Civil War, Reconstruction, & Cowboys Past Paper PDF

The Secession Crisis (pg. 384) 1. “Southern Nationalism” a. after the news of Abraham Lincoln’s election reached the South, militant leaders there (aka the champions of new concept of “Southern nationalism”; men known both as “fire- eaters”) began to demand an end to the Union The With...

The Secession Crisis (pg. 384) 1. “Southern Nationalism” a. after the news of Abraham Lincoln’s election reached the South, militant leaders there (aka the champions of new concept of “Southern nationalism”; men known both as “fire- eaters”) began to demand an end to the Union The Withdrawal of the South (pg. 384) 1. special convention a. on December 20, 1860, it voted unanimously to withdraw South Carolina from the Union - it was the first state to secede b. Horace Greely realizes the divide between views over slavery 2. establishment of the Confederacy a. when Lincoln took office, 6 southern states have already seceded - includes Mississippi (Jan 9, 1861), Florida (Jan 10), Alabama (Jan 11), Georgia (Jan 19), Louisiana (Jan 26), and Texas (Feb 1) 1. this shows how divided the Union is b. representatives of the 7 seceded states announced the formation of the Confederate States of America - February 1861 in Montgomery, Alabama - North was confused and indecisive - President Buchanan told Congress that no state had the right to secede from Union; he suggested that the federal gov’t had no authority to stop a state if it did 3. seceding states immediately seized federal property within their boundaries a. this included forts, arsenals, and gov’t offices b. at first, they didn’t have sufficient military power to seize 2 fortified offshore military installations - Fort Sumter in SC garrisoned under Major Robert Anderson 1. Buchanan refused (but timid) to give Sumter to South Carolina a. instead, he gave Fort Sumter additional troops and supplies in Jan 1861  b. where the first shots between North and South happened = the start of the war (even tho neither side wanted to confirm it) = in Washington, there were efforts to once more forge a compromise - Fort Pickens in FL Failure of Compromise (pg. 384) 1. Crittenden Compromise a. by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky b. called for several constitutional amendments - this would garantee the permanent existence of slavery in the slave states & would satisfy Southern demands on issues like fugitive enslaved ppl and slavery in District of Columbia - however, at the heart of it, its purpose was to reestablish the Missouri Compromise line in all present and future territory of the US 1. Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery north of the 36’ 30 line but permitted it south of it - (remaining) Southerners in the Senate were willing to accept it, but not the Republicans 1. it would have required the latter to abandon their most fundamental position: slavery wouldn’t be allowed to expand 2. nothing had been resolved when Lincoln had his inauguration a. his speech dealt directly with the secession crisis b. his several basic principles include: - since Union was older than Constitution, no state could leave it 1. it had been earlier established “President Buchanan told Congress that no state had the right to secede from Union” when the 7 states seceded - acts of force or violence to support secession were insurrectionary (a rise to revolt) - the gov’t would “hold, occupy, and possess” federal property in the seceded states 1. this was a clear reference to Fort Sumter  Fort Sumter (pg. 385) 1. conditions at Fort Sumter were deteriorating quickly a. Union forces were running short of supplies - the fort would have to be evacuated unless they received fresh provisions b. Lincoln believed that if he surrendered Sumter, his commitment to maintaining the Union would no longer be credible - so he sent a relief expedition to fort in order to carefully inform SC authorities that there would be no attempt to send troops or munitions unless supply ships met w/ resistance 2. the war beings a. permitting the expedition to land would seem to be a tame submission to federal authority - this was a dilemma towards the new Confederate gov’t b. Confederate leaders decided that appearing cowardly would be worse than to appear belligerent - firing shots would seem (to North at least) to aggression - they ordered General P. G. T. Beauregard to take the island, by force if necessary 1. he was the commander of Confederate forces at Charleston c. Confederates then bombared the fort for two days - that happened when Anderson refused to surrender Fort Sumter - on April 14, 1861, Anderson surrendered = Civil War begins 3. as Southern states begin to secede, Lincoln spoke of American liberty 4. almost immediately, Lincoln began mobilizing the North for war a. 4 more slave states seceded from Union and joined Confederacy - includes VA, AR, NC, and TN b. 4 remaining slave states cast their lot with the Union - includes MD, DE, KY, and MO - tho, they were under heavy political and military pressure from Washington 5. the question is: was there anyting that Lincoln (or those before him) could have done to settle the sectional conflict peaceably?  a. however, by 1861, it seems clear that in both North and South, sectional antagonisms (whether justified or not) had rise to such a point that existing terms of union had become untenable 6. people in both regions had come to believe that the 2 distinct and incompatible civilizations had developed in the US a. along with the fact that those civilizations were incapable of living together in peace The Opposing Sides (pg. 386) 1. Union advantages a. all important material advantages lay with them - population was more than 2x as large of South (and nearly 4x as large as nonslave southern population) 1. from that, the Union had greater manpower reserve for both its armies and its workforce - had advanced industrial system 1. by 1862, they were able to manufacture almost all its own war materials 2. South had to rely in imports from Europe throughout the war - North had a much better transportation system 1. in particular, they had more and better railroads: 2x as much trackage as Confederacy & much better integrated system of lines 2. during the war, the already inferior Confederation railroad system steadily deteriorated 3. by beginning of 1864, it had almost collapsed 2. Southern advantages a. the North’s material advtanges weren’t as decisive as they appear in retrospect - South was fighting a defensive war on its own land 1. had advantage of local support and familiarity with the territory 2. North armies were mostly fighting within the South a. they had long lines of communications, amid hostile local populations, and with access only to South’s own inadequate transportation system  - commitment of white population of South was clear and firm 1. in North, opinion about war was divided & support for it remained shaky until near end 2. a major Southern victory at any one of several crucial moments might have proved decisive by breaking the North’s will to continue the struggle - many Southerners believed that the dependence of the English and French textile industries on American cotton would require those nations to intervene on side of Confederacy 1. they most likely had foreign support The Mobilization of the North (pg. 387) 1. in North, war produced consderiable discord, frustration, and suffering a. tho, it had also produced prosperity and economic growth by giving a major stimulus to both industry and agriculture Economic Measures (pg. 387) 1. Republican Economic Policy a. with Southern forces now gone from Congress, the Republican Party could exercise virtually unchallenged authority - during the war, it enacted an aggresively nationalist program to promote economic development (specifically in West) b. Homestead Act of 1861 - permitted any citizen or prospective citizen to claim 160 acres of public land & to purchase it for a small fee after living on it for 5 years c. Morill Land Grant Act of 1861 - transferred substantial public acreage to the state govt’s - this was to sell the land and use the proceeds to finance public education - led to creation of many new state colleges and universities (so-called land- grant institutions) d. Congress also passed a series of tariff bills - by end of war, it had raised duties to the highest level in the nation’s history  1. there was a great boom to domestic industires ager for protection from foreign competition 2. Congress also moved to complete the dream of transcontinental railroad a. created 2 new federally chartered corporations - Union Pacific Railroad Company (build westward from Omaha) - Central Pacific (used to build eastward from California) 1. this settled the prewar conflict over the location of the line b. the 2 projects were to meet in middle and complete the link c. the gov’t provided free public lands and generous loans to the companies 3. national bank acts a. National Bank Acts of 1863-1864 created a new national banking system - existing or newly formed banks could join the system 1. that’s if they had enough capital and were wiling to invest 1/3 of it in the government securities 2. in return, they could issue US Treasury notes as currency b. the new system eliminated much of chaos and uncertainty in the nation’s currency & created a uniform system of national bank notes 4. financing the war a. much more difficult than promoting economic growth b. gov’t tried to do this in 3 ways: - levying taxes, issuing paper currency, and borrowing c. Congress levied new taxes on almost all goods and services - however, taxation raised only a small proportion of the funds necessary for financing the war - strong popular resistance prevented the gov’t from raising taxes d. new currency was backed not by gold or silver, but simply by good faith and credit of the gov’t (like today) - value of greenbacks (aka paper currency) fluctuated according to fortunes of Northern armies - early 1864, with the war effort bogged down, a greenback dollar was worth only 39% of a gold dollar (even near end war, it was worht only 67% of a gold dollar)  - due to this difficulty of making purchases with this uncertain currency, the gov’t used greenbacks sparingly - there was significant inflation b/c the treasury issued only $450 million worht of paper currency (a small proportion of cost of the war) 5. loans from the American people were the largest source of financing for the war a. previously, gov’t had sold bonds only to banks and to few wealthy investors b. now, the Treasury persuaded ordinary citizens to buy over $400 million worth of bonds - first example of mass financing of a war in American history - however, bond purchases by individuals constitued only small part of government’s borrowing c. most of the loans to finance the war came from banks and large financial interests Raising the Union Armies (pg. 388) 1. over 2 million men served in Union armed forces during course of Civil War a. beginning 1861, there were only 16,000 US troops (many of them stationed in west to protect white settlers from Native Americans) b. the Union (like Confederacy) had to raise its army mostly from scratch - Lincoln called for increase of 23,000 in regular army; but bulk of fighting