the Battle of Gettysburg had been the final straw for many people on both sides of the war were ready for it all to be over so many men had already died in a war of brother against brother and father against son what more was it worth to continue well for the union leaders quite a bit Gettysburg ands the aftermath though tragic had seen a turning point for the north at the start of the war the South seemed to have gained and reasonably well held the upper hand but that was now changing as the Confederates were
running out of steam and money the Yankees were finally building solid momentum so as 1863 turns to 1864 the war continued by now the union was ready to try and truly the Confederacy by launching a campaign aimed at digging even deeper into important Southern territories this would be the largest army navy combined campaign to be launched at any point throughout the war the main target was the capital of Louisiana shreport which if captured could potentially give the Northerners an opportunity to next dig into Texas the whole thing however was problematic from the very start for
one on the Navy side rear Admiral David Dixon Porter had agreed to join the campaign under the assumption that Major General William T Sherman would be the land commander and Sherman himself had intended to do so but with General Ulisses Grant preoccupied with other Northern objectives and insisting that Sherman stay and assist him Major General Nathaniel P Banks would instead be the one to take the Reigns something Porter nor Sherman were pleased to hear in fact Sherman even went as far to send a contingent of his own men 10,000 of his very best torter specifically
stating that this favor was in case Banks abandoned the naval forces if his own land troops got into trouble and the problem with General Banks was that he wasn't even much of a military man technically he wasn't one at all he was a politician more than anything which is exactly why he needed this campaign for the military experience and hopefully success that it would bring him the problem then with Banks's plan was the fact that he intended to use three entirely separate forces is Porter's 90 booat strong Fleet Banks owned 20,000 men from the New
Orleans area and Major General Frederick steel with another 10,000 coming from Little Rock since none of these groups could communicate with each other easily throughout the campaign the entire plan begs to become an unorganized disaster or as one Union general said one damn blunder from beginning to end the Red River campaign ended in a Yankee Retreat and a much needed break for the Rebels the Confederates also managed to seize Fort Pillow in Tennessee around the same time murdering 300 surrendered Union soldiers in the process many of whom were black General Grant shortly after demanded that
all prisoner exchange talks be halted until the South agreed to treat black prisoners of war the same as white Grant was also busy preparing for what would be one of the most horrendous engagements of his entire career the battle of the Wilderness Lee's army will be your objective where he goes there you will go also and thus the Northerners would this Lee chasing Army consisted of Grant's Army of the pomac jointly commanded by Major generals Governor K Warren Winfield s Hancock and John Sedrick alongside Ambrose Burnside and his independent ninth Corp on the Confederate side
was General Lee the chase at the helm working with him however was a bit of a rag tag group of commanders as the South was still reeling and struggling to recover from the loss of Stonewall Jackson Lee's right hand hand nevertheless AP Hill and Richard s uul though not as skilled as Stonewall were ready to fill the gaps and Lee's close friend James Long Street was prepared to tag along in the early days of May General Grant had opted to take his men out of the Wilderness of Spotsylvania and into open ground in their preparations
for a faceof with the Confederates Lee on the other hand had ordered his men to try and trap the union troops in a battle within the Wilderness as the difficult terrain would give the southerners the upper hand these simultaneous strategies eventually led to the Northerners catching wind of the approaching Rebels General Warren reacted by sending out a division to investigate the situation while the rest of the Union forces attempted to avoid a possible Clash before escaping the wooded terrain the situ ation however would not end in the Yankees favor the very moment we appeared they
gave us a volley at long range but evidently with very deliberate aim and with serious effect a union officer would later Testify the Confederate force that Warren had aimed to Simply investigate was actually the entire core under General U and upon being watched they reacted with rapid hostility the the battle began at Saunders field and evolved into what one described as bushwacking on a grand scale as the thick foresting made for a confusing Battlefield over with General Hill another battle had broken out Along The Plank Road as the Confederates there ran into General sedwick's division
in their attempts to cut the Northerners off from the highly important Brock Road for the first portion of each engagement the favor seems to shift back and forward with no clear winner but the outnumbered Southerners were surely disadvantaged under Hill General Long Street was intended to come and assist Hill and his attack as nightfell which caused the latter to hold off from re-engaging at dawn As Long Street was yet to arrive this meant that the union attacks that morning proved disastrous for Hill that is until long Street's heroic arrival hours behind schedule the battle around
