After
Lincoln was elected president in 1860, seven southern states, believing that
Lincoln planned to end slavery everywhere in the United States in spite of his
promises to permit what the Southerners called their “peculiar
institution” to persist in the South, seceded from the Union, intent upon
forming a new nation in the South called the Confederate States of America.
The original seceding states were: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.
In
his first inaugural address Lincoln firmly stated that secession was
unconstitutional, but he also attempted to stress the common ties between the
North and the South and he said that the North would not be the aggressor or
initiate hostilities. Lincoln hoped that war could be avoided and that
Southerners would acknowledge that a common American history bound the North
and South together, and he appealed to the Southerners to consider the
“better angels of our nature” and refrain from forcing a war upon the
North through taking illegal and unconstitutional measures, i.e., the use of
force in defiance of federal authority.
Southerners
viewed Lincoln’s inaugural address with distrust and continued to believe he
intended to abolish slavery, not only in the Western territories and border
states, but everywhere in the United States.
By
early 1861 the Confederate states occupied all federal forts and armories in
the South except for two. One of these was Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor,
South Carolina. The North did not want to lose the fort because to do so would
be an admission that South Carolina was truly out of the Union. The
Confederates began to attack the fort with artillery on April 12, 1861 when
the North attempted to re-supply the fort with unarmed supply ships.
Fort
Sumter fell on April 15, 1861. No one was killed or seriously wounded on
either side, but much of the fort caught fire and ammunition was running low,
so the Northern commander Major Robert Anderson surrendered. This was the
beginning of the Civil War as the South had now actually initiated fighting
against the North.
On
April 15 Lincoln publicly proclaimed the existence of a “rebellion” in the
South and called for the loyal states to provide 75,000 militiamen to put down
the uprising. Throughout the course of the war, Lincoln continued to refer to
the war as a rebellion and to the Southerners as rebels engaged in an
insurrection against the legitimate authority of the federal government. He
did so because he refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Confederate
States of America. In his mind, there was no Confederacy, but instead only
rebel states illegally violating the U.S. constitution.
Four
more Southern states seceded after Lincoln called for troops: Virginia,
Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Four other slave states – Delaware,
Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland – remained within the Union due to their
strong economic ties with the North and Lincoln’s quick use of federal
troops to secure these states, particularly in the case of Maryland which
surrounded Washington, D.C. on three sides. To lose Maryland would be to place
the Northern capital city within easy reach of the Confederate army.
Both
sides believed the war would be over very quickly. The North hoped to subdue
the South in a few decisive battles. Lincoln’s call for troops promised
recruits that they would only have to serve for three months. Instead the war
lasted until 1865.
The
South hoped to win by fighting a defensive war, protecting its territory until
the Union grew tired of the struggle. The South believed that if it won several
decisive victories it would gain the support of important European countries
such as France and England which depended upon Southern cotton for their
textile industries.
The
respective advantages and disadvantages of the North and South to a great
extent helped to determine the outcome of the war.
Greater
population
More
manufacturing
Agricultural
productivity
Natural
resources
Superior
finances
Superior
transportation (particularly railroads),
The
border states (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri)
New
states in the west (Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas) for men, food and resources
100,500 factories compared to the South’s 20,600.
The
North had 92% of the nation's industries, almost all of the coal, iron, copper
and other metals, and most of the gold.
Industrial
growth occurred in the North with the demand for war supplies and materials.
$189,000,000
in bank deposits
Confederate
wealth was mainly in land and slaves which could not be converted readily into
military advantages.
The
South only had $47,000,000 in bank deposits.
Better
transportation in the North meant the North could move troops and supplies
more easily and get food and raw materials from the Midwest.
Northern
trade with nations overseas was also possible and important for the wartime
economy.
Ulysses
S. Grant of Illinois took over as commander of forces after a series of
disappointing generals. Lincoln believed the earlier generals such as George
McClellan were not aggressive enough and were too cautious, unwilling to take
the fight to the Confederates, but Grant and also Sherman proved to be the
“fighting generals” Lincoln was looking for.
Population:
24 million. 24 northern, western, and border states.
The
South had only to fight a defensive war and protect territory until the North
grew tired of fighting and gave up.
The
South believed it had only to sway the Northern public against the war with a
few decisive victories on Northern territory, and then, Southerners hoped, the
North would give up the attempt to forcefully reunite the nation.
The
North had to conquer a territory the size of Western Europe.
Numerous
West Point graduates as generals.
Robert
E. Lee of Virginia, a brilliant general who previously served the U.S. Army,
commanded Confederate forces.
Southerners
were used to outdoor living and firearms. They knew the territory well.
King
Cotton - Southerners believe the textile mills of Great Britain and France
depended on the Southern cash crop. They hoped these countries would aid the
South after the South demonstrated its ability to win in Northern territory.
