The American Civil War

This classic Great Course has been digitally remastered to enhance the visual presentation. Discover the real reasons behind the Civil War and get a blow-by-blow description of what happened in each major battle with this engrossing and comprehensive course.

Overview Course No. 885

Between 1861 and 1865, the clash of the greatest armies the Western hemisphere had ever seen turned small towns, little-known streams, and obscure meadows in the American countryside into names we will always remember. In those great battles, those streams ran red with blood – and the United States was truly born. If you’ve ever wanted to understand the Civil War, this series of 48 startlingly evocative lectures by a leading Civil War historian can serve as both an ideal single course or a solid starting point for further exploration – a richly detailed examination of how this great conflict affected every person in America. For you’ll gain not only a deep knowledge of what happened, but new insights into why. You’ll learn how both sides’ armies were recruited, equipped, and trained, and about the hard lot of those they took prisoner. You’ll hear how soldiers on each of those sides dealt with the rigors of camp life, campaigns, and the terror of combat. And you’ll understand how slaves and their falling masters responded to the advancing war, as well as the desperate price paid by the families so many left behind. Though this series of lectures goes far beyond a simple examination of battles and generals, it also offers detailed analyses of the strategic and tactical dimensions of the Civil War’s most important campaigns. At the same time, it never forgets that the conflict involved far more than pins on a map – and indeed claimed a greater cost in human lives than all other American wars combined.

Video Lectures

01: Prelude to War

This introductory lecture explains the sectional controversies and clashes that set the stage for secession and war.

• Duration: 31 min

02: The Election of 1860

The presidential canvass of 1860 was the most important in U.S. history. It resulted in Abraham Lincoln’s election as the first Republican to occupy the White House and brought sectional tensions to a head.

• Duration: 30 min

03: The Lower South Secedes

Beginning with South Carolina in December 1860, all of the Lower South states seceded by the first week of February 1861. They sent delegates to a convention in Montgomery, Alabama, that established the Confederate States of America.

• Duration: 30 min

04: The Crisis at Fort Sumter

From February through April 1861, the United States and the Confederacy eyed each other warily and vied for the support of eight slave states that remained in the Union. As various compromise proposals fell short, United States-held Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor came to be a flash point.

• Duration: 30 min

05: The Opposing Sides, I

Was the South fated to lose, as many people think? If the Confederate States of America could have won, when did it come closest to doing so? As fighting began, each side had important advantages. We will take a close look at these.

• Duration: 31 min

06: The Opposing Sides, II

Did the Confederacy have better generals? Which side had the edge in strategic and political leadership? What were the attitudes of England and France toward the conflict? Which side marshaled its resources and exploited its advantages more effectively?

• Duration: 31 min

07: The Common Soldier

Why did young men join the colors of the North or the South? What made them bear the war’s awful dangers and hardships? What was it like to be a soldier in the ranks?

• Duration: 31 min

08: First Manassas or Bull Run

Following the Upper South’s secession and the move of the Confederate capital to Richmond, Virginia, both sides geared up for war. Learn the details of General Winfield Scott’s brilliant “Anaconda Plan” and the factors that led to the Battle of First Manassas or Bull Run (July 21, 1861), the first big clash of the war.

• Duration: 31 min

09: Contending for the Border States

The loyalty of slaveholding states Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware was an object of intense competition in the summer and autumn of 1861. What, in the end, kept those states in the Union?

• Duration: 30 min

10: Early Union Triumphs in the West

Most people looked to Virginia to be the critical military arena, but many leaders on both sides believed the war would be decided in the vast area between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River.

• Duration: 30 min

11: Shiloh and Corinth

Early 1862 saw breathtaking Union successes in the West. Ulysses S. Grant took Forts Henry and Donelson and moved south up the Tennessee River, while Don Carlos Buell marched from Nashville. Aiming to crush Grant before Buell arrived, A. S. Johnston struck the unwary Federals near Shiloh Church on April 6, 1862.

• Duration: 30 min

12: The Peninsula Campaign

Nine months of relative quiet following First Manassas ended when George B. McClellan started a slow Union drive up the Virginia Peninsula toward Richmond in April. By the end of May 1862, Union forces menaced Richmond from two directions and Confederate prospects looked bleak.

• Duration: 31 min

13: The Seven Days’ Battles

As Stonewall Jackson marched and fought in the Shenandoah Valley, Joseph E. Johnston attacked McClellan at Seven Pines or Fair Oaks (May 31, 1862). When Johnston was wounded, Robert E. Lee took command. In the Seven Days’ Battles (June 25-July 1), he seized the initiative and pressed the Federals south to the James. Lee had saved Richmond and offset Union success in the West.

