Реферат: Герои гражданской войны США

Реферат: Герои гражданской войны США

Unions

Bragg, Braxton (1817-1876), American soldier, born in Warren County, North

Carolina, and educated at the United States Military Academy. He served in

the Second Seminole War and won several promotions for gallant and

distinguished conduct during the Mexican-American War. He resigned his

commission in 1859 to enter private enterprise. In the American Civil War he

served in the Confederate army as a brigadier general. Soon promoted to the

rank of major general, then full general, he replaced General Pierre Gustave

Toutant Beauregard as commander of the Army of the Tennessee in June 1862.

Invading Kentucky in August 1862, he nearly succeeded in taking Louisville

but was compelled to withdraw into Tennessee. At the Battle of Murfreesboro,

or Stones River, he fought Union forces under General William Starke

Rosecrans to a draw, but then withdrew his army. In September 1863, however,

he inflicted a decisive defeat on Rosecrans in the Battle of Chickamauga.

Soon afterwards he was defeated by General Ulysses S. Grant in the three-day

Battle of Chattanooga. In February 1864 he was summoned to Richmond and made

military adviser to the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. Bragg

was placed in command of the Department of North Carolina in November and led

an unsuccessful expedition into Georgia against General William Tecumseh

Sherman. In February 1865 he was assigned to duty with the Army of the

Tennessee again and remained with that army until it surrendered. After the

war Bragg was for some time chief engineer for the state of Alabama.

Grant, Ulysses S(impson) (1822-1885), American general and 18th president of

the United States (1869-1877). Grant was born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, on

April 27, 1822, the son of Hannah Simpson and Jesse Grant, the owner of a

tannery. Taken to nearby Georgetown at the age of one, he was educated in

local and boarding schools. In 1839, under the name of Ulysses Simpson

instead of his original Hiram Ulysses, he was appointed to West Point.

Graduating 21st in a class of 39 in 1843, he was assigned to Jefferson

Barracks, Missouri. There he met Julia Dent, a local planter's daughter, whom

he married after the Mexican-American War.

During the Mexican-American War, Grant served under both General Zachary

Taylor and General Winfield Scott and distinguished himself, particularly at

Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. After his return and tours of duty in the

North, he was sent to the Far West. In 1854, while stationed at Fort

Humboldt, California, Grant resigned his commission because of loneliness and

drinking problems, and in the following years he engaged in generally

unsuccessful farming and business ventures in Missouri. He moved to Galena,

Illinois, in 1860, where he became a clerk in his father's leather store.

At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Grant was appointed colonel, and

soon afterwards brigadier general, of the Illinois Volunteers, and in

September 1861 he seized Paducah, Kentucky. After an inconclusive raid on

Belmont, Missouri, he gained fame when in February 1862, in conjunction with

the navy, he succeeded in reducing Forts Henry and Donelson, Tennessee,

forcing General Simon B. Buckner to accept unconditional surrender. The

Confederates surprised Grant at Shiloh (April 1862), but he held his ground

and then moved on to Corinth. In 1863 he established his reputation as a

strategist in the brilliant campaign against Vicksburg, Mississippi, which

capitulated on July 4. After being appointed commander in the West, he

defeated Braxton Bragg at Chattanooga (November 1863). Grant's victories made

him so prominent that he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and

in March 1864 was given command of all Union armies.

Grant's subsequent campaigns revealed his determination to apply relentless

pressure against the Confederacy by coordinating the Union armies and

exploiting the economic strength of the North. While Grant accompanied the

Army of the Potomac in its overland assault on Richmond, Virginia, General

Benjamin F. Butler was to attack the city by water, General William T.

Sherman to move into Georgia, and General Franz Sigel to clear the Shenandoah

Valley of Virginia. Despite the failure of Butler and Sigel and heavy losses

at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor, Grant continued to press

the drive against the army of General Robert E. Lee. After Sherman's success

in Georgia and the conquest of the Shenandoah Valley by General Philip H.

Sheridan, Grant forced Lee to abandon Petersburg and Richmond (April 2, 1865)

and to surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9.

Burnside, Ambrose Everett (1824-1881), American general and politician, born

in Liberty, Indiana, and educated at the US Military Academy. He served in

the Mexican-American War and in several campaigns against the Native

Americans; at the outbreak of the American Civil War he accepted command of a

Union regiment, which he led in the First Battle of Bull Run. Promoted to

brigadier general in August 1861, he took part in the capture of Roanoke

Island and Fort Macon in North Carolina. In September 1862, by now a major

general, he fought in the Battle of Antietam under General George B.

