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Major Figures of the Civil War. Jefferson Davis.
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Elected (1845) to the House of Representatives, he resigned in June, 1846, to command a Mississippi regiment in the Mexican War. Under Zachary Taylor he distinguished himself both at the siege of Monterrey and at Buena Vista. Davis was appointed (1847) U.S. Senator from Mississippi to fill an unexpired term but resigned in 1851 to run for governor of Mississippi against his senatorial colleague, Henry S. Foote, who was a Union Whig. Davis was a strong champion of Southern rights and argued for the expansion of slave territory and economic development of the South to counterbalance the power of the North. He lost the election by less than a thousand votes and retired to his plantation until appointed (1853) Secretary of War by Franklin Pierce. Reentering the Senate in 1857, Davis became the leader of the Southern bloc. Davis took little part in the secession movement until Mississippi seceded (Jan., 1861), whereupon he withdrew from the Senate. He was immediately appointed major general of the Mississippi militia, and shortly afterward he was chosen president of the Confederate provisional government established by the convention at Montgomery, Ala., and inaugurated in Feb., 1861. Elected regular President of the Confederate States (see Confederacy), he was inaugurated at Richmond, Va., in Feb., 1862. Davis realized that the Confederate war effort needed a strong, centralized rule. This conflicted with the states’ rights policy for which the Southern states had seceded, and, as he assumed more and more power, many of the Southern leaders combined into an anti-Davis party. Originally hopeful of a military rather than a civil command in the Confederacy, he closely managed the army and was involved in many disagreements with the Confederate generals; arguments over his policies raged long after the Confederacy was dead. Lee surrendered without Davis’s approval. After the last Confederate cabinet meeting was held (Apr., 1865) at Charlotte, N.C., Davis was captured at Irwinville, Ga. He was confined in Fortress Monroe in Virginia for two years and was released (May, 1867) on bail. The federal government proceeded no further in its prosecution of Davis. After his release he wrote an apologia(a defense of his political views), The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881). He was buried at New Orleans, but his body was moved (1893) to Richmond, Va. Source.
To the South, Lincoln’s election in 1860 was the signal for secession. The new President, determined to preserve the Union at all costs, condemned secession but promised that he would not initiate the use of force. After a slight delay, however, he did order the provisioning of Fort Sumter, and the South chose to regard this as an act of war. On Apr. 12, 1861, Fort Sumter was fired upon, and the Civil War began. Lincoln attacked the vast problems of the war with vigor and surpassing skill. He immediately issued a summons to the militia (an act that precipitated the secession of four more Southern states), ordered a blockade of Confederate ports, and suspended habeas corpus. The progress of battle went against the North at first. Lincoln himself made some bad military decisions (e.g., in ordering the direct advance into Virginia that resulted in the Union defeat at the first battle of Bull Run), and he ran through a succession of commanders in chief before he found Ulysses S. Grant. In the early stages of the war Lincoln revoked orders by John C. Frémont and David Hunter freeing the slaves in their military departments. However, the Union victory at Antietam gave him a position of strength from which to issue his own Emancipation Proclamation. The restoration and preservation of the Union were still the main ideas of Lincoln’s war aims. The sorrows of war and its rigorous necessity afflicted him; he expressed both in one of the noblest public speeches ever made, the Gettysburg Address, made at the dedication of the soldiers’ cemetery at Gettysburg in 1863. A turn for the better took place before the election, a turn brought about to some extent by a change of military fortune after Grant became commander and particularly after William T. Sherman took Atlanta. Lincoln was reelected by a great majority. His second inaugural address, delivered when the war was drawing to its close, was a plea for the new country that would arise from the ashes of the South. His own view was one of forgiveness, as shown in his memorable phrase “With malice toward none; with charity for all.” He lived to see the end of the war, but he was to have no chance to implement his plans for Reconstruction. On April 14, 1865, when attending a performance at Ford’s Theater, he was shot by the actor John Wilkes Booth. The next morning Lincoln died. His death was an occasion for grief even among those who had been his opponents, and many considered him a martyr. Source.
