Chapter 14: Two Societies at War (1861-1865) - PDF

Two Societies at War 14 C H A P T E R 1861–1865 W SECESSION AND hat a scene it was,” Union sol- IDENTIFY THE BIG IDEA MILITARY STALEMATE,...

Two Societies at War 14 C H A P T E R 1861–1865 W SECESSION AND hat a scene it was,” Union sol- IDENTIFY THE BIG IDEA MILITARY STALEMATE, dier Elisha Hunt Rhodes wrote How did the military and political 1861–1862 in his diary at Gettysburg in goals of the war bring significant The Secession Crisis July 1863. “Oh the dead and the dying on changes to social, economic, and The Upper South Chooses Sides this bloody field.” Thousands of men had cultural life? Setting War Objectives and already died, and the slaughter would con- Devising Strategies tinue for two more years. “Why is it that 200,000 men of one blood and tongue... [are] TOWARD TOTAL WAR seeking one another’s lives?” asked Confederate lieutenant R. M. Collins as another gruesome battle ended. “We could settle our differences by compromising and all be at Mobilizing Armies and Civilians home in ten days.” But there was no compromise. “God wills this contest, and wills that Mobilizing Resources it shall not yet end,” President Abraham Lincoln reflected. “The Almighty has His own THE TURNING POINT: purposes.” 1863 While the reasons for the war are complex, racial slavery played a primary role. To Emancipation southern whites, the Republican victory in 1860 presented an immediate danger to the Vicksburg and Gettysburg slave-owning republic that had existed since 1776. “[O]ur struggle is for inherited rights,” declared one southern leader. Southerners did not believe Lincoln when he THE UNION promised not “directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the VICTORIOUS, 1864–1865 States where it exists.” Soon, a southern senator warned, “cohorts of Federal office- Soldiers and Strategy holders, Abolitionists, may be sent into [our] midst” to encourage slave revolts and, The Election of 1864 and even worse, racial mixture. By racial mixture, white southerners meant sexual relations Sherman’s March between black men and white women, given that white masters had already fathered untold thousands of children by their enslaved black women. “Better, far better! [to] endure all horrors of civil war,” insisted a Confederate recruit, “than to see the dusky sons of Ham leading the fair daughters of the South to the altar.” To preserve black subordination and white supremacy, radical southerners chose the dangerous enterprise of secession. Lincoln and the North would not let them go in peace. Living in a world still ruled by monarchies, northern leaders believed that the collapse of the American Union might forever destroy the possibility of democratic republican governments. “We cannot escape history,” Lincoln eloquently declared. “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” And so came the conflict. Called the War Between the States by southerners and the War of the Rebellion by northerners, the struggle finally resolved the great issues of the Union and slavery. The costs were terrible: more American lives lost than the com- bined total for all the nation’s other wars, and a century-long legacy of bitterness between the triumphant North and the vanquished white South. 444 Fields of Death Fought with mass armies and new weapons, the Civil War took a huge toll in human lives, as evidenced by this grisly photograph of a small section of the battlefield at Antietam, Maryland. The most costly single-day battle in American history, it left 22,700 dead, wounded, and missing Con- federate and Union soldiers. After the equally bloody three-day battle at Shiloh, Tennessee, in April 1862, General Ulysses Grant surveyed a field “so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk... in any direction, stepping on dead bodies, without a foot touching the ground.” Library of Congress. 445 446 PART 5 CREATING AND PRESERVING A CONTINENTAL NATION, 1844–1877 Secession and Military Stalemate, 1861–1862 Following Lincoln’s election in November 1860, seces- sionist fervor swept through the Deep South. Veteran party leaders in Washington still hoped to save the Union. In the four months between Lincoln’s election and his inauguration on March 4, 1861, they sought a new compromise. The Secession Crisis The Union collapsed first in South Carolina, the home of John C. Calhoun, nullification, and southern rights. Alabama Secession Flag Robert Barnwell Rhett and other fire-eaters had In January 1861, a Secession Convention in Alabama voted to leave the Union and marked their decision for indepen- demanded secession since the Compromise of 1850, dence by designating this pennant — created by a group of and their goal was now within reach. “Our enemies are Montgomery women — as their official flag. Like John Gast’s about to take possession of the Government,” warned American Progress (p. 411), the Goddess of Liberty forms the one South Carolinian. Frightened by that prospect, a central image. Here she holds a sword and a flag with a single star, symbolizing Alabama’s new status as an independent state convention voted unanimously on December 20, republic. Alabama Department of Archives and History. 1860, to dissolve “the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States.” The Lower South Secedes Fire-eaters elsewhere in Meanwhile, the Union government floundered. the Deep South quickly called similar conventions and President Buchanan declared secession illegal but — in organized mobs to attack local Union supporters. In line with his states’ rights outlook — claimed that the early January, white Mississippians joyously enacted a federal government lacked authority to restore the secession ordinance, and Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Union by force. Buchanan’s timidity prompted South and Louisiana quickly followed. Texans soon joined Carolina’s new government to demand the surrender them, ousting Unionist governor Sam Houston and of Fort Sumter (a federal garrison in Charleston ignoring his warning that “the North... will over- Harbor) and to cut off its supplies. The president again whelm the South” (Map 14.1). In February, the jubilant backed down, refusing to use the navy to supply the secessionists met in Montgomery, Alabama, to pro- fort. claim a new nation: the Confederate States of America. Adopting a provisional constitution, the delegates The Crittenden Compromise Instead, the outgoing named Mississippian Jefferson Davis, a former U.S. president urged Congress to find a compromise. The senator and secretary of war, as the Confederacy’s pres- plan proposed by Senator John J. Crittenden of ident and Georgia congressman Alexander Stephens as Kentucky received the most support. The Crittenden vice president. Compromise had two parts. The first, which Congress Secessionist fervor was less intense in the four approved, called for a constitutional amendment to states of the Middle South (Virginia, North Carolina, protect slavery from federal interference in any state Tennessee, and Arkansas), where there were fewer where it already existed. Crittenden’s second provision slaves. White opinion was especially divided in the four called for the westward extension of the Missouri border slave states (Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Compromise