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hi everyone welcome back to the history and 20 podcast hope you're all okay been a while since the last one i know but i've been pretty busy starting a new job and stuff so yeah anyway let's get on with it so this one is another american history one and we are looking at the american civil war also known as the u.s civil war from 1861-65 and this is a special request from becky so thanks very much becky hope you enjoy this one so a brief overview the dates are from the 12th of april 1861 to the 9th of may 1865 and the location is obviously the usa with the belligerents being the united states of america the usa and the confederate states of america csa which i'll explain a little bit so if you've heard of it you've probably heard of some key figures uh including abraham lincoln ulysses s grant jefferson davis robert e lee amongst others some of the names that we'll be talking about throughout this uh the outcome then was uh union victory the dissolution of the confederate states the abolition of slavery the beginning of the reconstruction era and the u.s territorial integrity was preserved amongst other things as well so casualties were estimates of around 828 000 on the union side and 864 000 on the confederate side with deaths ranging between 600 000 and a million in total so quick little introduction it was basically the most important thing to note is the north versus south argument in the usa so the us was divided economically socially politically north versus south so federal versus state government slave state versus free state and urban versus rural and the north was much more urbanized than the south and for the most part had outlawed slavery hence the idea of these free states where people were free essentially in inverted commas there weren't slaves so in fairness there had been a huge influx of european migrants coming to the north of the u.s states like new york and slavery been outlawed in europe from where these migrants were coming from for many years but in the south their economy was a largely agrarian economy meaning that for them slavery was economically viable and just part of their way of life so many actually viewed slavery as part of the natural pattern of life in the southern states but the main question is what caused such divisions in america that in the end 11 states seceded from the union and formed the confederacy now multiple reasons can be cited for this but i've simply chosen a few that i think are the most important or significant to discuss below so we'll actually go way further back than the start of the conflict in 1861 will go right back to 1803 so why 1803 well something called the louisiana purchase the american acquisition of french territory on american soil for approximately 15 million dollars which worked out about 18 dollars per square mile because it was 828 000 square miles in total quick maths now by purchasing this amount of land the doctrine of manifest destiny was drilled into the americans mindset as in it was their god-given right and duty to expand westwards into this new territory so obviously with this louisiana purchase the us had doubled in size now thousands of americans did migrate into this territory but nowhere attracted americans more so than texas which was still technically in mexican territory at this time and in 1836 the texans declared independence from mexico and by 1845 the area was annexed and admitted to statehood so in other words texas officially became an american state and this drew resentment from those who passionately resisted the addition of another slave state in america so the u.s declared war on mexico on the 13th of may 1846 and after two years of fighting the us won and mexico ceded all claims to texas above the rio grande boundary great film and also surrendered california and new mexico which were two other mexican provinces now the issue of slavery had already arisen here and led to the next chapter of the beginning of the us civil war so this leads us on to the what i've coined as the decade of turbulence the 1850s so we'll start in 1850 in what's called the compromise of 1850 so with these newly acquired territories from mexico that's california new mexico and arizona by this point came the argument of slave states versus free states so as i mentioned earlier slave states been states where slavery was legal and free state's been states where it was not legal so david wilmert who was a congressman from pennsylvania in the north argued that any territory acquired from mexico should not permit slavery on the other hand jefferson davis who's a senator from mississippi in the south said that the new territory should be comprised of slave states because they were in the south of the us now stephen douglas who was a lawyer from illinois which is sort of in the north came up with the idea of popular serenity that states should be allowed to decide for themselves now these arguments culminated in what was known as the compromise of 1850 which gave statehood to california as a free state allowing the new territories in the south to decide whether or not they wanted to allow slavery so popular sovereignty it also implemented the new and controversial fugitive slave law and this was whereby anyone in any state even if it was a free state had to hand back escaped slaves to their masters and this effectively meant that the northern states who were largely free states had to play a role in maintaining slavery in which many vehemently opposed so therefore an anti-slavery movement based on abolishing slavery grew throughout the 1850s and the north and this was called abolitionism so the next stop is the kansas nebraska act of 1854. so why