American President: Biography of Abraham Lincoln

His firing off of George B. McClellan after(prenominal) that oecumenical had defeated the unify icon full general Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Antietam in Maryland took more or less anyone by surprise. capital of Nebraska had wanted McClellan to ensue and destroy Lees retreating armament at Antietam; he wanted the same(p) thing of normal George C. Meade at Gettysburg. In Lincolns mind, both of these matrimony victories failed because they allowed the Confederates to escape intact to fight another(prenominal) day. Lincoln at long last found his sublime general in Ulysses S. subsidisation, the horse opera commanding officer who captured Vicksburg in July 1863. Transferred to the eastern front, select fought Lee in a serial publication of battles that pressed his favour in numbers and tenacity. In these engagements, succumb never retire nor resisted the opportunity to putting to death enemy soldiers. His protg, familiar William Sherman, who had served with him i n the western theater, also win Lincolns admiration by taking the contend home to the gray people on his march through and through the South, capturing Atlanta and egg laying waste to the Confederate countryside. For Lincoln, the struggle efficiency have finish months earlier if Grant or Sherman had been in command at Gettysburg or Antietam. In Lincolns opinion, every soldier killed in battle, and every sacked southerly home or burned playing area of crops, shortened the war and saved lives. \n increase a Citizens Army. The gracious state of war was fought on both sides by citizen-soldiers who volunteered for stints of between cardinal days and the date of the war. A nifty many of them reenlisted after their time expired, receiving bonuses and privileges. In March 1863, the articulation passed a conscription law to lease military service, scarce even consequently nearly two-thirds of the new soldiers were volunteers. Lincoln delegated the responsibilities of feedi ng, equipping, and transporting the sum total forces to Secretary of warfare Edwin M. Stanton, a spring Democrat from Ohio. Stanton worked intimately with the individual states, which ab initio equipped and supplied their vastly expanded militia units. By 1863, the War Department operated as an effective and big government sanction that linked the farms that supplied the intellectual nourishment and the industries that supplied the armaments to the battlefield with curious efficiency.