Critique history project

The American Civil War

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Summary of the American Civil War

The American Civil War is a significant part of American history. The American Civil War lasted for four years starting in 1861-1865. There is really no telling American history before mentioning the American Civil War. The American Civil War was a result of long standing tensions and controversies on the issues of slavery and the rights of individual states. This paper will focus on sources with information on the American Civil War and the information that they offer and how they are relevant to the topic chosen the American Civil War.

Rees, B. (2013). The American Civil War

The author of the Book American Civil War goes by the name of Bob Reese and was published by Raintree Publishers from London in 2012 and 2013 for the second edition. The book talks about the importance of the civil war to American history and the reasons that led to the division of American people. The book also discusses the devastation caused by civil war focusing on how individuals from both sides of the conflict suffered because of the war.

The Revolution of 1776-1783 was responsible for the creation of the nation the United States of America. However, the civil war of 1861-1865 was the determining factor of the kind of nation the United States would become. When the Revolutionary war came to an end it left a number of unresolved issues which contributed to the occurrence of the American Civil War. One of these fundamental issues was whether the United States would become a confederation made up of many states that were dissolvable (Rees, 2013). Another option was that the United States would become a nation that was indivisible containing a national government sovereign in nature. The second fundamental issue that had not been resolved by the revolutionary war was whether the United States of America would remain the world’s largest slave holding country. This is in spite of the fact that the nation was founded on the basis that all men were created with the same rights to liberty.

The institution of slavery was responsible for the division of the United States as a country since it began. The victory by the Northern states in the American Civil War preserved America as a single united nation. However, this was a costly achievement, especially because during the Civil War led to the death of approximately 625,000 American lives. The death toll resulting from the American Civil War became the largest and most destructive wars in the West. It was the most devastating before the beginning of the First World War and the end of the 1815 Napoleonic wars.

The Free and the slave states ad uncompromising differences on the power that the national ad over the states in terms of the prohibition of slavery in territories that had not yet been declared states. The Southern States formed a new nation known as the confederate states when Abraham Lincoln won the election of 1860 to become president of the United States. This was because Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican President to make the pledge to keep slavery from spreading to any new territories. President Lincoln and his administration refused to recognize the legitimacy of the succession by the Southern states. This is because they shared the fear that recognition of the succession would set a precedent that the United States would comprise of small nations squabbling, which would be fatal to the democracy of the country.

Hartz, E. (2013). From the American Civil War to the War on Terror: Three models of emergency law in the United States Supreme Court

This book is authored by Emily Hartz and was published in 2013 by Springer publishers located in Berlin and New York. This book gives a chronological account of the cases shaping jurisprudence on the emergency law during the civil war in the United States.

The Confederate states opened fire on a federal garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay on the 12 of April 1861. They then forced the garrison commander to lower the United States flag as a show of surrender. This particular event was responsible for igniting the American Civil War. President Lincoln called upon the militia to suppress the insurgency, which led to the succession of four more states, which joined the Confederate states. By the end of the year 1861, more than one million armed men were engaged in confrontations between the 1200-mile stretch between Missouri and Virginia states (Hartz, 2013). However, the actual fighting started in the year 1862. This was because of big battles such as Shiloh in the State Of Tennessee and Fredericksburg in Virginia among others, which remained the largest battles of the American Civil war even in subsequent years of the war. The Union’s purpose when engaging in the Civil War was the restoration of the Union, however, by 1864, the purpose of the union’s participation in the American Civil War had undergone a drastic change. By this time, the sole goal of the Union army was the utter and total destruction of the South and the institution of slavery that it depended on and then restores the Union. President Abraham Lincoln made the statement very clear when he made an address at Gettysburg in the dedication ceremony for a Union soldier’s cemetery.

United States, Rosenthal, M., Smith, L. F., & United States (1865) - Proclamation of emancipation

President Abraham Lincoln Issued the Proclamation of Emancipation in January of 1863. The Proclamation by President Lincoln declared the freedom of all persons held as slaves in the rebellious states. For a period of three years, the Confederate Army led by Robert Lee of Northern Virginia fended off attacks by the Union Army from 1862-1865. During this time, the army was led by a series of generals who were ineffective, until the year 1864 when Ulysses Grant was appointed the general chief of all the Union Armies. After Grant’s appointment, the Union Army made some significant headway in the Civil War by winning more battles under the leadership of Grant. In addition, the Union Army and river fleets played a big role in compromising the slave states situated in the west of the Appalachian Mountain. From 1864-1865 a general by the name of William Tecumseh Sherman led his army into the Confederate strongholds of Georgia and South Carolina and destroyed the entire economic infrastructure they had. General George Thomas on the other hand essentially destroyed the Tennessee confederacy army in the battle of Nashville.

References

Hartz, E. (2013). From the American Civil War to the War on Terror: Three models of emergency law in the United States Supreme Court. Berlin: Springer.

Rees, B. (2013). The American Civil War San Diego: Greenhaven Press.

United States. Rosenthal, M., Smith, L. F., & United States. (1865). Proclamation of emancipation. Philadelphia: L. Franklin Smith.