Chapter 20
Girding for War: The
North and the South,
1861–1865
I. The Menace of Secession
• Lincoln’s inaugural address:
• Was firm yet conciliatory
• There would be no conflict unless the South provoked
it
• Secession was wholly impractical
• The North and South were conjoined twins, bound
inseparably together
– Concession would create new controversies:
• What share of the federal debt should the South be
forced to take with it?
I. The Menace of Secession
(cont.)
• What portion of the jointly held federal territories
should the Confederate states be allotted?
• How would the fugitive slave issue be resolved?
– A united United States had been the paramount
republic in the Western Hemisphere:
• If this powerful democracy broke into two hostile
parts:
– Europeans could transplant their concept of balance of
power
– They could play the divide and conquer game—creating a
dis-United states
p419
II. South Carolina Assails Fort Sumter
– Issue of the divided Union came to a head over
the matter of federal forts in the South:
• As the seceding states left, they seized the United
States’ arsenals, mints and other public property in
their borders
• Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor
– Short on supply; caused Lincoln to adopt a middle-of-the
road solution
– He notified South Carolinians that an expedition would be
sent to provision the garrison, though not to reinforce it
– He promised “no effort to throw in men, arms, and
ammunition.”
II. South Carolina Assails Fort
Sumter (cont.)
– To Southern eyes “provision” still spelled “reinforcement”
• A Union naval force was next started on its way to
Fort Sumter—a move the South regarded as an act of
aggression
• On April 12, 1861 cannon of the Carolinians opened
fire on the fort
• After a 34 hour bombardment, no lives taken, the
dazed garrison surrendered
• The North was electrified and provoked to fighting:
– The fort was lost, but the Union was saved.
– Lincoln turned a tactical defeat into a calculated victory.
II. South Carolina Assails Fort
Sumter (cont.)
– Lincoln (April 15) issued a call to the states for
75,000 militiamen:
• Volunteers sprang to the colors
• April 19 and 27, the president proclaimed a blockade
of Southern seaports
• The call for troops aroused the South
• Lincoln was now waging war—from the Southern
view an aggressive war—on the Confederacy
• Virginia, Arkansas Tennessee reluctantly joined
Confederacy, as did North Carolina (see Map 20.1)
II. South Carolina Assails Fort
Sumter (cont.)
– Seven states became eleven as the
“submissionists” and “Union shriekers” were
overcome
– Richmond, Virginia, replaced Montgomery,
Alabama, as the Confederate capital—too near
Washington for strategic comfort on either side
Map 20-1 p420
III. Brothers’ Blood and Border Blood
• Border states:
– The only slave states left
• Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and later
West Virginia—the “mountain whites” illegally tore
from Virginia in mid-1861
– They contained
• White population more than half that of the entire
Confederacy
• Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri: double the
manufacturing capacity of the South
III. Brothers’ Blood and Border
Blood (cont.)
• The strategic prize of the Ohio River flowed along the
northern border of Kentucky and West Virginia
• Two navigable tributaries, the Cumberland and
Tennessee Rivers, penetrated deep into Dixie
– This same area produced much of the Confederacy’s grain,
gunpowder and iron
– The Border States
• Lincoln successfully used methods of dubious legality
• In Maryland he declared martial law
• He deployed Union troops to western Virginia and
Missouri
III. Brothers’ Blood and Border
Blood (cont.)
– An official statement of the North’s war aims was
profoundly influential in the Border States
• Lincoln declared he was not fighting to free blacks
• Antislavery war was extremely unpopular in
“Butternut” region of southern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois
• This area was settled by Southerners who carried
their racial prejudices with them (pp. 236-237)
• Hot-bed of pro-Southern sentiment
• The war did not begin between slave soil and free soil,
but as a war to save the Union
III. Brothers’ Blood and Border
Blood (cont.)
– Slavery also colored the character of the war in
the West:
• Indian territories and tribes sided with Confederacy
• The Cherokees owned slaves and had common
interest with the South
• To secure their loyalty, the Confederate government
agreed to take over federal payments to the tribes
• And invited the Native Americans to send delegates to
the Confederate congress
• In return the tribes supplied troops
III. Brothers’ Blood and Border
Blood (cont.)
