I.
Secession and Military Stalemate, 1861–1862 |
|
A. |
The Secession Crisis |
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|
1. |
The Civil War was called the “War between the States” by southerners and the
“War of Rebellion” by northerners. |
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|
2. |
On December 20, 1860, the
South Carolina
convention voted unanimously to secede from the Union; “fire-eaters” elsewhere
in the
Deep South quickly followed. |
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|
3. |
The secessionists met in
Montgomery,
Alabama, in February 1861 and proclaimed a new nation—the
Confederate States of
America
.
They adopted a new constitution and named Jefferson Davis as its provisional
president. |
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|
4. |
Secessionist fervor was less intense in the slave states of the Upper South,
and their leaders proposed federal guarantees for slavery in states where it
existed. |
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|
5. |
In December 1860, President James Buchanan declared secession illegal but
denied that the federal government had the authority to restore the
Union by force. |
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|
6. |
South Carolina demanded the surrender of
Fort
Sumter,
a federal garrison in
Charleston
Harbor. |
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|
7. |
In response, President Buchanan ordered the resupply of the fort by an unarmed
merchant ship. When
South Carolinians fired on
the ship, Buchanan refused to order the navy to escort it into the harbor. |
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|
8. |
Congress responded with a compromise—the Crittenden plan—which called for a
constitutional amendment that would permanently protect slavery from federal
interference in any state where it already existed and for the westward
extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the
California border. Slavery would be barred
north of the line and protected to the south, including any territories
“hereafter acquired.” |
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|
9.
|
Lincoln upheld the first part of the Crittenden
plan to protect slavery where it already existed but was not willing to extend
the Missouri Compromise line to the
California
border. |
|
|
10. |
Lincoln declared that secession was illegal and
that acts against the
Union constituted
insurrection; he would enforce federal laws as well as continue to possess
federal property in seceded states. |
|
B. |
The Upper South Chooses Sides |
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|
1. |
Jefferson Davis forced the surrender of
Fort
Sumter on April 14, 1861;
Lincoln called in state
militiamen to put down the insurrection. |
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|
2. |
Although some northerners were wary of
Lincoln’s
Republican administration, they remained supportive of the Union cause and
responded positively to
Lincoln’s
call for the mobilization of the militias. |
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|
3. |
The states of Middle and Border South were forced to choose sides in the
dispute. Support from these states was crucial to the Confederacy because of
these states’ high populations and access to industry and fuel. |
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|
4.
|
Virginia,
Arkansas,
Tennessee, and
North
Carolina joined the Confederacy after the fall of
Fort
Sumter.
After
Lincoln intervened,
Missouri,
Delaware,
Maryland,
and
Kentucky stayed with the
Union. |
|
C. |
Setting War Objectives and Devising
Strategies |
|
|
1. |
Jefferson Davis’s focus was on the defense of the Confederacy rather than
conquering western territories; the Confederacy only needed a military
stalemate to guarantee independence. |
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|
2. |
Lincoln portrayed
secession as an attack on popular government, and he insisted on an aggressive
military strategy and a policy of unconditional surrender. |
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|
3. |
In July 1861, General Irwin McDowell’s troops were routed by P. G. T.
Beauregard’s Confederate troops near Manassas Creek (also called
Bull Run). |
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|
4.
|
Lincoln replaced McDowell with George B.
McClellan and enlisted an additional million men, who would serve for three
years in the newly created Army of the
Potomac. |
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|
5. |
In 1862, McClellan launched a thrust toward
Richmond,
Virginia,
the Confederate capital, but he moved too slowly and allowed the Confederates
to mount a counterattack. |
|
|
6. |
Washington was threatened when a Confederate
army under “Stonewall”
Jackson marched north up
the Shenandoah Valley in western
Virginia;
Jackson won a series of
small engagements, tying down the larger Union forces. |
|
|
7. |
General Robert E. Lee launched an attack outside
Richmond
and suffered heavy casualties, but McClellan failed to exploit the advantage,
and
Richmond
remained secure. |
|
|
8. |
Jackson and Lee routed a Union army in the Second Battle of Bull Run in August
1862. |
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|
9. |
The battle at Antietam Creek on September 17, 1862, was the bloodiest single
day in
U.S.
