Pablo Diaz: 11. Military tactics and campaigns during the Civil War.

This websites has information on many different campaigns (about 32 in total.):

http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/abpp/battles/bycampgn.htm

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The following are the campaigns that took place during the civil war.

1861
-Manassas Campaign. July.

1862
-Jackson's Valley Campaign. March-June.
-Peninsula Campaign. March-July.
-Northern Virginia. August.
-Maryland Campaign. September.
+Antietam
-Fredericksburg Campaign. November-December.
-Sibley's New Mexico Campaign. February-March.
-Pea Ridge Campaign. March.
-Prairie Grove Campaign. November.

1863
-Chancellorsville Campaign. November-December.
-Gettysburg Campaign. April-May.
-Bristoe Campaign. October-November.
-Mine Run Campaign. November-December.
-Stones River Campaign. December 1862-January 1863.
-Tullahoma Campaign [Middle Tennessee Campaign]. June.
-Chickamauga Campaign. August-Semptember.
-East Tennessee Campaign. September-October.
-Chattanooga-Ringgold Campaign. November.
-Longstreet's Knoxville Campaign. November-December.

1864
-Bermuda Hundred Campaign. May.
-Grant's Overland Campaign. May-June.
-Lynchburg Campaign. May-June.
-Richmond-Petersburg Campaign. June-December.
-Sheridan's Valley Campaign. August-October.
-Atlanta Campaign. May-September.
-Franklin-Nashville Campaign. September-December.
-Red River Campaign. March-Arpil.
-Sand Creek Campaign. November.

1865
-Richmond-Petersburg Campaign Con't. January-March.
-Carolinas Campaign. February-March.
-Mobile Campaign. March-April.
-Appomattox Campaign. March-April.

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MANASSAS CAMPAIGN

.Manassas 1 (First Bull Run).

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• This was the first major land battle of the armies in Virginia.
  
• Most of the soldiers had never been in battle before.
  
• The North hoped to demonstrate the superiority of Union arms. Their victory might even lead to the capture of Richmond, which would end secession and the whole Union would be restored.
  
• The Union army under General Irvin McDowell marched from Washington against the Confederate army, which was drawn up behind Bull Run.
  
• Fighting raged throughout the day as Confederate forces were driven back to Henry Hill.
  
• Late in the afternoon, Confederate reinforcements arrived and led the Confederacy to victory. However, they were too disorganized to pursue the Union soldiers.
  
• This battle convinced the Lincoln administration that the war would be a long and costly affair.
  
• It ended the notion that this would be a "Ninety-day war" for the North.
  
• McDowell was relieved of command of the Union army and replaced by General George B. McClellan, who set about reorganizing and training the troops.
  
• The victory at Bull Run inflated the south's overconfidence. Many Southern soldiers deserted, some leaving to boast about their victory, others thinking that the war was surely over.
  
• The first battle of Bull Run caused Southern enlistments to fall off sharply.
  

*Refer to The American Pageant. Pages 451-452: Bull Run Ends the "Ninety-Day War"

http://www.civilwarhome.com/1manassa.htm

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PENINSULA CAMPAIGN

• McClellan whipped the troops into shape, but was slow to move south.
  
• By advancing up the Peninsula, McClellan would avoid suffering the high casualties caused by a march south on Richmond from northern Virginia.
  
• After taking one month to capture Yorktown he finally made his way towards Richmond. However, at this time, Lincoln sent McClellan's reinforcements to chase Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley.
  
• General Robert E. Lee launched a counterattack (the Seven Days' Battles). With his leadership, the Confederacy drove McClellan's troops back from whence they came.
  
• Lincoln temporarily abandoned McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac.
  
• Through his victory, Lee had ensured (even if he didn't know it) that the war would continue on until slavery was extinguished and the Old South destroyed.
  
• After this battle, Lincoln began to draft his Emancipation Proclamation as a way to punish the South for "trying to destroy the government."
  
