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Images of a safe and happy homecoming fill the dreams of Union soldiers sleeping in their camp in this paint- ing The Soldier’s Dream (c. 1865) by an unknown artist. Soldiers—both Union and Confederate—often ex- pressed their longing in their letters home. J. K. Street of the 9th Texas Infantry wrote to his wife: “I think of you so much and it is great pleasure to me to think of you and the many pleasant associations of home and it is endearments . . . I think of you so much thro’ the day that I dream of you at night.” In his letter of July 14, 1861—his last letter—to his wife Sarah, Major Sullivan Ballou of the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers wrote: “The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me . . . how hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years when . . . we might still have lived and loved to- gether.” (© Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia, Courtesy of Historical Society of Pennsylvania Collection/Bridgeman Art Library) American Stories A War That Touched Lives

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CHAPTER OUTLINE

remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can Organizing for War spare . . . us.The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dis- The Balance of Resources honor, to the latest generation.” Lincoln’s conviction that Americans would long re- The Border States member him and other major actors of the Civil War was correct. Jefferson Davis, Challenges of War Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant—these are the men whose characters, actions, and Lincoln and Davis decisions have been the subject of continuing discussion and analysis, whose statues and memorials dot the American countryside and grace urban squares.Whether seen Clashing on the Battlefield, as heroes or villains, great men have dominated the story of the Civil War. 1861–1862 Yet from the earliest days, the war touched the lives of even the most uncele- War in the East brated Americans. From Indianapolis, 20-year-old Arthur Carpenter wrote to his par- War in the West ents in Massachusetts begging for permission to enlist in the volunteer army: “I have Naval Warfare always longed for the time to come when I could enter the army and be a military Cotton Diplomacy man, and when this war broke out, I thought the time had come, but you would not Common Problems, Novel permit me to enter the service . . . now I make one more appeal to you.” The pleas Solutions worked, and Carpenter enlisted, spending most of the war fighting in Kentucky and Political Dissension, 1862 Tennessee. The Tide Turns,1863–1865 In that same year, in Tennessee, George and Ethie Eagleton faced anguishing deci- The Emancipation Proclamation, sions.Though not an abolitionist, George, a 30-year-old Presbyterian preacher,was un- 1863 sympathetic to slavery and opposed to secession. But when his native state left the Unanticipated Consequences of Union, George felt compelled to follow and enlisted in the 44th Tennessee Infantry. War Ethie, his 26-year-old wife, despaired over the war, George’s decision, and her own Changing Military Strategies, forlorn situation. 1863–1865 Mr. Eagleton’s school dismissed—and what for? O my God, must I write it? He Changes Wrought by War has enlisted in the service of his country—to war—the most unrighteous war A New South that ever was brought on any nation that ever lived. Pres. Lincoln has done what The North no other Pres. ever dared to do—he has divided these once peaceful and happy On the Home Front, 1861–1865 United States. And Oh! the dreadful dark cloud that is now hanging over our Wartime Race Relations country—’tis enough to sicken the heart of any one. . . . Mr. E. is gone. . . . What Women and the War will become of me, left here without a home and relatives, a babe just nine The Election of 1864 months old and no George. Why the North Won Both Carpenter and the Eagletons survived the war, but the conflict transformed The Costs of War each of their lives. Carpenter had difficulty settling down. Filled with bitter memories Unanswered Questions of the war years in Tennessee, the Eagletons moved to Arkansas. Ordinary people Conclusion: An Uncertain such as Carpenter and the Eagletons are historically anonymous.Yet their actions on Future the battlefield and behind the lines helped to shape the course of events, as their lead- ers realized, even if today we tend to remember only the famous and influential.

For thousands of Americans, from Lincoln and Davis to Carpenter and the Eagletons, war was both a profoundly personal and a major national event. Its impact reached far beyond the four years of hostilities. The war that was fought to conserve two political, social, and economic visions ended by changing familiar ways of life in both North and South. War was a transforming force, both destructive and creative in its effect on the structure and social dynamics of society and on the lives of ordinary people. This theme underlies this chapter’s analysis of the war’s three stages: the initial months of preparation, the years of military stalemate between 1861 and 1865, and, finally, resolution.

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ORGANIZING FOR WAR of every window and door. . . . In our little circle of friends, one mother has just sent away an idolized son; The Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter on another, two; another, four. . . . One sweet young wife is April 12, 1861, and the surrender of Union troops the packing a regulation valise for her husband today, and next day ended the uncertainty of the se- doesn’t let him see her cry. cession winter. The North’s response to Fort Sumter was a virtual declaration of The war fever produced so many volunteers that war as President Lincoln called for state neither northern nor southern officials could han- militia volunteers to crush southern “in- Confederate dle the throng. Northern authorities turned aside Flag over Fort surrection.” His action pushed several offers from blacks to serve. Both sides sent thou- Sumter slave states (Virginia, North Carolina, Ten- sands of white would-be soldiers home. The convic- nessee, and Arkansas) off the fence and tion that the conflict would rapidly come to a glori- into the southern camp. Other states (Maryland, Ken- ous conclusion fueled the eagerness to enlist. “We tucky, and Missouri) agonizingly debated which way really did not think that there was going to be an ac- to go. The “War Between the States” was now a reality. tual war,” remembered Mary Ward, a young Georgia Many Americans were unenthusiastic about the woman. “We had an idea that when our soldiers got course of events. Southerners like George Eagleton upon the ground and showed, unmistakably that reluctantly followed Tennessee out of the Union. they were really ready and willing to fight . . . the When he enlisted, he complained of the “disgraceful whole trouble would be declared at an end.” Lin- cowardice of many who were last winter for seces- coln’s call for 75,000 state militiamen for only 90 sion and war . . . but are now refusing self and means days of service, and a similar enlistment term for for the prosecution of war.” Robert E. Lee of Virginia Confederate soldiers, supported the notion that the also hesitated but finally decided that he could not war would be short. “raise [a] hand against . . . relatives . . . children . . . home.” Whites living in the southern uplands (where blacks were few and slaveholders were heartily dis- The Balance of Resources liked), yeoman farmers in the Deep South (who The Civil War was one of several military conflicts owned no slaves), and many border state residents during the nineteenth century that sought national were dismayed at secession and war. Many would independence. In Europe, Italian and German pa- eventually join the Union forces. triots struggled to create new nations out of indi- In the North, large numbers had supported nei- vidual states. Unlike their European counterparts, ther the Republican party nor Lincoln. Irish immi- however, southern nationalists proclaimed their grants fearing the competition of free black labor independence by withdrawing from an already and southerners now living in Illinois, Indiana, and unified state. Likening their struggle to that of the Ohio harbored misgivings. Indeed, northern De- Revolutionary generation that had broken away mocrats at first blamed Lincoln and the Republi- from Great Britain’s tyranny, southerners argued cans almost as much as southern secessionists for that they were “now enlisted in The Holy Cause of the nation’s crisis. Liberty and Independence.” While they legitimized Nevertheless, the days following Fort Sumter and secession by appealing to freedom, however, Lincoln’s call for troops saw an outpouring of support southerners were also preserving freedom’s an- on both sides, fueled in part by relief at decisive action, tithesis, slavery. in part by patriotism and love of adventure, and in part The outcome of the southern bid for autonomy by unemployment. Northern blacks and even some was much in doubt. Although statistics of popula- southern freedpeople proclaimed themselves “ready tion and industrial development suggested a north- to go forth and do battle,” while whites like Carpenter ern victory, Great Britain with similar advantages in enthusiastically flocked to enlist. In some places, 1775 had lost that war. Many northern assets would workers were so eager to join up that trade unions col- become effective only with time. lapsed. Sisters, wives, and mothers set to work making The North’s white population greatly exceeded uniforms. A New Yorker, Jane Woolsey, described the the South’s, giving the appearance of a military ad- drama of those early days “of terrible excitement”: vantage. Yet early in the war, the armies were more evenly matched. Almost 187,000 Union troops bore Outside the parlor windows the city is gay and brilliant arms in July 1861, while just over 112,000 men with excited crowds, the incessant movement and mu- marched under Confederate colors. Southerners be- sic of marching regiments and all the thousands of lieved that their army would prove to be superior flags, big and little, which suddenly came fluttering out fighters. Many northerners feared so, too. And slaves NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/28/05 1:34 PM Page 489

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Railroads in 1860 This map shows the railroads at the beginning of the Civil War.What does it reveal about the differences in the transportation systems in the North and the South? In what ways was the war effort of each side helped or hindered by the rail system? In what ways did the configuration of southern transportation benefit the South?

CANADA MAINE MINNESOTA Lake Superior

VT. L a k e NEW H u YORK r WISCONSIN o N.H. n

n MICHIGAN a Lake Ontario Boston g i

h MASS. c Albany

i

M

e Buffalo k CONN. a R.I. L Detroit Lake Erie Chicago Cleveland PENNSYLVANIA New York IOWA Davenport OHIO Philadelphia ILLINOIS Pittsburgh INDIANA Wheeling Baltimore DEL. Indianapolis Springfield Washington, D.C. Cincinnati MD. VIRGINIA St. Louis Richmond Louisville

MISSOURI KENTUCKY

TENNESSEE NORTH CAROLINA

Memphis ATLANTIC Atlanta SOUTH ARKANSAS OCEAN ALABAMA CAROLINA Charleston MISSISSIPPI Montgomery Savannah GEORGIA Jackson LOUISIANA

Mobile

New Orleans

Railroad Gauges FLORIDA 4' 81/2" 4' 10" Gulf of Mexico 5' 5' 6" 6' NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 490

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Resources for War: North Versus South southerners believed would secure British and French support. By waging a defensive war, the This chart shows the long-range advantages the North South could tap regional loyalty and enjoy protected enjoyed in the war, but the length and destruction of the lines. Because much of the South raised cotton and conflict suggest that the North was not able to capital- tobacco rather than food crops, Union armies could ize on its strengths effectively to bring the war to a not live off the land, and extended supply lines were quick end. always vulnerable. The Union had to conquer and occupy; the South merely had to survive until its en- emy gave up. 1.3 million Workers 110,000 The Border States

110,000 Uncertainty and divided loyalties produced indeci- Factories 18,000 sion in the border states. When the seven Deep South states seceded in 1860 and 1861, all the bor- Value of 1.5 billion der states except Unionist Delaware adopted a wait- goods produced 155 million and-see attitude. Their decisions were critically im- portant to both North and South. Railroad 70% The states of the Upper South could provide nat- tracks (% of total ural borders for the Confederacy along the Ohio U.S. mileage) 30% River, access to its river traffic, and vital resources, Textiles (including cotton Ratio 17:1 wealth, and population. The major railroad link to cloth and the West ran through Maryland and western Vir- woolen goods) ginia. Virginia boasted the South’s largest ironworks, Ratio 32:1 and Tennessee provided its principal source of Firearms grain. Missouri opened the road to the West and controlled Mississippi River traffic. Ratio 20:1 For the North, every border state remaining loyal Pig iron was a psychological triumph. Nor was the North un- aware of the economic and strategic advantages of North South keeping the border states with the Union. However, Lincoln’s call for troops precipitated the secession of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina could carry on vital work behind the lines, freeing between April 17 and May 20, 1861. Maryland, pre- most adult white males to serve the Confederacy. cariously balanced between the pro-Confederate The Union also enjoyed impressive economic ad- southern and Eastern Shore counties and Unionist vantages. In the North, 1 million workers in 110,000 western and northern areas, and with pro-southern manufacturing concerns produced goods enthusiasts abounding in Baltimore, vividly demon- valued at $1.5 billion annually, while strated the significance of border state loyalty. 110,000 southern workers in 18,000 man- On April 19, the 6th Massachusetts Regiment, ufacturing concerns produced goods val- heading for Washington, marched through Balti- ued at only $155 million a year. But more and was attacked by a mob of some 10,000 Workers in D.C. During the Civil northern industrial resources had to be southern sympathizers, some carrying Confederate War mobilized. That would take time, espe- flags. The bloody confrontation and confusion al- cially because the government did not in- lowed would-be secessionists to burn the railroad tend to direct production. A depleted northern trea- bridges to the north and south. Washington was sury made the government’s first task the raising of temporarily cut off from the rest of the Union. funds to pay for military necessities. Lincoln took stern measures to secure Maryland. The South depended on imported northern and The president agreed temporarily to route troops European manufactured goods. If Lincoln cut off around Baltimore. In return, the governor called the that trade, the South would have to create its indus- state legislature into session at Frederick in Unionist try almost from scratch. Its railroad system was orga- western Maryland. This action and Lincoln’s swift nized to move cotton, not armies and supplies. Yet violation of civil liberties dampened secessionist the agricultural South did have important resources enthusiasm. Hundreds of southern sympathizers, of food, draft animals, and, of course, cotton, which including 19 state legislators and Baltimore’s mayor, NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 491

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Secession of the Southern States This map provides a chronology of secession and shows the geographic importance of the border states.The map also highlights the vulnerable position of Washington and explains many of Lincoln’s actions in the early days of the war.

