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Apple Inc. | iPhone | iPhone
alt=|thumb|iPhone 15 (left) and iPhone 15 Pro (right)
The iPhone is Apple's line of smartphones, which run the iOS operating system. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007. Since then, new iPhone models have been released every year. When it was introduced, its multi-touch screen was described as "revolutionary" and a "game-changer" for the mobile phone industry. The device has been credited with creating the app economy.
iOS is one of the two major smartphone platforms in the world, alongside Android. The iPhone has generated large profits for the company, and is credited with helping to make Apple one of the world's most valuable publicly traded companies. , the iPhone accounts for nearly half of the company's revenue. |
Apple Inc. | iPad | iPad
The iPad is Apple's line of tablets which run iPadOS. The first-generation iPad was announced on January 27, 2010. The iPad is mainly marketed for consuming multimedia, creating art, working on documents, videoconferencing, and playing games. The iPad lineup consists of several base iPad models, and the smaller iPad Mini, upgraded iPad Air, and high-end iPad Pro. Apple has consistently improved the iPad's performance, with the iPad Pro adopting the same M1 and M2 chips as the Mac; but the iPad still receives criticism for its limited OS.
Apple has sold more than 500 million iPads, though sales peaked in 2013.; ; The iPad still remains the most popular tablet computer by sales , and accounted for seven percent of the company's revenue . Apple sells several iPad accessories, including the Apple Pencil, Smart Keyboard, Smart Keyboard Folio, Magic Keyboard, and several adapters. |
Apple Inc. | Other products | Other products
Apple makes several other products that it categorizes as "Wearables, Home and Accessories". These products include the AirPods line of wireless headphones, Apple TV digital media players, Apple Watch smartwatches, Beats headphones, HomePod smart speakers, and the Vision Pro mixed reality headset. , this broad line of products comprises about ten percent of the company's revenues. |
Apple Inc. | Services | Services
Apple offers a broad line of services, including advertising in the App Store and Apple News app, the AppleCare+ extended warranty plan, the iCloud+ cloud-based data storage service, payment services through the Apple Card credit card and the Apple Pay processing platform, digital content services including Apple Books, Apple Fitness+, Apple Music, Apple News+, Apple TV+, and the iTunes Store. , services comprise about 26% of the company's revenue. In 2019, Apple announced it would be making a concerted effort to expand its service revenues. |
Apple Inc. | Marketing | Marketing |
Apple Inc. | Branding | Branding
thumb|upright|The first official logo of Apple Inc. was used from 1977 to 1998.
According to Steve Jobs, the company's name was inspired by his visit to an apple farm while on a fruitarian diet. Apple's first logo, designed by Ron Wayne, depicts Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. It was almost immediately replaced by Rob Janoff's "rainbow Apple", the now-familiar rainbow-colored silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out of it. This logo has been erroneously referred to as a tribute to Alan Turing, with the bite mark a reference to his method of suicide.;
On August 27, 1999, Apple officially dropped the rainbow scheme and began to use monochromatic logos nearly identical in shape to the previous rainbow incarnation. An Aqua-themed version of the monochrome logo was used from 1998 until 2003, and a glass-themed version was used from 2007 until 2013.
Apple evangelists were actively engaged by the company at one time, but this was after the phenomenon had already been firmly established. Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki has called the brand fanaticism "something that was stumbled upon", while Ive claimed in 2014 that "people have an incredibly personal relationship" with Apple's products.
Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world from 2008 to 2012.; ; ; ; On September 30, 2013, Apple surpassed Coca-Cola to become the world's most valuable brand in the Omnicom Group's "Best Global Brands" report. Boston Consulting Group has ranked Apple as the world's most innovative brand every year .Is Apple The World's Most Innovative Company (Still)? , Forbes, September 27, 2013. 1.65 billion Apple products were in active use. In February 2023, that number exceeded 2 billion devices. In 2023, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)'s Madrid Yearly Review ranked Apple Inc.'s number of marks applications filled under the Madrid System as 10th in the world, with 74 trademarks applications submitted during 2023.
Apple was ranked the No. 3 company in the world in the 2024 Fortune 500 list. |
Apple Inc. | Advertising | Advertising
Apple's first slogan, "Byte into an Apple", was coined in the late 1970s. From 1997 to 2002, the slogan "Think different" was used in advertising campaigns, and is still closely associated with Apple. Apple also has slogans for specific product lines—for example, "iThink, therefore iMac" was used in 1998 to promote the iMac, and "Say hello to iPhone" has been used in iPhone advertisements. "Hello" was also used to introduce the original Macintosh, Newton, iMac ("hello (again)"), and iPod.
From the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984, with the 1984 Super Bowl advertisement to the more modern Get a Mac adverts, Apple has been recognized for its efforts toward effective advertising and marketing for its products. However, claims made by later campaigns were criticized, particularly the 2005 Power Mac ads. Apple's product advertisements gained significant attention as a result of their eye-popping graphics and catchy tunes.Farber, Jim. Apple ad creates recognition for Yael Naim , New York Daily News, March 11, 2008. Musicians who benefited from an improved profile as a result of their songs being included on Apple advertisements include Canadian singer Feist with the song "1234" and Yael Naïm with the song "New Soul". |
Apple Inc. | Stores | Stores
thumb|Apple Fifth Avenue is the flagship store in New York City.
thumb|Customers visit the Genius Bar at Apple's Regent Street store in 2006.
The first Apple Stores were originally opened as two locations in May 2001 by then-CEO Steve Jobs, after years of attempting but failing store-within-a-store concepts. Seeing a need for improved retail presentation of the company's products, he began an effort in 1997 to revamp the retail program to get an improved relationship to consumers, and hired Ron Johnson in 2000. Jobs relaunched Apple's online store in 1997, and opened the first two physical stores in 2001. The media initially speculated that Apple would fail, but its stores were highly successful, bypassing the sales numbers of competing nearby stores, and within three years reached US$1 billion in annual sales, becoming the fastest retailer in history to do so.
Over the years, Apple has expanded the number of retail locations and its geographical coverage, with 499 stores across 22 countries worldwide . Strong product sales have placed Apple among the top-tier retail stores, with sales over $16 billion globally in 2011. Apple Stores underwent a period of significant redesign, beginning in May 2016. This redesign included physical changes to the Apple Stores, such as open spaces and re-branded rooms, and changes in function to facilitate interaction between consumers and professionals.;
Many Apple Stores are located inside shopping malls, but Apple has built several stand-alone "flagship" stores in high-profile locations. It has been granted design patents and received architectural awards for its stores' designs and construction, specifically for its use of glass staircases and cubes. The success of Apple Stores have had significant influence over other consumer electronics retailers, who have lost traffic, control and profits due to a perceived higher quality of service and products at Apple Stores.; Due to the popularity of the brand, Apple receives a large number of job applications, many of which come from young workers. Although Apple Store employees receive above-average pay, are offered money toward education and health care, and receive product discounts, there are limited or no paths of career advancement. |
Apple Inc. | Market power | Market power
On March 16, 2020, France fined Apple €1.1 billion for colluding with two wholesalers to stifle competition and keep prices high by handicapping independent resellers. The arrangement created aligned prices for Apple products such as iPads and personal computers for about half the French retail market. According to the French regulators, the abuses occurred between 2005 and 2017 but were first discovered after a complaint by an independent reseller, eBizcuss, in 2012.
On August 13, 2020, Epic Games, the maker of the popular game Fortnite, sued both Apple and Google after Fortnite was removed from Apple's and Google's app stores. The lawsuits came after Apple and Google blocked the game after it introduced a direct payment system that bypassed the fees that Apple and Google had imposed. In September 2020, Epic Games founded the Coalition for App Fairness together with thirteen other companies, which aims for better conditions for the inclusion of apps in the app stores. Later, in December 2020, Facebook agreed to assist Epic in their legal game against Apple, planning to support the company by providing materials and documents to Epic. Facebook had, however, stated that the company would not participate directly with the lawsuit, although did commit to helping with the discovery of evidence relating to the trial of 2021. In the months prior to their agreement, Facebook had been dealing with feuds against Apple relating to the prices of paid apps and privacy rule changes. Head of ad products for Facebook Dan Levy commented, saying that "this is not really about privacy for them, this is about an attack on personalized ads and the consequences it's going to have on small-business owners," commenting on the full-page ads placed by Facebook in various newspapers in December 2020.; |
Apple Inc. | Privacy | Privacy
thumb|PRISM is a clandestine surveillance program under which the NSA collects user data from companies like Facebook and Apple.
Apple has publicly taken a pro-privacy stance, actively making privacy-conscious features and settings part of its conferences, promotional campaigns, and public image.; ; With its iOS 8 mobile operating system in 2014, the company started encrypting all contents of iOS devices through users' passcodes, making it impossible at the time for the company to provide customer data to law enforcement requests seeking such information. With the popularity rise of cloud storage solutions, Apple began a technique in 2016 to do deep learning scans for facial data in photos on the user's local device and encrypting the content before uploading it to Apple's iCloud storage system. It also introduced "differential privacy", a way to collect crowdsourced data from many users, while keeping individual users anonymous, in a system that Wired described as "trying to learn as much as possible about a group while learning as little as possible about any individual in it". Users are explicitly asked if they want to participate, and can actively opt-in or opt-out.
However, Apple has aided law enforcement in criminal investigations by providing iCloud backups of users' devices,; ; and the company's commitment to privacy has been questioned by its efforts to promote biometric authentication technology in its newer iPhone models, which do not have the same level of constitutional privacy as a passcode in the United States.
With Apple's release of an update to iOS 14, Apple required all developers of iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch applications to directly ask iPhone users permission to track them. The feature, called "App Tracking Transparency", received heavy criticism from Facebook, whose primary business model revolves around the tracking of users' data and sharing such data with advertisers so users can see more relevant ads, a technique commonly known as targeted advertising. After Facebook's measures, including purchasing full-page newspaper advertisements protesting App Tracking Transparency, Apple released the update in early 2021. A study by Verizon subsidiary Flurry Analytics reported only 4% of iOS users in the United States and 12% worldwide have opted into tracking.
Prior to the release of iOS 15, Apple announced new efforts at combating child sexual abuse material on iOS and Mac platforms. Parents of minor iMessage users can now be alerted if their child sends or receives nude photographs. Additionally, on-device hashing would take place on media destined for upload to iCloud, and hashes would be compared to a list of known abusive images provided by law enforcement; if enough matches were found, Apple would be alerted and authorities informed. The new features received praise from law enforcement and victims rights advocates. However, privacy advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, condemned the new features as invasive and highly prone to abuse by authoritarian governments.
Ireland's Data Protection Commission launched a privacy investigation to examine whether Apple complied with the EU's GDPR law following an investigation into how the company processes personal data with targeted ads on its platform.
In December 2019, security researcher Brian Krebs discovered that the iPhone 11 Pro would still show the arrow indicator –signifying location services are being used– at the top of the screen while the main location services toggle is enabled, despite all individual location services being disabled. Krebs was unable to replicate this behavior on older models and when asking Apple for comment, he was told by Apple that "It is expected behavior that the Location Services icon appears in the status bar when Location Services is enabled. The icon appears for system services that do not have a switch in Settings."
Apple later further clarified that this behavior was to ensure compliance with ultra-wideband regulations in specific countries, a technology Apple started implementing in iPhones starting with iPhone 11 Pro, and emphasized that "the management of ultra wideband compliance and its use of location data is done entirely on the device and Apple is not collecting user location data." Will Strafach, an executive at security firm Guardian Firewall, confirmed the lack of evidence that location data was sent off to a remote server. Apple promised to add a new toggle for this feature and in later iOS revisions Apple provided users with the option to tap on the location services indicator in Control Center to see which specific service is using the device's location.
