The Transforming Fire: The Civil War

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The Transforming Fire The Civil War
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I. Abraham Lincoln and the Slave Power Conspiracy

• 1858 House Divided speech? no compromise
  possible
• Slavocracy/Slave Power? renationalize slavery
• 1) territories
• 2) use territories to extend to North

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• Republicans both believed pragmatic? build
  support
• 1) Abolitionists
• 2) Racists, esp. workers (free soilers)
• Not politics nor cultural hatred, but fear of
  extension to North
• Lincoln guilty politician? combine morality
  racism to win votes

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1860 Election

• Split w/in Democrats? Lincoln wins minority,
  sectional Pres.
• (60 voted for someone else Douglas,
  Breckinridge, Bell)
• No electoral votes from South
• 109 counties in South, only 2 for AL
• South (home GW, TJ, JM) faced w/anti-slavery Pres
  and loss of power in Fed gov
• South threatened secession if AL wins? dont take
  seriously
• Souths conspiracy Repub willing to
  allow/motivate slaves to murder them in their
  sleep (party of John Brown)

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II. The Secession Crisis

• A. Failure to Compromise
• Crittenden Compromise amendment extend Missouri
  Compromise guarantee protection? AL refuses S
  bluffing to gain more, have to stand up now or
  what next, Cuba? (Breckinridge)
• Dec. 20, 1860 SC convention to repeal
  ratification of Const.
• Feb 1861 6 others join (AL, MS, FL, GA, LA, TX)?
  CSA J. Davis (MS) elected Pres
• Upper South (esp. VA) do not join until war starts

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Secessionist Arguments

• 1) Despotism of numbers
• Loss of political power sectionalist
  Republicans
• 2) Northern interference JD all we ask is to
  be left alone
• Free-soilers, UR, John Brown
• 3) Break southern vassalage
• Build southern economy
• 4) Self-determination
• Southern nationalism? S. War for Independence
• 5) Constitutionality
• Constitution a confederation? can leave if want
• 6) North will not attack
• Economic suicide King Cotton

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Southern Opposition to Secession

• Fear of war where fought, who die?
• Split slaveholders and non yeoman farmers (esp.
  upcountry NC) not willing to support slavery?
  Unionists
• Elections very tight planters overrepresented in
  convention

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B. Lincolns War?

• 1) Claim AL nationalist need war to create a
  nation, not just preserve union? rejects
  Crittenden, keeps troops at Fort Sumter to
  provoke S attack
• Other view of Sumter stalling for pro-Union
  uprising
• 2) Most N did not support forcing S to remain in
  Union AL ordered call up of 75,000 militia (no
  need for Congress approval not a war, putting
  down an insurrection)
• (compare Vietnam/Iraq)

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• 3) Economic industrial strength requires
  national market (Repub party of industrial
  workers and business)
• 4) Failure of republican govt and AR (Gettysburg
  Address) loss of election cannot be criteria for
  secession? rejects Souths claim about
  Constitution

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III. War for Union, 1861-2 Limited War and
Anaconda

• A. Limited War Aims
• War about slavery (provoked by N refusal to allow
  expansion) but NOT to abolish slavery
• Slaves, blacks, some abolitionists thought it
  was, but majority white northerners no
• South? Leaders presented war as about preserving
  liberty and the legacy of the AR, not as defense
  of slavery? cause yall are down here
• ? Limited goals? limited war

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• Lincoln Congress explicit declaration war not
  to abolish only to return States
• Why? Pragmatist 1st job to win war? needed
  border States (KY, MD, MO) "I hope to have God
  on my side, but I must have Kentucky.

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• All presumed war short limited
• Battle of Bull Run (July 1861) untrained Union
  routed by Rebels
• Capture some spectators
• ? Citizen Army of 500,000 for 3 years

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B. Anaconda and The Shield of the Union

• 61-62 no conclusive results, esp. in East
• Gen. Winfield Scott Anaconda Plan blockade
  public clamor?
• Gen. George McClellan great organizer/trainer,
  poor fighter overestimates foe 2-3x (esp. REL)
• March 62 Peninsular Campaign (Richmond, VA)? N
  appears on verge of victory? Battle 7 Days
  (20,000 Confed. casualties to 16,000 Union)?
  withdraws
• McClellan never seemed to understand that victory
  invasion of S

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IV. War for Freedom, 1862-1865 Antietam and
Emancipation

• A. Taking off the Kids Gloves
• Summer 62 gains in West (KY, TN, Miss, NO) by
  Grant E momentum, but S continuing to fight
• Growing discontent Copperheads and War
  Democrats upcoming 1862 congressional elections
  (Nov)
• Sept. 62 abandon attrition strategy? Lee
  invades MD? Sept 17, 1862 Battle of Antietam

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• 6,300-6,500 killed, 15,000 wounded
• 4x US casualties D-Day more than War of 1812,
  Mex-Am War, Spanish-American War, Indian wars
  combined
• Robert Gould Shaw It seems almost as if nothing
  could justify a battle like that of the 17th, and
  the horrors inseparable from it.

