The secession of South Carolina-
The Secession of South Carolina occurred December 20, 1860, shortly after Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Abraham Lincoln got elected president in 1860 which was bad for the people for slavery because he was all for the union. At one point, Lincoln was even a union officer and he was definitely against slavery. The election of Abraham Lincoln and the Fugitive Slave Acts which were established on September 1850 as part of the Compromise of 1850, started the secession of certain states, the first being South Carolina. The Fugitive Slave Act mainly stated that all fugitive or runaway slaves are required to be returned to their "rightful owners." The Southern knew that the Northern people would not follow this act because as most people may know, most of the North is against slavery. They thought that their best bet was to run away because they wanted to have "the rights of property." South Carolina’s secession was followed by the secession of 10 other states also running to support the Confederates. This was an act of everyone running away from the fact that they are wrong. In doing this, they accept the fact that they are not opposed to the horrible thing slavery is and they agree to support it with everything they have. These secessions were the key to most of the battles and problems that led to the civil war. The secessions proved that the world has no mercy and that a lot of people don’t understand that slaves are people too. They think that just because of the color of their skin, the African Americans deserve to be treated as hard laborers and the secessions show people enjoy treating other people like this. The South doesn’t deserve these hard laborers that work just for a little bit of food or not to get beat because they do too much for people who don’t care or appreciate them. The fact that other states supported the fact that South Carolina wanted and left the union for slavery can be seen as them all being heartless, careless monsters that don’t care about anything other than money and their lives as “richer” people.
Fort Sumter and its impact-
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the first attack on the union. This happened on April 12-14, 1861 in South Carolina. It resulted in a Confederate victory and no one was killed or died because of injuries but, it did give the union a good scare and serve as a call for blood and war. At the time, there were engaged while the Confederates had 500 forces engage. Besides this being unreasonable and unfair, this was also a really serious event that led to the bloodiest war in history with some of the bloodiest battles in the war. This later led to the first battle, the 1st battle of Bull run, that at the time, was the bloodiest battle in the civil war. Although there were no deaths or much blood at all, the battle of Fort Sumter was a surprise bombardment of the union. The Confederate leader at the time was P. G. T. Beauregard and the union leader at the time was Robert Anderson. At one point, it is reported that Beauregard told Anderson to surrender but Anderson refused. Anderson refused to shoot any cannons back in the first two hours but had Capt. Abner Doubleday does the honors after 34 hours. The firing continued all day and stopped on April 13th when Anderson finally surrendered. This came after the recession and the election of Abraham Lincoln that led to a huge separation between the North and the South better known as the Union and the Confederates. It is the hard proof that people take things way too seriously and that there are bad people in the world that enjoy watching others suffer while they sit on a throne of lies. In reality, all of this started because two sides could not agree on whether to dehumanize people or to just let them be. Treating African Americans as slaves or free laborers shows how arrogant and heartless citizens are just because they have a different skin pigment than then. This is mostly because people of light skin usually think of themselves as superior which is definitely not true. Everyone deserves the chance to feel high and mighty and degrading someone should not be counted as your chance.
The Battle of Vicksburg-
The Battle of Vicksburg was not too far from here. It happened from May 18, 1863 – July 4, 1863. It was one of the more remarkable battles due to the fact that it lasted an entire month. The battle was, in fact, a Union victory with the union leader being Ulysses S. Grant and the Confederate leader being John C. Pemberton. Major General Ulysses S. Grant launched two major assaults. One on the19th of May and the other on the 22nd of May. These assaults were the main reason that there were so many casualties and captures and missing people on the Confederate side. In total, they were about 37,270 casualties. There were only about 4,910 recorded from the Union side while there were about 32,360 casualties on the Confederate side. The Battle of Vicksburg was right after the bloodiest battle of the war which was the Battle of Gettysburg. With this being said, they did not have a lot of troops and supplies because of the loss of both in the Battle of Gettysburg. Either way, they still managed to take down more people. Vicksburg is located in Mississippi near the Mississippi River. This made the town all the more valuable because it is near a river which is a great resource, especially in this battle. This is because the soldiers need somewhere to bathe and to refresh themselves especially when you just saw most of your friends and fellow soldiers get killed. This is always something hard soldiers have to go through. Yet again, they would not have to go through this if a full on war had not broken out because of slavery and people for and against it. Being close to a river is also a good source of food and water which is something that at times, especially during battles and long winters, is a necessity because sometimes it is something they lack. Due to the fact that most soldiers die of starvation and lack of water, seizing Vicksburg is something that was really good for the Union. To conclude, the battle of Vicksburg was the second to last battle of the civil war and was a great victory for the Union.
Editorial on Women’s impact-
Women played big roles in the Civil war as nurses, abolitionists, and many other things. Women are seen as lesser than and as housewives rather than strong and independent individuals. Many women accomplished many things in this war. For example, Clara Barton. Barton was a nurse during all of this madness and was helping wounded and ill soldiers. Nursing is considered a male-only job because it is "too gruesome and too much" for women which are not the case. Women like Abby Kelley and Sojourner Truth are now advocates for abolition and the best part about it is that they are the courageous ones that fought for their own rights. This is considered a "double-threat" because besides being women in the society we live in, they are also African Americans. I believe that this is very inspirational to everyone. Not many in this day and age are as courageous of determined as Kelley and Truth. In the Civil War, many women took on the roles that were "primarily for men." This can be seen with Harriet Tubman, who reportedly operated behind the Confederate army lines as a union soldier. This shows that women can do a lot more than people expect and here is where we are proving people wrong. Due to courageous people like these women that are putting their lives on hold to be advocates for the rest of us, we as a vast majority can now fight for what we believe in as well. Women are always told to stay home and cook and clean which is wrong because we can do so much more as demonstrated by these amazing and powerful women. Thanks to the roles of women in the Civil War, a lot of people and lives were saved and they will now continue to strive to know that a strong woman helped them. This goes to show that they will be remembered in the future as brave, kind-hearted souls. Now that these women have opened the eyes of many, hopefully, we can not only abolish slavery for good but also be more productive in society as powerful women. To conclude, women are just as powerful as men and are ready to fight for their rights as well as the rights of African American free and not free slaves.