– Some Cherokees and most Plains Indians sided
with the Union
• The conflict between “Billy Yank” and “Johnny Reb”
was a brothers’ war (see pp. 422-423)
• Many Northern volunteers from the Southern states,
many Southern volunteers from the Northern states
• From the Border States, one brother rode north (Blue)
and one brother rode south (Gray)
p421
IV. The Balance of Forces
– First the South seemed to have great advantages:
• Could fight defensively behind interior lines
• North had to invade the vast unknown Confederacy,
conquer it, and drag it back into the Union
• South did not have to win the war to win its
independence
• South fought for self-determination and preservation
• South at first enjoyed high morale
• Militarily the South had the most talented officers,
especially Lee
IV. The Balance of Forces
(cont.)
• Ordinary Southerners were bred to fight
• The South seemed to be handicapped by the scarcity
of factories, but did manage to obtain sufficient
weaponry
– Southern Drawbacks
• Grave shortages of shoes, uniforms, and blankets
• The economy was the greatest Southern weakness,
but was the North’s greatest strength
– Exactly the opposite of Southern expectations
• The North was not only a huge farm but a sprawling
factory (see Table 20.1)
Table 20-1 p425
IV. The Balance of Forces
(cont.)
• Yankees boasted ¾ of the nation’s wealth and ¾ of
30,000 miles of railroads
• The North controlled the seas with its superior navy
• Northern sea power enabled it to exchange huge
quantities of grain for munitions and supplies from
Europe
• The Union enjoyed a much larger reserve of
manpower, 22 million population; seceding states 9
million, including 3.5 million slaves
• North’s overwhelming soldiery were immigrants from
Europe pouring into the North (see Table 20.2)
Table 20-2 p425
IV. The Balance of Forces
(cont.)
• 1/5 of Union forces were foreign-born and in some
units there were four different languages
• Ordinary Northern boys were less prepared than
Southern counterparts for military life
– BUT more familiar with the machinery of war
• The North was much less fortunate in its higher
commanders
– Lincoln used a trial-and-error methods to determine the
most effective leaders finally uncovering Ulysses Simpson
Grant
• The Northern strengths outweighed Southern ones
– BUT, at the beginning of the war, conditions were unusually
favorable for the South to win
IV. The Balance of Forces
(cont.)
– The might-have-beens are fascinating:
• If the Border States had seceded,
• If the uncertain states of the upper Mississippi Valley
had turned against the Union,
• If a wave of Northern defeatism had demanded an
armistice,
• And if Britain and/or France had broken the Union’s
naval blockade of Southern ports, the South might
well have won
• But without any of these, the South could not hope to
win.
p422
p423
“The Dictator” was a 13-inch federal rail-mounted mortar.
p424
When our land is illumined with
liberty's smile,
If a foe from within strikes a blow at
her glory,
Down, down with the traitor that
tries to defile
The flag of the stars, and the page
of her story!
By the millions unchained,
Who their birthright have gained
We will keep her bright blazon
forever unstained;
And the star-spangled banner in
triumph shall wave,
While the land of the free is the
home of the brave.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
1861
V. Dethroning King Cotton
• Successful revolutions generally succeed
because of foreign intervention:
– Of Confederacy's potential assets this was the
most important—foreign intervention
• Europe’s ruling classes were openly sympathetic to
the Confederate cause:
– They had long abhorred American democratic experiment
– They cherished a kind of fellow-feeling for the South’s
semifeudal, aristocratic social order
V. Dethroning King Cotton
(cont.)
– Northern interests:
• The mass of working people in Britain were pulling
and praying for the North
• They read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and sensed that the war
might extinguish slavery if the North emerged
victorious
– Thus the dead hands of Uncle Tom helped Uncle Sam by
restraining the British and French ironclads from piercing
the Union blockade.
– The British textile mills depended on the American South for
75% of their cotton supplies.
V. Dethroning King Cotton
(cont.)
– Why did King Cotton fail the South?
• Strong production in the prewar years-1857-1860,
• Enormous exports had piled up surpluses in British
warehouses
• Later many British workers were unemployed
• Direct effects of “cotton famine” were relieved:
– Hunger of unemployed workers was partially eased by
Americans sending over foodstuffs
– Union armies’ victories gave them the cotton to ship to
Britain
– The Confederates ran a limited quantity through blockades
V. Dethroning King Cotton
(cont.)
– Cotton growers in Egypt and India, responding to high
prices, increased their output and captured a share of the
world cotton markets
– Booming war industries in England, which supplied North
and South, relieved unemployment
• King Wheat and King Corn—the monarch of Northern
agriculture—proved more potent potentates than
King Cotton.