line (36°30' north latitude) to the Cali- and Missouri), where yeomen farmers held greater fornia border. The provision would ban slavery north political power and, from bitter experience as well as of the line and allow bound labor to the south, includ- the writings of journalist Hilton Helper, knew that all ing any territories “hereafter acquired,” raising the too often “the slaveholders... have hoodwinked you.” prospect of expansion into Cuba or Central America. Reflecting such sentiments, the legislatures of Virginia Congressional Republicans rejected Crittenden’s sec- and Tennessee refused to join the secessionist move- ond proposal on strict instructions from president- ment and urged a compromise. elect Lincoln. With good reason, Lincoln feared it  CHAPTER 14 Two Societies at War, 1861–1865 447 UNORG. WIS. N.Y. CONN. NEBRASKA TERRITORY MINN. MICHIGAN TERR. This map records the votes The states colored orange practiced slavery for and against secession in PENNSYLVANIA before and during the Civil War but did not N.J. N secede from the Union. Why? Was it the presence IOWA each county or parish. of federal troops? Or was it because there were MD. DEL. E relatively few slaves (and slaveholders) in those INDIANA OHIO W ILLINOIS states? VIRGINIA S 8 UTAH KANSAS TERRITORY MISSOURI TERR. KENTUCKY NORTH CAROLINA TENNESSEE 11 10 SOUTH INDIAN TERRITORY ARKANSAS CAROLINA NEW MEXICO 1 TERRITORY 9 GEORGIA MISS. The numbers show the ALABAMA 5 chronological sequence 2 4 of secession of the Confederate states. Did a TEXAS state’s place in the sequence 7 6 FLORIDA reflect the unanimity of LOUISIANA its vote? 3 For secession Numbers indicate MEXICO 1 order of secession Against secession Delegation divided Northern limit of secession before Ft. Sumter 0 200 400 miles No returns Border states that Northern limit of secession did not secede after Ft. Sumter 0 200 400 kilometers MAP 14.1 The Process of Secession, 1860–1861 The states of the Lower South had the highest concentration of slaves, and they led the secessionist movement. After the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861, the states of the Upper South joined the Confederacy. Yeomen farmers in Tennessee and the backcountry of Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia opposed secession but, except in the future state of West Virginia, initially rallied to the Confederate cause. Consequently, the South entered the Civil War with its white population relatively united. would unleash new imperialist adventures. “I want collect duties and imposts” there. If military force was Cuba,” Senator Albert G. Brown of Mississippi had necessary to preserve the Union, Lincoln — like candidly stated in 1858. “I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, Democrat Andrew Jackson during the nullification cri- and one or two other Mexican States... for the plant- sis — would use it. The choice was the South’s: Return ing or spreading of slavery.” In 1787, 1821, and 1850, to the Union, or face war. the North and South had resolved their differences over slavery. In 1861, there would be no compromise. In his March 1861 inaugural address, Lincoln care- The Upper South Chooses Sides fully outlined his positions. He promised to safeguard The South’s decision came quickly. When Lincoln dis- slavery where it existed but vowed to prevent its expan- patched an unarmed ship to resupply Fort Sumter, sion. Equally important, the Republican president Jefferson Davis and his associates in the Provisional declared that the Union was “perpetual”; consequently, Government of the Confederate States decided to seize the secession of the Confederate states was illegal. the fort. The Confederate forces opened fire on April Lincoln asserted his intention to “hold, occupy, and 12, with ardent fire-eater Edmund Ruffin supposedly possess” federal property in the seceded states and “to firing the first cannon. Two days later, the Union  448 PART 5 CREATING AND PRESERVING A CONTINENTAL NATION, 1844–1877 defenders capitulated. On April PLACE EVENTS 15, Lincoln called 75,000 state Original Confederate states IN CONTEXT Confederate border states How important was the militiamen into federal service for Union border states conflict at Fort Sumter, and ninety days to put down an insur- would the Confederacy — rection “too powerful to be sup- Whites who are members Share of population of slave-owning families who are slaves or the Union — have gone pressed by the ordinary course of to war without it? judicial proceedings.” 38% 47% Northerners responded to Lincoln’s call to arms with wild enthusiasm. Asked to provide thirteen regiments of volunteers, Republican 24% 32% governor William Dennison of Ohio sent twenty. Many northern Democrats also lent their support. “Every man must be for the United States or against it,” 14% 15% Democratic leader Stephen Douglas declared. “There can be no neutrals in this war, only patriots — or trai- tors.” How then could the Democratic Party function FIGURE 14.1 as a “loyal opposition,” supporting the Union while Slavery and Secession challenging certain Republican policies? It would not As the pie charts indicate, slave labor dominated the be an easy task. economies of the Confederate states that initially Whites in the Middle and Border South now had to seceded from the Union, but it was much less impor- choose between the Union and the Confederacy, and tant in Confederate states further to the north that seceded later. their decision was crucial. Those eight states accounted for two-thirds of the whites in the slaveholding states, three-fourths of their industrial production, and well over half of their food. They were home to many of the nation’s best military leaders, including Colonel relatively few whites owned slaves (Figure 14.1). To Robert E. Lee of Virginia, a career officer whom vet- secure the railway line connecting Washington to the eran General Winfield Scott recommended to Lincoln Ohio River Valley, the president ordered General to lead the new Union army. Those states were also George B. McClellan to take control of northwestern geographically strategic. Kentucky, with its 500-mile Virginia. In October 1861, yeomen there voted over- border on the Ohio River, was essential to the move- whelmingly to create a breakaway territory, West ment of troops and supplies. Maryland was vital to the Virginia. Unwilling to “act like madmen and cut our Union’s security because it bordered the nation’s capital own throats merely to sustain... a most unwarrant- on three sides. able rebellion,” West Virginia joined the Union in The weight of its history as a slave-owning society 1863. Unionists also carried the day in Delaware. In decided the outcome in Virginia. On April 17, 1861, a Maryland, where slavery was still entrenched, a pro- convention approved secession by a vote of 88 to 55, Confederate mob attacked Massachusetts troops trav- with the dissenters concentrated in the state’s yeomen- eling through Baltimore, causing the war’s first combat dominated northwestern counties. Elsewhere, Virginia deaths: four soldiers and twelve civilians. When Mary- whites embraced the Confederate cause. “The North land secessionists destroyed railroad bridges and tele- was the aggressor,” declared Richmond lawyer William graph lines, Lincoln ordered