Wednesday, September 17, 2008

CIVIL WAR

When I first heard that we were going to be learning about the civil war in history the first thing that popped into my head was “here we go learning about slavery. There is only so much they can teach us about this boring war”. Well I was wrong. I learned so much more then I ever thought I could about the civil war.
For example I learned that slavery was just a minor part of the civil war. The biggest part of it was that states were succeeding. I didn’t know that states trying to leave the us were a part of it. One of the states that tried to succeed was Texas. That was how we got the 6 flags thing. (More flags= more war).
Even though the south fought hard they didn’t win many battles. The reason they didn’t win was because they had less resources then the north. For example they had more land but the north had more weapons, crops, goods, and capital. One of the causes for outbreak during the civil war was the 3/5 clause. Another was the famous case of Dred Scott v. Sanford.
The north had many strengths. Some of their biggest strengths were population, industrialization, and money. The reason that population was strength was because even though the north lost the most people they still won the war because they had the people to lose. Whereas the south didn’t have as many people fighting as the north did.
The most known battle is Gettysburg. The battle lasted 3 days and it was the bloodiest battle in the civil war. At first the confederates were doing well but then the union developed a good defense and won the battle. Gettysburg is also one of the most important battles of the civil war. After Gettysburg ended there were thousands and thousands of bodies lying around and they started to stink up the whole city because of the rain and hot weather and them decaying. So they dug big holes in the ground and just stuck a bunch of bodies in each which is where the little hills in Gettysburg came from.
Another famous battle was the battle of Vicksburg. General Hooker refused to attack the confederates head on. This in turn helped them win this battle. The word hooker comes from general hooker who would get hookers to entertain his troops when they weren’t in battle.