– North produced bountiful crops of grain and harvested them
with McCormick’s mechanical reaper
– Britain was forced to import huge quantities of grain from
America—which was cheaper and most abundant
p426
p427
VI. The Decisiveness of Diplomacy
• Trent affair—
– 1861 Union warship in Cuban waters stopped the
British mail steamer, Trent
• Forced removal of two Confederate diplomats bound
for Europe
• Britons were outraged
• Yankees could not boldly offend the Mistress of the
Sea
• War preparations buzzed
• Red-coated troops embarked for Canada
VI. The Decisiveness Diplomacy
(cont.)
• Alabama—
– Second major crisis in Anglo-American relations:
• Over the unneutral building in Britain of Confederate
commerce-raiders
– The Alabama escaped in 1862 to the Portuguese Azores,
loaded weapons and crews from two British ships that
followed it
– Flying Confederate flags and officered by Confederates, it
was manned by Britons and never entered a Confederate
port
– Britain was the chief naval base of the Confederacy
VI. The Decisiveness Diplomacy
(cont.)
• “British pirate” captured over sixty vessels
• The Alabama finally accepted a challenge from a
stronger Union cruiser off the coast of Cherbourg,
France, in 1864 and was quickly destroyed.
• The issue of British-built Confederate raiders stayed
alive.
• American minister Charles Francis Adams
– prodded the British to perceive that allowing such ships was
a dangerous precedent and someday could be used against
them
The Fight between the CSS Alabama (R) and the USS Kearsarge (L), 1864 engraving.
VI. The Decisiveness Diplomacy
(cont.)
• Britain could not remain neutral:
– Confederate commerce-destroyers, chiefly British-built,
captured over 250 Yankee ships
– Severely crippling the American merchant marine, which
never fully recovered
• American looked north and talked about grabbing
Canada when the war was over
VII. Foreign Flare-ups
• Third and final Anglo-American crisis:
– Laird rams—two Confederate warships being
constructed in the shipyard of John Laird and
Sons in Great Britain
• Designed to destroy Union wooden ships with their
iron rams and large-caliber guns
• Minister Adams warned that “this is war” if the rams
were released
• The London government relented and bought the two
ships for the Royal Navy
VII. Foreign Flare-ups
(cont.)
• Britain:
– Agreed in 1871 to submit the Alabama dispute
to arbitration
– And in 1872 paid American claimants $15.5
million for damages caused by wartime
commerce-raiders
– American rancor was also directed at Canada:
– Where Southern agents plotted to burn Northern cities
– One Confederate raid into Vermont left three banks
plundered and one American citizen dead
VII. Foreign Flare-up
(cont.)
• Dominion of Canada 1867:
– Two great nations emerged from the fiery
furnace of the Civil War:
• One was a reunited United States
• The other was a united Canada
• Emperor Napoleon III:
• Dispatched a French army to occupy Mexico City
• Installed a puppet government with Austrian
archduke Maximilian as emperor of Mexico
VII. Foreign Flare-up
(cont.)
• These two acts were flagrant violations of the Monroe
Doctrine
– United States gave aid to the resistance
movement headed by Mexico’s beloved national
hero: Benito Juarez
• After the Civil War was over Americans were going to
head south to Mexico
– Napoleon realized that his costly gamble was doomed
– He reluctantly took “French leave” of his puppet gov’t. in
1867
– Maximilian crumpled ingloriously before a Mexican firing
squad
VIII. President Davis Versus President
Lincoln
• The Confederate government weakness:
– Its constitution contained one deadly defect
• Created by secession, it could not logically deny future
secession to its constituent states
– President Jefferson wanted a well-knit central
government: opposed by states’ rights
– The Richmond regime encountered difficulty
persuading certain state troopers to serve
outside their own borders
VIII. President Davis Versus
President Lincoln (cont.)
• President Davis never enjoyed real personal
popularity and was often at loggerheads with
his congress
– Serious talk of impeachment
– He overworked himself
– Task proved beyond his powers
VIII. President Davis Versus
President Lincoln (cont.)
