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Chapter 16 - The Civil War

 

 

 Communities Mobilize for War
 
Fort Sumter: The War Begins
The Call to Arms
The Border States
The Battle of Bull Run
The Relative Strengths of North and South
Government organize for War
Lincoln Takes Charge
Expanding the Powee of the Government
Dipolmatic Objectives
Jefferson Davis Tries to Unify the Confederecy
Confederate Disappointment
Cntradictions of Southern Nationalism
The Fight Through 1862
The War in Northen Virginia
Shiloh and the War for Mississippi
The War in the Trans-Mississippi West
The Naval War
The Black Response
The Death of Slavery
The Politics of Emacipation
Black Fighting Men
The Front Lines and the Homen Front
The Toll of War
Army Nurses
The Life of the Common Soldier
Wartime Politics
Economic and Social Strains on the North
The New York City Draft riot
The Failure of Southern Nationalism
The Tide Turns
The Turning Point of 1863
Grant and Sherman
The 1864 Election
Nearing the End
Appomattox
Death of a President
 
 I did this a little different if not ill upload the other one but this consists of the basics

I.                    President of the Disunited States of America

1.       On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated president, having slipped into Washington D.C. to thwart assassins, and in his inaugural address, he stated that there would be no conflict unless the South provoked it.

                                                               i.      He stated that geographically, the United States could not be split (true).

2.       A split U.S. brought up questions about the sharing of the national debt and the allocation of federal territories.

3.       A split U.S. also pleased the European countries, since the U.S. was the only major display of democracy in the Western Hemisphere, and with a split U.S. the Monroe Doctrine could be broken as well.

II.                  Fort Sumter: The War Begins

1.       Most of the forts in the South had relinquished their power to the Confederacy, but Fort Sumterwas among the few that didn’t, and since its supplies were running out against a besieging South Carolinian army, Lincoln had a problem of how to deal with the situation.

2.       Lincoln intelligently chose to send supplies to the fort, and he told the South Carolinian governor that the ship to the fort only held provisions, not reinforcements.

3.       However, to the South, provisions were reinforcements, and on April 12, 1861, cannons were fired onto the fort; after 34 hours of non-lethal firing, the fort surrendered.

4.       Northerners were inflamed by the South’s actions, and Lincoln now called on 75,000 volunteers; so many came that they had to be turned away.

5.       On April 19 and 27, Lincoln also called a blockade that was leaky at first but soon clamped down tight.

6.       The South, feeling that Lincoln was now waging an aggressive war, was joined by four of theBorder StatesVirginiaArkansasTennessee, and North Carolina.

7.       The capital of the Confederacy was moved from Montgomery to Richmond.

III.               Border States

1.       The remaining Border States were crucial for both sides, as they would have almost doubled the manufacturing capacity of the South and increased its supply of horses and mules by half.

2.       Thus, to retain them, Lincoln used moral persuasion…and methods of dubious legality:

                                                               i.      In Maryland, he declared martial law in order to retain a state that would isolate Washington D.C. within Confederacy territory if it went to the South and also sent troops to western Virginia and Missouri.

3.       At the beginning, in order to hold the remaining Border States, Lincoln repeated said that the war was to save the Union, not free the slaves, since a war for the slaves would have lost the Border States

4.       Most of the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole) sided with the South, although parts of the Cherokee and most of the Plains Indians were pro-North.

5.       The war was one of brother vs. brother, with the mountain men of (now) West Virginia sending some 50,000 men to the Union.

IV.              The Balance of Forces

1.       The South, at the beginning of the war, did have many advantages:

                                                               i.      It only had to fight to a draw to win, since all it had to do was keep the North from invading and taking over all of its territory.

                                                             ii.      It had the most talented officers, including Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and most of the Southerners had been trained to fight in the harsh South since they were children, as opposed to the tame Northerners.

2.       However, the South was handicapped by a shortage of factories and manufacturing plants, but during the war, those developed in the South.

3.       Still, as the war dragged on, the South found itself with a shortage of shoes, uniforms, blankets, clothing, and food, which didn’t reach soldiers due to supply problems.

