The Civil War; Turning of the Tide

Nearing the later years of the American civil war, Abraham Lincoln was beginning to fear the possibility of his army being unable to conquer and reintegrate the Confederate States of America. His forces had suffered important losses at such battles as Chancellorsville as well as Cold Harbor. Worse so, residents of the union had begun to lose faith in their leader and the war as a whole. Although General Grant had begun an important march onto Vicksburg and even further south, the rumors and tales of the might of his opposition, General Lee, had northern citizens in a frenzy as the union did not have an exact position on him, but knew that he was closing in on the north. Lincoln was forced to make a decision; he appointed George Meade as the new commander of the Union Army and told him to prepare a defensive force to fight the confederates at a small Pennsylvania farm town named Gettysburg. The Confederate and Union soldiers, who's combined numbers during the battle peaked at around 180,000 men, fought brutal warfare in the hills around Gettysburg for three days and amassing a total of around 48,000 troops combined and making it one of the bloodiest battles ever fought on American soil. At the end of the three days, the Union had successfully suppressed the Confederate push and forced General Lee to retreat with his remaining troops. Although the casualties on either side were of similar amount, the fact that the union was able to suppress the attack allowed the union to claim victory for its own. This union victory combined with other union victories on the western front and a mass shortage of supplies available to the Confederates created a turning point in the war, allowing the North to gain momentum and push through the Confederates and eventually win the war. This drastic change can also be viewed in General Lee's letters to the President of the Confederate States grew more and more desperate as time went by, portraying the lack of supplies and high death toll that had resulted from a loss at Gettysburg.
When the North did march upon the southern territory to try and regain it and win the war, General Grant and his other officers employed a form of total war to gain as much of an advantage as possible over the Confederates. Total war describes a way of fighting ones enemy using any means to try and defeat them. In this case, the Union army was not afraid to burn crops, slaughter farm animals, sabotage railways and even evict civilians from their homes all in the name of a faster and more painless victory through attrition. These acts should be viewed as just acts of war because, although they involved interrupting and altering southern civilians way of life, these acts guaranteed the Union a faster path to victory and reunification of the north and the south. Once the country is made whole again, the citizens involved can be justly reprimanded and peace and prosperity can be restored throughout the country. This could all be made a reality as quickly as possible with a Union victory which provides a just cause for the use of total war so as to attain greater prosperity for the whole nation.
As the war came to a close, the country itself was in mourning. Yes, in the literal sense of the word, the Union had won the war as they had the army left standing and the goals of the war met. However, the US was once again reunified and the sheer loss of life, not Confederate or Union anymore, but American life was staggering. Many soldiers on both sides of the fighting were relived that the fighting had ended and many more wanted nothing more than to return to peace once again and rejoin their brothers from both the north and the south. Northerners were relieved that the war had to come to an end as they had almost completely exhausted their will to fight by the end of it. Blacks at the time rejoiced as they had finally gained the freedom they had sought for generations, yet they would soon come to realize it was freedom in a much different sense that what they believed in. As for the south, many southerners were resentful of Lincoln and the north for forcing their ideals and stealing their property in the form of the slaves that had been freed. This resentment would lead to the creation of anti-government groups that would stop at nothing to try and secede once again from the Union. One such group, piloted by one John Wilkes Booth, did eventually succeed in damaging the Union government by assassinating President Lincoln just five days after the war had ended. Shock permeated the country as one of the most influential leaders in US history lay dead in a small Inn within Washington D.C. Although the president had been killed, Confederate sympathizers were never able to successfully rekindle the rebellion and soon the country began to march forward, as America always had, into the future with advancement, liberty and prosperity as its main goals.

sources:
Battle of Gettysburg DBQ: http://www.edline.net/files/_zGHaC_/96f92692263e53293745a49013852ec4/Gettysburg_DBQ_-_Student_Version.pdf
Ken Burns Civil War videos