would have to be done by volunteers in state militias c. Congress authorizied enlisitng 500,000 volunteers for 3-year terms - as opposed to customary 3 month terms - July 1861 - this voluntary system of recruitment produced adequate forces only briefly - after first flush of enthusiasm for war, enlistments declined d. Congress was forced to pass national draft law by March 1863 - virtually all young adult males were eligible to be drafted (men could escape service by hiding or paying a gov’t fee of $300) - only about 46,000 men were ever actually conscripted, but the draft greatly increased voluntary enlistments  2. draft riots a. conscription was strange and threatening to those accustomed to remote and inactive national gov’t b. opposition to law was widespread - this was among laborers, immigrants, and Democrats 1. the latter were known as “Peace Democrats” or “Copperheads” c. occasionally, oppoisiton to the draft erupted into violence Wartime Politics 1. at first (early 1861), many politicians noted Abraham Lincoln’s lack of national experience and his folksy, unpretentious manner a. this considered him a minor politician from the prairies (a man whom the real leaders of his party would easily control) b. however, the Lincoln moved quickly to establish his own authority - he assembled a cabinet - Lincoln moved boldly as well to use war powers of presidency, ignoring what he considered inconvenient parts of Constitution 1. he said that it would be foolish to lose the whole by being afraid to disregard a party 2. he sent troops into battle without asking Congress for a declaration of war a. he insisted on calling the conflict oa domestic insurrection (which required no formal declaration of war); asking for a declaration (he believed) would constitute implicit recognition of Confederacy as an independent nation 3. he increased size of regular army w/o receiving legislative authority to do so 4. he unilaterally proclaimed a naval blockade of the South 2. Wartime Repression a. widespread population opposition to war was Lincoln’s greatest political problem - this was mobilized by factions in Democratic party b. Peace Democrats feared that agricultural Northwest was losing influence to industrial East & Republican nationalism was eroding states’ rights  - Lincoln used extraordinary methods to suppress them c. he ordered military arrests of civilian dissenters and suspended the right of habeas corpus - habeas corpus was the right of a person to be released by a judge or court from unlawful detention, as in the case of insufficient evidence d. at first, Lincoln used these methods only in sensitive areas such as border states - in 1862, he proclaimed that all persons (who discouraged enlistments or engaged in disloyal practices) were subject to martial law 1. martial law involves the temporary substitution of military authority for civilian rule e. Ohio Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham - he is a most prominent Copperhead in the nation - he was seized by military authorities and exiled to Confederacy 1. this was after he made a speech claiming that the purpose of the war was to free African Americans and enslave white ppl f. Lincoln defied all efforts to curb his authority to suppress opposition, even those of Supreme Court - when Chief Justice Taney isseud a writ (Ex parte Merryman) requiring Lincoln to release an imprisoned Maryland secessionist leader, he simply ignored it 1. after war in 1866, Supreme Court ruled in Ex parte Milligan that military trials in areas (where the civil courts existed) were unconstitutional 3. repression wasn’t the only tool in which North used to strengthen support for the war a. Lincoln’s adminstration also used new tools of persuasion to build popular opinion in favor of the war - besides pro-war pamphlets, posters, speeches, and songs, the war mobilized a significnat corps of photographs 1. the last was organized by renowned Mathew Brady (one of first important photographers in American history) to take pictures of the war b. the photographs that resulted from this effort (new to warfare) were among the grimmest ever made to that point, many of them displaying the vast numbers of dead on Civil War battlefields  - for some Americans, images of death contributed to a revulsion from the war - for most Northernres, they gave evidence of level of sacrifice that had been made for presservation of Union and thus spurred the nation on to victory 1. Southerners used similar propganda in Confederacy, although less effectively 4. presidential election of 1864 in the midst of considerable political dissension a. Republicans had suffered heavy losses in congressiional elections of 1862 - in resopnse, leaders of the party tried to create a braod coalition of all groups that supported the war - this new organization was called the Union Party 1. however, it was little more than Republican Party and small faction of War Democrats b. Lincoln was nominated by Union Party for another term as president & Andrew Johnson of TN for vice presidency - the latter was a War Democrat who had opposed his state’s decision to secede 5. George B. McClellan was nominated by the Democrats - he was a celebrated former Union general who had been relieved of his command by Lincoln - the party adopted a platform denouncing the war and calling for a truce - McClellan repurdiated that demand, but the Democrats were cleraly the peace party in the campagin, trying to profit from growing war weariness and from Union’s discouraging military position in summer 1864 6. 1864 Election a. several Northern military victories rejuvenated Northern morale and boosted Republican prospects - especially the capture of Atlanta, Georgia in early September b. Lincoln won reelection comfortably The Causes of the Civil War (pg. 391) 1. b/c the North and South had reached positions in issue of slavery that were both irreconcilable and seemingly inalivetable, some historians slaimed that the conflict had become “inevitable” The Politics of Emancipation (pg. 390) 1. Despite their surface unity in 1864 and their general agreement on most economic matters, the Republicans disagreed sharply on the issue of slavery. a. Radicals-led in Congress by such men as Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and Senators Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and Benjamin Wade of Ohio wanted to use the war to abolish slavery immediately and completely. b. Conservatives favored a slower, more gradual, and, they believed, less disruptive process for ending slavery - In the beginning, at least, they had the support of the president. 2. confiscation acts a. Despite Lincoln's cautious view of emancipation, momentum began to gather behind it early in the war. b. In 1861, Congress passed the Confiscation Act, which declared that all enslaved people used for "insurrectionary" purposes (that is, in support of the Confederate military effort) would be considered freed. - Subsequent laws in the spring of 1862 abolished slavery in Washington, D.C., and in the western territories, and compensated slaveholders. d. In July 1862, the Radicals pushed through Congress the second Confiscation Act - this again declared free the enslaved people of persons aiding and supporting the insurrection (whether or not the enslaved people themselves were doing so) and which also authorized the president to employ African Americans, including freedmen, as soldiers. - As the war progressed, much of the North seemed slowly to accept emancipation as a central war aim; nothing less would justify the enormous sacrifices of the struggle, many Northerners believed. e. As a result, the Radicals increased their influence within the Republican Party - this was a development that did not go unnoticed by the president, who decided to seize the leadership of the rising antislavery sentiment himself.  3. emancipation proclamation a. September 22, 1862, after the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam, the president announced his intention to use his war powers to issue an executive order freeing all enslaved people in the Confederacy b. on january 1, 1863, he formally signed the Emancipation Proclamation - this declared forever free enslaved people in all areas of the Confederacy except those already under Union control 1. this included TN, western VA, and southern LA - proclamation did not apply to the border slave states 1. they had never seceded from the Union and therefore were not subject to the president's war powers. c. On the day of Emancipation, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a "Boston Hymn" 4. the immediate effect of the proclamation was limited a. this was b/c it applied only to enslaved people still under Confederate control b. however, the document was of great importance nevertheless - it clearly and irrevocably established that the war was being fought not only to preserve the Union, but also to eliminate slavery. c. Eventually, as federal armies occupied much of the South, the proclamation became a practical reality and led directly to the freeing of thousands of enslaved people. - Even in areas not directly affected by the proclamation, the antislavery impulse gained strength. 5. US govt’s tentative measures against slavery weren’t (at first) a major factor in liberation of enslaved ppl a. instead, the war helped Alrican Americans to liberate themselves - which they did so in increasing numbers as the war progressed b. Many enslaved people were taken from their plantations and put to work building defenses and other chates - Once transported to the front, many of them found ways to escape across Northern lines, where they were treated as '”contraband” 1. “contraband” were goods seized from people who had no right to them 2. from that, they could not be returned to their slaveholders.  c. By 1862 the Union army often penetrated deep into the Confedency - Almost everywhere they went - escaped enslaved people (often whole families) flocked to join them by the thousands - some of them joined the Union army, others simply stayed with the troops until they could find their way to free states. d. When the Union captured New Orleans and much of southem LA, enslaved people refused to work for their former slaveholders - yet, the Union occupiers had not made any provisions for liberating African Americans 6. by end of war, slavery had been abolished in 2 Union slave states a. this included MD and MO - along in 3 Confederate states occupied by Union forces 1. includes TN, AK, and LA b. the final step came in 1865, when Congress approved and the necessary states ratified the 13th Amendment - this abolished slavery as an institution on all parts of the United States c. After more than 2 centuries legalized slavery, it had finally ceased to exist in USA African Americans and the Union Cause (pg. 392) 1. about 186,000 emancipated African Americans served as soldiers, sailors, and laborers for Union forces a. hey joined a significant # of free African Americans from the North s b. services of African Americans to the Union military were significant in many ways - not least because of the substantial obstacles many black men had to surmount in order to enlist 2. African American enlistment a. the first months of the war, African Americans were largely excluded from the military b. A few black regimen eventually took shape in some of the Union occupied areas of the Confederacy  - mainly b/c they were a ready sours of manpower in these defeated regions c. however, once Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, African American enlistment increased rapidly - Union military began to actively recruit African American soldiers and sailors in both the North and South (if possible) 3. 