(18615) Sometimes called the War Between the States or the Second American Revolution, a conflict in the USA which resolved two great issues: the nature of the Federal Union and the relative power of the states and the central government; and the existence of black slavery.
The war began after Lincoln's accession to the presidency demonstrated that the South could no longer expect to control the high offices of state. Although Lincoln was hostile to slavery, he did not believe that he could interfere where it existed. But to Southerners, he and the Republican Party were intolerable, and 11 Southern states withdrew from the Union, establishing the Confederate States of America. War broke out (12 Apr 1861) when Southern batteries opened fire on a Union emplacement in the harbour of Charleston, SC. At first Lincoln defined the issue as the preservation of the Union, without any reference to slavery. But he broadened the war aims (1 Jan 1863), proclaiming the emancipation without compensation of all slaves in areas then under arms against the government. In practice, the proclamation changed nothing, but it did give the war the semblance of a moral crusade.
Sometimes called the first modern war, the Civil War pitted two different social systems against each other. The free-labour industrial North had greater population, stronger financial, manufacturing, and transportation systems, and international recognition; but initially the South had much better military leaders. Because of slavery, it could also put a larger proportion of its white adult male population under arms. Lincoln's greatest difficulty was finding an effective general; he did not succeed until the emergence from obscurity of Ulysses S Grant.
The winning strategy began in 1863, when Grant won control of the whole Mississippi Valley, isolating the W Confederate States from the rest. Meanwhile Robert E Lee was advancing into Pennsylvania, largely in the hope of winning foreign recognition for the Confederacy. His defeat at Gettysburg ended that possibility. By the autumn, the Chattanooga campaign put Northern troops in a position to bisect the Confederacy E to W, an act accomplished in late 1864 by General Sherman's march through Georgia to the sea. Grant, now the overall Northern commander, adopted a strategy of relentless pressure on Lee's forces, regardless of his own losses. In the single month of June 1864, he lost nearly 60 000, nearly Lee's total strength. But Northern advantages of population and material support, combined with the success of the Mississippi and Chattanooga campaigns, were making the Southern position untenable, particularly after Lincoln defeated the former army commander George B McClellan in the 1864 presidential election. The end came in the spring of 1865, as Sherman marched N through the Carolinas while Grant continued his costly siege of Richmond. Lee finally abandoned the Confederate capital (2 Apr), and a week later he was trapped by the combined forces of Grant and Sheridan. His capitulation at Appomattox Court House left only scattered Southern forces in the field, and the last surrender took place on 26 May.
The cost in death and devastation of the war was enormous. The greatest change was the end of slavery and all that it stood for. With its destruction there emerged the possibility of a modernized South and the long-range hope of a redefinition of the place of African-American people in American life - a hope which was not to be fulfilled until almost a century later.
| American Civil War | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
(clockwise from upper right) Confederate prisoners at Gettysburg; Rosecrans at Stones River, Tennessee |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
| Combatants | |||||||||
| United States of America (Union) | Confederate States of America (Confederacy) | ||||||||
| Commanders | |||||||||
|
Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant |
Jefferson Davis, Robert Edward Lee |
||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 2,200,000 | 1,064,000 | ||||||||
| Casualties | |||||||||
|
110,000 killed in action, 360,000 total dead, 275,200 wounded |
93,000 killed in action, 258,000 total dead 137,000+ wounded |
||||||||
| Theaters of the American Civil War |
|---|
| Union blockade – Eastern – Western – Lower Seaboard – Trans-Mississippi – Pacific Coast |
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was a sectional conflict in the United States of America between the federal government (the "Union") and eleven Southern slave states that declared their secession and formed the Confederate States of America, led by President Jefferson Davis. The Union, led by President Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party, opposed the expansion of slavery and rejected any right of secession. Fighting commenced on April 12, 1861 when Confederate forces attacked a federal military installation at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
During the first year, the Union asserted control of the border states and established a naval blockade as both sides raised large armies. After the Battle of Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made the freeing of the slaves a war goal, despite opposition from Copperheads who supported slavery and secession. War Democrats reluctantly accepted emancipation as part of total war needed to save the Union. In the East, Robert Edward Lee rolled up a series of Confederate victories over the Army of the Potomac, but his best general, Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, was killed at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863.
By 1864, long-term Union advantages in geography, manpower, industry, finance, political organization and transportation were overwhelming the Confederacy. In 1865, the Confederacy collapsed after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House and the slaves were freed.