• Duration: 31 min

14: The Kentucky Campaign of 1862

The Confederacy faced a difficult strategic situation in July 1862. Jefferson Davis and his generals responded by sending armies into Kentucky and Maryland in the most impressive Confederate strategic offensive of the war. Operations in Kentucky between August and October 1862 culminated in a confused battle at Perryville (October 8).

• Duration: 30 min

15: Antietam

After besting John Pope at Second Manassas in late August, Lee marched north into Maryland. Lincoln reluctantly returned command to McClellan, whose pursuit of Lee culminated at Antietam on September 17, the bloodiest day in American history. What happened on that battlefield? What did it mean?

• Duration: 31 min

16: The Background to Emancipation

Despite slavery’s role in causing the conflict, for at least the first year it remained in the background. As long as restoring the Union remained the sole war aim, there was remarkable unity among Northerners. But what type of Union were they fighting for?

• Duration: 29 min

17: Emancipation Completed

Lincoln came to see emancipation as necessary to victory. But he understood that he lacked the authority to end slavery in loyal areas, and his famous proclamation deliberately casts emancipation as a war measure. What did most Northerners think of it?

• Duration: 30 min

18: Filling the Ranks

How many men served during the war? How were they recruited? How good were the United States and the CSA at putting their military-age men under arms?

• Duration: 30 min

19: Sinews of War: Finance and Supply

War spending went on at an unprecedented scale. Both sides sold bonds, levied taxes, and printed paper money. Despite its weak economy, the Confederacy never lost a battle because its armies ran out of ordnance.

• Duration: 30 min

20: The War in the West, Winter 1862–1863

While McClellan sat north of the Potomac, Buell slowly followed Bragg’s retreat into Tennessee. Lincoln, eager for good war news, named Ambrose E. Burnside to take over the Army of the Potomac and William S. Rosecrans to tackle Bragg. In December, Rosecrans moved, and Grant began his long campaign against Vicksburg.

• Duration: 30 min

21: The War in Virginia, Winter and Spring 1862–1863

In Virginia, the Union army suffered two setbacks along the Rappahannock. Lee threw back Burnside’s costly frontal assaults at Fredericksburg on December 13. The talented, ambitious Joseph Hooker soon took command. He planned a brilliant offensive that began well at the end of April 1863, but Lee and Jackson had other plans.

• Duration: 30 min

22: Gettysburg

Gettysburg is often described as the turning point of the war. It took place against a background of uncertainty and unrest in the North and was the result of a major strategic debate in the South. Why did Lee go north? Was his strategic thinking sound? What swung the three-day battle’s outcome? How did people on either side view Gettysburg?

• Duration: 31 min

23: Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and Tullahoma

In mid-April, Grant boldly ordered the Navy to run past Vicksburg’s guns, ferried his troops across the south of the city, marched inland to seize Jackson, Mississippi, and then besieged Vicksburg. With skillful marching, Rosecrans pinned Bragg in Chattanooga.

• Duration: 30 min

24: A Season of Uncertainty, Summer and Fall 1863

Although the Union seemed poised for knockout blows both east and west, Meade would not force a full-blown battle, and Grant found himself without a major goal after Vicksburg. Rosecrans ably maneuvered Bragg out of Chattanooga and into north Georgia in early September. Reinforced, Bragg struck back at Chickamauga (September 19-20), the CSA’s only major tactical victory in the West.

• Duration: 31 min

25: Grant at Chattanooga

With all eyes on Chattanooga, both armies experienced command problems. Grant, named overall Union commander in the West in mid-October, took charge personally. Bragg meanwhile conducted an increasingly ineffective siege.

• Duration: 30 min

26: The Diplomatic Front

Both Lincoln and Davis cast anxious eyes toward Europe, thinking of the decisive French aid to the colonies during the American Revolution. Why, despite several flare-ups with England and France, did the Lincoln administration finally prevail in the diplomatic arena?

• Duration: 31 min

27: African Americans in Wartime, I

During the conflict, thousands of slaves made their way to Union lines. Approximately 500,000, roughly one-seventh of all enslaved black people in the CSA, passed from Confederate to Union control. Their plight was often hard and uncertain. Nearly 180,000 black men, most of them former slaves, wore Union blue.

• Duration: 31 min

28: African Americans in Wartime, II

In the North, blacks were at the center of a debate over war aims. The 13th Amendment and various other new laws marked progress toward fairer treatment. Slave labor vastly aided Southern mobilization and the CSA’s economy. Social relations changed amid the war.

• Duration: 31 min

29: Wartime Reconstruction

Even as war raged, Lincoln and Congress debated what would happen after it was won. In December 1863, Lincoln offered a simple, lenient reconstruction plan. Radical Republicans in Congress offered their own blueprint. The debate continued even as an assassin cut short Lincoln’s part in it.