Slaves
could grow food and aid the army with their labor while white men did the
fighting.
Population:
9 million, which included 3,500,000 slaves. Eleven states in the Confederacy.
Strategies
Developed During the War.
After
the first Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861, both sides became aware that
the war was not going to end quickly. They hunkered down and developed their
strategies for victory.
Northern
strategy was based on geography. The Appalachian mountains divided the South
into the eastern theater and the western theater in which the North would
fight simultaneously. Control of the Mississippi River would enable the North
to penetrate deep into the South and keep the South from re-supplying its
western forces. To restore the Union the North adopted a three part strategy:
1) capture Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate Capital; 2) gain control of the
Mississippi River; and 3) institute a naval blockade of the South which would
cut off the South from foreign markets needed for cotton exports.
The
South hoped to win by seizing Washington, D.C. and striking northward through
the Shenandoah Valley into Maryland and Pennsylvania. Southerners hoped that
Southern victories on Northern territory would shatter northern moral, disrupt
Union communications, win European support, and bring the war to a speedy end.
The South hoped that French and British dependency on cotton would bring them
to aid the South.
Unfortunately
for the South, France and England had stockpiled cotton before the fall of
Fort Sumter. When this cotton ran out they turned to Egypt and India for new
supplies. The French also were preoccupied with events in Mexico where
Napoleon III had sent troops to put down widespread opposition his installed
Emperor Maximilian, the Archduke of Austria.
Many
northerners opposed the draft and did not believe it was worth dying to save
the union or end slavery. Northern Democrats who sympathized with the south
were known as Copperheads. They actively interfered with the war effort by
giving anti-war speeches and publishing anti-war articles in newspapers. In an
attempt to silence the Copperheads, Lincoln suspended some civil liberties,
including the ancient legal right of habeas corpus – the right which
protects American citizens from unlawful imprisonment.
The
first goal of Lincoln and the North was to save the Union, not free the
slaves. Some northerners rioted against blacks in northern cities during the
war because they did not want to fight a war to free blacks. They feared that
after the war, freed slaves would take their jobs in northern factories.
However,
during the war there was an increase in abolitionist activity. Men like
escaped slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglas and Horace Greeley, editor of
the new York Tribune, tried to convince Lincoln and the government that there
was a moral duty to emancipate the slaves.
Early
on Lincoln was opposed to emancipation because he did not want to lose the
support of the border slave states in the Union and because he did not believe
he had the constitutional authority to end slavery. Finally though, Lincoln
issued a military order to free slaves living in areas in rebellion against
the United States, and he came to see the war as a great moral struggle to end
what he always believed was an immoral institution.
Lincoln wrote it on September 17, 1862, but did not make it public until after a union victory on September 22, 1862. It went into effect on January 1, 1863.
The Emancipation Proclamation did not free slaves in border states or parts of Virginia that stayed with the Union (which later became West Virginia in 1863).
Why
did Lincoln change his mind? Because of abolitionist pressure and because he
began to see emancipation as a military necessity since freed slaves or
“contraband” could be utilized as soldiers and laborers by the Union army.
Lincoln also came to see the War as a great moral struggle against slavery
The
Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 finally freed all slaves everywhere in the U.S.
and territories. This was ratified by 3/4 of the states eight months after the
War.
After
the Emancipation Proclamation, the enlistment of African American men in the
Union forces was officially encouraged. By the end of the war nearly 180,000
African American men had served in the Union army. For much of the war they
earned one-half the pay of white
soldiers until Congress finally equalized the pay scale in 1864. White
officers commanded every black regiment. Although many whites believed that
freed slaves would not make good soldiers because they lacked discipline and
courage, many Americans were impressed by the courage and dedication of
African American soldiers.
The
War lasted until the South surrendered at Appomattox Court House in 1865.
Major
battles included Bull Run (1861), The Second Battle of Bull Run (1862),
Antietam (1862), Gettysburg (1863), Sherman's March (1864) and many more
important battles which have been the subject of much study by military
historians.
The
South spent more than a billion dollars, and the North spent several times
that amount. Including pensions for war veterans and other costs the total
cost to the United States was ten billion dollars, which today would be worth
much more than that amount.
369,000
Northern soldiers died.
258,000
Southern soldiers died.
Property,
farms, homes, businesses were destroyed and in ruins in the South and border
states.
There
were uncounted losses of civilians from hunger, starvation, and disease. The
United States entered the contentious era of Reconstruction as the Northerners
attempted to re-establish the Union and remedy centuries of racial domination,
without resounding success.
The
war ended the institution of slavery in the United States and strengthened the
Union by increasing the power of the federal government at the expense of the
states, and settled the century long
debate over the right of secession. It also furthered the development of
industry in the North and proved that representative government could function
during wartime as the Union held democratic elections for both federal and
state offices during the War.