According to published reports by Bloomberg News on March 30, 2022, Apple turned over data such as phone numbers, physical addresses, and IP addresses to hackers posing as law enforcement officials using forged documents. The law enforcement requests sometimes included forged signatures of real or fictional officials. When asked about the allegations, an Apple representative referred the reporter to a section of the company policy for law enforcement guidelines, which stated, "We review every data request for legal sufficiency and use advanced systems and processes to validate law enforcement requests and detect abuse." |
Apple Inc. | Corporate affairs | Corporate affairs |
Apple Inc. | Business trends | Business trends
The key trends for Apple are, as of each financial year ending September 24:
Fiscal yearRevenue figuresNon-revenue figuresTotalrevenue(US$ b)iPhonerevenue(US$ b)Macrevenue(US$ b)iPadrevenue(US$ b)Wearables, Home,and Accessoriesrevenue(US$ b)Servicesrevenue(US$ b)Net profit(US$ b)Number ofemployees(k, FTE)201110845.921.719.111.99.325.960.4201215678.623.230.910.712.841.772.8201317091.221.431.910.116.037.080.3201418210124.030.28.318.039.592.6201523315525.423.210.019.953.3110201621513622.820.611.124.345.6116201722913925.518.812.832.748.3123201826516425.118.317.339.759.3132201926014225.721.224.446.255.2137202027413728.623.730.653.757.4147202136519135.131.838.368.494.6154202239420540.129.241.278.199.8164202338320029.328.339.885.296.9161202439120129.926.637.096.193.7164 |
Apple Inc. | Leadership | Leadership |
Apple Inc. | Senior management | Senior management
, the management of Apple Inc. includes:
Tim Cook (chief executive officer)
Jeff Williams (chief operating officer)
Kevan Parekh (senior vice president and chief financial officer)
Katherine L. Adams (senior vice president and general counsel)
Eddy Cue (senior vice president – Internet Software and Services)
Craig Federighi (senior vice president – Software Engineering)
John Giannandrea (senior vice president – Machine Learning and AI Strategy)
Deirdre O'Brien (senior vice president – Retail + People)
John Ternus (senior vice president – Hardware Engineering)
Greg Joswiak (senior vice president – Worldwide Marketing)
Johny Srouji (senior vice president – Hardware Technologies)
Sabih Khan (senior vice president – Operations) |
Apple Inc. | Board of directors | Board of directors
, the board of directors of Apple Inc. includes:
Arthur D. Levinson (chairman)
Tim Cook (executive director and CEO)
James A. Bell
Alex Gorsky
Andrea Jung
Monica Lozano
Ronald Sugar
Susan Wagner |
Apple Inc. | Previous CEOs | Previous CEOs
Michael Scott (1977–1981)
Mike Markkula (1981–1983)
John Sculley (1983–1993)
Michael Spindler (1993–1996)
Gil Amelio (1996–1997)
Steve Jobs (1997–2011) |
Apple Inc. | Ownership | Ownership
, the largest shareholders of Apple were:
The Vanguard Group (1,400,000,000 shares, 9.29%)
BlackRock (1,120,000,0000 shares, 7.48%)
State Street Corporation (595,500,000 shares, 3.96%)
Fidelity Investments (341,640,000 shares, 2.27%)
Geode Capital Management (340,160,000 shares, 2.26%)
Berkshire Hathaway (300,000,000 shares, 2.00%)
Morgan Stanley (238,260,000 shares, 1.59%)
T. Rowe Price (220,110,000 shares, 1.47%)
Norges Bank (187,160,000 shares, 1.25%)
JPMorgan Chase (183,010,000 shares, 1.22%) |
Apple Inc. | Corporate culture | Corporate culture
thumb|Co-founder Steve Wozniak and Macintosh engineer Andy Hertzfeld attended the Apple User Group Connection club in 1985.
upright=1.25|thumb|right|These universities produced the most alumni who became Apple employees.
Apple is one of several highly successful companies founded in the 1970s that bucked the traditional notions of corporate culture. Jobs often walked around the office barefoot even after Apple became a Fortune 500 company. By the time of the "1984" television advertisement, Apple's informal culture had become a key trait that differentiated it from its competitors. According to a 2011 report in Fortune, this has resulted in a corporate culture more akin to a startup rather than a multinational corporation. In a 2017 interview, Wozniak credited watching Star Trek and attending Star Trek conventions in his youth as inspiration for co-founding Apple.Huffingtonpost Interview: Steve Wozniak on Sci-Fi, Comic Books, and How Star Trek Shaped the Future . April 19, 2017.
As the company has grown and been led by a series of differently opinionated chief executives, some media have suggested that it has lost some of its original character. Nonetheless, it has maintained a reputation for fostering individuality and excellence that reliably attracts talented workers, particularly after Jobs returned. Numerous Apple employees have stated that projects without Jobs's involvement often took longer than others.
The Apple Fellows program awards employees for extraordinary technical or leadership contributions to personal computing. Recipients include Bill Atkinson,Hertzfeld, Andy. Credit Where Due , Folklore.org, January 1983. Retrieved May 26, 2006. Steve Capps, Rod Holt, Alan Kay,Eisenhart, Mary. Fighting Back For Mac , MicroTimes, 1997. Retrieved May 26, 2006.Hertzfeld, Andy. Leave of Absence , Folklore.org, March 1984. Retrieved May 26, 2006. Guy Kawasaki,Kawakami, John. Apple Taps Guy Kawasaki For Apple Fellows Program , MacTech, September 1995. Retrieved May 26, 2006. Al Alcorn, Don Norman, Rich Page, Steve Wozniak, and Phil Schiller.
Jobs intended that employees were to be specialists who are not exposed to functions outside their area of expertise. For instance, Ron Johnson—Senior Vice President of Retail Operations until November 1, 2011—was responsible for site selection, in-store service, and store layout, yet had no control of the inventory in his stores. This was done by Tim Cook, who had a background in supply-chain management. Apple is known for strictly enforcing accountability. Each project has a "directly responsible individual" or "DRI" in Apple jargon. Unlike other major U.S. companies, Apple provides a relatively simple compensation policy for executives that does not include perks enjoyed by other CEOs like country club fees or private use of company aircraft. The company typically grants stock options to executives every other year.
In 2015, Apple had 110,000 full-time employees. This increased to 116,000 full-time employees the next year, a notable hiring decrease, largely due to its first revenue decline. Apple does not specify how many of its employees work in retail, though its 2014 SEC filing put the number at approximately half of its employee base. In September 2017, Apple announced that it had over 123,000 full-time employees.
Apple has a strong culture of corporate secrecy, and has an anti-leak Global Security team that recruits from the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States Secret Service.; ; In December 2017, Glassdoor said Apple was the 48th best place to work, having originally entered at rank 19 in 2009, peaking at rank 10 in 2012, and falling down the ranks in subsequent years.; In 2023, Bloomberg Mark Gurman revealed the existence of Apple's Exploratory Design Group (XDG), which was working to add glucose monitoring to the Apple Watch. Gurman compared XDG to Alphabet's X "moonshot factory". |
Apple Inc. | Offices | Offices
Apple Inc.'s world corporate headquarters are located in Cupertino, in the middle of California's Silicon Valley, at Apple Park, a massive circular groundscraper building with a circumference of . The building opened in April 2017 and houses more than 12,000 employees. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wanted Apple Park to look less like a business park and more like a nature refuge, and personally appeared before the Cupertino City Council in June 2011 to make the proposal, in his final public appearance before his death.
thumb|The original Apple Campus has the street address 1 Infinite Loop, Sunnyvale, California.
Apple also operates from the Apple Campus (also known by its address, 1 Infinite Loop), a grouping of six buildings in Cupertino that total located about to the west of Apple Park. The Apple Campus was the company's headquarters from its opening in 1993, until the opening of Apple Park in 2017. The buildings, located at 1–6 Infinite Loop, are arranged in a circular pattern around a central green space, in a design that has been compared to that of a university.
In addition to Apple Park and the Apple Campus, Apple occupies an additional thirty office buildings scattered throughout the city of Cupertino, including three buildings as prior headquarters: Stephens Creek Three from 1977 to 1978, Bandley One from 1978 to 1982, and Mariani One from 1982 to 1993. In total, Apple occupies almost 40% of the available office space in the city.
Apple's headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are located in Cork in the south of Ireland, called the Hollyhill campus. The facility, which opened in 1980, houses 5,500 people and was Apple's first location outside of the United States. Apple's international sales and distribution arms operate out of the campus in Cork.;
Apple has two campuses near Austin, Texas: a campus opened in 2014 houses 500 engineers who work on Apple silicon and a campus opened in 2021 where 6,000 people work in technical support, supply chain management, online store curation, and Apple Maps data management. The company also has several other locations in Boulder, Colorado; Culver City, California; Herzliya (Israel), London, New York, Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Seattle that each employ hundreds of people.; |
Apple Inc. | Litigation | Litigation
Apple has been a participant in various legal proceedings and claims since it began operation. In particular, Apple is known for and promotes itself as actively and aggressively enforcing its intellectual property interests. Some litigation examples include Apple v. Samsung, Apple v. Microsoft, Motorola Mobility v. Apple Inc., and Apple Corps v. Apple Computer. Apple has also had to defend itself against charges on numerous occasions of violating intellectual property rights. Most have been dismissed in the courts as shell companies known as patent trolls, with no evidence of actual use of patents in question. On December 21, 2016, Nokia announced that in the U.S. and Germany, it has filed a suit against Apple, claiming that the latter's products infringe on Nokia's patents.;
Most recently, in November 2017, the United States International Trade Commission announced an investigation into allegations of patent infringement in regards to Apple's remote desktop technology; Aqua Connect, a company that builds remote desktop software, has claimed that Apple infringed on two of its patents. In January 2022, Ericsson sued Apple over payment of royalty of 5G technology. On June 24, 2024, the European Commission accused Apple of violating the Digital Markets Act by preventing "app developers from freely steering consumers to alternative channels for offers and content". In April 2025, Apple was found guilty and fined 500 million euros ($570 million) for violating the Digital Markets Act. |
Apple Inc. | Finances | Finances
, Apple is the world's largest technology company by revenue, with US$383.28 billion; the world's largest technology company by total assets; the fourth-largest personal computer vendor by unit sales; and the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer.
In its fiscal year ending in September 2011, Apple Inc. reported a total of $108 billion in annual revenues—a significant increase from its 2010 revenues of $65 billion—and nearly $82 billion in cash reserves. On March 19, 2012, Apple announced plans for a $2.65-per-share dividend beginning in fourth quarter of 2012, per approval by their board of directors.
The company's worldwide annual revenue in 2013 totaled $170 billion. In May 2013, Apple entered the top ten of the Fortune 500 list of companies for the first time, rising 11 places above its 2012 ranking to take the sixth position. , Apple has around US$234 billion of cash and marketable securities, of which 90% is located outside the United States for tax purposes.
Apple amassed 65% of all profits made by the eight largest worldwide smartphone manufacturers in quarter one of 2014, according to a report by Canaccord Genuity. In the first quarter of 2015, the company garnered 92% of all earnings.
On April 30, 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple had cash reserves of $250 billion, officially confirmed by Apple as specifically $256.8 billion a few days later.
, Apple was the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization. On August 2, 2018, Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market value, and , is valued at just over $3.2 trillion. Apple was ranked No. 4 on the 2018 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by revenue.
In July 2022, Apple reported an 11% decline in Q3 profits compared to 2021. Its revenue in the same period rose 2% year-on-year to $83 billion, though this figure was also lower than in 2021, where the increase was at 36%. The general downturn is reportedly caused by the slowing global economy and supply chain disruptions in China. That year, Apple was one of the largest corporate spenders on research and development worldwide, with R&D expenditure amounting to over $27 billion.
In May 2023, Apple reported a decline in its sales for the first quarter of 2023. Compared to that of 2022, revenue for 2023 fell by 3%. This is Apple's second consecutive quarter of sales decline. This fall is attributed to the slowing economy and consumers putting off purchases of iPads and computers due to increased pricing. However, iPhone sales held up with a year-on-year increase of 1.5%. According to Apple, demands for such devices were strong, particularly in Latin America and South Asia. |
Apple Inc. | Taxes | Taxes
Apple has created subsidiaries in low-tax places such as Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the British Virgin Islands to cut the taxes it pays around the world. According to The New York Times, in the 1980s Apple was among the first tech companies to designate overseas salespeople in high-tax countries in a manner that allowed the company to sell on behalf of low-tax subsidiaries on other continents, sidestepping income taxes. In the late 1980s, Apple was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the "Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich", which reduces taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean.;
British Conservative Party Member of Parliament Charlie Elphicke published research on October 30, 2012, which showed that some multinational companies, including Apple Inc., were making billions of pounds of profit in the UK, but were paying an effective tax rate to the UK Treasury of only 3 percent, well below standard corporate tax rates. He followed this research by calling on the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to force these multinationals, which also included Google and The Coca-Cola Company, to state the effective rate of tax they pay on their UK revenues. Elphicke also said that government contracts should be withheld from multinationals who do not pay their fair share of UK tax.
According to a US Senate report on the company's offshore tax structure concluded in May 2013, Apple has held billions of dollars in profits in Irish subsidiaries to pay little or no taxes to any government by using an unusual global tax structure. The main subsidiary, a holding company that includes Apple's retail stores throughout Europe, has not paid any corporate income tax in the last five years. "Apple has exploited a difference between Irish and U.S. tax residency rules", the report said. On May 21, 2013, Apple CEO Tim Cook defended his company's tax tactics at a Senate hearing.
Apple says that it is the single largest taxpayer in the U.S., with an effective tax rate of approximately of 26% as of Q2 FY2016. In an interview with the German newspaper FAZ in October 2017, Tim Cook stated that Apple was the biggest taxpayer worldwide.
In 2016, after a two-year investigation, the European Commission claimed that Apple's use of a hybrid Double Irish tax arrangement constituted "illegal state aid" from Ireland, and ordered Apple to pay 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion) in unpaid taxes, the largest corporate tax fine in history. This was later annulled, after the European General Court ruled that the commission had provided insufficient evidence. In 2018, Apple repatriated $285 billion to the United States, resulting in a $38 billion tax payment spread over the following eight years.
+Apple's effective tax rate in %2000200120022003200420052006200720082009201020112012201320142015201620172018201928302526282629303031.824.424.225.226.226.126.425.624.618.315.9202020212022202314.413.316.214.7 |
Apple Inc. | Charity | Charity
Apple is a partner of Product Red, a fundraising campaign for AIDS charity. In November 2014, Apple arranged for all App Store revenue in a two-week period to go to the fundraiser, generating more than US$20 million,; and in March 2017, it released an iPhone 7 with a red color finish.;
Apple contributes financially to fundraisers in times of natural disasters. In November 2012, it donated $2.5 million to the American Red Cross to aid relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy, and in 2017 it donated $5 million to relief efforts for both Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey, and for the 2017 Central Mexico earthquake. The company has used its iTunes platform to encourage donations in the wake of environmental disasters and humanitarian crises, such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2011 Japan earthquake, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in November 2013, and the 2015 European migrant crisis. Apple emphasizes that it does not incur any processing or other fees for iTunes donations, sending 100% of the payments directly to relief efforts, though it also acknowledges that the Red Cross does not receive any personal information on the users donating and that the payments may not be tax deductible.