MICHIGAN PENNSYLVANIA NEW JERSEY IOWA OHIO NEBRASKA TERRITORY DELAWARE WEST MARYLAND INDIANA VIRGINIA ILLINOIS VIRGINIA Washington 1863 April 17, 1861 D.C. UTAH TERRITORY KANSAS KENTUCKY MISSOURI NORTH CAROLINA May 20, 1861 TENNESSEE May 7, 1861 INDIAN ARKANSAS SOUTH CAROLINA TERRITORY May 6, 1861 December 20, 1860 First secession NEW MEXICO MISSISSIPPI TERRITORY January 9, ALABAMA GEORGIA Second secession 1861 January 11, January 19, 1861 1861 Border states TEXAS FLORIDA February 1, 1861 LOUISIANA January 10, 1861 January 26, 1861 Free states and territories

M E X I C O

were imprisoned without trial. Although Chief Jus- In February 1861, the original seceding states tice Roger B. Taney challenged the president’s action sent delegates to Montgomery, Alabama, to work and issued a writ of habeas corpus for the release of on a provisional framework and to select a provi- a southern supporter, Lincoln ignored him. A sional president and vice president. The delegates month later, Taney ruled in Ex Parte Merryman that swiftly wrote a constitution resembling the federal if the public’s safety was endangered, only Congress could suspend habeas corpus. By then, Lincoln had secured Maryland. Although Lincoln’s quick and harsh response en- sured Maryland’s loyalty, he was more cautious else- where. Above all, he had to deal with slavery pru- dently, for hasty action would push border states into the Confederacy. Thus, when General John C. Frémont issued an unauthorized declaration of emancipation in Missouri in August 1861, Lincoln revoked the order and recalled him. The president expected a chain reaction if certain key states se- ceded. After complex maneuvering, Kentucky and Missouri, like Maryland, remained in the Union.

Challenges of War The tense weeks after Fort Sumter spilled over with unexpected challenges. Neither side could handle the floods of volunteers. Both faced enormous orga- nizational problems as they readied for war. In the South, a nation–state had to be created and its ap- Owe Ever Pay Never This image, printed on an envelope, paratus set in motion. Everything from a constitu- shows a design for a Confederate 50-cent piece. Who do you think tion and government departments to a flag and the man on the right is? Who is the man on the left and what is he pointing at the man wearing the top hat? In the background, you can postage stamps had to be devised. As one onlooker see a group of men hard at work and standing before them a man observed, “The whole country was new. Everything wielding a whip. What is the overall message of this design? was to be done—and to be made.” (Collection of the New-York Historical Society, (PR-022-3-91-38) NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 492

HOW OTHERS SEE US “The American Difficulty,” from Punch, 1861

This English journal became famous for its cartoons. Here Lincoln appears without his beard.

■ What does this cartoon suggest about the ways in which some British commentators viewed Lincoln’s racial views?

■ How might an American respond to this view?

The American Difficulty President Abe: “What a nice White House this would be, if it were not for the blacks!”(Source: Punch Cartoon Library).

constitution of 1787 except in its empha- kind; empty . . . of desks, tables, chairs or other appli- sis on the “sovereign and independent ances for the conduct of business.” Treasury Secre- character” of the states and its explicit tary Christopher G. Memminger bought furniture with his own money; operations lurched forward in Confederate recognition of slavery. The provisional Constitution president, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, fits and starts. In those early days, when an army cap- (March 11, tried to assemble a geographically and tain came to the treasury with a warrant from Davis 1861) politically balanced cabinet of moder- for blankets, he found only one clerk. After reading ates. His cabinet was balanced but con- the warrant, the clerk offered the captain a few dol- tained few of his friends and, more serious, few lars of his own, explaining, “This, Captain, is all the men of political stature. As time passed, it turned money that I will certify as being in the Confederate out to be unstable as well. Treasury at this moment.” Other departments faced Davis’s cabinet appointees faced the formidable similar difficulties. challenge of creating government departments from Despite such challenges, the new Confederate scratch. They had to hire employees and initiate ad- government could count on widespread civilian en- ministrative procedures with woefully inadequate re- thusiasm and a growing sense of nationalism. Ordi- sources. The president’s office was in a hotel parlor. nary people spoke proudly of the South as “our na- The Confederate Treasury Department was merely a tion” and referred to themselves as the “southern room in an Alabama bank “without furniture of any people.” Georgia’s governor insisted that “poor and

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rich, have a common interest, a common destiny.” largely self-taught. Davis’s family had Southern Protestant ministers encouraged a sense moved south to Mississippi and become of collective identity and reminded southerners that cotton planters. Davis grew up in com- they were God’s chosen people. The conflict was a fortable circumstances, went to Transyl- Jefferson Davis sacred one. vania University and West Point, and Unlike Davis, Lincoln did not have to establish a fought in the Mexican-American War before his postal system or decide the status of laws passed election to the U.S. Senate. His social, political, and before 1861. But he too faced organizational prob- economic prominence led to his appointment as lems. Military officers and government clerks daily secretary of war under Franklin Pierce (1853–1857). left the capital for the South. The treasury was Tall, distinguished-looking, and very rich, he ap- empty. The Republicans had won their first presi- peared every inch the aristocratic southerner. dential election, and floods of office seekers Although Davis was not eager to accept the presi- thronged the White House looking for rewards. dency, he loyally responded to the call of the provi- Nor was it easy for Lincoln, who knew few of the sional congress in 1861 and worked tirelessly until “prominent men of the day,” to select a cabinet. Fi- the war’s end. His wife, Varina, observed that “the nally, he appointed important Republicans from President hardly takes time to eat his meals and different factions of the party to cabinet works late at night.” Some contemporaries sug- posts whether they agreed with him or gested that Davis’s inability to let subordinates han- not. Most were almost strangers. Several dle details explained this schedule. Others observed scorned him as a bumbling backwoods that he was sickly, reserved, humorless, too sensitive politician. Treasury Secretary Salmon P. to criticism, and hard to get along with. But, like Lincoln and His Cabinet Chase actually hoped to replace Lincoln Lincoln, Davis found it necessary to “think anew.” as president in four years’ time. Soon af- He reassured southerners in his inaugural address ter the inauguration, Secretary of State William Se- that his aims were conservative, “to preserve the ward sent Lincoln a memo condescendingly offer- Government of our fathers in spirit.” Yet under the ing to oversee the formulation of presidential policy. pressure of events, he moved toward creating a new kind of South. Lincoln and Davis A number of Lincoln’s early actions illustrated his leadership skills. As his Illinois law partner, William Herndon, pointed out, Lincoln’s “mind was tough— solid—knotty—gnarly, more or less like his body.” In his reply to Seward’s memo, the president firmly in- dicated that he intended to run his own administra- tion. After Sumter, he swiftly called up the state mili- tias, expanded the navy, and suspended habeas corpus. He ordered a naval blockade of the South and approved the expenditure of funds for military purposes, all without congressional sanction, be- cause Congress was not in session. As Lincoln told legislators later, “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. . . . As our case is new, so must we think anew, and act anew . . . and then we shall save our country.” This willingness to “think anew” was a valuable personal asset, even though some regarded the expansion of presidential power as despotic. By coincidence, Lincoln and his rival, Jefferson Davis, were born only 100 miles apart in Kentucky. However, the course of their lives diverged radically. Lincoln’s father had migrated north and eked out a simple existence as a farmer in Indiana and Illinois. Lincoln’s formal education was rudimentary; he was NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 493

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CLASHING ON THE BATTLEFIELD, 1861–1862 The Civil War was the most brutal and destructive conflict in American history. Much of the bloodshed resulted from changing military technology coupled with inadequate communications. By 1861, the range of rifles had increased from 100 to 500 yards, in part owing to the new French minié bullet, which traveled with tremendous velocity and accuracy. Union Artillery The greater reach of the new rifles meant at Yorktown that it was no longer possible to position the artillery close enough to enemy lines to support an infantry charge. Therefore, during the Civil War, attacking infantry soldiers faced a final, often fatal, dash of 500 yards in the face of deadly enemy fire. As it became clear that infantry charges resulted in horrible carnage, military leaders increasingly valued the importance of the strong defensive position. Al- though Confederate soldiers criticized General Lee as “King of Spades” when he first ordered them to con- struct earthworks, the epithet evolved into one of af- fection as it became obvious that earthworks saved lives. Union commanders followed suit. By the end of NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 494

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1862, both armies dug defensive earthworks and P. G. T. Beauregard, a West Point classmate of Mc- trenches whenever they interrupted their march. Dowell’s. Although sightseers, journalists, and politicians gaily accompanied the Union troops, Bull Run was no picnic. The battle was inconclusive War in the East until the arrival of 2,300 fresh Confederate troops, The war’s brutal character only gradually revealed brought by trains, decided the day. Terrified and be- itself. The Union’s commanding general, 70-year- wildered Union soldiers and sightseers fled toward old Winfield Scott, at first pressed for a cautious, Washington. Defeated though the Union forces long-term strategy, the Anaconda Plan. were, inexperienced Confederate troops failed to Scott proposed weakening the South turn the rout into a quick, decisive victory. As Gen- gradually through blockades on land and eral Joseph E. Johnston pointed out, his men were sea until the northern army was strong disorganized, confused by victory, and insufficiently

The Civil War enough for the kill. The public, however, supplied with food to chase the Union army back Part I: hungered for quick victory. So did Lin- toward Washington. 1861–1862 coln: He knew that the longer the war In many ways, the Battle of Bull Run was lasted, the more embittered the South prophetic. Victory would be neither quick nor easy. and the North would both become, making reunion Both armies were unprofessional. Both sides faced ever more difficult. So 35,000 partially trained men problems with short-term enlistments and with the led by General Irwin McDowell left Washington in logistical problems involved in moving and supply- sweltering July weather, heading for Richmond. ing the largest American armies ever put in the field. On July 21, 1861, only 25 miles from the capital at South Carolinian Robert Allston viewed the bat- Manassas Creek (also called Bull Run), inexperi- tlefield at Bull Run and decided it had been a “glori- enced northern troops confronted 25,000 raw Con- ous tho bloody” day. For the Union, the loss was federate soldiers commanded by Brigadier General sobering. Lincoln began his search for a winning

Eastern Theater of the Civil War, 1861–1862 This map reveals the military actions in the East during the early years of the war.Initially,military planners hoped to end the war quickly by capturing Richmond.They soon discovered that the Confederate army was too powerful to allow them an easy victory. Eventually, Lincoln decided to combine military pressure on Virginia with an effort in the West aimed at cutting the Confederacy in two.

