Civil War Dbq

The Civil War took place during the time period from 1861-1865 over slavery and state rights in the states. During this time period, Abraham Lincoln was elected president for the northern states also the union. Meanwhile, Jefferson Davis was president of the southern states also called confederate states. According to Britannica states, “Between 1815-1816 the economy of the northern states was rapidly modernizing and diversifying…southern economy was based principally on large farms…that relied on slaves as the main labor force”. In this paper I would like to discuss about the civil war and with that going thoroughly deep into what effects the union hard war policy of 1864-1865 have on soldiers and civilians, how it was viewed in both the

The total war was also very brutal because it was the opposite of the hard war where the hard war policy was to destroy civilian’s property total war were attacking innocent citizens. The hard war policy in Virginia focused on the Shenandoah Valley, they wanted to destroy the ability of confederate forces to use the valley as a corridor of invasion and a source of food and supplies….union troops marched south, they burned whatever lay in their path... by mid-October Sheridan had largely accomplished his mission of destroying the valley ” .Civilians were very terrified as well as very hopeless in their country, the southern territory was destroyed from plantation to their cattle that they owned. Due to the hardship that were imposed on the citizens the government mobilized to take care of the citizens but unfortunately they lacked resources that was caused by the union army,

For the union side their primary goal was to reconquer confederate territory. According to union and confederate civil war states about the views in north and south, “the union originally wanted to reunite the country, but after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, the union goal changed to include the abolition of slavery…confederacy… wanted to incorporate all slaves and defend its territory.” So their goal was throughout the same until the emancipation proclamation was issued for slavery. The union chose a strategy that would attack the opposite as well as forcing economic pressure for the confederates. By putting the confederacy under pressure from messing up with cotton trade with Europe was called the anaconda plan with that they also cut transport for men and resources when they invaded the 2 great rivers of the south. While this was the union plan, on the other had confederacy just wanted to survive in order to win. For them it wasn’t important to win a territory. According to Oxford university book states “ The south..to win did not need to strike the North, destroy the Union army, or wipe out the North’s industrial capacity.It simply had to hold its ground . President Jefferson Davis chose the offensive-defensive strategy . With that being said the anaconda plan was very effective to the confederates. Which leads us to the Sherman’s march. Sherman march was very destructive it