The full restoration of the Union was the work of a highly contentious postwar era known as Reconstruction. The war produced about 970,000 casualties (3% of the population), including approximately 620,000 soldier deaths - two-thirds by disease. The causes of the war, the reasons for its outcome, and even the name of the war itself are subjects of lingering controversy even today. The main results of the war were the restoration and strengthening of the Union, and the end of slavery in the United States.
Causes of the War
Secession was caused by the coexistence of a slave-owning South and an increasingly anti-slavery North.
Well-founded Southern fears of losing control of the Federal government to antislavery forces, and northern fears that the slave power already controlled the government, brought the crisis to a head in the late 1850s. slave plantations caused the Whig and "Know-Nothing" parties to collapse, and new ones to arise (the Free Soil Party in 1848, the Republicans in 1854, Constitutional Union in 1860).
Other factors include states' rights, modernization, sectionalism, the nullification crisis and economic differences between the North and South.
Caveat
In fairness to Southerners, Northerners were far from perfect. If a few Northerners were Abolitionists, and perhaps a majority wanted a gradual, peaceful end to slavery, some Northerners were in favor of slavery. As Lincoln put it in a speech to free blacks at the White House:
Perhaps you have long been free, or all your lives.
Still, the differences between North and South on racial issues were large and growing. Secession itself triggered the war. At first Lincoln stressed the Union as a war goal to unite the War Democrats, border states and Republicans. Later he added the benefits of emancipation when the border states were convinced that freeing slaves was part of total war needed to save the Union. In his Gettysburg Address he tied preserving Democracy to emancipation and the Union as a war goal.
Slavery and antislavery
The institution of slavery, introduced into colonial North America in 1619, had become a contentious issue between the North and the South early in the 1800s. The Compromise of 1850 included a new, stronger fugitive slave law that required federal agents to capture and return slaves that escaped into northern free states.
The Supreme Court decision of 1857 in Dred Scott v. Taney's decision said that slaves "have no rights which any white man is bound to respect", and that slaves could be taken to free states and territories. Lincoln warned that "the next Dred Scott decision" could threaten northern states with slavery.
Since fewer than 800 of the almost 4 million slaves escaped in 1860, the fugitive slave controversy was not a practical reason for secession.
There was a strong correlation between the number of plantations in a region and the degree of support for secession. The upper South slave states of Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee had fewer plantations and rejected secession until the Fort Sumter crisis forced them to choose sides.
Rejection of compromise
Until December 20, 1860, the political system had always successfully handled inter-regional crises. Congress had solved the crisis over the admission of Missouri as a slave state in 1819-21, the controversy over South Carolina's nullification of the tariff in 1832, the acquisition of Texas in 1845, and the status of slavery in the territory acquired from Mexico in 1850.
However, in 1854, the old Second Party System broke down after passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
One Republican leader, Senator Charles Sumner, was violently attacked and nearly killed at his desk in the Senate by Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina.
Open warfare in the Kansas Territory ("Bleeding Kansas"), the Dred Scott decision of 1857, John Brown's raid in 1859 and the split in the Democratic Party in 1860 polarized the nation between North and South.
A deeper reason for the rejection of compromise was the fear that conspiracies threatened to destroy the republic.
Abolitionism
The Second Great Awakening of the 1820s and 1830s in religion inspired reform movements, one of the most notable of which was the abolitionists; In the last years before the war, "antislavery" could mean the Northern majority, like Abraham Lincoln, who opposed expansion of slavery or its influence, as by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, or the Fugitive Slave Act.
Slaveowners were angry over the attacks on their "peculiar institution" of slavery.
Beginning in the 1830s, the U.S. Postmaster General refused to allow the mails to carry abolition pamphlets to the South. Southerners rejected the denials of Republicans that they were abolitionists, and pointed to John Brown's attempt in 1859 to start a slave uprising as proof that multiple Northern conspiracies were afoot to ignite bloody slave rebellions.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
The most famous antislavery novel was Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe. According to Stowe's son, when President Lincoln met her in 1862, he commented, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!"
John Brown
John Brown has been called "the most controversial of all nineteenth-century Americans." Some scholars, however, glorify Brown, giving him credit for starting the Civil War and arguing "it is misleading to identify Brown with modern terrorists."
John Brown started his fight against slavery in Kansas in 1856, during the Bleeding Kansas crisis.