54th Massachusetts Infantry a. background: some of these men were organized into fighting units b. like most black regiments, they had a white commander: Robert Gould Shaw - he was a member of an aristocratic Boston family. c. Shaw and more than half his regiment died during a battle near Charleston, South Carolina, in the summer of 1863 4. mistreatment of black soldiers a. most African American soliders were assigned menial tasks behind the lines - his included digging trenches and transporting water b. even though fewer African American soldiers than white soldiers died in combat, the black mortality rate was higher than the rate for white soldiers - this was b/c so many died of disease from working long, arduous hours in unsanitary conditions c. Conditions for African American and white soldiers were unequal in other ways as well - African American soldiers were paid a third less than were white soldiers (until Congress changed the law in mid-1864) - however, dangerous, onerous, or menial the tasks African American soldiers were given, most of them felt enormous pride in their service 1. included pride they retained throughout their lives and often through the lives of their descendants d. many moved from the army into politics and other forms of leadership (in both the North and, after the war, the Reconstruction South) 5. African American soliders captured by Confederates weren’t returned to North a. which was unlike white prisoners b. this was in exchange for Southern soldiers being returned to South c. they were sent back to their slaveholders (if they were fugitive enslaved men) or often executed  War and Economic Development (pg. 393) 1. Civil War did not (as some historians used to claim) transform the North from an agrarian to an industrial society a. Industrialization was already far advanced when the war began - in some areas, the war retarded growth 1. the war had cut off manufacturers off from their Southern markets and sources of raw material a. also by diverting labor and resources to military purposes 2. the war sped the economic development of the North a. in part a result of the political dominance of the Republican Party and its promotion of nationalistic economic legislation b. also b/c the war itself required the expansion of certain sectors of the economy - Coal production increased by nearly 20 percent during the war - Railroad facilities improved 1. mainly through the adoption of a standard gauge (track width) on new lines c. loss of farm labor to the military forced many farmers to increase the mechanization of agriculture 3. hard times for workers a. Civil War was a difficult experience for many American workers - For industrial workers, there was a substantial loss of purchasing power, as prices in the North rose by more than 70 percent during the war, while wages rose only about 40 percent 1. partly because liberalized immigration laws permitted a flood of new workers into the labor market and helped keep wages low 2. also because the increasing mechanization of production eliminated the jobs of many skilled workers b. One result of these changes was a substantial increase in union membership a. like in in many industries and the creation of several national unions - for coal miners, railroad engineers, and others—organizations bitterly opposed and rigorously suppressed by employers. Consider the Source (pg. 394) 1. causes of wars are different from their meanings  Women, Nursing, and the War 1. Responding not only to the needs of employers for additional labor, but to their own, often desperate (need for money) women found themselves (by either choice or necessity) thrust into new and often unfamiliar roles during the war a. they took over positions vacated by men and worked as teachers, retail salesclerks, office workers, and mill and factory hands 2. US Sanitary Commission a. above all, women entered nursing, a field previously dominated by men b. U.S. Sanitary Commission mobilized large numbers of female nurses to serve in field hospitals - this was an organization of civilian volunteers led by social reformer, Dorothea Dix c. By the end of the war, women were the dominant force in nursing - by 1900, nursing had become an almost entirely female profession. - Female nurses not only cared for patients but also performed other tasks considered appropriate for women: cooking, cleaning, and laundering 3. traditional gender roles reinforced a. Female nurses encountered considerable resistance from male doctors, many of whom considered women too weak for medical work and who, in any case, thought it inappropriate that women were taking care of men who were strangers to them - The Sanitary Commission tried to counter such arguments by attributing to nursing many of the domestic ideals that American society attributed to women's work in the home: women as nurses would play the same maternal, nurturing, instructive role they played as wives and mothers - The right of woman to her sphere, which includes housekeeping, cooking, and nursing, has never been disputed," one Sanitary Commission official insisted b. But not all women who worked for the commission were content with a purely maternal role - some challenged the dominance of men in the organization and even stood up against doctors whom they considered incompetent, increasing the resentment felt toward them by many men c. In the end, the work of female nurses was so indispensable to the military that the complaints of male doctors were irrelevant  4. nurses (and many other women) found the war liberating experience a. Some women, especially those who had been committed to feminist causes earlier, came to see the war as an opportunity to win support for their own goals - Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who together founded the National Woman's Loyal League in 1863, worked simultaneously for the abolition of slavery and the awarding of suf frage to women - Clara Barton, who was active during the war in collecting and distributing medical supplies and who later became an important figure in the nursing profession (and a founder of the American Red Cross) 5. nursing and medicine a. nursing had an enormous impact on the medical profession and on the treatment of wounded soldiers during the war b. the U.S. Sanitary Commission not only organized women to serve at the front - but it also funneled medicine and supplies to badly overtaxed field hospitals - The commission also (as its name suggests) helped spread ideas about the importance of sanitary conditions in hospitals and clinics and probably contributed to the relaive decline of death by disease in the Civil War - Nevertheless 2x as many soldiers died of diseases malaria, dysenter, tahoid, gangrene, and others as dieasen combat during the war 1. Even minor injuries could lead to fatal infections Mobilization of the South (pg. 397) 1. even though the Union and the Confederacy had their distinct differences, they also had important similarities a. like similarities in their political systems, in the medthods they used for financing the war, and conscripting troops, and in the way they fought - these are ways in which both sides mobilized for war The Confederate Government (pg. 397) 1. Confederacy constitution was largely identical to the Constitution of the United States, but with several significant exceptions  a. it explicitly acknowledged the sovereignty of the Individual states (although not the right of secession) & it specifically sanctioned slavery and made its abolition (even by one of the states) practically impossible 2. The constitutional convention at Montgomery named Jefferson Davis (as provisional president) and Alexander H. Stephens (as vice president) a. Davis had been a moderate secessionist before the war, Stephens had argued against secession - The Confederate government (like the Union government) was dominated throughout the war by moderate leaders. - Also like the Union's, it was dominated less by the old aristocracy of the East than by the newer aristocrats of the West, of whom Davis was the most prominent example 3. Davis’s leadership a. Davis was an unsuccessful president - he was a reasonably able administrator and the dominating figure in his government; encountering little interference from the generally tame members of his unstable cabinet and serving as his own secretary of war b. he rarely provided genuinely national leadership = One shrewd Confederate official wrote: "All the revolutionary vigor is with the enemy.... With us timidity-hair splitting.” 4. Southern divisions a. no formal political parties in the Confederacy, but its congressional and popular politics were rife w/ dissension nevertheless - Some white Southerners (and ofc most African Americans who were aware of the course of events) opposed secession and war - Many white people in poorer "backcountry" and "upcountry" regions, where slavery was limited, refused to recognize the new Confederate government or to serve in the Southern army 1. some worked or even fought for the Union b. Most white Southerners supported the war - but as in the North, many were openly critical of the government and the military, particularly as the tide of battle turned against the South and the Confederate economy decayed  Money and Manpower 1. Financing the Confederate war effort was a monumental and ultimately impossible task a. involved creating a national revenue system in a society unaccustomed to significant tax burdens b. depended on a small and unstable banking system that had little capital to lend c. Because most wealth in the South was invested in enslaved people and land, liquid assets were scarce - the Confederacy's only gold seized from U.S. mints located in the South-was worth only about S1 million. 