4.       However, the North had a huge economy, much more men available to fight, and it controlled the sea, though its officers weren’t as well trained as some in the South.

5.       As the war dragged on, Northern strengths beat Southern advantages.

V.                 Dethroning King Cotton

1.       The South was depending on foreign intervention to win the war, but didn’t get it.

2.       While the European countries wanted the Union to be split, their people had were pro-North and anti-slavery, and sensing that this was could eliminate slavery once and for all, they would not allow any intervention by their nations on behalf of the South.

3.       Still, the war would produce a shortage of cotton, which would draw England et al into the war, right?  Wrong.

                                                               i.      In the pre-war years, cotton production had been immense, and thus, England and France had huge surpluses of cotton.

                                                             ii.      As the North won Southern territory, it sent cotton and food over to Europe.

                                                            iii.      India and Egypt upped their cotton production to offset the hike in the price of cotton.

4.       So, King Wheat and King Corn (of the North) beat King Cotton, since Europe needed the food much more than it needed the cotton.

VI.              The Decisiveness of Diplomacy

1.       The South still hoped for foreign intervention, and it almost got it on a few occasions.

2.       Late in 1861, a Union warship stopped the British mail steamer the Trent and forcibly removed two Confederate diplomats bound for Europe.

                                                               i.      Britain was outraged at the upstart Americans and threatened war, but luckily, Lincoln released the prisoners and tensions cool.  “One war at a time,” he said.

                                                             ii.      British-build sea vessels that went to the Confederacy were also a problem.

a.       In 1862, the Alabama escaped to the Portuguese Azores, took on weapons and crew from Britain, but never sailed into a Confederate base, thus using a loophole to help the South.

3.       Charles Francis Adams persuaded Britain not to build any more ships for the Confederacy, since they might someday be used against England.

VII.            Foreign Flare-Ups

1.       Britain also had two Laird rams—two Confederate warships that could destroy wooden Union ships and wreck havoc on the North, but after the threat of war by the U.S., Britain backed down and used those ships for its Royal Navy.

2.       Near Canada, Confederate agents plotted (and sometimes succeeded) to burn down American cities, and as a result, there were several mini-armies (raised mostly by British-hating Irish-Americans) sent to Canada.

3.       Napoleon III of France also installed a puppet government in Mexico City, putting in the Austrian Archduke Maximilian as emperor of Mexico, but after the war, the U.S. threatened violence, and Napoleon left Maximilian to doom at the hands of the Mexican firing squad.

VIII.         President Davis versus President Lincoln

1.       The Problem with the South was that it gave states the ability to secede in the future, and getting Southern states to send troops to help other states was always difficult to do.

2.       Jefferson Davis was never really popular and overworked himself.

3.       Lincoln, though with his problems, had the benefit of leading an established government and grew patient and relaxed as the war dragged on.

IX.               Limitations on Wartime Liberties

1.       Abe Lincoln did do some tyrannical acts during his term as president, such as illegally proclaiming a blockade, proclaiming acts without Congressional consent, and sending in troops to the Border States, but he justified his actions by saying that such acts weren’t permanent, and he had to do those things in order to preserve the Union.

2.       Such actions included the advancement of $2 million to three private citizens for war purposes, the suspension of habeas corpus so that anti-Unionists could be arrested, and the intimidation of voters in the Border States.

3.       The Confederacy’s states’ refusal to sacrifice some states’ rights led to the handicapping of the South, and perhaps to its ultimate downfall.

X.                 Volunteers and Draftees: North and South

1.       At first, there were a lot of volunteers, but after enthusiasm slacked off, Congress passed its first conscription law ever (the draft), one that angered the poor because rich men could hire a substitute instead of entering the war just by paying $300 to Congress.

                                                               i.      As a result, many riots broke out, such as one in New York City.

2.       Volunteers manned more than 90% of the Union army, and as volunteers became scarce, money was offered to them in return for service; still, there were many deserters.