PENNSYLVANIA

Hagerstown NEW er iv Antietam JERSEY ac R om SEPT. 1862 MARYLAND ot P Frederick Harpers Ferry M c Baltimore C L Winchester E L L J A .E . N J O H Washington N S T O N Manassas Junction DELAWARE

H SHENANDOAHVALLEY L O BEA E L UR E Bull Run M E G Union movements JULY 1861 E A S R AUG. 1862 D Confederate movements Cedar Mountain AUG. 1862 Union victory M JACKSON c CL EL Confederate victory LA N

Chesapeake Union VIRGINIA LE E Bay r ive Confederate JUNE 1862 sR me Richmond Ja Mc CLE LL AN ATLANTIC OCEAN Yorktown APRIL–MAY 1862 Norfolk NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 495

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commander by replacing McDowell with the offensive with a bold invasion of Maryland. But 34-year-old General George McClellan. after a costly defeat at Antietam, in which more than Formerly an army engineer, McClellan 5,000 soldiers were slaughtered and another 17,000 wounded on the grisliest day of the war, Lee with- George began the process of transforming the McClellan to Army of the Potomac into a fighting force. drew to Virginia. The war in the East was stalemated. Abraham Short-term militias went home. In the fall Lincoln (July 7, 1862) of 1861, McClellan became general in chief of the Union armies. War in the West McClellan had considerable organizational abil- The early struggle in the East focused on Richmond, ity but no desire to be a daring battlefield leader. the Confederacy’s capital and one of the South’s Convinced that the North must combine military most important railroad, industrial, and munitions victory with persuading the South to rejoin the centers. But the East was only one of three theaters. Union, he sought to avoid embittering loss of life Between the Appalachians and the Mississippi lay and property—to win “by maneuvering rather than the western theater. The Mississippi River, with its fighting.” vital river trade and its great port, New Orleans, was In March 1862, pushed by an impatient Lincoln, a major strategic objective. Here both George Eagle- McClellan finally led his army of 130,000 toward ton and Arthur Carpenter served. Beyond lay the Richmond, now the Confederate capital. trans-Mississippi West—Louisiana, Arkansas, Mis- But just as it seemed that victory was souri, Texas, and the Great Plains—where Native within grasp, Lee drove the Union forces American tribes joined the conflict on both sides. back. The Peninsula campaign was aban- Union objectives in the West were twofold. The doned. For the Union, the campaign was army sought to dominate Kentucky and eastern Battle of Tennessee, the avenues to the South and West, and Antietam a frustrating failure. For Lee, the success in repelling the invasion was one step in to win control of the Mississippi in order to split the the process that was making him and the Army of South in two. Northern Virginia into a symbol of the spirit of the In the western theater, Ulysses S. Grant rose to new nation. prominence. His modest military credentials in- Other Union defeats followed in 1862 as comman- cluded education at West Point, service in the Mexi- ders came and went. In September, the South took can-American War, and an undistinguished stint in the peacetime army. After his resignation, he went bankrupt. Shortly after Fort Sumter, Grant enlisted as a colonel in an Illinois militia regiment. Within two months, he was a brigadier general. He proved to be a military genius, able to see beyond individ- ual battles to larger goals. In 1862, he realized that the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers offered path- ways for the successful invasion of Tennessee. A premature Confederate invasion of Kentucky al- lowed Grant to bring his forces into that state with- out arousing sharp local opposition. Assisted by gunboats, Grant was largely responsible for the cap- ture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, key points on the rivers, in February 1862. His successes there raised fears among Confederate leaders that south- ern mountaineers, loyal to the Union, would rush to Grant’s support. Despite Grant’s grasp of strategy, his army was nearly destroyed by a surprise Confederate attack at Shiloh Church in Tennessee. The North won, but at enormous cost. In that two-day engagement, the Union suffered more than 13,000 casualties, while A Toll of Death and Destruction This dying horse, 10,000 Confederates lay dead or wounded. More stripped of saddle and bridle, was the mount of a Confederate officer killed during the battle of Antietam. The stark character of the pic- American men fell in this single battle than in the ture reveals the devastating nature of the Civil War battlefield. American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Mex- (Library of Congress [LC-B8184-558]) ican-American War combined. Because neither NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/28/05 1:34 PM Page 496

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Trans-Mississippi Campaign of the Civil War The war in the trans-Mississippi West was a spo- radic, far-flung struggle. California was the prize The military movements in the trans-Mississippi West ap- that lured both armies into the Southwest. Confed- pear here. Union forces operating in the Mississippi valley erate Texan troops held Albuquerque and Santa Fe were attempting to separate Texas,Arkansas, and Louisiana briefly in 1862, but a mixed force, including volun- from other southern states as part of an attempt to teer soldiers from the Colorado mining fields and squeeze the Confederacy. Mexican Americans, drove them out. A Union force recruited in California arrived after the Confeder- ILLINOIS ates were gone. It spent the remainder of the Civil KENTUCKY Cairo War years fighting the Apache and the Navajo and MISSOURI with brutal competence crushed both Native Amer- Fort Donelson ican nations. Fort Henry FEB. 16, 1862 Cum FEB. 6, 1862 be er Farther east was another prize, the Missouri rl iv and R River, which flowed into the Mississippi River, bor- dered Illinois, and affected military campaigns in TENNESSEE Kentucky and Tennessee. Initially, Confederate ARKANSAS Memphis JUNE 6, 1862 Shiloh APRIL 6–7, 1862 troops were successful here, as they had been in Tennessee New Mexico. But in March 1862, at Pea Ridge in J Ri O ver HNSTON northern Arkansas, Union forces whipped a Con- r e iv federate army that included a brigade of Native R i p p Americans from the Five Civilized Nations. Missouri i s s i

s

s entered the Union camp for the first time in the war,

i

B M R

A but fierce guerrilla warfare continued.

G MISSISSIPPI G

ALABAMA

G R

A N Naval Warfare T Vicksburg At the beginning of the war, Lincoln decided to SIEGE NOV. 1862– strangle the South with a naval blockade. But suc- JULY 4, 1863 cess was elusive. In 1861, the navy intercepted only about one blockade runner in ten and in 1862, one in eight. More successful were operations to gain Port Hudson FLORIDA footholds along the southern coast. In November Baton Rouge Mobile (OCCUPIED 1861, a Union expedition took Port Royal Sound, MAY 12, 1862) LOUISIANA New Orleans where it freed the first slaves, and the nearby South (OCCUPIED Carolina sea islands. By gaining these and other im- APRIL 25, 1862) Gulf of Mexico FARRAGUT Fort Jackson portant coastal points, the navy increased the possi- APRIL 24, 1862 bility of an effective blockade. The Union’s major Union movements naval triumph in the early war years was the capture Confederate movements of the South’s biggest port, New Orleans, in 1862. Union victory The success of this amphibious effort stimulated other joint attempts to cut the South in two. The Confederates, recognizing that they could army offered sufficient care on the battlefield, un- not match the Union fleet, concentrated on devel- treated wounds caused many of the deaths. A day oping new weapons such as torpedoes and ironclad after the battle ended, nine-tenths of the wounded vessels. The Merrimac was one key to southern still lay in the rain, many dying of exposure or naval strategy. Originally a U.S. warship that had drowning. Those who survived the downpour had sunk as the federal navy hurriedly abandoned the infected wounds by the time they received medical Norfolk Navy Yard early in the war, the Confederates attention. raised the vessel and covered it with heavy iron ar- Though more successful than efforts in the East, mor. Rechristened the Virginia, the ship steamed such devastating Union campaigns failed to bring out of Norfolk in March 1862, heading directly for decisive results. Western plans were never coordi- the Union ships blocking the harbor. Using its nated with eastern military activities. Victories there 1,500-pound ram and guns, the Virginia drove one- did not force the South to its knees. third of the vessels aground and destroyed the NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 497

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squadron’s largest ships. But the victory was short- southerners thought. Seward daringly threatened lived. The next day, the Virginia confronted the Great Britain with war if it interfered in what he in- Monitor, a newly completed Union iron vessel. They sisted was an internal matter. Some called his bold- dueled inconclusively, and the Virginia withdrew. It ness reckless, even mad. Nevertheless, his policy was burned during the evacuation of Norfolk that succeeded. Even though England allowed the con- May. Southern attempts to buy ironclad ships struction of Confederate raiders in its ports, it did abroad faded and, with them, southern hopes of es- not intervene in American affairs in 1861 or 1862. caping the northern noose. Nor did the other European powers. Unless the mili- Still, Confederate attacks on northern commerce tary situation changed dramatically, the Europeans brought some success. Southern raiders, many of were willing to sit on the sidelines. them built in Britain, wreaked havoc on northern shipping. In its two-year career, the Alabama de- stroyed 69 Union merchant vessels valued at more Common Problems, Novel Solutions than $6 million. But such blows did not seriously As the conflict dragged on into 1863, unanticipated damage the North’s war effort. problems appeared in both the Union and the Con- Thus the first two years brought victories to both federacy, and leaders devised novel approaches to sides, but the war remained deadlocked. The South solve them. War acted as a catalyst for changes that was far from defeated; the North was equally far no one could have imagined in the heady spring from giving up. Costs in manpower and supplies far days of 1861. exceeded what either side had expected. The problem of fighting a long war was partly monetary. Both treasuries had been empty initially, and the war proved extraordinarily expensive. Nei- Cotton Diplomacy ther side considered trying to finance the war by im- Both sides in the Civil War realized the critical impor- posing direct taxes. Such an approach violated cus- tance of European attitudes to the outcome of the tom and risked alienating support. Nevertheless, struggle. Diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy each side was so starved for funds that it initiated would legitimize the new nation in the eyes of the taxation on a small scale. Ultimately, taxes financed world. Furthermore, just as French and Dutch aid had 21 percent of the North’s war expenses (but only 1 helped the American colonies win their indepen- percent of southern expenses). Both treasuries also dence, European loans and assistance might bring tried borrowing. Northerners bought more than $2 the South victory. But if the European nations refused billion worth of bonds, but southerners proved re- to recognize the South, the fiction of the Union was luctant to buy their government’s bonds. kept alive, undermining Confederate chances for As in the American Revolution, the unwelcome long-term survival. The European powers, of course, solution was to print paper money. In August 1861, consulted their own national interests. Neither Eng- the Confederacy put into circulation $100 million in land nor France, the two most important nations, crudely engraved bills. Millions more followed the wished to back the losing side. Nor did they wish to next year. Five months later, the Union issued $150 upset Europe’s delicate balance of power by hasty in- million in paper money, soon nicknamed “green- tervention in American affairs. One by one, therefore, backs” because of their color. Although financing the European states declared a policy of neutrality. the war with paper money was unexpected, the re- Southerners were sure that cotton would be their sulting inflation was not. Inflation was particularly trump card. English and French textile mills needed troublesome in the Confederacy, but a “modest” 80 cotton, and southerners believed that their owners percent increase in food prices brought southern would eventually force government recognition of city families near starvation and contributed to ur- the Confederacy and an end to the North’s blockade. ban unhappiness during the war. But a glut of cotton in 1860 and 1861 left foreign mill Both sides confronted similar manpower prob- owners oversupplied. As stockpiles dwindled, Euro- lems as initial enthusiasm for the war evaporated. pean industrialists found cotton in India and Egypt. Soldiering, it turned out, was nothing like the militia The conviction that cotton was “the king who can parades and outings familiar to most shake the jewels in the crown of Queen Victoria” American males. Young men were shocked proved false. at the deadly diseases that accompanied Union secretary of state Seward sought above all the army and were unprepared for the else to prevent diplomatic recognition of the Con- boredom of camp life. As one North Car- federacy. The North had its own economic ties with olina soldier explained, “If anyone wishes When This Cruel Europe, so the Union was not as disadvantaged as to become used to the crosses and trials of War Is Over NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/0511:48AMPage498 war. AsCarpenter’s regiment moved intoKentucky in theranks andhisgrowing disillusionment withthe $1,000 tooutsiderswhowouldjoinup. bountiesof$800 to communitiesbeganoffering ern north- quotasfrom within,rich than filltheirmilitary home. ofvolunteersdisappeared.The swarm Rather so manyanimals.” longedtogo Many intheservice not aprayer, eulogyorteartodistinguishthemfrom Massachusetts saw bodiestossedintotrenches “with honor. It was with anguishthatRobert Carter of field, whichmockedvalues suchascourage and ofthebattle- for thevast andimpersonaldestruction this life, let himentercamplife.” None were prepared A RecruitingPoster 3 PART 498 055-3-149]) the centerrepresent? needs andwillrespondtothecall.”Whodoesfemalefigurein man ontheleftreplies,“Wewillcome.Weknowourcountry’s tions andyourNobleFlagarethreatenedbyrebelstraitors.”The who callsout,“Americans!Yourcountrycalls.cherishedinstitu- York Volunteers?Thecentralpictureshowsasoldierontheright this posterusetopersuademenjointhe36thRegimentofNew Arthur Carpenter’sArthur letters give agoodpicture of life (Collection oftheNew-YorkHistoricalSociety[PR- An ExpandingPeople,1820–1877 How manydifferentstrategiesdoes called the best army called thebestarmy “the worldeversaw”: 1862, a whatGeneralVirginia captaindescribed Lee counterparts, complainedsimilarly.their northern In soon ashecould. the hospitalatleastasmuchsickness, hefledas hind inaconvalescent barracks inLouisville. Fearing and thenfever. His regiment lefthimbe- through Tennessee from diarrhea suffering invited disease. Carpenter marched bugs, inadequatesanitation,andexposure tracted Poor liceandothervermin. food, the summer, at- stiflingwoollenuniforms blanket wasnotenoughinthewinter. In sufficient food,water, orsupplies. One 50or60poundsofequipmentwithin- roads carrying ful.” Soldiering oftenmeantmarching over rutted frozen, andhalfdrowned. The mudinKentucky isaw- We half havebeenhalfstarved, . . in Indianapolis. . Tennessee,” hecomplained, “is notsopretty asitwas lifeevaporated.for army “Soldiering inKentucky and and Tennessee inthewinterof1862,hisenthusiasm Irish and German immigrants, served inthearmedforces. served Irish andGermanimmigrants, like native-born Americans and blacks, After1863, laws. intermsofmanpowerNorth and the impactofdraft demonstratesthegrowingThis chart superiorityofthe Men Present for DutyintheCivil War Confederate soldiers, evenlesswell suppliedthan Men (in thousands) no ocsConfederateforces Union forces 8216 841865 1864 1863 1862 Year Letters fromthe Brewster, Three Charles Harvey Front (1862) NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/28/05 1:34 PM Page 499

AMERICAN VOICES Isaac Watts,A Description of Camp Life with the Vermont Heavy Artillery

Isaac Watts grew up in a farm family in Peacham,Vermont. as well on the floor with a blanket under me as I When the war broke out, he was too young to serve, but in used to at home on a good bed.There is nothing 1862, his half brother, Dustan, enlisted. The next year, like getting used to a thing . . . I want my boots, a Dustan wrote his sister that he had heard that Isaac was couple of pocket hdkfs. And a towel. ...My thinking of joining up,“but that Father would not here of it— clothes have been good, but will rip a little as I do not blame Father for not wanting him to go, as he every thing else that is sewn with machines. I seems to be all the one left him to see to things.”When want about 15 lbs. Of butter and 8 or 10 of sugar. Isaac turned 21, however, he left Peacham and joined the . . . If you have or can get some cheese without Vermont Heavy Artillery, then stationed near Washington. His too much trouble, put in two or three pounds . . . letter describes camp life and items he wants from home. a hank of linen thread and a little ball of yarn. I I[t] blew all the morning pretty hard and just want my razor strop put in, a quire of paper and a before noon commenced blowing a perfect hurri- bunch of envelopes. canes. . . . quite a number of the tents blew down and though ours did not we expected every minute when it would and thought we would be ■ How would you describe the tone of this letter? on the safe side and move into the barracks.They are pretty much done except the bunks . . . I ■ What does the list of things that Isaac wants suggest don’t know but I can sleep just as sound and rest about army life?