2. funding problems a. The Confederate congress tried at first not to tax the people directly, but to requisition funds from the individual states - Most of the states, however, were also unwilling to tax their citizens and paid their shares, (when they paid them at all) with bonds or notes of dubious worth b. In 1863, the congress enacted an income tax-which planters could pay "in kind (as a percentage of their produce) - But taxation never provided the Confederacy with much revenue; it produced only about 1 percent of the government's total income. - Borrowing was not much more successful. The Confederate government issued bonds in such vast amounts that the public lost faith in them and stopped buying c. efforts to borrow $ in Europe using cotton as collateral fared no better 3. As a result, the Confederacy had to pay for the war through the least stable, most destructive form of financing a. it was paper currency, which it began issuing in 1861 - By 1864, the Confederacy had issued the staggering total of $1.5 billion in paper money, more than twice what the Union had produced b. unlike the Union, the Confederacy did not establish a uniform currency system - includes a national government, states, cities, and private banks all issued their own notes, producing widespread chaos and confusion c. result was a disastrous inflation, far worse than anything the North experienced. Prices in the North rose 80 percent in the course of the war; in the South they rose 9,000 per cent, with devastating effects on the South's morale 4. raising the Confederate army a. Like the US, the Confederacy first raised a military by calling for volunteers b. And as in the North, by the end of 1861 voluntary enlistments were declining. - In April 1862, therefore, the congress enacted a Conscription Act, which subjected all white males between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five to military service for three years - As in the North, a draftee could avoid service if he furnished a substitute. But since the price of substitutes was high, the provision aroused such opposition from poorer white Southerners that it was repealed in 1863. - Even more controversial was the exemption from the draft of one white man on each plantation with twenty or more enslaved people, a provision that caused smaller farmers to make the same complaint some Northerners made: "It's a rich man's war but a poor man's fight." c. Many more white Southerners were exempted from military service than were Northerners. 5. Even so, conscription worked for a time a. After 1862, however, conscription began producing fewer men-in part because the Union had by then begun to seize large areas of the Confederacy - thus, it had cut off much of the population from conscription or recruitment 6. manpower shortage a. Early in 1864, the government faced a critical manpower shortage - In a desperate move, the Confederate congress began trying to draft men as young as seventeen and as old as fifty - however, in a nation suffering from intense war weariness, (where many had concluded that defeat was inevitable) nothing could attract or retain an adequate army any longer b. In 1864-1865 there were 100,000 desertions - In a frantic final attempt to raise men, the Confederate congress authorized the conscription of 300,000 enslaved men, but the war ended before the government could attempt this incongruous experiment States’ Rights versus Centralization (pg. 398)  1. the greatest sources of division in South were differences of opinion over the doctrine of states’ rights a. state' rights had become such a cult among many white Southerners that they resisted all efforts to exert national authority (even those necessary to win the war) - they restricted Davis's ability to impose martial law and suspend habeas corpus; obstructed conscription b. Recalcitrant governors (like Joseph Brown of GA and Zebulon M. Vance of NC) tried at times to keep their own troops apart from the Confederate forces and insisted on hoarding surplus supplies for their own states' militias 2. centralization a. Even so, the Confederate government did make substantial strides in centralizing power in the South - By the end of the war, the Confederate bureaucracy was larger than its counterpart in Washington b. The central gov’t experimented, successfully for a time, with a "food draft" - the “food draft” permitted soldiers to feed them selves by seizing crops from farms in their path - The gov’t impressed enslaved people, often over the objections of slaveholders, to work as laborers on military projects c. The Confederacy seized control of the railroads and shipping; It imposed regulations on industry: limited corporate profits - State' rights sentiment was a significant handicap, but the South nevertheless took important steps in the direction of centralization - it was becoming in the process increasingly like the region whose institutions it was fighting to escape Economic and Social Effects of the Civil War (pg. 398) 1. The war had a devastating effect on the economy of the South - It cut off Southern planters and producers from the markets in the North on which they had depended; it made the sale of cotton overseas much more difficult; it robbed farms and industries that did not have large enslaved populations of a male workforce, leaving some of them unable to function effectively. - While in the North production of all goods, agricul tural and industrial, increased somewhat during the war; in the South production declined by more than a third 2. Most of all, perhaps, the fighting itself wreaked havoc on the Southern economy a. Almost all the major battles of the war occurred within the Confederacy - both armies spent most of their time on Southern soil - As a result of the savage fighting, the South's already inadequate railroad system was nearly destroyed; much of its most valuable farmland and many of its most successful plantations were ruined by Union troops (especially in the last year of the war). 3. economic woes a. Once the Northern naval blockade became efective in 1862, the South experienced massive shortages of almost everything - the region was overwhelmingly agricultural - however, since it had concentrated so single-mindedlay on producing cotton and other export crops, it did not grow enough food to meet its own needs b. despite the efforts of women and enslaved laborers to keep farms functioning, the departure of white male workers seriously diminished the region's ability to keep up what food production there had been - Large numbers of doctors were conscripted to serve the needs of the military, leaving many communities without any medical care - Blacksmiths, car-penters, and other craftsmen were similarly in short supply 4. As the war continued, the shortages, the inflation, and the suffering created increasing instability in Southern society - There were major food riots, with some led by women - Resistance to con-scription, food impressment, and taxation increased throughout the Confederacy, as did hoarding and black-market commerce 5. new roles for women a. Despite the economic woes of the South, the war transformed Confederate society in many of the same ways that it was changing the society of the Union - The changes were particularly significant for Southern women b. b/c so many men left the farms and plantations to fight, the task of keeping families together and maintaining agricultural production fell increasingly to women - Slaveholders' wives often became responsible for managing large enslaved workforces - the wives of modest farmers learned to plow fields and harvest crops - Substantial numbers of females worked as schoolteachers or in government agencies in Richmond - Even larger numbers chose nursing, both in hospitals and in temporary facilities set up to care for wounded soldiers 6. long-range results of the war for Southern women are more difficult to measure but equally profound a. experience of the 1860s forced many women to question the prevailing Southern assumption that females were unsuited for certain activities, that they were not fit to participate actively in the public sphere b. A more concrete legacy was the decimation of the male population and the creation of a major gender imbalance in the region - After the war, there were many thousands more women in the South than there were men - result, of course, was a large number of unmarried or widowed women who, both during and after the war, had to find employment-thus, by necessity rather than choice, expanding the number of acceptable roles for women in Southern society. 7. even before emancipation, the war had far-reaching effects on the lives of enslaved people a. Confederate leaders (who were more terrified of slave revolts during the war than they had been in peacetime), enforced slave codes and other regulations with particular severity - Even so, many enslaved people-especially those near the front-found ways to escape their slaveholders and cross behind Union lines in search of free-dom b. those who had no realistic avenue for escape seemed, to slaveholders at least, to be particularly resistant to authority during the war - in part because on many plantations, the slaveholders and overseers for whom they were accustomed to working were away at war - they found it easier to resist the authority of the women and boys left behind to manage the farms. Strategy and Diplomacy (pg. 400) 1. in terms of militarily, the initiative in Civil War lay mainly w/ the North a. the North needed to destroy the Confederacy; while the South needed only to avoid defeat 2. in terms of diplomatically, the initiative lay with South a. the South needed to enlist the recognition and support of foreign govt’s; while Union wanted to preserve status quo prior to war The Commanders (pg. 400) 1. Lincoln’s leadership a. Lincoln was a successful commander in chief because he realized that numbers and resources were on his side b/c he took advantage of the North's material advantages b. He realized, too, that the proper objective of his armies was the destruction of the Confederate armies, not the occupation of Southern territory c. it was important that Lincoln had a good grasp of strategy, because many of his generals did not d. problem of finding adequate commanders for the troops in the field plagued him throughout the first three years of the war. 2. From 1861 to 1864, Lincoln tried time and again to find a chief of staff capable of orchestrating the Union war effort a. He turned first to General Winfield Scott, the aging hero of the Mexican War; but Scott was unprepared and retired b. Lincoln replaced him with the young George B. McClellan, commander of the Union armies in the East, the Army of the Potomac; but the proud, arrogant McClellan had a wholly inadequate grasp of strategy and returned to the field in March 1862 c. For most of the rest of the year, Lincoln had no chief of staff - when he finally appointed General Henry W. Halleck to the post, he found him an ineffectual strategist who left all substantive decision making to the president d. Not until March 1864 did Lincoln finally find a general he trusted to command the war effort: Ulysses S. Grant  - Grant shared Lincoln's belief in making enemy armies and resources, not enemy territory, the target of military efforts 1. Lincoln gave Grant a relatively free hand, but the general always submitted at least the broad outlines of his plans to the president for advance approval 3. Lincoln's (and later Grant's) handling of the war effort faced constant scrutiny from the Committee on the Conduct of the War a. Committee on the Conduct of the War was a joint investigative committee of the two houses of Congress and the most powerful voice the legislative branch has ever had in formulating war policies - it complained constantly of the insufficient ruthlessness of Northern generals, which Radicals on the committee attributed (largely inaccurately) to a secret sympathy among the officers for slavery - the committee's efforts often seriously interfered with the conduct of the war. 4. Robert E. Lee a. background: Southern command arrangements centered on President Davis who (unlike Lincoln), was a trained professional soldier; nevertheless, he failed to create an effective command system. b. Early in 1862, Davis named General Robert E. Lee as his principal military adviser - in fact, Davis had no intention of sharing control of strategy with anyone. c. After a few months, Lee left Richmond to command forces in the field, and for the next two years Davis planned strategy alone d. In February 1864, he named General Braxton Bragg as a military adviser; but Bragg never provided much more than technical advice e.Not until February 1865 did the Confederate Congress create the formal position of genera in chief - Davis named Lee to the post but made clear that he expected to continue to make all basic decisions. In any case, the war ended before this last command structure had time to take shape. 