On April 14, 2016, Apple and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) announced that they have engaged in a partnership to, "help protect life on our planet". Apple released a special page in the iTunes App Store, Apps for Earth. In the arrangement, Apple has committed that through April 24, WWF will receive 100% of the proceeds from the applications participating in the App Store via both the purchases of any paid apps and the In-App Purchases. Apple and WWF's Apps for Earth campaign raised more than $8 million in total proceeds to support WWF's conservation work. WWF announced the results at WWDC 2016 in San Francisco.; ;
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple's CEO Cook announced that the company will be donating "millions" of masks to health workers in the United States and Europe. On January 13, 2021, Apple announced a $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative to help combat institutional racism worldwide after the 2020 murder of George Floyd.; In June 2023, Apple announced doubling this and then distributed more than $200 million to support organizations focused on education, economic growth, and criminal justice. Half is philanthropic grants and half is centered on equity. |
Apple Inc. | Environment | Environment |
Apple Inc. | Apple Energy | Apple Energy
Apple Energy, LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple Inc. that sells solar energy. , Apple's solar farms in California and Nevada have been declared to provide 217.9 megawatts of solar generation capacity.; Apple has received regulatory approval to construct a landfill gas energy plant in North Carolina to use the methane emissions to generate electricity. Apple's North Carolina data center is already powered entirely by renewable sources. |
Apple Inc. | Energy and resources | Energy and resources
In 2010, Climate Counts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to directing consumers toward the greenest companies, gave Apple a score of 52 points out of a possible 100, which puts Apple in their top category "Striding". This was an increase from May 2008, when Climate Counts only gave Apple 11 points out of 100, which placed the company last among electronics companies, at which time Climate Counts also labeled Apple with a "stuck icon", adding that Apple at the time was "a choice to avoid for the climate-conscious consumer".
Following a Greenpeace protest, Apple released a statement on April 17, 2012, committing to ending its use of coal and shifting to 100% renewable clean energy. By 2013, Apple was using 100% renewable energy to power their data centers. Overall, 75% of the company's power came from clean renewable sources.
In May 2015, Greenpeace evaluated the state of the Green Internet and commended Apple on their environmental practices saying, "Apple's commitment to renewable energy has helped set a new bar for the industry, illustrating in very concrete terms that a 100% renewable Internet is within its reach, and providing several models of intervention for other companies that want to build a sustainable Internet."
, Apple states that 100% of its U.S. operations run on renewable energy, 100% of Apple's data centers run on renewable energy and 93% of Apple's global operations run on renewable energy. However, the facilities are connected to the local grid which usually contains a mix of fossil and renewable sources, so Apple carbon offsets its electricity use.; The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) allows consumers to see the effect a product has on the environment. Each product receives a Gold, Silver, or Bronze rank depending on its efficiency and sustainability. Every Apple tablet, notebook, desktop computer, and display that EPEAT ranks achieves a Gold rating, the highest possible. Although Apple's data centers recycle water 35 times, the increased activity in retail, corporate and data centers also increase the amount of water use to in 2015.
During an event on March 21, 2016, Apple provided a status update on its environmental initiative to be 100% renewable in all of its worldwide operations. Lisa P. Jackson, Apple's vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives who reports directly to CEO, Tim Cook, announced that , 93% of Apple's worldwide operations are powered with renewable energy. Also featured was the company's efforts to use sustainable paper in their product packaging; 99% of all paper used by Apple in the product packaging comes from post-consumer recycled paper or sustainably managed forests, as the company continues its move to all paper packaging for all of its products.;
Apple announced on August 16, 2016, that Lens Technology, one of its major suppliers in China, has committed to power all its glass production for Apple with 100 percent renewable energy by 2018. The commitment is a large step in Apple's efforts to help manufacturers lower their carbon footprint in China. Apple also announced that all 14 of its final assembly sites in China are now compliant with UL's Zero Waste to Landfill validation. The standard, which started in January 2015, certifies that all manufacturing waste is reused, recycled, composted, or converted into energy (when necessary). Since the program began, nearly 140,000 metric tons of waste have been diverted from landfills.
On July 21, 2020, Apple announced its plan to become carbon neutral across its entire business, manufacturing supply chain, and product life cycle by 2030. In the next 10 years, Apple will try to lower emissions with a series of innovative actions, including: low carbon product design, expanding energy efficiency, renewable energy, process and material innovations, and carbon removal.
In June 2024, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a report about an electronic computer manufacturing facility leased by Apple in 2015 in Santa Clara, California, code named Aria. The EPA report stated that Apple was potentially in violation of federal regulations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). According to a report from Bloomberg in 2018, the facility is used to develop microLED screens under the code name T159. The inspection found that Apple was potentially mistreating waste as only subject to California regulations and that they had potentially miscalculated the effectiveness of Apple's activated carbon filters, which filter volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the air. The EPA inspected the facility in August 2023 due to a tip from a former Apple employee who posted the report on X. |
Apple Inc. | Toxins | Toxins
Following further campaigns by Greenpeace, in 2008, Apple became the first electronics manufacturer to eliminate all polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in its complete product line.; In June 2007, Apple began replacing the cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlit LCD displays in its computers with mercury-free LED-backlit LCD displays and arsenic-free glass, starting with the upgraded MacBook Pro.; Apple offers comprehensive and transparent information about the CO2e, emissions, materials, and electrical usage concerning every product they currently produce or have sold in the past (and which they have enough data needed to produce the report), in their portfolio on their homepage. Allowing consumers to make informed purchasing decisions on the products they offer for sale. In June 2009, Apple's iPhone 3GS was free of PVC, arsenic, and BFRs.; Since 2009, all Apple products have mercury-free LED-backlit LCD displays, arsenic-free glass, and non-PVC cables. All Apple products have EPEAT Gold status and beat the latest Energy Star guidelines in each product's respective regulatory category.
In November 2011, Apple was featured in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics, which ranks electronics manufacturers on sustainability, climate and energy policy, and how "green" their products are. The company ranked fourth of fifteen electronics companies (moving up five places from the previous year) with a score of 4.6/10.; Greenpeace praised Apple's sustainability, noting that the company exceeded its 70% global recycling goal in 2010. Apple continues to score well on product ratings, with all of their products now being free of PVC plastic and BFRs. However, the guide criticized Apple on the Energy criteria for not seeking external verification of its greenhouse gas emissions data, and for not setting any targets to reduce emissions. In January 2012, Apple requested that its cable maker, Volex, begin producing halogen-free USB and power cables.; |
Apple Inc. | Green bonds | Green bonds
In February 2016, Apple issued a billion green bond (climate bond), the first ever of its kind by a U.S. tech company. The green bond proceeds are dedicated to the financing of environmental projects. |
Apple Inc. | Supply chain | Supply chain
Apple products were made in the United States in Apple-owned factories until the late 1990s; however, as a result of outsourcing initiatives in the 2000s, almost all of its manufacturing is now handled abroad. According to a report by The New York Times, Apple insiders "believe the vast scale of overseas factories, as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers, have so outpaced their American counterparts that 'Made in the U.S.A.' is no longer a viable option for most Apple products".
The company's manufacturing, procurement, and logistics enable it to execute massive product launches without having to maintain large, profit-sapping inventories. In 2011, Apple's profit margins were 40 percent, compared with between 10 and 20 percent for most other hardware companies. Cook's catchphrase to describe his focus on the company's operational arm is: "Nobody wants to buy sour milk."
In May 2017, the company announced a $1 billion funding project for "advanced manufacturing" in the United States,; and subsequently invested $200 million in Corning Inc., a manufacturer of toughened Gorilla Glass technology used in Apple's iPhones.; The following December, Apple's chief operating officer, Jeff Williams, told CNBC that the "$1 billion" amount was "absolutely not" the final limit on its spending, elaborating that "We're not thinking in terms of a fund limit... We're thinking about, where are the opportunities across the U.S. to help nurture companies that are making the advanced technology — and the advanced manufacturing that goes with that — that quite frankly is essential to our innovation.";
During the Mac's early history, Apple generally refused to adopt prevailing industry standards for hardware, instead creating their own. This trend was largely reversed in the late 1990s, beginning with Apple's adoption of the PCI bus in the 7500/8500/9500 Power Macs. Apple has since joined the industry standards groups to influence the future direction of technology standards such as USB, AGP, HyperTransport, Wi-Fi, NVMe, PCIe and others in its products. FireWire is an Apple-originated standard that was widely adopted across the industry after it was standardized as IEEE 1394 and is a legally mandated port in all cable TV boxes in the United States.
Apple has gradually expanded its efforts in getting its products into the Indian market. In July 2012, during a conference call with investors, CEO Tim Cook said that he "[loves] India", but that Apple saw larger opportunities outside the region. India's requirement that 30% of products sold be manufactured in the country was described as "really adds cost to getting product to market". In May 2016, Apple opened an iOS app development center in Bangalore and a maps development office for 4,000 staff in Hyderabad.; ; ; In March, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple would begin manufacturing iPhone models in India "over the next two months",; and in May, the Journal wrote that an Apple manufacturer had begun production of the iPhone SE in the country,; while Apple told CNBC that the manufacturing was for a "small number" of units. In April 2019, Apple initiated manufacturing of the iPhone 7 at its Bengaluru facility, keeping in mind demand from local customers even as they seek more incentives from the government of India. At the beginning of 2020, Tim Cook announced that Apple schedules the opening of its first physical outlet in India for 2021, while an online store is to be launched by the end of the year. The opening of the Apple Store was postponed, and finally took place in April 2023, while the online store was launched in September 2020. |
Apple Inc. | Worker organizations | Worker organizations
Apple directly employs 147,000 workers including 25,000 corporate employees in Apple Park and across Silicon Valley. The vast majority of its employees work at the over 500 retail Apple Stores globally. Apple relies on a larger, outsourced workforce for manufacturing, particularly in China where Apple directly employs 10,000 workers across its retail and corporate divisions. In addition, one further million workers are contracted by Apple's suppliers to assemble Apple products, including Foxconn and Pegatron. Zhengzhou Technology Park alone employs 350,000 Chinese workers in Zhengzhou to exclusively work on the iPhone. , Apple uses hardware components from 43 different countries. The majority of assembling is done by Taiwanese original design manufacturer firms Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron and Compal Electronics in factories primarily located inside China, and, to a lesser extent, Foxconn plants in Brazil, and India.
Apple workers around the globe have been involved in organizing since the 1990s. Apple unions are made up of retail, corporate, and outsourced workers. Apple employees have joined trade unions or formed works councils in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2021, Apple Together, a solidarity union, sought to bring together the company's global worker organizations. The majority of industrial labor disputes (including union recognition) involving Apple occur indirectly through its suppliers and contractors, notably Foxconn plants in China and, to a lesser extent, in Brazil and India. |
Apple Inc. | Democratic Republic of the Congo | Democratic Republic of the Congo
In 2019, Apple was named as a defendant in a forced labour and child slavery lawsuit by Congolese families of children injured and killed in cobalt mines owned by Glencore and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, which supply battery materials to Apple and other companies.
In April 2024, lawyers representing the Democratic Republic of the Congo notified Apple of evidence that Apple may be sourcing minerals from conflict areas of eastern Congo. Apple policies and documentation describe mitigation efforts against conflict minerals, however the lawyers identify discrepancies in supplier reporting as well as a Global Witness report describing a lack of "meaningful mitigation" on Apple's part. In December 2024, DRC filed a lawsuit against Apple's European subsidiaries. |
Apple Inc. | See also | See also
List of Apple Inc. media events
Outline of Apple Inc. |
Apple Inc. | Notes | Notes |
Apple Inc. | References | References |
Apple Inc. | Bibliography | Bibliography
|
Apple Inc. | Further reading | Further reading
|
Apple Inc. | External links | External links
– official site
Category:1976 establishments in California
Category:1980s initial public offerings
Category:American brands
Category:Companies based in Cupertino, California
Category:Companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average
Category:Companies in the PRISM network
Category:Companies listed on the Nasdaq
Category:Computer companies established in 1976
Category:Computer companies of the United States
Category:Computer hardware companies
Category:Computer systems companies
Category:Display technology companies
Category:Electronics companies of the United States
Category:Home computer hardware companies
Category:Mobile phone manufacturers
Category:Multinational companies headquartered in the United States
Category:Networking hardware companies
Category:Portable audio player manufacturers
Category:Retail companies of the United States
Category:Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area
Category:Software companies established in 1976
Category:Steve Jobs
Category:Technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area
Category:Technology companies established in 1976
Category:Technology companies of the United States
Category:Companies in the Dow Jones Global Titans 50
Category:Audio software companies |
Apple Inc. | Table of Content | Short description, History, 1976–1980: Founding and incorporation, 1980–1990: Success with Macintosh, 1990–1997: Decline and restructuring, 1997–2007: Return to profitability, 2007–2011: Success with mobile devices, 2011–present: Post-Jobs era, Tim Cook, Products, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Other products, Services, Marketing, Branding, Advertising, Stores, Market power, Privacy, Corporate affairs, Business trends, Leadership, Senior management, Board of directors, Previous CEOs, Ownership, Corporate culture, Offices, Litigation, Finances, Taxes, Charity, Environment, Apple Energy, Energy and resources, Toxins, Green bonds, Supply chain, Worker organizations, Democratic Republic of the Congo, See also, Notes, References, Bibliography, Further reading, External links |
Aberdeenshire | Short description | Aberdeenshire (; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland.
