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On April 12, 1861, The American Civil War started! The war started when Confederates attacked Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, which is located in South Carolina on April 12, 1861. When the war finally ended 4 years later, Robert E. Lee surrendered the last living major Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant at a courthouse called Appomattox on April 9, 1895. There were about 22 MILLION FIGHTERS. The fight was in many different places, like Eastern Theater, Western Theater, Trans-Mississippi, Gulf Coast, Sioux Uprising.
There were more than 2,100,000 Union soldiers and over 1,000,000 Confederate soldiers. Slaves were going to work still, with fighting happening all around them. All war broke loose and people were going down, left right and center. We lost many, many people that day, but for slaves, this was a chance to be broken free from this curse called slavery. They could no longer need to be caged, treated, and told to work like animals. Women could do more than slaves, but still ha limits to what they could do. They could not vote or own any type of business. They made many things and were used as nurses.
Slaves
People being taken from their homes, being taken to new ones. As soon as they get there they are assigned to a job. Most jobs are hard, like farming crops for your owner. Slavery was not fun, especially for the people being put through it, having to work all day, get fed terrible tasting foods, and small portions. And you couldn’t know how to read or write. If you were born into slavery, you know how hard it is from day one of your life. If you didn’t like a slave, you could sell them for crops or money, or you could ‘trade’ them. This was like being a circus animal, getting sold to different people who need you.
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It was a hard life if you were a slave, and you had to follow direct orders from your master or you could get punished. You couldn’t do whatever you wanted as you can nowadays. This made it a very strict life for slaves. There was also a type of slave called a ‘Indentured servant’. These people acted as slaves but could leave after a certain amount of time.
This meant that slave owners would have to find an indentured servant and maybe more slaves. Indentured slaves had to do the same things as slaves, farming crops. They got treated the same way too, very poorly, some would say like an animal. This would usually corrupt the slave, making them have a terrible life. Being taken from your own home, then taken to be a slave for no reason, simply for the reason people didn’t want to farm their own crops.
Women
Women couldn’t do what they wanted, like slaves. They were in charge of many different things, yet they couldn’t own businesses or vote, which made their input useless. But during the Civil war, about or more women chose they wanted to fight instead of sit and watch their homes crumble in front of them.So 400 or more women made themselves look like men, and fought in the Civil War. But many women also chose to volunteer for becoming nurses.
This might help later on for the people fighting so that a soldier could get injured, and then go to the nurses to get help and get back into the fight, but it also depends how bad the wound is. Although women could not do what men could do, they still lived better lives than the slaves did. Women had to make clothes, jewelry, and dresses. This was very important because if they didn’t make these, they would look very unprofessional at say a ball.
It doesn’t look right if you don’t go to a ball without formal clothes. Women were taken care of, fed well, and lived in a house. Women were mainly free but still could not do as they pleased. They could not do what a slave owner, slave owners usually have more rights than a woman.
Soldiers
Soldiers had the most important job in the Civil War, and it was to fight. They fought with all they had, trying to fight for what they believed for. They wanted for slavery to perish, and everyone to have equal rights. (And women) Soldiers would get wounded and killed on the battlefield, but they died fighting for what they thought was right. There was about 2 million Northern soldiers, and 750,000 Southern soldiers.
They would get brought into the medics tents, hoping they were still alive deep inside, some would make it, some would not. This lead to many deaths and lots of gunfire. Its best if we stop talking about deaths though, so let’s talk about their lifestyle. During the Civil War, soldiers were very hungry, they had to use natural food in order to survive. This meant finding a nearby apple tree, finding a berry bush, hunting animals. These are all ways that they survived from dying of starvation.
Soldiers had to be quick on their feet so that they would get caught up to and making them sound scary to any nearby danger. They also had to protect the captain/leader from dangers, because if the captain/leader died they wouldn’t really know what to do or how to do it. There were many soldiers, all of the different ages. The youngest you can be is 18 though. They had to deal with very bad medical conditions. Doctors did not care if the got sick, they would still work, not even washing their hands. People barely knew about medicine, and if they did, they likely didn’t use it right.
Slave Owners
Slave owners, as said in the name, owned slaves. They could control them, feed them, sell them, trade them. They very often punished/beat their slaves. They mainly lived on plantations and had the slaves work for them on the plantation. This made their lives easier, but the slave’s life harder.
Slave owners used slaves to farm their crops, then they would sell the crops to get money. They also had special slaves called indentured servants. These people would not get paid, would be like a regular slave, but its kind of like having a contract to leave being a slave after a certain amount of time. These slaves still worked the same amount of time, but they could just get out of slavery, unlike the other slaves. Slave owners did not like getting indentured servants because they could leave. Slave owners could not educate their slaves, because then the slaves would be too powerful and might be able to escape.
When it started and ended April 12, 1861, the date of the American Civil War. It started, all war broke loose. Gunshots all over the place, people falling to the floor gushing blood from their bodies. It had started…. The Civil War! People dodging behind things, aiming and firing. ‘Scary’ is something you might say. Some people on the battlefield enjoyed it though. This was all just a game for them. Running around like crazy, as if their lives didn’t matter. Firing, dropping one person and another. It was going to be a long day, 2.75 million people on the battlefield, all fighting.
You can say that you would be the best person out there all you want, but once you get out there you will see how scary it is. When it ended it was pretty sad, we had lost so many people in that fight, but it was for a good cause. We ended up winning, making all slave owners give up their slaves so that they could live good lives. A battle that lasted 4 years, and finally its over. People could finally go back to their normal lives unless they had died on the battlefield.
This resulted in many families left wondering where their family member was. Blacks could do more than they could a few years ago, they could no longer be traded or sold. They were like real humans now.
What We Learned
We learned about indentured servants and what they did, when the Civil War started/ended, what women and slaves/indentured servants can do, what women and slaves/indentured servants did, along with the soldiers. We learned how the Civil War happened, why it happened, what happened, things that slaves went through, and more.
This relates to the theme ‘triumph and tragedy’ because there is tragedy when there were slaves, and women didn’t have rights. And there is also a triumph because, in the end, slaves got sent free and were able to live their normal lives again. This changed many lives, killed some, made some better. But in the end it changed lives. The Civil War is a major war in many peoples lives and did many things.
