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Summary notes of US History
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Very detailed summary notes that describe the American History in the years . Excellent resource for consolidation or revision.
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(a)What caused the American Civil War?
● Conflict brewing between modern industrial North + more rural South
● Nation had been first to enshrine ideals of liberty + equality into its constitution was polluted by system
of slavery
● Mid-1800s: around 4 million slaves in United States almost all of them in the south working on
plantations growing cotton + tobacco
● Economically slavery was a dynamic + efficient system
● America start to spread towards West → Southern states wanted to see slavery spreading too
● North: many states had banned slavery → determined that slavery would not grow = America split
down the middle
● Things came to head in 1860 when the northerner Abraham Lincoln became president
● Lincoln → believed that slavery was wrong but also said that he had no intention of abolishing it
hoping instead it would die out over time
, ● Southern politicians realised that Lincoln’s arrival in the White House meant slavery would not now
spread further as they’d hoped
● 11 Southern states decided to break away from the Union + establish an independent + separate
government = the Confederacy
● Lincoln → no choice but to declare war on the South to defend the Union
● War = struggle between two different ways of life: South → agricultural society, traditional,
conservative, many people living on plantations which were virtually self-sufficient cut off from the rest
of the world, all wealth depending on slavery. North → urban, industrial America based on steel +
railroads + rising middle class
Who won and why?
● April 12th 1861: North + South went to war
● Lincoln mobilised the North’s industrial might using railways to transport men + weapons
● South had better generals + bolder fighting spirit
● After 18 months Lincoln decided to free the slaves destroying foundation on which the South was built
“We must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued” → Lincoln
● He hoped that freeing slaves would destroy Southern economy + demoralise the people
● On New Year’s Day 1863: Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation that all slaves in rebel
states would immediately be free
● Liberated slaves flocked to fight with Northern forces while South struggled with shortages + inflation
● Tide of war turned in North’s favour
● April 9th 1865: after devastating invasion South surrendered
● 620 thousand soldiers = killed → nearly as many as in every other war United States has fought put
together
● In final days of war Lincoln turned up at Confederate rebel capital of Richmond Virginia not very far
from Washington, his troops had just taken it, it was still burning
● Lincoln arrived by boat at Rocketts landing + there was a huge crowd entirely black → group started to
walk two miles into centre of Richmond
What was the impact of the war on the US?
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