Plank and Brock roads would thus carry on for a while longer with what seemed to be a growing Confederate favor for some time but would eventually end in eventual though partial Union victory the southerners would complete the Endeavor with the upper hand however after General John B Gordon routed Yankee troops along the turnpike on May 6 even taking two Union Generals as prisoners in the process the consequence for the north was damning the battle had cost them double the number of casualties as it had the South and the situation became so dire that General Grant
wildly uncharacteristically broke down in tears in his tent at word of the situation yet Grant nor the north was ready to give up in instead of following the Battle with a full retreat they marched on Deeper South to Richmond throughout May the union was now daringly carrying out two simultaneous campaigns grants Overland and Sherman's Atlanta the Overland campaign had begun with the battle of the Wilderness and the depressing draw at best couples with the Raging Fire the battle had caed it all seemed like a bad Omen for the newly launched campaign but as Grant told
a reporter there is no turning back the campaign was far from over in fact the next Clash occurred only hours later at the Spotsylvania Courthouse where Lee managed to stall his adversary yet again for 2 weeks straight until Grant finally disengaged after losing roughly another 18,000 men the union general pushed on for Richmond off and on clashes would follow as Grant and his men trudged towards the Confederate capital and the Battle of Colt Harbor would see the union take another unwanted hit after 6 weeks the campaign came to a close but not before racking up
around 55,000 Northern casualties and seeing the third and fourth bloodiest battles of the entire War still Grant was aiming for a war of attrition now and to this extent with the battle of the South having totaled around 33,000 casualties the union had actually claimed a strategic victory over with General Sherman he and his men had been ordered to take the key Confederate city of Atlanta and thus beginning in Tennessee they started their March as the campaign carried on a few things were happening elsewhere in the Union on June 8th 1864 for example Abraham Lincoln officially
received the nomination for reelection unfortunately for Grant news for him was less positive as many in DC were now calling him the butcher due to his strategy of sacrificing tens of thousands of men now in hopes of saving more lat by ending the War sooner furthermore other battles were ongoing such as the Battle of Bryce's Crossroads where General Samuel Sturgis was crushed by the highly outnumbered Confederate Force Under General Nathan Bedford Forest Sherman however was Ill concerned about his comrades labors as his campaign would provve triumphant after a string of combat along the way the
Confederate under General John Hood would eventually Retreat from the city of Atlanta entirely surrendering it to the incoming Yankees the latter would hold the city until November at which point Sherman had ordered for all military resources in the city to be burned to the ground which would unintentionally result in an out ofcontrol fire that leveled the city as the heat of the summer beat down on both battle war and battle ready men of North and South the Confederates too were attempting to make significant moves confederate general jubil early was hoping to take pressure off of
Petersburg and Richmond which have been under siege by the union since the end of the Overland campaign thus he clashed with Northerners at the Battle of Monocacy in Maryland where he would ultimately win but many from the north still claimed it to be a tactical victory and stopping the Confederates from reaching DC early would eventually reach the defenses of Washington nonetheless but he would withdraw from the attack the same day as the war thus raged on through the summer it wasn't just the land forces who saw battle one contest in particular saw a joint effort
at the start of August when the north aimed its sights at Mel Alabama the Battle of Mel Bay technically just outside of mobel Alabama was a joint land and Naval effort by the north to capture the Confederate Port that had become increasingly crucial for the south after the fall of New Orleans Union Admiral David faragut sped his Fleet through the bay behind four ironclads to take on the small Confederate flotilla and two formidable forts standing in the way the battle was well fought by the Confederates But ultimately ended in a union victory though the city
of Mel itself would remain in Confederate hands nevertheless the port now belonged to the north violence was still at a high around Petersburg as well due to the ongoing Siege and the following month a battle broke out at Winchester again for the third time following his attempted attack on Washington General jubil early had remained in the shenendoa valley which the South had been using for some time now to launch their incursions against the north this eventually led to the union deciding it was time to free the shenendoa of their adversaries sending General Philip Sheridan to
do the deed the battle officially broke out at Winchester when General Sheridan and his army of the shenendoa were attempting to pass through the narrow canyon near Berryville Pike the Confederates in the form of General Steven D ramer's division opened fire essentially trapping the soldiers and wagon trains within the canyon the goal wasn't necessarily to defeat the drastically larger Union force but rather to stall its Advance giving General early enough time to race the remainder of his forces to join the defense after having heard of Sheridan's upcoming coming attack by the time the Northerners finally