His famous raid in October, 1859, involved a band of 22 men who seized the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, knowing it contained tens of thousands of weapons.
Arguments for and against slavery
William Lloyd Garrison, the leading abolitionist, was motivated by a belief in the growth of democracy.
In 1854, he said
I am a believer in that portion of the Declaration of American Independence in which it is set forth, as among self-evident truths, "that all men are created equal;
Wendell Phillips, one of the most ardent abolitionists, attacked the Slave Power and presaged disunion as early as 1845:
The experience of the fifty years… shows us the slaves trebling in numbers—slaveholders monopolizing the offices and dictating the policy of the Government—prostituting the strength and influence of the Nation to the support of slavery here and elsewhere—trampling on the rights of the free States, and making the courts of the country their tools.
Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens said that the cornerstone of the South was "That the Negro is not equal to the white man;
Jefferson Davis said slavery "…was established by decree of Almighty God… it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation… it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts."
Robert E.
State Rights
The "States' Rights" debate cut across the issues. Southerners argued that the federal government was strictly limited and could not abridge the rights of states as reserved in Amendment X, and so had no power to prevent slaves from being carried into new territories.
Jefferson Davis said that a "disparaging discrimination" and a fight for "liberty" against "the tyranny of an unbridled majority" gave the Confederate states a right to secede.
South Carolina's "Declaration of the Immediate Causes for Secession" started with an argument for states' rights for slaveowners in the South, followed by a complaint about states' rights in the North (such as granting blacks citizenship, or hampering the extradition of slaves), claiming that Northern states were not fulfilling their federal obligations.
In 1860, Congressman Keitt of South Carolina said, "The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States."
The South defined equality in terms of the equal rights of states, and opposed the declaration that all men are created equal.
Economics
Regional economic differences
The South, Midwest and Northeast had quite different economic structures. Charles Beard in the 1920s made a highly influential argument to the effect that these differences caused the war (rather than slavery or constitutional debates). In 1860-61, most business interests in the Northeast opposed war. As Historian Kenneth Stampp -- who abandoned Beardianism after 1950, sums up the scholarly consensus:
Most historians of the sectional conflict, whatever differences they may have on other matters, now see no compelling reason why the divergent economies of the North and South should have led to disunion and civil war;
The regional economic differences of the North and South frequently appeared in the government's tariff policy.
Meanwhile, the South, in addition to much subsistence agriculture, depended upon large-scale production of export crops, primarily cotton and (to a lesser extent) tobacco, raised by slaves.
Douglas Irwin notes that antebellum tariff policy was often determined by the crucial swing vote of the Midwest.
Tariffs were low and did not protect northern industry before 1861. Southerners circulated copies of Thomas Prentiss Kettell's 1857 book Southern Wealth and Northern Profits, which argued that protective tariffs unduly burdened the slave states to the benefit of the north. South Carolina's secession convention published a declaration by Robert Barnwell Rhett that listed as its reason for secession "the consolidation of the North to rule the South, by the tariff and Slavery issues."
Alexander Stephens, for example, mentioned tariffs in his "Cornerstone Speech", but said the main cause was slavery.
The many compromises proposed to resolve the crisis in 1860-61 never included the tariff, but instead always focused on the slavery issue. Craig points out, "In fact, numerous studies by economic historians over the past several decades reveal that economic conflict was not an inherent condition of North-South relations during the antebellum era and did not cause the Civil War."
Free labor vs. pro-slavery arguments
Historian Eric Foner (1970) has argued that a free-labor ideology dominated thinking in the North, which emphasized economic opportunity.
Slavery in the territories
The specific political crisis that led to secession stemmed from a dispute over the expansion of slavery into new territories. The Republicans, while maintaining that Congress had no power over slavery in the states, asserted that it did have power to ban slavery in the territories. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 maintained the balance of power in Congress by adding Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The acquisition of vast new lands after the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), however, reopened the debate—now focused on the proposed Wilmot Proviso, which would have banned slavery in territories annexed from Mexico.
Southern fears of modernization
In a broader sense, the North was rapidly modernizing in a manner deeply threatening to the South, for the North was not only becoming more economically powerful;
Southern fears of Republican control
Southern secession was triggered by the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln because regional leaders feared that he would make good on his promise to stop the expansion of slavery and would thus put it on a course toward extinction. Many Southerners thought that even if Lincoln did not abolish slavery, sooner or later another Northerner would do so, and that it was thus time to quit the Union. The slave states, which had already become a minority in the House of Representatives, were now facing a future as a perpetual minority in the Senate and Electoral College against an increasingly powerful North.