5. At lower levels of command, men of markedly similar backgrounds controlled the war in both the North and the South a. Many of the professional officers on both sides were graduates of the US Military Academy at West Point and the US. Naval Academy at Annapolis, and thus had been trained in similar ways - Many were closely acquainted, even friendly, with their counterparts on the other side - all were imbued with the classic, eighteenth-century models of warfare that the service academies still taught b. The most successful officers were those who, like Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, were able to see beyond their academic training and envision a new kind of warfare in which destruction of resources was as important as battlefield tactics. 6. Amateur officers played an important role in both armies as commanders of volunteer regiments a. in both North and South, such men were usually economic or social leaders in their communities who appointed themselves officers and rounded up troops to lead - This system was responsible for recruiting considerable numbers of men into the armies of the two nations. Only occasionally, however, did it produce officers of real ability. The Role of Sea Power (pg. 401) 1. The Union had an overwhelming advantage in naval power, and it gave its navy two important roles in the war a. One was enforcing a blockade of the Southern coast, which the president ordered on April 19, 1861. The other was assisting the Union armies in field operations. 2. the Union Blockade a. The blockade of the South was never fully effective, but it had a major impact on the Confederacy nevertheless b. The U.S Navy could generally keep oceangoing ships out of Confederate ports. - for a time, small blockade runners continued to slip through - But gradually, federal forces tightened the blockade by seizing the ports themselves c. The last important port in Confederate hands-Wilmington, North Carolina-fell to the Union early in 1865.  3. ironclads a. The Confederates made bold attempts to break the blockade with new weapons. - Foremost among them was an ironclad warship, constructed by plating with iron a former U.S. frigate, the Merrimac, which the Yankees had scuttled in Norfolk harbor when Virginia seceded b. On March 8, 1862, the refitted Merrimac, renamed the Virginia, left Norfolk to attack a blockading squadron of wooden ships at nearby Hampton Roads - It destroyed two of the ships and scattered the rest. But the Union government had already built ironclads of its own 1. one of them, the Monitor, arrived off the coast of Virginia only a few hours after the Virginia's dramatic foray c. The next day, the Monitor met the Virginia in the first battle between ironclad ships - Neither vessel was able to sink the other, but the Monitor put an end to the Virginia's raids and preserved the blockade d. Confederacy experimented as well with other naval innovations, such as small torpedo boats and hand-powered submarines - despite occasional small successes with these new weapons, the South never managed to overcome the Union's naval advantages 4. as a supporter of land operations, the Union navy was particularly important in the western theater of war the vast region between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River a. this is where the major rivers were navigable by large vessels b. the navy transported supplies and troops and joined in attacking Confederate strong points - With no significant navy of its own, the South could defend only with fixed land fortifications, which proved no match for mobile land-and-water forces of the Union Europe and the Disunited States (pg. 401) 1. Judah P. Benjamin (Confederate secretary of state) don’t do shat; William Seward (his counterpart in Washington) was greatly helpful b/c he had invaluable assistance from Charles Francis Adams (who’s son of John Quincy Adams and grandson of John Adams)  2. at beginning of war, ruling classes of England and France were generally sympathetic to Confederacy for several reasons a. those two nations whose support was most crucial to both sides b. they imported much Southern cotton for their textile industries - they were eager to weaken the United States, an increasingly powerful commercial rival - some British and French citizens admired the supposedly aristocratic social order of the South, which they believed resembled the hierarchical structures of their own societies c. however, France was unwilling to take sides in the conflict unless England did so first - in England, the gov’t was reluctant to act because there was powerful popular support for the Union d. Important English liberals such as John Bright and Richard Cobden considered the war a struggle between free and slave labor and urged their followers to support the Union cause - politically conscious but largely unenfran-chised workers in Britain expressed their sympathy for the North frequently and unmistakably-in mass meetings, in reso-lutions, and through their champions in Parliament e. after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, these groups worked particularly avidly for the Union 3. King Cotton Diplomacy a. Southern leaders hoped to counter the strength of the British antislavery forces by arguing that access to Southern cotton was vital to the English and French textile industries b. But this "King Cotton diplomacy," on which the Confederacy had staked so many of its hopes, failed - English manufacturers had a surplus of both raw cotton and finished goods on hand in 1861 and could withstand a temporary loss of access to American cotton c. Later, as the supply of American cotton began to diminish, both England and France managed to keep some of their mills open by importing cotton from Egypt, India, and other sources  - Equally important, English workers, the people most seriously threatened by the cotton shortage, did not clamor to have the blockade broken. 1. Even most of the 500,000 English textile workers thrown out of jobs as a result of mill closings continued to support the North d. In the end, therefore, no European nation offered diplomatic recognition to the Confederacy or intervened in the war - No nation wanted to antagonize the United States unless the Confederacy seemed likely to win, and the South never came close enough to victory to convince its potential allies to support it 4. even so, there was considerable tension, and on occasion near hostilities, between the United States and Britain, beginning in the first days of the war a. Great Britain declared itself neutral as soon as the fighting began, followed by France and other nations - The Union government was furious 1. neutrality implied that the two sides to the conflict had equal stature. b. Leaders in Washington were insisting that the conflict was simply a domestic insurrection, not a war between two legitimate governments 5. Trent Affair a. began in late 1861 b. 2 Confederate diplomats, James M. Mason and John Slidell, had slipped through the then-ineffective Union blockade to Havana, Cuba, where they boarded an English steamer, the Trent, for England - Waiting in Cuban waters was the American frigate San Jacinto, commanded by the impetuous Charles Wilkes - Acting without authorization, Wilkes stopped the British vessel, arrested the diplomats, and carried them in triumph to Boston c. The British gov’t demanded the release of the prisoners, reparations, and an apology - Lincoln and Seward, aware that Wilkes had violated maritime law and unwilling to risk war with England, stalled the negotiations until American public opinion had cooled off, then released the diplomats with an indirect apology  d. A second diplomatic crisis lasted for years. Unable to construct large vessels itself, the Confederacy bought six ships, known as commerce destroyers, from British shipyards - The best known of them were the Alabama, the Florida, and the Shenandoah e. United States protested that this sale of military equipment to a belligerent violated the laws of neutrality, and the protests became the basis, after the war, of damage claims by the United States against Great Britain. The American West and the War (pg. 402) 1. except for Texas (which joined the Confederacy), all the western states and territories reminaed officially loyal to Union a. however, there was controversy and conflict - Southerners and Southern sympathizers were active throughout West -in some places, there were actual combat between Unionists and secessionists 2. Guerrilla War in the West a. There was particularly vicious fighting in Kansas and Missouri, the scene of so much bitterness before the war - the same pro-slavery and free-state forces who had fought one another in the 1850s continued to do so, with even more deadly results b. William C. Quantrill, an Ohio native who had spent much of his youth in the West, became a captain in the Confederate army after he organized a band of guerrilla fighters (mostly teenage boys) with which he terrorized areas around the Kansas-Missouri border - Quantrill and his band were an exceptionally murderous group, notorious for killing almost everyone in their path - Their most infamous act was a siege of Lawrence, Kansas, during which they slaugh. tered 150 civilians, adults and children alike - Union troops killed Quantrill shortly after the end of the war. Union sympathizers in Kansas, organized in bands known as the Jayhawkers, were only marginally less savage, as they moved across western Missouri exacting reprisals for the actions of Quantrill and other Confederate guerrillas. c. One Jayhawk unit was jointly commanded by the son of John Brown and the brother of Susan B. Anthony, men who brought the fervor of abolitionists to their work - Even without a major battle, the border areas of Kansas and Missouri were among the bloodiest and most ter rorized places in the United States during the Civil War 3. Not long after the war began, Confederate agents tried to negotiate alliances with the Five Civilized Tribes living in Indian Territory (later Oklahoma) a. they did this in hopes of recruiting ther support against Union forces in the West b. Native Americans themselves were divided - Some wanted to support the south. both because they resented the way the US. government had treated them b/c some tribal leaders were themselves slaveholders - But other Native Americans supported the North out of a general hositlity to slavery (in both the South and their own nation) c. one result of these divisions was a civil war within Indian Territory; another was that Native American regiments fought for both