During our forced marches and hard fights, the sol- manpower pool was larger and growing. During diers have been compelled to throw away their knap- the war, 180,000 foreigners of military age poured sacks and there is scarcely a private in the army who into the northern states. Some came specifically to has a change of clothing of any kind. Hundreds of men claim bounties and fight. Immigrants constituted are perfectly barefooted and there is no telling when at least 20 percent of the Union army. they can be supplied with shoes. Necessary though they were, draft laws were very unpopular. The first Confederate conscription de- Such circumstances prompted some to desert. clared all able-bodied men between 18 and 35 eligi- An estimated one of every seven Union soldiers and ble for military service but allowed numerous ex- one of every nine men enlisting in the Confederate emptions and the purchase of substitutes. Critics armies deserted. The majority, however, stayed with complained that the provision entitling every their units. As one southern soldier explained, “I am planter with more than 20 slaves to one exemption determined to anything and do everything I can for from military service favored rich slave owners. Cer- my country.” tainly, the legislation fed class tension in the South Manpower needs led both governments to resort and undermined the loyalty of the poorer classes, to the draft. Despite the sacrosanct notion of states’ particularly southern mountaineers. The advice one rights, the Confederate Congress passed the first woman shouted after her husband as he was conscription act in American history in March 1862. dragged off to the army was hardly unique. “You Four months later, the Union Congress approved a desert again, quick as you kin. . . . Desert, Jake!” The draft measure. Rather than forcing men to serve, law, as one southerner pointed out, “aroused a spirit both laws sought to encourage men already in the of rebellion.” But as long as the South won battle- army to re-enlist and to attract volunteers. Ulti- field victories, the discontent did not reach danger- mately, more than 30 percent of the Confederate ous proportions. army were drafted. But because the northern draft Northern legislation was neither more popular law allowed payment to secure volunteers, only 6 nor fair. The 1863 draft allowed the hiring of substi- percent of the Union forces were draftees. tutes, and $300 bought an exemption from military The Confederacy relied more heavily on the service. Already suffering from inflation, workers re- draft than the Union did because the North’s initial sented the ease with which moneyed citizens could

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avoid army duty. In July 1863, the resentment boiled and eagerly looked forward to a new president in over in New York City in the largest civil disturbance 1864. Peace Democrats, called Copperheads, claimed of the nineteenth century. The violence demon- that Lincoln betrayed the Constitution and that strated that northern morale and support for the working-class Americans bore the brunt of his con- war also wavered as the conflict persisted. scription policy. New York Democrats warned the The three-day riot was sparked by the process of city’s Irish residents that freed blacks would “steal the selecting several thousand conscripts on an early work and bread of honest Irish.” Immigrant workers July weekend. By Monday, workers opposed to the in eastern cities and those who lived in the southern draft were parading through the streets. Several parts of the Midwest had little sympathy for aboli- Irish members of the Black Joker Volunteer Fire tionism or blacks, and they supported the antiwar Company, whose names had been listed, were de- stance of the Copperheads. Even Democrats favoring termined to destroy draft records and the hated En- the war effort found Lincoln arbitrary and tyrannical. rollment Office. Events spun out of control as a mob They also worried that extreme Republicans would torched the armory, plundered the houses of the push Lincoln into making the war a crusade for the rich, and looted jewelry stores. African Americans, abolition of slavery. whom the Irish hated as economic competitors and Republicans were themselves divided. Moderates the cause of the war, became special targets. Crowds favored a cautious approach toward winning the shouting “Vengeance on every nigger in New York” war, fearing the possible consequences of emanci- beat and lynched African Americans and even pating the slaves, confiscating Confederate prop- burned the Colored Orphan Asylum. More than 100 erty, or arming blacks. The radicals, however, urged people died in the violence. There was much truth Lincoln to make emancipation a wartime objective. in the accusation that the war on both sides was a They hoped for a victory that would revolutionize rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight. southern social and racial arrangements. Before the war, Lincoln had advocated ending slavery’s expansion in the West but not its abolition Political Dissension, 1862 in the South. In the early stages of the conflict, he re- As the war continued, rumbles of dissension grew tained his moderate stance. He hoped that pro- louder. On February 24, 1862, the Richmond Exam- Union sentiment would emerge in the South and iner summarized many southerners’ frustration. compel its leaders to abandon their rebellion. He “The Confederacy has had everything that was re- began changing his mind in early 1862. The reduc- quired for success but one, and that one thing it was tion of the congressional Republican majority in the and is supposed to possess more than anything else, fall elections of 1862 made it imperative that Lin- namely Talent.” As victory proved elusive, necessi- coln listen not only to both factions of his party but tating unpopular measures like the draft, criticism also to the Democratic opposition. of Confederate leaders mounted. Jefferson Davis’s vice president, Alexander Stephens of Georgia, be- came one of the administration’s bitterest accusers. Public criticism reflected private disapproval. Wrote one southerner to a friend, “Impeach Jeff Davis for incompetency & call a convention of the States. . . . West Point is death to us & sick Presidents & Gener- als are equally fatal.” Because the South had no party system, dissatis- faction with Davis and his handling of the war tended to be factional, petty, and personal. No party mechanism channeled or curbed irresponsible crit- icism. Detractors rarely felt it necessary to offer pro- grams in place of Davis’s policies. Davis suffered personally from the carping comments of his de- tractors. More important, the Confederacy suffered. Without a party leader’s traditional weapons and re- wards, Davis had no mechanism to generate enthu- siasm for his war policies. Although Lincoln has since become a folk hero, at the time, many northerners derided his performance NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 500

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THE TIDE TURNS, 1863–1865 Hard political realities as well as Lincoln’s sense of the public’s mood help explain why he delayed an emancipation proclamation until 1863. Like con- gressional Democrats, many northerners supported a war for the Union but not one for emancipation. Not only did many, if not most, whites see blacks as inferior, but they also suspected that emancipation would trigger a massive influx of former slaves who would steal white men’s jobs and political rights. Race riots in New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and Buffalo dramatized white attitudes. In Cincinnati, Irish dockworkers attacked blacks who were offer- ing to work for less pay with the cry, “Let’s clear out the niggers.” Arthur Carpenter’s evaluation of blacks was typical of many northern soldiers confronting blacks for the first time. In December 1861, he wrote to his parents: NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 501

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No one who has ever seen the nigger in all its glory on If Lincoln attacked slavery, then, it would be be- the southern plantations . . . will ever vote for emanci- cause emancipation would save white lives, pre- pation. . . . If emancipation is to be the policy of the serve the democratic process, and bring victory. war (and I think it will not) I do not care how quick the In September 1862, the Union success at Anti- country goes to pot. The negro never was intended to etam gave Lincoln the opportunity to issue a pre- be equal with the white man. liminary emancipation proclamation. It stated that unless rebellious states (or parts of states in rebellion) returned to the Union by The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863 January 1, 1863, the president would de- If the president moved too fast on emancipation, he clare their slaves “forever free.” Although risked losing the allegiance of people like Carpenter, the proclamation was supposedly aimed offending the border states, and increasing the De- Lincoln Visiting at bringing the southern states back into General mocrats’ chances for political victory. But if Lincoln the Union, Lincoln no longer expected McClellan did not move at all, he would alienate abolitionists the South to lay down arms. Rather, he and lose the support of radical Republicans, which was preparing northerners to accept the eventual- he could ill afford. ity of emancipation on the grounds of necessity. For these reasons, Lincoln proceeded cautiously. Frederick Douglass greeted the president’s action At first, he hoped the border states would take the with jubilation. “We shout for joy,” he wrote, “that initiative. In the early spring of 1862, he urged Con- we live to record this righteous decree.” gress to pass a joint resolution offering federal com- Not all northerners shared Douglass’s joy. In fact, pensation to states beginning a “gradual abolishment the September proclamation probably harmed Lin- of slavery.” Border-state opposition killed the idea, coln’s party in the fall elections. As one Democratic for people there refused to believe, as Lincoln did, ditty put it: that the “friction and abrasion” of war would finally “De Union!” used to be de cry— end slavery. Abolitionists and northern blacks, how- For dat we want it strong; ever, greeted Lincoln’s proposal with a “thrill of joy.” But now de motto seems to be, That summer, Lincoln told his cabinet he in- “De nigger, right or wrong.” tended to emancipate the slaves. Secretary of State Seward urged the president to delay any general Although the elections of 1862 weakened the Re- proclamation until the North won a decisive mili- publicans’ grasp on the national government, they tary victory. Otherwise, he warned, Lincoln would did not destroy it. Still, cautious cabinet members appear to be urging racial insurrection behind the begged Lincoln to forget about emancipation. His Confederate lines to compensate for northern mili- refusal demonstrated his vision and humanity, as tary bungling. did his efforts to reduce racial fears. “Is it dreaded Lincoln followed Seward’s advice, using that sum- that the freed people will swarm forth and cover the mer and fall to prepare the North for the shift in the whole land?” he asked. “Are they not already in the war’s purpose. To counteract white racial land? Will liberation make them any more numer- fears of free blacks, he promoted various ous? Equally distributed among the whites of the schemes for establishing free black com- whole country, and there would be but one colored munities in Haiti and Panama. Seizing un- to seven whites. Could the one, in any way, greatly Abraham expected opportunities, he lay the ground- disturb the other?” Lincoln to work for the proclamation itself. In August, Finally, on New Year’s Day 1863, Lincoln issued Horace Greeley Horace Greeley, the influential abolitionist (1862) the promised Emancipation Proclamation. It was an editor of the New York Tribune, printed an “act of justice, warranted by the Constitu- open letter to Lincoln attacking him for failing to act tion upon military necessity.” Thus, what on slavery. In his reply, Lincoln linked the idea of had started as a war to save the Union emancipation to military necessity. His primary goal, now also became a struggle that, if victo- he wrote, was to save the Union: rious, would free the slaves. Yet the The proclamation had no immediate impact Emancipation If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I on slavery. It affected only slaves living in Proclamation would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the the unconquered portions of the Confed- slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some eracy. It was silent about slaves in the border states and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I and in parts of the South already in northern hands. do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I These limitations led Elizabeth Cady Stanton and believe it helps to save this Union. Susan B. Anthony to establish the women’s Loyal NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 502

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A French View of Emancipation This depiction of African Ameri- cans celebrating the Emanci- pation Proclamation ap- peared in the French publication Le Monde Illustre. How has the artist provided a triumphant and sympathetic picture of rejoicing freedpeo- ple? What does this picture, published in France, suggest about the diplomatic impor- tance to the Union cause of the Emancipation Proclama- tion?

