The Civil War
Key Battles
Antietam (Maryland) –
September 1862
- Event: Narrow Victory of
Union Army
- Impact: France and Great
Britain Did not Recognize the Confederacy of the United States (the South)
as an independent country.
- Significance: End of
Cotton Diplomacy and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation
Gettysburg (Pennsylvania)
- July 1863
- Event: Only major battle in a northern,
non-slaveholding state; the confederate army lost.
- Impact: Confederate Troops
retreated.
- Significance: Last major
offensive of Confederate Army; Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (preview to
his approach to reconciliation with southern states).
Abraham Lincoln’s
Actions
Emancipation
Proclamation – January 1863
- Background – Lincoln decided
to issues this proclamation but needed for the Union Army to win a major
battle. The narrow win at Antietam was that battle.
- Parameters: End slavery in
the states where it exists (confederate states)
- Rationale: Did not want to
issue a proclamation that freed all slaves because could cause the slave-holding
Border States (neutral during the war) to side with the Confederacy.
Strategy:
- Political – Foreign Policy:
England and France were not willing to offer support to the United States
because of slavery. Domestic
Policy: met the demands of the abolitionists.
- Military: Emancipation
would foster more runaway slaves, which, in turn would rob the south of
its labor base and increase the number of troops in the Union Army
- Humanitarian: Slavery was immoral
and contrary to the basic principles of democracy: equality of all human
beings and their rights for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Larger Significance: Made slavery, not the “union”, the central
issue of the Civil War.
Gettysburg Address
–November 1863
- Event: Ceremony – Completion of the cemetery of solders
killed in the Battle of Gettysburg
- Action: Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
- Significance: Message --- honored all who died in the battle
and a reaching out to those in the southern states.