Chapter 15

1. Chapter 15

2. What major advantages did each of the combatants, Union and Confederacy, possess at the start of the Civil War? • How successfully did the governments and economies of the North and South respond to the pressures of war? • How did the issues of slavery and emancipation transform the war? • What factors determined the military outcome of the war? • In what lasting ways did the Civil War change the U.S. as a nation?

3. Mobilization for War • Both North and South were unprepared • Union • Army of 16,000 • Scattered all over the country (the West) • 1/3 of its officers resigned to join the Confederacy • Unproven president • No taxes in decades • Never imposed the draft • Confederacy • No tax structure • No navy • Two gunpowder factories • Unconnected railroad lines

4. Recruitment and conscription • Initially and local issue, not national or state • Citizens opened recruiting offices, held rallies, etc. • Southerners provided their own horses and rankings were elected by the officers and enlisted men • But this was shortlived

5. The South • Initially, Confederacy to use state troops, limited to 12 months; after Sumter Pres. Could receive state troops for terms of six months to the duration of the war without state consent • April 1862 – Confederates enacted 1st conscription law: all white men 18-35 for 3 yrs. To duration • Later 40 then 50 and as young as 17 • Southerners protested this as an assault on state sovereignty • Exemptions: to specific occupations and state officials (highly abused) • Loophole (closed in 1863): you could hire substitutes • Amendment: 20-Negro law (rich man’s war and poor man’s fight)

6. However, only 1 in 5 southerners was a draftee • 70-80% of southerners served • 1864 conscription law: if you’re in, you stay in for the duration

7. Supplying the Confederacy • Weapons • First from Europe • Second from confiscated arsenals • Third form guns on the battlefield • Food and clothing • Many went without shoes • Railroads were sparse or down • The Economy relied on cotton and tobacco • Early northern invasion destroyed the livestock and grain-raising districts • In 1863 the Confederate Congress passed the Impressment Act: they could confiscate food and slaves

8. The North • Little trouble supplying the troops, but getting troops was a different story: getting volunteer units from an unmilitary society • Initially, the president asks for 500,000, with state quotas, but left to the states • 1863 Enrollment Act – white males 20-45 with exemptions to high govt. officials, ministers, and men who were the sole support of widows, orphans, or indigent parents • Two means of escape: substitution and commutation • Enrollment districts competed through bounties • Protests, but only 8% were draftees; and of the draftees, 120,000 of 170,000 were substitutes

9. Financing the War • Federal spending had been low in the 40s and 50s • Expenditures had come from tariff duties and the sale of public lands • But war required more expenditures and money was needed • Both the north and the south sought to avoid taxes • However, in 1861 the Confederacy enacted a small property tax and the Union an income tax • Both sides turned to war bonds: S ($15 m) N ($150 m) • But the bonds needed to be paid for in gold or silver specie : many people held on to their’s

10. Solution: print money • North • Legal Tender Act called for $150 m. in greenbacks (and to ensure confidence, made it legal tender in most all public and private debts) • South • Never made paper money legal tender • Since the South had difficulty collecting taxes (transportation issues) the printed more money and inflation soared (9,000%); $1 in 1861 cost $46 in 1864 • National Bank Act: with the south gone and the northern democrats weakened, the Republicans pushed through this act that established the criteria by which a band could obtain a federal charter and issue national bank notes • Shows the North’s ability and experience and cohesion

11. Political Leadership • North • Lincoln was considered ineffectual early • He had opposition in the Radicals • He seemed to be in the middle, yet accused of being with both sides of his party\ • Co-opted Chase (opponent) by making him Sec. of Treasury • But left departments alone • Emphasized his Commander-in-chief status • His call for militiamen pushed hesitators in the South towards secession

12. The Nature of the Conflict • Lincoln (North) • sees this as domestic insurrection caused by individuals • Rebels, not traitors • Purpose of the war was to Preserve the Union • Davis (South) • Lee was the hero and he was loyal to Virginia • Preserve state’s right to control over domestic affairs • Just needed to defend itself • Thought Europe would support them

13. South • Jefferson Davis and his vice president Alexander Stephens quarreled over what was essential to the meaning of the Confederacy • States rights: The Confederate Congress prohibited the Confederate Congress from enacting protective tariffs and from supporting internal improvements • Stephens supported the defense of slavery and states rights; Jefferson supported the existence of the South • The South could not deal with these issues the way the north could

15. Side issues of extreme importance • Europe • needed Northern wheat more than they needed Southern cotton (Confederates had embargoed shipments of cotton to Britain to prove importance. Wrong) • British business investors had a rich stake in Anglo-American unity • $ trumps jealousy of U.S. power • Emancipation policy gained loyalty from liberals • Lincoln secured the border states • The Confederacy had a fundamental paradox: purpose was state’s rights, but management war requires centralization (Davis always had this problem)