A house divided against itself
Secession winter
Before Lincoln took office, seven states declared their secession from the Union, and established a Southern government, the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861. By seceding, the rebel states would reduce the strength of their claim to the Western territories that were in dispute, cancel any obligation for the North to return fugitive slaves to the Confederacy, and assure easy passage in Congress of many bills and amendments they had long opposed.
The Confederacy
Seven Deep South cotton states seceded by February 1861, starting with South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. These seven states formed the Confederate States of America (February 4, 1861), with Jefferson Davis as president, and a governmental structure closely modeled on the U.S. Constitution. In April and May 1861, four more slave states seceded and joined the Confederacy: Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
The Union states
There were 23 states that remained loyal to the Union during the war: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. During the war, Nevada and West Virginia joined as new states of the Union. Tennessee and Louisiana were returned to Union control early in the war.
The territories of Colorado, Dakota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington fought on the Union side. Several slave-holding Native American tribes supported the Confederacy, giving the Indian territory a small bloody civil war.
Border states
Main article: Border states (Civil War)
The Border states in the Union comprised West Virginia (which broke away from Virginia and became a separate state), and four of the five northernmost slave states (Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and Kentucky).
Maryland had numerous pro-Confederate officials who tolerated anti-Union rioting in Baltimore and the burning of bridges.
In Missouri, an elected convention on secession voted decisively to remain within the Union. Jackson called out the state militia, it was attacked by federal forces under General Nathaniel Lyon, who chased the governor and the rest of the State Guard to the southwestern corner of the state.
Kentucky did not secede; That turned opinion against the Confederacy, and the state reaffirmed its loyal status, while trying to maintain slavery. During a brief invasion by Confederate forces, Confederate sympathizers organized a secession convention, inaugurated a governor, and gained recognition from the Confederacy.
Union forces took control of the northwestern portions of Virginia in 1861-62, and residents seceded from Virginia and entered the Union in 1863 as West Virginia.
Overview
Some 10,000 military engagements took place during the war, 40% of them in Virginia and Tennessee. For more information see Battles of the American Civil War.
The war begins
Lincoln's victory in the presidential election of 1860 triggered South Carolina's declaration of secession from the Union. On February 7, the seven states adopted a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America and established their temporary capital at Montgomery, Alabama. The remaining eight slave states rejected pleas to join the Confederacy.
On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as President. He stated he had no intent to invade Southern states, nor did he intend to end slavery where it existed, but that he would use force to maintain possession of federal property.
The South sent delegations to Washington and offered to pay for the federal properties and enter into a peace treaty with the United States. Lincoln rejected any negotiations with Confederate agents on the grounds that the Confederacy was not a legitimate government, and that making any treaty with it would be tantamount to recognition of it as a sovereign government.
Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, was one of the three remaining Union-held forts in the Confederacy, and Lincoln was determined to hold it. Under orders from Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Confederates under General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard bombarded the fort with artillery on April 12, forcing the fort's capitulation. Northerners reacted quickly to this attack on the flag, and rallied behind Lincoln, who called for all of the states to send troops to recapture the forts and to preserve the Union.
Four states in the upper South (Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Virginia) which had repeatedly rejected Confederate overtures, now refused to send forces against their neighbors, declared their secession, and joined the Confederacy.
Anaconda Plan and blockade, 1861
Winfield Scott, the commanding general of the U.S. Army, devised the Anaconda Plan to win the war with as little bloodshed as possible. In May 1861, Lincoln proclaimed the Union blockade of all southern ports, which immediately shut down almost all international shipping to the Confederate ports.
Eastern Theater 1861–1863
Because of the fierce resistance of a few initial Confederate forces at Manassas, Virginia in July 1861, a march by Union troops under the command of Major General Irvin McDowell on the Confederate forces there was halted in the First Battle of Bull Run, or First Manassas, whereupon they were forced back to Washington, D.C., by Confederate troops under the command of Generals Joseph E. It was in this battle that Confederate General Thomas Jackson received the nickname of "Stonewall" because he stood like a stone wall against Union troops. Alarmed at the loss, and in an attempt to prevent more slave states from leaving the Union, the U.S. Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution on July 25 of that year, which stated that the war was being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.