McClellan, whom he succeeded in November as a commander of the Army of the

Potomac; a month later his forces were decisively defeated by Confederate

General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Burnside was then

transferred to the Army of Ohio and successfully resisted the Confederate

siege of Knoxville, Tennessee in 1863. He served under Generals George G.

Meade and Ulysses S. Grant the following year at the siege of Petersburg,

Virginia, but was held responsible for heavy Union losses and relieved of

command. After the war Burnside was Governor of Rhode Island (1866-1869) and

a US senator (1875-1881).

Sherman, William Tecumseh (1820-1891), United States general in the American

Civil War; his successful campaign in Georgia in 1864 split the Confederacy

in two and made an important contribution to the Union victory.

Sherman was born on May 8, 1820, in Lancaster, Ohio, and educated at the

United States Military Academy. After an undistinguished military career he

resigned from the army in 1853 to become a partner in a banking firm in San

Francisco. He was president of a military college in Alexandria, Louisiana

(now Louisiana State University) from 1859 to the beginning of 1861, when

Louisiana seceded from the Union. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861,

he offered his services to the Union army and was put in command of a

volunteer infantry regiment, becoming a brigadier general of volunteers after

the first Battle of Bull Run. Sherman led a division at the Battle of Shiloh

(April 6-7, 1862) and was rewarded for his part in the victory by being

promoted to major general of volunteers. Later that year he failed in an

attempt (December 27-29) to seize the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, on

the Mississippi River, but in 1863 he fought under General Ulysses S. Grant

in the campaign that ended in the capture of that city in July. He was given

command of the Army of the Tennessee in the fall of 1863 and fought in the

Battle of Chattanooga.

In 1864 Sherman was made supreme commander of the armies in the West and was

ordered to move against Atlanta, Georgia. During the opening months of the

campaign, he lost the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain; he did not capture Atlanta

until almost three months later, on September 1. After ordering the burning

of the military resources of the city, he launched his most celebrated

military action, known as Sherman's march to the sea, in which, with about

60,000 picked men, he marched from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia, on the

Atlantic coast. Along the way the men laid waste the intervening territory

and severed the Confederate government at Richmond, Virginia, from its

western states. Sherman next set out to join forces with Grant, who was

moving southward towards Richmond. After three months of fighting, Sherman

reached Raleigh, North Carolina, where he was in a position to complete the

encirclement of Richmond and its defending forces, led by the Confederate

commander in chief Robert E. Lee. Following Lee's surrender on April 9, the

Confederate army confronting Sherman surrendered to him at Raleigh, on April

17.

After the war Sherman was commissioned lieutenant general in the regular army

and, following Grant's election to the presidency in 1868, he was promoted to

the rank of full general and given command of the entire US Army. He

published his Memoirs in 1875 and retired in 1883. The famous phrase “war is

hell” is attributed to Sherman.

Sheridan, Philip Henry (1831-1888), American army commander, who

distinguished himself in the American Civil War.

Sheridan was born on March 6, 1831, in Albany, New York, and was educated at

the United States Military Academy. He entered the Civil War in 1861 as a

captain in the Union army and a year later was a major general of volunteers.

His able leadership of campaigns in Tennessee caused General Ulysses S.

Grant, commander in chief of the Union forces, to appoint (1864) Sheridan

commander of cavalry in the Army of the Potomac. During May 1864, Sheridan's

cavalry cut rail communications about the Confederate capital, Richmond,

Virginia. From August to October, as commander of the Army of the Shenandoah,

Sheridan drove the Confederate forces in Virginia out of the Shenandoah

Valley; he then devastated the region to prevent it from being used to supply

food for the Confederates. During the Shenandoah campaign he defeated forces

under General Jubal Anderson Early at Winchester, Fisher's Mill, and Cedar

Creek.

Sheridan became a major general in the regular army in 1864 and took part in

the advance of Grant's army on Richmond in 1865. His victory at the Battle of

Five Forks forced the Confederate commander, General Robert E. Lee, to

evacuate the capital and withdraw to Appomattox. Sheridan cut off the

Confederate line of retreat, and on April 9, Lee surrendered to Grant at

Appomattox.

