Turning point of the American Civil War

The near simultaneous Battle of Gettysburg in the east and fall of Vicksburg in the west, in July 1863 is widely cited as the military climax of the American Civil War.

Until this time, the North was generally confident about its prospects for quickly crushing the rebellion with an easy, direct strike against the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia.

[1] Lincoln immediately signed legislation that increased the Union Army by 500,000 men and allowed for their terms of service to last the duration of the war.

On September 3, 1861, Confederate General Leonidas Polk extended his defensive line north from Tennessee when Gideon Pillow occupied Columbus, Kentucky (in response to Ulysses S. Grant's occupation of Belmont, Missouri, directly across the Mississippi River).

In Tennessee, the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, and the Confederate surrender at the latter, were the first significant Union victories during the war and the start of a mostly successful campaign in the Western Theater.

As forces under Grant made gains in the Western Theater, much of the military equipment and manpower in the city's vicinity was sent up the Mississippi River in an attempt to stem the victorious Union tide.

Thus the port, by far the largest Confederate city, fell undamaged into Union hands, tightening its grip on the Mississippi River and fulfilling a key element of the Anaconda Plan for the South's defeat.

Although the occupation under Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler was detested by the city's antebellum elites, he was astute enough to build a base of political support among the poorer classes and create an extensive intelligence and counterespionage capability, nullifying the threat of insurrection.

The British public had strong anti-slavery beliefs and would not have tolerated joining the pro-slavery side of a fight where slavery was now a prominent issue.

[6] After winning the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Army of Northern Virginia lost Lt. Gen. Stonewall Jackson to pneumonia following a friendly fire accident.

[9] The loss of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two, denying it any further movement along or across the Mississippi River and preventing supplies from Texas and Arkansas that might sustain the war effort from passing east.

Although two more years of fighting and a new, more aggressive general-in-chief (Grant) were required to fully subdue the rebellion, the eventual end at Appomattox Court House in 1865 seems inevitable in hindsight.

While Gettysburg was seen by military and civilian observers at the time as a great battle, those in the North had little idea that two more bloody years would be required to finish the war.

[11] Some economic historians have pointed to the fact that after the defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the market for Confederate war bonds dropped precipitously.

Fuller contended that Grant's defeat of Braxton Bragg's army at Chattanooga, Tennessee was the turning point of the war because it reduced the Confederacy to the Atlantic coast and opened the way for William T. Sherman's Atlanta Campaign and March to the Sea.

Previous Union commanders in the critical Eastern Theater had not mounted effective campaigns, or successful pursuits of Confederate forces after gaining rare victories.

Grant devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the Confederacy from multiple directions: against Lee and the Confederate capital, Richmond; in the Shenandoah Valley; against Johnston and Atlanta; against railroad supply lines in western Virginia; and against the port of Mobile.

Some contend that Sherman's successful siege of Atlanta was the turning point, since the heavily fortified city was the most critical remaining stronghold in the South.

[16] The capture of Atlanta, following a tedious and frustrating campaign, lifted the spirits of Unionists and came just in time to build the popular support necessary to re-elect Lincoln, in addition to its military result of crippling transportation in the heart of the Confederacy and nearly destroying the city.

[citation needed] His opponent, former general George B. McClellan, ran on a Democratic Party platform that favored a negotiated settlement with the Confederacy.

Thus, Lincoln's success may have further emboldened belief, on both sides, in the notion that the war would eventually end with the Union's original ambition achieved.