National League to lobby Congress to emancipate war to free the slaves than they could with a war to all southern slaves. save the Union. In diplomacy, where image is so Though the Emancipation Proclamation did not important, Lincoln had created a more attractive immediately liberate southern slaves from their picture of the North. The Emancipation Proclama- masters, it had a tremendous symbolic importance tion became the North’s symbolic call for human and changed the nature of the war. On New Year’s freedom. Day, blacks gathered outside the White House to cheer the president and tell him that if he would “come out of that palace, they would hug him to Unanticipated Consequences of War death.” For the first time, the government had The Emancipation Proclamation was but another ex- committed itself to freeing slaves. Jubilant blacks ample of the war’s surprising consequences. Innova- could only believe that the president’s action her- tion was necessary for victory. In the final two years alded a new era for their race. More immediately, of the war, both North and South experimented on the proclamation sanctioned the policy of accept- the battlefields and behind the lines in desperate ef- ing blacks as soldiers. Blacks also hoped that the forts to conclude the conflict successfully. news would reach southern slaves, encouraging One of the Union’s experiments involved using them either to flee to Union lines or to subvert the black troops for combat duty. Blacks had offered southern war effort by refusing to work for their themselves as soldiers in 1861 but had been re- masters. jected. They were serving as cooks, laborers, team- Diplomatic concerns also lay behind the Eman- sters, and carpenters in the army, however, and cipation Proclamation. Lincoln and his advisers composed as much as a quarter of the navy. But as anticipated that the commitment to abolish slav- white casualties mounted, so did the interest in ery would favorably impress foreign powers. Euro- black service on the battlefield. The Union govern- pean statesmen, however, remained cautious. The ment allowed states to escape draft quotas if they English prime minister called the proclamation enlisted enough volunteers, and they allowed them “trash.” But important segments of the English to count southern black enlistees on their state ros- public who opposed slavery now regarded any at- ters. Northern governors grew increasingly inter- tempt to help the South as immoral. Foreigners ested in black military service. One piece of dog- could better understand and sympathize with a gerel reflected changing attitudes: NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 503

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Some tell us ’tis a burnin’ shame racial acceptance. Black soldiers, usually led by To make the naygers fight; white officers, were second-class soldiers for most And that the thrade of bein’ kilt of the war, receiving lower pay ($10 a month as Belongs but to the white: compared with $13), poorer food, often more me- But as for me, upon my soul! nial work, and fewer benefits than whites. Even So liberal are we here. whites working to equalize black and white pay of- I’ll let Sambo be murthered instead of myself ten considered blacks inferior. Many white soldiers, On every day in the year. including an entire regiment from Illinois, quit the service rather than fight alongside blacks. Beyond white self-interest lay the promises of the The army’s racial experiment had mixed results. Emancipation Proclamation and the desire to prove But the faithful and courageous service of black blacks’ value to the Union. Black leaders such as troops helped modify some of the most demeaning Frederick Douglass pressed for military service. white racial stereotypes of blacks. The black sol- “Once let the black man get upon his person the diers, many former slaves, who conquered the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, South felt a sense of pride and dignity as they per- and a musket on his shoulder and bullets formed their duties. Wrote one, “We march through in his pocket,” Douglass believed that these fine thoroughfares where once the slave was “there is no power on earth that can deny forbid being out after nine P.M....Negro soldiers!— that he has earned the right to citizen- with banners floating.” ship.” By the war’s end, 186,000 blacks (10 As the conflict continued, basic assumptions James Henry Gooding, Letter percent of the army) had served the weakened about how it should be waged. One to President Union cause, 134,111 of them escapees wartime casualty was the courtly idea that war in- Lincoln from slave states. volved only armies. Early in the war, many officers (1863); Letter from a Free Enrolling blacks in the Union army tried to protect civilians and their property. In the Black Volunteer was an important step toward citizenship Richmond campaign, General McClellan actually to The and acceptance of blacks by white soci- posted guards to prevent stealing. Such concern for Christian Recorder ety. But the black experience in the army rebel property soon vanished, and along with it went (1864) highlighted some of the obstacles to chickens, corn, livestock, and, as George Eagleton

Contrabands This photograph was taken in the summer of 1862 in Cumberland Landing, Vir- ginia. Sitting in front of the cabin are about 20 men and women who had fled to Union lines and free- dom. The flight of slaves, called contrabands, had the potential of seriously undermining the south- ern war effort and southern morale, but their presence also posed difficulties for Union com- manders and northern leaders who were often not sure what to do with them. What might be some of the reasons why there were more women than men in this picture? (Library of Congress [LC-B811-0383]) NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 504

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Black Troops Storm Fort Wagner Newspaper engravings provided civilians with images of the conflict. This colored lithograph by Currier & Ives was produced a generation after the war, but it is very much like the journalistic images of the time. The picture shows a famous black regiment, the 54th Massachu- setts, storming Fort Wagner, South Carolina. What specific elements of this depiction provide an interpreta- tion of the behavior of the troops during the assault? The experiences of the 54th formed the basis for the Hollywood movie Glory. (Library of Congress)

noted with disgust, even the furnishings of churches, victories in the North, he believed, civilian confi- down to the binding of the Bible in the pulpit. South- dence would disintegrate, and the North would ern troops, on the few occasions when they came continue its efforts to crush the southern bid for in- North, also lived off the land. War touched all of soci- dependence. He was willing to take risks to gain ety, not just the battlefield participants. peace and national recognition. In the summer of 1863, Lee led the Confederate army of northern Virginia across the Potomac into Changing Military Strategies, Maryland and southern Pennsylvania. Hoping for a 1863–1865 victory that would threaten both Philadelphia and In the early war years, the South’s military strategy Washington, he even dreamed of capturing a combined defense with selective maneuvers. Until northern city. Such spectacular feats the summer of 1863, the strategy seemed to be suc- would surely bring diplomatic recogni- ceeding, at least in the eastern theater. tion and might even force the North to But an occasional victory over the invad- sue for peace. On a practical level, Lee ing northern army, such as at Fredericks- sought provisions for his men and their burg in December 1862, did not change animals. The Civil War Part II: Robert E. Lee the course of the war. Realizing this, Lee At Gettysburg on a hot and humid July 1863–1865 reviewed his strategy and concluded, 1, Lee came abruptly face to face with a “There is nothing to be gained by this army remain- Union army led by General George Meade. During ing quietly on the defensive.” Unless the South won three days of fighting, Lee ordered costly infantry NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 505

AMERICAN VOICES Susie King Taylor, From Reminiscences of My Life in Camp

In 1902, Susie King Taylor’s account of her life as an army the coast. The rebels, knowing this, could steal by laundress during the Civil War was published. She was con- them under cover of the night, and getting on the nected to the 33rd U.S. Colored Infantry, her husband’s island would capture any person venturing out regiment.After escaping from slavery, she spent some time alone and carry them to the mainland. Several of on St. Simon’s, an island liberated by Union troops. the men disappeared, and as they were never There were about six hundred men, women, heard from we came to the conclusion they had and children on St. Simon’s, the women and chil- been carried off in this way. dren being in the majority, and we were afraid to go very far from our own quarters in the daytime, ■ What does this account reveal about the realities and and at night even to go out of the house for a long fears of former slaves? time, although the men were on the watch all the time; for there were not any soldiers on the island, ■ What does it suggest about the Confederate point of only the marines who were on the gunboats along view?

assaults that probably lost him the battle. On July Despite his losses, Lee did procure the food and 3, Lee sent three divisions, about 15,000 men in all, fodder he needed and captured thousands of pris- against the Union center. The assault, known as oners. Gettysburg was a defeat, but nei- Pickett’s Charge, was as futile as it was gallant. At ther Lee, nor his men, nor southern civil- 700 yards, the Union artillery opened fire. One ians regarded it as conclusive. Fighting southern officer described the scene: “Pickett’s di- would continue for another year and a vision just seemed to melt away in the blue mus- half. In 1864, one high army officer re- John Dooley, ketry smoke which now covered the hill. Nothing vealed his continuing belief in the strug- Journal (1863) but stragglers came back.” gle’s outcome. “Our hearts are full of hope,” he wrote. “Oh! I do pray that we may be estab- The Last Year of Conflict lished as an independent This map shows the major campaigns in the East during the final year of the conflict. people, . . . [and] recognized Note Grant’s rapid offensive in the spring of 1864. as God’s Peculiar People!” While many remained hope- ful, Lee’s Gettysburg losses MARYLAND Confederate states were so heavy that he could The Wilderness (May 5–7, 1864) Union states Fredericksburg never mount another south- Confederate offensive ern offensive. Spotsylvania Court House Despite the Gettysburg (May 8–19, 1864) Union offensive victory, Lincoln was dissatis- VIRGINIA GR Confederate victory A fied with General Meade, North Anna N

T (May 23–26, 1864) L E Union victory who had failed to finish off James R. E Cold Harbor (June 3, 1864) Lee’s retreating army. His Appomattox Richmond C Y Court House o h r e disappointment faded with

k s R a

. p

L e news of a great victory on

E a E k GRANT e July 4 at Vicksburg in the Petersburg B a western theater. The capture (besieged June 20, 1864– y April 1865) Five Forks of the city completed the (April 1, 1865) Norfolk Union campaign to gain control of the Mississippi River and to divide the

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Gettysburg 1863 This albumen print by Timothy H. O’Sullivan is titled A Harvest of Death, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July, 1863. What did O’Sullivan wish to suggest with this picture of the battlefield? Civil War pictures made it clear that photography was starting to play an important role in recording the sweep of American life. (Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foun- dations/Art Resource, NY)

South. Ulysses S. Grant, who was responsible for the economic or “total” warfare was a relatively new victory, demonstrated the boldness and flexibility and shocking idea. Grant, however, “regarded it as that Lincoln had been looking for in a humane to both sides to protect the persons of commander. those found at their homes, but to consume every- By the summer of 1863, the Union thing that could be used to support or supply controlled much of Arkansas, Louisiana, armies.” Following this policy, he set out after Lee’s Mississippi, Missouri, Kentucky, and Ten- army in Virginia. General William Tecumseh Sher- Lincoln, The Gettysburg nessee. The following spring, Lincoln ap- man, who pursued General Joseph John- Address (1863) pointed Grant general in chief of the ston from Tennessee toward Atlanta, fur- Union armies. Grant planned for victory ther refined this plan. within a year. “The art of war is simple enough,” he The war, Sherman believed, must also reasoned. “Find out where your enemy is. Get at be waged in the minds of civilians, and he William T. him as soon as you can. Strike at him as hard as you intended to make southerners “fear and Sherman, The March Through can, and keep moving on.” dread” their foes. His campaign to seize Georgia (1875) As an outsider to the prewar military establish- Atlanta and his march to Savannah ment, Grant easily rejected conventional military spread destruction and terror. Ordered to forage wisdom. “If men make war in slavish ob- “liberally” on the land, his army left desolation in its servance of rules, they will fail,” he as- wake. “Reduction to poverty,” Sherman asserted, serted. He anticipated no one decisive “brings prayers for peace.” A Georgia woman de- engagement but rather a grim campaign scribed in her diary the impact of Sherman’s march: of annihilation, using the North’s superior General Ulysses There was hardly a fence left standing all the way from resources of men and supplies to wear S. Grant at City Sparta to Gordon. The fields were trampled down and Point, Virginia down and defeat the South. Although the road was lined with carcasses of horses, hogs and Grant’s plan entailed large casualties on cattle that the invaders, unable either to consume or to both sides, he justified the strategy by arguing that carry away with them, had wantonly shot down, to “now the carnage was to be limited to a single year.” starve out the people. . . . The dwellings that were A campaign of annihilation involved the destruc- standing all showed signs of pillage, and on every plan- tion not only of enemy armies but also of the re- tation we saw . . . charred remains. sources that fueled the southern war effort. Al- though the idea of cutting the enemy off from This destruction, with its goal of total victory, needed supplies was implicit in the naval blockade, demonstrated once more how conflict produced NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/28/05 1:34 PM Page 507

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The Progress of War, 1861–1865 In this map you can see the very slow progression of the North’s effort to conquer the South. For much of the war, the South controlled large areas of contiguous territory.This control of the southern homeland helped southern- ers to feel that it was possible for them to win the war.At what point in time might the realities depicted in this map have made southerners decide their cause was lost?