It takes its name from the historic county of Aberdeenshire, which had substantially different boundaries. The Aberdeenshire Council area includes all of the areas of the historic counties of Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire except the area making up Aberdeen City Council area, as well as part of Banffshire. The historic county boundaries are still officially used for a few purposes, namely land registration and lieutenancy.Land Register Counties & Operational Dates
Aberdeenshire Council is headquartered at Woodhill House in Aberdeen, making it the only Scottish council whose headquarters are located outside its jurisdiction. Aberdeen itself forms a different council area (Aberdeen City). Aberdeenshire borders onto Angus and Perth and Kinross to the south, Highland and Moray to the west and Aberdeen City to the east.
Traditionally, it has depended economically on the primary sector (agriculture, fishing, and forestry) and related processing industries. Over the last 40 years, the development of the oil and gas industry and associated service sector has broadened Aberdeenshire's economic base, and contributed to a rapid population growth of some 50% since 1975. Its land represents 8% of Scotland's overall territory. It covers an area of . |
Aberdeenshire | History | History
300px|thumb|left|1654 map covering "Aberdonia & Banfia" (Banffshire)
thumb|upright=1.3|left|Topographic map of Aberdeenshire and Moray
Aberdeenshire has a rich prehistoric and historical heritage. It is the locus of a large number of Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites, including Longman Hill, Kempstone Hill, Catto Long Barrow and Cairn Lee. The area was settled in the Bronze Age by the Beaker culture, who arrived from the south around 2000–1800 BC. Stone circles and cairns were constructed predominantly in this era. In the Iron Age, hill forts were built. Around the 1st century AD, the Taexali people, who left little history, were believed to have resided along the coast. The Picts were the next documented inhabitants of the area and were no later than 800–900 AD. The Romans also were in the area during this period, as they left signs at Kintore. Christianity influenced the inhabitants early on, and there were Celtic monasteries at Old Deer and Monymusk.
Since medieval times, there have been many traditional paths that crossed the Mounth (a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven) through present-day Aberdeenshire from the Scottish Lowlands to the Highlands. Some of the most well known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth and Elsick Mounth.W. Douglas Simpson, "The Early Castles of Mar", Proceedings of the Society, 102, 10 December 1928
Aberdeenshire played an important role in the fighting between the Scottish dynasties. Macbeth fell at Lumphanan in 1057. During the Anglo-Norman penetration, other families arrive, such as House of Balliol, Clan Bruce, and Clan Cumming (Comyn). During the Scottish Wars of Independence, the King of England Edward I travelled across the area twice with his invading army, in 1296 and 1303. In 1307, Robert the Bruce was victorious near Inverurie.
These new families set the stage for the upcoming rivalries during the 14th and 15th centuries. This rivalry grew worse during and after the Protestant Reformation when religion was another reason for conflict between the clans. The Gordon family adhered to Catholicism and the Forbeses to Protestantism. Aberdeenshire was the historic seat of the clan Dempster.Geni - William LeslieThe New Statistical Account of Scotland Three universities were founded in the area prior to the 17th century, King's College in Old Aberdeen (1494), Marischal College in Aberdeen (1593), and the University of Fraserburgh (1592).
During the 17th century, Aberdeenshire was the location of more fighting, centred on the Marquess of Montrose and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. This period also saw increased wealth due to the increase in trade with Germany, Poland, and the Low Countries.
After the end of the Revolution of 1688, an extended peaceful period was interrupted only by fleeting events such as the Rising of 1715 and the Rising of 1745. The latter resulted in the end of the ascendancy of Episcopalianism and the feudal power of landowners. An era began of increased agricultural and industrial progress.
The present council area is named after the historic county of Aberdeenshire, which has different boundaries and ceased to be used for local government purposes in 1975 under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. The pre-1975 territory of Aberdeenshire was then split between four of the five new districts in the Grampian region: Banff and Buchan (which also included eastern parts of Banffshire, including its county town of Banff), Gordon, Kincardine and Deeside (which also included most of Kincardineshire), and Aberdeen City. Local government functions were shared between the two levels.
The modern council area was created in 1996 under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. It covers the combined area of the Banff and Buchan, Gordon, and Kincardine and Deeside districts that had been created in 1975. The present Aberdeenshire Council area therefore consists of all of the historic counties of Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire (except the area of those two counties making up Aberdeen City), as well as the north-east portions of Banffshire. |
Aberdeenshire | Demographics | Demographics
The population of the council area has risen over 50% since 1971 to approximately in , representing 4.7% of Scotland's total. Aberdeenshire's population has increased by 9.1% since 2001, while Scotland's total population grew by 3.8%.
The census lists a relatively high proportion of under 16s and slightly fewer working-age people compared with the Scottish average.
Aberdeenshire is one of the most homogeneous/indigenous regions of the UK. In 2011, 82.2% of residents identified as 'White Scottish', followed by 12.3% who are 'White British', whilst ethnic minorities constitute only 0.9% of the population. The largest ethnic minority group is Asian Scottish/British at 0.8%. In addition to the English language, 48.8% of residents reported being able to speak and understand the Scots language.
+Ethnic Group200120112022 Alternative URL 'Search data by location' > 'Local Authority (CA2019)' > 'Aberdeenshire' > 'Ethnic group, national identity, language and religion' > 'Ethnic Group'Number%Number%Number%White: Total225,24399.28%249,11298.47%256,01797.08%White: Scottish 194,169 85.59% 207,936 82.20% 210,537 79.83%White: Other British 26,945 11.88% 31,158 12.32% 32,508 12.33%White: Irish 976 0.43% 1,162 0.46% 1,493 0.57%White: Gypsy/Traveller – – 175 0.07% 169 0.06%White: Polish – – 3,020 1.19% 3,998 1.52%White: Other 3,153 1.39% 5,661 2.24% 7,312 2.77%Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British: Total6450.28%2,0370.81%2,9391.11%Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British: Indian 166 0.07% 473 0.19% 783 0.30%Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British: Pakistani 69 – 253 0.10% 343 0.13%Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British: Bangladeshi 29 – 138 0.05% 106 –Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British: Chinese 277 0.12% 424 0.17% 575 0.22%Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British: Asian Other 104 0.05% 749 0.30% 1,135 0.43%Black, Black Scottish or Black British14 – – – – –African: Total85–4900.19%1,3130.50%African: African, African Scottish or African British – – 487 0.19% 88 –African: Other African – – 3 – 1,224 0.46%Caribbean or Black: Total––2690.11%2550.10%Caribbean 82 – 159 0.06% 100 0.04%Black – – 76 – 16 –Caribbean or Black: Other – – 34 – 137 0.05%Mixed or multiple ethnic groups: Total4630.20%2940.12%2,0740.79%Other: Total3390.15%2940.12%1,1220.43%Other: Arab – – 131 0.05% 436 0.17%Other: Any other ethnic group – – 163 0.06% 682 0.26%Total:226,871100.00%252,973100.00%263,723100.00% |
Aberdeenshire | Settlements | Settlements
The largest settlements in Aberdeenshire are:
+ Settlement Population Mid-2010()Peterhead17,790Inverurie11,590Fraserburgh12,540Westhill11,220Stonehaven10,820Ellon9,910Portlethen7,130Banchory7,030Kintore4,180Turriff5,020Huntly4,570Banff3,720Kemnay3,710Macduff3,910Laurencekirk2,650Oldmeldrum2,990Blackburn2,720Newtonhill3,080Aboyne2,440Mintlaw2,610 |
Aberdeenshire | Economy | Economy
Aberdeenshire's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is estimated at £3,496M (2011), representing 5.2% of the Scottish total. Aberdeenshire's economy is closely linked to Aberdeen City's (GDP £7,906M), and in 2011, the region as a whole was calculated to contribute 16.8% of Scotland's GDP. Between 2012 and 2014, the combined Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City economic forecast GDP growth rate is 8.6%, the highest growth rate of any local council area in the UK and above the Scottish rate of 4.8%.
A significant proportion of Aberdeenshire's working residents commute to Aberdeen City for work, varying from 11.5% from Fraserburgh to 65% from Westhill.
Average Gross Weekly Earnings (for full-time employees employed in workplaces in Aberdeenshire in 2011) are £572.60. This is lower than the Scottish average by £2.10 and a fall of 2.6% on the 2010 figure. The average gross weekly pay of people resident in Aberdeenshire is much higher, at £741.90, as many people commute out
of Aberdeenshire, principally into Aberdeen City.
Total employment (excluding farm data) in Aberdeenshire is estimated at 93,700 employees (Business Register and
Employment Survey 2009). The majority of employees work within the service sector, predominantly in public administration, education and health. Almost 19% of employment is within the public sector. Aberdeenshire's economy remains closely linked to Aberdeen City's and the North Sea oil industry, with many employees in oil-related jobs.
The average monthly unemployment (claimant count) rate for Aberdeenshire in 2011 was 1.5%. This is lower than the average rate of Aberdeen City (2.3%), Scotland (4.2%) and the UK (3.8%). |
Aberdeenshire | Major industries | Major industries
thumb|Blueberries grown in Aberdeenshire
Energy – There are significant energy-related infrastructure, presence, and expertise in Aberdeenshire. Peterhead is an important centre for the energy industry. Peterhead Port includes an extensive new quay with an adjacent laydown area at Smith Quay, is a major support location for North Sea oil and gas exploration and production and the fast-growing global sub-sea sector. The Gas Terminal at St Fergus handles around 15% of the UK's natural gas requirements, and the Peterhead power station is looking to host Britain's first carbon capture and storage power generation project. There are numerous offshore wind turbines near the coast.
Fishing – Aberdeenshire is Scotland's foremost fishing area. In 2010, catches landed at Aberdeenshire's ports accounted for over half the total fish landings in Scotland and almost 45% in the UK. Along with Aberdeen City, Peterhead and Fraserburgh ports provide much employment in these sectors. The River Dee is also rich in salmon.
Agriculture – Aberdeenshire is rich in arable land, with an estimated 9,000 people employed in the sector, and is best known for rearing livestock, mainly cattle. Sheep are important in the higher ground.
Tourism – this sector continues to grow, with a range of sights to be seen in the area. From the lively Cairngorm Mountain range to the bustling fishing ports on the northeast coast, Aberdeenshire samples a bit of everything. Aberdeenshire also has a rugged coastline and many sandy beaches and is a hot spot for tourist activity throughout the year. Almost 1.3 million tourists visited the region in 2011 – up 3% on the previous year.
Whisky distilling is still a practised art in the area. |
Aberdeenshire | Governance | Governance |
Aberdeenshire | Notable features | Notable features
thumb|Ythan Estuary nature reserve, with tern colonies and dunes in background.
thumb|The B976 road near Gairnshiel
thumb|An old lime kiln at Badenyon
The following significant structures or places are within Aberdeenshire:
Balmoral Castle, Scottish Highland residence of the British royal family.
Bennachie
Burn O'Vat
Cairness House
Cairngorms National Park
Corgarff Castle
Crathes Castle
Causey Mounth, an ancient road
Drum Castle
Dunnottar Castle
Fetteresso Castle
Fowlsheugh Nature Reserve
Haddo House
Herscha Hill
Huntly Castle
Kildrummy Castle
Loch of Strathbeg
Lochnagar
Monboddo House
Muchalls Castle
Pitfour estate
Portlethen Moss
Raedykes Roman Camp
River Dee
River Don
Sands of Forvie Nature Reserve
Slains Castles, Old and New
Stonehaven Tolbooth
Ythan Estuary Nature Reservethumb|The Dee, Aberdeenshire's longest river |
Aberdeenshire | Hydrology and climate | Hydrology and climate
thumb|Ben Macdui, the United Kingdom's second-highest mountain
There are numerous rivers and burns in Aberdeenshire, including Cowie Water, Carron Water, Burn of Muchalls, River Dee, River Don, River Ury, River Ythan, Water of Feugh, Burn of Myrehouse, Laeca Burn and Luther Water. Numerous bays and estuaries are found along the seacoast of Aberdeenshire, including Banff Bay, Ythan Estuary, Stonehaven Bay and Thornyhive Bay. Aberdeenshire has a marine west coast climate on the Köppen climate classification. Aberdeenshire is in the rain shadow of the Grampians, therefore it has a generally dry climate for a maritime region, with portions of the coast receiving of moisture annually. Summers are mild, and winters are typically cold in Aberdeenshire; Coastal temperatures are moderated by the North Sea such that coastal areas are typically cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter than inland locations. Coastal areas are also subject to haar, or coastal fog. |
Aberdeenshire | Notable residents | Notable residents
John Skinner, (1721–1807) author, poet and ecclesiastic.
Hugh Mercer, (1726–1777), born in the manse of Pitsligo Kirk, near Rosehearty, brigadier general of the Continental Army.
Alexander Garden, (1730–1791), born in Birse, was a naturalist and physician who moved to North America in 1754. The gardenia flower is named in his honour.
John Kemp, (1763–1812), born in Auchlossan, was a noted educator at Columbia University who is said to have influenced DeWitt Clinton's opinions and policies.
George MacDonald (1824–1905), author, poet, and theologian born and raised in Huntly.