16. The First Battle and Its Aftermath • July 21, 1861: First Battle of Bull Run/First Battle of Manassas • North seeks to take Richmond and must go through Manassas Junction (citizens march out of Washington with the troops) • Maybe started to ensure the militiamen acquired in April didn’t head home because their time was about to expire • http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/bullrun.html

17. 1862 • After Bull Run, Lincoln brought in George McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac • Apr.-July: McClellan’s Pennisula Campaign ended in defeat, as his refusal to attack cost the Yankees • Sept. 17: McClellan and Lee meet at Antietam in Maryland (single bloodiest day- 24,000 dead) • Dec. 13: Fredricksburg

18. War in the West • Ulysses S. Grant • Early 1862 Grant takes Fort Henry and Fort Donelson • In doing so he demanded “unconditional surrender” • He got 15,000 prisoners • Important because Henry guarded the waterway to Nashville (capitol, railroad center, and powder plant site) • Apr. 1862: Grant and Sherman take Shiloh (23,000 dead) • The Confederates strip defenses of New Orleans to aide Shiloh • This allows Farragut to take New Orleans and Baton Rouge • North also takes Pea Ridge in Arkansas • Importance of the early Western Campaign: North takes the Mississippi

19. The Soldiers’ War • Local companies into regiments • Training was notoriously weak • Food was horrific: beans, bacon, salt pork, pickled beef, and hardtack • Union armies sometimes drove their own cattle • Sanitation • Lice, fleas, ticks, disease was rampant

20. Battle consisted of large masses of soldiers facing off at close range until one side gave up or fell back • The Civil War contained literate armies

21. Ironclads and Cruisers • North began with over forty active warships; the South had none • Steam-driven ships could penetrate the South’s excellent river system • But blockading the 3,500 miles of Southern coast was not easy; the North had to employ all types of ships/boats • Naval patrols and amphibious operations shrank the South’s ocean trade to 1/3 its prewar level

22. The Diplomatic War • Would the French help the Confederacy? • Napoleon III sought to establish a colonial empire in Mexico would welcome a divided America • The Trent incident • James Mason to Britain and John Slidell to France to seek recognition • Union captain boards the British Trent and takes the prisoners to Boston • Cotton diplomacy failed

23. From Confiscation to Emancipation • Lincoln stated in 1861 he had no intention of interfering with slavery • However, as the war dragged on, “total war” and the military value of emancipation became clear • As the North began to invade the South the issue of what to do with slaves began

24. Slaves who fled behind Union lines were “contraband” and subject to seizure • Under the Confiscation Act of 1861 all property used in military aid of the rebellion was to be seized • Slaves who had been used by the armed rebel forces who had fled became “captives of war” • But Lincoln (stating that the South’s rebellion lacked any legal basis) did not want to violate Southerners protection of property; he also wanted to protect northerners employment

25. “to fight against slaveholders without fighting against slavery, is but a half-hearted business” • With slave labor at full swing, white southerners could fight • 2nd Confiscation Act in 1862: seize property of those in rebellion, and slaves “shall be forever free”; the president can employ blacks as soldiers • Emancipation Proclamation: After Antietam, preliminary language set • If southern states had returned they could have kept slavery • As of Jan. 1, 1863, forever free • Great political stroke; issued as military measure by the commander in chief

26. Crossing Union Lines • As Union troops overran areas slaves would seek refuge behind the lines • Early in the war masters could retrieve slaves from the Union army • However, after 1862 they were free; many served in the Union army • Some stayed in the south for a wage on plantations of owners who had sworn allegiance to the Union • By 1865 500,000 slaves in Union hands • But the freedmen were a problem; before the end of the war aid societies were established • 1865 the Freedmen’s Bureau is set up; also a provision for 40 acres with the option to buy after 3 yrs.

27. Black Soldiers in the Union Army • Not allowed, turned away, or disbanded • After the 2nd Confiscation Act, black regiments set up in New Orleans • After the Emancipation Proclamation large-scale enlistment • Union drafts now included blacks • 186,000 African Americans serve (half came from Southern states) • Black recruitment offered opportunities for white commissions

28. Black soldiers suffered a far higher mortality rate than white troops • Not killed in action; diseases • Confederacy refused exchanges for black soldiers; they were sent back to their state; many were executed • Pay for black soldiers was $10, then a deduction for clothing (whites got $13 with no deduction); equalized in 1864 • However, service was a symbol of citizenship

29. Slavery in Wartime • During the war the South tightened patrols, moved entire plantations, and spread horror stories amongst the slaves • Even though some slaves helped their owners, most opted for freedom • And if they stayed on the plantations, they became increasingly difficult • First large area liberated was the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia • First aid groups arrive • Blacks get land

