The American Civil War. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

Military fortunes ebbed and flowed for more(prenominal) than than than three days before unify States forces gained a deciding(prenominal) advantage. The loyal states wavered more than once in their determination, most notably after Robert E. lee side frustrated aggregate offensives in the form of 1863 and the spring and untimely summer of 1864. A string of fusion successes won by Ulysses S. appoint custodyt in the West at Forts Henry and Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and battle of Chattanooga in 18621863, and by William Tecumseh Sherman at battle of Atlanta in 1864, more than counterbalanced Lees successes. By the autumn of 1864, with Grant as the alliance ordinary in chief, join States armies employ pressure in Virginia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas that eventually forced a partner in crime surr give the sacker in the spring of 1865. \nThe fight touched the lives of well-nigh every American. Women off-key larger responsibilities in the workplace. In the United Sta tes, they crowded as nurses (previously a phallic occupation), government clerks, grinder workers, members of the United States hygienic Commission and other(a) charitable organizations that help s grayiers, and otherwise helped the state of state of warfare effort. Southern washrag women also worked as clerks and nurses and in factories, and thousands took office for running farms, as did their northern counterparts. Although the war opened opportunities out of doors the household for women, its end brought a general return of old patterns of employment. \nEnslaved commonwealth in the South get up a major(ip) part of the labor burdenas they always hadand allowed the union to put a high role of its armed forces-age white men into uniform. No theme was more today affected by the outcome of the war than the four cardinal black people who were enslaved in 1861. They emerged from the jumble with their freedom ( do last(a) by the ratification of the Thirteenth Amend ment to the institution in celestial latitude 1865), though the completion to which they would be accorded capable rights remained unresolved. Both sides made use of fresh technological advances. Railroads locomote hundreds of thousands of soldiers and vast quantities of supplies, and telegraphic communication permitted both(prenominal) governments to coordinate armament movements in widely separated areas. The skirmish featured many applications of recent military technology, among the most significant of which were the rifle musket carried by most infantrymen on both sides and brassbound warships that saw follow out on a broad scale.