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Impacts of Antietam

• 1) Military shattered Confederate momentum
• K. Marx (Oct 62) Antietam has decided the fate
  of the American Civil War
• 2) Political
• a) domestic limited Repub losses Nov. election?
  maintained control Congress (lost 34 seats House
  governorships, but gained 5 Senate)
• b) international ended chances recognition
  support Europe (esp. Britain)

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• 3) Moral AL Antietam sign God had decided this
  question in favor of the slaves? Emancipation
  Proclamation

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B. Emancipation

• AL Without slavery the rebellion could never
  have existed without slavery it could not
  continue.
• Sept 22, 1862 to take effect Jan 1 1863 freed
  slaves Confed controlled areas (not border states
  or areas under U control)
• Attempt bring S back in rejoin or lose slaves
  (cont. faith Unionist feeling)
• Still? participation blacks

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• 1) Incentive slaves spy for Union
• 2) 500,000 slaves fled? massive manpower shortage
  ( desertion to protect homes)
• Free blacks runaways? military
• By end 180,000 had served, 10 total enrollment
• Remarkable 2nd class soldiers segregated units,
  1/3 less pay, work details
• Immense courage effectiveness fighting for
  liberty terrible treatment as POW

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Divisions over Emancipation

• McClellan could not make up my mind to fight
  for such an accursed doctrine as that of a
  servile insurrection.
• The remedy for political errors, if any are
  committed, is to be found in the action of the
  people at the polls.
• Ran against AL in 1864, nearly won
• July 1863 NYC draft riots? rage focused on blacks

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C. War is Hell

• No longer respect prop right southern
  civ.?destroy anything might be used by enemy?
  Sherman March to the Sea
• 1) cut supply line S Lee 2) shatter economic
  system break civ will

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• 1863
• Balance shifts permanently to U at Gettysburg
  (July 1-3) of 75,000 Rebels, 28,000 casualties
  (1/3)
• 1864
• Grants success West? Chief
• ALs response to criticism He fights
• S short on manpower, supplies, morale,
  desertion? Confed collapse? J. Davis used racism
  to try to motivate whites reduced to slavery
  (fails)? proposed arming blacks in last months
  (never implemented)
• April 9 65 Lee surrenders at Appomattox
• Still other S armies, but basically end

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• S handicap seceded for independence, but then
  had centralize authority to wage war
• Union victory proved indivisibility, but how
  unite nation issue of race?
• Lincoln death? lesser men left to resolve

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V. The Butchers Bill

• 600,000 on both sides gt WWI WWII
• Total casualties 1 million in nation 31 million
• Why? Overlap new tech old tactics new
  transportation (faster replacement) old
  medicine 2 die of disease for every 1 die
  battlefield
• Communications tech? horrors send graphically
  quickly to nation? mental/psychological cost

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How Explain?

• 1) Political sectionalism (struggle over West)
• 2) Slavery (moral conflict)
• 3) Clash antithetical systems
• 4) Failure of politicians (Douglas, Buchanan,
  etc.)
• 5) Extremists (Garrison, Calhoun)
• 6) No basic causes needless war of a
  blundering generation

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• Came out of forces at work in American society
• Forces for Division
• 1) Frontier society in West and in East
  (immigration urbanization)
• 2) Materialism divisions of wealth
• 3) Individualism attacks on old institutions
  2nd GA, utopians, Jacksonians
• 4) Democracy erosion elite? candidates chosen
  for appeal not statesmanship

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• Forces for Cohesion
• 1) Nationalism AR, 1812, Manifest Destiny
• 2) Market Transportation Revolutions
• 3) Political System based on compromise
• 4) 2nd GA national evangelical movement (product
  of disorder seeking new system of control
  self-discipline)
• 5) Common experience of dislocation

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• Nation torn apart because at moment of greatest
  weakness (crisis West) hit by series shocks (Dred
  Scott, J. Brown, etc.)
• Humiliating defeat S industrialization of S N
  willingness turn against blacks/reject
  emancipationist vision of CW? Reunion over
  Reconstruction
• The Lost Cause, Gone With the Wind, Civil War
  reenactments