BILLY YANK & JOHNNY REB GO TO WAR

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• published: 01 Aug 2014
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Billy Mudsill and Johnny Corncracker go to war The American Civil War was one of the earliest true industrial wars; with Railroads, the Telegraph, Steamships, and mass-produced weapons. The mobilization of civilian factories, mines, shipyards, banks, transportation and food supplies all foreshadowed World War One. It remains the deadliest war in American history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 750,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilian casualties, from 1861 to 1865 about 620,000 soldiers lost their lives. Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, a key fort held by Union troops in South Carolina. President Abraham Lincoln called for each state to provide troops to retake the fort; consequently, four more states joined the Confederacy, bringing their total to eleven. The Union soon controlled the Border States and established a naval blockade that crippled the southern economy. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaign into Maryland (a Union state) ended with Confederate retreat at the Battle of Antietam. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river Navy, then much of their western armies and the Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert. E. Lee Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg. Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grant’s command of all Union armies in 1864. In the Western Theatre, William. T. Sherman drove east to capture Atlanta and destroying Confederate infrastructure along the way. The Union marshaled the resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions, and could afford to fight battles of attrition towards Richmond, the Confederate capital. The defending Confederate army failed, leading to General Lee's surrender to General Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.