Dame Evelyn Glennie, born and raised in Ellon on 19 July 1965, musician.
Evan Duthie, (born 2000), DJ and producer.
Peter Nicol, born in Inverurie on 5 April 1973, is a former professional squash player who represented first Scotland and then England in international squash.
Peter Shepherd, (1841–1879), Surgeon Major, Royal Army Medical Corps
Johanna Basford (born 1983), illustrator and textile designer
Iona Fyfe (born 1998), singer and musician. |
Aberdeenshire | Notes | Notes |
Aberdeenshire | References | References |
Aberdeenshire | External links | External links
Aberdeenshire Council
Category:Council areas of Scotland |
Aberdeenshire | Table of Content | Short description, History, Demographics, Settlements, Economy, Major industries, Governance, Notable features, Hydrology and climate, Notable residents, Notes, References, External links |
Aztlan Underground | short description | Aztlan Underground is a band from Los Angeles, California that combines Hip-Hop, Punk Rock, Jazz, and electronic music with Chicano and Native American themes, and indigenous instrumentation. They are often cited as progenitors of Chicano rap. |
Aztlan Underground | Background | Background
The band traces its roots to the late-1980s hardcore scene in the Eastside of Los Angeles. They have played rapcore, with elements of punk, hip hop, rock, funk, jazz, indigenous music, and spoken word. Indigenous drums, flutes, and rattles are also commonly used in their music. Their lyrics often address the family and economic issues faced by the Chicano community, and they have been noted as activists for that community.
As an example of the politically active and culturally important artists in Los Angeles in the 1990s, Aztlan Underground appeared on Culture Clash on Fox in 1993; and was part of Breaking Out, a concert on pay per view in 1998, The band was featured in the independent films Algun Dia and Frontierland in the 1990s, and on the upcoming Studio 49. The band has been mentioned or featured in various newspapers and magazines: the Vancouver Sun, New Times, BLU Magazine (an underground hip hop magazine), BAM Magazine, La Banda Elastica Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times calendar section. The band is also the subject of a chapter in the book It's Not About a Salary, by Brian Cross.
Aztlan Underground remains active in the community, lending their voice to annual events such as The Farce of July, and the recent movement to recognize Indigenous People's Day in Los Angeles and beyond.
In addition to forming their own label, Xicano Records and Film, Aztlan Underground were signed to the Basque record label Esan Ozenki in 1999 which enabled them to tour Spain extensively and perform in France and Portugal. Aztlan Underground have also performed in Canada, Australia, and Venezuela. The band has been recognized for their music with nominations in the New Times 1998 "Best Latin Influenced" category, the BAM Magazine 1999 "Best Rock en Español" category, and the LA Weekly 1999 "Best Hip Hop" category. The release of their eponymous third album on August 29, 2009, was met with positive reviews and earned the band four Native American Music Award (NAMMY) nominations in 2010. |
Aztlan Underground | Discography | Discography |
Aztlan Underground | ''Decolonize'' | Decolonize
Year:1995
"Teteu Innan"
"Killing Season"
"Lost Souls"
"My Blood Is Red"
"Natural Enemy"
"Sacred Circle"
"Blood On Your Hands"
"Interlude"
"Aug 2 the 9"
"Indigena"
"Lyrical Drive By" |
Aztlan Underground | ''Sub-Verses'' | Sub-Verses
Year:1998
"Permiso"
"They Move In Silence"
"No Soy Animal"
"Killing Season"
"Blood On Your Hands"
"Reality Check"
"Lemon Pledge"
"Revolution"
"Preachers of the Blind State"
"Lyrical Drive-By"
"Nahui Ollin"
"How to Catch a Bullet"
"Ik Otik"
"Obsolete Man"
"Decolonize"
"War Flowers" |
Aztlan Underground | ''Aztlan Underground'' | Aztlan Underground
Year: 2009
"Moztlitta"
"Be God"
"Light Shines"
"Prey"
"In the Field"
"9 10 11 12"
"Smell the Dead"
"Sprung"
"Medicine"
"Acabando"
"Crescent Moon" |
Aztlan Underground | See also | See also
Chicano rap
Native American hip hop
Rapcore
Chicano rock |
Aztlan Underground | References | References |
Aztlan Underground | External links | External links
Myspace link
Facebook page
Category:Native American rappers
Category:American rappers of Mexican descent
Category:Musical groups from Los Angeles
Category:West Coast hip-hop musicians |
Aztlan Underground | Table of Content | short description, Background, Discography, ''Decolonize'', ''Sub-Verses'', ''Aztlan Underground'', See also, References, External links |
American Civil War | Short description | The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union. The central conflict leading to war was a dispute over whether slavery should be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prohibited from doing so, which many believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction.
Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven Southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy asserted control over a third of the U.S. population in eleven states. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued.
During 1861–1862 in the Western theater, the Union made permanent gains—though in the Eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate general Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. Western successes led to General Ulysses S. Grant's command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month Siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14, dying the next day.
By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of continuing interest is the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The war was among the first to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the electrical telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 698,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian casualties, making the Civil War the deadliest military conflict in American history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming world wars. |
American Civil War | Origins | Origins
The origins of the war were rooted in the desire of the Southern states to preserve the institution of slavery. Historians in the 21st century overwhelmingly agree on the centrality of slavery in the conflict—at least for the Southern states. They disagree on which aspects (ideological, economic, political, or social) were most important, and on the North's reasons for refusing to allow the Southern states to secede.Aaron Sheehan-Dean, "A Book for Every Perspective: Current Civil War and Reconstruction Textbooks", Civil War History (2005) 51#3 pp. 317–324 The pseudo-historical Lost Cause ideology denies that slavery was the principal cause of the secession, a view disproven by historical evidence, notably some of the seceding states' own secession documents. After leaving the Union, Mississippi issued a declaration stating, "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world."
The principal political battle leading to Southern secession was over whether slavery would expand into the Western territories destined to become states. Initially Congress had admitted new states into the Union in pairs, one slave and one free. This had kept a sectional balance in the Senate but not in the House of Representatives, as free states outstripped slave states in numbers of eligible voters. Thus, at mid-19th century, the free-versus-slave status of the new territories was a critical issue, both for the North, where anti-slavery sentiment had grown, and for the South, where the fear of slavery's abolition had grown. Another factor leading to secession and the formation of the Confederacy was the development of white Southern nationalism in the preceding decades.John McCardell, The Idea of a Southern Nation: Southern Nationalists and Southern Nationalism, 1830–1860 (1981) The primary reason for the North to reject secession was to preserve the Union, a cause based on American nationalism.Susan-Mary Grant, North Over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era (2000)
Background factors in the run up to the Civil War were partisan politics, abolitionism, nullification versus secession, Southern and Northern nationalism, expansionism, economics, and modernization in the antebellum period. As a panel of historians emphasized in 2011, "while slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were the primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war."Elizabeth R. Varon, Bruce Levine, Marc Egnal, and Michael Holt at a plenary session of the organization of American Historians, March 17, 2011, reported by David A. Walsh "Highlights from the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians in Houston, Texas" HNN online |
American Civil War | Lincoln's election | Lincoln's election
thumb|Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, an 1860 photograph portrait of Abraham Lincoln by Mathew Brady|alt=Portrait of the middle-aged Abraham Lincoln the year of 1860 by Mathew Brady
Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election. Southern leaders feared Lincoln would stop slavery's expansion and put it on a course toward extinction. His victory triggered declarations of secession by seven slave states of the Deep South, all of whose riverfront or coastal economies were based on cotton that was cultivated by slave labor.
Lincoln was not inaugurated until March 4, 1861, four months after his 1860 election, which afforded the South time to prepare for war. Nationalists in the North and "Unionists" in the South refused to accept the declarations of secession, and no foreign government ever recognized the Confederacy. The U.S. government, under President James Buchanan, refused to relinquish the nation's forts, which the Confederacy claimed were located in their territory.
According to Lincoln, the American people had demonstrated, beginning with their victory in the American Revolution and Revolutionary War and subsequent establishment of a sovereign nation, that they could successfully establish and administer a republic. Yet, Lincoln believed, a question remained unanswered: Could the nation be maintained as a republic, where its government was selected based on the people's vote, given ongoing internal attempts to destroy or separate from such a system. |
American Civil War | Outbreak of the war | Outbreak of the war |
American Civil War | Secession crisis | Secession crisis
thumb|upright=1.35| |alt=Map of U.S. showing two kinds of Union states, two phases of secession and territories
Lincoln's election provoked South Carolina's legislature to call a state convention to consider secession. South Carolina had done more than any other state to advance the notion that a state had the right to nullify federal laws and even secede. On December 20, 1860, the convention unanimously voted to secede and adopted a secession declaration. It argued for states' rights for slave owners but complained about states' rights in the North in the form of resistance to the federal Fugitive Slave Act, claiming that Northern states were not fulfilling their obligations to assist in the return of fugitive slaves. The "cotton states" of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed suit, seceding in January and February 1861.
Among the ordinances of secession, those of Texas, Alabama, and Virginia mentioned the plight of the "slaveholding states" at the hands of Northern abolitionists. The rest made no mention of slavery but were brief announcements by the legislatures of the dissolution of ties to the Union. However, at least four—South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas—provided detailed reasons for their secession, all blaming the movement to abolish slavery and its influence over the North. Southern states believed that the Fugitive Slave Clause made slaveholding a constitutional right. These states agreed to form a new federal government, the Confederate States of America, on February 4, 1861. They took control of federal forts and other properties within their boundaries, with little resistance from outgoing president James Buchanan, whose term ended on March 4. Buchanan said the Dred Scott decision was proof the Southern states had no reason to secede and that the Union "was intended to be perpetual". He added, however, that "The power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union" was not among the "enumerated powers granted to Congress". A quarter of the U.S. army—the Texas garrison—was surrendered in February to state forces by its general, David E. Twiggs, who joined the Confederacy.
As Southerners resigned their Senate and House seats, Republicans could pass projects that had been blocked. These included the Morrill Tariff, land grant colleges, a Homestead Act, a transcontinental railroad, the National Bank Act, authorization of United States Notes by the Legal Tender Act of 1862, and the end of slavery in the District of Columbia. The Revenue Act of 1861 introduced income tax to help finance the war.
thumb|upright=0.8|left|Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America (1861–1865)|alt=Middle-aged man in a goatee posed standing in a suit, vest and bowtie
In December 1860, the Crittenden Compromise was proposed to re-establish the Missouri Compromise line, by constitutionally banning slavery in territories to the north of it, while permitting it to the south. The Compromise would likely have prevented secession, but Lincoln and the Republicans rejected it. Lincoln stated that any compromise that would extend slavery would bring down the Union. A February peace conference met in Washington, proposing a solution similar to the Compromise; it was rejected by Congress. The Republicans proposed the Corwin Amendment, an alternative, not to interfere with slavery where it existed, but the South regarded it as insufficient. The remaining eight slave states rejected pleas to join the Confederacy, following a no-vote in Virginia's First Secessionist Convention on April 4.
On March 4, Lincoln was sworn in as president. In his inaugural address, he argued that the Constitution was a more perfect union than the earlier Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was a binding contract, and called secession "legally void". He did not intend to invade Southern states, nor to end slavery where it existed, but he said he would use force to maintain possession of federal property, including forts, arsenals, mints, and customhouses that had been seized. The government would not try to recover post offices, and if resisted, mail delivery would end at state lines. Where conditions did not allow peaceful enforcement of federal law, U.S. marshals and judges would be withdrawn. No mention was made of bullion lost from mints. He stated that it would be U.S. policy "to collect the duties and imposts"; "there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere" that would justify an armed revolution. His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union, famously calling on "the mystic chords of memory" binding the two regions.
The Davis government of the new Confederacy sent delegates to Washington to negotiate a peace treaty. Lincoln rejected negotiations, because he claimed that the Confederacy was not a legitimate government and to make a treaty with it would recognize it as such. Lincoln instead attempted to negotiate directly with the governors of seceded states, whose administrations he continued to recognize.
Complicating Lincoln's attempts to defuse the crisis was Secretary of State William H. Seward, who had been Lincoln's rival for the Republican nomination. Embittered by his defeat, Seward agreed to support Lincoln's candidacy only after he was guaranteed the executive office then considered the second most powerful. In the early stages of Lincoln's presidency Seward held little regard for him, due to his perceived inexperience. Seward viewed himself as the de facto head of government, the "prime minister" behind the throne. Seward attempted to engage in unauthorized and indirect negotiations that failed. Lincoln was determined to hold all remaining Union-occupied forts in the Confederacy: Fort Monroe in Virginia, Fort Pickens, Fort Jefferson, and Fort Taylor in Florida, and Fort Sumter in South Carolina. |
American Civil War | Battle of Fort Sumter | Battle of Fort Sumter
alt=Artwork Despite him stone fort at center surrounded by water. The fort is on fire, and shells explode in the air above it.|thumb|The Battle of Fort Sumter, as depicted by Currier and Ives
The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces opened fire on the Union-held Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter is located in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. Its status had been contentious for months. Outgoing president Buchanan had dithered in reinforcing its garrison, commanded by Major Robert Anderson. Anderson took matters into his own hands and on December 26, 1860, under the cover of darkness, sailed the garrison from the poorly placed Fort Moultrie to the stalwart island Fort Sumter. Anderson's actions catapulted him to hero status in the North. An attempt to resupply the fort on January 9, 1861, failed and nearly started the war then, but an informal truce held. On March 5, Lincoln was informed the fort was low on supplies.
