The Civil War: The Struggle that Divided America
By Judy Dodge Cummings and Sam Carbaugh
()
About this ebook
The American Revolution: Experience the Battle for Independence
Publishers Weekly: Readers can take a hands-on approach to learning about the American Revolution in this addition to the Build It Yourself series. Each chapter begins with an “essential question” that serves as an entry point (“What factors caused American colonists to begin to resent British rule in the 1760s?”). At the end of each chapter, readers are invited to compose a thesis statement in response to the opening question. Sidebars supplement the material with vocabulary definitions, trivia, and additional information about such figures as Thomas Paine, Benedict Arnold, and Phillis Wheatley. Cartoon illustrations and 25 activities (such as preparing “firecake,” the simple bread that soldiers ate on the battlefield) create a lively learning experience.
Judy Dodge Cummings
Judy Dodge Cummings has written more than 20 books for children and teenagers. One of her books, Earth, Wind, Fire, and Rain: Real Tales of Temperamental Elements, highlights the true story of five of the United States’ deadliest natural disasters. One of the disasters featured in this book is the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906.
Read more from Judy Dodge Cummings
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The Civil War - Judy Dodge Cummings
Nomad Press
A division of Nomad Communications
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Copyright © 2017 by Nomad Press. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review or for limited educational use.
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and the Nomad Press logo are trademarks of Nomad Communications, Inc.
ISBN Softcover: 978-1-61930-606-6
ISBN Hardcover: 978-1-61930-602-8
Educational Consultant, Marla Conn
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What are source notes?
In this book, you’ll find small numbers at the end of some paragraphs. These numbers indicate that you can find source notes for that section in the back of the book. Source notes tell readers where the writer got their information. This might be a news article, a book, or another kind of media. Source notes are a way to know that what you are reading is true information that other people have verified. They can also lead you to more places where you can explore a topic that you’re curious about!
Timeline
Introduction
What Was the Civil War?
Chapter 1
The Roots of Rebellion
Chapter 2
Dueling Republics
Chapter 3
First Blood
Chapter 4
Back-and-Forth Butchery
Chapter 5
A New Birth of Freedom
Chapter 6
The Scourge of War
Chapter 7
One and Undivided
Chapter 8
Legacies
Index
TIMELINE
What Was the Civil War?
Why did the South decide to secede from the North and form the Confederacy?
Many different factors were part of the South’s decision to secede from the United States, but the main issue that drove a wedge between the two sides was slavery.
Slavery or freedom? The question of whether to keep the United States a slave country or to grant freedom to all people was the issue that pitted the states against each other in a brutal conflict called the Civil War. This war raged from 1861 to 1865 and left more than 700,000 soldiers dead.
Why did the United States go to war with itself? What was at stake? Was the result of the conflict worth the horrific bloodshed? The buildup to the Civil War was a long one, beginning with the arrival of a slave ship in Virginia in 1619. However, the first official shots of the war were fired on a small island in South Carolina.
THE SPARK
The afternoon of April 11, 1861, slaves rowed a small boat carrying three white men across the harbor from Charleston, South Carolina, to the island of Fort Sumter. The men were representatives of the Confederate States of America, bringing a message for the commander of the fort, U.S. Major Robert Anderson (1805–1871).
The message ordered Anderson to evacuate his troops immediately. Anderson politely refused. Fort Sumter belonged to the U.S. government, and he would not abandon it. However, Anderson did admit that his troops were almost out of food. If supplies were not delivered soon, the soldiers defending Fort Sumter might starve to death.
The path to this standoff began on December 20, 1860, when South Carolina seceded from the United States.
Anderson’s command post had been located at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island. But this fort’s cannon was fixed on the open seas. When South Carolina seceded, it became the enemy behind Fort Moultrie’s defenses.
So, under cover of darkness on December 27, 1860, Anderson and his troops relocated to the more defendable Fort Sumter. Whoever controlled Fort Sumter controlled access to Charleston, the South’s most vital seaport.
Reaction to the movement of troops was swift. South Carolina troops occupied Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney, the other military installations in Charleston’s harbor. Militia poured into the city and artillery was positioned on the Charleston Peninsula and surrounding islands. All guns sighted on Fort Sumter, where Anderson and his men were stationed.
PRIMARY SOURCES
Primary sources come from people who were eyewitnesses to events. They might write about the event, take pictures, post short messages to social media or blogs, or record the event for radio or video. The photographs in this book are primary sources, taken at the time of the event. Paintings of events are usually not primary sources since they were often painted long after the event took place. What other primary sources can you find? Why are primary sources important? Do you learn differently from primary sources than from secondary sources, which come from people who did not directly experience the event?
STUDENT VS TEACHER
Major Robert Anderson was from Kentucky. Although a Southerner by birth, he was a steadfast supporter of the Union. Once an artillery instructor at West Point Military Academy, Anderson knew the power of the artillery aimed at Fort Sumter. He also knew the man commanding those guns. Brigadier General Pierre G.T. Beauregard (1818–1893) had been one of Major Anderson’s prized artillery students at West Point. This was the nature of the Civil War. It pitted friend against friend and student against teacher.
A new president, Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), had been elected in November 1860, but he would not take office until March. Meanwhile, the lame duck president, James Buchanan, meekly protested that South Carolina’s secession was illegal, but he took no action to stop it. As the soldiers in Fort Sumter slowly ran low on supplies, more Southern states seceded.
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas all followed South Carolina out of the country. On February 4, 1861, these seven states formed a new nation—the Confederate States of America.
Military commanders in these states surrendered government installations and either headed north or, if their sympathies were with the South, joined the new Confederate Army. Soon, only two Southern military installations remained in control of the federal government. One was Fort Sumter.
What happened at Fort Sumter would determine whether the United States split apart or went to war.
When Abraham Lincoln took office