Two Societies at War 1861–1865
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Chapter 14 Two Societies at War 1861–1865 Teaching Resources denied that the federal government had the authority to restore the Union by Chapter Instructional Objectives force. 6. South Carolina demanded the surrender After you have taught this chapter, your students of Fort Sumter, a federal garrison in should be able to answer the following questions: Charleston Harbor. 1. Why did the North and the South choose the path 7. In response, President Buchanan ordered of military conflict in 1861? the resupply of the fort by an unarmed merchant ship. When South Carolinians 2. What were the stated war aims and military strate- fired on the ship, Buchanan refused to gies of each side as the war progressed? order the navy to escort it into the harbor. 3. How and why did the Civil War become a “total 8. Congress responded with a compromise— war”? the Crittenden plan—which called for a constitutional amendment that would per- 4. What was the significance of emancipation toward manently protect slavery from federal in- the conduct and outcome of the war? terference in any state where it already ex- 5. How and why did the North win the war in 1865? isted and for the westward extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Califor- Chapter Annotated Outline nia border. Slavery would be barred north of the line and protected to the south, in- I. Secession and Military Stalemate, 1861–1862 cluding any territories “hereafter acquired.” A. The Secession Crisis 9. Lincoln upheld the first part of the Crit- 1. The Civil War was called the “War be- tenden plan to protect slavery where it al- tween the States” by Southerners, and the ready existed but was not willing to extend “War of Rebellion” by Northerners. the Missouri Compromise line to the Cali- 2. On December 20, 1860, the South Caro- fornia border. lina convention voted unanimously to se- 10. Lincoln declared that secession was illegal cede from the Union; “fire-eaters” else- and that acts against the Union consti- where in the Deep South quickly followed. tuted insurrection; he would enforce fed- 3. The secessionists met in Montgomery, eral laws as well as continue to possess Alabama, in February 1861 and pro- federal property in seceded states. claimed a new nation—the Confederate B. The Upper South Chooses Sides States of America. They adopted a new 1. Jefferson Davis forced the surrender of constitution and named Jefferson Davis as Fort Sumter on April 14, 1861; Lincoln its provisional president. called in state militiamen to put down the 4. Secessionist fervor was less intense in the insurrection. slave states of the Upper South, and their 2. Although some Northerners were wary of leaders proposed federal guarantees for Lincoln’s Republican administration, they slavery in states where it existed. remained supportive of the Union cause 5. In December 1860 President James and responded positively to Lincoln’s call Buchanan declared secession illegal but for the mobilization of the militias. 203 204 Chapter 14: Two Societies at War, 1861–1865 3. The states of Middle and Border South 10. Lincoln replaced General McClellan with were forced to choose sides in the dispute. Ambrose E. Burnside, who later resigned Support from these states was crucial to and was replaced by Joseph (“Fighting the Confederacy because of these states’ Joe”) Hooker. high populations and access to industry 11. The Union dominated the Ohio River Val- and fuel. ley, and in 1862 General Ulysses S. Grant 4. Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North took Fort Henry on the Tennessee River Carolina joined the Confederacy after the and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland fall of Fort Sumter. After Lincoln inter- River. vened, Missouri, Delaware, Maryland, and 12. In April a Confederate army caught Grant Kentucky stayed with the Union. by surprise near Shiloh; Grant forced a C. Setting War Objectives and Devising Confederate withdrawal but suffered a Strategies great number of casualties. 1. Jefferson Davis’s focus was on the defense 13. Union naval forces commanded by of the Confederacy rather than conquer- David G. Farragut captured New Orleans, ing western territories; the Confederacy the South’s financial center and largest only needed a military stalemate to guar- city, giving it a base for future naval oper- antee independence. ations. 2. Lincoln portrayed secession as an attack 14. Union victories in the West had signifi- on popular government, and he insisted cantly undermined Confederate strength on an aggressive military strategy and a in the Mississippi Valley. policy of unconditional surrender. II. Toward Total War 3. In July 1861 General Irwin McDowell’s A. Mobilizing Armies and Civilians troops were routed by P. G. T. Beaure- 1. The military carnage of 1862 forced both gard’s Confederate troops near Manassas sides into total war,utilizing all of the re- Creek (also called Bull Run). sources of both nations to win at all costs. 