US History

U.S. History Study Guide

©2018 of 194 command of George Gordon Meade, captured the town but failed to take the high ground around it, Lee attacked the next day. On July 3, Lee made perhaps his greatest mistake of the war, ordering an attack across open ground, known as "Pickett’s Charge" for the commander of the largest Confederate division involved, George Pickett, the attack failed, leaving thousands of Southern soldiers dead and wounded. With the Confederate’s loss of Vicksburg, Mississippi, that same day, July 4, 1863, is often described as the turning point of the Civil War. West Virginia Becomes a State The year also saw an event unique in American history. Counties of western Virginia had refused to leave the Union when their state Virginia seceded in 1861. On June 20, 1863, West Virginia entered the Union as the thirty fifth state, although the U.S. Constitution requires a mother state’s permission, Lincoln again manipulated the Constitution. 13.20 Civil War 1864 Since the beginning of the war, Lincoln had desperately searched for a general who wouldn’t turn back in the face of a defeat in battle. He found his man, Ulysses S. Grant, who was put in charge of all Union armies in March 1864, a title that hadn't been held since George Washington in the American Revolution. "Unconditional Surrender" Grant proved Lincoln right, but the cost in lives led many, including the president’s wife, Mary, to call him a "butcher." He was also accused of being an alcoholic throughout the war, although it is said he never drank while at war. When people questioned Lincoln on this he is said to have responded by saying, “… find out what he drinks so I can send a barrel of it to each of my generals.” The Wilderness Following his promotion, Grant attached himself to the North’s largest army, the Army of the Potomac. The Army of the Potomac crossed Virginia’s Rapidan River on May 2nd and three days later, it collided with Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in a wooded area, known as The Wilderness, near the old Chancellorsville battlefield. After two blood soaked days of fighting, Grant maneuvered his army, Lee anticipated the move, and the two armies tore at each other again for two weeks in May around Spotsylvania. Grant intended to fight it out along this line and the two armies clashed again and again, moving ever southward. At Cold Harbor, Grant made one of the worst mistakes of his career, suffering seven thousand casualties within twenty minutes while Lee’s losses were minor. Eventually, the Union pushed the Confederates' close to their capital (Richmond) that Lee had to dig in and prepare for trench warfare. The siege of Richmond and Petersburg had begun. Petersburg and Richmond On July 30, the Union exploded a mine beneath a portion of the Confederate lines around Petersburg. A charge was led by a large number of Union soldiers into the thirty-foot-deep crater it created, this allowed the Southerners time to recover. They poured fire into the densely packed Union forces, like Achieve Page 175

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