• Lincoln had his troubles:
– More experienced but less flexible than Davis
– Able to relax with droll stories at critical times
– “Old Abe” grew as the war dragged on
– Tactful, quiet, patient, yet firm
– He developed a genius for interpreting and
leading a fickle public opinion
• He demonstrated charitableness toward the South
and forbearance toward backbiting colleagues
p428
IX. Limitations on Wartime Liberties
• Congress, in times of crisis, generally accepts or
confirms the president's questionable acts
• Lincoln did not believe that once the war was over
that his ironhanded authority would continue
• Congress not in session when war started, so Lincoln
gathered the reins into his own hands
– Brushing aside legal objections, he boldly proclaimed a
blockade
– Arbitrarily increased the size of the Federal army—
something only Congress can do under the Constitution (see
Art. I, Sec. VIII, para 12); Congress later approved
IX. Limitations on Wartime
Liberties (cont.)
– Directed the Secretary of the Treasury to advance $2 million
without appropriation of security to three private citizens
for military purpose:
» A grave irregularity contrary to the Constitution (see
Art. I, Sec. IX, para. 7)
– Suspended the precious privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus, so that anti-Unionists could be arrested
» Defied a dubious ruling by the chief justice that the
safeguards of habeas corpus could be set aside only w/
authorization of Congress (see Art. I., Sec. IX,para.2)
– His regime was guilty of many other highhanded acts.
• Davis was less able than Lincoln to exercise arbitrary
power, mainly because of states’ righters.
X. Volunteers and Draftees: North and
South
• War demanded men—lots of men:
– Northern armies first manned solely by
volunteers
• Each state assigned a quota based on population
– 1863 Congress passed the first conscription law
• The provisions were grossly unfair to the poor
• One could hire a substitute or pay $300 for exemption
rights
• The draft was especially damned in the Democratic
strongholds of the north, notably in New York City
X. Volunteers and Draftees: North
and South (cont.)
• Elsewhere in the north, conscription met with
resentment and an occasional minor riot
• 90% of the Union troops were volunteers
• Recruits were found in other places
• Deserters were plentiful—the Union army recorded
about 200,000 deserters
• Confederate authorities were plagued with a runaway
problem of similar dimensions
X. Volunteers and Draftees: North
and South (cont.)
• The South:
– Relied mainly on volunteers:
• Less populous, it scraped the bottom (see Table 20.3)
• The Richmond regime robbed both “cradle and grave”
(age seventeen to fifty); was forced to resort to
conscription as early as 1862
– Nearly a year before the Union
– Confederate draft regulations worked serious
injustices
Table 20-3 p431
X. Volunteers and Draftees: North
and South (cont.)
• A man could hire a substitute or purchase exemption
• Slaveowners or overseers with twenty slaves might
also claim exemption
• Confederation conscription agents avoided areas
inhibited by sharpshooting mountain whites
“Sgt. Frank Mayne; deserted Aug. 24, 1862;
subsequently killed in battle in another
regiment, and discovered to be a woman; real
name, Frances Day.”
~From a Pennsylvania muster roll
p430
p430
XI. The Economic Stresses of War
• Northern economy:
– Blessed with a lion’s share of the wealth
• Excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol were increased by
Congress
• An income tax was levied for the first time
• Customs receipts proved important revenue-raisers
– Congress 1861 passed the Morrill Tariff Act:
• Increased duties some 5 to 10 percent,
• Soon pushed upward by the necessities of war
XI. The Economic Stresses of War
(cont.)
– Partly to raise revenue
– Partly to provide more protection for the prosperous
manufacturers who were being plucked by the new internal
taxes
• A protective tariff became identified with the
Republican party, as American industrialists were
mostly Republican.
– Greenbacks:
• Washington Treasury issued paper money, totaling
nearly $450 million at face value
– Printing-press currency was inadequately supported by gold,
hence its value was determined by the nation’s credit
XI. The Economic Stresses of War
(cont.)
– Bonds:
• Government netted $2,621,916,786 from the sale of
bonds
• Method of sale was through “drives” and payroll
deductions had not been devised
• The Treasury was forced to market its bonds through
private banking house of Jay Cooke and Company,
which received a commission of three-eights of 1%
• Profits and patriotism at stake, the bankers succeeded
in making effective appeals to citizen purchasers
XI. The Economic Stresses of War
(cont.)
• National Banking System
– Financial landmark of the war
• Authorized by Congress in 1863
• Launched as a stimulant to the sale of government
bonds
• Also designed to establish a standard bank-note
currency
– Banks that joined the National Banking System could buy
government bonds and issue sound paper money backed by
them
XI. The Economic Stresses of War
(cont.)