After the war Sheridan commanded (1865-1867) American forces on the Mexican

border and was appointed (1867) military governor of Texas and Louisiana. The

firmness of his administration during the Reconstruction in the latter office

led President Andrew Johnson to transfer him to the command of the Department

of the Missouri. In 1884 Sheridan became commander in chief of the US Army

and shortly before his death on August 5, 1888, he attained the rank of

general. He is the author of Personal Memoirs (2 vol., 1888).

McClellan, George Brinton (1826-1885), American soldier and Union commander

in the American Civil War.

McClellan was born in Philadelphia, December 3, 1826, and educated at the

University of Pennsylvania and the United States Military Academy at West

Point, New York. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was commissioned major

general in the regular army and, after the First Battle of Bull Run,

commanded the Army of the Potomac, the troops in and around Washington,

D.C. In November 1861 he was appointed commander in chief of the Union army.

In 1862 President Abraham Lincoln believed that the Union troops should move

directly against the Confederates at Manassas, Virginia, but McClellan

disagreed and advanced on Richmond from the east. During the ensuing

Peninsular campaign, the Union army was generally successful, but their

failure to take Richmond, the Confederate capital, gave new impetus to the

South. The president was dissatisfied with the campaign, and McClellan was

superseded by Henry Wager Halleck as commander in chief. McClellan was then

ordered to evacuate the peninsula and go to the aid of the troops near

Manassas. He arrived too late to be of assistance, however, and after the

defeat of the Union army in the Second Battle of Bull Run, he was again

placed in active command of the Army of the Potomac. In September 1862 he

fought at Antietam. He stopped the Confederate attempt to invade the North,

but because of heavy Union losses, and his excessive caution in not pursuing

the retreating Confederates, he was again relieved of his command. He took no

further part in the war.

In 1864 McClellan was nominated by the Democratic party as its candidate for

president on a platform of peace and non-interference with slavery, but he

was defeated by Lincoln. McClellan served as governor of New Jersey from 1878

to 1881, and he died in Orange, New Jersey, October 29, 1885.

Confederates

Lee, Robert E(dward) (1807-1870), brilliant Confederate general, whose

military genius was probably the greatest single factor in keeping the

Confederacy alive through the four years of the American Civil War.

Lee was born on January 19, 1807, in Stratford, Virginia, the son of Henry

Lee, and was educated at the United States Military Academy. He graduated

second in his class in 1829, receiving a commission as second lieutenant in

the engineers. He became first lieutenant in 1836, and captain in 1838. He

distinguished himself in the battles of the Mexican-American War and was

wounded in the storming of Chapultepec in 1847; for his meritorious service

he received his third brevet promotion in rank. He became superintendent of

the US Military Academy and was later appointed colonel of cavalry. He was in

command of the Department of Texas in 1860, and, early the following year,

was summoned to Washington, D.C., when war between the states seemed

imminent. President Abraham Lincoln offered him the field command of the

Union forces, but Lee declined. On April 20, three days after Virginia

seceded from the Union, he submitted his resignation from the US Army. On

April 23 he became commander in chief of the military and naval forces of

Virginia. For a year he was military adviser to Jefferson Davis, president of

the Confederate States of America, and was then placed in command of the army

in northern Virginia. In 1864 his pre-war home, Arlington House, had been

confiscated by the Union army and, in a symbolic reproach to Lee, its grounds

had been made into a cemetery for the Union dead (now the Arlington National

Cemetery). In February 1865 Lee was made commander in chief of all

Confederate armies; two months later the war was effectively ended by his

surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. His great

battles included those of Antietam, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, and

Gettysburg.

The masterly strategy of Lee was overcome by the superior resources and troop

strength of the Union. His campaigns are almost universally studied in

military schools as models of strategy and tactics. He had a capacity for

anticipating the actions of his opponents and for comprehending their

weaknesses. He made skilful use of interior lines of communication and kept a

convex front towards the enemy, so that his reinforcements, transfers, and

supplies could reach their destination over short, direct routes. His

greatest contribution to military practice, however, was his use of field

fortifications as aids to manoeuvring. He recognized that a small body of

soldiers, protected by entrenchments, can hold an enemy force of many times

their number, while the main body outflanks the enemy or attacks a smaller

force elsewhere. In his application of this principle Lee was years ahead of

his time; the tactic was not fully understood or generally adopted until the

20th century.

Lee applied for but was never granted the official post-war amnesty. He

accepted the presidency of Washington College, now Washington and Lee

University, in the autumn of 1865; within a few years it had become an

outstanding institution. He died there on October 12, 1870. In 1975 Lee's

citizenship was restored posthumously by an act of the US Congress.