Major General George B. McClellan took command of the Union Army of the Potomac on July 26 (he was briefly general-in-chief of all the Union armies, but was subsequently relieved of that post in favor of Major General Henry W. Halleck), and the war began in earnest in 1862.
Upon the strong urging of President Lincoln to begin offensive operations, McClellan attacked Virginia in the spring of 1862 by way of the peninsula between the York River and James River, southeast of Richmond. McClellan was stripped of many of his troops to reinforce General John Pope's Union Army of Virginia.
Emboldened by Second Bull Run, the Confederacy made its first invasion of the North, when General Lee led 45,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River into Maryland on September 5. McClellan and Lee fought at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, the bloodiest single day in United States military history. Antietam is considered a Union victory because it halted Lee's invasion of the North and provided an opportunity for Lincoln to announce his Emancipation Proclamation.
When the cautious McClellan failed to follow up on Antietam, he was replaced by Major General Ambrose Burnside. Meade defeated Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1 to July 3, 1863), the bloodiest battle in United States history, which is sometimes considered the war's turning point. Pickett's Charge on July 3, 1863 is often recalled as the high-water mark of the Confederacy, not just because it signaled the end of Lee's plan to pressure Washington from the north, but also because Vicksburg, Mississippi, the key stronghold to control of the Mississippi fell the following day.
Western Theater 1861–1863
While the Confederate forces had numerous successes in the Eastern theater, they crucially failed in the West. They were driven from Missouri early in the war as a result of the Battle of Pea Ridge. Leonidas Polk's invasion of Kentucky enraged the citizens there who previously had declared neutrality in the war, turning that state against the Confederacy.
Nashville, Tennessee, fell to the Union early in 1862. The Union Navy captured New Orléans without a major fight in May 1862, allowing the Union forces to begin moving up the Mississippi as well.
General Braxton Bragg's second Confederate invasion of Kentucky was repulsed by General Don Carlos Buell at the confused and bloody Battle of Perryville, and he was narrowly defeated by General William Rosecrans at the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee.
The one clear Confederate victory in the West was the Battle of Chickamauga.
The Union's key strategist and tactician in the west was Major General Ulysses S. the Battle of Vicksburg, cementing Union control of the Mississippi River and considered one of the turning points of the war. Grant marched to the relief of Rosecrans and defeated Bragg at the Third Battle of Chattanooga, driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee and opening a route to Atlanta and the heart of the Confederacy.
Trans-Mississippi Theater 1861–1865
Though geographically isolated from the battles to the east, a few small-scale military actions took place west of the Mississippi River. Late in the war, the Union Red River Campaign was a failure. Texas remained in Confederate hands throughout the war, but was cut off from the rest of the Confederacy after the capture of Vicksburg in 1863 gave the Union control of the Mississippi River.
End of the war 1864–1865
At the beginning of 1864, Lincoln made Grant commander of all Union armies. Grant understood the concept of total war and believed, along with Lincoln and Sherman, that only the utter defeat of Confederate forces and their economic base would bring an end to the war. Grant devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of the Confederacy from multiple directions: Generals George Meade and Benjamin Butler were ordered to move against Lee near Richmond;
Union forces in the East attempted to maneuver past Lee and fought several battles during that phase ("Grant's Overland Campaign") of the Eastern campaign. Grant's battles of attrition at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor resulted in heavy Union losses, but forced Lee's Confederates to fall back again and again.
Grant finally found a commander, General Philip Sheridan, aggressive enough to prevail in the Valley Campaigns of 1864.
Meanwhile, Sherman marched from Chattanooga to Atlanta, defeating Confederate Generals Joseph E.
Leaving Atlanta, and his base of supplies, Sherman's army marched with an unknown destination, laying waste to about 20% of the farms in Georgia in his celebrated "March to the Sea". When Sherman turned north through South Carolina and North Carolina to approach the Confederate Virginia lines from the south, it was the end for Lee and his men.
Lee's army, thinned by desertion and casualties, was now much smaller than Grant's. Union forces won a decisive victory at the Battle of Five Forks on April 1, forcing Lee to evacuate Petersburg and Richmond.
Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House. In an untraditional gesture and as a sign of Grant's respect and anticipation of folding the Confederacy back into the Union with dignity and peace, Lee was permitted to keep his officer's saber and his near-legendary horse, Traveller. On June 23, 1865, at Fort Towson in the Choctaw Nations' area of the Oklahoma Territory, Stand Watie signed a cease-fire agreement with Union representatives, becoming the last Confederate general in the field to stand down.
