Federal Home Front and
Lincoln
Lsn 22
Lincoln
• Self-made man who taught himself
law
• Elected to the Illinois House of
Representatives in 1834 and served
four consecutive terms
– In 1837 stated that the institution
of slavery was “founded on both
injustice and bad policy”
• Elected to the US House of
Representatives in 1846
– His opposition to the Mexican War
hurt him politically
– Did not run for reelection
• Returned to Illinois and focused on
law practice
Lincoln
• Returned to politics because of his opposition to
the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854
• 1858 Senate race pitted Lincoln as a Republican
against Stephen Douglas
– Lincoln lost but became a national figure as a result of
the Lincoln-Douglas Debates
– Declared “A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I believe this government cannot endure permanently
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to
be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but
I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become
all one thing, or all the other.”
Lincoln
• Was the Republican nominee for president in 1860
– Became the first Republican president
– Won entirely on the strength of his support in the
North
– Three opponents split the other votes
• Election motivated South Carolina to secede
Lincoln
• Inherited a mess from
out-going President
Buchanan who told
Lincoln, “My dear sir, if
you are as happy on
entering the White
House as I on leaving,
you are a very happy
man indeed.”
– Buchanan left Lincoln to
deal with the growing
Fort Sumter crisis
Lincoln
• Lincoln had little to suggest he would be a good
wartime president, especially in contrast to
Jefferson Davis
• Lincoln had no significant military experience
– Served as a captain in the Illinois militia during the
Black Hawk War but never saw combat
• In actuality he was an excellent commander in
chief who was well ahead of his early generals
in his strategic thinking
Lincoln
• Almost from the beginning of the war Lincoln
urged his generals to make the enemy armies
their objective and to move all Federal forces
simultaneously against the Confederate line
• Many of his early generals, especially McClellan,
arrogantly minimized Lincoln thinking war was to
be carried on by military professionals without
interference from civilians and without political
objectives
Lincoln
• Many of Lincoln’s generals clung to strategies of
limited war and conciliation toward the
Confederacy
– McClellan stated, “I have not come here to wage war
upon non-combatants, upon private property, nor
upon the domestic institutions of the land.”
– Meade thought the North should prosecute the war
“like the afflicted parent who is compelled to chastise
his erring child, and who performs the duty with a sad
heart”
• Lincoln did not find a soul mate in this strategic
approach until Grant
Lincoln
• Lincoln saw his objective as to restore the Union and
anything concerning slavery was relative to that:
– “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the
Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I
would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the
slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing
some and leaving others alone I would also do that.
What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do
because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what
I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would
help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I
shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I
shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will
help the cause.”
Lincoln
• When he does issue the
Emancipation Proclamation he
changes the very nature of the
war, giving it a completely new
objective
• Conciliation was no longer an
option
• Represented a move toward
total war
– The North was now not merely fighting
to restore a union it thought was never
legitimately separated. It was fighting
for freedom of a race.
– The South was no longer fighting
merely for independence. It was
fighting for survival of its way of life.
Lincoln
• Lincoln faces opposition from
critical newspaper editors such as
Horace Greeley and Peace
advocates such as the
Copperheads
• He is quick to seize additional
presidential powers and restrict
civil liberties in order to meet the
emergencies of war
– Suspends habeas corpus
– Censors newspapers
– Takes several measures to facilitate
the Republican vote amongst soldiers
Lincoln
• Continually challenged by
the Joint Committee on
the Conduct of the War
– Established in 1861 after
the disaster at Ball’s Bluff
– Greatly politicizes
prosecution of the war
– Senators Zachariah
Chandler, Benjamin Wade,
and other Radical
Republicans push Lincoln
for more aggressive
policies
Among other things, Wade
was very critical of Lincoln’s
Reconstruction plan
The Federal Home Front
•
•
•
•
•
Challenges
Resources
Politics
Social life
Wartime life
The Federal Home Front:
Challenges
• Less compelling of a reason to fight than in the
Confederacy
– Have the resources to win. The challenge will
be finding the will to win.
• Diverse population
– About 1/5 of the 20 million population was
foreign-born
• Immigrants generally stuck together
creating political constituencies that Lincoln
could not ignore
The Federal Home Front:
Challenges
• Vocal peace party represented by
the Peace Democrats or
Copperheads
– Led by Ohio Congressman Clement
Vallandigham
• Potentially more dangerous secret
pro-Southern Knights of the Golden
Circle especially active in the
Midwest
• Several hostile newspapers such as
the New York Daily News owned by
Copperhead Congressman Benjamin
Wood and Horace Greeley’s New
York Tribune
Clement Vallandigham
The Federal Home Front:
Challenges
• Slightly less than 1% of the Northern population
was black
• The Northern population was largely ambivalent
on the subject of slavery
• Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland
were slave states
– Slavery was not abolished in Washington, DC until
April 1862
• Lincoln’s own views on race were contradictory,
pragmatic, and evolving
• Much tension between abolitionists,
segregationists, and pro-slavery people
The Federal Home Front:
Resources
•
•
•
•
•
20 million people
110,000 manufacturing establishments
22,000 miles of railroad
75% of nation’s total wealth
16,000 man Army and 90 ship Navy
– “This vast productive ability made the Union armies
the best fed, the best clothed, the best cared for that
the world had ever seen.”