Fort Sumter proved a key challenge to Lincoln's administration. Back-channel dealing by Seward with the Confederates undermined Lincoln's decision-making; Seward wanted to pull out. But a firm hand by Lincoln tamed Seward, who was a staunch Lincoln ally. Lincoln decided holding the fort, which would require reinforcing it, was the only workable option. On April 6, Lincoln informed the Governor of South Carolina that a ship with food but no ammunition would attempt to supply the fort. Historian McPherson describes this win-win approach as "the first sign of the mastery that would mark Lincoln's presidency"; the Union would win if it could resupply and hold the fort, and the South would be the aggressor if it opened fire on an unarmed ship supplying starving men. An April 9 Confederate cabinet meeting resulted in Davis ordering General P. G. T. Beauregard to take the fort before supplies reached it.
At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, Confederate forces fired the first of 4,000 shells at the fort; it fell the next day. The loss of Fort Sumter lit a patriotic fire under the North. On April 15, Lincoln called on the states to field 75,000 militiamen for 90 days; impassioned Union states met the quotas quickly. On May 3, 1861, Lincoln called for an additional 42,000 volunteers for three years. Shortly after this, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina seceded and joined the Confederacy. To reward Virginia, the Confederate capital was moved to Richmond. |
American Civil War | Attitude of the border states | Attitude of the border states
thumb|upright=1.35|U.S. secession map, showing the Union and the Confederacy
(One of these states, West Virginia, was created in 1863, while KY, WV and MO had dual competing Confederate and Unionist governments)
Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, West Virginia and Kentucky were slave states whose people had divided loyalties to Northern and Southern businesses and family members. Some men enlisted in the Union Army and others in the Confederate Army. West Virginia separated from Virginia and was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, though half its counties were secessionist.
Maryland's territory surrounded Washington, D.C., and could cut it off from the North. It had anti-Lincoln officials who tolerated anti-army rioting in Baltimore and the burning of bridges, both aimed at hindering the passage of troops to the South. Maryland's legislature voted overwhelmingly to stay in the Union, but rejected hostilities with its southern neighbors, voting to close Maryland's rail lines to prevent their use for war. Lincoln responded by establishing martial law and unilaterally suspending habeas corpus in Maryland, along with sending in militia units. Lincoln took control of Maryland and the District of Columbia by seizing prominent figures, including arresting one-third of the members of the Maryland General Assembly on the day it reconvened. All were held without trial, with Lincoln ignoring a ruling on June 1, 1861, by Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, not speaking for the Court, that only Congress could suspend habeas corpus (Ex parte Merryman). Federal troops imprisoned a Baltimore newspaper editor, Frank Key Howard, after he criticized Lincoln in an editorial for ignoring Taney's ruling.
In Missouri, an elected convention on secession voted to remain in the Union. When pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson called out the state militia, it was attacked by federal forces under General Nathaniel Lyon, who chased the governor and rest of the State Guard to the southwestern corner of Missouri (see Missouri secession). Early in the war the Confederacy controlled southern Missouri through the Confederate government of Missouri but was driven out after 1862. In the resulting vacuum, the convention on secession reconvened and took power as the Unionist provisional government of Missouri.
Kentucky did not secede, it declared itself neutral. When Confederate forces entered in September 1861, neutrality ended and the state reaffirmed its Union status while maintaining slavery. During an invasion by Confederate forces in 1861, Confederate sympathizers and delegates from 68 Kentucky counties organized the secession Russellville Convention, formed the shadow Confederate Government of Kentucky, inaugurated a governor, and Kentucky was admitted into the Confederacy on December 10, 1861. Its jurisdiction extended only as far as Confederate battle lines in the Commonwealth, which at its greatest extent was over half the state, and it went into exile after October 1862.
After Virginia's secession, a Unionist government in Wheeling asked 48 counties to vote on an ordinance to create a new state in October 1861. A voter turnout of 34% approved the statehood bill (96% approving). Twenty-four secessionist counties were included in the new state, and the ensuing guerrilla war engaged about 40,000 federal troops for much of the war. Congress admitted West Virginia to the Union on June 20, 1863. West Virginians provided about 20,000 soldiers to each side in the war. A Unionist secession attempt occurred in East Tennessee, but was suppressed by the Confederacy, which arrested over 3,000 men suspected of loyalty to the Union; they were held without trial. |
American Civil War | War | War
The Civil War was marked by intense and frequent battles. Over four years, 237 named battles were fought, along with many smaller actions, often characterized by their bitter intensity and high casualties. Historian John Keegan described it as "one of the most ferocious wars ever fought", where in many cases the only target was the enemy's soldiers. "Over 10,000 military engagements took place during the war, 40 percent of them in Virginia and Tennessee."Gabor Boritt (ed.). War Comes Again (1995), p. 247. |
American Civil War | Mobilization | Mobilization
thumb|upright=0.8|Rioters attacking a building during the New York anti-draft riots of 1863|alt=Building on fire as rioters look on, one holds a sign that says "no draft"
As the Confederate states organized, the U.S. Army numbered 16,000, while Northern governors began mobilizing their militias. The Confederate Congress authorized up to 100,000 troops in February. By May, Jefferson Davis was pushing for another 100,000 soldiers for one year or the duration, and the U.S. Congress responded in kind.
In the first year of the war, both sides had more volunteers than they could effectively train and equip. After the initial enthusiasm faded, relying on young men who came of age each year was not enough. Both sides enacted draft laws (conscription) to encourage or force volunteering, though relatively few were drafted. The Confederacy passed a draft law in April 1862 for men aged 18–35, with exemptions for overseers, government officials, and clergymen. The U.S. Congress followed in July, authorizing a militia draft within states that could not meet their quota with volunteers. European immigrants joined the Union Army in large numbers, including 177,000 born in Germany and 144,000 in Ireland. About 50,000 Canadians served, around 2,500 of whom were black.
When the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in January 1863, ex-slaves were energetically recruited to meet state quotas. States and local communities offered higher cash bonuses for white volunteers. Congress tightened the draft law in March 1863. Men selected in the draft could provide substitutes or, until mid-1864, pay commutation money. Many eligibles pooled their money to cover the cost of anyone drafted. Families used the substitute provision to select which man should go into the army and which should stay home. There was much evasion and resistance to the draft, especially in Catholic areas. The New York City draft riots in July 1863 involved Irish immigrants who had been signed up as citizens to swell the vote of the city's Democratic political machine, not realizing it made them liable for the draft. Of the 168,649 men procured for the Union through the draft, 117,986 were substitutes, leaving only 50,663 who were conscripted.
In the North and South, draft laws were highly unpopular. In the North, some 120,000 men evaded conscription, many fleeing to Canada, and another 280,000 soldiers deserted during the war. At least 100,000 Southerners deserted, about 10 percent of the total. Southern desertion was high because many soldiers were more concerned about the fate of their local area than the Southern cause. In the North, "bounty jumpers" enlisted to collect the generous bonus, deserted, then re-enlisted under a different name for a second bonus; 141 were caught and executed.
From a tiny frontier force in 1860, the Union and Confederate armies grew into the "largest and most efficient armies in the world" within a few years. Some European observers at the time dismissed them as amateur and unprofessional, but historian John Keegan concluded that each outmatched the French, Prussian, and Russian armies, and without the Atlantic, could have threatened any of them with defeat. |
American Civil War | Southern Unionists | Southern Unionists
thumb|136x136px|Newton Knight (Mississippi), leader of the Knight Company and one of the founders of the Free State of Jones.
Unionism was strong in certain areas within the Confederacy. As many as 100,000 men living in states under Confederate control served in the Union Army or pro-Union guerrilla groups. Although they came from all classes, most Southern Unionists differed socially, culturally, and economically from their region's dominant prewar, slave-owning planter class.Scott, E. Carole. Southerner vs. Southerner: Union Supporters Below the Mason-Dixon Line. Warfare History Network. Retrieved November 11, 2024. |
American Civil War | Prisoners | Prisoners
left|thumb|142x142px|A Union soldier held as a POW in Georgia
At the war's start, a parole system operated, under which captives agreed not to fight until exchanged. They were held in camps run by their army, paid, but not allowed to perform any military duties. The system of exchanges collapsed in 1863 when the Confederacy refused to exchange black prisoners. After that, about 56,000 of the 409,000 POWs died in prisons, accounting for 10 percent of the conflict's fatalities. |
American Civil War | Women | Women
Historian Elizabeth D. Leonard writes that between 500 and 1,000 women enlisted as soldiers on both sides, disguised as men. Women also served as spies, resistance activists, nurses, and hospital personnel. Women served on the Union hospital ship Red Rover and nursed Union and Confederate troops at field hospitals. Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor, served in the Union Army and was given the medal for treating the wounded during the war. One woman, Jennie Hodgers, fought for the Union under the name Albert D. J. Cashier. After she returned to civilian life, she continued to live as a man until she died in 1915 at the age of 71.Blanton, DeAnne, "A Life on His Own Terns: Albert D. J. Cashier, 95th Illinois Infantry", in Brian Matthew Jordan and Jonathan W. White, eds., Final Resting Places: Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves. Athen, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2023, pp. 47-53. |
American Civil War | Union Navy | Union Navy
thumb|Battle between the and |alt=Painting of land battle scene in foreground and naval battle with sinking ships in background
The Union Navy in 1861 was relatively small but, by 1865, expanded rapidly to 6,000 officers, 45,000 sailors, and 671 vessels totaling 510,396 tons. Its mission was to blockade Confederate ports, control the river system, defend against Confederate raiders on the high seas, and be ready for a possible war with the British Royal Navy. The main riverine war was fought in the West, where major rivers gave access to the Confederate heartland. The U.S. Navy eventually controlled the Red, Tennessee, Cumberland, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers. In the East, the Navy shelled Confederate forts and supported coastal army operations.
The Civil War occurred during the early stages of the industrial revolution, leading to naval innovations, including the ironclad warship. The Confederacy, recognizing the need to counter the Union's naval superiority, built or converted over 130 vessels, including 26 ironclads. Despite these efforts, Confederate ships were largely unsuccessful against Union ironclads. The Union Navy used timberclads, tinclads, and armored gunboats. Shipyards in Cairo, Illinois, and St. Louis built or modified steamboats.Myron J. Smith, Tinclads in the Civil War: Union Light-Draught Gunboat Operations on Western Waters, 1862–1865 (2009).
The Confederacy experimented with the submarine , which proved unsuccessful, and with the ironclad , rebuilt from the sunken Union ship .Gerald F. Teaster and Linda and James Treaster Ambrose, The Confederate Submarine H. L. Hunley (1989). On March 8, 1862, Virginia inflicted significant damage on the Union's wooden fleet, but the next day, the first Union ironclad, , arrived to challenge it in the Chesapeake Bay. The resulting three-hour Battle of Hampton Roads was a draw, proving ironclads were effective warships. The Confederacy scuttled the Virginia to prevent its capture, while the Union built many copies of the Monitor. The Confederacy's efforts to obtain warships from Great Britain failed, as Britain had no interest in selling warships to a nation at war with a stronger enemy and feared souring relations with the U.S. |
American Civil War | Union blockade | Union blockade
thumb|General Scott's Anaconda Plan, featuring a tightening naval blockade, forcing rebels out of Missouri along the Mississippi River, Kentucky Unionists sit on the fence, idled cotton industry illustrated in Georgia.|alt=A cartoon map of the South surrounded by a snake.
By early 1861, General Winfield Scott had devised the Anaconda Plan to win the war with minimal bloodshed, calling for a blockade of the Confederacy to suffocate the South into surrender. Lincoln adopted parts of the plan but opted for a more active war strategy. In April 1861, Lincoln announced a blockade of all Southern ports; commercial ships could not get insurance, ending regular traffic. The South blundered by embargoing cotton exports before the blockade was fully effective; by the time they reversed this decision, it was too late. "King Cotton" was dead, as the South could export less than 10% of its cotton. The blockade shut down the ten Confederate seaports with railheads that moved almost all the cotton. By June 1861, warships were stationed off the principal Southern ports, and a year later nearly 300 ships were in service. |
American Civil War | Blockade runners | Blockade runners
thumb|upright=1.35|Gunline of nine Union ironclads. South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston. Continuous blockade of all major ports was sustained by North's overwhelming war production. |alt=Panoramic view of ships in harbor during battle
The Confederates began the war short on military supplies, which the agrarian South could not produce. Northern arms manufacturers were restricted by an embargo, ending existing and future contracts with the South. The Confederacy turned to foreign sources, connecting with financiers and companies like S. Isaac, Campbell & Company and the London Armoury Company in Britain, becoming the Confederacy's main source of arms.
To transport arms safely to the Confederacy, British investors built small, fast, steam-driven blockade runners that traded arms and supplies from Britain, through Bermuda, Cuba, and the Bahamas in exchange for high-priced cotton. Many were lightweight and designed for speed, only carrying small amounts of cotton back to England. When the Union Navy seized a blockade runner, the ship and cargo were condemned as a prize of war and sold, with proceeds given to the Navy sailors; the captured crewmen, mostly British, were released. |
American Civil War | Economic impact | Economic impact
The Southern economy nearly collapsed during the war due to multiple factors, the most notable being severe food shortages, failing railroads, loss of control over key rivers, foraging by Northern armies, and the seizure of animals and crops by Confederate forces. Historians agree the blockade was a major factor in ruining the Confederate economy; however, Wise argues blockade runners provided enough of a lifeline to allow Robert E. Lee, a Confederate general, to continue fighting for additional months, as a result of supplies that included 400,000 rifles, lead, blankets, and boots that Confederate economy could no longer supply.
