until his army was destroyed. In addition, he instructed Sheridan to demolish the fields and farms of the valley so that they would be of no use to future Confederate forces. This grim order, which Sheridan executed with cold efficiency, marked the beginning of the "total warfare" phase of the Civil War.

"Total warfare" was a phrase used to describe the Union's emerging military philosophy, which called for the destruction of Southern fields, factories, and supplies. It reflected the North's growing belief that the South could not carry on the fight if its civilian population lost the will to continue.

Total warfare

During the month of September, Sheridan scored two significant victories over Early's forces. Neither of these battles destroyed the rebel army, but they forced Early to lay low for several weeks. In the meantime, Sheridan went about the process of burning the Shenandoah Valley countryside. Throughout September and early October, Sheridan's Union force—which had been designated the Army of the Shenandoah—destroyed everything in its path. Sheridan proclaimed that "the people [of the Shenandoah Valley] must be left [with] nothing but their eyes to weep with over the war." Wherever they went, Sheridan's troops destroyed crops, burned barns, and drove off livestock. Small bands of Confederate guerrillas harassed Sheridan's troops, but their occasional raids and sniper attacks could not stop the destructive Union advance.

By mid-October, Sheridan's army appeared to have established complete control over most of the valley, and Sheridan made a quick visit to Washington to report on the progress of his campaign. While he was gone, however, Early launched a surprise attack on October 19 that caught his Yankee foes completely off-guard. The entire Union Army quickly broke into a disorganized retreat, leaving behind a large number of artillery guns and various supplies.

As the Union troops fled down the valley, however, they were met by Sheridan, who was returning from the capital. Sheridan stopped the panicky retreat and swiftly reorganized his army for a counterattack. A few hours later, the Army of the Shenandoah roared back into their camp in a rush of hoofbeats and gunfire. Early's troops were completely unprepared for Sheridan's attack, and the Union assault destroyed the rebel army. By the time Early managed to withdraw his army from the area, it had been cut to pieces.

Lincoln wins reelection

Sheridan's decisive victory over Early destroyed any hopes that the Confederacy might have had of regaining control of the Shenandoah Valley. Moreover, it provided further evidence to Northern voters that the Confederacy was finally falling apart after years of struggle and bloodshed. "Coming on the heels of Mobile Bay and Atlanta, Sheridan's conquest was a tonic that checked war weariness and created a new spirit of optimism [in the North]," wrote Bruce Catton in The Civil War. "The war was visibly being won, and although the price remained high, it was obvious that the last crisis had been passed. Sherman, Farragut, and Sheridan were winning Lincoln's election for him."

In November 1864, the Union held its national elections, and the people of the North returned Lincoln to office for a second term by a comfortable margin. He received half a million popular votes more than Mc-Clellan, and won 212 of the 232 available electoral votes. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Lincoln's reelection was the strong support he received from Union soldiers in the field. Nearly 80 percent of soldiers who voted cast their ballots for Lincoln, despite their deep war weariness and enduring affection for McClellan.

Lincoln's reelection demolished Confederate hopes that they might somehow achieve independence through a negotiated settlement. Moreover, it signaled a renewed Northern willingness to support Lincoln's war policies, which remained focused on obtaining an unconditional Confederate surrender. "I am astonished at the extent and depth of [the North's] determination . . . to fight to the last," wrote a reporter for the London Daily News. "[The people of the North] are in earnest in a way the like of which the world never saw before, silently, calmly, but desperately in earnest."

Sherman begins his "March to the Sea"

Lincoln's victory in the 1864 election further battered the morale of war-weary Southerners. Jefferson Davis responded to Lincoln's reelection by proclaiming that the South stood as "defiant as ever" thanks to the "indomitable valor [intense bravery] of its troops" and the "unquenchable [unable to be satisfied] spirit of its people." But Northern military leaders sensed that the Southern willingness to continue the fight was wavering. In the final weeks of 1864, General Sherman set out to break the spirit of the Southern people once and for all.

Sherman rolled out of Atlanta in mid-November with sixty thousand troops, leaving the city's factories and public buildings in smoking ruins so that they could not be used by the Confederacy. His sights set on the coastal city of Savannah, Sherman marched eastward through the heart of Georgia. He moved his army forward at a leisurely pace, confident that the Confederacy did not have the military capacity to stop his progress. Over the next few weeks, Sherman fed and supplied his troops by seizing whatever he needed from Georgia's farms and villages. His army then systematically destroyed any crops and supplies that it did not use. "We cannot change the hearts of those people of the South," stated Sherman. "But we can make war so terrible and make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it."