• Duration: 30 min

30: The Naval War

The U.S. Navy played a major, often overlooked, role in defeating the CSA. Starting the war with just 42 ships, the Navy would have nearly 700 by 1865. Northern naval strategy focused on supporting ground operations along Southern rivers and coasts, and above all, on the blockade.

• Duration: 31 min

31: The River War and Confederate Commerce Raiders

The war in the West gave a key role to the U.S. Navy, which built special craft for river duty. Meanwhile, Southern commerce raiders like the C.S.S. Alabama became legendary. How much did they aid the CSA’s war effort?

• Duration: 31 min

32: Women at War, I

How did Northern women experience the war? Wartime urgencies provided increased opportunities for middle-class women to enter the public sphere as nurses, clerks, or agents of benevolent organizations. The experiences of poor white women and black women are less well understood.

• Duration: 30 min

33: Women at War, II

The war changed women’s lives in ways dramatic and subtle. Although anxiety, grief, and hardship were felt on both sides, women in the CSA suffered most directly from the war. To black women, the war brought emancipation and the opportunity to solidify family ties.

• Duration: 31 min

34: Stalemate in 1864

Named general-in-chief in March 1864, Grant hoped to apply enough pressure to crush the Confederacy. The most important actions would be led by Sherman in Georgia and Grant himself in Virginia.

• Duration: 30 min

35: Sherman versus Johnston in Georgia

Moving south from Chattanooga, Sherman intended to use his large armies to outmaneuver Johnston, who fell back while looking for a chance to counterpunch. By early July, the sparring armies had settled into a siege.

• Duration: 31 min

36: The Wilderness to Spotsylvania

In many ways the war’s pre-eminent confrontation, the Overland Campaign brought Grant and Lee together in a novel and relentless combat. The prominence of their contest deeply affected civilian morale. The armies battled fiercely from early May to mid-June.

• Duration: 31 min

37: Cold Harbor to Petersburg

After Spotsylvania, Lee entrenched at Cold Harbor, Virginia. On June 3, Grant launched a futile and costly frontal assault. On June 12, he began one of the war’s most impressive movements, nearly taking Petersburg on June 15. By June 19, however, the opportunity had passed.

• Duration: 30 min

38: The Confederate Home Front, I

The war caused the CSA enormous strains and dislocations. Hoping to return to a Revolutionary-era ideal, bitter divisions arose, and the political scene often seemed chaotic and a drag on the war effort. Economic woes made many doubt their ability to continue.

• Duration: 30 min

39: The Confederate Home Front, II

In addition to slaves who fled to Union lines, many Southern whites became refugees. Increasing hardship and a demanding government caused distress. Internal dissension was a factor in the Confederacy’s downfall.

• Duration: 31 min

40: The Northern Home Front, I

Although the war did not bring severe dislocations to the North, it did produce a political sea change. The Republicans became the majority party, but bad war news and unpopular policies led to crises.

• Duration: 31 min

41: The Northern Home Front, II

Unlike the Confederacy, the North was able to produce both guns and butter in abundance. With no Southern presence in Congress, the Republicans started the nation down an economic path it would follow for several decades.

• Duration: 31 min

42: Prisoners of War

Few aspects of the conflict were as emotionally charged. More than 400,000 men were captured. Early in the war most were quickly paroled or exchanged. Later, this system broke down, and prisoners suffered.

• Duration: 30 min

43: Mobile Bay and Atlanta

In the summer of 1864, Lincoln needed victories. The first break came in August, at Mobile Bay, Alabama. Far more important news soon followed from Atlanta: Sherman had at last taken the city.

• Duration: 30 min

44: Petersburg, the Crater, and the Valley

While events unfolded at Atlanta, Grant and Lee confronted each other along an elaborately entrenched front from Richmond to Petersburg. Between September 19 and October 19, Philip H. Sheridan won three victories over Early.

• Duration: 30 min

45: The Final Campaigns

After Atlanta fell, Hood tried to draw Sherman northward. Sherman briefly followed before deciding to cut loose on his March to the Sea.

• Duration: 30 min

46: Petersburg to Appomattox

By March 1865, the Federals had restricted Lee’s supply lines. Lee failed to break the siege and headed west. Grant blocked the way at Appomattox, where Lee surrendered on April 9.

• Duration: 30 min

47: Closing Scenes and Reckonings

Lincoln’s assassination led to much speculation. Taking everything into account, why did the South lose and the North win?

• Duration: 30 min

48: Remembering the War

How did participants remember and interpret the conflict after Appomattox? How do modern Americans view the events of 1861-65?

• Duration: 32 min