Union troops to occupy Poague as he enlisted. “The South resisted her invad- the state and arrest Confederate sympathizers, includ- ers.” Refusing General Scott’s offer of the Union com- ing legislators. He released them only in November mand, Robert E. Lee resigned from the U.S. Army. 1861, after Unionists had secured control of Maryland’s “Save in defense of my native government. IDENTIFY CAUSES state,” Lee told Scott, “I never Lincoln was equally energetic in the Mississippi Per Figure 14.1, was slave desire again to draw my sword.” River Valley. To win control of Missouri (and the adja- ownership in a state the Arkansas, Tennessee, and North cent Missouri and Upper Mississippi rivers), Lincoln main cause of early seces- Carolina quickly joined Virginia mobilized the state’s German American militia, which sion? What other factors in the Confederacy. strongly opposed slavery. In July, the German Ameri- drove the secession move- Lincoln moved aggressively cans defeated a force of Confederate sympathizers com- ment? to hold strategic areas where manded by the state’s governor. Despite continuing  CHAPTER 14 Two Societies at War, 1861–1865 449 raids by Confederate guerrilla bands, which included Union Thrusts Toward Richmond Lincoln hoped the notorious outlaws Jesse and Frank James, the Union that a quick strike against the Confederate capital of retained control of Missouri. Richmond, Virginia, would end the rebellion. Many In Kentucky, where secessionist and Unionist senti- northerners were equally optimistic. “What a picnic,” ment was evenly balanced, Lincoln moved cautiously. thought one New York volunteer, “to go down South He allowed Kentucky’s thriving trade with the for three months and clean up the whole business.” Confederacy to continue until August 1861, when So in July 1861, Lincoln ordered General Irvin Unionists took over the state government. When the McDowell’s army of 30,000 men to attack General Confederacy responded to the trade cutoff by invading P. G. T. Beauregard’s force of 20,000 troops at Manas- Kentucky in September, Illinois volunteers com- sas, a Virginia rail junction 30 miles southwest of manded by Ulysses S. Grant drove them out. Mixing Washington. McDowell launched a strong assault near military force with political persuasion, Lincoln had Bull Run, but panic swept his troops when the Con- kept four border states (Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, federate soldiers counterattacked, shouting the hair- and Kentucky) and the northwestern portion of raising “rebel yell.” “The peculiar corkscrew sensation Virginia in the Union. that it sends down your backbone... can never be told,” one Union veteran wrote. “You have to feel it.” Setting War Objectives McDowell’s troops — and the many civilians who had come to observe the battle — retreated in disarray to and Devising Strategies Washington. Speaking as provisional president of the Confederacy The Confederate victory at Bull Run showed the in April 1861, Jefferson Davis identified the Con- strength of the rebellion. Lincoln replaced McDowell federates’ cause with that of the Patriots of 1776: like with General George McClellan and enlisted a million their grandfathers, he said, white southerners were men to serve for three years in the new Army of the fighting for the “sacred right of self-government.” The Potomac. A cautious military engineer, McClellan spent Confederacy sought “no conquest, no aggrandize- the winter of 1861–1862 training ment... ; all we ask is to be let alone.” Davis’s renunci- the recruits and launched a major COMPARE ation of expansion was probably a calculated short-run offensive in March 1862. With AND CONTRAST policy; after all, the quest to extend slavery into Kansas great logistical skill, the Union In 1861 and 1862, what and Cuba had sparked Lincoln’s election. Still, this general ferried 100,000 troops were the political and decision simplified the Confederacy’s military strategy; down the Potomac River to the military strategies of the it needed only to defend its boundaries to achieve Chesapeake Bay and landed them Confederate and Union independence. Ignoring strong antislavery sentiment on the peninsula between the leaders? Which side was among potential European allies, the Confederate York and James rivers (Map 14.2). the more successful and constitution explicitly ruled out gradual emancipation Ignoring Lincoln’s advice to why? or any other law “denying or impairing the right of “strike a blow” quickly, McClellan property in negro slaves.” Indeed, Confederate vice advanced slowly toward Richmond, allowing the president Alexander Stephens insisted that his nation’s Confederates to mount a counterstrike. Thomas J. “cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the “Stonewall” Jackson marched a Confederate force rap- Negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery — idly northward through the Shenandoah Valley in subordination to the superior race — is his natural or western Virginia and threatened Washington. When normal condition.” Lincoln recalled 30,000 troops from McClellan’s army Lincoln responded to Davis in a speech to Congress to protect the Union capital, Jackson returned quickly on July 4, 1861. He portrayed secession as an attack on to Richmond to bolster General Robert E. Lee’s army. representative government, America’s great contribu- In late June, Lee launched a ferocious six-day attack tion to world history. The issue, Lincoln declared, was that cost 20,000 casualties to the Union’s 10,000. When “whether a constitutional republic” had the will and McClellan failed to exploit the Confederates’ losses, the means to “maintain its territorial integrity against Lincoln ordered a withdrawal and Richmond remained a domestic foe.” Determined to crush the rebellion, secure. Lincoln rejected General Winfield Scott’s strategy of peaceful persuasion through economic sanctions and a Lee Moves North: Antietam Hoping for victories naval blockade. Instead, he insisted on an aggressive that would humiliate Lincoln’s government, Lee went military campaign to restore the Union. on the offensive. Joining with Jackson in northern 450 PART 5 CREATING AND PRESERVING A CONTINENTAL NATION, 1844–1877 In September 1862, Union forces halted the Confederate invasion of Maryland with victories at South Mountain and Antietam (11 and 12). 11 South Mountain Sept. 14, 1862  12 Antietam  Sept. 17, 1862 Frederick   Baltimore Harpers MARYLAND  Ferry Winchester 5 May 25, 1862  WEST VIRGINIA Poto  ma (1863) c. R. S .  Washington, D.C. The only major battle T R ah  of 1861 — Bull Run — do M To relieve pressure on Richmond, an took place about 30 miles Confederate troops under General  southwest of the Union’s en  Sh Stonewall Jackson made a run up  1 capital. It left both armies the Shenandoah Valley, threatening Bull Run July 21, 1861 in disarray. Washington (4, 5, and 7). E Aug. 29ñ30, 1862 G  10  D I R     McDowell 4 Cedar Mt.  13  E May 8, 1862 Aug. 9, 1862 Fredericksburg Cross Keys Dec. 13, 1862 9 U N June 8, 1862 7 The Peninsular Campaign L At Fredericksburg (13) in December 1862, (2 and 3; 6 and 8) began in W E Confederate forces repulsed another Union May 1862 as an attempt by the B thrust into the heart of Virginia. Union armies to take Richmond S by moving up the peninsula Ra Assisted by Jackson’s attacks, Lee repulsed between the James and York rivers. pp the Union assault on Richmond and then ha a advanced toward Washington. After another nn o 0 20 40 miles Confederate victory in the Second Battle of ck Che Bull Run (10) in August 1862, Lee’s army R. Fair Oaks 6 0 20 40 kilometers moved into Maryland. May 31ñJune 1, 1862 sapea Union Movements Confederate Movements VIRGINIA Richmond    McDowell Johnston ke Bay Yo McClellan Holmes 8 Seven Days r kR June 25ñJuly 1, 1862. 