The Confederate cotton crop became nearly useless, which cut off the Confederacy's primary income source. Critical imports were scarce, and coastal trade also largely ended. The blockade's success was not measured by the few ships, which slipped through, but by the thousands that never tried. European merchant ships could not obtain insurance for their ships and transport, and were too slow to evade the blockade, leading them to cease docking in Confederate ports.
To fight an offensive war, the Confederacy purchased arms in Britain and converted British-built ships into commerce raiders, which targeted United States Merchant Marine ships in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The Confederacy smuggled 600,000 arms, enabling it to continue fighting for two more years. As insurance rates soared, American-flagged ships largely ceased traveling in international waters, though some were reflagged with European flags, which allowed them to continue operating. After the conclusion of the Civil War, the U.S. government demanded Britain reimburse it for the damage caused by blockade runners and raiders outfitted in British ports. Britain paid the U.S. $15 million in 1871, which covered costs associated with commerce raiding but nothing more. |
American Civil War | Diplomacy | Diplomacy
thumb|left|A December 1861 cartoon in Punch magazine in London ridicules American aggressiveness in the Trent Affair. John Bull, at right, warns Uncle Sam, "You do what's right, my son, or I'll blow you out of the water."
Although the Confederacy hoped Britain and France would join them against the Union, this was never likely, so they sought to bring them in as mediators. The Union worked to block this and threatened war against any country that recognized the Confederacy. In 1861, Southerners voluntarily embargoed cotton shipments, hoping to start an economic depression in Europe that would force Britain to enter the war, but this failed. Worse, Europe turned to Egypt and India for cotton, which they found superior, hindering the South's postwar recovery.
Cotton diplomacy proved a failure, because Europe had a surplus of cotton, while the 1860–62 crop failures in Europe made the North's grain exports critically important. It also helped turn European opinion against the Confederacy. It was said that "King Corn was more powerful than King Cotton," as U.S. grain increased from a quarter to almost half of British imports. Meanwhile, the war created jobs for arms makers, ironworkers, and ships to transport weapons.
Lincoln's administration initially struggled to appeal to European public opinion. At first, diplomats explained that the U.S. was not committed to ending slavery and emphasized legal arguments about the unconstitutionality of secession. Confederate representatives, however, focused on their struggle for liberty, commitment to free trade, and the essential role of cotton in the European economy. The European aristocracy was "absolutely gleeful in pronouncing the American debacle as proof that the entire experiment in popular government had failed. European government leaders welcomed the fragmentation of the ascendant American Republic." However, a European public with liberal sensibilities remained, which the U.S. sought to appeal to by building connections with the international press. By 1861, Union diplomats like Carl Schurz realized emphasizing the war against slavery was the Union's most effective moral asset in swaying European public opinion. Seward was concerned an overly radical case for reunification would distress European merchants with cotton interests; even so, he supported a widespread campaign of public diplomacy.
U.S. minister to Britain Charles Francis Adams proved adept and convinced Britain not to challenge the Union blockade. The Confederacy purchased warships from commercial shipbuilders in Britain, with the most famous being the , which caused considerable damage and led to serious postwar disputes. However, public opinion against slavery in Britain created a political liability for politicians, where the anti-slavery movement was powerful.Richard Huzzeym, Freedom Burning: Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain (2013).
War loomed in late 1861 between the U.S. and Britain over the Trent Affair, which began when U.S. Navy personnel boarded the British ship and seized two Confederate diplomats. However, London and Washington smoothed this over after Lincoln released the two men. Prince Albert left his deathbed to issue diplomatic instructions to Lord Lyons during the Trent Affair. His request was honored, and, as a result, the British response to the U.S. was toned down, helping avert war. In 1862, the British government considered mediating between the Union and Confederacy, though such an offer would have risked war with the U.S. British prime minister Lord Palmerston reportedly read Uncle Tom's Cabin three times when deciding what his decision would be.
The Union victory at the Battle of Antietam caused the British to delay this decision. The Emancipation Proclamation increased the political liability of supporting the Confederacy. Realizing that Washington could not intervene in Mexico as long as the Confederacy controlled Texas, France invaded Mexico in 1861 and installed the Habsburg Austrian archduke Maximilian I as emperor.Shawcross, Edward (2021). The Last Emperor of Mexico: The Dramatic Story of the Habsburg Archduke Who Created a Kingdom in the New World. New York: Basic Books. . Also titled The Last Emperor of Mexico: A Disaster in the New World. London: Faber & Faber, 2022. Washington repeatedly protested France's violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Despite sympathy for the Confederacy, France's seizure of Mexico ultimately deterred it from war with the Union. Confederate offers late in the war to end slavery in return for diplomatic recognition were not seriously considered by London or Paris. After 1863, the Polish revolt against Russia further distracted the European powers and ensured they remained neutral.
Russia supported the Union, largely because it believed the U.S. counterbalanced its geopolitical rival, the UK. In 1863, the Imperial Russian Navy's Baltic and Pacific fleets wintered in the American ports of New York and San Francisco, respectively.Norman E. Saul, Richard D. McKinzie, eds. Russian-American Dialogue on Cultural Relations, 1776–1914. Columbia, Missouri, and London, UK: University of Missouri Press, p. 95. . |
American Civil War | Eastern theater | Eastern theater
thumb|upright=1.5|County map of Civil War battles by theater and year|alt=Map of the United States with counties colored
The Eastern theater refers to the military operations east of the Appalachian Mountains, including Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and the coastal fortifications and seaports of North Carolina. |
American Civil War | Background | Background |
American Civil War | Army of the Potomac | Army of the Potomac
Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan took command of the Union Army of the Potomac on July 26, 1861, and the war began in earnest in 1862. The 1862 Union strategy called for simultaneous advances along four axes:
McClellan would lead the main thrust in Virginia towards Richmond.
Ohio forces would advance through Kentucky into Tennessee.
The Missouri Department would drive south along the Mississippi River.
The westernmost attack would originate from Kansas. |
American Civil War | Army of Northern Virginia | Army of Northern Virginia
thumb|upright=0.8|Robert E. Lee|alt=Old man with gray beard and military uniform
The primary Confederate force in the Eastern theater was the Army of Northern Virginia. The Army originated as the (Confederate) Army of the Potomac, which was organized on June 20, 1861, from all operational forces in Northern Virginia. On July 20 and 21, the Army of the Shenandoah and forces from the District of Harpers Ferry were added. Units from the Army of the Northwest were merged into the Army of the Potomac between March 14 and May 17, 1862. The Army of the Potomac was renamed Army of Northern Virginia on March 14. The Army of the Peninsula was merged into it on April 12, 1862.
When Virginia declared its secession in April 1861, Robert E. Lee chose to follow his home state, despite his desire for the country to remain intact and an offer of a senior Union command. In his four-volume biography of Lee published in 1934 and 1935, historian Douglas S. Freeman wrote that the army received its final name from Lee when he issued orders assuming command on June 1, 1862. However, Freeman wrote, Lee corresponded with Brigadier General Joseph E. Johnston, his predecessor in army command, before that date and referred to Johnston's command as the Army of Northern Virginia. Part of the confusion results from the fact that Johnston commanded the Department of Northern Virginia as of October 22, 1861, and the name Army of Northern Virginia was seen as an informal consequence of its parent department's name. Jefferson Davis and Johnston did not adopt the name, but the organization of units as of March 14 was clearly the same organization that Lee received on June 1, and is generally referred to as the Army of Northern Virginia, even if that is correct only in retrospect.
On July 4 at Harper's Ferry, Colonel Thomas J. Jackson assigned Jeb Stuart command of all cavalry companies of the Army of the Shenandoah, and Jackson eventually commanded the Army of Northern Virginia's cavalry. |
American Civil War | Battles | Battles
thumb|A portrait depicting the Battle of Antietam, which resulted in over 22,000 fatalities, the Civil War's deadliest one-day battle|alt=Painting of battlefield scene
In July 1861, in the first in a series of prominent battles in the war, Union Army troops commanded by Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell attacked Confederate forces, which were under the command of Beauregard near the national capital in Washington. The Confederacy successfully repelled the attack in the First Battle of Bull Run. In the beginning of the Civil War, the Union appeared to hold the upper hand. The Union Army routed Confederate forces, then holding defensive positions, but Confederate reinforcements under Joseph E. Johnston arrived from the Shenandoah Valley by railroad, and the battle's course quickly changed. A brigade of Virginians, commanded by Thomas J. Jackson, then a relatively unknown brigadier general from Virginia Military Institute, stood its ground, leading to Jackson earning the nickname "Stonewall". Lincoln urged the Union Army to commence offensive operations against Confederate forces, which led General George B. McClellan, in the spring of 1862, to attack Virginia by way of the peninsula between the York River and James River southeast of Richmond. McClellan's army reached the gates of Richmond in the Peninsula campaign.
Also in the spring of 1862, in Shenandoah Valley, Jackson led his Valley Campaign, during which he employed rapid and unpredictable movements on interior lines. Jackson's 17,000 troops marched 646 miles (1,040 km) in 48 days, during which they won minor battles as they successfully engaged three Union armies, comprising 52,000 men, including those of Nathaniel P. Banks and John C. Fremont, preventing them from reinforcing the Union offensive against Richmond. The swiftness of Jackson's troops earned them the nickname foot cavalry. Johnston halted McClellan's advance at the Battle of Seven Pines, but he was wounded in the battle, and Robert E. Lee assumed his position of command. Lee and his senior subordinates, James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson, defeated McClellan in the Seven Days Battles, forcing McClellan's retreat.
thumb|Union soldiers in the trenches, just prior to the Second Battle of Fredericksburg in May 1863
During the Northern Virginia Campaign, which included the Second Battle of Bull Run, Confederate forces registered another important military victory. McClellan resisted General-in-Chief Halleck's orders to send reinforcements to John Pope's Union Army of Virginia, which enabled Lee's Confederate forces to defeat twice the number of combined enemy troops.
Emboldened by Second Bull Run, Confederate forces launched their first invasion of the North in the Maryland Campaign during which Lee led 45,000 Army of Northern Virginia troops across the Potomac River into Maryland on September 5. Lincoln then restored Pope's troops to McClellan, and McClellan and Lee clashed in the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, which proved the bloodiest single day in both the Civil War and U.S. military history. Lee's army retreated to Virginia before McClellan could destroy it, leading the Battle of Antietam to be widely viewed as a Union victory since it halted Lee's invasion of the North and provided an opportunity for Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which he issued as an executive order on January 1, 1863.
McClellan failed to respond in any measurable way to Lee's attempt to invade the North at Antietam led to his replacement by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. Burnside led Union Army troops in the Battle of Fredericksburg, where they were defeated on December 13, 1862. Over 12,000 Union soldiers were killed or wounded during futile attempts by Union troops to launch frontal assaults against Marye's Heights.Matteson, John, A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation, New York: W. W. Norton, 2021. After the battle, Burnside was replaced by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker.
thumb|A portrait depicting Pickett's Charge on July 3, 1863, the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg, which proved the Civil War's deadliest battle but also one of its most significant, altering the course of the war in the Union's favor|alt=Cavalry charges on a battlefield
Hooker, too, proved unable to defeat Lee's army; despite having over twice the number of troops than Lee, Hooker's proved Chancellorsville Campaign ultimately prvoed ineffective, and he was soundly defeated in the Battle of Chancellorsville, which was fought between April 30 and May 6, 1863. Chancellorsville is known as Lee's "perfect battle" because his risky decision to divide his army paid off, resulting in a significant Confederate victory. During the Battle of Chancellorsville, Stonewall Jackson was shot in his left arm and right hand by friendly fire, leading to a need to amputate his arm, and he died of pneumonia. Lee famously said: "He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right arm."
The fiercest fighting of the battle—and the second bloodiest day of the Civil War—occurred on May 3 as Lee launched multiple attacks against the Union position at Chancellorsville. That same day, John Sedgwick advanced across the Rappahannock River, defeated the small Confederate force at Marye's Heights in the Second Battle of Fredericksburg, and then moved to the west. Confederate forces succeeded in militarily delaying Union forces in the Battle of Salem Church.
Hooker was replaced by Maj. Gen. George Meade during Lee's second invasion of the North, in June. In the Battle of Gettysburg, which proved the war's bloodiest and one of its most strategically significant, Meade defeated Lee in a three-day battle between July 1 and 3, 1863. The Battle of Gettysburg took over 50,000 Union and Confederate lives, but also proved the war's turning point, altering the course of the war in the Union's favor. Pickett's Charge, launched July 3, on the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg, is considered the high-water mark of the Confederacy, representing the collapse of any credible prospect that the Confederacy could prevail in the war. At Gettysburg, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia suffered 28,000 casualties versus Meade's 23,000, and Lee was repelled in a failed attempt to invade and occupy Union territory. |
American Civil War | Western theater | Western theater
The Western theater refers to military operations between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, including Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, and parts of Louisiana. |
American Civil War | Background | Background |
American Civil War | Army of the Cumberland and Army of the Tennessee | Army of the Cumberland and Army of the Tennessee
thumb|Ulysses S. Grant, a Union army general who was later elected the nation's 18th president
The primary Union forces in this theater were the Army of the Tennessee and Army of the Cumberland, named for the two rivers, Tennessee River and Cumberland River. After Meade's inconclusive fall campaign, Lincoln turned to the Western theater for new leadership. At the same time, the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg surrendered, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River, permanently isolating the western Confederacy, and producing the new leader Lincoln needed, Ulysses S. Grant.