As Sherman's "March to the Sea" continued through the Confederate heartland, his army left a path of sorrow and ruin in its wake. The Yankee invaders razed (leveled to the ground) hundreds of farms and plantations, determined to hammer the Southern people into submission. Georgia's suffering was made even worse by a lawless group of thieves and deserters who followed behind Sherman's force. These wild hooligans, known as "bummers," robbed and burned anything that the army left behind, terrorizing the local people in the process.

Sherman completed his March to the Sea in mid-December, and he took immediate steps to take Savannah from Confederate control. He captured the city within a few days, and on December 22 he sent a telegram to Lincoln offering Savannah as a "Christmas gift." The seizure of Savannah thus ended one of the most successful Union campaigns of the entire war. As Paul M. Angle pointed out in A Pictorial History of the Civil War Years, Sherman's push to Savannah brutalized both Southern morale and Southern military capacity: "With fewer than 2,000 casualties he had destroyed a large portion of the war potential of the deep South, he had demonstrated that a large section of the Confederacy was a defenseless shell, and he had placed his army in a position from which he could move north and cooperate with Grant in a final campaign against Lee."

Thomas crushes Hood in Tennessee

At the same time that Sherman made his fearsome march through Georgia, Hood moved into Tennessee in a desperate gamble. The Confederate commander hoped that by threatening Nashville, which the North had captured in 1862, he might somehow lure Sherman out of Georgia or regain rebel control of central Tennessee. But Sherman ignored Hood's offensive, and Union general George H. Thomas (1816–1870) quickly moved against the rebel army.

As Hood traveled through southern Tennessee, the Confederate general understood that his chances of waging a successful attack on Nashville were very slight. After all, his army had been reduced to fewer than forty thousand men, and Thomas had assembled fifty thousand Union troops to defend the city. But he pressed forward, unable to devise any other plan of action.

On November 30, Hood attacked Union troops under the command of Major General John Schofield (1831–1906) in the town of Franklin, twenty-five miles south of Nashville. But the entrenched Federal troops turned back the Confederate assault, inflicting terrible damage on Hood's valiant but exhausted men in the process. Two weeks later, Thomas finished the job at the Battle of Nashville. This clash, fought on December 15 and 16, shattered Hood's dreams of conquering Nashville. It also removed the Confederate Army of Tennessee from active participation for the remainder of the war.

Words to Know

Blockade the act of surrounding a harbor with ships in order to prevent other vessels from entering or exiting the harbor; the word blockade is also sometimes used when ships or other military forces surround and isolate a city, region, or country

Civil War conflict that took place from 1861 to 1865 between the Northern states (Union) and the Southern seceded states (Confederacy); also known in the South as the War between the States and in the North as the War of the Rebellion

Confederacy eleven Southern states that seceded from the United States in 1860 and 1861

Federal national or central government; also refers to the North or Union as opposed to the South or Confederacy

Guerrillas small independent bands of soldiers or armed civilians who use raids and ambushes rather than direct military attacks to harass enemy armies

Rebel Confederate; often used as a name for a Confederate soldier

Siege surrounding and blockading of a city, town, or fortress by an army attempting to capture it

Union Northern states that remained loyal to the United States during the Civil War

People to Know

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) president of the Confederate States of America, 1861–65

Jubal Early (1816–1894) Confederate lieutenant general who led the 1864 campaign in Shenandoah Valley; also fought at First Bull Run, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania

David Farragut (1801–1870) Union admiral who led naval victories at New Orleans and Mobile Bay

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) Union general who commanded all Federal troops, 1864–65; led Union armies at Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and Petersburg; eighteenth president of the United States, 1869–77

John B. Hood (1831–1879) Confederate general who commanded the Army of Tennessee at Atlanta in 1864; also fought at Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Chickamauga

Joseph E. Johnston (1807–1891) Confederate general of the Army of Tennessee who fought at First Bull Run and Atlanta

Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general of the Army of Northern Virginia; fought at Second Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville; defended Richmond from Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Potomac, 1864 to April 1865

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) sixteenth president of the United States, 1861–65

George McClellan (1826–1885) Union general who commanded the Army of the Potomac, August 1861 to November 1862; fought in the Seven Days campaign and at Antietam; Democratic candidate for presidency, 1864

George G. Meade (1815–1872) Union major general who commanded the Army of the Potomac, June 1863 to April 1865; also fought at Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville

Philip H. Sheridan (1831–1888) Union major general who commanded the Army of the Potomac's cavalry corps and the Army of the Shenandoah; also fought at Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) Union major general who commanded the Army of the Tennessee and the Military Division of the Mississippi, October 1863 to April 1865; led the famous "March to the Sea"; also fought at First Bull Run, Shiloh, and Vicksburg