30. The South actually passed (narrowly) a bill to arm 300,000 slaves (with no mention of emancipation at the end of the war) • Never implemented • The whole debate (of which Lee supported, as did Jefferson Davis late) showed the desperation and collapse of the slave society

31. The Turning Point of 1863 • The Confederacy has early success in 1863 • Lee defeats Hooker at Chancellorsville with ½ the troops; an embarrassing loss for the North • Lee turns on the North, needing supplies and a hope that Lincoln will move troops from the West; as well a Confederate victory in the North might impact Northern Democrats • Gettysburg and Vicksburg and Chattanooga

32. The War’s Economic Impact: North • Hard hit: shoe industry, cotton-textile industry • Just fine: arms and clothing for the military, railroads • Republicans dominated the North and imposed tariffs to protect industries • Pacific-Railway Act: two RRs, 60 m. in land grants, and $20 m. in loans (CORRUPTION) • Homestead Act: “free soil, free labor, free men,” 160 acres after 5 yrs. (20,000) • Morrill Act: public lands for universities in the agriculture and mechanical arts

33. Benefitted the wealthy the most- industrialists, speculators • Average citizen paid high prices due to tariffs, high taxes, inflation; all the while salaries lagged 20% behind

34. The War’s Economic Impact: South • Commodity output declines 39%; it had been increasing by 50+% in the 40s and 50s • Railroad production destroyed • Cotton production from 4 million bales to 300,000 in 1865 • Loss of manpower declined yields per acre • 9 in 10 families without meat • Salt was $1.25 a sack in NY, $60 a sack in the South; food riots

35. Why the shortage? The planter class continued to grow cotton • This kept slaves on the plantations, not the army camps • Forced the govt. to continue conscription laws • Forced the govt. to impress food

36. Dealing with Dissent • Confederacy • States’ rights advocates (VP Stephens) • Loyalty to the Union (commoners, Appalachians resentful of the 20 Negro rule and the slaveholding elite • Davis was given the right to suspend habeas corpus • Union • Democratic minority (Peace Democrats or Copperheads) • Border state citizens (many immigrants) feared black labor; also upset with economics of service

37. All dissent was much more easily dealt with in the North because of the institutionalization of republican/democratic conflict • The North had 15,000 persons arrested (though most were quickly released) • Ohio politician Clement L. Vallandingham was banished to the South

38. The Medical War • United States Sanitary Commission – many women volunteer for service • Nursing corps: some 3,200 in both armies • Red Cross founder Clara Barton aided Union soldiers at Antietam: She showed up early • For every 1 soldier who died in battle, 2 died of disease (this was an improvement upon the Mexican War) • Troop exchanges ended by mid war; prison camps saw more deaths • South refused to trade black soldiers • North didn’t want to bolster depleted southern regiments

39. The War and Women’s Rights • Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony connect women’s rights with black rights • They form the Woman’s National Loyal League • The New York Herald called their demand for rights as “nonsense and tomfoolery”

40. The Election of 1864 • The debate over readmission was already starting • The Radicals wanted Salmon P. Chase (Sec. of Treasury) • Peace Democrats wanted an immediate armistice • Prowar Democrats and Republicans form the National Union Party and replace Hannibal Hamlin with Andrew Johnson as VP • Democrats nominate George McClellan

41. Lincoln didn’t think he could win • He granted furloughs to soldiers so they could vote • However, the fall of Atlanta helped more • The Republican convention nominated Lincoln, but also endorsed a constitutional amendment banning slavery

42. Sherman’s March Through Georgia • “make war so terrible. . . That generations would pass before they could appeal again to it.” • Chasing everyone out saved him from having to provide for its civilians (food or imprisonment) • Sherman’s forces marched sixty miles wide, ten miles a day • Destroyed everything that could be used by the Southern war effort • “Those who brought war into our country deserve all curses and maledictions a people can pour out.”

43. Toward Appomattox • Rebel desertions were epidemic • “General Lee telegraphs that he can hold his position no longer.” • Lee surrendered to Grant in a private home in the village of Appomattox Courthouse, VA ( • Grant paroled Lee’s 26,000 men and sent them home with their horses and mules “to work their little farms.”

44. The Impact of the War • 620,000 soldiers dead • 360,000 Union • 260,000 Confederate • South lost 60% of its wealth • A “more perfect Union” as opposed to a “federation of states” • National banking system; industrialization; greenbacks; national power over property • Almost 4 million freed slaves

45. Choose one of the two • 1. How would you describe/explain Lincoln’s view on slavery, and how is this evident in his actions throughout the war? Provide evidence. • 2. Discuss a political predicament Jefferson Davis and other leaders found themselves in as they attempted to conduct the Confederacy’s fight against the Union? Provide evidence.