The Army of Tennessee, which served as the primary Confederate force in the Western theater, was formed on November 20, 1862, when General Braxton Bragg renamed the former Army of Mississippi. While Confederate forces had successes in the Eastern theater, they were defeated many times in the West. |
American Civil War | Battles | Battles
The Union's key strategist and tactician in the West was Ulysses S. Grant, who led the Union to victories in battles at Fort Henry (February 6, 1862) and Fort Donelson (February 11 to 16, 1862), earning him the nickname of "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. With these victories, the Union gained control of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. Nathan Bedford Forrest rallied nearly 4,000 Confederate troops and led them to escape across the Cumberland River. Nashville and central Tennessee fell to the Union, leading to attrition of local food supplies and livestock and a breakdown in social organization.
Confederate general Leonidas Polk's subsequently invaded Columbus, Kentucky, which ended Kentucky's policy of neutrality and turned it against the Confederacy. Grant used river transport and Andrew Hull Foote's gunboats of the Western Flotilla, threatening the Confederacy's "Gibraltar of the West" in Columbus, Kentucky. Although rebuffed at Belmont, Grant cut off Columbus. Confederate forces, lacking their gunboats, were forced to retreat and the Union took control of west Kentucky and opened Tennessee in March 1862.
At the Battle of Shiloh, in Shiloh, Tennessee, in April 1862, Confederates forces launched surprise attack on Union forces, pushing them back to river as night fell. Over that night, however, the Navy landed reinforcements, and Grant counterattacked. Grant and the Union ultimately won a decisive victory in the first battle with a high number of casualties in what proved to be the first in a series of such battles. Confederate forces lost Albert Sidney Johnston, considered their finest general, before Lee emerged to assume command.
thumb|The Battle of Chickamauga, the war's highest two-day loss battle
One of the early Union objectives was to capture the Mississippi River, which would permit it to cut the Confederacy in half. The Mississippi was opened to Union traffic to the southern border of Tennessee after it took Island No. 10, New Madrid, Missouri, and then Memphis, Tennessee.
In April 1862, the Union Navy captured New Orleans. "The key to the river was New Orleans, the South's largest port [and] greatest industrial center."Kennedy, p. 58. U.S. naval forces under Farragut ran past Confederate defenses south of New Orleans. Confederate forces abandoned the city, giving the Union a critical anchor in the deep South, which allowed Union forces to move up the Mississippi. Memphis fell to Union forces on June 6, 1862, allowing it to serve as a key base for further Union advances south along the Mississippi. On the Mississippi River, the Union took every fortress city with the exception of Vicksburg, Mississippi. But Confederate control of Vicksburg was sufficient in preventing the Union from controlling the entire river.
Bragg's second invasion of Kentucky in the Confederate Heartland Offensive included initial successes, including Kirby Smith's triumph in the Battle of Richmond and the capture of the Kentucky capital of Frankfort, Kentucky, on September 3, 1862. The campaign ended with a meaningless victory over Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell at the Battle of Perryville, and Bragg was forced to end his attempt to invade and control Kentucky. Lacking logistical support and infantry recruits, Bragg was instead forced to retreat, and ended up being narrowly defeated by Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans in the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee in what proved to be the culmination of the Stones River Campaign.
U.S. naval forces assisted Grant in the long, complex Vicksburg Campaign, which resulted in Confederate forces surrendering in the Battle of Vicksburg in July 1863, which cemented Union control of the Mississippi River in one of the war's turning points.Miller, Donald L. Vicksburg: Grant's Campaign that Broke the Confederacy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019. . The one clear Confederate victory in the West was the Battle of Chickamauga. After Rosecrans' successful Tullahoma Campaign, Bragg, reinforced by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's corps, defeated Rosecrans, despite the defensive stand of Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Bragg was then besieged in the Chattanooga Campaign. Grant marched to the relief of Rosecrans, where he led the defeat of Bragg in the Third Battle of Chattanooga, eventually causing Longstreet to abandon his Knoxville Campaign and driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee and opening a route to Atlanta and the heart of the Confederacy. |
American Civil War | Trans-Mississippi theater | Trans-Mississippi theater |
American Civil War | Background | Background
The Trans-Mississippi theater refers to military operations west of the Mississippi, encompassing most of Missouri, Arkansas, most of Louisiana, and the Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. The Trans-Mississippi District was formed by the Confederate States Army to better coordinate Ben McCulloch's command of troops in Arkansas and Louisiana, Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard, as well as the portion of Earl Van Dorn's command that included the Indian Territory and excluded the Army of the West. The Union's command was the Trans-Mississippi Division, or the Military Division of West Mississippi. |
American Civil War | Battles | Battles
thumb|Nathaniel Lyon secured docks and arsenal in St. Louis, leading Union Army forces to expel the Missouri Confederate forces and government.
The first battle of the Trans-Mississippi theater was the Battle of Wilson's Creek (August 1861). The Confederates were driven from Missouri early in the war as a result of the Battle of Pea Ridge.
Extensive guerrilla warfare characterized the trans-Mississippi region, as the Confederacy lacked the troops and logistics to support regular armies that could challenge Union control. Roving Confederate bands such as Quantrill's Raiders terrorized the countryside, striking military installations and civilian settlements. The "Sons of Liberty" and "Order of the American Knights" attacked pro-Union people, elected officeholders, and unarmed uniformed soldiers. These partisans could not be driven out of Missouri, until an entire regular Union infantry division was engaged. By 1864, these violent activities harmed the nationwide antiwar movement organizing against the re-election of Lincoln. Missouri not only stayed in the Union, but Lincoln took 70 percent of the vote to win re-election.
Small-scale military actions south and west of Missouri sought to control Indian Territory and New Mexico Territory for the Union. The Battle of Glorieta Pass was the decisive battle of the New Mexico Campaign. The Union repulsed Confederate incursions into New Mexico in 1862, and the exiled Arizona government withdrew into Texas. In the Indian Territory, civil war broke out within tribes. About 12,000 Indian warriors fought for the Confederacy but fewer for the Union. The most prominent Cherokee was Brigadier General Stand Watie, the last Confederate general to surrender.
After the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863, Jefferson Davis informed General Kirby Smith in Texas that he could expect no further help from east of the Mississippi. Although he lacked resources to beat Union armies, he built up a formidable arsenal at Tyler, along with his own Kirby Smithdom economy, a virtual "independent fiefdom" in Texas, including railroad construction and international smuggling. The Union, in turn, did not directly engage him. Its 1864 Red River Campaign to take Shreveport, Louisiana, failed and Texas remained in Confederate hands throughout the war. |
American Civil War | Lower seaboard theater | Lower seaboard theater |
American Civil War | Background | Background
The lower seaboard theater refers to military and naval operations that occurred near the coastal areas of the Southeast as well as the southern part of the Mississippi. Union naval activities were dictated by the Anaconda Plan. |
American Civil War | Battles | Battles
thumb|New Orleans captured
One of the earliest battles was fought in November 1861 at Port Royal Sound, south of Charleston. Much of the war along the South Carolina coast concentrated on capturing Charleston. In attempting to capture Charleston, the Union military tried two approaches: by land over James or Morris Islands or through the harbor. However, the Confederates were able to drive back each attack. A famous land attack was the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, in which the 54th Massachusetts Infantry took part. The Union suffered a serious defeat, losing 1,515 soldiers while the Confederates lost only 174. However, the 54th was hailed for its valor, which encouraged the general acceptance of the recruitment of African American soldiers into the Union Army, which reinforced the Union's numerical advantage.
Fort Pulaski on the Georgia coast was an early target for the Union navy. Following the capture of Port Royal, an expedition was organized with engineer troops under the command of Captain Quincy Adams Gillmore, forcing a Confederate surrender. The Union army occupied the fort for the rest of the war after repairing it.
In April 1862, a Union naval task force commanded by Commander David Dixon Porter attacked Forts Jackson and St. Philip, which guarded the river approach to New Orleans from the south. While part of the fleet bombarded the forts, other vessels forced a break in the obstructions in the river and enabled the rest of the fleet to steam upriver to the city. A Union army force commanded by Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler landed near the forts and forced their surrender. Butler's controversial command of New Orleans earned him the nickname "Beast".
The following year, the Union Army of the Gulf commanded by Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks laid siege to Port Hudson for nearly eight weeks, the longest siege in U.S. military history. The Confederates attempted to defend with the Bayou Teche Campaign but surrendered after Vicksburg. These surrenders gave the Union control over the Mississippi.
Several small skirmishes but no major battles were fought in Florida. The biggest was the Battle of Olustee in early 1864. |
American Civil War | Pacific coast theater | Pacific coast theater
The Pacific coast theater refers to military operations on the Pacific Ocean and in the states and Territories west of the Continental Divide. |
American Civil War | Conquest of Virginia | Conquest of Virginia
thumb|upright=0.8|left|William Tecumseh Sherman
At the beginning of 1864, Lincoln made Grant commander of all Union armies. Grant made his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac and put Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in command of most of the western armies. Grant understood the concept of total war and believed, along with Lincoln and Sherman, that only the utter defeat of Confederate forces and their economic base would end the war. This was total war not in killing civilians, but in taking provisions and forage and destroying homes, farms, and railroads, that Grant said "would otherwise have gone to the support of secession and rebellion. This policy I believe exercised a material influence in hastening the end."
Grant devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the entire Confederacy from multiple directions. Generals Meade and Benjamin Butler were ordered to move against Lee near Richmond, General Franz Sigel was to attack the Shenandoah Valley, General Sherman was to capture Atlanta and march to the Atlantic Ocean, Generals George Crook and William W. Averell were to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia, and Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks was to capture Mobile, Alabama. |
American Civil War | Grant's Overland Campaign | Grant's Overland Campaign
Grant's army set out on the Overland Campaign intending to draw Lee into a defense of Richmond, where they would attempt to pin down and destroy the Confederate army. The Union army first attempted to maneuver past Lee and fought several battles, notably at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. These resulted in heavy losses on both sides and forced Lee's Confederates to fall back repeatedly. At the Battle of Yellow Tavern, the Confederates lost Jeb Stuart.
An attempt to outflank Lee from the south failed under Butler, who was trapped inside the Bermuda Hundred river bend. Each battle resulted in setbacks for the Union that mirrored those they had suffered under prior generals, though unlike them, Grant chose to fight on rather than retreat. Grant was tenacious and kept pressing Lee's Army of Northern Virginia back to Richmond. While Lee was preparing for an attack on Richmond, Grant unexpectedly turned south to cross the James River and began the protracted Siege of Petersburg, where the two armies engaged in trench warfare for over nine months. |
American Civil War | Sheridan's Valley Campaign | Sheridan's Valley Campaign
thumb|upright=0.8|Philip Sheridan
To deny the Confederacy continued use of the Shenandoah Valley as a base from which to launch invasions of Maryland and the Washington area, and to threaten Lee's supply lines for his forces, Grant launched the Valley campaigns in the spring of 1864. Initial efforts led by Gen. Sigel were repelled at the Battle of New Market by Confederate Gen. John C. Breckinridge. The Battle of New Market was the Confederacy's last major victory, and included a charge by teenage VMI cadets. After relieving Sigel, and following mixed performances by his successor, Grant finally found a commander, General Philip Sheridan, aggressive enough to prevail against the army of Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early. After a cautious start, Sheridan defeated Early in a series of battles in September and October 1864, including a decisive defeat at the Battle of Cedar Creek. Sheridan then proceeded through that winter to destroy the agricultural base of the Shenandoah Valley, a strategy similar to the tactics Sherman later employed in Georgia. |
American Civil War | Sherman's March to the Sea | Sherman's March to the Sea
Meanwhile, Sherman maneuvered from Chattanooga to Atlanta, defeating Confederate Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood. The fall of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, guaranteed the reelection of Lincoln. Hood left the Atlanta area to swing around and menace Sherman's supply lines and invade Tennessee in the Franklin–Nashville Campaign. Union Maj. Gen. John Schofield defeated Hood at the Battle of Franklin, and George H. Thomas dealt Hood a massive defeat at the Battle of Nashville, effectively destroying Hood's army.
Leaving Atlanta, and his base of supplies, Sherman's army marched, with no destination set, laying waste to about 20% of the farms in Georgia in his "March to the Sea". He reached the Atlantic at Savannah, Georgia, in December 1864. Sherman's army was followed by thousands of freed slaves; there were no major battles along the march. Sherman turned north through South Carolina and North Carolina, to approach the Confederate Virginia lines from the south, increasing the pressure on Lee's army. |
American Civil War | The Waterloo of the Confederacy | The Waterloo of the Confederacy
Lee's army, thinned by desertion and casualties, was now much smaller than Grant's. One last Confederate attempt to break the Union hold on Petersburg failed at the decisive Battle of Five Forks on April 1. The Union now controlled the entire perimeter surrounding Richmond–Petersburg, completely cutting it off from the Confederacy. Realizing the capital was now lost, Lee's army and the Confederate government were forced to evacuate. The Confederate capital fell on April 2–3, to the Union XXV Corps, composed of black troops. The remaining Confederate units fled west after a defeat at Sayler's Creek on April 6. |
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