was this significant well this opened up large-scale settlement and migration to states whose position on slavery will be decided as a result of popular sovereignty and this culminated in an event known as bleeding kansas where members of anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions attacked each other so now we're building up to the war a bit more so from in well in 1856 the pro-slavery president at the time guy called james buchanan he was of the democratic party he ran for re-election and he won and the reason this election is significant because he ran against a brand new newly formed anti-slavery party called the republican party so this is where the republican party was formed now for the most part the republican party had gained a lot of ground and support in the north so a year later in 1857 this brought about the dred scott case which went to the supreme court now dred scott was a slave who was taken by his master to illinois a free state scott argued that he was there for free but the court ruled against him essentially citing that black people whether they were slaves or not were not classed as u.s citizens at all now obviously tensions kept arising into 1858 and it was at this point that the republican party put forward an unknown candidate called abraham lincoln against stephen douglas and they both took part in a series of debates which made lincoln well known around the country so in the four run into the 1860 elections the republicans nominated abraham lincoln as their presidential candidate but the democrats were still divided at this time in the south and the slave states they nominated the current vice president a guy called john breckenridge while in the north they chose stephen douglas anyway lincoln ultimately won the election and as an outspoken abolitionist many in the south feared what he'd do next however lincoln set out to be moderate and he promised not to interfere with slavery in the existing slave states but the damage already been done throughout his tours across the country understand abolitionist views so before he'd even taken office south carolina seceded from the united states and by february 1861 georgia florida alabama mississippi louisiana and texas had also joined south carolina informing what was known as the confederate states of america as i mentioned earlier on the csa under the presidency of jefferson davis so we're just about at the early years of war 1861 so in april 1861 south carolina demanded that federal troops which were stationed in south carolina had to evacuate because they were now an independent state they were a confederate state not part of the union so the federal government refused and they maintained the garrison at a place called fort sumter and then in the early hours of the 12th of april 1861 sometime just after 4 30 a.m the confederate states navy bombarded the fort and captured it the next day thereby starting the u.s civil war so although nobody was killed at fort sumter linked lincoln immediately called for 75 000 troops and a multitude of northerners rallied to his cause so his appeal for troops caused four more states to secede between april and june virginia on the 17th of april arkansas on the 6th of may north carolina on the 20th of may and tennessee on the 8th of june which brought the confederacy to a total of 11 states you'll be able to see from the map there those states call it and that's called the confederate flag you might have seen that around some of these sort of extreme right-wing rallies and stuff that's a confederate flag which these states used so within these 11 states they had a combined population of 9 million people including three and a half million slaves and the union on the other hand at this point consisted of 22 states with a population of about 22 million people about 500 000 whom were slaves because not all states in the union were free states just the majority of them were so in addition to the north south divide there were also four border states and these border states were the state too although they remained in the union thousands of men within them fought within the confederacy and these states were as you can guess on the border of the union and the confederacy and they were maryland delaware kentucky and missouri so in some cases brothers in the same family fought on opposite sides including senator crittenden of kentucky now one of his sons rose to be a general in the union army while the other rose to be a general in the confederate army however both the union and the confederacy actually had more in common than initially appeared they both referred to the declaration of independence which was the document 4th of july 1776 to justify their causes for the union they referred to the all men of korea at equal section in turkey and this is nobody should be should be subjected to slavery on the other hand the confederacy referred to the section claiming the right to abolish or alter unjust government in their view the government intervening in their now independent states trying to abolish slavery their way of life was reason enough for them to refer to this so the first fielded battle of the u.s civil war was called the first battle of bull run sometimes referred to as first manassas in the south and this was on the 21st of july 1861. 