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A Brief Overview of the Civil War from the Perspective of Genesee County

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A Brief Overview of the Civil War from the Perspective of Genesee County A Brief Overview of the Civil War from the Perspective of Genesee County by Michael J. Eula, Ph.D. Genesee County Historian On the fifteenth of April, 1861, The Daily Republican Advocate of Batavia, New York proclaimed in its headline “War! War! War!” Informing the public of the Confederate attack on the federal installation at Ft. Sumter, South Carolina three days before, the reader was told that “reports up to Saturday afternoon” suggested that . the besieged forces might yet hold out some time longer, although the barracks and other wooden material were in flames. We hoped that the gallant band of heroes would ultimately be able to hold their position, but the odds were fearfully against them. Nearing its conclusion, the article reported that Without waiting for a single hostile act, without waiting (for) the arrival of the unarmed vessel, the bombardment of Sumter was commenced, and the war opened. What its end will be, God only knows. Throughout this article we see a stress on uncertainty from the Union perspective that combines with a concurrent emphasis upon odds stacked against the federal forces. While this perspective is understandable within the context of the early stage of the war, hindsight reveals that such a vantage point proved to be unwarranted. Indeed, the odds were clearly stacked against the Confederacy from the beginning. It was the Confederate States of America that took the enormous gamble of a military insurrection against the North – one that proved to be, at least in military terms, a disaster for the “secesh” by 1865. What made the commencement of hostilities such a risk for the South? To begin with, the entire southern population – including African-American slaves – totaled about nine million people. The Union, on the other hand, had a population of approximately twenty-two million. But population was only the start of the story. The Confederacy had an untested government that ironically resembled in broad terms the United States government – with the obvious exception of slavery, which received formal acknowledgment as such in the Confederate Constitution. Along with an untested government, the South lacked a railroad network that could rival that of the North. Its banking system was relatively undeveloped, as was its industrial base – a fatal flaw in what proved to be a modern, industrial-based war. The Confederate navy was not a threat. Just as importantly, the South found itself somewhat isolated in an international arena struggling to end slavery. The South was a titanic anachronism in moral, political, and economic terms, and of course there were those in the Confederacy who were less than enthusiastic about secession – which, ironically, included General Robert E. Lee himself, whose wife was the great granddaughter of the revolutionary leader George Washington’s wife, Martha. Lee’s Virginia was of course one of the states that had seceded from the Union to form a new country. Leaving the Union on April 17th, 1861, it was preceded in this drastic step by South Carolina on December 20th, 1860, which was then followed by Mississippi on the ninth of January, 1861, and by Florida the next day. Alabama followed suit on January 11th, as did Georgia on the nineteenth of January. A week later Louisiana left the Union, and by June of 1861 North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee had all left as well. Up against the Union forces stretching from California in the far west to New York and the remainder of the Northeast, the Confederacy found itself in the unenviable position of having to mobilize for a war which on paper showed itself early to be a challenge that eventually proved to be overwhelming. What motivated the South to risk all on such an undertaking? What is so compelling about a conflict that has produced the phenomenon of its having become the most written about event in United States history? A more comprehensive answer to the question of southern motivation would take us beyond the scope of this short overview of the Civil War. Suffice it to say that at least politically, the southern position revolved around the idea of state sovereignty. This was expressed as early as 1828 by a South Carolina lawyer, John C. Calhoun, who had served as a Secretary of War under President James Monroe, and as Vice President in the administrations of Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. In Exposition and Protest Calhoun argued that ultimate political authority is found on the state level. It was the states who delegated power to the federal government – and not the other way around. The Confederate position was one of defense of what was understood to be its sovereign independence – of which slavery was a part. Conversely, the North was equally determined to maintain the integrity of the federal union. This ideological motivation for the war combined with the economic realities of a Northern industrialization that amounted to a clash of civilizations. In general, the North and its factory system was producing an increasingly urban society featuring a free labor force standing in stark contrast to a southern society that remained overwhelmingly agricultural, rural, and dependent upon the labor of about four million African-American slaves. The war was as much a clash of competing visions of what modern America would look like as it was a clash between competing visions of government. Ultimately, the resolution of the issue – would modern America be an industrial, urban one based upon free labor – or not - was one decided upon the battlefield. This confrontation between civilizations was captured in a fascinating editorial found in Batavia’s Daily Republican Advocate on April 25th, 1861. Entitled “A Negro Astride the Statue of Washington,” we are told that The Richmond (Virginia) secessionists actually celebrated the passage of the Act of Secession by the Convention, by placing a negro astride the statue of Washington in the Capital. We will not trust ourselves to comment upon the proceeding. Thank God that the time of such diabolical wretches is short- very short. The battlefield that proved to be the arena within which the question of America’s future was decided was one looking radically different than those of previous wars. Its characteristics were those of the all too familiar battlefields of the murderous twentieth century. Scientific and technological breakthroughs by the middle of the nineteenth century combined with factory production to create a radically different kind of warfare. New technologies such as rifled artillery and armored trains accentuated a central feature of this war – the use of large land armies. By 1865 over two million men would have served in the federal army, while an additional eight hundred thousand soldiers served in the Confederate Army. The Civil War armies were unprecedented in their sheer size, and initially the formation of such huge military forces was predicated upon local efforts. Rallies were held, and volunteers were often secured in the flush of enthusiasm brought out by such gatherings. As a result of such a system of recruitment army units were typically made up of soldiers from the same area. Genesee County was no exception. On the seventeenth of April, 1861, The Republican Daily Advocate reported on one such meeting in Batavia: Our Union Meeting Our Union Meeting at Concert Hall, on Tuesday evening, made us proud of our citizens. At an early hour the large hall was crowded to its utmost capacity, and a spirit of enthusiasm generally prevailed – Junius A. Smith, Esq., presided, and Geo. P. Pringle, Esq., acted as Secretary. Patriotic speeches were made by the Chairman, and by Messrs. Geo. Babcock, R.H. Foote, S. Wakeman, Rev. Mr. Kauffman ( who addressed his German brethren in their own language), M.W. Hewitt, J.M. Willett, N.A. Woodward, Esqs., and others. About twenty of our young men enrolled their names as volunteers, and hosts more will do so immediately. The right kind of spirit animates our entire people. Political feelings are ignored, and everyone seems ready to sustain the government. That same issue saw yet another description of a recruitment rally: Union Rally Last Night Through the patriotic exertions of Mr. Mallory and others, Concert Hall was obtained for holding the second Union Meeting. The Batavia Brass Band volunteered last evening, and played Hail Columbia, Star Spangled Banner and Yankee Doodle, all of which were received with cheers . Mr. George Babcock was called on, and made a most powerful speech. He was completely carried away by his love of country and sympathy for those who have already suffered by the rebels’ fire at Charleston: he spoke the sentiments of each heart in the room. Mr. R.H. Foote made a move in the right direction, and called on the young men to do their duty. Such rallies revealed an informal and democratic way of raising an army, and were a method in keeping with an historic American distrust of a large, professional standing army. An integral aspect of this tradition is the idea that an army in a democratic republic can only be one in which the people themselves freely consent to form an army – it would be undemocratic to compel military service. However, the Civil War is a modern war featuring unprecedented destructiveness and loss of life. This ruinous conflict was also a protracted one, and it did not take long before the insatiable demand for additional soldiers surpassed the number of volunteers. The Confederacy first felt the problem of an inadequate number of volunteers when it enacted its conscription law in April of 1862. The following March, in 1863, the federal government implemented the Enrollment Act, which rendered all able-bodies white male citizens aged twenty to forty-five eligible for military service.
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