Union and Confederacy during Civil War - however, the tribes themselves never formally allied themselves with either side Baseball and the Civil War (pg. 403) 1. when young men marched off to war in 1861, some took their bats and balls with them a. almost from start of the fighting, soldiers in both armies took advantage of idle moments to lay out baseball diamonds and organize games The Consolidation of Nations (pg. 405) 1. the American Civil War was also a part of a worldwide movement in the 19th century to create large, consolidated nations The Course of Battle (pg. 404) 1. high casualties a. in the absence of direct intervention by the European powers, the 2 contestants in America were left to resolve the conflict between themselves b. they did so in 4 long years of bloody combat that produced more carnage than any war in American history, before or since  c. Massive death, and along with it massive grief, shadowed both North and South during and after the war. 2. Despite the gruesome cost, the Civil War has become the most romanticized and the most intently studied of all American wars a. In part, that is b/c the conflict produced-in addition to terrible fatalities - a series of military campaigns of classic strategic interest and a series of military leaders who displayed unusual brilliance and daring The Technology of Battle (pg. 404) 1. Much of what happened on the battlefield in the Civil War was a result of new technologies that transformed the nature of combat a. Civil War has often been called the first "modern" war and the first "total" war. - the great conflict between the North and the South was unlike any war fought before it, and it suggested what warfare would be like in the future 2. repeating weapons a. most obvious change in the character of warfare in the 1860s was the nature of the armaments that both sides used in battle - Among the most important was the introduction of repeating weapons b. Samuel Colt had patented a repeating pistol (the revolver) in 1835, but more important for military purposes was the repeating rifle, introduced in 1860 by Oliver Winchester c. also important were greatly improved cannons and artillery, a result of advances in iron and steel technology of the previous decades. 3. These devastating advances in the effectiveness of arms and artillery changed the way soldiers in the field fought a. now impossibly deadly to fight battles as they had been fought for centuries, with lines of infantry soldiers standing erect in the field firing volleys at their opponents until one side with-drew b. Fighting in that way now produced almost inconceivable slaughter, and soldiers quickly learned that the proper position for combat was staying low to the ground and behind  4. Other weapons technologies were less central to the fighting of the war, but important nevertheless a. there were sporadic use of the relatively new technology of hot-air balloons, employed intermittently to provide a view of enemy formations in the field b. ironclad ships such as the Merrimac (or Virginia) and the Monitor, torpedoes, and submarine technology all suggested the dramatic changes that would soon overtake naval warfare (although none played a major role in the Civil War) 5. importance of the railroad a. critical to the conduct of the war were 2 other relatively new technologies: the railroad and the telegraph b. railroad was particularly important in a war in which millions of soldiers were being mobilized and transferred to the front, and in which a single field army could number as many as 250,000 men - transporting such enormous nun: bers of soldiers, and the supplies necessary to sustain them, would have been almost impossible without railroads - but they also limited mobility c. Railroad lines and stations are. of course, in fixed positions - Commanders, therefore, were forced to organize their campaigns around the location of the railroads whether the location was optimal or not 6. the telegraph a. impact of the telegraph on the war was limited both by the scarcity of qualified telegraph operators & by the difficulty of bringing telegraph wires into the fields where battles were being fought - situation improved somewhat after the new U.S. Military Telegraph Corps, headed by Thomas Scott and Andrew Carnegie, trained and employed over 1,200 operators b. gradually, both the Union and Confederate armies learned to string telegraph wires along the routes of their troops so that field commanders were able to stay in close touch with one another during battles - Both the North and the South sent spies behind enemy lines who tried to tap the telegraph line of their opponents and send important information back abou troop movements and formations.  The Opening Clashes - 1861 (pg. 404) 1. Union and the Confederacy fought their 1st major battle of the war in northern Virginia a. a Union army under the command of General was stationed just outside Washington. About thirty miles away. at the town of Manassas, was a slightly smaller Confederate army under General P. G. T. Beauregard - If the Northern army could destroy the Southern one, Union leaders believed, the war might end at once b. In mid-July, McDowell marched his inexperienced troops toward Manassas. Beauregard moved his troops behind Bull Run, a small stream north of Manassas - they called for reinforcements, which reached him the day before the bat-tle = two armies were now approximately the same size. 2. first battle of Bull Run a. On July 21, in the First Battle of Bull Run (or First Battle of Manassas) McDowell almost succeeded in dispersing the Confederate forces - But the Southerners stopped a last strong Union assault and then began a savage counterattack b. The Union troops, exhausted after hours of hot, hard fighting, suddenly panicked. They broke ranks and retreated chaotically - McDowell was unable to reorganize them, and he had to order a retreat to Washington a disorderly withdrawal complicated (there were many civilians who had ridden down from the capital to watch the battle from nearby hills) c. The Confederates, as disorganized by victory as the Union forces were by defeat, and short of supplies and transportation, did not pursue - battle was a severe blow to Union morale and to President Lincoln's confidence in his officers & It also dispelled the illusion that the war would be a brief one 3. Wilson’s Creek a. Elsewhere in 1861, Union forces were achieving some small but significant victories. b. In Missouri, rebel forces gathered behind Governor Claiborne Jackson and other state officials who wanted to secede from the Union. - Nathaniel Lyon, who commanded a small regular army force in St. Louis, moved his troops into southern Missouri to face the secessionists. - On August 10, at the Battle of Wilson's Creek, Lyon was defeated and killed-but not before he had seriously weakened the striking power of the Confederates - Union forces were subsequently able to hold most of the state. 4. Meanwhile, a Union force under George B. McClellan moved east from Ohio into western Virginia. a. By end 1861, it had "liberated" the anti-secession mountain people of the region. - they created their own state government loyal to the Union and were admitted to the Union as West Virginia in 1863 b. however, occupation of western Virginia was of limited military value, since the mountains cut the area off from the rest of Virginia - it was, however, an important symbolic victory for the North. The Western Theater (pg. 406) 1. After the First Battle of Bull Run, military operations in the East settled into a long and frustrating stalemate a. first decisive operations in 1862 occurred in the West - Union forces were trying to seize control of the southern Mississippi River 1. this would divide the Confederacy & give the North easy transportation into the heart of the South - Northern soldiers advanced on the river from both the north and south, moving downriver from Kentucky and upriver from the Gulf of Mexico toward New Orleans. 2. New Orleans captured a. In April, a Union squadron of ironclads and wooden vessels commanded by David G. Farragut gathered in the Gulf of Mexico - which then smashed past weak Confederate forts near the mouth of the Mississippi - from there sailed up to New Orleans 1. New Orleans was defenseless b/c the Confederate high command had expected the attack to come from the north - The city surrendered on April 25 1. first major Union victory and an important turning point in the war. From then on, the mouth of the Mississippi was closed to Confederate trade; and the South's largest city and most important banking center was in Union 3. farther north in the western theater, Confederate troops under the command of Albert Sidney Johnston were stretched out in a long defensive line centered at two forts in TN a. they were Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, respectively - however, the forts were well behind the main Southern flanks, a fatal weakness that Union commanders recognized and exploited - early in 1862, Ulysses S. Grant attacked Fort Henry, whose defenders, awed by the ironclad riverboats accompanying the Union army, surrendered with almost no resistance on February 6. Grant then moved both his naval and ground forces to Fort Donelson, where the Confederates put up a stronger fight but finally, on February 16, had to surrender. By cracking the Confederate center, Grant had gained control of river communications and forced Confederate forces out of Kentucky and half of Tennessee 4. Shiloh a. With about 40,000 men, Grant now advanced south along the Tennessee River to seize control of railroad lines vital to the Confederacy - From Pittsburg Landing, he marched to nearby Shiloh, Tennessee, where a force almost equal to his own, commanded by Albert Sidney Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard, caught him by surprise - result was the Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7 1. In the first day's fighting (during which Johnston was killed), the Southerners drove Grant back to the river a. the next day, reinforced by 25,000 fresh troops, Grant recovered the lost ground and forced Beauregard to withdraw b. the narrow Union victory at Shiloh, Northern forces occupied Corinth, Mississippi, the hub of several important railroads, and established control of the Mississippi River as far south as Memphis 5. Braxton Bragg (succeeded Johnston as commander of the Confederate army in West) gathered his forces at Chattanooga, in eastern Tennessee, which the Confederacy still controlled  a. he hoped to win back the rest of the state and then move north into Kentucky. But first he had to face a Union army (commanded by Don Carlos Buell and later William S. Rosecrans), whose assignment was to capture Chattanooga - the 2 armies maneuvered for advantage inconclusively in northern Tennessee and southern Kentucky for several months until they finally met, December 31-January 2, in the Battle of Murfreesboro, Or Stone's River - Bragg was forced to withdraw to the south, his campaign a failure. By the end of 1862, Union forces had made considerable progres in the West. But the major conflict remained in the East, where they were having much less success. The Virginia Front, 1862 (pg. 407) The Progress of the War (pg. 409) 1. a major victory by the Union at the First Battle of Bull Run might have ended quickly by destroying the Confederacy's morale a. But no such decisive victory occurred in the first two years of the war. 2. Many Northerners blamed the military stalemate on timid or incompetent Union generals (some truth to that view) a. more important reason for the drawn-out conflict was that it was NOT a traditional war of tactics and military strategy - It was, even if the leaders of both sides were not yet fully aware of it, a war of attrition 1. Winning or losing battles here and there would not determine the outcome of the war a. instead, it was the steady destruction of the resources that were necessary for victory b. More than 2 bloody years of fighting was still to come. But those last years were a testimony to the slow, steady deterioration of the Confederacy's ability to maintain the war and to the consistent growth of the resources that allowed the Union armies to grow steadily stronger. 