Introduction
The above objectives correspond with the following Alabama Course of Study Objectives:
Introduction
In 1864, General Grant became the new General-in-Chief of the Union Army. His aggressive tactics in the Overland Campaign cost the Union thousands of its husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons. Where other Union generals had failed in their campaigns to take Richmond and turned back, Grant pressed forward. Northern morale was low and the prospect of President Lincoln being reelected appeared bleak. Victories at Mobile Bay, Atlanta, and the Shenandoah Valley in late summer, early fall raised Northern spirits and confidence that the war would soon be won. President Lincoln was reelected in November and the Confederate hopes of compromise with a new president were crushed.
Victory was in sight in the early months of 1865. Petersburg and Richmond were under siege, while Sherman's army trudged through the South with little to no resistance. The Thirteenth Amendment was passed through the House of Representatives, which would abolish slavery in America. General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was dwindling and forced to surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia on April 9, 1865. Northerners were overjoyed, but the celebrations came to a halt on April 14, when President Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre. He was pronounced dead the following day. Union raids continued, but the last major Confederate Army surrendered in April to General Sherman.
The war was over and the Union preserved, but at an incredible high price. Over 600,000 Americans perished in the Civil War and the financial cost soared into the billions. The war had devastated the South. It would be another ten years before the South reached pre-Civil War production levels. Slavery was abolished in the United States for good, but the African-American population would still have many struggles to fight for equality.