3.       The South had to resort to a draft nearly a year before the North, and it also had its privileges for the rich, since those who owned or oversaw 20 slaves or more were exempt from the draft.

XI.               The Economic Stresses of War

1.       The North passed the Morril Tariff Act, increasing tariff rates by about 5 to 10%, but war soon drove those rates even higher.

2.       The Washington Treasury also issued green-backed paper money totaling nearly $450 million, but this money was very unstable and sank to as low as 39 cents per gold dollar.

3.       The federal Treasury also netted $2,621,916,786 in the sale of bonds.

4.       The National Banking System was a landmark of the war, created to establish a standard bank-note currency, and banks that joined the National Banking System could buy government bonds and issue sound paper money.

                                                               i.      The National Banking Act was the first step toward a unified national banking network since 1836, when the Bank of the United States (BUS) was killed by Andrew Jackson.

5.       In the South, runaway inflation plagued the Confederates, and overall, in the South inflation went up to 9000%, as opposed to just 80% in the North.

XII.            The North’s Economic Boom

1.       The North actually emerged from the Civil War more prosperous than before, since new factories had been formed; a millionaire class was born for the first time in history.

2.       However, many Union suppliers used shoddy equipment in their supplies, such as using cardboard as the soles of shoes, etc…

3.       Sizes for clothing were invented, and the reaper helped feed millions.

4.       In 1859, a discovery of petroleum oil sent people to Pennsylvania.

5.       Women gained new advances in the war, taking the jobs left behind by men going off  to battle, and other women posed as men and became soldiers with their husbands.

6.       Clara Burton and Dorothea Dix helped transform nursing from a lowly service to a respected profession, and in the South, Sally Tompkins ran a Richmond infirmary for wounded Confederate soldiers and was awarded the rank of Captain by Jefferson Davis.

XIII.          A Crushed Cotton Kingdom

1.       The South was ruined by the war, as transportation collapsed and supplies of everything became scarce, and by the end of the war, the South claimed only 12% of the national wealth as opposed to 30% before the war, and it’s per capita income was now 2/5 that of Northerners, as opposed to 2/3 of Northerners before the war.

2.       Still, many women were resourceful and spirited, but the South just couldn’t win

 

XIV                    Bull Run Ends the “Ninety-Day War”

1.       When President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 militiamen on April 15, 1861, he and just about everyone else in the North expected a swift war lasting about 90 days, with a quick suppression of the South to prove the North’s superiority and end this foolishness.

2.       On July 21, 1861, ill-trained Yankee recruits swaggered out toward Bull Run to engage a smaller Confederate unit.

                                                               i.      The atmosphere was like that of a sporting event, as Congressmen gathered in picnics.

                                                             ii.      However, after initial success by the Union, Confederate reinforcements arrived and, coupled with Stonewall Jackson’s line holding, sent the Union soldiers into disarray.

3.       The Battle of Bull Run showed both sides that this would not be a short, easy war.

XV              “Tardy George” McClellan and the Peninsula Campaign

1.       Later in 1861, command of the Army of the Potomac (name of the Union army) was given to 34 year old General George B. McClellan, an excellent drillmaster and organizer of troops but also a perfectionist who constantly believed that he was outnumbered, never took risks, and held the army without moving for months before finally ordered by Lincoln to advance.

2.       Finally, he decided upon a water-borne approach to Richmond, called the Peninsula Campaign, taking about a month to capture Yorktown before coming to the Richmond.

                                                               i.      At this moment, President Lincoln took McClellan’s expected reinforcements and sent them chasing Stonewall Jackson, and after “Jeb” Stuart’s Confederate cavalry rode completely around McClellan’s army, Southern General Robert E. Lee launched a devastating counterattack—the Seven Days’ Battles—on June 26 to July 2 of 1862.

                                                             ii.      The victory at Bull Run ensured that the South, if it lost, would lose slavery as well, and it was after this battle that Lincoln began to draft an emancipation proclamation.

3.       The Union strategy now turned to total war:

                                                               i.      Suffocate the South through an oceanic blockade.

