Professional Documents
Culture Documents
-Lincoln’s approach:
1. Maryland: declared martial law where needed and sent in troops when the
state threatened to take Washington from the North
2. Deployed Union soldiers in western Virginia and Missouri
3. 3Any antislavery statement from Lincoln would push the states to the North
so he declared that he wasn’t fighting to free the blacks
4. Same feeling in the Butternut region of southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois
5. Repeated his goal was to save the Union
-War in the West:
1. Indian territory (Oklahoma) most of the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokees,
Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles) sided with the Confederacy
2. Some of the Indians owned slaves
3. Confederacy gov’t agreed to take over federal payments to the tribe and
invited Native American delegates in Congress
4. Tribes supplied troops
-Conflict between “Billy Yank” and “Johnny Reb”
-Many Northern volunteers from the Southern states and vice versa
-“Mountain whites” of the South sent north 50,000 men and the loyal
slave states gave 300,000 men to the Union
-In border states, one brother would go north and the other south
-Senator Cittenden of Kentucky had two sons: one became a general in the
Union the other in the Confederate
The Balance of Forces
-At first, the South seemed to be in the advantage:
North South
Defense North had to invade the Confederacy could fight
territory, conquer it, then behind the interior lines. South
bring it back to the Union didn’t have to win the war to
win its independence, it only
had to fight the invaders to a
draw. Fighting on their own
soil they were fighting for
self-determination and their
own lives.
Military Much less prepared than the Full of talented officers for
South example General Robert E.
Lots of immigrants Lee. Bred to fight, excellent
Far weaker generals cavalrymen and foot soldiers
Chapter 21
The Furnace of Civil War
1861-1865
-When Lincoln first called his militiamen on April 15, 1861, he thought they would only
serve for 90 days
-The war wasn’t brief.
Bull Run Ends the “Ninety-Day War”
-Union army of 30,000 men fought near Washington during the summer of 1861
-they weren’t prepared for the battle but the press and the public were supportive
-Lincoln decided on an attack on the smaller Confederate force at Bull Run (Manassas
Junction)
-He thought if it were successful he could prove the power of the Union arms and maybe
then capture the Confederate capital at Richmond
-Yankee recruits came from Washington to Bull Run to watch the ‘show’
-At first the Yankees did well as Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s warriors ‘stood like
a stone wall’
-However Confederate reinforcements soon arrived, Union troopspanicked
-Victory for the Southerners caused an overconfidence:
Soldiers deserted, thinking the war was over
Enlistments fell and preparation for conflict fell
-Defeat was good for the Union as it gave them a sort of ‘reality check’
“Tardy George” McClellan and the Peninsula Campaign
-General Geroge B. McClellan with the Army of the Potomac was the major Union force
near Washington
-George McClellan was a brilliant West Pointer dubbed the ‘Young Napoleon’, and
involved in the Mexican War and the Crimean War in Russia. He was a good organizer,
morale booster, and idolized by his men.He believed the enemy outnumbered him and
vovercautious.
-McClellan drilled his army without moving it towards Richmond
-At last he decided to approach Richmond (Peninsula Campaign) with 10.000 men.
-Lincoln diverted McClellan’s plans to follow “Stonewall” Jackson who was in trouble in
the Shanendoah valley
-McCellan was frustrated when “Jeb” Stuart’s Confederate cavaly rode around his army
-General Robert E. Lee then launched a counterattack (The Seven Days’ Battles) in
1862 which drove McClellan back to the sea.
-the Union forces abandoned the Peninsula Campaign and Lincoln abandoned McClellan
as the commander of the Army of the Potomac
-Lee had achieved a triumph.
-If McClellan had succeeded in taking Richmond, the Union would have been restored
with minimal disruption
-Slavery would have survived
-Union strategy now turned to toal war
-Northern military plan had six components:
1. Slowly suffocate the South by blockading its coasts
2. Liberate the salves and so undermine the economic foundations of the Old South
3. Cut the Confederacy in half by seizing control of the Mississippi River
4. Send troops through Georgia and the Carolinas to chop the Confederacy
5. Capture the capital at Richmond
6. Try everywhere to engage the enemy’s main strength and so “grind it into
submission”
The War at Sea
-The Northern navy couldn’t control the 3500 miles of coast
-Instead they tired to focus on the man ports and inlets where docks were for cotton
-Normally, the world would’ve been against the blockading, however Britain recognized
it as binding and warned its shippers that they ignored it at their peril
-Britain didn’t want to commit to eh future war by insisting that Lincoln hold high
blockading standards
-Blockade running was risky however it was profitable
-Southern goods drove prices upward
-Leading ‘rendezvous’: West Indies port of Nassau in the Bahamas
-Yankee captains would seize British freighters on the high seas with war supplies for
Nassau
-Justification: obviously these shipments were “ultimately” destined for the Confederacy
-London hesitantly accepted the doctrine of “ultimate destination”
-Southerners raised and reconditioned a former US warship, The Merrimack and then
plated its sides with old iron railroad rails
-Renamed the Virginia, this monster destroyed two wooden ships of the Union navy
-A Union’ ironclad, The Monitor, was built in 100 days and fought the Merrimack to a
standstill
-Later the Confederates destroyed the Merrimack to keep it from the Union troops.
The Pivotal Point: Antietam
-Robert E. Lee, after beating McClellan’s assault on Richmond encountered General
John Pope’s Federal force at the Second Battle of Bull Run.
-Pope was overly confident and Lee attacked his troops and defeated him.
-Lee then went to Maryland trying to encourage foreign intervention and seduce the
Bordering States from the Union
-Marylanders didn’t respond positively
-The critical battle of Antietam Creek happened in Maryland.
-Lincoln restored “little Mac’ to command of the Northern army
McClellan’s two Union soldiers found a copy of Lee’s battle plans and McClellan
halted Lee at Antietem
It was a military draw, Lee retired across the Potomac, McClellan was removed
from his field command
One of the most decisive engagements of world history
British and French governments were on the verge of diplomatic mediation
A rebuff from washingtonw ould have spurred Paris and London into armed
collusion with Richmond
After Antietem both capitals cooled off with the Union’s display of power
Victory for Lincoln led to his Emancipation Proclamation (announced that on
January 1, 1863 the president would issue a final proclamation)
-With the Border States in the fold, Lincoln was ready to move
-He thought an edict would seem like a confession that the North needed to call upon the
slaves to murder their masters
-He instead decided to wait for the outcome of Lee’s invasion
-The Civil war became more of a moral crusade as the fate of slaverya dn the South it had
sustained was seal
-the war was more of “remorseless revolutionary struggle”