Beauregard, Pierre Gustave Toutant (1818-1893), Confederate general, born

near New Orleans, Louisiana, and educated at the United States Military

Academy. An engineer officer, he served in the Mexican-American War (1846-

1848) and remained in the US Army until February 1861, when he resigned to

join the insurgent Confederate forces; in April he directed the bombardment

of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, the first action of the

American Civil War. Beauregard was second in command at the First Battle of

Bull Run (July 1861). At Shiloh (April 1862) he took command when his

superior, General Albert S. Johnston, was killed, and he led the Confederate

withdrawal from the field. In 1863 he defended Charleston from attack by the

Union navy, and in May 1864 he defeated a Union army under General Benjamin

F. Butler at Drury's Bluff, Virginia. After the war Beauregard was president

of the New Orleans, Jackson, and Mississippi Railroad and later was adjutant

general of Louisiana.

Ewell, Richard Stoddert (1817-1872), American soldier, who led the

Confederate army after the death of Stonewall Jackson. He was born in

Washington, D.C., and educated at the United States Military Academy. Ewell

served on the frontier and in the Mexican-American War, attaining the rank of

captain, but at the outbreak of the American Civil War he resigned his

commission and joined the Confederate army as a colonel. He became

successively a brigadier general (June 1861), major general (October 1861),

and lieutenant general (May 1863). Given the command of a division under

General Stonewall Jackson, he was wounded and lost a leg at the Second Battle

of Bull Run in August 1862. In May 1863 he returned to duty and, on the death

of Jackson after the Battle of Chancellorsville, Ewell assumed command of the

newly formed II Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia. He successfully drove

the Union forces from the Shenandoah Valley and led the advance into

Pennsylvania, until he was stopped at the Battle of Gettysburg. Later he

fought against Grant in the Battle of the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania

Court House, where he was wounded again. Forced to give up his field command,

he was put in charge of the defences of Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate

capital; after the evacuation of the city he was captured with his corps by

General Philip Sheridan at Sailor's Creek, Virginia, in 1865. He was released

four months after the war and retired to private life in Tennessee.

Forrest, Nathan Bedford (1821-1877), American Confederate cavalry general,

born near Chapel Hill, Bedford County, Tennessee. After dealing in horses and

cattle in Mississippi, Forrest became a slave trader in Memphis, Tennessee.

Forrest was known as one of the most effective Confederate generals during

the American Civil War.

At the start of the war, Forrest enlisted as a private in the Confederate

army, and subsequently raised a battalion of cavalry, of which he was made

lieutenant colonel. In 1862 he led his forces in the defence of Fort Donelson

and later participated in the Battle of Shiloh. During 1862 and 1863, Forrest

executed a series of successful raids behind Union lines in Tennessee,

Alabama, Kentucky, and Mississippi. In 1864 Forrest was given command of all

the cavalry with the Army of Tennessee. Among his victories in 1864 were the

capture of Fort Pillow and the Battle of Brices Cross Roads. At the beginning

of 1865, despite a controversy over his massacre of black troops at Fort

Pillow after they had surrendered he was placed in charge of the cavalry in

Alabama, Mississippi, and eastern Louisiana. In February, Forrest was

promoted to lieutenant general. In March Forrest was defeated at Selma,

Alabama, by the Union general James H. Wilson, and Forrest and his forces

surrendered in May. After the war he settled in Memphis, where he owned two

large plantations. Forrest served as the first leader of the original Ku Klux

Klan. He attempted to disband the organization in 1869 when its members

became increasingly violent.

Pickett, George Edward (1825-1875), American general, born in Richmond,

Virginia, and educated at the United States Military Academy. He served in

the US Army during the Mexican-American War, but at the start of the American

Civil War in 1861 he joined the Confederate forces. The following year he

became successively a Confederate brigadier general and a major general. His

best-known military feat was the doomed charge he led (July 3, 1863) during

the Battle of Gettysburg. His 4,500 men, forming the centre of the

Confederate line, charged against the strong Union positions on Cemetery

Ridge. Three-fourths of his troops were lost in the attack, which is known as

Pickett's charge. He was also noted for his participation in the Peninsular

campaign (1862); in the defence of Petersburg, Virginia (1864); and in the

battles of Dinwiddie Court House and Five Forks (1865).