Slavery during the war
Lincoln initially declared his official purpose to be the preservation of the Union, not emancipation.
The issue of what to do with Southern slaves, however, would not go away: As early as May 1861, some slaves working on Confederate fortifications escaped to the Union lines, and their owner, a Confederate colonel, demanded their return under the Fugitive Slave Act.
By 1862, when it became clear that this would be a long war, the question became more general.
There was a range of positions on the final settlement of slavery;
At first, Lincoln reversed attempts at emancipation by Secretary of War Cameron and Generals Fremont and Hunter in order to keep the loyalty of the border states and the War Democrats.
The Emancipation Proclamation, announced in September 1862 and put into effect four months later, ended the Confederacy's hope of getting aid from Britain or France. Lincoln's moderate approach succeeded in getting border states, War Democrats and emancipated slaves fighting on the same side for the Union.
The Union-controlled border states (Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia) were not covered by the Emancipation Proclamation. The great majority of the 4 million slaves were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, as Union armies moved South.
Threat of international intervention
The best chance for Confederate victory was entry into the war by Britain and France. The Union, under Lincoln and Secretary of State William Henry Seward worked to block this, and threatened war if any country officially recognized the existence of the Confederate States of America. (None ever did.) In 1861, Southerners voluntarily embargoed cotton shipments, hoping to start an economic depression in Europe that would force Britain to enter the war in order to get cotton.
When the UK did face a cotton shortage, it was temporary; The war created employment for arms makers, iron workers, and British ships to transport weapons.
Lincoln's announcement of a blockade of the Confederacy, a clear act of war, enabled Britain—followed by other European powers—to announce their neutrality in the dispute.
The first attempts to achieve European recognition of the Confederacy were dispatched on February 25, 1861 and led by William Lowndes Yancey, Pierre A. Neither Britain nor France ever promised formal recognition, for that meant war with the Union.
Charles Francis Adams proved particularly adept as minister to Britain for the Union, and Britain was reluctant to boldly challenge the Union's blockade. The Confederacy sent journalists Henry Hotze and Edwin De Leon to open propaganda stations to feed news media in Paris and London. War loomed in late 1861 between the U.S. and Britain over the Trent Affair, involving the Union boarding of a British mail steamer to seize two Confederate diplomats.
In 1862, the British considered mediation—though even such an offer would have risked war with the U.S. Lord Palmerston read Uncle Tom's Cabin three times when deciding on this. As the war continued, the Confederacy's chances with Britain grew hopeless, and they focused increasingly on France. Despite some sympathy for the Confederacy, France's own seizure of Mexico ultimately deterred them from war with the Union. Confederate offers late in the war to end slavery in return for diplomatic recognition were not seriously considered by London or Paris.
Analysis of the Outcome
Could the South have won? Southern historian Shelby Foote expressed this view succinctly in Ken Burns's television series on the Civil War: "I think that the North fought that war with one hand behind its back.… If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back. I don't think the South ever had a chance to win that War." At this point, Lincoln had succeeded in getting the support of the border states, War Democrats, Republicans, emancipated slaves and Britain and France.
The goals were not symmetric.
Long-term economic factors
Both sides had long-term advantages but the Union had more. To win the Union had to use its long-term resources to accomplish multiple goals, including control of the entire coastline, control of most of the population centers, control of the main rivers (especially the Mississippi and Tennessee), defeat of all the main Confederate armies, and finally seizure of Richmond. The graph shows the relative advantage of the USA over the Confederate States of America (CSA) at the start of the war. The advantages widened rapidly during the war, as the Northern economy grew, and Confederate territory shrank and its economy weakened. The disparity grew as the Union controlled more and more southern territory with garrisons, and cut off the trans-Mississippi part of the Confederacy.
Political and diplomatic factors
The Union's more established government, particularly a mature executive branch which accumulated even greater power during wartime, gave a more streamlined conduct of the war, with minimal bickering between Lincoln and the governors. A strong party system enabled the Republicans to mobilize soldiers and support at the grass roots, even when the war became unpopular. Despite the Union's many tactical blunders (like the Seven Days Battles), those committed by Confederate generals (such as Lee's miscalculations at the Battles of Gettysburg and Antietam) were far more serious—if for no other reason than that the Confederates could so little afford the losses. The Emancipation Proclamation enabled African-Americans, both free blacks and escaped slaves, to join the Union Army. About 190,000 volunteered, further enhancing the numerical advantage the Union armies enjoyed over the Confederates. They fought in several key battles in the last two years of the war. Finally, the Confederacy may have lacked the total commitment needed to win the war.Civil War leaders and soldiers
Most of the important generals on both sides had formerly served in the United States Army—some, including Ulysses S. Lee, during the Mexican-American War between 1846 and 1848.