Pittsburgh PA. Philadelphia OHIO DEL. ILLINOIS INDIANA MD. Baltimore Cincinnati Washington, D.C. WEST St. Louis VIRGINIA VIRGINIA Louisville Richmond MISSOURI Lynchburg KENTUCKY Norfolk

Nashville NORTH CAROLINA TENNESSEE ARKANSAS Charlotte Memphis Chattanooga Corinth SOUTH Atlanta CAROLINA Southern limit of MISSISSIPPI Augusta free states at Charleston beginning of war Vicksburg Montgomery Union gains in: LOUISIANA GEORGIA Savannah 1861 ALABAMA 1862 Mobile 1863 Baton Rouge Pensacola Jacksonville 1864 New Orleans FLORIDA 1865

the unexpected. The war that both North and South had hoped would be quick and relatively painless was ending after four long years with great cost to both sides. But the bitter nature of warfare during that final year threatened Lincoln’s hopes for reconciliation. NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/28/05 1:34 PM Page 507

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war. Secession grew out of the concept of states’ rights, but, ironically, winning the war depended on central direction and control. Many southerners de- nounced Davis because he recognized the need for the central government to take the lead. Despite the accusations, the Confederate Congress cooperated with him and established important precedents. In 1863, it enacted a comprehensive tax law and an im- CHANGES WROUGHT pressment act that allowed government agents to BY WAR requisition food, horses, wagons, and other neces- sary war materials, often for only about half their As bold new tactics emerged both on and off the market price. These were prime examples of the battlefield, both governments took steps that central government’s power to interfere with private changed their societies in surprising ways. Of the property. Government impressment of slaves for two, the South, which had left the Union to conserve war work in 1863 affected the very form of private a traditional way of life, experienced the more radi- property that had originally driven the South from cal transformation. the Union. The Conscription Act of 1862 did not solve the Confederate army’s manpower problems. By 1864, A New South the southern armies were only one-third the size of The expansion of the central government’s power in the Union forces. Hence, in February 1864, an ex- the South, starting with the passage of the 1862 panded conscription measure made all white males Conscription Act, continued in the last years of the between ages 17 and 50 subject to the draft. By NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 508

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1865, the necessities of war had led to the unthink- able: arming slaves as soldiers. Black companies were recruited in Richmond and other southern towns. However, because the war soon ended, no blacks actually fought for the Confederacy. In a message sent to Congress in November 1864, Davis speculated on some of the issues involved in arming slaves. “Should a slave who had served his country” be retained in servitude, he wondered, “or should his emancipation be held out to him as a re- ward for faithful service, or should it be granted at once on the promise of such service . . . ?” The war fought by the South to preserve slavery ended in the contemplation of emancipation. Southern agriculture also changed under the pressure of war. Earlier, the South had imported food from the North, concentrating on the produc- tion of staples such as cotton and tobacco for mar- ket. Now, more and more land was turned over to food crops. Some farmers voluntarily shifted crops, but others responded only to state laws reducing the acreage permitted for cotton and tobacco culti- vation. These measures never succeeded in raising enough food to feed southerners adequately. But they contributed to a dramatic decline in the pro- On the Home Front Appearing on a printed envelope, this duction of cotton, from 4.5 million bales in 1861 to image reveals several aspects of female experience during wartime. 300,000 bales in 1864. Why is this woman doing laundry? What is being suggested about the changes in her life that have occurred as a result of the war? What The South had always relied on imported manu- feelings does she express? This women’s speculation about the possi- factured goods. Even though some blockade runners bilities of doing humble work in the military alerts us to the fact that were able to evade the Union ships, the noose tight- washerwomen accompanied the armies wherever they went. ened after 1862. The Confederacy could not, in any (Collection of the New-York Historical Society [PR-022-3-88-5]) case, rely on blockade runners to arm and equip the army. Thus, war triggered the expansion of military- some southerners from a war perceived as serving related industries in the South. Here, too, the govern- only the interests of upper-class plantation owners. ment played a crucial role. The war and navy offices More and more yeoman families suffered grinding directed industrial development, awarding contracts poverty as the men went off to war and government to private manufacturing firms such as Richmond’s officials and armies requisitioned needed resources. Tredegar Iron Works and operating other factories Harlan Fuller, a poor farmer from Georgia, ex- themselves. The number of southern industrial plained his family’s situation in the spring of 1864. workers rose dramatically. In 1861, the Tredegar Iron Even though Fuller was 50, he was now eligible for Works employed 700 workers; two years later, it em- the draft. “I am liable at any time to be taken away ployed 2,500, more than half of them black. The head from my little crops leaving my family almost with- of the Army Ordnance Bureau reflected on the amaz- out provisions & no hope of making any crop atal. I ing transformation: “Where three years ago we were have sent six sons to the war & now the seventh en- not making a gun, pistol nor a sabre, no shot nor shell rolled he being the last I have no help left atal.” This . . . we now make all these in quantities to meet the new poverty was an ominous hint of the decline of demands of our large armies.” At the end of the war, the yeoman farming class in postwar years. the soldiers were better supplied with arms and mu- nitions than with food. Although the war did not transform the southern The North class structure, relations between the classes began Although changes in the South were more noticeable, to change. The pressures of the struggle under- the Union’s government and economy also re- mined the solidarity of whites, which was based on sponded to the demands of war. Like Davis, Lincoln racism and supposed political unanimity. Draft re- was accused of being a dictator. Although he rarely sistance and desertion reflected the alienation of tried to control Congress, veto its legislation, or direct NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 509

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government departments, Lincoln did use executive and leather industries grew accordingly. Meatpack- power freely. He violated the writ of habeas corpus ers and producers of iron, steel, and pocket watches by suspending the civil rights of more than 13,000 all profited from wartime opportunities. Cincinnati northerners, who languished in prison without tri- was one city that flourished from supplying soldiers als; curbed the freedom of the press because of sup- with everything from pork to soap and candles. posedly disloyal and inflammatory articles; estab- lished conscription; issued the Emancipation Proclamation; and removed army generals. Lincoln On the Home Front, 1861–1865 argued that this vast extension of presidential power Events on the battlefield were intimately connected was temporarily justified because, as president, he to life behind the lines. As both northern and south- was responsible for defending and preserving the ern leaders realized, civilian morale was crucial to Constitution. the war’s outcome. If civilians lost faith, they would Many of the wartime changes in government lack the will to continue the conflict. proved more permanent than Lincoln imagined. The The war stimulated religious efforts to generate financial necessities of war helped revolutionize the enthusiasm and loyalty on the home front. On both country’s banking system. Ever since Andrew Jack- sides, Protestant clergymen threw themselves be- son’s destruction of the Bank of the United States, hind the war effort. As northern preacher Henry state banks had served American financial needs. Ward Beecher proclaimed, “God hates lukewarm Treasury Secretary Chase found this banking system patriotism as much as lukewarm religion, and we inadequate and proposed to replace it. In 1863 and hate it too.” Southern ministers gave similar mes- 1864, Congress passed banking acts that established sages and urged southerners to reform their lives, a national currency issued by federally chartered for victory could not come without moral change. In banks and backed by government bonds. The coun- North and South, every defeat was a cause for soul try had a federal banking system once again. searching. Fast days and revivals provided a spiri- The northern economy also changed under tual dimension to the conflict and helped people wartime demands. The need to feed soldiers and deal with discouragement and death. civilians stimulated the expansion of agriculture In numerous ways, the war transformed north- and new investment in farm machinery. With so ern and southern society. The very fact of conflict many men off soldiering, farmers were at first short established a new perspective for most civilians. of labor. McCormick reapers performed the work of War news vied with local events for their attention. four to six men, and farmers began to buy them. They read newspapers and national weekly maga- During the war, McCormick sold 165,000 of his ma- zines with a new eagerness. The use of the mails in- chines. Northern farming, especially in the Mid- creased dramatically as they corresponded with far- west, was well on the way to becoming mechanized. away relatives and friends. Wrote one North Farmers not only succeeded in growing enough Carolina woman, “I never liked to write letters be- grain to feed civilians and soldiers but also gathered fore, but it is a pleasure as well as a relief now.” Dis- a surplus to export as well. tant events became almost as real and vivid as those The war also selectively stimulated manufactur- at home. The war helped make Americans less ing. Although it is easy to imagine that northern in- parochial, integrating them into the larger world. dustry as a whole expanded during the Civil War, in For some Americans, such as John D. Rockefeller fact, the war retarded overall economic growth. War and Andrew Carnegie, war brought army contracts consumed rather than generated wealth. Between and unanticipated riches. The New York 1860 and 1870, the annual rate of increase in real Herald reported that New York City had manufacturing value added was only 2.3 percent, in never been “so gay,... so crowded, so contrast with 7.8 percent for the years between 1840 prosperous,” as it was in March 1864. Res- and 1860 and 6 percent for the period idents of Cincinnati noted people who Women Working from 1870 to 1900. Some important pre- “became suddenly immensely wealthy, at U.S. Arsenal war industries, such as cotton textiles, and in their fine equipages, with liveried languished without a supply of southern servants, rolled in magnificence along the city cotton. streets.” In the South, blockade runners made for- Effect of a 32- Pound Shell However, industries that produced for tunes slipping luxury goods past Union ships. the war machine, especially those with For the majority of Americans, however, war advantages of scale, expanded and made large prof- meant deprivation. The war effort gobbled up a its. Each year, the Union army required 1.5 million large part of each side’s resources, and ultimately uniforms and 3 million pairs of shoes; the woollen ordinary people suffered. To be sure, the demand NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 510

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for workers ended unemploy- ment and changed employ- ment patterns. Large numbers of women and blacks entered the workforce, a phenomenon that would be repeated in all future American wars. But whereas work was easy to get and wages appeared to in- crease, real income actually declined. Inflation, especially destructive in the South, was largely to blame. By 1864, eggs sold in Richmond for $6 a dozen; butter brought $25 a pound. Strikes and union or- ganizing pointed to working- class discontent. Low wages compounded The Impact of the War in the South The dislocations caused by the war were the problem of declining in- many. These southerners, forced to leave their home by invading troops, have packed what few belongings they could transport and stand ready to evacuate their homestead. How many children come and particularly harmed can you find in the picture? What does the fact that the woman in the foreground is smoking a women workers. Often forced pipe suggest about the social class of this group? (Library of Congress) into the labor market because husbands could save little from small army stipends, army wives and other Thousands of southerners who fled as Union women took what pay they could get. As more armies advanced suddenly found themselves women entered the workforce, employers cut costs homeless. “The country for miles around is filled by slashing wages. In 1861, the Union government with refugees,” noted an army officer in 1862. “Every paid Philadelphia seamstresses 17 cents per shirt. At house is crowded and hundreds are living in the height of inflation, three years later, the govern- churches, in barns and tents.” Caught up in the ef- ment reduced the piecework rate to 15 cents. Pri- fort of mere survival, refugees worried about what vate employers paid even less, about 8 cents a shirt. had happened to homes and possessions left be- Working women in the South fared no better. War hind and whether anything would remain when may have brought prosperity to a few Americans in they returned. Life was probably just as agonizing the North and South, but for most it meant trying to for those who chose to stay put when Union troops survive on an inadequate income. arrived. Virginia Gray, an Arkansas woman, wrote in Economic dislocation caused by the war re- her diary of her fear of the “Feds” and the turmoil duced the standard of living for civilians. Shortages they caused when they suddenly appeared and then and hardships were severe in the South, which disappeared. bore the brunt of the fighting. Most white south- White flight also disrupted slave life. Even the ar- erners did without food, manufactured goods, and rival of Union forces could prove a mixed blessing. medicine during the war. Farming families without One slave described the upsetting behavior of the slaves to help with fieldwork fared poorly. As one Yankees at his plantation in Arkansas: “Them folks Georgia woman explained, “I can’t manage a farm stood round there all day. Killed hogs . . . killed well enough [alone] to make a suporte.” Condi- cows.... Took all kinds of sugar and preserves.... tions were most dismal in cities, where carts Tore all the feathers out of the mattresses looking brought in vital supplies, because trains were re- for money. Then they put Old Miss and her daughter served for military use. Hunger was rampant. Food in the kitchen to cooking.” So frightened was this riots erupted in Richmond and other cities; crowds slave’s mother that she hid in her bed, only to be of hungry whites broke into stores to steal food. roused by the lieutenant, who told her, “We ain’t a- The very cleanliness of southern cities pointed to going to do you no hurt. . . . We are freeing you.” But urban hunger. As one Richmond resident noted, the next day, the Yanks were gone and the Confeder- everything was so “cleanly consumed that no ates back. During Sherman’s march through Georgia garbage or filth can accumulate.” in 1864, his troops stole not only from whites but NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 511

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from slaves as well. Indeed some soldiers flogged confessed a “painful necessity.” “I am reduced,” she blacks who tried to stop the looting. said, “to the use of a stick but the negroes are becom- ing so impudent and disrespectful that I cannot bear it.” A mere two weeks later she added, “The Negroes Wartime Race Relations are all expecting to be set free very soon and it causes The journal kept by Emily Harris in South Carolina them to be very troublesom.” conveys some of the character of life behind the Similar scenes occurred throughout the South. In- lines. She revealed not only the predictable story of subordination, refusal to work, and refusal to accept shortages, hardships, and the psychological bur- punishment marked the behavior of black slaves, es- dens of those at home but also the subtle social pecially those who worked as field hands. Thousands changes the war stimulated. Emily and her hus- of blacks (probably 20 percent of all slaves), many of band, David, lived on a 500-acre farm with their them women who had been exploited as workers and seven young children and 10 slaves. When David as sexual objects, fled toward Union lines after the went to war, Emily had to manage the farm, even early months of the war. Their flight pointed to the though David worried that she would be “much at a changing nature of race relations and the harm slaves loss with the . . . farm and the negroes.” could do to the southern cause. Reflected one slave- Emily’s early entries establish two themes that per- owner, “The ‘faithful slave’ is about played out.” sist for the years she kept her diary. She worried about how David would survive the “privation and hard- ships” of army life and was also anxious about her Women and the War own “load of responsibilities.” Her December 1862 If Emily Harris’s journal reveals that she was some- entry provides a poignant picture of a wife’s thoughts. times overwhelmed by her responsibilities and “All going well as far as I can judge but tonight it is shocked by the changes in dealings with her slaves, it raining and cold and a soldier’s wife cannot be happy also illustrates how the war affected women’s lives. in bad weather and during a battle.” The dozens of Nineteenth-century ideology promoted women’s do- tasks she had to do depressed her. “I shall never get mestic role and minimized their economic impor- used to being left as the head of affairs,” she wrote in tance. But the war made it impossible for many January 1863. “I am not an independent woman nor women to live according to conventional norms. So ever shall be.” As time passed and the war went badly, many men on both sides had gone off to fight that, the dismal news and mounting list of casualties just like many of their grandmothers during the heightened her concern about David’s safety. American Revolution, women had to find jobs and Her relations with her slaves compounded Emily’s carry on farming operations. During the war years, problems. As so many southerners discovered, war southern women who had no slaves to help with the transformed the master–slave relationship. Because farmwork and northern farm wives who labored Emily was not the master David had been, her slaves without the assistance of husbands or sons carried gradually claimed unaccustomed liberties. At Christ- new physical and emotional burdens. For southern mas in 1864, several left the farm without women, who faced shortages and even displace- her permission; others stayed away longer ment, sanity sometimes seemed at stake. Emily Har- than she allowed. “Old Will” boldly re- ris felt she was going crazy. Others found their patrio- quested his freedom. Worse yet, she dis- tism waning and urged their men to come home.

