
A SIMILARITY BETWEEN GEORGE MCCLELLAN AND ROBERT E LEE WAS PROFESSIONAL
The United States had always maintained only a small professional army the nation’s founders had feared a Napoleon-esque leader might rise up and use a large army to overthrow the government and make himself a dictator.

(Most of the western section of Virginia rejected the secession vote and broke away, ultimately forming a new, Union-loyal state, West Virginia.) On April 15, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the Southern rebellion, a move that prompted Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina to reverse themselves and vote in favor of secession. the following day, Major Anderson surrendered. On April 12, the Confederates opened fire with cannon. The fort’s commander, Major Robert Anderson, refused. On April 10, 1861, knowing that fresh supplies were on their way from the North to the federal garrison at Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, provisional Confederate forces in the city demanded the fort’s surrender. Throughout the war, the Union had a decided advantage in both numbers and quality of naval vessels. The most famous clash between ocean-going warships was the duel between USS Kearsarge and CSS Alabama off Cherbourg, France, June 19, 1864. Other actions include the Battle of Memphis (1862), Charleston Harbor (1863), and Mobile Bay (1864), and the naval sieges of Vicksburg in 1862 and again in 1863. Most naval actions occurred on rivers and inlets or in harbors, and include history’s first clash between two ironclads, the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (a captured and converted ship formerly called the Merrimac) at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on March 9, 1862. Read more about Civil War Casualties Naval Battles An untold number of civilians also perished, primarily from disease as entire towns became hospitals. Casualties of the Civil War cannot be calculated exactly, due to missing records (especially on the Southern side) and the inability to determine exactly how many combatants died from wounds, drug addiction, or other war-related causes after leaving the service. More than twice that number were wounded but survived at least long enough to muster out. An estimated total of 785,000-1,000,000 were killed in action or died of disease.

Davis’ War.” Troop Strength and Casualtiesīetween April 1861 and April 1865, an estimated 1.5 million troops joined the war on the side of the Union and approximately 1.2 million went into Confederate service. Lincoln’s War” and, less commonly, as “Mr. Northerners have also called the Civil War the “war to preserve the Union,” the “war of the rebellion” (war of the Southern rebellion), and the “war to make men free.” Southerners may refer to it as the “war between the States” or the “war of Northern aggression.” In the decades following the conflict, those who did not wish to upset adherents of either side simply called it “the late unpleasantness.” It is also known as “Mr. The American Civil War - Facts, Events and Information Close