2 FrÈmont Jackson Siege of  Banks Lee Yorktown James R  Apr. 5ñMay 4,  Shields. Confederate Williamsburg  1862  victory 3 May 5, 1862 Pope To help you to follow the sequence of Railroad the major battles of the eastern Burnside campaigns of 1862, each battle is Sequence of   Union victory 1 battles dated and its place in the chronology Ft. Monroe denoted by a number in a circle. MAP 14.2 The Eastern Campaigns of 1862 Many of the great battles of the Civil War took place in the 125 miles separating the Union capi- tal, Washington, D.C., and the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia. During 1862, Confederate generals Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson and Robert E. Lee won battles that defended the Confederate capital (3, 6, 8, and 13) and launched offensive strikes against Union forces guarding Washington (1, 4, 5, 7, 9, and 10). They also suffered a defeat — at Antietam (12), in Maryland — that was almost fatal to the Confederate cause. As was often the case in the Civil War, the victors in these battles were either too bloodied or too timid to exploit their advantage. Virginia, he routed Union troops in the Second Battle West Virginia, a copy of Lee’s orders fell into McClellan’s of Bull Run (August 1862) and then struck north hands. The Union general again failed to exploit his through western Maryland. There, he nearly met with advantage, delaying an attack against Lee’s depleted disaster. When the Confederate commander divided army, thereby allowing it to secure a strong defensive his force, sending Jackson to capture Harpers Ferry in position west of Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg,  CHAPTER 14 Two Societies at War, 1861–1865 451 Maryland. Outnumbered 87,000 to 50,000, Lee desper- the Confederate and Union dead numbered 4,800 and ately fought off McClellan’s attacks until Jackson’s the wounded 18,500, of whom 3,000 soon died. (By troops arrived and saved the Confederates from a comparison, there were 6,000 American casualties on major defeat. Appalled by the Union casualties, D-Day, which began the invasion of Nazi-occupied McClellan allowed Lee to retreat to Virginia. France in World War II.) The fighting at Antietam was savage. A Wisconsin In public, Lincoln claimed Antietam as a Union officer described his men “loading and firing with victory; privately, he criticized McClellan for not fight- demoniacal fury and shouting and laughing hysteri- ing Lee to the bitter end. A masterful organizer of men cally.” A sunken road — nicknamed Bloody Lane — was and supplies, McClellan refused to risk his troops, fear- filled with Confederate bodies two and three deep, and ing that heavy casualties would undermine public sup- the advancing Union troops knelt on this “ghastly port for the war. Lincoln worried more about the flooring” to shoot at the retreating Confederates. The danger of a lengthy war. He dismissed McClellan and battle at Antietam on September 17, 1862, remains the began a long search for an aggressive commanding bloodiest single day in U.S. military history. Together, general. His first choice, Ambrose E. Burnside, proved The Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, March 1862 Pea Ridge was the biggest battle of the Civil War fought west of the Mississippi and was of considerable strategic significance. By routing one Confederate army and holding another to a draw, outnumbered Union forces maintained their control of Missouri for the duration of the war. The lithograph, published in Chicago in 1889, commemorates the Union units — from Illinois and other midwestern states — who fought at Pea Ridge. Here the Union troops, half of whom were German immigrants, face a charging column of Confederate cavalry and infantry from Texas and Missouri and their Native American allies. Each side had about 1,000 men killed or wounded, with another 200 taken prisoner. Library of Congress. 452 PART 5 CREATING AND PRESERVING A CONTINENTAL NATION, 1844–1877 to be more daring but less competent than McClellan. except by complete conquest.” Lincoln agreed. During In December, after heavy losses in futile attacks against the summer of 1862, he abandoned hope for a compro- well-entrenched Confederate forces at Fredericksburg, mise peace that would restore the Union. Instead, he Virginia, Burnside resigned his command, and Lincoln committed the nation to a total war that would mobi- replaced him with Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker. As lize all of society’s resources — economic, political, and 1862 ended, Confederates were optimistic: they had cultural — in support of the North’s military effort and won a stalemate in the East. end slavery in the South. Aided by the Republican Party and a talented cabinet, Lincoln gradually orga- The War in the Mississippi Valley Meanwhile, nized an effective central government able to wage all- Union commanders in the Upper South had been more out war; and urged on by antislavery politicians and successful (Map 14.3). Their goal was to control the activists, he moved toward a controversial proclama- Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri rivers, dividing the tion of emancipation. Jefferson Davis had less success Confederacy and reducing the mobility of its armies. at harnessing southern resources, because the eleven Because Kentucky did not join the rebellion, the Union states of the Confederacy remained suspicious of cen- already dominated the Ohio River Valley. In February tralized rule and southern yeomen grew increasingly 1862, the Union army used an innovative tactic to take skeptical of the war effort. charge of the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers as well. General Ulysses S. Grant used riverboats clad with iron plates to capture Fort Donelson on the Cumberland Mobilizing Armies and Civilians River and Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. When Initially, patriotic fervor filled both armies with eager Grant moved south toward Mississippi to seize critical young volunteers. All he heard was “War! War! War!” railroad lines, Confederate troops led by Albert Sidney one Union recruit recalled. Even those of sober minds Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard caught his army by joined up. “I don’t think a young man ever went over all surprise near a small log church at Shiloh, Tennessee. the considerations more carefully than I did,” reflected However, Grant relentlessly committed troops and William Saxton of Cincinnatus, New York. “It might forced a Confederate withdrawal. As the fighting at mean sickness, wounds, loss of limb, and even life Shiloh ended on April 7, Grant surveyed a large field itself.... But my country was in danger.” The southern “so covered with dead that it would have been possible call for volunteers was even more