The senior Southern military commanders and strategists included Jefferson Davis, Robert E.
The senior Northern military commanders and strategists included Abraham Lincoln, Edwin M.
After 1980, scholarly attention turned to ordinary soldiers, women, and African Americans involved with the War. As James McPherson observed "The profound irony of the Civil War was that Confederate and Union soldiers… interpreted the heritage of 1776 in opposite ways.
Aftermath
The fighting ended with the surrender of the conventional Confederate forces.
Reconstruction
Northern leaders agreed that victory would require more than the end of fighting. It had to encompass the two war goals: Southern nationalism had to be totally repudiated, and all forms of slavery had to be eliminated. They also disagreed on the degree of federal control that should be imposed on the South, and the process by which Southern states should be reintegrated into the Union.
Reconstruction, which began early in the war and ended in 1877, involved a complex and rapidly changing series of federal and state policies. The long-term result came in the three "Civil War" amendments to the Constitution (the XIII, which abolished slavery, the XIV, which extended federal legal protections to citizens regardless of race, and the XV, which abolished racial restrictions on voting).
Memories of the war
The war had a lasting impact on United States culture. Every town and city built memorials to its heroic soldiers, battlefields became sacred places, and stories of the war became part of national folklore. The South's strong support for the war against Spain in 1898 convinced the remaining doubters that the South was patriotic.
However, for decades after the war, some Republican politicians "waved the bloody shirt," bringing up wartime casualties as an electoral tactic. Memories of the war and Reconstruction held the segregated South together as a Democratic block—the "Solid South"—in national politics for another century. A few debates surrounding the legacy of the war continue into the 21st century, especially regarding memorials and celebrations of Confederate heroes and battle flags.
Overviews
Beringer, Richard E., Archer Jones, and Herman Hattaway, Why the South Lost the Civil War (1986) influential analysis of factors; The Elements of Confederate Defeat: Nationalism, War Aims, and Religion (1988), abridged version, more readily available Catton, Bruce, The Civil War, American Heritage, 1960, ISBN 0-8281-0305-4, illustrated narrative Donald, David ed. Why the North Won the Civil War (1977) (ISBN 0-02-031660-7), short interpretive essays Donald, David et al. The Civil War and Reconstruction (latest edition 2001); Fellman, Michael et al. This Terrible War: The Civil War and its Aftermath (2003), 400 page survey Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative (3 volumes), (1974), ISBN 0-394-74913-8. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988), 900 page survey; Prologue to Civil War, 1859-1861; War Becomes Revolution, 1862-1863; The Organized War to Victory, 1864-1865 Hay, John, Nicolay, John George (1890). History of the Civil War, 1861-1865 (1918), Pulitzer Prize; A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865 (2004); The Essential Civil War: A Handbook to the Battles, Armies, Navies And Commanders (2006) Carter, Alice E. The Civil War on the Web: A Guide to the Very Best Sites- 2nd ed. Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History (2002), 1600 entries in 2700 pages in 5 vol or 1-vol editions Resch, John P. The Debate on the American Civil War Era (1999), historiography Wagner, Margaret E. The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference (2002) Woodworth, Steven E. American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research (1996) (ISBN 0-313-29019-9), 750 pages of historiography and bibliographyBiographies
Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders, Louisiana State University Press, 1964, ISBN 0-8071-0822-7 Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders, Louisiana State University Press, 1959, ISBN 0-8071-0823-5Soldiers
Frank, Joseph Allan and George A. Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union (1952) (ISBN 0-8071-0476-0)Primary sources