military
history;
Jackson’s
troops arrived just in time to save Lee’s troops from defeat. |
|
|
10. |
Lincoln
replaced General McClellan with Ambrose E. Burnside, who later resigned and was
replaced by Joseph (“Fighting Joe”) Hooker. |
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|
11. |
The Union dominated the
Ohio River
Valley, and in 1862 General Ulysses S. Grant took
Fort
Henry
on the Tennessee River and
Fort
Donelson on the
Cumberland River. |
|
|
12. |
In April, a Confederate army caught Grant by surprise near
Shiloh;
Grant forced a Confederate withdrawal but suffered a great number of
casualties. |
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|
13. |
Union naval forces commanded by David G. Farragut captured
New Orleans, the South’s financial center and
largest city, giving it a base for future naval operations. |
|
|
14. |
Union victories in the West had significantly undermined Confederate strength
in the
Mississippi
Valley. |
II. Toward Total War |
|
A. |
Mobilizing Armies and Civilians |
|
|
1. |
The military carnage of 1862 forced both sides into total war, utilizing
all of the resources of both nations to win at all costs. |
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|
2. |
After the defeat at
Shiloh in April 1862, the
Confederate Congress imposed the first legally binding draft in American
history. |
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|
3. |
The Confederate draft had two loopholes: it exempted one white man for each
twenty slaves on a plantation, and it allowed drafted men to hire substitutes. |
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|
4. |
Some southerners refused to serve, and the Confederate government lacked the
power to compel them; the Confederate Congress overrode state judges’ orders to
free conscripted men. |
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5. |
To prevent sabotage and concerted resistance to the war effort in the Union,
Lincoln suspended habeas
corpus and imprisoned about 15,000 Confederate sympathizers without trial.
He also extended martial law to civilians who discouraged enlistment or
resisted the draft. |
|
|
6. |
The Union government’s Militia Act of 1862 set a quota of volunteers for each
state, which was increased by the Enrollment Act of 1863; northerners, too,
could hire replacements. |
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|
7. |
Hostility to the Enrollment Act of 1863 draft and to African Americans spilled
into the streets of
New York City
when Irish and German workers sacked the homes of Republicans, killed a dozen
African Americans, and forced hundreds of black families from their homes.
Lincoln rushed in Union
troops to suppress the insurrection. |
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|
8. |
The Union Army Medical Bureau and the United States Sanitary Commission
provided medical services to the soldiers and tried to prevent deaths from
disease, which killed more men than did the fighting. |
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|
9. |
The Confederate health system was poorly organized, and soldiers died from camp
diseases at a higher rate than Union soldiers. |
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|
10. |
Women took a leading role in the Sanitary Commission and other wartime
agencies; Dorothea Dix was the first woman to receive a major federal
appointment. |
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|
11. |
Women staffed growing bureaucracies, volunteered to serve as nurses, and filled
positions traditionally held by men. |
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|
12. |
A number of women took on military duties as spies, scouts, and (disguised as
men) soldiers. |
|
B. |
Mobilizing Resources |
|
|
1. |
The
Union entered the war with a distinct
advantage; its economy was far superior to the South’s, and its arms factories
were equipped for mass production. |
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|
2. |
The Confederates had substantial industrial capacity, and by 1863 they were
able to provide every infantryman with a modern rifled-musket. |
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|
3. |
Confederate leaders counted on King Cotton to provide revenue to
purchase clothes, boots, blankets, and weapons from abroad. |
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|
4. |
The British government never recognized the independence of the Confederacy,
but it did recognize the rebel government as a belligerent power with the right
under international law to borrow money and purchase weapons. |
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5. |
To sustain the allegiance of northerners to their party while bolstering the
Union’s ability to fight the war, the Republicans raised
tariffs; created a national banking system; devised a system of internal
improvements, especially railroads; and developed the Homestead Act of 1862. |
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|
6. |
The Confederate government’s economic policy was less coherent. The
Davis administration
built and operated shipyards, armories, foundries, and textile mills;
commandeered food and raw materials; and requisitioned slaves to work on forts. |
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|
7. |
The Union government created a modern nation-state that raised revenue for the
war by imposing broad-based taxes, borrowing from the middle classes, and
creating a national monetary system based on the Legal Tender Act of 1862,
which authored the issue of $150 million in treasury notes, soon to be known as greenbacks. |
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|
8. |
The Confederacy lacked a central government. It financed about 60 percent of
its expenses with unbacked paper money, which created
inflation; citizens’ property rights were violated in order to sustain the war. |
III.
The Turning Point: 1863 |
|
A. |
Emancipation |
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|
1. |
As war casualties mounted in 1862, Lincoln and some Republican leaders accepted
Frederick Douglass’s argument and began to redefine the war as a struggle
against slavery. |
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|
2. |
Exploiting the disorder of wartime, tens of thousands of slaves escaped and
sought refuge behind Union lines, where they were known as “contrabands.” |
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|
3. |
Congress passed the First Confiscation Act in 1861, which authorized the
seizure of all property—including slaves—used to support the rebellion. |
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|
4. |
In April 1862, Congress enacted legislation ending slavery in the
District of Columbia,
and in June it enacted the Wilmot Proviso. |
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|
5. |
In July 1862, the Second Confiscation Act declared “forever free” all fugitive
slaves and all slaves captured by the Union army. |
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6. |
Lincoln’s
controversial Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, changed the nature
of the conflict: Union troops became agents of liberation. |
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|
7. |
To reassure northerners who sympathized with the South or feared race warfare,
Lincoln urged slaves to
abstain from all violence. |
|
B.