successful, thanks to to walk over the clearing in any direction, stepping on its strong military tradition and a culture that stressed dead bodies, without a foot touching the ground.” The duty and honor. “Would you, My Darling,... be will- cost in lives was horrific, but Lincoln was resolute: ing to leave your Children under such a [despotic “What I want... is generals who will fight battles and Union] government?” James B. Griffin of Edgefield, win victories.” South Carolina, asked his wife. “No — I know you Three weeks later, Union naval forces commanded would sacrifice every comfort on earth, rather than by David G. Farragut struck the Confederacy from submit to it.” However, enlistments declined as poten- the Gulf of Mexico. They captured New Orleans, the tial recruits learned the realities of mass warfare: epi- South’s financial center and largest city. The Union army demic diseases in the camps and wholesale death on also took control of fifteen hundred plantations and the battlefields. Both governments soon faced the need 50,000 slaves in the surrounding region, striking a strong for conscription. blow against slavery. Workers on some plantations looted their owners’ mansions; others refused to labor The Military Draft The Confederacy acted first. In unless they were paid wages. “[Slavery there] is forever April 1862, following the bloodshed at Shiloh, the destroyed and worthless,” declared one northern Confederate Congress imposed the first legally binding reporter. Union victories had significantly undermined draft (conscription) in American history. New laws Confederate strength in the Mississippi River Valley. required existing soldiers to serve for the duration of the war and mandated three years of military service from all men between the ages of eighteen and thirty- Toward Total War five. In September 1862, after the heavy casualties at Antietam, the age limit jumped to forty-five. The The military carnage in 1862 revealed that the war South’s draft had two loopholes, both controversial. would be long and costly. Grant later remarked that, First, it exempted one white man — the planter, a son, after Shiloh, he “gave up all idea of saving the Union or an overseer — for each twenty slaves, allowing some  CHAPTER 14 Two Societies at War, 1861–1865 453 M O h i o R. Louisville iss ILLINOIS  iss Perryville ip  Oct. 8, 1862 pi Ft. Henry R. MISSOURI Feb. 6, KENTUCKY 1862 Fort Donelson Feb. 16,  Springfield Columbus Cairo 1862 d R.  Mar. 4, 1862   r l an Wilson's Creek Bowling C um b e Aug. 10, 1861 New Madrid 4  Mar. 14,1862 Green   2   1  Island No. 10 Pea Ridge April 8, 1862 3 TENNESSEE Mar. 6–8, 1862 Nashville Murfreesboro Feb. 25,  Dec. 31, 1862 1862 Ft. Pillow   June 5,  Knoxville Columbia 10 1862  ARKANSAS NORTH Grand 5 Junction CAROLINA Memphis    Shiloh April 6–7, 1862   June 6, Chattanooga 11 1862 Corinth Florence   Ark a Luka sa Decatur  n sR Tupelo.  R. sa o Tomb Co  Granada ALABAMA igbee R. GEORGIA  Greenville MISSISSIPPI Vicksburg bombarded June 26–28, 1862 Monroe  12 Meridian Selma    Cahaba  Montgomery a R. LOUISIANA Sherman a b am Pearl Grant  Al Garland R. Farragut-Butler Buell Lyon N 9 8 Curtis E Baton Rouge Mobile Pensacola FLORIDA  Union Victory W  May 12, 1862 May 18, 1862  Bragg S New Orleans Ft. Pickens  Confederate victory April 25, 1862 Lake  Railroads Pontchartrain  Proctorsville  7 1 Sequence of battles Berwick Ft. Jackson April 24, 1862 0 50 100 miles  6 Gul f of Mexico 0 50 100 kilometers MAP 14.3 The Western Campaigns, 1861–1862 As the Civil War intensified in 1862, Union and Confederate military and naval forces sought control of the great valleys of the Ohio, Tennessee, and Mississippi rivers. From February through April 1862, Union armies moved south through western Tennessee (1–3 and 5). By the end of June, Union naval forces controlled the Mississippi River north of Memphis (4, 10, and 11) and from the Gulf of Mexico to Vicksburg (6, 7, 9, and 12). These military and naval victories gave the Union control of crucial transportation routes, kept Missouri in the Union, and carried the war to the borders of the states of the Lower South.  454 PART 5 CREATING AND PRESERVING A CONTINENTAL NATION, 1844–1877 Kansas Volunteers, 1862 When they posed for this tintype photograph in 1862, these men from Company E, 8th Kansas Volunteer Infantry, had marched hundreds of miles through Kentucky and Tennessee in a largely fruitless pursuit of a Confederate army and wore the look of battle-hardened troops. Some of these volunteers appear to be in their thirties or forties, and perhaps were abolitionist veterans of the civil strife in Bloody Kansas during the 1850s. Kansas State Historical Society. whites on large plantations to avoid military service. overrode the judges’ authority to free conscripted men, This provision, a Mississippi legislator warned Jefferson so the government was able to keep substantial armies Davis, “has aroused a spirit of rebellion in some places.” in the field well into 1864. Second, draftees could hire substitutes. By the time the The Union government acted more ruthlessly Confederate Congress closed this loophole in 1864, the toward draft resisters and Confederate sympathizers. price of a substitute had soared to $300 in gold, three In Missouri and other border states, Union command- times the annual wage of a skilled worker. Laborers and ers levied special taxes on southern supporters. Lincoln yeomen farmers angrily complained that it was “a rich went further, suspending habeas corpus and, over the man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” course of the war, temporarily imprisoning about Consequently, some southerners refused to serve. 15,000 southern sympathizers without trial. He also Because the Confederate constitution vested sovereignty gave military courts jurisdiction over civilians who dis- in the individual states, the government in Richmond couraged enlistments or resisted the draft, preventing could not compel military service. Independent-minded acquittals by sympathetic local juries. However, most governors such as Joseph Brown of Georgia and Union governments used incentives to lure recruits. To Zebulon Vance of North Carolina simply ignored meet the local quotas set by the Militia Act of 1862, President Davis’s first draft call in towns, counties, and states used cash bounties of as PLACE EVENTS early 1862. Elsewhere, state judges much as $600 (about $11,000 today) and signed up IN CONTEXT issued writs of habeas corpus — nearly 1 million men. The Union also allowed men to How did the Union and legal instruments used to protect avoid military service by providing a substitute or pay- Confederacy mobilize their people from arbitrary arrest — and ing a $300 fee. populations for war, and ordered the Confederate army to When the Enrollment Act of 1863 finally initiated how effective were these release reluctant draftees. How- conscription, recent German and Irish immigrants methods? ever, the Confederate Congress often refused to serve. It was not their war, they said.  