The Turning Point: 1863

By 1863, the Lincoln administration had created an efficient war machine and a set of strategic priorities. Henry Adams, the grandson of John Quincy Adams and a future novelist and historian, noted the change from his diplomatic post in London: “Little by little, one began to feel that, behind the chaos in Washington power was taking shape; that it was massed and guided as it had not been before.” Slowly but surely, the tide of the struggle turned against the Confederacy.