U.S. War Dept., The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880–1901. The Story of the Civil War as Told by Participants. (1950), excerpts from primary sources Eisenschiml, Otto; The American Iliad: The Epic Story of the Civil War as Narrated by Eyewitnesses and Contemporaries (1947), excerpts from primary sources Hesseltine, William B. The Tragic Conflict: The Civil War and Reconstruction (1962), excerpts from primary sources Woodword, C. Vann, Ed., Mary Chesnut's Civil War, Yale University Press, 1981, ISBN 0-300-02979-9 Pulitzer PrizeNovels about the war
Blackwood, Gary, Second Sight Crane, Stephen, The Red Badge of Courage Doctorow, E.L., The March Frazier, Charles, Cold Mountain Jakes, John, The Titans ISBN 0-515-04827-5 Jakes, John, Love and War Johnston, Mary, The Long Roll Keith, Harold, Rifles for Watie Mitchell, Margaret, Gone with the Wind Ripley, Alexandra, Charleston Reasoner, James, James Reasoner Civil War Series Reed, Ishmael, Flight to Canada Safire, William, Freedom: A Novel of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War (1987) ISBN 0-385-15903-X Shaara, Jeffrey, Gods and Generals; The Last Full Measure Shaara, Michael, The Killer Angels Street, James, By Valour and Arms Turtledove, Harry, Fort Pillow Verne, Jules, Texar's Revenge, or, North Against South (Nord Contre Sud) Vidal, Gore, LincolnPoems about the war
Benet, Stephen Vincent, John Brown's Body Miller, Tim, To the House of the Sun, currently a work-in-progressSongs about the war
The final three songs of The Glorious Burden, an album from the American heavy metal band Iced Earth, form a trilogy entitled "Gettysburg (1863)." The song "An American Trilogy" by country songwriter Mickey Newbury and popularised by Elvis Presley is about the American Civil War.Cinema and television
Films about the war
The Birth of a Nation (1915) Gone With the Wind (1939) Friendly Persuasion (1956) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) The Blue and the Gray (1982) Glory (1989) Gettysburg (1993) Ride with the Devil (1999) Gods and Generals (2003) Cold Mountain (2003)Documentaries about the war
The Civil War, directed by Ken Burns The Great Battles of the Civil War, directed by Jay Wertz "Wynn Ward's The Civil War : Missouri" , featuring Civil War expert Wynn Ward, produced by Tom Pieper and J. Combatants|
Prelude: Origins • Timeline • Antebellum • Bleeding Kansas • Secession • Border states • Anaconda Plan |
|
| Theaters & Campaigns |
Theaters: Union naval blockade • Eastern • Western • Lower Seaboard • Trans-Mississippi • Pacific Coast |
| Major Battles |
List by state • List by date • Naval battles • Antietam • Atlanta • 1st Bull Run • 2nd Bull Run • Chancellorsville • Chattanooga • Chickamauga • Cold Harbor • Five Forks • Fort Donelson • Fort Sumter • Franklin • Fredericksburg • Gettysburg • Hampton Roads • Mobile Bay • New Orleans • Nashville • Pea Ridge • Perryville • Petersburg • Pickett's Charge • Seven Days • Seven Pines • Shiloh • Spotsylvania • Stones River • Vicksburg • Wilderness • Wilson's Creek |
|
Key CSA Leaders |
Military: Anderson • Beauregard • Bragg • Cooper • Early • Ewell • Forrest • Gorgas • A.P. Hill • Hood • Jackson • A.S. Johnston • J.E. Johnston • Lee • Longstreet • Morgan
• Mosby • Price • Quantrill • Semmes • E. Smith • Stuart • Taylor • Wheeler |
|
Key USA Leaders |
Military: Anderson • Buell • Butler • Burnside • du Pont • Farragut • Foote • Grant • Halleck • Hooker • Hunt • McClellan • McDowell • Meade • Meigs • Pope • Porter •
Rosecrans • Scott • Sheridan • Sherman • Thomas |
| Aftermath |
13th Amendment • 14th Amendment • 15th Amendment • Alabama Claims • Carpetbaggers • Freedmen's Bureau • Jim Crow laws • Ku Klux Klan • Reconstruction • Redeemers |
| Other Topics |
ACW Topics • Draft Riots • Naming the War • Photography • Rail Transport • Supreme Court Cases • Turning points |
| Categories |
American Civil War • American Civil War people • Battles • Union Army generals • Union armies • Union Army corps • Confederate States of America (CSA) • Confederate Army generals • Confederate armies • National Battlefields • Veterans' Organizations |
| InterWiki |
American Civil War from Wiktionary • ACW Textbooks from Wikibooks • ACW Quotations from Wikiquote ACW Source texts from Wikisource • ACW Images and media from Commons • ACW News stories from Wikinews |
User Comments Add a comment…