CHAPTER 14 Two Societies at War, 1861–1865 455 Northern Democrats used the furor over conscription The Union government won much stronger sup- to bolster support for their party, which increasingly port from native-born middle-class citizens. In 1861, criticized Lincoln’s policies. They accused Lincoln of prominent New Yorkers established the U.S. Sanitary drafting poor whites to liberate enslaved blacks, who Commission to provide the troops with clothing, food, would then flood the cities and take their jobs. Slavery and medical services. Seven thousand local auxiliaries was nearly “dead, [but] the negro is not, there is the assisted the commission’s work. “I almost weep,” misfortune,” declared a Democratic newspaper in reported a local agent, “when these plain rural people Cincinnati. In July 1863, the immigrants’ hostility to come to send their simple offerings to absent sons and conscription and blacks sparked riots in New York brothers.” The commission also recruited battlefield City. For five days, Irish and German workers ran nurses and doctors for the Union Army Medical rampant, burning draft offices, sacking the homes of Bureau. Despite these efforts, dysentery, typhoid, and influential Republicans, and attacking the police. The malaria spread through the camps, as did mumps and rioters lynched and mutilated a dozen African Amer- measles, viruses that were often deadly to rural recruits. icans, drove hundreds of black families from their Diseases and infections killed about 250,000 Union homes, and burned down the Colored Orphan Asylum. soldiers, nearly twice the 135,000 who died in combat. To suppress the mobs, Lincoln rushed in Union troops Still, thanks to the Sanitary Commission, Union troops who had just fought at Gettysburg; they killed more had a far lower mortality rate than soldiers fighting than a hundred rioters. in nineteenth-century European wars. Confederate The Business of Recruiting an Army Even before the antidraft riots in New York City in July 1863, Union governments used monetary bonuses to induce men to join the army, and the payments increased as the war continued. George Law’s painting shows a New York recruiting post in 1864. To meet the state’s quota of 30,000 men, the county and state governments offered volunteers bounties of $300 and $75 — on top of a U.S. government bounty of $302. The total — some $677 — was serious money at a time when the average worker earned $1.70 for a ten-hour day. Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library. 456 PART 5 CREATING AND PRESERVING A CONTINENTAL NATION, 1844–1877 produced a new “cult of mourning” among the middle and upper classes. Women in Wartime As tens of thousands of wounded husbands and sons limped home, their wives and sisters helped them rebuild their lives. Another 200,000 women worked as volunteers in the Sanitary Commission and the Freedman’s Aid Society, which collected supplies for liberated slaves. The war also drew more women into the wage- earning workforce as nurses, clerks, and factory operatives. Dorothea Dix (Chapter 11) served as super- intendent of female nurses and, by successfully com- bating the prejudice against women providing medical treatment to men, opened a new occupation to women. Thousands of educated Union women became govern- ment clerks, while southern women staffed the efficient Confederate postal service. In both societies, millions Hospital Nursing of women took over farm tasks; filled jobs in schools Working as nurses in battlefront hospitals, thousands of and offices; and worked in textile, shoe, and food- Union and Confederate women gained firsthand experience of the horrors of war. A sense of calm prevails in this processing factories. A few even became spies, scouts, behind-the-lines Union hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, as and (disguising themselves as men) soldiers. As Union nurse Anne Belle tends to the needs of soldiers recovering nurse Clara Barton, who later founded the American from their wounds. Most Civil War nurses were volunteers Red Cross, recalled, “At the war’s end, woman was at with little medical training; they spent time cooking and cleaning for their patients as well as tending their injuries. least fifty years in advance of the normal position U.S. Army Military History Institute. which continued peace would have assigned her.” troops were less fortunate, despite the efforts of thou- Mobilizing Resources sands of women who volunteered as nurses, because Wars are usually won by the side that possesses greater the Confederate army’s health system was poorly orga- resources. In that regard, the Union had a distinct nized. Scurvy was a special problem for southern sol- advantage. With nearly two-thirds of the nation’s pop- diers; lacking vitamin C in their diets, they suffered ulation, two-thirds of the railroad mileage, and almost muscle ailments and had low resistance to camp dis- 90 percent of the industrial output, the North’s econ- eases (Thinking Like a Historian, p. 458). omy was far superior to that of the South (Figure 14.2). So much death created new industries and cultural Furthermore, many of its arms factories were equipped rituals. Embalmers devised a zinc chloride fluid to pre- for mass production. serve soldiers’ bodies, allowing them to be shipped Still, the Confederate position was far from weak. home for burial, an innovation that began modern Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee had substan- funeral practices. Military cemeteries with hundreds of tial industrial capacity. Richmond, with its Tredegar crosses in neat rows replaced the landscaped “rural Iron Works, was an important manufacturing center, cemeteries” in vogue in American cities before the and in 1861 it acquired the gun-making machinery Civil War. As thousands of mothers, wives, and sisters from the U.S. armory at Harpers Ferry. The production mourned the deaths of fallen soldiers, they faced at the Richmond armory, the purchase of Enfield rifles changed lives. Confronting utter deprivation, working- from Britain, and the capture of 100,000 Union guns class women grieved for the loss of a breadwinner. enabled the Confederacy to provide every infantryman Middle-class wives often had financial resources but, with a modern rifle-musket by 1863. having embraced the affectionate tenets of domesticity, Moreover, with 9 million people, the Confederacy mourned the death of a loved one by wearing black could mobilize enormous armies. Enslaved blacks, crape “mourning” dresses and other personal accesso- one-third of the population, became part of the war ries of death. The destructive war, in concert with the effort by producing food for the army and raw cot- emerging consumer culture and ethic of domesticity, ton for export. Confederate leaders counted on King  CHAPTER 14 Two Societies at War, 1861–1865 457 FIGURE 14.2 Economies, North and South, 1860 North South The military advantages of the North were even Population 61% 39% greater than this chart suggests. The population Commodity output 70% 30% figures for the South include slaves, whom the Confederacy feared to arm. Also, the South’s Farm acreage 67% 33% commodity output was primarily in farm goods 85% 15% Factories rather than manufactures. Finally, southern factories were much smaller on average than those in the Railroad mileage 66% 34% North. Cotton — the leading American export and a cru- However, British manufacturers had stockpiled cotton cial staple of the nineteenth-century economy — to and developed new sources in Egypt and India. Still, purchase