This Lithograph of the Battle of Fort Donelson, Tennessee (Fought On

This lithograph of the Battle of Fort Donelson, Tennessee (fought on February 16, 1862), represents the close-quarters fighting that marked much of the tactics used throughout the Civil War. (Library of Congress) CHAPTER 2 Sherman L. Fleek O VERVIEW OF THE CIVIL WAR The greatest danger to American survival at mid-century, however, was neither class tension nor ethnic division. Rather it was sectional conflict between North and South over the future of slavery. —James M. McPherson1 he American Civil War, fought between ushered in a new way of life for most and T1861 and 1865, has been the subject of fresh opportunities for many. Others perceive some of the great literary giants in America, it as a major military conflict, introducing a such as Shelby Foote, Robert Penn Warren, new era of war with a viciousness that was Bruce Catton, and Stephen Crane. Filmmakers unprecedented. Still others view it as a dra- such as Ken Burns have tried to describe it in matic course correction that has not only sweeping prose and narrative language that destroyed a culture and a wicked form of eco- capture both the grandeur and the brutality nomic labor but also put in jeopardy a funda- of this awful but critical episode in our his- mental political right—states’ rights. Yet for tory. Great historical minds of recent genera- most Americans it is a colossal event that we tions, such as James McPherson, Alan Nevins, learned about in school, reading, listening, Kenneth Stampp, and T. Harry Williams have and just as quickly dismissing because, like tried to analyze, define, and interpret the war so much else in history, the Civil War was so in accurate and reasonable terms. Even the long ago, and what does it mean for us today? venerable Winston Churchill provided his Perhaps President Abraham Lincoln’s clar- opinion on the scope and meaning of this great ity and centrality from his Gettysburg Address conflict.2 All these individuals have shed a little provides guidance in at least one line: “The more light on a complex historical problem. world will little note nor long remember what For many in America, the Civil War was, we say here, but it can never forget what they at the crossroads of American democracy and did here.” This statement is true regarding any progress, the defining moment that brutally attempt to understand, write, and analyze this 24 SHERMAN L. FlEEK incredible war and conflict, this monstrous was the ugly moral dilemma of slavery. And tragedy set upon the path of American his- the overriding question was what to do with tory that our grandparents and their grand- it. Perhaps the best explanation remains that parents had to face and grapple with. As with the Civil War came as a result of the secession any major war, entire cultures, peoples, and of Southern states after forty years of sec- nations changed and had to reconcile them- tional feuds and the national crisis of politics, selves with this momentous episode. economics, and social morality that was the After the founding of the United States in expansion and status of slavery into the ever- the eighteenth century, the Civil War was the growing republic. By 1860 the two sections second greatest historical event in the Ameri- could no longer compromise and avoid war can experience as well as the most revolution- as they had in the past. What may have been ary in the way of change and evolution. This a seemingly inevitable conflict germinated in great landmark event was also catastrophic, the colonial period and was not resolved in the with some 620,000 dead Americans. This war succeeding eighty years since the founding of was America’s deadliest, but for some four the republic. In the words of perhaps the most million people, it also marked the escape from eloquent writer on the Civil War, Bruce Catton, the bonds of a miserable and immoral institu- “Without slavery, the problems between the tion; both of these aspects still haunt us today.3 sections could probably have been worked out Militarily, the war introduced or expanded by the ordinary give-and-take of politics; with two great evolutions in warfare. The Civil War slavery, they became insoluble. So, in 1861 the was “modern,” with its technological improve- North and South went to war, destroying one ments and vast new methods of not only death America and beginning the building of another and destruction in advanced weaponry but which is not even yet complete.”4 also breakthroughs in transportation, com- Undoubtedly, the issue of states’ rights munication, industrial output, and logistical was a huge catalyst behind all the gestur- methods. The war was also a foreshadowing ing, posturing, and politicking of the 1820s of “total” war—when a nation attempts to har- through the 1850s. But what was the one ness all its resources, all facets of society, and its right the South was willing to defend and entire populace into a coherent, coordinated, fight over, and what was the one right the marshaled effort and machine to fulfill its war North was unwilling to allow? Slavery. The aims and achieve victory. The American Civil expansion of slavery into the new territo- War may be one of the first conflicts to harness ries gained from Mexico was the real cause both these types of warfare; at the very least, it of the regional conflict. From 1820 with was certainly a harbinger of wars to come. the Missouri Compromise to 1854 with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, slavery and its future CA USES OF THE WAR were always the critical sectional issue that The causes and results of the Civil War divided the country and came to divide the are just as nebulous to define and describe, parties. This issue destroyed the Whig Party but simply put, at the center of all the politi- and gave birth to the Republican Party in the cal jousting, compromising, state and federal early 1850s.5 Abraham Lincoln’s election to disputing, and economic and legal wrangling the presidency in 1860, with the Republican O VERVIEW OF THE CIVIL WAR 25 At the center of all the political jousting, compromising, state and federal disputing, and economic and legal wrangling was the ugly moral dilemma of slavery. And the overriding question was what to do with it. This July 1861 Harper’s Weekly image shows a slave auction in the South. (Harper’s Weekly) free soil, free labor, and free man notions, was swim, live or die, survive or perish, the part too much for the Southern Democrats—they of Mississippi is chosen, she will never sub- decided to secede. This secession was a not a mit to the principles and policy of this Black mass exit: state by state seceded over a period Republic administration,” adding this threat, of several months once the first hostilities that the South would avoid “submission to began. Eleven states eventually formed the negro equality. Secession is inevitable.” Confederacy, but only after a concerted and Ironically, as each Southern state clamored organized campaign involving newspaper for its individual sovereignty and the right to editorializing and dedicated speakers and separate from the Union, the first thing the lobbyists who flocked to the undecided states South did was form another union of states.6 encouraging them to join with the seceding Most people today find it difficult to grasp states. There these “firebrands” stoked the and understand the causes and outcomes of flames of secession, worshipped the com- this complicated and complex national crisis. mon culture of racism, and created a vitriolic The fact that fathers and brothers opposed campaign against the “Black” Republicans in members of their own family, that people the symbol of Lincoln. A Mississippi judge and region were at odds with each other, led a delegation to address Georgia legisla- was a terrible prospect. Fortunately, the mili- tors and offered these fiery words: “Sink or tary campaigns, national politics, and final 26 SHERMAN L. FlEEK resolution are more easily narrated than are armies surrendered, and resistance crumbled the causes and consequences of the war. as the Federal Union was holding a grand review in Washington, DC. Some historians HI C STORI AL BACKGROUND have argued for decades that the South did The American Civil War began at Fort not have a chance to win their independence. Sumter, South Carolina, in April 1861. Yet, in Many feel the Confederacy was doomed some regards, if one really considers the facts, because of the North’s overwhelming relationships, issues, and causes, one could re sources, industrial base, and population. argue that the war actually began in the Ter- Then the obvious question is, why go to war ritory of Kansas in the spring of 1856. At that if the outcome was inevitable? If there is one time, Americans were killing each other for event in the course of human history that is the same reason they would five years later: not inevitable, it has to be war.8 the future of slavery. Yet since there was no secessionist government intact and no clean break of states rebelling against the mother country in 1856, the attack on Fort Sumter remains the distinct starting point.7 Jefferson Davis (1808–89) served as the only president of the Confederacy. Davis was a West Point graduate, veteran of the Mexican War, U.S. senator, and former secretary of war. (Mathew Brady Collection, National Archives) Perhaps the South had some chances to The election of Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) set in motion events that negotiate peace, but it did not have enough culminated in the American Civil War military might to win the war.

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