35 000 confederate soldiers under the command of thomas stonewall jackson forced a much larger number of union forces to retreat back towards washington dc now the realization dawned on the union that any hope of a quick conflict was soon gone to ground and even led lincoln to call for 500 000 more troops even the confederate states called for more as they also realized the war would not be over anytime soon so perhaps the most violent year of the us civil war was 1862. so in the spring george b mclennan mcclellan who was the supreme commander of the union army led his army of the pottermark up the peninsula between the york river and the james river and captured yorktown which was in virginia on the 4th of may so less than two months later the combined force of stonewall jackson robert e lee successfully drove back mcclellan's forces in the seven days battles which was from the 25th of june to the first of july seven days obviously and mcclellan called for more troops then in the summer of 1862 general robert e lee moved his confederate forces northwards and split his men sending stonewall jackson to meet union forces near manassas again so on the 29th of august union troops led by john pope met with jackson's forces in the second battle of bull run second manassas and then the following day lee with the other half of his confederate forces hit the union army on their left flank and once again succeeded in driving the union forces back to washington dc so this marks the point when lee began a series of invasions into the union states but by the 14th of september mcclellan had successfully reorganized his army and struck at least forces in maryland one of the border states and at this time it was the union's turn to drive the confederate forces back to a defensive position at antietam now this ultimately led to the bloodiest day of fighting of the whole civil war the battle of antietam and this is where the army of the potomac hit lee's forces which were reinforced by jacksons in a huge pitched battle and their estimates of 12 410 casualties from the 69 000 union troops and 13 724 casualties from the 52 000 confederate troops however at the cost of over 12 000 lives the union victory at antietam proved decisive because it halted the confederate advance into maryland and it also forced lee to retreat into virginia now mcclellan was relieved of his duties after this in lincoln's mind because he failed to pursue his advantage and he was replaced by a guy called ambrose e burnside so burnside then led an assault on lee's troops near fredericksburg on the 13th of december but this ended in heavy casualties as well and a union victory and he was soon replaced by joseph fighting joe hooker and both armies then settled into winter quarters on opposite sides of the rapper hanukk river so fast forward to 1863 excuse me and the emancipation proclamation so lincoln had used this union victory at antietam to issue a preliminary emancipation proclamation which freed all enslaved people in the rebellious states after the 1st of january new year's day 1863. now lincoln justified this decision as a wartime measure but didn't go so far as to free the enslaved people in the border states loyal to the union so the emancipation proclamation deprived the confederacy of the bulk of its labor forces and pitted international public opinion against them and in favour of the union in fact around 186 000 black civil war soldiers joined the union army by the time the war ended in 1865. so on the 1st of may 1863 plans for a union offensive were spoiled by a surprise attack by the bulk of lee's forces where upon hooker pulled his men back to chancellorsville the confederates gained a costly victory in the battle of chancellorsville and they suffered round about 13 000 casualties which was about 22 percent of their soldiers while the union lost 17 000 men around 15 of their troops lee then launched another invasion of the north the following month which culminated in confederates attacking the forces commanded by general george meade on the 1st of july near gettysburg in southern pennsylvania so in the battle of gettysburg the confederates were unable to push through the union defense and suffered casualties of close to 60 percent of their forces however once again the union failed to capitalise on this opportunity to counter-attack and leaves remaining force israel to escape into virginia ending the last confederate invasion of the north so the union forces under ulysses s grant you might have heard of him because he later went on to become a president of the us they took vicksburg which was in mississippi in the siege of vicksburg obviously in a victory that proved to be the turning point of the war in the western theatre however a confederate victory at chickamauga chickamooga creek in georgia let me know if i pronounced that wrong just south of chattanooga in tennessee in september 1863 caused lincoln to expand grunt's command and he led a reinforced federal army including two car from the army of the pottermouth to victory in the battle of chattanooga in late november so battle of gettysburg that meant the gettysburg address so on the 19th of november 1863 lincoln delivered the famous gettysburg address which you might have heard of it open with the line four score and seven years ago which was of course in reference to the declaration of independence in 1776 and lincoln once again referred to the principle that the us was a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal add in that the civil war was a test that would determine whether such a nation could endure it was a particularly moving speech that motivated those who supported him so we're eventually moving on to the end of the war now coming into 1864. so it finally seems as if lee had met his match in grant now the battle of the wilderness and the battle of spot sylvania and courthouse in spotsylvania courthouse sorry in may 1864 were both bloody conflicts but very indecisive and the battle of cold harbor in richmond just off virginia in june 1864 brought the union one of its worst defeats so in a single hour 6 000 union soldiers