Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
How the civil war affected south carolina
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: How the civil war affected south carolina
“South Carolina had succeeded! It had left the Union by vote of its convention at Charleston on the twentieth.”(Lewis 137). To many people this was a shock for South Carolina to be the first state to succeed from the union. To General William Sherman he was devastated as Lewis depicts Sherman Pacing the floor as he was saddened by this tragic news, and in pacing until it became almost an omen to his future march (Lewis 138). As The Civil War came close to an end, the union had come up with a brilliant plan to end it all with just one devastating plan. To trek through the southern states burning and destroying everything in sight so to devastate the southern states and make a surrender inevitable. General William Sherman’s march devastated all the southern states, but affected South Carolina more than any other southern state. With the march through the south General Sherman’s troops destroyed everything in sight. The heart break General William Sherman remembered at the beginning of the war was still fresh to him, because of this he left South Carolina with nothing to hold onto as a state. As reported in Civil War Battle Guide “Sherman specifically targeted South Carolina, the first state to secede” (Houghton). South Carolina having a striving economies before the war began one of the leading slave trade states and agricultural trade states General Williams Sherman’s march hit the hearts of the South Carolina people all because of the state making a decision to rebel against the union. Not only would South Carolina be effected negatively but would find themselves searching for a new beginning after the war. No other state would find themselves with as much of a loss as the State of South Carolina just because Sherman struck the m...
... middle of paper ...
...Findling. What Happened? : An Encyclopedia Of Events That Changed America Forever. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2011.eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
Hughes, Nathaniel Cheairs. Bentonville : The Final Battle Of Sherman And Johnston. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
Marszalek, John F. Sherman : A Soldier's Passion For Order. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
Wright, John D. The Language Of The Civil War. Westport, Conn: Oryx Press, 2001. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
Sebesta, Edward H., and James W. Loewen. The Confederate And Neo-Confederate Reader : The 'Great Truth' About The 'Lost Cause'. Jackson, Miss: University Press of Mississippi, 2010.eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 21 Nov. 2013.
General Richard Sherman’s march to the sea has just finished. After successful capturing Atlanta, Georgia, General Sherman directed his Union army to Savannah, Georgia. Along the way, northerners wreaked havoc on Southern cotton mills and destroy train tracks while completely uprooting 20 percent of Georgian plantations. This effectively halted the Confederate’s means of transportation and economic structure subsequently w...
At the end of his “March to the Sea”, MG William T. Sherman led Union forces from Georgia to the north through the Carolinas to unite with LTG Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia. By doing so, he believed he would be able to cut Confederate forces General Robert E. Lee’s supply lines. In February 1865, MG Sherman captured Columbia, the state capital of South Carolina. The commander of Confederate forces was LTG Wade Hampton who led the force under the command of General P.G.T Beauregard. MG Sherman succeeded in defeating Confederate on the basis of the principles of mission command.
General Sherman had several objectives in mind when setting out from Atlanta aside from reaching and taking Savannah. Important objectives included destroying any buildings that could assist the Confederacy. Other valuable targets to the Union included excess livestock, railroad tracks and depots, and cotton and tobacco fields. Perhaps most critical to General Sherman was to defeat the Confederate spirit. “When requesting permission to proceed with his campaign Sherman wrote to General Grant ‘I can make this march and make Georgia howl.’” (Woodworth) Sherman’s presence in the heart of the South was an insult to the pride of local residents, and the fact the Confederate Army could do little to stop it severely belittled national unity.