clothes, boots, blankets, and weapons from the South received some foreign support. Although abroad. Leaders also saw cotton as a diplomatic Britain never recognized the Confederacy as an inde- weapon that would persuade Britain and France, which pendent nation, it treated the rebel government as a had large textile industries, to assist the Confederacy. belligerent power — with the right under international Richmond: Capital City and Industrial Center The Confederacy chose Richmond as its capital because of the historic importance of Virginia as the home of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. However, Richmond was also a major industrial center. Exploiting the city’s location at the falls of the James River, the city’s entrepreneurs had developed a wide range of industries: flour mills, tobacco factories, railroad and port facilities, and, most important, a sub- stantial iron industry. In 1861, the Tredegar Iron Works employed nearly a thousand workers and, as the only facility in the South that could manufacture large machinery and heavy weapons, made a major contribution to the Confederate war effort. The Library of Virginia. THINKING LIKE A HISTORIAN The Civil War, like all wars before and since, encouraged innovation in both the Military Deaths — and destruction and the saving of human life. More than 620,000 soldiers — 360,000 on the Union side and 260,000 Confederates — died during the war, about 20 Lives Saved — During percent of those who served. However, thanks to advances in camp hygiene and battlefield treatment, the Union death rate was about 54–58 per 1,000 soldiers the Civil War per year, less than half the level for British and French troops during the Crimean War of 1854–1855. 1. Report by surgeon Charles S. Tipler, medical direc- Private George W. Lemon suffered a minie ball wound tor of the Army of the Potomac, January 4, 1862. to his femur similar to the one shown here (below), sur- Most Civil War deaths came from disease. The geons amputated his leg below the hip and, after the major killers were bacterial intestinal diseases — war, fitted him with a prosthetic leg. typhoid fever, diarrhea, and dysentery — which spread because of unsanitary conditions in the camps. The aggregate strength of the forces from which I have received reports is 142,577. Of these, 47,836 have been under treatment in the field and general hospitals, 35,915 of whom have been returned to duty, and 281 have died; 9,281 remained under treatment at the end of the month;... The diseases from which our men have suffered most have been continued remittent and typhoid fevers, measles, diarrhea, dysentery, and the various forms of catarrh [heavy discharge of mucus from the nose]. Of all the scourges incident to armies in the field I suppose that Source: National Museum of Health & Medicine, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. chronic diarrheas and dysenteries have always been the most prevalent and the most fatal. I am happy to say that in this army they are almost unknown. We have but 280 cases of chronic diarrhea and 69 of chronic dysentery reported in the month of November. 2. Minie ball wounds: femur shot by Springfield 1862 rifle and Private George W. Lemon, 1867. Ninety percent of battle casualties were the victims of a new technology: musket-rifles that fired lethal soft-lead bullets called minie balls (after their inventor, Claude- Étienne Minié). The rifle-musket revolutionized military strategy by enormously strengthening defensive forces. Infantrymen could now kill reliably at 300 yards — triple the previous range of muskets. Initially, the new technol- ogy baffled commanders, who continued to use the tactics perfected during the heyday of the musket and bayonet charge, sending waves of infantrymen against enemy positions. A minie ball strike to the abdomen, chest, or head was usually fatal, but injuries to the limbs gave some hope of survival, given advances in battlefield surgery. When Source: Courtesy National Library of Medicine. 458 3. Kate Cumming, April 23, 1862, journal entry on 5. John Tooker, MD, “Aspects of Medicine, Nurs- treating a Confederate victim after the Battle of ing, and the Civil War,” 2007. The Union doctor Shiloh. Union surgeons performed 29,980 battle- Jonathan Letterman pioneered a new method field amputations during the Civil War. Confederate of battlefield triage that was adopted by the records are less complete, but surgeons apparently entire army in 1864. undertook about 28,000 amputations. They quickly Letterman had devised an efficient and, for the times, removed limbs too shattered to mend, which modern system of mass casualty management, begin- increased the chances of survival. According to ning with first aid adjacent to the battlefield, removal of one witness, “surgeons and their assistants, the wounded by an organized ambulance system to field stripped to the waist and bespattered with hospitals for urgent and stabilizing treatment, such as blood, stood around, some holding the poor wound closure and amputation, and then referral to gen- fellows while others, armed with long, bloody eral hospitals for longer term definitive management. knives and saws, cut and sawed away with fright- This three-stage approach to casualty management, ful rapidity, throwing the mangled limbs on a pile strengthened by effective and efficient transport, earned nearby as soon as removed.” This journal entry Letterman the title of “The Father of Battlefield Medicine.” from a young Confederate nurse in Corinth, Mis- sissippi, describes the plight of one such victim after the Battle of Shiloh. Sources: (1) The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, A young man whom I have been attending is going to 1889), Series 1, Vol. 5 (Part V), 111–112; (3) Kate Cumming, A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee (Louisville, KY: John P. Morton & Com- have his arm cut off. Poor fellow! I am doing all I can to pany, 1866), 19; (4) William Williams Keen, “Surgical Reminiscences of the Civil cheer him. He says that he knows that he will die, as all War,” in Addresses and Other Papers (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1905), 433–434; who have had limbs amputated in this hospital have (5) John Tooker, “Antietam: Aspects of Medicine, Nursing, and the Civil War,” National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, died.... He lived only a few hours after his amputation. National Institutes of Health. 4. William Williams Keen, MD, “Surgical Reminis- cences of the Civil War,” 1905. Although 73 percent of the Union amputees survived the ANALYZING THE EVIDENCE war, infected wounds — deadly gangrene — took the lives of most soldiers who suffered 1. Based on Tipler’s report (source 1), would you say the Union army was healthy or unhealthy? Ready for battle certain gunshot injuries in this pre-antibiotic, or not? pre-antiseptic era. Keen, who later became the 2. Consider sources 2–4. How do you think the reentry of first brain surgeon in the United States, served tens of thousands of maimed veterans into civil society as a surgeon in the Union army. affected American culture? 