were killed and in the course of one month grant's campaigns had cost the union 50 000 soldiers so by september general sherman had captured the georgian state capital of atlanta which foreshadowed the end of the sex session of georgia and created another partition in the confederacy obviously mississippi had been parted now georgia was slowly splitting up lincoln was re-elected in november defeating the democratic candidate george mcclellan so at the turn of the year in 1865 it was a union victory in all but name so colombia and charleston in south carolina fell to sherman's men by mid-february and jefferson davis belatedly handed over the supreme command to general lee lee's forces made one final attempt to attack and captured the federal controlled fort stedman on the 25th of march an immediate counter-attack reversed the victory and on the night of the second to the third of april these forces evacuated richmond grant pursued the confederates along the upper appomattox river finally exhausting the possibilities for escape so grant accepted lee's surrender apple apple mattox courthouse in virginia on the 9th of april 1865. however the union victory was soon put on a downer when abraham lincoln was assassinated by a confederate sympathiser called john wilkes booth in ford's theater in washington d.c on the 14th of april 1865. now after lee's surrender secession was no longer an option in american politics it's on the 4th of may all of the remaining confederate forces in alabama and mississippi had also surrendered on the 9th of may 1865 the new president who was a abram lincoln's vice president guy called andrew johnson he officially declared an end to the us civil war so what happened after this was known as the reconstruction period and this is sort of from 1865 to 77. i won't go on too long about this because i'm conscious of the time but might get a brief idea anyway so approximately 620 000 soldiers and up to a million citizens had lost their lives in the u.s civil war and it is to date the bloodiest conflict ever fought on american soil however the main question posing problems for the us government was how to recover from four years of civil war and this society was what was known as the reconstruction era essentially the rebuilding of the south has much been destroyed farms and plantations have been burnt down and many people also been using confederate money which is now rendered worthless so lincoln had planned to be lenient on the south and make it easy for them to rejoin the union adding that if ten percent of the voters next confederate states supported the union then that state could be readmitted to the union obviously this meant that slavery had to be made illegal as part of their constitution however because of his assassination at the end of the civil war lincoln's plans never actually went through his successor president andrew johnson who was a southerner himself from rally in north carolina wanted to be more lenient to the south but congress disagreed and eventually passed harsher laws than both of them had put together so to help with the reconstruction three new amendments were added to the u.s constitution for the first time in 60 years and these were the 13th 14th and 15th amendments and these are commonly known as the civil war amendments so the 13th amendment which passed in 1865 outlawed slavery completely and gave congress the power to enforce the article through legislation the 14th amendment which was passed in 1868 stated that black people were citizens of the united states thereby overruling the dred scott case from 1857 and the 15th amendment which was passed in 1870 prohibited governments from denying u.s citizens the right to vote based on their race or color now this sounds good from the outset and very progressive for the 1870s but things like poll taxes and literacy tests blocked many black citizens from voting so the 15th amendment wasn't actually as good as it seems on the outside there's still a lot of ways people attempted to stop black people from voting so eventually all 11 confederate states were readmitted to the union tennessee being the first in 1866 and georgia being the last in 1870 but it was years before the economy in the south fully recovered but the point was that the u.s states well the u.s was united are as united as it could for them to be once more the reconstruction era officially ended under the presidency of rutherford b hayes in 1877. he removed federal troops from the south and state governments took over once again unfortunately this meant that the majority of the changes to equal rights were immediately reversed and why we still had the civil rights movement pushing right up until the 1960s so that's why it wasn't all sort of sorted then but that's a whole different topic in itself so in conclusion the us civil war was one of the most significant events in us history from the abolition of slavery to the inverted commas right for uh sorry about that phone going uh black citizens to vote in the space of seven years is an incredible achievement to behold given the circumstances and attitudes at the time now the late author shelby foote said in his book the civil war narrative he said the civil war defined the us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became good and bad things it was the crossroads of all being and it was a hell of a crossroads and i think that's the best way to sum it up there so i hope you enjoyed that one it's not something i normally do american history um i find it quite difficult to be honest i'm not big on it but hopefully that gives you a good overview of the american civil war and i hope you enjoyed that one thanks for listening and i'll see you next time