Most citizens want to live their lives, go to work and school, have family meals and enjoy their freedoms. But politics can get so serious that one side is compelled to resort to violence if negotiations are not successful and peace seems impossible. This is when civil war occurs. Civil war is a very destructive event, and it is extremely difficult to recover from it.
The United States and the Confederacy mobilized forces on a scale not seen before in America. The Union mustered about 1 million white military-age men out of its 1860 population. The Confederacy placed its army between 800,000 and 900,000 soldiers in uniform (fragmentary records do not permit a precise count). Both sides used railroads and telegraph communications to move massive amounts of men and supplies in a time of unprecedented warfare.
By 1864, the original Northern goal of a limited war to restore the Union had changed into a strategy of total war that would destroy the Old South and its institution of slavery. Large battles like Shiloh and Gaines’ Mill in Tennessee, the sieges of Antietam and Perryville in Virginia, and Gettysburg in Pennsylvania presaged even bigger campaigns and victories, from Sherman’s sweep through the South to the capture of Vicksburg on the Mississippi and Atlanta in Georgia.
The conflict also introduced new military technologies, such as rifled muskets and ironclad ships. Civil liberties and personal comfort were sacrificed as both national governments stepped up their efforts to mount sustained war efforts.