Slavery and the Civil War

1
Slavery and the Civil War

• Unit Four Essential Questions
• What is Naturalism and American Realism?
• How did slavery and the Civil War impact American
  literature during the 19th century?
• What was the mood and tone of the period?

2
Literary Terms and Concepts

• Allusion
• Colloquialism
• Dialogue
• Elegy
• End rhyme
• Flashback
• Folk song
• Free Verse
• Hymn
• Irony
• Symbol
• Theme
• Tone
• Verbal Irony

• Meter
• Naturalism
• Parallelism
• Psychological Fiction
• Refrain
• Repetition
• Rhyme
• Rhyme Scheme
• Slave Narrative
• Spiritual
• Stanza
• Stereotype
• Style

3
We here highly resolve that these dead shall not
have died in vain, that this nation, under God,
shall have a new birth of freedom.

• --Abraham Lincoln
• The Gettysburg Address

4
A House Divided

• The North became a center for industrial
  manufacturing and goods.
• The South was almost entirely agricultural,
  producing rice, tobacco, cotton, sugar, and
  exporting these to Great Britain.
• The South naturally opposed high tariffs because
  they relied on imports for finished products.

5
A House Divided (cont.)

• The economic differences between the North and
  South caused tension
• The differences in lifestyle exacerbated those
  tensions.
• Northern workers lived in cities and towns, and
  worked at mills and factories.
• Southern workers lived in rural areas, and worked
  the land.

6
The Issue of Slavery

• At the very inception of the US, differences
  arose over the issue of slavery.
• As plantation system develops, the South began to
  depend more and more on imported slaves to work
  on factory farms.
• Many Southerners opposed slavery, but saw it as a
  necessity in order for the economy to thrive.
• Slave trade officially ends in 1808, but
  smuggling still existed.
• By 1830, there were approximately 3 million
  slaves.

7
The Issue of Slavery (cont.)

• By 1860, the number of slaves had reached
  4,000,000
• Apologists argued that slaves were treated well,
  as they were valuable property.
• Whats an apologist?
• Actually, slavery was brutal and they were
  treated poorly.
• Fed meagerly, lived in squalor, whipped for
  minor offenses, forbidden by law to read or
  write, were sold away from their families.

8
Who are these people?

• Harriet Tubman
• Henry David Thoreau
• Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Sen. Henry Clay
• Daniel Webster
• John Brown
• Stephen Douglas
• Abraham Lincoln

• Denmark Vesey
• Nat Turner
• William Lloyd Garrison
• John Russwurm
• Samuel Cornish
• Frederick Douglass
• Elijah P. Lovejoy and Charles T. Torrey

9
People
Frederick Douglas
Auction and Negro sales Building in Atlanta
African-Americans unloading ships at City Point,
VA
Nat Turner
10
What are these things, and how do they relate to
the people?

• The Liberator
• Freedoms Journal
• The North Star
• The New England Anti-Slavery Society
• Free African Society of Philadelphia
• Underground Railroad

• Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
• Slavery in Massachusetts
• Uncle Toms Cabin
• Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Dred Scott decision
• Harpers Ferry

11
Secession and the Civil War

• In 1860 Lincoln becomes President and seven
  states had already voted to secede from the
  Union.
• South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,
  Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.
• In 1861, delegates from South met in Montgomery,
  Alabama and formed The Confederate States of
  America.
• Jefferson Davis is President

12
Secession and the Civil War (cont.)

• Confederate troops begin the most troubled period
  in American history by firing on Fort Sumter.
• Lincoln offers to put Robert E. Lee in charge of
  Union army, but he declines because hes
  initially opposed to secession
• When Virginia seceded from Union, Lee took
  command of Grand Army of the Confederacy.

Robert E. Lee
13
Secession and the Civil War (cont.)

• Many people expected the Civil War to last only
  about a month or so, but it ended up lasting 5
  years.
• Union Troops lost first major campaign under the
  command of Stonewall Jackson and P.G.T.
  Beauregard
• First Battle of Bull Run

Stonewall Jackson
14
Secession and Civil War (cont.)

• In the fighting that followed at Shiloh, New
  Orleans, Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg,
  Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and
  Petersburg, 360,000 Union soldiers and 329,000
  soldiers lost their lives, mostly from disease
  rather than battle.
• Grant invades the Confederate capital of
  Richmond, in April of 1865. Lee surrenders at
  Appomattox Court House

• Union forces were plagued by bad leadership
  initially, but Ulysses S. Grant changed that, and
  helped bring the war to the end.

Ulysses S. Grant (hero of the Battle of
Vicksburg)
15
The Literature of Abolition and Protest

• Emerson, Thoreau, Whittier, and Lowell produced
  abolitionist writings
• Remember Civil Disobedience? How does this
  relate?
• There were abolitionist societies, like the New
  England Anti-Slavery Society
• As many as 2,000 by 1850
• Most literature was written by Northern whites,
  especially women.

16
The Literature of Abolition and Protest (cont.)

• Publishers like William Lloyd Garrison and
  Frederick Douglass contributed tremendously, as
  did novelists like Harriet Beecher Stowe.
• African-Americans in the South developed two
  original forms of literature that played an
  important role in the movement
• Spiritual-combined African and European must and
  a poetic text using religious images from the
  Bible.
• Slave narrative-an autobiographical account of
  the life of a former slave.

17
The Literature of Abolition and Protest (cont.)

• William Wells Brown was 1st African-American to
  publish a novel.
• Clotel (1853)
• The 1st African-American woman was Harriet E.
  Wilson
• Our Nig (1859)

18
The Literature of the War

• Addressed itself to a concern wit restoring a
  national identity, hoping to find threads of
  unity amid the horrific bloodletting.
• Honors the efforts of those in the war while
  insisting on various ways on a national identity
  and on reconciliation.
• Post-warwritings about the war became vehicles
  for achieving reconciliation and reshaping the
  nations self-image or identity.
• Glorified and romanticized the war.
• There did emerge a contrary voice,
  though,Ambrose Bierce and Stephen Crane.
• Explored the darker aspects of war, and portrayed
  courage and heroism as myths.