The American Civil War: This Mighty Scourge of War

327 Pages·2003·21.07 MB·English

by  Gary Gallagher

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ISBN 1 84176 736 0
SERIES EDITOR: Professor Robert O'Neill
Editor: Rebecca Cullen
Design: Ken Vail Graphic Design, Cambridge. UK
Index by David Worthington
Cartography by The Map Studio
Picture research by Image Select International
Origination by Grasmere Digital Imaging, Leeds, UK
Printed and bound in China by LRex Printing Company Ltd Front and back cover image: First Day at Gettysburg, by James
Walker, oil on canvas. (West Point Museum Art Collection.
03 04 05 06 07 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 United States Military Academy)
Contents
Foreword by James M. McPherson 7
Introduction 9
Chronology 17
Part l: The war in the East 1861-May 1863
Outbreak - Election: Southern secession; 26
creation of the confederacy
Warring sides - Strengths and weaknesses 32
of the Union and the Confederacy
The fighting - From First Manassas 36
to Chancellorsville
Common soldiers - Federals and Confederates 80
in camp and battle
Portrait of a soldier - Robert Augustus Moore, 85
a Confederate soldier
The world around war - Northern and Southern 89
society adjust to the demands of the war
Portrait of a civilian - Elizabeth Herndon Maury 97
on the Virginia home front
How the period ended - An uncertain future 101
Part ll: The war in the West 1861—July 1863
The fighting - Struggle for the heartland 105
Common soldiers - Billy Yank and Johnny Reb at war 146
Portrait of a soldier - John Beatty, a Union soldier 152
Portrait of a civilian - Kate Stone, a Confederate civilian 157
How the period ended - The promise of summer 160
6 The American Civil War
Part lII: The war in the East 1863-1865
The fighting - The war without Jackson to Lee's last stand 165
Portrait of a soldier - McHenry Howard's war 224
The world around war This horrid and senseless war...' 229
Portrait of a civilian - Ella Washington and the Federal Army 231
How the period ended - From Appomattox 236
to Liverpool
Part IV: The war in the West 1863-1865
The fighting - Overview and final stages 239
Common soldiers - Black soldiers and POWs 291
Portrait of a soldier - William Wilbur Edgerton 299
Portrait of a civilian - Emma LeConte 305
How the war ended Peace is declared 308
Conclusion and consequences - United States 310
Further reading 314
Index 318
Foreword
by James M. McPherson
The centrality of the Civil War to "perish from the earth." It did endure, and
American history is indisputable. At least in such a way as to give promise of long life.
620.000 soldiers lost their lives from 1861 Since 1865 no state or region has seriously
to 1865. This number constituted 2 percent threatened secession, not even during the
of the American population. If the same South's "massive resistance" to desegregation
percentage of Americans were to die in a war from 1954 to 1964.
fought today, the number of war dead would The war also gave America "a new birth
be five and one-half millions. The war also of freedom," as Lincoln put it at Gettysburg.
wreaked havoc and destruction in the South. Before 1865 the United States, a boasted
It wiped out two-thirds of the assessed value "land of liberty." was the largest
of Southern wealth (including slaves), slaveholding country in the world. "The
destroyed more than half of the region's monstrous injustice of slavery," Lincoln
farm machinery, consumed two-fifths of had said in 1854, "deprives our republican
Southern livestock, and killed one-quarter example of its just influence in the world—
of Southern white males between the ages of enables the enemies of free institutions,
20 and 40. In 1865 the South presented a with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites."
bleak landscape of desolation. Burned-out With the abolition of slavery by Northern
plantations, fields growing up in weeds, and victory, that particular "monstrous Injustice"
railroads without tracks, bridges, or rolling and "hypocrisy'' came to an end. As Mark
stock marked the trail of conquering and Twain wrote in 1873, the Civil War
defeated armies. "uprooted institutions that were centuries
old, changed the politics of a people,
The consequences of the war for the
transformed the social life of half the
country as a whole, however, were more
country, and wrought so profoundly upon
positive than negative. Northern victory
the entire national character that the
resolved two festering issues that had
influence cannot be measured short of two
plagued the United States since its founding:
or three generations."
whether this fragile experiment of a
democratic republic could survive in a world How did all this happen? That is the
where most republics through the ages had question the four authors of this volume
been swept into the dustbin of history; and undertake to answer. In four sections that
whether the house divided would continue weave together the story of military
to endure half slave and half free. Many campaigns in the Eastern and Western
Americans had doubted whether the republic theaters with the impact of the war on
would survive; many Europeans regularly the home front, spiced with stories of
predicted its demise; some Americans individual men and women who
believed in the right of secession and experienced the conflict, this book sets
periodically threatened to invoke it; forth the essential history of the war. The
eleven states did invoke it in 1860-61. four authors are in the top rank of Civil War
As Abraham Lincoln said in his address at historians. Their lucid prose, the clarity of
Gettysburg in 1863. the conflict was a test the maps, and the well-selected illustrations
whether a nation "conceived in Liberty, and offer a rich feast for readers, who will take
dedicated to the proposition that all men are away an understanding of how and why
created equal" could "long endure" or would the war came out as it did.
