Introduction

The Civil War was fought by young men (and even some women disguised as men) from cities and rural areas all over the North and South. When the war began in April 1861, “war excitement” gripped the population as both sides anticipated a quick victory. Men and boys rushed to enlist in the military, eager to get to the battlefields before the war was over. Boys as young as 11 served as drummer boys. Soldiers traveled by ships, railroads, and horses, but mostly on foot. Thousands of soldiers from Brooklyn, New York joined the war effort.

The First Battle of Manassas, Virginia (Bull Run) on July 21, 1861 provided a harsh dose of reality as thousands of soldiers from the Union and the Confederacy died on the battlefield. Over the next four years, the grueling battles continued, with thousands of soldiers on both sides killed by bullets or disease, or captured by the enemy and sent to overcrowded prisons. On the seas, the Union attempted to blockade Southern ports. The first battle between two ironclad ships, the Second Battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862, when the U.S.S. Monitor took on the C.S.S. Virginia (formerly the Merrimack), marked a new era in naval warfare.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed General Robert E. Lee to lead the Confederate troops in Virginia. Although the Confederates achieved many victories in the early years of the war, ultimately the South could not compete with the industrial base that fueled the North’s army. President Abraham Lincoln appointed many different generals over the course of the war, with General Ulysses S. Grant leading the Union army to its eventual victory.

The documents in this section include photographs of soldiers and monuments to soldiers, letters from an army volunteer from Brooklyn named James W. Vanderhoef, photographs of the Monitor (which was built in Brooklyn), and newspaper articles about battles, life in the soldiers’ camps, prison life, and the New York City draft riots of 1863. President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address of 1863 is also included, along with documents about his assassination in 1865. The section ends with a photograph of Civil War reenactors in the uniforms of the Brooklyn 14th Regiment.