War and American Society

War and American Society
Fort Sumter and First Manassas

*With its population booming after the discovery of gold, California wanted to enter the Union as a free state (thus unbalancing the Senate), despite having half its territory south of the Missouri Compromise line. Some Southern states threatened to secede if this happened until Taylor threatened to use the army to keep them in place.

*The Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act (and Bleeding Kansas that followed), and John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia convinced many Southerners that the North was determined to take away their political rights and, one day, their property and way of life.

*The election of 1860 was the most bitter in American history. It was won by Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer who had been a member of the Illinois state legislature and served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Whig (where he opposed the Mexican War). The Republicans chose him as a compromise because he was seen as a moderate with few enemies.

*Lincoln ran against three other major candidates. In 1860 the Democratic party split into Northern and Southern wings, each of which nominated its own candidate (Stephen Douglas in the North, John C. Breckinridge in the South). Some southerners (mostly old Whigs who had not become Republicans) formed the Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell of Tennessee.

*Lincoln stood for higher tariffs, a transcontinental railroad (and other internal improvements), homesteads in the west, and the containment of slavery—but he promised not to interfere with slavery where it existed.

*Lincoln was not even on the ballot in most Southern states (and did not win any of them (most of the South voted for Breckinridge, with Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia supporting Bell and Missouri supporting Douglas)) and only won 39.8% of the popular vote—but that is not what matters.

*However, Lincoln won every Northern state (except New Jersey which split its votes between Lincoln and Douglas) and 180 out of 303 electoral votes.

*To Southerners, Lincoln’s election without a single Southern vote proved that the North could dominate the South any time it wished. A few leaders tried to create new compromises, but to no avail—neither Republicans nor Southerners would give up their principles. Decades of mistrust and paranoia, pushed to the breaking point by Bleeding Kansas and John Brown’s Raid convinced some Southerners that their rights and property would no longer be protected in the Union.

*As Southerners threatened to secede, President Buchanan did nothing. His opinion was that while secession was illegal, he also had no legal right to stop it, and many Northerners felt that they should not force Southerners to stay in the Union if they wanted out. Some Americans, though, said ‘Oh, for an hour of Jackson!’

*On 20 December, 1860, South Carolina voted to leave the Union. Over the next few months, six other southern states—Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas seceded (along with the southern half of the New Mexico Territory, which named itself Arizona; many inhabitants of Indian Territory also favoured the South, although all tribes were split).

*In February representatives from these seven states chose Jefferson Davis of Mississippi (a former Congressman, Senator, Secretary of War, and a veteran of the Mexican War) as president of the Confederate States of America.

*By the time Lincoln was inaugurated on 4 March, 1861, seven states had left the Union and eight more slave states were considering it. Although many Southerners did not want to leave the Union, more or more feared they would have to in order to protect their rights.

*Lincoln promised to leave the South alone except to protect forts in the South. He chose to make Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor a test and perhaps a provocation, just as he had criticised Polk for doing during the Mexican War. Lincoln refused to remove US troops from the fort and send a ship to them with more supplies.

*The Union commander was Major Robert Anderson with 79 men and the Confederate commander was General Pierre Beauregard with about 500 all around Fort Sumter. No-one was killed on either side, but Anderson surrendered and Lincoln issued a call of 75,000 volunteers, thus beginning the Civil War.

*The call for volunteers angered many Southern states that had not yet left the Union, and between April and June, Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee also left the Union. Virginia’s capital became the capital of the CSA.

*Kentucky and Maryland considered secession, but Lincoln arrested their governors and legislatures without warrants (which Chief Justice Taney said violated their Constitutional rights—so Lincoln threatened to arrest him, too). Delaware had a brief power struggle, and Missouri experienced fighting within the state throughout the war.

*Some parts of the South wanted to stay in the Union, particularly East Tennessee and West Virginia. In 1863 West Virginia became a state.

*When the War began, the U.S. Army was small, and getting smaller, as Southerners left for their home states. The commander of the Army was Winfield Scott, veteran of the War of 1812, Seminole Wars, and Mexican War. He was old and could not command the army himself (he wanted Robert E. Lee to do it, but Lee refused when Virginia left the Union), but he had a plan.

*The Anaconda Plan had three parts: blockade the South the starve it of supplies, capture the Mississippi River to split the South, then take the Confederate capital at Richmond. Many Northerners thought this plan would be too slow and complicated, and wanted a quick end to the War.

*The North seemed to have many advantages.

	USA	CSA
Farms	67%	33%
Industry	90%	10%
Wealth	75%	25%
Transportation	Good roads 22,000 miles of rails Canals	Bad roads 9,000 miles of rails Few canals
Sea power	Navy	No navy
Population	22 million (and always more immigrants to replace losses)	5.5 million white 3.5 million slaves (9 million total)

*Southerners had greater devotion to their cause and were protecting their homeland, while Britain assisted the South in secret. Furthermore, for the first half of the war, the South would seem to have better generals, particularly in the East.

*The war that followed was devastating, particularly due to new weapons. Cannon had longer ranges and were faster to load. More importantly, the average infantryman’s gun had a longer range, too, as more and more men were using rifled muskets firing Minié balls. These had a useful range easily up to 500 yards, and could travel much farther. By the middle of the war, many Union (and a few Confederate) soldiers had repeating rifles, as well. However, the generals had all learnt to fight like Napoleon, and used line tactics much like those used in the Revolutionary War.

*Another problem was that early in the war, militia uniforms were not standardised, and during the Battle of Manassas, men were killed by their own side or captured by people they thought were their friends because they did not recognise the uniforms of the men they were firing upon or approaching. Soon afterwards, uniforms became more uniform, with the North wearing blue uniforms and the South wearing grey (or grey faded to butternut brown). The Confederate flag, the Stars and Bars, also resembled the Stars and Stripes so much that they were hard to tell apart from a distance, which led to the creation of the Confederate Battle Flag.