George H. Thomas (1816–1870) Union major general who commanded the Army of the Cumberland to victories at Chattanooga, Atlanta, and Nashville; also fought at Perryville and Chickamauga

Illness and Disease Take a Toll on Soldiers

Approximately 359,000 Union soldiers and 258,000 Confederate soldiers lost their lives during the war. Although many of these men died on the battlefield, almost twice as many died of disease as were killed in combat. Part of the problem was that the science of medicine was not very advanced in the 1860s. "The unfortunate Civil War soldier, whether he came from the North or from the South, not only got into the army just when the killing power of weapons was being brought to a brand-new peak of efficiency; he enlisted in the closing years of an era when the science of medicine was woefully, incredibly imperfect, so that he got the worst of it in two ways," historian Bruce Catton explained. "When he fought, he was likely to be hurt pretty badly; when he stayed in camp, he lived under conditions that were very likely to make him sick; and in either case he had almost no chance to get the kind of medical treatment which a generation or so later would be routine."

During the Civil War years, doctors did not know what caused disease or why wounds became infected. The war occurred just before scientists discovered the micro-scopic organisms, like bacteria and viruses, that can infect food and water or enter the human body through wounds. As a result, doctors did not sterilize surgical instruments, bandages, or wounds. Vaccinations and antibiotics did not exist. Soldiers in army camps did not practice basic hygiene in cooking or disposing of waste. They thought that water was safe to drink unless it smelled bad or had garbage floating in it.

Disease hit soldiers the hardest right after joining the army. When thousands of men from different areas and backgrounds crowded together in army camps, large numbers of them contracted common diseases like measles, mumps, tonsillitis, and smallpox. Although most men eventually recovered from these diseases, the outbreaks reduced the strength of military units. To make matters worse, the poor sanitation in army camps led to numerous cases of dysentery, typhoid, pneumonia, and other illnesses. Maintaining the health of the troops was a major problem for both the North and the South throughout the war. "Disease was a crippling factor in Civil War military operations," historian James M. McPherson wrote. "At any given time a substantial proportion of men in a regiment might be on the sicklist. Disease reduced the size of most regiments from their initial complement of 1,000 men to about half that number before the regiment ever went into battle."

Songs Reflect War Weariness

During the summer of 1864, several songs about the Civil War became very popular across the North. But unlike the patriotic war songs of previous years, these songs reflected widespread unhappiness with the war. As the casualty lists continued to grow with no end to the war in sight, many Northerners turned to songs like "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground." This song included lyrics sadly saying that "Many are the hearts that are weary tonight, Wishing for the War to cease."

Other popular antiwar songs of 1864 included "Tell Me, Is My Father Coming Back?" and "Yes, I Would the War Were Over." Millions of copies of sheet music to these songs were sold all across the North. Perhaps the best-known of these warweary songs was "When This Cruel War Is Over." This song reflected the fears of countless women that their husbands and boyfriends might die on the field of battle.

Dearest Love, do you remember, when we last did meet,

How you told me that you loved me, kneeling at my feet?

Oh! How proud you stood before me, in your suit of blue,

When you vow'd to me and country, ever to be true.

CHORUS:

Weeping, sad and lonely, hopes and fears how vain!

When this cruel war is over, praying that we meet again.

When the summer breeze is sighing, mournfully along,

Or when autumn leaves are falling, sadly breathes the song.

Oft in dreams I see thee lying on the battle plain,

Lonely, wounded, even dying, calling but in vain.

CHORUS

If amid the din of battle, nobly you should fall,

Far away from those who love you, none to hear you call—

Who would whisper words of comfort, who would soothe your pain?

Ah! The many cruel fancies, ever in my brain.

CHORUS

But our Country called you, Darling, angels cheer your way;

While our nation's sons are fighting, we can only pray.

Nobly strike for God and Liberty, let all nations see

How we loved the starry banner, emblem of the fre

Lincoln Comes Under Enemy Fire

In July 1864, fourteen thousand Confederate troops under the command of Lieutenant General Jubal Early marched through the Shenandoah Valley and across the Potomac River into Maryland. After crossing the Potomac, Early marched toward Washington, D.C. This movement shocked and worried lawmakers in the capital. After all, most Union forces at this time were far away, fighting Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia for possession of Petersburg and Richmond.