4. Lincoln replaced McDowell with George B. 2. After the defeat at Shiloh in April 1862, the McClellan and enlisted an additional mil- Confederate Congress imposed the first lion men, who would serve for three years legally binding draft in American history. in the newly created Army of the Potomac. 3. The Confederate draft had two loopholes: 5. In 1862 McClellan launched a thrust to- it exempted one white man for each ward Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate twenty slaves on a plantation, and it al- capital, but he moved too slowly and al- lowed drafted men to hire substitutes. lowed the Confederates to mount a 4. Some Southerners refused to serve, and counterattack. the Confederate government lacked the 6. Washington was threatened when a Con- power to compel them; the Confederate federate army under “Stonewall” Jackson Congress overrode state judges’ orders to marched north up the Shenandoah Valley free conscripted men. in western Virginia; Jackson won a series 5. To prevent sabotage and concerted resis- of small engagements, tying down the tance to the war effort in the Union, Lin- larger Union forces. coln suspended habeas corpus and im- 7. General Robert E. Lee launched an attack prisoned about 15,000 Confederate outside Richmond and suffered heavy sympathizers without trial. He also ex- casualties, but McClellan failed to exploit tended martial law to civilians who dis- the advantage, and Richmond remained couraged enlistment or resisted the draft. secure. 6. The Union government’s Militia Act of 8. Jackson and Lee routed a Union army in 1862 set a quota of volunteers for each the Second Battle of Bull Run in August state, which was increased by the Enroll- 1862. ment Act of 1863; Northerners, too, could 9. The battle at Antietam Creek on Septem- hire replacements. ber 17, 1862, was the bloodiest single day 7. Hostility to the Enrollment Act of 1863 in U.S. military history; Jackson’s troops draft and to African Americans spilled arrived just in time to save Lee’s troops into the streets of New York City when from defeat. Irish and German workers sacked the Chapter 14: Two Societies at War, 1861–1865 205 homes of Republicans, killed a dozen Afri- 7. The Union government created a modern can Americans, and forced hundreds of nation-state that raised revenue for the war black families from their homes. Lincoln by imposing broad-based taxes, borrowing rushed in Union troops to suppress the from the middle classes, and creating a na- insurrection. tional monetary system based on the Legal 8. The Union Army Medical Bureau and the Tender Act of 1862, which authored the United States Sanitary Commission pro- issue of $150 million in treasury notes, vided medical services to the soldiers and soon to be known as greenbacks. tried to prevent deaths from disease, which 8. The Confederacy lacked a central govern- killed more men than did the fighting. ment. It financed about 60 percent of its 9. The Confederate health system was poorly expenses with unbacked paper money, organized, and soldiers died from camp dis- which created inflation; citizens’ property eases at a higher rate than Union soldiers. rights were violated in order to sustain the 10. Women took a leading role in the Sanitary war. Commission and other wartime agencies; III. The Turning Point: 1863 Dorothea Dix was the first woman to re- A. Emancipation ceive a major federal appointment. 1. As war casualties mounted in 1862, Lin- 11. Women staffed growing bureaucracies, coln and some Republican leaders ac- volunteered to serve as nurses, and filled cepted Frederick Douglass’s argument and positions traditionally held by men. began to redefine the war as a struggle 12. A number of women took on military against slavery. duties as spies, scouts, and (disguised as 2. Exploiting the disorder of wartime, tens of men) soldiers. thousands of slaves escaped and sought B. Mobilizing Resources refuge behind Union lines, where they 1. The Union entered the war with a distinct were known as “contrabands.” advantage; its economy was far superior to 3. Congress passed the First Confiscation Act the South’s, and its arms factories were in 1861, which authorized the seizure of equipped for mass production. all property—including slaves—used to 2. The Confederates had substantial indus- support the rebellion. trial capacity, and by 1863 they were able 4. In April 1862 Congress enacted legislation to provide every infantryman with a mod- ending slavery in the District of Columbia, ern rifled-musket. and in June it enacted the Wilmot Proviso. 3. Confederate leaders counted on “King 5. In July 1862 the Second Confiscation Act Cotton”to provide revenue to purchase declared “forever free” all fugitive slaves clothes, boots, blankets, and weapons and all slaves captured by the Union army.