                                                             ii.      Free the slaves to undermine the South’s very economic foundations.

                                                            iii.      Cut the Confederacy in half by seizing control of the Mississippi River.

                                                           iv.      Chop the Confederacy to pieces by marching through Georgia and the Carolinas.

                                                             v.      Capture its capital, Richmond, Virginia.

                                                           vi.      Try everywhere to engage the enemy’s main strength and grind it to submission.

XVI          The War at Sea/Naval Blockade

1.       The Union blockade started leakily at first, but it clamped down later.

2.       Britain, who would ordinarily protest such interference in the seas that she “owned,” recognized the blockade as binding, since Britain herself often used blockades in her wars.

3.       Blockade-running, or the process of smuggling materials through the blockade, was a risky but profitable business, but the Union navy also seized British freighters on the high seas, citing “ultimate destination” [to the South] as their reasons; the British relented, since they might have to do the same thing in later wars (as they did in World War I).

4.       The biggest Confederate threat to the Union came in the form of an old U.S. warship reconditioned and plated with iron railroad rails: the Virginia (formerly called the Merrimack), which threatened to break the Union blockade, but fortunately, the Monitor arrived just in time to fight theMerrimack to a standstill, and the Confederate ship was destroyed later by the South to save it from the North.

XVII           The Pivotal Point: Antietam/ Turning Point

1.       In the Second Battle of Bull Run, Robert E. Lee crushed the arrogant General John Pope.

2.       After this battle, Lee hoped to thrust into the North and win, hopefully persuading the Border States to join the South and foreign countries to intervene on behalf of the South.

                                                               i.      At this time, Lincoln reinstated General McClellan.

3.       McClellan’s men found a copy of Lee’s plans and were able to stop the Southerners at Antietamon September 17, 1862 in one of the bloodiest days of the Civil War.

                                                               i.      Jefferson Davis was never so close to victory as he was that day, since European powers were very close to helping the South, but after the Union army displayed unexpected power at Antietam, that help faded.

                                                             ii.      Antietam was also the Union display of power that Lincoln needed to announce his Emancipation Proclamation, which didn’t actually free the slaves, but gave the general idea; it was announced on January 1, 1863.

                                                            iii.      Now, the war wasn’t just to save the Union, it was to save the slaves a well.

XVIII        A Proclamation without Emancipation

1.       The Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in not-yet-conquered Southern territories, but slaves in the Border States and the conquered territories were not liberated; Lincoln freed the slaves where he couldn’t and wouldn’t free the slaves where he could.

2.       The proclamation was very controversial, as many soldiers refused to fight for abolition and deserted.

3.       However, since many slaves, upon hearing the proclamation, left their plantations, the Emancipation Proclamation did succeed in one of its purposes: the undermine the labor of the South.

4.       Angry Southerners cried that Lincoln was stirring up trouble and trying to have a slave insurrection.

XIV            Blacks Battle Bondage

1.       At first, Blacks weren’t enlisted in the army, but as men ran low, these men were eventually allowed in; by war’s end, Black’s accounted for about 10% of the Union army.

2.       Until 1864, Southerners refused to recognize Black soldiers as prisoners of war, and often executed them as runaways and rebels, and in one case at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, Blacks who had surrendered were massacred.

                                                               i.      Afterwards, vengeful Black units swore to take no prisoners, crying, “Remember Fort Pillow!”

3.       Many Blacks, whether through fear, loyalty, lack of leadership, or strict policing, didn’t cast off their chains when they heard the Emancipation Proclamation, but many others walked off of their jobs when Union armies conquered territory that included the plantations that they worked on.

XX           Lee’s Last Lunge at Gettysburg

1.       After Antietam, A. E. Burnside (known for sideburns) took over the Union army, but he lost badly after launching a rash frontal attack at Fredericksburg, Virginia, on Dec. 13, 1862.

2.       “Fighting Joe” Hooker (known for his girls, aka prostitutes) was badly beaten atChancellorsville, Virginia, when Lee divided his outnumbered army into two and sent “Stonewall” Jackson to attack the Union flank, but later in that battle, Jackson’s own men mistakenly shot him during dusk, and he died.