|
Vicksburg
and
Gettysburg |
|
|
1. |
Vicksburg,
Mississippi,
surrendered to the Union army on July 4, 1863, followed by Port Hudson,
Louisiana, five days later, establishing Union control of the
Mississippi. |
|
|
2. |
Grant had cut off
Louisiana,
Arkansas,
and
Texas
from the rest of the Confederacy; hundreds of slaves deserted their
plantations. |
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|
3. |
The battle at
Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, was a great Union victory and
the most lethal battle of the Civil War. |
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|
4. |
After Union victories at
Gettysburg and
Vicksburg, Republicans reaped political gains in their
elections, while Confederate elections went sharply against politicians who
supported
Davis. |
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|
5. |
The Confederates’ defeats at
Vicksburg and
Gettysburg ended their
prospect of winning foreign recognition and acquiring advanced weapons from the
British. |
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|
6. |
British manufacturers were no longer dependent on the South for cotton;
however, they were dependent on the North for cheap wheat. Also, the British
championed the abolitionist cause and wanted to avoid provoking a well-armed
United States. |
IV.
The Union Victorious, 1864–1865 |
|
A. |
Soldiers and Strategy |
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|
1. |
Lincoln initially refused to consider blacks for
military service; nonetheless, by 1862, some African Americans had formed their
own regiments in
South Carolina,
Louisiana, and
Kansas. |
|
|
2. |
The Emancipation Proclamation changed popular thinking and military policy;
some northern whites argued that if blacks were to benefit from a Union
victory, they should share in the fighting and dying. |
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|
3. |
As white resistance to conscription increased, the
Lincoln administration was recruiting as many
African Americans as it could. |
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|
4. |
Military service did not end racial discrimination, yet African Americans
volunteered for Union military service in disproportionate numbers. |
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5. |
Lincoln put
Ulysses S. Grant in charge of all Union armies and directed him to advance
against all major Confederate forces simultaneously; they wanted a decisive
victory before the election of 1864. |
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6. |
Grant knew how to fight a modern war that relied on technology and focused on
an entire society and was willing to accept heavy casualties in assaults on
strongly defended positions in the belief that attempts of earlier Union
commanders “to conserve life” through cautious tactics had prolonged the war. |
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|
7. |
Lee was narrowly victorious in the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania
Court House. At
Cold Harbor, Grant eroded
Lee’s forces, yet the Union losses were even greater. |
|
|
8. |
Union and Confederate soldiers suffered through protracted trench warfare
around
Richmond and
Petersburg;
the enormous casualties and military stalemate threatened
Lincoln with defeat in the November 1864
election. |
|
|
9. |
To punish farmers who provided a base for Jubal Early and food for Lee’s army,
Grant ordered General Philip H. Sheridan to turn the region into a “barren
waste.” |
|
|
10. |
Grant’s decision to carry the war to Confederate civilians changed the
definition of conventional warfare. |
|
B. |
The Election of
1864 and
Sherman’s
March |
|
|
1. |
In June 1864, the Republican convention endorsed
Lincoln’s war measures, demanded the
surrender of the Confederacy, and called for a constitutional amendment to
abolish slavery. |
|
|
2. |
The Republican Party temporarily renamed itself the National Union Party and
nominated Democrat Andrew Johnson for vice president. |
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|
3. |
The Democratic convention nominated General George McClellan, who promised to
recommend an immediate armistice and peace convention if elected. |
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|
4. |
On September 2, 1864, William T. Sherman forced the surrender of
Atlanta,
Georgia
;
Sherman’s success gave
Lincoln a victory in November. |
|
|
5. |
The pace of emancipation accelerated;
Maryland
and
Missouri freed their slaves, followed by
Tennessee,
Arkansas, and
Louisiana. |
|
|
6. |
On January 31, 1865, the Republican-dominated Congress approved the Thirteenth
Amendment, which prohibited slavery throughout the
United States. |
|
|
7. |
Sherman declined to follow the Confederate army
into
Tennessee after the capture of
Atlanta; instead he wanted to “cut a swath through sea”
that would devastate
Georgia
and score a psychological victory. |
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|
8. |
After burning
Atlanta,
Sherman destroyed railroads, property, and
supplies during his march to the sea; many Confederate soldiers deserted and
fled home to protect their farms and families. |
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|
9. |
In February 1865,
Sherman invaded
South Carolina with a
desire to wreak vengeance upon the state where secession had begun. |
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|
10. |
Because of class resentment from poor whites, the Confederacy had such a
manpower shortage that they were going to arm the slaves in exchange for their
freedom; the war ended before this had a chance to transpire. |
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|
11. |
The symbolic end to the war occurred on April 9, 1865, when Lee surrendered to
Grant at
Appomattox Court
House,
Virginia;
by May, the Confederate army and government had dissolved. |
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|
12. |
For the South, the Union armies had destroyed slavery as well as the
Confederacy and much of the South’s economy. Almost 260,000 Confederate
soldiers paid for secession with their lives. |
|
|
13. |
For the North, the struggle had preserved the
Union
and destroyed slavery, but the cost of victory was enormous in terms of money,
resources, and lives, with 360,000 Union soldiers dead
and hundreds of thousands maimed. |