Annie L. Burton, covered that her slaves had helped three Women supported the war effort by participating “Memories of Yankees who had escaped from prison in numerous war-related activities. In both North Childhood’s camp. and South, they entered government service in large Slavery Days” (1909) The master–slave relationship was numbers. In the North, hundreds of crumbling, and Emily reported in her jour- women became military nurses. Under nal the consequences for whites. “It seems people are the supervision of Drs. Emily and Eliza- getting afraid of negroes.” Although not admitting to beth Blackwell; Dorothea Dix, superin- fear, she revealed that she could no longer control the tendent of army nurses; and Clara Barton, Clara Barton, blacks, who were increasingly unwilling to play a northern women nursed the wounded Medical Life on subservient role. and dying for low pay or even for none at the Battlefield (1862) Understanding what was at stake, slaves, in their all. They also attempted to improve hos- own way, often worked for their freedom. Said one pital conditions by attacking red tape and bureau- later, “Us slaves worked den when we felt like it, which cracy. The diary of a volunteer, Harriet Whetten, re- wasn’t often.” Emily’s journal entry for February 22 vealed the activist attitude of many others: NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 512

RECOVERING THE PAST

Photography

The invention of photography in 1839 expanded the vi- perspective.The earliest type of photograph, the da- sual and imaginative world of nineteenth-century guerreotype, was not a print but the negative itself Americans. For the first time,Americans could visually on a sheet of silver-plated copper. The first da- record events in their own lives and see images of peo- guerreotype required between 15 and 30 minutes ple and incidents from far away. Photographs, of for the proper exposure. This accounts for the stiff course, also expand the boundaries of the historian’s and formal quality of many of these photographs. world. As photographic techniques became simpler, Glass ambrotypes (negatives on glass) and tintypes more and more visual information about the nine- (negatives on gray iron bases), developed after the teenth century was captured. Historians can use pho- daguerreotype, were easier and cheaper to produce. tographs to discover what nineteenth-century Ameri- But both techniques produced only one picture and cans wore, how they celebrated weddings and funerals, required what to us would seem an interminable and what their families, houses, and cities looked like. time for exposure. Pictures of election campaigns, parades, strikes, and A major breakthrough came in the 1850s with the wars show the texture of public life. But historians can development of the wet-plate process. In this process, also study photographs, as they do paintings, to glean the photographer coated a glass negative with a sensi- information about attitudes and norms. The choice of tive solution, exposed the negative (took the picture), subjects, the way people and objects are arranged and and then quickly developed it.The new procedure re- grouped, and the relationships between people in pho- quired a relatively short exposure time of perhaps tographs are all clues to the social and cultural values five seconds outdoors and one minute inside. Action of nineteenth-century Americans. shots, however, were still not feasible. The entire Some knowledge of the early history of photogra- process tied the photographer to the darkroom.Trav- phy helps place the visual evidence in the proper eling photographers carried their darkrooms with

Mathew Brady, Confederate Captives, Gettysburg. (National Archives)

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Mathew Brady, Burial Party at Cold Harbor. (Chicago Histori- cal Society, ICHi-07868)

them. The advantage of the wet-plate process was that photography reveals attitudes as well as facts. that it was possible to make many paper prints from What attitude toward war and death is conveyed in one negative, opening new commercial vistas for pro- this picture? Why is the burial taking place a full year fessional photographers. after the battle? What does this tell us about the na- Mathew Brady, a fashionable Washington photogra- ture of civil warfare? Notice that the soldiers ordered pher, realized that the camera was the “eye of his- to undertake this ghastly chore are black, as was cus- tory” and asked Lincoln for permission to record the tomary.What might this scene suggest about the ex- war with his camera. He and his team of photogra- perience of black soldiers in the Union army? phers left about 8,000 glass negatives, currently stored in the Library of Congress and the National REFLECTING ON THE PAST Using the photograph of Archives, as their record of the Civil War. Shown here Confederate captives as evidence, what might you are two photographs, one of three Confederate sol- conclude about the southern soldier—his equipment, diers captured at Gettysburg, the other of the battle- uniforms, shoes? How well fed do the men in the pic- field of Cold Harbor in Virginia. ture appear? What attitudes are conveyed through In the first photograph, study and describe the their facial expressions and poses? What kind of three soldiers. How are they posed? What kind of mood was the northern photographer trying to cre- clothes are they wearing? What about their equip- ate? What might a northern viewer conclude about ment? What seems to be their physical condition? the South’s war effort after looking at this picture? The second picture was taken in April 1865, about These photographs just begin to suggest what can a year after the battle at Cold Harbor. In the back- be discovered from old photographs. Your local his- ground, you can see two Union soldiers digging torical society and library probably have photograph graves. In the foreground are the grisly remains of the collections available to you. In addition, at home or in battle.What do you think is the intent of the photo- a relative’s attic, you may find visual records of your graph? The choice of subject matter shows clearly family and its history.

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I have never seen such a dirty disorganized place as the behind him. Lincoln seemed to please no one. His Hospital. The neglect of cleanliness is inexcusable. All veto of the radical reconstruction plan for the sorts of filth, standing water, and the embalming house South, the Wade–Davis bill, led to cries of “usurpa- near the Hospital. . . . No time had to be lost. Miss Gill tion.” The Emancipation Proclamation did not sit and I set the contrabands at work making beds & well with conservatives. Union defeats during the cleaning. summer encouraged those who wanted to make peace with the South. In August 1864, a gloomy Lin- Although men largely staffed southern military coln told his cabinet that he expected to lose the hospitals, Confederate women also cared for the sick election. As late as September, some Republicans and wounded in their homes and in makeshift hospi- actually hoped to reconvene the convention and tals behind the battle lines. Grim though the work select another candidate. was, many women felt that they were participating in Sherman’s capture of Atlanta in September 1864 the real world for the first time in their lives. and the march through Georgia to Savannah helped Women moved outside the domestic sphere in swing voters to Lincoln. In the end, Republicans had other forms of volunteer war work. Some women no desire to see the Democrats oust their party. Lin- gained administrative experience in soldiers’ aid so- coln won 55 percent of the popular vote and swept cieties and in the U.S. Sanitary Commission, which the electoral college. raised $50 million by the war’s end for medical sup- plies, nurses’ salaries, and other wartime necessities. Others made bandages and Why the North Won clothes, put together packages for sol- In the months after Lincoln’s re-election, the war diers at the front, and helped army wives drew to an agonizing conclusion. Sherman moved U.S. Sanitary and disabled soldiers find jobs. north from Atlanta to North Carolina, while Grant Commission, Many of the changes women experi- pummeled Lee’s forces in Virginia. The Sketch of Its Purposes enced during the war years ended when losses Grant sustained in Virginia were (1864) peace returned. Jobs in industry and gov- staggering: 18,000 in the Battle of the ernment disappeared when the men came Wilderness, more than 8,000 at Spotsylva- to reclaim them. Women turned over the operation of nia, and another 12,000 at Cold Harbor. Appomattox farms to returning husbands. But for women whose New recruits stepped forward to replace Court House men came home maimed or not at all, the work had the dead. On April 9, 1865, Grant ac- not ended. Nor had the discrimination. Trying to pick cepted Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Southern up the threads of their former lives, they found it im- soldiers and officers were allowed to return home possible to forget what they had done to help the war with their personal equipment after promising to effort. At least some of them were sure they had remain there peaceably. The war was finally over. equaled their men in courage and commitment. Technically, the war was won on the battlefield and at sea. But Grant’s military strategy succeeded because the Union’s manpower and economic re- The Election of 1864 sources could survive staggering losses of men and In the North, the election of 1864 brought some of equipment while the Confederacy’s could not. As the transformations of wartime into the political Union armies pushed back the borders of the Con- arena. The Democrats, seeking to regain power by federacy, the South lost control of territories essen- capitalizing on war weariness, nominated General tial for its war effort. Finally, naval strategy eventu- George McClellan for president. The party pro- ally paid off because the North could build enough claimed the war a failure and demanded an armistice ships to make its blockade work. In 1861, fully 90 with the South. During the campaign, Democrats ac- percent of the blockade runners were slipping cused Lincoln of arbitrarily expanding executive through the naval cordon. By the war’s end, only power and denounced sweeping economic measures half made it. such as the banking bills. Arguing that the president The South had taken tremendous steps toward had transformed the war from one for Union into meeting war needs. But despite the impressive one for emancipation, they tried to inflame racial growth of manufacturing and the increasing acreage passions by insinuating that if the Republicans won, devoted to foodstuffs, the southern army and the a fusion of blacks and whites would result. southern people were poorly fed and poorly clothed. Although Lincoln gained the Republican renom- As one civilian realized, “The question of bread and ination because of his tight control over party ma- meat . . . is beginning to be regarded as a more seri- chinery and patronage, his party did not unite ous one even than that of War.” Women working NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 515

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alone or with disgruntled slaves on farms could not him apart as one of this country’s most extraordi- produce enough food. Worn-out farm equipment nary presidents. Yet the men’s personal characteris- was not replaced. The government’s impressment of tics were probably less important than the differ- slaves and animals cut production. The half million ences between the political and social systems of blacks who fled to Union lines also played their part the two regions. Without the support of a party be- in pulling the South down in defeat. hind him, Davis failed to engender enthusiasm or New industries could not meet the extraordinary loyalty. Even though the Republicans rarely united demands of wartime, and advancing Union forces behind Lincoln, they uniformly wanted to keep the destroyed many of them. A Confederate officer in Democrats from office. Despite all the squabbles, northern Virginia observed, “Many of our Republicans tended to support Lincoln’s policies in soldiers are thinly clothed and without Congress and back in their home districts. Com- shoes and in addition to this, very few of manding considerable resources of patronage, Lin- the infantry have tents. With this freezing coln was able to line up federal, state, and local offi-