By July 11, Early's army had reached the outer defenses of Washington. The Confederate force halted, but it tested the Union defenses on several occasions during the next couple of days. On July 12, President Abraham Lincoln decided to visit Fort Stevens, which was one of the capital's primary defensive strongholds. Shortly after Lincoln arrived at the fort, it came under fire from Early's troops. The Federal soldiers within the fortress immediately ducked behind walls to avoid getting shot. But according to witnesses, Lincoln repeatedly popped his head over the fort's walls to get a look at the enemy sharpshooters. Finally, a Union captain stationed further along the wall noticed what Lincoln was doing. Unable to recognize the president at a distance, he gruffly yelled at him to keep his head down "before you get shot!" Lincoln was reportedly amused at being addressed in such a rough fashion, but he immediately obeyed. The shooting ended a short time later, and Lincoln returned to the White House.

The advance of Early's army into Maryland scared many Northerners. But the Confederate troops proved unable to slip past the capital's outer defenses. A few days after Early's troops fired on Lincoln, additional Union soldiers arrived in the area. Outnumbered, Early ordered his army to withdraw back into the woodlands of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.

Excerpt from a Confederate Soldier's Diary

On the whole, Confederate soldiers fought under more difficult conditions than their Union counterparts during the Civil War. Widespread shortages of food, medicine, clothing, and other supplies often left Confederate troops desperately cold and hungry. This situation sometimes determined the outcome of battles.

In October 1864, Confederate troops under Lieutenant General Jubal Early fought Union troops under General Philip H. Sheridan for control of the Shenandoah Valley in northern Virginia. When it appeared certain that Sheridan's forces would defeat the rebels, Sheridan rode off to Washington to report on his progress. Early's troops launched a surprise attack during Sheridan's absence and overtook a Union Army camp, sending the Union soldiers running into the woods in a disorganized retreat. But rather than pressing their advantage, the Confederate forces gave in to their basic human needs. Private John Worsham described the scene in his diary:

The world will never know the extreme poverty of the Confederate soldier at this time. Hundreds of men who were in the charge were barefooted. Every one of them was ragged. Many had on everything they had, and none had eaten a square meal for weeks. As they passed through Sheridan's camp, a great temptation was thrown in their way. Many of the tents were open, and in plain sight were rations, shoes, overcoats, and blankets. The fighting continued farther and farther, yet some of the men stopped. They secured well-filled haversacks [knapsacks] and, as they investigated the contents, the temptation to stop and eat was too great. Since most of them had had nothing to eat since the evening before, they yielded. While some tried on shoes, others put on warm pants in place of the tattered ones. Still others got overcoats and blankets—articles so much needed for the coming cold.

The Confederate troops were not able to enjoy these items for long. Sheridan met his fleeing Union troops on his way back from the capital and quickly reorganized them for a counterattack. They destroyed the unsuspecting Confederate forces and claimed the Shenandoah Valley for the Union.

The Sons of Liberty

The Sons of Liberty was a secret organization that developed in midwestern Union states during the Civil War. Members of this strange organization, which was also sometimes known as the Order of American Knights and the Knights of the Golden Circle, were dedicated to "states' rights" and fiercely opposed to the Republican Party. Its members claimed that the organization was devoted to legitimate causes such as promotion of civil rights and providing political support for antiwar politicians. Investigators into their activities, however, claimed that the group's activities were treasonous. They claimed that the organization's efforts to drain Northern support for the war effort sometimes strayed into active support for the Confederacy. In any event, the active membership of the Sons of Liberty remained small throughout the war, and the organization's plots almost always failed or fell apart in the planning stages.

The Sons of Liberty sometimes worked with Confederate spies based in Canada and extremist members of the Copperhead wing of the Democratic Party. Plotting together, these men devised a wide range of actions that were meant to create chaos in the North. These plots included schemes to rob Northern banks, burn New York City, support anti-Lincoln newspapers, and capture a Union warship patrolling the Great Lakes.

Most of these plots collapsed, however. One major reason for their failure was the fact that everybody knew that the Sons of Liberty existed. As Northern police and military organizations mounted efforts to stop the organization, they discovered that it was easy to place spies within the disorganized group. When these spies learned of Sons of Liberty plots, they passed the information on to Northern law enforcement officials. As a result, the Sons of Liberty had to abandon many of their schemes before ever trying them.

Some people in the North harbored deep fears about the Sons of Liberty and similar secret organizations. In a few places, this fear was well-founded. In Missouri, for example, the Sons of Liberty allied itself with bands of Confederate guerrillas that terrorized the state. For the most part, however, the Sons of Liberty did little damage to the North, and President Abraham Lincoln never really viewed the group as a major threat.