8 The American Civil War
The authors make clear that this outcome The third critical point came in the
was not inevitable. Although the North summer and fall of 1863 when Gettysburg.
had superior numbers and resources, these Vicksburg, and Chattanooga turned the tide
did not assure victory. To win the war, toward ultimate Northern victory. But one
Union forces had to invade, conquer, more reversal of that tide seemed possible in
occupy, and control key parts of the Souths the summer of 1864 when appalling Union
750,000 square miles and destroy its armies casualties and apparent lack of progress,
and infrastructure. The Confederacy, by especially in Virginia, brought the North to
contrast, began the conflict in political and the brink of peace negotiations and the
military control of this territory. To win the election of a Democratic president. But
war, it needed only to defend what it already Sherman's capture of Atlanta and Sheridan's
had in 1861 and to wear out the will of its victories in the Shenandoah Valley turned
enemy to continue fighting. In these terms the tide one last time. Only then did it
the Confederacy came close to winning on become possible, after Lincoln's reelection, to
several occasions, as this book makes clear. speak of the inevitability of Northern victory.
There were many twists and turns in the The consequences of that victory have
four years of war. many reversals of profoundly affected the course of American
momentum that frustrated imminent victory history—indeed, world history—since 1865.
by one side or the other. This book identifies This volume provides the essential
the four major turning points of the war. The foundation for an understanding of those
first came in the summer of 1862 when consequences.
counter-offensives by Confederate
commanders Robert E. Lee and Stonewall James M. McPherson,
Jackson in Virginia and Braxton Bragg and George Henry Davis '86 Professor of
Kirby Smith in Tennessee and Kentucky American History, Princeton University
reversed the previous four months of Union
naval and military success. These Northern
victories had gained control of much of the
vital interior network of the Cumberland,
Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers and of the
South Atlantic coast, had captured New
Orleans, Nashville, and Memphis, and had
approached to within five miles of the
Confederate capital of Richmond, whose
fall seemed imminent in May 1862.
The Southern counteroffensives prolonged
and intensified the war and created the
potential for Confederate success, which
appeared imminent before each of the next
three turning points. The first of these
occurred in the fall of 1862, when battles
at Antietam and Perryville blunted
Confederate invasions, forestalled European
mediation and recognition of the South,
perhaps presented a Democratic victors in
the Northern congressional elections that
might have inhibited Lincoln's ability to
carry on the war, and set the stage for the
Emancipation Proclamation which enlarged
the scope and purpose of the war.
Introduction:The nation in crisis
America in the mid-nineteenth century quest for land that sparked the settlement
was a nation of conflicting ideological and of the west would actually accelerate rather
cultural identities attempting to forge out than deter urban and industrial
of its agrarian traditions and industrial development. The very nature of the
impulses a republic that remained migration west was as much a cause as it
committed to the ideals of its founding was a consequence of the ideological
fathers. Bound by a common belief in differences and sectionalism that prevailed
freedom and independence as realized in the decades before the Civil War.
through democratic principles and Significantly, the migration and settlement
republican virtues, Americans came to of the west transformed an agrarian society
believe that their nation was God's chosen that defined itself as a virtuous farming
nation. However, although the country republic into an industrial society that
came to accept the free-labor ideology as
had been unified for more than 60 years,
paramount in achieving republican dreams
political, economic, social, and cultural
of a truly free and democratic society.
differences stretching back to the nation's
origins brought about a crisis for Beginning in the 1820s, westward
the young republic in 1861. expansion flowed along America's natural
arteries, such as the Ohio and Mississippi
Rivers and their tributaries, which allowed
The development of an
western farmers to channel goods south to
industrial society New Orleans. After the 1830s, however,
steamboats, canals, and railroads redirected
In the early nineteenth century, the United western trade to the flourishing urban
States was predominantly an agrarian markets of the northeast. The cumulative
society. Land was fundamental to freedom, impact of more effective transportation
self-sufficiency, and independence. Most resulted in widening market opportunities.
Americans believed that owning land and Simultaneously, the small manufacturing
tilling the soil nurtured freedom and initiatives shifted from artisan shops to
independence, and that those without land, small factories, and merchant capitalists in
engaged primarily in manufacturing, posed the northeastern cities assumed the lead in
the greatest threat to that freedom. So long as organizing production for the expanding
land was plentiful, Americans believed, they markets. In the four decades before the
could maintain the virtues granted them as Civil War, urbanization and manufacturing
the rightful beneficiaries of republican reinforced each other in their growth
liberties. They could therefore escape poverty, patterns and came to shape the character
dependency on others, and overpopulation of the North.
produced by a manufacturing society. Thus,
Although Southern whites moved west
the desire to own land was at the core of the
for basically the same reasons that
initial republican vision, as conceived by
Northerners did, slavery provided a different
revolutionary leaders such as Thomas
experience. The cotton industry was directly
Jefferson.
