Final Essay

I began this project to try and find out more about the Civil War. I wanted to explore the events of the war and try and determine which were the most important battles of the war. I read many articles on different battles that all discussed the significance and repurcussions of the clashes. I also read a full-length book, Turning Points of the Civil War, that enlightened me on several events that were very important to the progress of the war but are frequently overlooked, such as the election of 1864 and the Trent Affair. I also took a look at two multimedia sources and had a live interaction where I traveled to a fort in Mobile. All of these things helped me uncover some great history and come to some conclusions about the War Between the States.

I really learned alot from this project. So many people fought and bled and died for their ideals and for the protection of their families and nation in the 1860's, but what did we gain from it. Well, I've realized that we gained the America that we have today. The Civil War was a clash for the ages, and one that was indeed a long time coming. The country had many problems that needed to be addressed (slavery, sectionalism, etc.) and the war was the bursting point. I have come to see, though, that there really cannot be a singular most important battle or event; every battle depended on another one. The influence of one was often determined by the outcome of another. There are certain events that had potential for greater ramifications than some others, perhaps such battles as Vicksburg and Antietam, but no one event wholly changed the Civil War. The battles mentioned above and perhaps Shiloh and Gettysburg are, I think, probably the main crossroads of the war because they represent the times where we were at either the brink of one side winning or the steps to victory that really altered things. I have come to see the Civil War as a mesh of threads from battles to people to decisions that all relied on each other to happen and to be significant.

I was pleased with the way that my project turned out and the research that I did. I tried to cover several different aspects of the war and really find out why things happened the way they did. There are many different opinions and attitudes out there towards the Civil War and I attempted to get a decent grip on many of them. If I could change something about the way I did my project I would definitely try and go on a few more "interactions". My visit to Mobile was neat and very informative, but I would like to get to some other battlefields and see where everything really happened. There are so many great and diverse sites out there where I think I could learn a lot and I'm sure I would enjoy visiting. Other than this, I cannot think of much else that I would change about this project. I found out a lot and was able to come to some satisfactory conclusions about the Civil War, and that was pretty great.