3. What do sources 3–5 suggest about the successes and Not more than one incontestable example of recovery limitations of battlefield medicine during the Civil War? from a gunshot wound of the stomach and not a single 4. Consider the Civil War in the context of the Industrial incontestable case of wound of the small intestines are Revolution. What was the impact of factory production recorded during the entire war among the almost 250,000 and technological advances on the number of weapons and their killing power? And how might the organiza- wounded.... tional innovations of the Industrial Revolution pertain Of 852 amputations of the shoulder-joint, 236 died, to the conflict? In this regard, what do you make of the a mortality of 28.5 per cent. Of 66 cases of amputation new method of battlefield triage pioneered by Union of the hip-joint, 55, or 83.3 per cent died. Of 155 cases of doctor Jonathan Letterman (source 5)? trephining [cutting a hole in the skull to relieve pressure], PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER 60 recovered and 95 died, a mortality of over 61 per cent. As a “total war” the Civil War involved the citizenry as well Of 374 ligations of the femoral artery, 93 recovered and as the military, marshaling all of the two societies’ resources 281 died, a mortality of over 75 per cent. and ingenuity. Using your understanding of these docu- These figures afford a striking evidence of the dreadful ments and the textbook, write an essay that discusses the relation of the war to technology, medicine, public finance, mortality of military surgery in the days before antisepsis and the lives of women on the battle lines and the home and first-aid packages. Happily such death-rates can never front. again be seen, at least in civilized warfare. 459  460 PART 5 CREATING AND PRESERVING A CONTINENTAL NATION, 1844–1877 law to borrow money and purchase weapons. The of public finance that secured funds in three ways. odds, then, did not necessarily favor the Union, despite First, the government increased tariffs; placed high its superior resources. duties on alcohol and tobacco; and imposed direct taxes on business corporations, large inheritances, and Republican Economic and Fiscal Policies To mobil- the incomes of wealthy citizens. These levies paid about ize northern resources, the Republican-dominated 20 percent of the cost. Second, interest-paying bonds Congress enacted a neomercantilist program of issued by the U.S. Treasury financed another 65 per- government-assisted economic development that far cent. The National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864 surpassed Henry Clay’s American System (Chapter 10). forced most banks to buy those bonds; and Philadelphia The Republicans imposed high tariffs (averaging nearly banker and Treasury Department agent Jay Cooke 40 percent) on various foreign goods, thereby encour- used newspaper ads and 2,500 subagents to persuade a aging domestic industries. To boost agricultural out- million northern families to buy them. put, they offered “free land” to farmers. The Homestead The Union paid the remaining 15 percent by print- Act of 1862 gave settlers the title to 160 acres of public ing paper money. The Legal Tender Act of 1862 autho- land after five years of residence. To create an inte- rized $150 million in paper currency — soon known as grated national banking system (far more powerful greenbacks — and required the public to accept them than the First and Second Banks of the United States), as legal tender. Like the Continental currency of the Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase forced thou- Revolutionary era, greenbacks could not be exchanged sands of local banks to accept federal charters and for specie; however, the Treasury issued a limited regulations. amount of paper money, so it lost only a small part of Finally, the Republican Congress implemented its face value. Clay’s program for a nationally financed transportation If a modern fiscal system was one result of the war, system. Expansion to the Pacific, the California gold immense concentrations of capital in many industries — rush, and subsequent discoveries of gold, silver, copper, meatpacking, steel, coal, railroads, textiles, shoes — was and other metals in Nevada, Montana, and other west- another. The task of supplying the huge war machine, an ern lands had revived demands observer noted, gave a few men “the command of mil- TRACE CHANGE for such a network. Therefore, in lions of money.” Such massed financial power threat- OVER TIME 1862, Congress chartered the ened not only the prewar society of small producers but How did the economic Union Pacific and Central Pacific also the future of democratic self-government (America policies of the Republican- companies to build a transconti- Compared, p. 461). Americans “are never again to see controlled Congress nental railroad line and granted the republic in which we were born,” lamented aboli- redefine the character of them lavish subsidies. This eco- tionist and social reformer Wendell Phillips. the federal government? nomic program won the alle- giance of farmers, workers, and The South Resorts to Coercion and Inflation The entrepreneurs and bolstered the Union’s ability to fight economic demands on the South were equally great, a long war. but, true to its states’ rights philosophy, the Confederacy New industries sprang up to provide the Union initially left most matters to the state governments. army — and its 1.5 million men — with guns, clothes, However, as the realities of total war became clear, and food. Over the course of the war, soldiers consumed Jefferson Davis’s administration took extraordinary more than half a billion pounds of pork and other measures. It built and operated shipyards, armories, packed meats. To meet this demand, Chicago railroads foundries, and textile mills; commandeered food and built new lines to carry thousands of hogs and cattle to scarce raw materials such as coal, iron, copper, and the city’s stockyards and slaughterhouses. By 1862, Chi- lead; requisitioned slaves to work on fortifications; cago had passed Cincinnati as the meatpacking capital and directly controlled foreign trade. of the nation, bringing prosperity to thousands of mid- The Confederate Congress and ordinary southern western farmers and great wealth to Philip D. Armour citizens opposed many of Davis’s initiatives, particu- and other meatpacking entrepreneurs. larly those involving taxes. The Congress refused to Bankers and financiers likewise found themselves tax cotton exports and slaves, the most valuable prop- pulled into the war effort. The annual spending of the erty held by wealthy planters, and the urban middle Union government shot up from $63 million in 1860 to classes and yeomen farm families refused to pay more more than $865 million in 1864. To raise that enor- than their fair share. Consequently, the Confederacy mous sum, the Republicans created a modern system covered less than 10 percent of its expenditures through AMERICA C O M PA R E D War Debt: Britain and the United States, 1830–1900 Wars cost money, sometimes a lot of money, and nations to less than 5 percent. Ample tariff revenues and the often pay for them by issuing bonds and expanding the frugal policies of Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin national debt. The British national debt grew enormously Van Buren then cut the debt nearly to zero by the early between 1750 and