He served with distinction under Winfield Scott in the Mexican War and from 1851 to 1861 taught at the Virginia Military Institute. At the beginning of the Civil War Jakcson was made a colonel of Virginia troops and sent to command at Harpers Ferry. After J. E. Johnston superseded him there in May, 1861, Jackson was given a brigade in Johnston’s army and made a Confederate brigadier general. At the first battle of Bull Run, he and his brigade earned their sobriquet by standing (in the words of Gen. Barnard Bee) “like a stone wall.” In April, Robert E. Lee suggested that Jackson fall upon Nathaniel P. Banks’s force in the lower valley, hoping that Irvin McDowell’s army would thereby be diverted from joining George McClellan before Richmond (see Peninsular campaign). Jackson’s renowned Valley campaign resulted. He first defeated part of John C. Frémont’s force at McDowell (c.25 mi/40 km W of Staunton) on May 8, 1862, and then, returning to the Shenandoah, routed Banks at Front Royal and Winchester (May 23–25) and drove him across the Potomac. The federal administration sent Shields from McDowell’s army to join Frémont, advancing from the west, in cutting off Jackson. Stonewall, however, retreated rapidly to the head of the valley and on June 8–9 defeated his pursuers at Cross Keys and Port Republic. With the diversion in the Shenandoah Valley a complete success, Jackson joined Lee in the Seven Days battles. After the brilliance of the Shenandoah campaign, his service in that week of fighting was disappointing. But he soon redeemed himself. The speedy turning movement executed by his “foot cavalry” against Pope late in Aug., 1862, at the battle of Cedar Mt. set the stage for the crushing victory at the second battle of Bull Run, and in the Antietam campaign he marched promptly to Lee’s aid after he had captured the Harpers Ferry garrison. When Lee reorganized the Army of Northern Virginia after Antietam, he made Jackson commander of the 2d Corps, and Stonewall was promoted to lieutenant general. He ably commanded the Confederate right in the battle of Fredericksburg in December. In the battle of Chancellorsville, Lee and Jackson repeated the tactics of second Bull Run. Jackson’s turning movement completely crumbled Hooker’s right (May 2, 1863). Pressing on in the darkness, Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded by the fire of his own men. His death was a severe blow to the Southern cause. Jackson was a tactician of first rank and, though a strict disciplinarian, had the affection of his men. His devout Calvinism, fighting ability, and arresting personal quirks make him one of the most interesting figures of the war. He was Lee’s ablest and most trusted lieutenant.
When Louisiana seceded Sherman resigned from the military academy (Jan., 1861), and in May he rejoined the U.S. army as a colonel. Sherman commanded a brigade in the first battle of Bull Run (July) and in August was made a brigadier general of volunteers and sent to Kentucky. There he succeeded Robert Anderson in command of the Dept. of the Cumberland (Oct.), but in November he was transferred to the Dept. of the Missouri. Sherman distinguished himself as a division commander at Shiloh (Apr., 1862) and was promoted to major general in May. He took part in the operations about Corinth, occupied Memphis (July), and commanded the Dist. of Memphis (Oct.–Dec., 1862). After his defeat at Chickasaw Bluffs in the first advance of the Vicksburg campaign, he served under John A. McClernand in the capture of Arkansas Post (Jan., 1863). In the successful move on Vicksburg, Sherman ably led the 15th Corps. In July he was made a brigadier general in the regular army. When Ulysses S. Grant assumed supreme command in the West, Sherman became commander of the Army of the Tennessee (Oct., 1863). He commanded the Union left at Missionary Ridge in the Chattanooga campaign (Nov.), went to the relief of Ambrose E. Burnside at Knoxville (Dec.), and destroyed Confederate communications and supplies at Meridian, Miss., in Feb., 1864. When Grant became commander in chief, Sherman succeeded him as supreme commander in the West (March). His Atlanta campaign (May–Sept., 1864) resulted in the fall of that city on Sept. 2. The Confederate attempt to draw him back failed, and Sherman burned (Nov. 15) most of Atlanta and the next day, with 60,000 men, began his famous march to the sea. With virtually no enemy to bar his way, he was before Savannah in 24 days, leaving behind him a ruined and devastated land. Savannah fell on Dec. 21. In Feb., 1865, Sherman started northward to close in on Robert E. Lee from the rear. Every step now reduced the area upon which the Confederates in Virginia could depend for aid. His advance through South Carolina (the state that in the eyes of Sherman’s men had provoked the war) was slower but even more destructive than the march through Georgia. In North Carolina, Joseph E. Johnston opposed Sherman in engagements at Averasboro and Bentonville, but after hearing of Lee’s surrender, he asked for terms. Sherman, understanding the South and the devastation it had suffered better than any other Union general, offered him generous terms, but Secretary of War Stanton repudiated them. Johnston then surrendered (Apr. 26, 1865) the last major Confederate army on the same terms as Lee. Source.