3.       Lee now prepared to invade the North for the second and final time, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, but he was met by new General George G. Meade, who by accident took a stand atop a low ridge flanking a shallow valley and the Union and Confederate armies fought a bloody and brutal battle in which the North “won.”

                                                               i.      In the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863), General George Pickettled a hopeless, bloody, and pitiful charge up a hill that ended in the pig-slaughter of Confederates.

                                                             ii.      A few months later, Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address.

XXI      The War in the West

1.       Lincoln finally found a good general in Ulysses S. Grant, a mediocre West Point graduate who drank a lot and also fought under the ideal of “immediate and unconditional surrender.”

2.       Grant won at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, but then lost a hard battle at Shiloh (April 6-7, 1862), just over the Tennessee border.

3.       In the spring of 1862, a flotilla commanded by David G. Farragut joined with a Northern army to seize New Orleans.

4.       At Vicksburg, Mississippi, U.S. Grant besieged the city and captured it on July 4, 1863, thus securing the important Mississippi River.

5.       The Union victory at the Battle of Vicksburg came the day after the Union victory at Gettysburg, and afterwards, the Confederate hope for foreign intervention was lost.

XXII               Sherman Scorches Georgia

1.       After Grant cleared out Tennessee, General William Tecumseh Sherman was given command to march through Georgia, and he delivered, capturing and burning down Atlanta before completing his famous “march to the sea” at Savannah.

                                                               i.      His men cut a trail of destruction one-mile wide, waging “total war” by cutting up railroad tracks, burning fields, and destroying everything.

XXIII                 The Politics of War

1.       The Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War was created in 1861 was dominated by “radical” Republicans and gave Lincoln much trouble.

2.       The Northern Democrats split after the death of Stephen Douglas, as “War Democrats” supported Lincoln while “Peace Democrats” did not.

                                                               i.      Copperheads were those who totally against the war, and denounced the president (the “Illinois Ape”) and his “nigger war.”

                                                             ii.      The most famous of the copperheads was Clement L. Valandigham, who harshly denounced the war but was imprisoned, then banished to the South, then came back to Ohio illegally but was not further punished, and also inspired the story “The Man without a Country.”

XXVI.               The Election of 1864

1.       In 1864, the Republicans joined the War Democrats to form the Union Party and renominated Abe Lincoln despite a bit of opposition, while the Copperheads and Peace Democrats ran George McClellan.

                                                               i.      The Union Party chose Democrat Andrew Johnson to ensure that the War Democrats would vote for Lincoln, and the campaign was once again full of mudslinging, etc…

                                                             ii.      Near Election Day, the victories at New Orleans and Atlanta occurred, and the Northern soldiers were pushed to vote, and Lincoln killed his opponent in the Electoral College, 212-21.

a.       The popular vote was closer: 2,206,938-1,803,787.

XXV.            Grant Outlasts Lee

1.       Grant was a man who could send thousands of men out to die just so that the Confederates would lose, because he knew that he could afford to lose many men while Lee could not.

                                                               i.      In a series of wilderness encounters, Grant fought Lee, with Grant losing about 50,000 men.

                                                             ii.      At Cold Harbor, Union soldiers with papers pinned on their backs showing their names and addresses rushed the fort, and over 7000 died in a few minutes.

                                                            iii.      The public was outraged and shocked over this kind of gore and death, and demanded the relief of General Grant, but Ulysses stayed.

2.       Finally, Grant and his men captured Richmond, burning it, and cornered Lee at Appomattox Courthouse at Virginia in April of 1865, where Lee formally surrendered; the war was over.

XXVI.          The Martyrdom of Lincoln

1.       On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth and died shortly.

2.       Before his death, few people had suspected his greatness, but his sudden and dramatic death erased his shortcomings and made people remember him for his good things.

3.       The South cheered Lincoln’s death at first, but later, his death proved to be worse than if he had lived, because he would have almost certainly treated the South much better than they were actually treated during Reconstruction.

 

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