gathered themselves enough to launch their own assault Major General Robert E rhods and John B Gordon had arrived to Aid ramser and the fight was on the Yankees slowly but surely beat down the Confederates under Ramer while his comrades fought their own battles all around him General Gordon and his men were locked in one of those clashes although they seemed to be fairing a bit better for the time being the grass and Earth was cut and torn up by a perfect sheet of lead bullets sought the hiding places of the men with fatal accuracy blood
was on everything was everywhere was spattered on bushes was gathered in ghastly puddles on the ground was the description given by one of the Union Soldiers present General rhs was also launching a strong Counterattack nearby as both Ramer and Gordon were gaining ground even if it was ground they had previously lost as the battles raged on the Northerners began to worry that the whole exertion could end up going in the rebels favor thus General Sheridan decided to call in backup from an old friend I've got crook here with 10,000 men and I am going to
throw them in and whip these fellows in the end Sheridan wasn't entirely wrong the Confederates would face defeat and the city fell to the Union in what seems to be a pattern of recent this would prove to be the bloodiest battle ever fought in the shenendoa valley with Sheridan losing over 10% of his entire Army in the hardfought victory the Confederates would lose roughly 4,000 scarcely less than the much larger Union force they had faced yet Sheridan wasn't done with jubil early in fact he still wanted him out of the shenoa entirely after the battle
of third Winchester early had worked to withdraw back to Fisher's Hill which he believed would provide safety for his absolutely rattled troops known as the Gibralter of the valley the hill could be a crucial grounds to hold if properly defended early however was unable to even set up proper defenses before Sheridan and his army arrived on their heels General crook sent off by Sheridan ambushed jubil early and his men on their Left Flank while the other Union forces served as a distraction the Confederates despite their best efforts were forced to retreat yet again being chased
until Woodstock the following months would see the union enact the burning to downright destroy the Bread Basket of the Confederacy and eventually wrestle the whole of the shenendoa Valley from the south Al together the union was looking more and more Grim for the rebels over in the union it appeared that the war was as close as ever to ending in the previous months it had been General Robert E Le's belief that if he and his Confederates could hold off for just long enough the war exhausted and dissatisfied Northerners would choose to elect a southern sympathizing
president in their upcoming election this never came to fruition however the election had come down to a Faceoff between the Republican incumbent President Abraham Lincoln of course and his old wishy-washy General George mlen of the Democratic Party President Lincoln and his VP Andrew Johnson would win in an electoral college Landslide though the popular vote wasn't embarrassingly far off between the two candidates the electoral votes divided up to 22 votes for the commander-in-chief and 21 for his Challenger if Lee had any hopes left of the Union government ending the war favorably for both sides they must
have been like a dying flame rubbing salt into the wound in November General Sherman of the north began his March to the Sea after the fall of Atlanta and the subsequent Confederate Retreat Sherman decided to really Hammer home his Triumph splitting his army in two Sherman himself took one portion 62,000 strong on a journey through the state of Georgia until they reached Savannah with a sole goal of wreaking havoc the Northerners on one hand began to destroy Confederate infrastructure and Necessities such as Farms railroads and the like at the same time while Sherman ordered his
men to refrain from murdering any Southern civilians he also wanted to make their lives absolutely miserable the thought process was that if the rebels lost Mass amounts of infrastructure and material as well as the support of their Everyday People their war effort would collapse and the union would officially win once and for all thus the Yankees did just that as they marched towards the Savannah for the most part no one Disturbed their destruction effort though at one point Sherman and his army skirmished with a wildly outnumbered Confederate Cavalry that ended up having to flee alt
together they too who ironically took a scorched Earth approach on their March ahead of the Union men Burning Bridges Barns and anything the Northerners could have used to their advantage the latter still reached Savannah as planed and took the city presenting it to the newly reelected president as an early and grandiose Christmas gift the end of the year also saw the battle move to Tennessee where the southerners were rush to the Battle of Nashville and as the holidays passed 1864 wound to a close as the war still failed to be resolved though the South appeared
to be losing Steam and the north quite the contrary the Confederates were yet to consider surrender it would be difficult but not impossible to carry on and so they would