• Union strategy turned towards total war. The components of the Northern military plan were to: blackade the South's coasts, liberate the slaves and undermine the economic foundations of the South, cut the Confederacy in half by taking over the Mississippi River backbone, chop the Confederacy to pieces by sending troops through Georgia and the Carolinas, take over the capital at Richmond, and last, to try to engage the enemy's main strength and grind it into submission.

*Refer to The American Pageant. Pages 452-456: "Tardy George" McClellan and the Peninsula Campaign.

http://www.peninsulacampaign.org/

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MARYLAND CAMPAIGN

.Antietam.

• The battle at Antietam took place on Wednesday, September 17, 1862, just 18 days after the Confederate victory at Second Manassas.
  
• This was the first major Civil War engagement on Northern soil.
  
• After coming out victorious at Second Manassas, Robert E. Lee went into Maryland. He hoped to encourage foreign intervention and seduce the Border States into the Confederation.
  
• Lincoln, yielding under popular pressure, restored McClellan to command of the main Northern army.
  
• Fortunately for him, two Union soldiers found a copy of Lee's battle plans and so McClellan succeeded in halting Lee at Antietam.
  
• It was more or less a military draw, but Lee retired across the Potomac. McClellan was removed from his field for the second time.
  
• Antietam can be considered the pivotal turning point of the Civil War.
  
• The British and French governments were on the verge of making an alliance with the South, but were discouraged by the show of strength on the North's side.
  
• Now that the wavering Border States had come under the Union's fold, Lincoln was ready for bold action.
  
• Antietam gave him the oportunity to launch his Emancipation Proclamation. The character of the war had changed: the Civil War was now more of a moral crusade.

*Refer to The American Pageant. Pages 457-458: The Pivotal Point: Antietam.

http://www.nps.gov/archive/anti/battle.htm

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GETTYSBURG CAMPAIGN
.Gettysburg.

• After Antietam, Lincoln replaced McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac with General Burnside, who launched a rash attack on Lee's position at Fredericksburg, Virginia.
  
• General Burnside then yielded his command to "Fighting Joe" Hooker.
  At Chancellorsville, Lee sent Jackson to attack the Union flank. It worked. However, Jackson was shot by his own men (by mistake). He died.
  
• Lee now prepared to invade the North again, this time through Pennsylvania. He wanted to add strength to those against the war in the North and to encourage foreign intervention.
  
• Hooker was replaced by Meade at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. There, his men fought against General George Pickett's, who lost the battle.
  
• Pickett's charge defined the northernmost point that the Southern force would ever reach and the last real chance for the Confederates to win the war.

*Refer to The American Pageant. Pages 462-464: Lee's Last Lunge at Gettysburg.

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VICKSBURG

• In May and June of 1863, Grant’s armies entrapped a Confederate army under General Pemberton's control in Vicksburg.
  
• The city surrendered on July 4, 1863.
  
• The Union now had the Mississippi, and thus the spinal cord of the Confederacy was severed.
  
• Confederate control of the river had cut off the region's usual trade routes.
  
• The victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg tipped the diplomatic scales in favor of the North, since they stopped Britain from giving the Laird rams to the Confederates.
  
• By the end of 1863, any and all Confederate hopes for foreign intervention were in vain.
  

*Refer to The American Pageant. Pages 465-466: The War in the West.

http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/abpp/battles/ms011.htm

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APPOMATTOX CAMPAIGN

• After Gettysburg, Grant was brought in from the West over Meade, who was blamed for not pursuing Lee.
  
• Grant's overall basic tactic was to assail the enemy's armies simultaneously, so that they wouldn't be able to help one another.
  
• Lincoln urged him to "chew and choke, as much as possible."
  
• So Grant went towards Richmond. On June 3, 1864, Grant ordered a frontal assault on the position of Cold Harbor.
  
• Since the Union army was much larger than that of the Confederacy, Grant could trade two men for one and still beat his enemy.
  
• Repidly advancing Northern troops captured Richmond and cornered Lee at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia, in April 1865.
  
• Thus Richmond was conquered and the war ended.

*Refer to The American Pageant. Pages 471-472: Grant Outlasts Lee.
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Q: What was the most decisive battle of the Civil War? Explain.