linked to the size and substance of slave
Few Americans of Jefferson's generation, plantations. Between 1790 and 1860, cotton
however, could have imagined that the production exploded from 3,000 bales to
10 The American Civil War
4,500,000 bales. Like the farmers of the The antebellum wests, North and South,
Old Northwest who responded optimistically played integral roles in the economic
to market opportunities, planters and development of the nation because they
ambitious slaveholders responded to market were linked to eastern markets. By the 1840s,
incentives. Still, the slaveholder had little the west had become a principal market for
incentive to invest in labor-saving manufactured goods and provided food for
machinery and instead invested in land factory workers who were being pulled to
and slaves. northern cities by employment. Still, cotton
dominated American exports after the
Like the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, the Tennessee mid-1830s and served as the basis for
and Cumberland Rivers had been arteries of national credit. As the northeastern
economic exchange in the decades before the
economy continued to develop and
Civil War but the outbreak of war changed them
diversify, the economy of the South
into routes of military invasion. (Harper's Weekly.
public domain) remained predominantly agrarian.
Introduction 11
These east-west connections brought an environment conducive to capitalist
about by economic changes galvanized and expansion. This Protestant ethic prompted
shaped antebellum American culture and many Northerners to embrace reform
spawned a transportation revolution that movements that sought to regulate society
brought not only numerous Americans by helping persons who lacked self-control.
into the market place, but also new By the 1850s, they had targeted the
expectations. The revolution in transport containment of slavery as one of their
encouraged economic diversification, ethnic primary interests.
diversity, and an emphasis on free labor. Though there was a small aspiring
These gave rise to an American middle class middle class of merchants, professionals,
characterized by a materialism and moralism and tradesmen in the South, the region was
that sought to democratize the market bound to an agricultural slave society that
place. Middle-class ideals harmonized repudiated the wage earner. Consequently,
with the Protestant work ethic to shape middle class reform remained predominantly
a northern phenomenon.
The challenge to slavery
In a republic that lacked any uniform
concept of citizenship, an interpretive
consensus of the Constitution, and a large
standing army and navy, and where liberty
and slavery coexisted, perhaps the only
clearly defined aspect was that states
possessed the exclusive rights to regulate
slavery within their jurisdiction. By 1820,
however, even those rights were being
challenged. The congressional sessions of
1819 and 1820 concerning Missouri's
admission to the Union as a slave state
attested to the unsettling aspects of
territorial expansion. The debates over
slavery brought Northern frustrations about
the institution to a climax and for the first
time disclosed a bipartisan Northern
majority determined to contain the
institution. The conclusion of the debates
produced the Missouri Compromise, which
admitted Missouri as a slave state and
Maine as a free state. Still, Missouri's
southern boundary, the infamous 36-30 line,
was extended westward through the
remainder of the Louisiana Purchase
territory. Above the imaginary line slavery
was prohibited and below it the institution
was permitted.
The combination of the financial panic of
1819 and the Missouri Compromise forced
the fracture of the Republican Party. What
12 The American Civil War
The antebellum South was a land of prosperous cotton
plantations. Even after the war. cotton remained king of
agriculture. (Edimedia)
emerged in its place was a Democratic Party
that spoke to those who considered
themselves victims of the ever-changing
market place, and a Whig Party that spoke
to those who considered themselves the
winners or benefactors of the changing
market place. By and large, Democrats,
largely rural, championed a negative use of
the government in the economy, attacked
banks, opposed tariffs, and wanted to be left
alone in their manners and morals. Whigs
promoted a favorable and progressive use of
the government in promoting economic
change, and endorsed banks, higher tariffs,
and free labor.
Ironically, in the pre-Civil War decades,
these conflicting beliefs formed a strong
concept of Union. However, they also
allowed a significant degree of sectional
strife to emerge. In 1832-33, in response to
the tariff of 1828, South Carolina Planters
led by John C. Calhoun forced a theory of
nullification on the presidency of Andrew
Jackson, whereby an individual state could
nullify a federal law: that is, declare the law
void within its borders. A crisis was averted
as both sides compromised and claimed
victory, but the significance of nullification
was that Southerners came to believe they known, continued in the 1840s with the
were a permanent minority. On the heels of admission of Florida and Texas as slave
Nat Turner's bloody slave uprising in states. The crisis over Texas's admission
Southampton, Virginia, in the summer of erupted in a war with Mexico that lasted
1831, Southerners convinced themselves two years and ended with the acquisition of
that their worst fears were before them. In Mexican territory. By gaining a land mass
the context of the Missouri Crisis, the that nearly doubled the size of the United
Southern populace came to believe that the States, Americans faced the continuing
horror of losing independence could not be dilemma of making the Federal government
escaped. Concern over economic decline, responsible for protecting the baggage of
combined with alarm over slave uprisings slavery that accompanied expansion.
and the rise of abolition in the North, By mid-century, American republicanism
encouraged several Southern states to was facing a national crisis. The acquisition
tighten slave codes and pass laws to of Mexican land forced Americans to
suppress abolitionist speeches in the South. consider whether the newly expanded
The expansionist impulses of Americans, Union would be one with or without slavery,
or 'Manifest Destiny' as it came to be Land was losing its value in terms of