• Richard Current, “God and the Strongest Battalions”
The Federal Home Front:
Politics
• As the war progressed, politics became increasingly
polarized with the Radical Republicans on one end and
the Peace Democrats on the other
– Lincoln had to be very politically astute to forge a rough
consensus
• The election of 1862 was particularly challenging to
Lincoln
– Democrat Horatio Seymour who favored war to restore the
Union but not to abolish slavery defeated staunch abolitionist
Republican James Wadsworth
– Five states that Lincoln had carried in the presidential election-NY, PA, OH, IN, and IL (Lincoln’s home state)– all sent a majority
of Democrats to the House of Representatives where
Republicans were reduced to only an 18 vote majority
The Federal Home Front:
Politics
• Radical Republicans continually challenged
Lincoln, even unsuccessfully pressuring him to
reorganize his cabinet to promote their favorite,
Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase, at the
expense of moderate Secretary of State William
Seward
• George McClellan, running on a peace platform,
challenged Lincoln in the 1864 Presidential
election
– Sherman’s success in the Atlanta Campaign sealed
the victory for Lincoln
The Federal Home Front:
Politics
• Lincoln’s need to
address his varied
constituencies led him
to appoint many
political generals
– Franz Sigel and German
emigrants in Missouri
– John McClernand and the
Illinois War Democrats
– John Fremont, the first
Republican candidate for
President and a staunch
abolitionist
The Federal Home Front:
Social Life
• Although the North was more urbanized than the
South at the beginning of the war, several events
created an increase in farming during the war
– Most farm states experienced population growth
during the war from births, foreign immigration, and
refugees from border states
– Labor-saving equipment and commercial fertilizers
increased yields
– The Homestead Act of 1862 resulted in 2.5 million
acres of prairie and plain being converted to
homesteads
The Federal Home Front:
Social Life
• A major component of
America’s westward
expansion and the effort to
unite the country in the
midst of the Civil War were
railroads
• In 1862, Congress
authorized a
transcontinental railroad
– On May 10, 1869 the Union
Pacific tracks joined those of
the Central Pacific Railroad at
Promontory, Utah
The Federal Home Front:
Social Life
• Women and children
assumed responsibilities
vacated by men who joined
the Army
• Groups of women formed
groups to sew items of
clothing and solicit
donations for soldiers
• Women such as Dorothea
Dix, Clara Barton, and
Mary Ann Bickerdyke made
extraordinary contributions
to medical and health care
for Federal soldiers
After initial resistance, Clara
Barton eventually won
permission to deliver
medical supplies to Civil War
battlefields
The Federal Home Front:
Social Life
• Women and philanthropists mobilized their
resources to help abate the soldiers’ suffering
• Following the example of Florence Nightingale
in the Crimean War, activists such as George
Templeton Strong, Elizabeth Blackwell, and
Mary Livermore established the United States
Sanitation Commission
• Military authorities were at first cool to this
civilian competition
– Lincoln himself feared it might become “a fifth
wheel on the coach”
The Federal Home Front:
Social Life
• Under the direction
of Frederick Law
Olmsted, the USSC
proved its value
• Among its most
important work was
publishing and
distributing literature
about how disease
could be prevented
by basic sanitation
The Federal Home Front:
Wartime Life
• The Northern home front was spared much of the
hardship that plagued the South
– With the exception of Antietam, Gettysburg, and a few
minor forays, the war was not fought on Northern soil
– While the national debt rose, the North avoided the
ruinous inflation that hit the Confederacy
• The first income tax was approved in 1861
– There were no serious shortages or paralyzing
interruptions in trade
The Federal Home Front:
Wartime Life
• The North’s industrial and economic might
became centralized during the war
• The war helped encourage monopolistic
practices
– The Western Union Telegraph Company absorbed 50
local telegraph companies providing regional services
– Railroads merged and absorbed smaller lines
– Producers’ organizations such as the National Paper
Manufacturers’ Association fixed prices
– Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Studebacker, and
Armour all shaped their business approach during the
war
The Federal Home Front:
Wartime Life
• Established conscription
in 1863
• The draft proved to be an
inefficient system for
raising troops because of
exemptions, substitutions,
commutations, and
expenses
– Only six per cent of the
total Union manpower was
raised by conscription
– Its greatest contribution
seems to have been to
encourage voluntary
enlistments
The Federal Home Front:
Wartime Life
• Resentment at draft inequities combined with
hostilities toward blacks to create the New York
Draft Riot of 1863
– White workingmen were manipulated by agitators
such as Democratic Congressman Samuel Cox of
Ohio who warned that blacks would take their civilian
jobs because of the draft
– Irish immigrants in New York were especially
vulnerable to such rhetoric because they were hurting
from wartime inflation and were outraged that blacks
had been used to replace striking Irish longshoremen
The Federal Home Front:
Wartime Life
• Statements by Democratic New
York Governor Seymour about the
“inequality and injustice” of the
draft and former New York
Democratic Mayor Fernando
Wood’s proposal the city leave the
Union rather than lose Southern
trade fanned the flames
• The situation was made worse by
the fact that many New York militia
units that could have kept the
peace were still on duty in
Pennsylvania because of
Gettysburg
Fernando Wood
The Federal Home Front:
Wartime Life
• As the drafted men’s
names were published,
gangs attacked the draft
office and a crowd of
rioters swept throughout
New York City
• Blacks were particularly
targeted
• In four days of violence,
119 people were killed,
306 were injured, and $1.5
million worth of property
was damaged
Next
• Grant and Sherman