CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 6 CHAPTER ONE FORCES AND STRATEGIES OF THE NORTH AND SOUTH 10 CHAPTER TWO THE WAR IN 1861 62 18 CHAPTER THREE THE WAR IN 1863 39 CHAPTER FOUR THE WAR IN 1864 65 53 CONCLUSION 64 TIMELINE 67 GLOSSARY 71 FOR MORE INFORMATION 73 BIBLIOGRAPHY 76 INDEX 78
6 INTRODUCTION At 4 30 am on April 12 1861 Confederate artillery in Charleston South Carolina opened fire on Fort Sumter which was held by the United States Army The bombardment set off a savage four-year war between two great geographic sections of the United States One section was the North 23 Northern and Western states that sup ported the federal government The other section was the South 11 Southern states that had seceded withdrawn from the Union and formed an indepen dent government called the Confederate States of America The struggle between these two combat ants is generally known as the American Civil War although it sometimes is also referred to as the War Between the States The secession of the Southern states in chrono logical order South Carolina Mississippi Florida Alabama Georgia Louisiana Texas Virginia Arkansas North Carolina and Tennessee in 1860 61 and the ensuing outbreak of armed conflict were the climax of decades of growing sectional friction over slavery Between 1815 and 1861 the economy of the Northern states was rapidly modernizing and diversifying Although agriculture mostly smaller farms that relied on free labor remained the domi nant sector in the North industrialization had taken root there Moreover Northerners had invested 6
A map of the major battles of the Civil War shows that most of the battles took place in the Southern states Many people today see the war as the central event of American history heavily in an expansive and varied transportation system that included canals roads steamboats and railroads They had also put money into finan cial industries such as banking and insurance and in a large communications network that featured 7 INTRODUCTION