3. With the federal blockade growing tighter and tighter, the Confederacy found it difficult to secure food a. On April 2, 1863, a Confederate soldier received a letter from Richmond from a friend—she saw hundreds of young women and men looking for food. 1863: Year of Decision (pg. 410) 1. Battle of Chancellorsville a. At the beginning of 1863, General Joseph Hooker was in command of the still formidable Army of the Potomac, whose troops remained north of the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg - despite his reputation as a fighter (his popular nickname was "Fighting Joe"), Hooker showed little resolve as he launched his own campaign in the spring b. Taking part of his army, Hooker crossed the river above Fredericksburg and moved toward the town and Lee's army. But at the last minute, he apparently lost his nerve and drew back to a defensive position in a desolate area of brush and scrub trees known as "the Wilderness." - Lee had only half as many men as Hooker did, but he boldly divided his forces for a dual assault on the Union army c. In Battle of Chancellorsville, May 1-5, Stonewall Jackson attacked the Union right and Lee himself charged the front - Hooker barely managed to escape with his army. Lee had defeated the Union objectives, but he had not destroyed the Union army. And his ablest officer, Jackson, was wounded during the battle and subsequently died of pneumonia. 2. Vicksburg a. While the Union forces were suffering repeated frustrations in the East, they were continuing to achieve important victories in the West b. in spring of 1863, Ulysses S. Grant was driving at Vicksburg, MS, one of the Confederacy's two remaining strongholds on the southern Mississippi River - Vicksburg was well protected, surrounded by rough country on the north and low, marshy ground on the west, and with good artillery coverage of the river itself c. in May, Grant boldly moved men and supplies overland and by water-to an area south of the city, where the terrain was better; He then attacked Vicksburg from the rear - 6 weeks later, on July 4, Vicksburg (whose residents were by then literally starving as a result of a prolonged siege) surrendered  d. At almost the same time, the other Confederate strong point on the river, Port Hudson, Louisiana, also surrendered-to a Union force that had moved north from New Orleans - Union had achieved one of its basic military aims: control of the whole length of the Mississippi. The Confederacy was split in two, with LA, AK, and TX cut off from the other seceded states - victories on the Mississippi were among the great turning points of the war 3. during the siege of Vicksburg, Lee proposed an invasion of PA, which would (he argued) divert Union troops north and remove the pressure on the lower Mississippi a. Further, he argued, if he could win a major victory on Northern soil, England and France might come to the Confederacy's aid 4. In June 1863, Lee moved up the Shenandoah Valley into Maryland and then entered Pennsylvania. The Union Army of the Potomac, commanded first by Hooker and then by George C. Meade, also moved north, parallel with the Confederates' movement, staying between Lee and Washington. The two armies finally encountered each other at the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. There, on July 1-3, 1863, they fought the most celebrated battle of the war. 5. Gettysburg a. Meade's army established a strong, well-protected position on the hills south of the town - confident and combative Lee attacked, even though his army was outnumbered 75,000 to 90,000; His first assault on the Union forces on Cemetery Ridge failed. A day ater he ordered a second, larger effort b. In what is remembered as Pickett's Charge, a force of 15,000 Confederate soldiers advanced for almost a mile across open country while being swept by Union fire. Only about 5,000 made it up the ridge, and this remnant finally had to surrender or retreat. c. By now Lee had lost nearly a third of his army d. On July 4, the same day as the surrender of Vicksburg, he withdrew from Gettysburg-another major turning point in the war. Never again were the weakened Confederate forces able to threaten Northern territory seriously. 6. Before the end of 1863, there was a third important turning point, this one in TN a. After occupying Chattanooga on September 9, Union forces under William Rosecrans began an unwise pursuit of Bragg's retreating Confederate forces. Bragg was waiting for them just across the Georgia line, with reinforcements from Lee's army. The two armies engaged in the Battle of Chickamauga (September 19-20), one of the few battles in which the Confederates enjoyed a numerical superiority (70,000 to 56,000). Union forces could not break the Confederate lines and retreated back to Chattanooga. 7. Battle of Chattanooga a. Bragg now began a siege of Chattanooga itself, seizing the heights nearby and cutting off fresh supplies to the Union forces. Grant came to the rescue. In the Battle of Chattanooga (November 23-25), the reinforced Union army drove the Confederates back into Georgia. Northern troops then occupied most of eastern Tennessee. Union forces had now achieved a second important objective: control of the Tennessee River. Four of the eleven Confederate states were now effectively cut off from the Southern nation b. No longer could the Confederacy hope to win independence through a decisive military victory. They could hope to win only by holding on and exhausting the Northern will to fight. The Last Stage: 1864-1865 (pg. 413) 1. By the beginning of 1864, Ulysses S. Grant had become general in chief of all the Union armies a. President Lincoln had found a commander whom he could rely on to pursue the war doggedly and tenaciously b. Grant believed in using the North's overwhelming advantage in troops and material resources to overwhelm the South. He was not afraid to absorb massive casualties as long as he was inflicting similar casualties on his opponents. 3. Grant’s strategy 4. capture of Atlanta 5. March to the Sea 6. Appomattox Court House 7. *Impact of North’s victory* a. North's victory was not just a military one, but also strengthened the North's economy  - it gave a spur to industry and railroad development & greatly weakened the South's economy, by destroying millions of dollars of property and depleting the region's young male population b. Southerners had gone to war in part because of their fears of growing Northern dominance - The war itself, ironically, confirmed and strengthened that dominance c. no doubt by 1865 that the future of the United States lay in the growth of industry and commerce, which would occur for many years primarily outside the South 8. most of all, the Civil War was a victory for the millions of enslaved people, over whose plight the conflict had largely begun in the first place a. Civil War produced Abraham Lincoln's epochal Emancipation Proclamation and, later, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery. It also encouraged hundreds of thousands of enslaved people to free themselves, to desert their slaveholders and seek refuge behind Union lines-at times to fight in the Union armies. The future of the freed African Americans was not to be without challenges and hardships, but 3.5 million people who had once lived in bondage emerged from the war as free men and women. The Problems of Peacemaking (pg. 419) 1. no one in Washington had yet formed a plan for what would happen to the defeated South a. Lincoln could not negotiate a treaty with the Confederate government - he continued to insist that the Confederate government had no legal right to exist; neither could he simply readmit the Southern states into the Union as if nothing had happened The Aftermath of War and Emancipation (pg. 419) 1. the devastated South a. Civil War was a catastrophe for the South with no parallel in America's experience as a nation - Towns had been gutted, plantations burned, fields neglected, bridges and railroads destroyed - Many white Southerners, stripped of their enslaved laborers through emancipation and stripped of the capital they had invested in now-worthless Confederate bonds and currency, had almost no personal property - Many families had to rebuild their fortunes without the help of adult males, massive numbers of whom had died in the war - Some white Southerners faced starvation and homelessness 2. myth of the “lost cause” a. more than 258,000 Confederate soldiers (who had died in the war) constituted over 20% of the adult white male population of the region; thousands more returned home wounded or sick; Almost all surviving white Southerners had lost people close to them in the fighting b. A cult of ritualized mourning developed throughout the region in the late 1860s, particularly among white women-many of whom wore mourning clothes (and jewelry) for two years or longer c. At the same time, white Southerners began to romanticize the "Lost Cause" and its leaders & to look back nostalgically at the South as it had existed before the terrible disruptions of war - Such Confederate heroes as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and (later) Jefferson Davis were treated with extraordinary reverence, almost as religious figures. - Communities throughout the South built elaborate monuments in town squares to commemorate their war dead. The tremendous sense of loss that pervaded the white South reinforced the determination of many white people to protect what remained of their now- vanished world 3. conditions were worse for most black Southerners (aka the 4 million men and women emerging from bondage) a. Some of them had also seen service during the war—as servants to Confederate officers or as teamsters and laborers for the Southern armies; Nearly 200,000 had fought for the Union, and 38,000 had died; Others had worked as spies or scouts for Union forces in the South; Many more had flocked to the Union lines to escape slavery b. Even before Emancipation, thousands of enslaved people in many parts of the South had taken advantage of wartime disruptions to leave slaveholders and move off in search of freedom - As soon as the war ended, hundreds of thousands more former enslaved people-young and old, healthy and sick-left their plantations; Some went