In, “Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War,” Charles B. Dew analyzes the public letters and speeches of white, southern commissioners in order to successfully prove that the Civil War was fought over slavery. By analyzing the public letters and speeches, Dew offers a compelling argument proving that slavery along with the ideology of white supremacy were primary causes of the Civil War. Dew is not only the Ephraim Williams Professor of American History at Williams College, but he is also a successful author who has received various awards including the Elloit Rudwick Prize and the Fletcher Pratt Award. In fact, two of Dew’s books, Tredegar Iron Works and Apostles of Disunion and Ironmaker to
... to win war. The Union blockade of Charleston is when the enemy fleet took over the Charleston harbor. Sherman’s march through South Carolina was a path of destruction from ransacking people and homes to burning down buildings. When Sherman set fire to Columbia that marked the end of this gruesome war. After Sherman had set fire to the city, the Confederacy was in such despair over there lost town. This caused the Confederacy to finally surrender to the union. The Civil War was a very dark time in American history. One of the bloodiest wars this country has ever experienced. South Carolina was a big player during this war, from battles to their ports, and then the burning of the capitol. This war was a very traumatic time for Americans but in my opinion I believe that if this war hadn’t happened we wouldn’t be the strong, free willed and brave country we are today.
Turner, Thomas R. 101 Things You Didn’t Know about the Civil War. Avon: Adams, 2007.
McPherson, James M.; The Atlas of the Civil War. Macmillan: 15 Columbus Circle New York, NY. 1994.
In James McPherson’s novel, What They Fought For, a variety of Civil War soldier documents are examined to show the diverse personal beliefs and motives for being involved in the war. McPherson’s sample, “is biased toward genuine fighting soldiers” (McPherson, 17) meaning he discusses what the ordinary soldier fought for. The Confederacy was often viewed as the favorable side because their life style relied on the war; Confederates surrounded their lives with practices like slavery and agriculture, and these practices were at stake during the war. On the other hand, Northerners fought to keep the country together. Although the Civil War was brutal, McPherson presents his research to show the dedication and patriotism of the soldiers that fought and died for a cause.
... by the war and fight more viciously. Lincoln was very careful not to underestimate his enemies in the South and sternly advised the American public not to get overconfident, “Let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy final triumph. Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that just God, in His good time, will us the right result.” The siege of Vicksburg was in many ways the hardest blow to the South, because they lost their control of the river there, and lost communication with their western territories. In many respects, this was the day that I believe most of the southern soldiers believed the war had ended, and with Sherman making his march, the psychological impact was devastating. Without their beliefs, their way of life taken away, they had no reason to fight, and no reason to continue fighting because if Old Dixie could fall, so could anyone else.
Southern and Northern People had different ideas about the civil war. There were problems within their country and they wanted to fix them. They knew the country was created for the people and was run by the people. They wanted the nation to succeed, but one side wanted it to be free for all people no matter the race, while the southern wanted to keep slaves. With these complete opposites ideas of thinking the southern states decided their only option was to separate from the Union. They split and this left the country confused. Confused about what was in store for the nation they had grown to love. It was no longer clear what they future held for American and it would take a couple of years to get the country moving down the path that leads to the world we live in today.
“All up and down the lines the men blinked at one another, unable to realize that the hour they had waited for so long was actually at hand. There was a truce…” Bruce Catton’s Pulitzer prize winning book A Stillness at Appomattox chronicles the final year of the American Civil War. This book taught me a lot more about the Civil War than I ever learned through the public school system. Bruce Catton brought to life the real day to day life of the soldiers and the generals who led them into battle.
Anderson, F., and R.S Stephenson. The War That Made America. Penguin Group USA, 2005. (accessed December 5th , 2013).
Perman Michael, Amy Murrell Taylor. Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction. Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011.
Woodworth, Steven E. Davis and Lee at War. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. 1995.
More confederates than unions were illiterate due to the fact that most held professional or white-collard jobs (36). To make the Union soldiers sample fair sense most blacks couldn’t read or write, 2 who could were included in the sample (36). The levels of patriotism differed from the upper and lower south given to the fact that the upper south were mainly cotton states. The confederates felt as if it was a “rich mans woar but the poor man has to do the fifting” (16). The confederates were mainly fighting for “independence, property and way of life” (27). Some characteristics the soldiers had in common were McPherson’s calculations for the Union. He came to seeing that out of 562 Union soldier’s letters read only 67 percent voice strong patriotic motives. This is the same as the two-thirds of Confederates. As a result from reading McPherson’s book, research showed that the Union and Confederate soldiers expressed about the same degree of patriotic and ideological convictions. Even though they both had different reasons for fighting the levels of sincerity and dedication in their notes were