When the Civil War Aug., 1861, became a brigadier general of volunteers. Grant assumed command of the Dist. of Cairo, Ill., in September and fought his first battle, an indecisive affair, at Belmont, Mo., on Nov. 9, 1861. In Feb., 1862, aided by Union gunboats, he captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. It was the first major Union victory, and Lincoln at once made him a major general of volunteers. However, in April at Shiloh, it is likely that only the arrival of the army of Gen. Don Carlos Buell saved him from defeat. The Vicksburg campaign (1862-63) was one of Grant's greatest successes. After repeated failures to get at the town, he made a brilliant advance in cooperation with a fleet and finally took Vicksburg by siege. The victory of Braxton Bragg, the Confederate general, at Chickamauga, led to Grant's accession to the supreme command in the West, Oct., 1863. At Chattanooga in November his forces thoroughly defeated Bragg. The President, in March, 1864, made him commander in chief with the rank of lieutenant general, a grade especially revived by Congress for him. Grant himself directed George G. Meade's Army of the Potomac against Gen. Robert E. Lee in the Wilderness campaign. His policy of wearing Lee out by sheer attrition was effective, though it resulted in the slaughter of Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. Failing to carry Petersburg by assault in June, 1864, Grant had that city under partial siege until April, 1865. Lee retreated, but was cut off at Appomattox Courthouse,where he surrendered, receiving generous terms from Grant, on April 9, 1865. Source.
In Feb., 1861 (after the secession of the lower South), General Scott, with whom Lee was a great favorite, recalled him from Texas. Lee had no sympathy with either secession or slavery and, loving the Union and the army, deprecated the thought of sectional conflict. But in his tradition, loyalty to Virginia came first, and upon Virginia's secession he resigned (April 20, 1861) from the army. His resolve not to fight against the South had already led him to decline (April 18) the field command of the U.S. forces. On April 23 he assumed command of the military and naval forces of Virginia, which he organized thoroughly before they were absorbed by the Confederacy. Lee then became military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis and was made a Confederate general. After the failure of his efforts to coordinate the activity of Confederate forces in the western part of Virginia (July–Oct., 1861), Lee organized the S Atlantic coast defenses. In March, 1862, Davis recalled him to Richmond. Lee's plan to prevent reinforcements from reaching Gen. George B. McClellan, whose army was threatening Richmond, was brilliantly executed by T. J. (Stonewall) Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. When Joseph E. Johnston was wounded at Fair Oaks in the Peninsular campaign, Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia (June 1, 1862). His leadership of that army through the next three years has placed him among the world's great commanders. Lee immediately took the offensive, and after ending McClellan's threat to Richmond in the Seven Days battles (June 26–July 2), he thoroughly defeated John Pope at the second battle of Bull Run (Aug. 29–30). McClellan, however, checked him in his first Northern invasion, the Antietam campaign (Sept.). Advances by Ambrose E. Burnside and Joseph Hooker were brutally repulsed in the battles of Fredericksburg (Dec. 13) and Chancellorsville (May 2–4, 1863), though in the latter victory Lee lost his ablest lieutenant, Stonewall Jackson. Lee's second invasion of the North resulted in the Confederate defeat in the Gettysburg campaign (June–July). He sorely missed the services of Jackson, and some historians attribute his defeat at Gettysburg to the failures of his subordinates, particularly James Longstreet. After Gettysburg, Lee did not engage in any major campaign until May, 1864, when Ulysses S. Grant moved against him. He repulsed Grant's direct assaults in the Wilderness campaign (May–June), but was not strong enough to turn him back, and in July, 1864, Grant began the long siege of Petersburg. Lee's appointment as general in chief of all Confederate armies came (Feb., 1865) when the Confederacy had virtually collapsed. On April 2, the Army of the Potomac broke through the Petersburg defenses, and Lee's forces retreated. One week later Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. Source.
Sources Source for all portraits except Jefferson Davis: http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/index.html Source for Davis image: http://www.britannica.com/eb/art/print?id=9845&articleTypeId=1 Other sources are embedded throughout the slides.