in search of family members who had been sold by their former slave-holders; many others had nowhere to go; Some trudged to the nearest town or city, roamed the countryside camping at night on the bare ground, or gathered around Union occupation forces, hoping for assistance c. Virtually none owned any land or property. Most had no possessions except the clothes they wore. 4. In 1865, in short, Southern society was in vast disarray. Men and women, regardless of race, faced a future of great uncertainty. Yet all Southerners faced this future with some very clear aspirations. For both African Americans and white people, Reconstruction became a struggle to define the meaning of freedom. But the former enslaved people and the defeated white people had very different conceptions of what freedom meant. Competing Notions of Freedom (pg. 420) 1. For African Americans, freedom meant above all an end to slavery and to all the injustices and humiliation they associated with it a. it also meant the acquisition of rights and protections that would allow them to live as free men and women in the same way white people did. 2. African Americans differed with one another on how to achieve that freedom  a. some demanded a redistribution of economic resources, especially land - others asked simply for legal equality, confident that given the same opportunities as white citizens they could advance successfully in American society b. whatever their particular demands, virtually all former enslaved people were united in their desire for independence from white control - freed from slavery, African Americans throughout the South began almost immediately to create autonomous communities; They pulled out of white-controlled churches and established their own; They created fraternal, benevolent, and mutual aid societies; When they could, they began their own schools. 3. For most white Southerners, freedom meant something very different a. meant the ability to control their own destinies without interference from the North or the federal government - in the immediate aftermath of the war, they attempted to exercise this version of freedom by trying to restore their society to its antebellum form b. Slavery had been abolished in the former Confederacy by the Emancipation Proclamation, and everywhere else (as of December 1865) by the 13th Amendment - many white planters continued a kind of slavery in an altered form by keeping black workers legally tied to the plantations. When many white Southeners fought for what they freedom, they were fighting above all to preserve local and regional autonomy and white supremacy. 4. The Freedmen’s Bureau a. The federal government kept troops in the South after the war to preserve order and protect the freedmen b. In March 1865, Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau - an agency of the army directed by General Oliver O. Howard. The Freedmens Bureau distributed war to millions of former enslaved people - established schools staffed by missionaries + teachers who had been sent to the South by Freedmen's Aid Societies and groups in the North - made modest efforts to settle African Americans on lands of their own c. however, the Freedmen's Bureau was not a permanent solution - It had authority to operate for only one year, and in any case it was far too small to deal effectively with the enormous problems facing Southern society. By the time the war ended, other proposals for reconstructing the defeated South were emerging. Issues of Reconstruction (pg. 421) 1. Reconstruction was determined not just by social realities or ideals. It was also determined by partisan politics. The terms by which the Southern states rejoined the Union had important implications for both major political parties b. Republican victories in 1860 and 1864 had been a result in large part of the division of the Democratic Party and, later, the removal of the South from the electorate - Readmitting the South, leaders of both parties believed, would reunite the Democrats and weaken the Republicans - In addition, the Republican Party had taken advantage of the South's absence from Congress to pass a program of nationalistic economic legislation railroad subsidies, protective tariffs, banking and currency reforms, and other measures to benefit Northern business leaders and industrialists. - Many Northerners believed the South should be punished in some way for the suffering and sacrifice its rebellion had caused - Many Northerners believed, too, that the South should be transformed, made over in the North's urbanized image its supposedly backward, feudal, undemocratic society civilized and modernized. 2. Conservative and Radical Republicans a. Even among the Republicans in Congress, there was considerable disagreement about the proper approach to Reconstruction disagreement that reflected the same factional divisions that had created disputes over emancipation during the war. - Conservatives insisted that the South accept the abolition of slavery, but proposed few other conditions for the readmission of the seceded states - Radicals, led by Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, urged that the civil and military leaders of the Confederacy be punished, that large numbers of white Southerners be disenfranchised, that the legal rights of former enslaved people be protected, and that the property of wealthy white Southerners who had aided the Confederacy be confiscated + distributed among freedmen  Plans for Reconstruction (pg. 422) 1. President Lincoln's sympathies lay with the Moderates and Conservatives of his party. a. he believed that a lenient Reconstruction policy would encourage Southern unionists and other former Whigs to join the Republican Party - thus prevent the readmission of the South from strengthening the Democrats & the Southern unionists could become the nucleus of new, loyal state governments in the South b. Lincoln was not uninterested in the fate of the freedmen, but he was willing to defer questions about their future for the sake of rapid reunification. 2. Lincoln’s 10% plan a. Lincoln's Reconstruction plan (which he announced in December 1863), offered a general amnesty to white Southerners other than high officials of the Confederacy - those high officials would pledge loyalty to the government and accept the elimination of slavery b. Whenever 10 percent of the number of voters in 1860 took the oath in any state, those loyal voters could set up a state government c. Lincoln also hoped to extend suffrage to African Americans who were educated, owned property, and had served in the Union army. d. 3 Southern states LA, AK, and TN (all under Union occupation) reestablished loyal governments under the Lincoln formula in 1864. 3. Wade-Davis Bill a. background: the Radical Republicans were astonished at the mildness of Lincoln's program - they persuaded Congress to deny seats to representatives from the 3 "reconstructed" states and refused to count the electoral vote of those states in the election of 1864 b. for the moment, the Radicals were uncertain about what form their own Reconstruction plan should take - first effort to resolve that question was the Wade-Davis Bill (passed by Congress in July 1864) 1. authorized the president to appoint a provisional governor for each conquered state. When a majority (not Lincoln's 10 percent) of the white males of the state pledged their allegiance to the Union, the governor could summon a state constitutional convention, whose delegates were to be elected by those who would swear (through the so- called Ironclad Oath) that they had never borne arms against the United States another departure from Lincoln's plan - The new state constitutions would have to abolish slavery, disenfranchise Confederate civil and military leaders, and repudiate debts accumulated by the state governments during the war - After a state had met these conditions, Congress would readmit it to the Union. c. Like the president's proposal, the Wade-Davis Bill left up to the states the question of political rights for African Americans - Congress passed the bill a few days before it adjourned in 1864, and Lincoln disposed of it with a pocket veto - His action enraged the Radical leaders, and the pragmatic Lincoln became convinced he would have to accept at least some of the Radical demands. He began to move toward a new approach to Reconstruction. The Death of Lincoln (pg. 422) 1. On the night of April 14, 1865, the president + his wife attended a play at Ford's Theater in Washington. a. As they sat in the presidential box, John Wilkes Booth (a member of a distinguished family of actors and a zealous advocate of the Southern cause), entered the box from the rear and shot Lincoln in the head b. The president was carried unconscious to a house across the street, where early the next morning, surrounded by family, friends, and political associates (among them a tearful Charles Sumner), he died. 2. The circumstances of Lincoln's death earned him immediate martyrdom a. it also produced something close to hysteria throughout the North b. there were accusations that Booth had acted as part of a great conspiracy accusations that contained some truth - Booth did indeed have associates, one of whom stabbed and wounded Secretary of State Seward the night of the assassination (another of whom abandoned at the last moment a plan to murder Vice President Johnson)  c. Booth himself escaped on horseback into the Virginia countryside, where, on April 26, he was cornered by Union troops and shot to death in a blazing barn. A military tribunal convicted eight. other people of participating in the conspiracy (at least two of them on the basis of virtually no evidence). Four were hanged. 3. To many Northerners, however, the murder of the president seemed evidence of an even greater conspiracy one masterminded and directed by the unrepentant leaders of the defeated South a. Militant Republicans exploited such suspicions relentlessly for months, ensuring that Lincoln's death would help doom his plans for a relatively easy peace. Johnson and “Restoration” (pg. 423) 1. Andrew Johnson’s personality a. Leadership of the Moderates and Conservatives fell to Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, who was not well suited, by either circumstance or personality, for the task. b. he became a Republican (former Democrat) president at a moment when partisan passions were growing - Johnson himself was an intemperate and tactless man, filled with resentments and insecurities; was also openly hostile to the freed African Americans and unwilling to support any plans that guaranteed them civil equality or enfranchisement. 2. Johnson revealed his plan for Reconstruction or "Restoration," a. he implemented it during the summer of 1865, when Congress was in recess. - Like Lincoln, he offered amnesty to those Southerners who would take an oath of allegiance - In most other respects, however, his plan resembled that of the Wade-Davis Bill - for each state, the president appointed a provisional governor, who was to invite qualified voters to elect delegates to a constitutional convention; Johnson did not specify how many qualified voters were necessary, but he implied that he would require a majority (as had the Wade-Davis Bill)