– The first significant step toward a unified banking
network since 1836:
• Existed for 50 years, then replaced by the Federal
Reserve System in 1913.
• Southern financial woes:
– Custom duties were cut off by Union blockade
– Confederate bonds sold amounting to $400
million
– Increased taxes sharply and imposed a 10% levy
on farm produce
XI. The Economic Stresses of War
(cont.)
– The government was forced to print blue-backed
paper money
– “Runaway inflation” occurred with backed
treasury notes, totaling more than $1 billion.
• These eventually sank to be worth only 1.6 cents.
• The war inflicted a 9,000% inflation rate on the
Confederacy, contrasted with 80% for the Union.
XII. The North’s Economic Boom
• Wartime prosperity in the North was little
short of miraculous:
– New factories, sheltered by the new protective
tariffs, mushroomed
• Soaring prices pinched the day laborer and the whitecollar worker to some extent
• But the manufacturers and businesspeople raked in
“the fortunes of war.”
XIII. The North’s Economic Boom
(cont.)
– The Civil War bred a millionaire class for the first
time in American history:
• Graft was more flagrant in the North partly because
there was more to steal
• Yankee “sharpness” appeared at its worst
– Newly invented laborsaving machinery enabled
the North to expand economically
• Even though war drained off manpower
• The sewing machine wrought wonders in fabricating
uniforms and military footwear
XIII. The North’s Economic Boom
(cont.)
• The marriage of military need and innovative
machinery largely ended the production of customtailored clothing
– Graduated standard measurements were introduced
• Mechanical reapers numbered 250,000 by 1865
– Released tens of thousands of farm boys for the army and
fed them their field rations
– Produced vast surpluses of grain that were sent abroad
– Helped dethrone King Cotton
– Provided profits to buy munitions and supplies from abroad
– Contributed to the prosperity of the North—a prosperity
that enabled the Union to weather the war
XIII. The North’s Economic Boom
(cont.)
• Other industries were humming:
– Discovery of petroleum (1859)
• Lead to the “Fifty-Niners” to Pennsylvania
• Birth of the “petroleum plutocracy” and “coal oil
Johnnies”
– Pioneers continued to push westward
• Estimated 300,000
• Homestead Act (1862).
– Only the ocean-carrying trade suffered a
crippling setback
XIII. The North’s Economic Boom
(cont.)
• The Civil War was a women’s war, too:
• Women often took men’s jobs as they went off to war
• In Washington, D.C., 500 women clerks became
government workers, with over 100 in the Treasury
Department
• Countless women were drawn into industrial
employment
• Some stepped up to the fighting front
– Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, America’s first female physician
helped organize the U.S. Sanitary Commission to assist the
Union armies in the field
XIII. The North’s Economic Boom
(cont.)
– U.S. Sanitary Commission:
• Trained nurses, collected medical supplies, and
equipped hospitals
• Helped women to acquire the organizational skills and
the self-confidence that would compel the women’s
movement
• Clara Barton and Dorothea Dix helped transform
nursing into a respectful profession
• Equally renowned was Sally Tompkins, who ran an
infirmary for wounded Confederate soldiers.
– Women organized bazaars and fairs to raise
money.
p432
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XIII. A Crushed Cotton Kingdom
• The South fought to the point of exhaustion:
– Losses suffered by destruction wrought by
invaders and suffocation of the blockade
– Possessing 30% of the national wealth (1860),
the South claimed only 12% in 1870
– The Civil War squeezed the average Southern
income to 2/5 of the Northern level
– The South’s bid for independence exacted a cruel
and devastating cost
XIII. A Crushed Cotton Kingdom
(cont.)
– Transportation collapsed
• Driven to economic cannibalism of pulling up rails to
repair main ones
– Window weights were melted down into bullets
– Gourds replaced dishes and pins were reluctantly
loaned.
• To the brutal end, the South mustered
remarkable resourcefulness and spirit
– Women buoyed up their menfolk
XIII. A Crushed Cotton Kingdom
(cont.)
– A proposal was made that women cut their long
hair and sell it abroad—blocked by the blockade
– Women took pride in denying themselves the
silks and satins of their Northern sisters
• At war’s end the Northern Captains of
Industry had conquered the Southern Lords
of the Manor
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