Destruction of weather, their sufferings are indescrib- cials behind his party and administration. the Confederacy able.” Skimpy rations, only one-third of a Just as the northern political system provided pound of meat for each soldier a day by Lincoln with more flexibility and support, its social 1864, weakened the Confederate force, whose trail system also proved more able to meet the war’s ex- was “traceable by the deposit of dysenteric stool” it traordinary demands. Although both societies left behind. By that time, the Union armies were so adopted innovations in an effort to secure victory, well supplied that soldiers often threw away heavy northerners were more cooperative, disciplined, blankets and coats as they advanced. and aggressive in meeting the organizational and The South’s woefully inadequate transportation production challenges of wartime. In the southern system also contributed to defeat. Primitive roads states, old attitudes, habits, and values impeded deteriorated and became all but impassable with- the war effort. Southern governors, wedded to out repairs. The railroad system, geared to the states’ rights, refused to cooperate with the Con- needs of cotton, not war, was inefficient. When federate government. North Carolina, the center of tracks wore out or were destroyed, they were not the southern textile industry, actually kept back replaced. Rails were too heavy for blockade run- most uniforms for its own regiments. At the war’s ners to bother with, and as the Confederate rail- end, 92,000 uniforms and thousands of blankets, road coordinator observed in 1865, “Not a single shoes, and tents still lay in its warehouses. When bar of railroad iron has been rolled in the Confed- Sherman approached Atlanta, Georgia’s governor eracy since the war, nor can we hope to do better.” would not turn over the 10,000 men in the state Thus, food intended for the army rotted awaiting army to Confederate commanders. Even slave- shipment. Supplies were tied up in bottlenecks and holders, whose property had been the cause for se- soldiers went hungry. Food riots in southern cities cession, resisted the impressment of their slaves pointed to the hunger, anger, and growing demor- for war work. alization of civilians. In the end, the Confederacy collapsed, exhausted Ironically, measures the Confederacy took to and bleeding. Hungry soldiers received letters from strengthen its ability to win the war, as one Texan their families revealing desperate situations at later observed, “weakened and paralyzed it.” Con- home. They worried and then slipped away. By De- scription, impressment, and taxes all contributed cember 1864, the Confederate desertion rate had to resentment and sometimes open resistance. passed 50 percent. Replacements could not be They fueled class tensions already strained by the found. Farmers hid livestock and produce from tax poverty that war brought to many yeoman farmers collectors. Many southerners felt their cause was and led some of them to assist the invaders or to lost and resigned themselves to defeat. But some join the Union army. The proposal to use slaves as fought on till the end. One northerner described soldiers called into question the war’s purpose. The them as they surrendered at Appomattox: many southern governors who refused to con- tribute men, money, and supplies on the scale Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment Davis requested implicitly condoned disloyalty to of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, the cause. nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness It is natural to compare Lincoln and Davis as war could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, leaders. There is no doubt that Lincoln’s humanity, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes his awareness of the terrible costs of war, his deter- looking level into ours, waking memories that bound mination to save the Union, and his eloquence set us together as no other bond. NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/28/05 1:34 PM Page 516

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The Costs of War with me better than any other.” Many others had diffi- culty returning to civilian routines and finding a new The long war was over, but the memories of that focus for life. Even those who adjusted successfully event would fester for years to come. About 3 mil- discovered that they looked at life from a different per- lion American men, one-third of all free males be- spective. The experience of fighting, of mixing with all tween ages 15 and 59, had served in the sorts of people from many places, and of traveling far army. Each would remember his own per- from home had lifted former soldiers out of their fa- sonal history of the war. For George Ea- miliar local world and widened their vision. Fighting gleton, who had worked in army field the war made the concept of national union real. hospitals, the history was one of “Death Field Hospital, Virginia, 1862 and destruction! Blood! Blood! Agony! Death! Gaping flesh wounds, broken Unanswered Questions bones, amputations, bullet and bomb fragment ex- What, then, had the war accomplished? On the one tractions.” Of all wars Americans have fought, none hand, death and destruction. Physically, the war has been more deadly. The death rate during this devastated the South. Historians have es- war was more than five times the death rate during timated a 43 percent decline in southern World War II. About 360,000 Union soldiers and an- wealth during the war years, exclusive of other 258,000 Confederate soldiers died, about one- the value of slaves. Great cities like At- third of them because their wounds were either im- lanta, Columbia, and Richmond lay in ru- properly treated or not treated at all. Disease Richmond in ins. Fields lay weed-choked and unculti- Ruins claimed more lives than combat. Despite the efforts vated. Tools were worn out. One-third or of men such as Eagleton and the women army more of the South’s stock of mules, horses, and nurses, hospitals could not handle the scores of swine had disappeared. Two-thirds of the railroads wounded and dying. “Glory is not for the private had been destroyed. Thousands were hungry, soldier, such as die in the hospitals,” reflected one homeless, and bitter about their four years of what Tennessee soldier, “being eat up with the deadly now appeared a useless sacrifice. More than 4 mil- gangrene, and being imperfectly waited on.” lion slaves, a vast financial investment, were free. Thousands of men would be re- minded of the human costs of war by the injuries they carried with them to the grave, by the missing limbs that marked them as Civil War veterans. About 275,000 on each side were

Amputation maimed. Another 410,000 Being (195,000 northerners and Performed, 215,000 southerners) would 1863 remember wretchedly over- crowded and unsanitary prison camps. The lucky ones would recall only the dullness and boredom. The worst memory was of those who rot- ted in prison camps, such as Ander- sonville in Georgia, where 31,000 Union soldiers were confined. At the war’s end, more than 12,000 graves were counted there. Some Americans found it hard to throw off wartime experiences and ad- just to peace. As Arthur Carpenter’s let- ters suggest, he gradually grew accus- tomed to army life. War provided him with a sense of purpose. When it was Charleston, South Carolina, in 1865 What does this picture suggest over, he felt aimless. A full year after the about the impact of the war on Charleston?(Library of Congress, [LC-DIG-cwpb 02421 war’s end, he wrote, “Camp life agrees DLC]) NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 517

CHAPTER 15 The Union Severed 517

On the other hand, the war had resolved the had announced a generous plan of reconciliation. question of union and ended the debate over the re- He was willing to recognize the government of for- lationship of the states to the federal government. mer Confederate states established by a group of During the war, Republicans seized the opportunity citizens equal to 10 percent of those voting in 1860, to pass legislation that would foster national union as long as the group swore to support the Constitu- and economic growth: the Pacific Railroad Act of tion and to accept the abolition of slavery. He be- 1862, which set aside huge tracts of public land to fi- gan to restore state governments in three former nance the transcontinental railroad; the Homestead Confederate states on that basis. But not all north- Act of 1862, which was to provide yeoman farmers erners agreed with his leniency, and the debate cheaper and easier access to the public domain; the continued. Morrill Act of 1862, which established support for In his 1865 inaugural address, Lincoln urged agricultural (land-grant) colleges; and the banking Americans to harbor “malice towards none . . . and acts of 1863 and 1864. charity for all.” “Let us strive,” he urged, The war had also resolved the issue of slavery, the “to finish the work we are in; to bind up thorny problem that had so long plagued American the nation’s wounds . . . to do all which life. Yet uncertainties outnumbered certainties. may achieve a just and lasting peace.” What would happen to the former slaves? When Privately, the president said the same Lincoln, Second blacks had fled to Union lines during the war, com- thing. Generosity and goodwill would Inaugural Address (1865) manders had not known what to do with them. Now pave the way for reconciliation. On April the problem became even more pressing. Were 14, he pressed the point home to his cabinet. His blacks to have the same civil and political rights as wish was to avoid persecution and bloodshed. That whites? In the Union army, they had been second- same evening, only five days after the surrender at class soldiers. The behavior of Union forces toward Appomattox, the president attended a play at liberated blacks in the South showed how deep the Ford’s Theatre. There, as one horrified eyewitness stain of racism went. One white soldier, caught reported, stealing a quilt by a former slave, shouted, “I’m a pistol was heard and a man . . . dressed in a black suit fighting for $14 a month and the Union”—not to of clothes leaped onto the stage apparently from the end slavery. Would blacks be given land, the means President’s box. He held in his right hand a dagger for economic independence? What would be their whose blade appeared about 10 inches long. ...Every relations with their former owners? one leaped to his feet, and the cry of “the What, indeed, would be the status of the con- President is assassinated” was heard—Getting quered South in the nation? Should it be punished where I could see into the President’s box, I for the rebellion? Some people thought so. Should saw Mrs. Lincoln . . . in apparent anguish. southerners keep their property? Some people Lincoln thought not. There were clues to Lincoln’s inten- John Wilkes Booth, a southern sympa- Assassination tions. As early as December 1863, the president thizer, had killed the president. Reward Poster

T IMELINE

1861 Lincoln calls up state militia and suspends habeas Battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg corpus Union Banking Act First Battle of Bull Run Southern tax laws and impressment act Union blockades the South New York draft riots Southern food riots 1862 Battles at Shiloh, Bull Run, and Antietam Monitor and Virginia battle 1864 Sherman’s march through Georgia First black regiment authorized by Union Lincoln re-elected Union issues greenbacks Union Banking Act South institutes military draft 1865 Lee surrenders at Appomattox Pacific Railroad Act Lincoln assassinated; Andrew Johnson becomes Homestead Act president Morrill Land-Grant College Act 1863 Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation Congress adopts military draft NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/28/05 1:34 PM Page 518

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Conclusion An Uncertain Future

As the war ended, many Americans grieved for the of putting their lives back together and moving for- man whose decisions had so marked their lives for ward into an uncertain future. Perhaps not all Amer- five years. “Strong men have wept tonight & the na- icans realized how drastically the war had altered tion will mourn tomorrow,” wrote one eyewitness to their lives, their prospects, and their nation. It was the assassination. Many more wept for friends and only as time passed that the war’s impact became relations who had not survived the war, but whose clear to them. And it was only with time that they actions had in one way or another contributed to its recognized how many problems the war had left un- outcome. The lucky ones, like Arthur Carpenter and solved. It is to these years of Reconstruction that we George and Ethie Eagleton, now faced the necessity turn next.

Questions for Review and Reflection

1. Assess the strengths and weaknesses of the North 4. Compare and contrast Lincoln and Davis as war and South at the beginning of the war. What northern leaders and the two governments over which they strengths actually led to northern victory and what presided. Confederate weaknesses explain southern defeat? 5. What role did race play during the war? 2. Describe the military campaigns in each region of the 6. Consider the Civil War as a struggle between differing country over the course of the war. beliefs and values and assess the importance of 3. What were the most important transformations in northern victory for this struggle. In what ways did the Union and Confederacy during the war and why, the war’s outcome realize or fail to realize the found- in your opinion, were these changes so significant? ing principles of this nation?

Recommended Reading Recommended Readings are posted on the Web site for this textbook. Visit www.ablongman.com/nash

Fiction and Film

Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage (1895) ex- of warfare and race relations if you see this film. Cold amines the soldier’s experience during the war, while Mountain (2003) follows a Confederate soldier as he MacKinlay Kantor’s novel Andersonville (1955) pro- tries to reach his home in 1864. The movie gives a vides an insight into the Civil War’s worst prison good picture of the disintegration of southern society, camp. Enemy Women (2002) by Paulette Jiles follows but you will not find much indication of why the the journey of a young Missouri woman who tries to South went to war. The classic Gone with the Wind rescue her father who has been carried off by the (1939) offers a romanticized but powerful picture of Union militia to St. Louis. The feature film Glory southern life before, during, and after the Civil War. (1989) focuses on a black regiment, the 54th Massa- Ken Burns’s famous documentary series The Civil chusetts, that demonstrated its heroism in the midst War (1990) is a powerful evocation of that period with of battle. You will get a better sense of the character ample use of period photographs and documents. NASH.7654.CP15.p486-519.vpdf 9/12/05 11:48 AM Page 519

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Discovering U.S. History Online

Index of Civil War Information on the Internet around Charleston, South Carolina, via timelines, biogra- www.cwc.lsu.edu phies, primary sources, battleground information, and il- A good starting place for research, this index has as its lustrations. mission to “locate, index, and make available all appropri- Abraham Lincoln ate private and public data on the Internet regarding the www.ipl.org/ref/POTUS/alincoln.html Civil War” and to promote the study of the Civil War from This site contains basic factual data about Lincoln, in- the perspectives of all professions, occupations, and acad- cluding his presidency, speeches, cabinet members, and emic disciplines. It includes a guide on evaluating sources election information. of information on the Internet. Black American Contributions to Union Intelligence Causes of the Civil War During the Civil War www.members.aol.com/jfepperson/causes.html www.odci.gov/cia/publications/dispatches/ The site offers a collection of “primary documents from This illustrated article, reprinted from the CIA journal the period of the secession crisis . . . with the goal of shed- Studies in Intelligence (Winter 1998–1999) offers informa- ding light on the causes of secession, hence of the war.” tion about this little-known contribution to the Union war Document sections include “Party Platforms and Seces- effort. sion Documents,” “Compromise Proposals,” and “Abra- ham Lincoln’s Speeches and Letters,” as well as docu- America’s First Look into the Camera: Daguerreotype ments from individual states, other quotes, and political Portraits and Views, 1839–1864 speeches and commentaries. www.memory.loc.gov/ammem/daghtml/dagpres.html This exhibit presents samples of the major subjects of this Crisis at Fort Sumter searchable database of more than 650 daguerreotypes. www.tulane.edu/~latner/CrisisMain.html Portraits, architectural views, and some street scenes This well-crafted use of hypermedia with assignments make up most of the collection. and problems explains and explores the events and causes leading to the Civil War. Charleston www.awod.com/gallery/probono/cwchas/ cwlayout.html William Hamilton, the author, attorney and Civil War re- enactor, presents the history of the Civil War in and