Civil War Dbq

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The Civil War was fought because of the disagreements between the free states (North) and the slave states (South) over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery. The South felt that whether or not to have slaves should be a decision made by each individual state and should not controlled on a national level. The North felt that slavery should be abolished in all states. These differences brought a lot of separations between the states as a result, the Civil War was fought. The war was fought from 1861 to 1865. Other causes of the civil war, included differences between northern and southern states on the idea of slavery, as well as trade, tariffs, and states’ rights. The North due to having the better advantage over …show more content…

Grant and Robert E. Lee were the generals primarily responsible for the outcome of America’s great Civil War they were Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. Ulysses S. Grant served as commander in chief of the Union army during the Civil War, leading the North to victory over the Confederacy. Grant’s plan was that Sherman would go after Joe Johnston while he would go after Robert E. Lee, the General of the Confederates. Grant once said: “The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him soon as you can. Strike at him as hard as you can and as often as you can, and keep moving on.” Grant’s strategy was different from all the others. He believed the Union should focus on the Confederate army and not the Confederate capital (Ward, 1990). Ulysses Grant knew that in order to be successful during wars, they could not be fought during certain times. Wars were normally fault when the weather was good or when there wasn’t a great demand for the men to work their farmland. Grant did not allow his armies to put their guard down to rest when their enemies were still at bay. Secondly, Grant understood that a high tempo of operations eliminated the enemy’s changes of interior lines of communications. Before Grant, the South could rely on the enemies taking time off to regroup and replenish their strategies and supplies. Grant’s strategic view was put into action and led to the end of the war in just over one year from …show more content…

Lee, had a different strategy. During the first year of the Civil War, Lee served as a senior military adviser to President Jefferson Davis. Once he took command of the main field army in 1862 he soon emerged as a shrewd tactician and battlefield commander, winning most of his battles, all against far superior Union armies (Bunting, 2004). Lee's strategic foresight was more questionable, and both of his major offensives into Union territory ended in defeat. Lee's aggressive tactics, which resulted in large number of deaths when the Confederacy had a shortage of manpower, have come under criticism in recent years. Union General Ulysses S. Grant's campaigns (particularly the Vicksburg Campaign) crippled the Confederacy in 1864 and 1865, and Lee was unable to turn the war's tide or stop Grant's advance during the Overland Campaign and Richmond–Petersburg Campaign. Before he surrendered in the spring of 1864, Lee was confronted by a new adversary, Ulysses S. Grant, whose Army of the Potomac numbered 120,000. The Army of Northern Virginia scarcely gathered 60,000. When Grant advanced on Richmond, Lee bested him in a series of battles at Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor, inflicting 50,000 casualties (Robert E. Lee, 2016). After being thoroughly outmaneuvered, Lee surrendered his entire army to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. By this time, Lee had assumed supreme command of the remaining Southern armies; other

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