Chapter 14*: The Civil War, 1861-1865 I. The Secession Crisis II. The Mobilization of the North III. The Mobilization of the South IV. Strategy and Diplomacy

Chapter 14*: The Civil War,

1861-1865

I. The Secession CrisisII. The Mobilization of the NorthIII. The Mobilization of the South

IV. Strategy and DiplomacyV. Campaigns and Battles

Alan Brinkley. The Unfinished Nation. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1997.

The Secession Crisis

"Southern Nationalism" – the fire-eaters began to demand an end to the Union after Lincoln’s election as president

The Secession Crisis: Withdrawal of the South

South Carolina called a special convention, which voted unanimously to secede on December 20, 1860, Mississippi (1/9/1861), Florida (1/10/1861), Alabama (1/11/1861), Georgia (1/19/1861), Louisiana (1/26/1861), and Texas (2/1/1861) had all seceded by the time Lincoln took office


In February 1861 representatives of the seven seceded states met in Montgomery, Alabama to form the Confederate States of America, sent commissioners to Washington to ask for the surrender of Sumter; instead Buchanan ordered a ship of supplies to be carried to Fort Sumter, Confederate cannons opened fire on the ship and turned it back, the first shots between North and South had been fired

The Process of Secession

The Secession Crisis: The Failure of Compromise

Crittenden Compromise (proposed by John J. Crittenden of Kentucky) called for several Constitutional amendments, which would guarantee the permanent existence of slavery in the slave states, reestablish the Missouri Compromise line in all present and future territory of the US, keep in place the Fugitive Slave Law, and protect slavery in Washington DC, Republicans opposed it since it would allow slavery to expand


Lincoln’s Inaugural Address – no state could leave the Union since it was older than the Constitution, the government would "hold, occupy and possess" federal property in the seceded states (Fort Sumter), Lincoln sent a relief expedition to Fort Sumter explaining to South Carolina that there would be no attempt to send troops or munitions unless the supply ships met with resistance


Confederate reaction was to order General P.G.T. Beauregard to take the island by force if necessary, Anderson surrendered after two days of bombardment (April 12 – 13, 1861) the Civil War had begun

Reactions:

CSA Sec of State Robert Toombs: warned that firing on Ft. Sumter would “inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen…You will wantonly strike a hornet’s nest which extends from the mountains to the oceans, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson: “…the attack on Fort Sumter crystallized the north into a unit and the hope of mankind was saved.”


Virginia (4/17/1861), Arkansas (5/6/1861), Tennessee (6/8/1861), and North Carolina (5/20/1861) seceded after the fall of Fort Sumter


Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri cast their lot with the Union under heavy political and military pressure from Washington DC


Ralph Waldo Emerson – “I do not see how a barbarous community and civilized community can constitute one state”


Anonymous Slaveowner – “These [Northern] people hate us, annoy us, and would have us assassinated by our slaves if they dared. They are a different people from us, whether better or worse, and there is no love between us. Why then continue together?”

The Secession Crisis: The Opposing Sides

Northern Advantages – population more then twice as large as the South (four times as large as the non-slave population) which allowed for more manpower in the army and more workers/farmers for wartime production, an advanced industrial system that allowed the North to manufacture almost all of its war materials, while the South had to rely on imports from Europe for most of its material, a better transportation system with twice as much railroad trackage as the South and a much better integrated system of railroad lines


Southern Advantages – fighting was on their own land with local support and familiarity with the territory, inadequate transportation for the army of the North with long lines of communication among a hostile population, the population of the South clearly supported the war whereas support for the war in the North was divided and unsteady, the South believed that foreign dependence on Southern cotton production would force England and France to intervene on the side of the Confederacy

Union and Confederate Resources

Mobilization of the North

The Republican Party enacted an aggressively nationalistic program to promote economic development, especially in the West

Mobilization of the North: Economic Measures

Homestead Act of 1862 – permitted any citizen or prospective citizen to claim 160 acres of public land and to purchase it for a small fee after living on it for 5 years


Morrill Land Grant Act – transferred substantial public acreage to the state governments which were to sell the land and use proceeds to finance public education, this created new state colleges, universities


Raised tariffs to all time high, incorporated two federally chartered corporations (the Union Pacific Railroad Company – build westward from Omaha and the Central Pacific Railroad Company – build eastward from California) to work on the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, each company was provided free public lands and generous loans to complete the project


National Bank Acts of 1863 – 1864 created a new national banking system, in which existing banks could join the system if they had enough capital and were willing to invest 1/3rd of it in government securities, this system allowed member banks to issue U.S. Treasury notes as currency which eliminated much of the chaos and uncertainty in the nations currency and created a uniform system of national bank notes


Financing the war – levied taxes, issuing paper currency and borrowing, Congress levied an income tax for the first time (10% on incomes over $5,000), Greenbacks were paper currency, backed not by gold or silver but by good faith and credit of the government (in 1864 the Greenback dollar was worth 39% of a gold dollar


At the end of the war the Greenback was worth 67% of a gold dollar), the government only issued $450 million worth of paper currency during the whole war which resulted in inflation, the Treasury persuaded ordinary citizens to buy over 400 million worth of bonds – first example of mass financing, the total cost of the war was $2.6 billion which was mostly financed by banks and large financial interests

Mobilization of the North: Raising Union Armies

In 1861 the U.S. Army consisted of 16,000 troops, mostly stationed in the West to protect settlers from Indians, Lincoln called for an increase of 23,000 in the regular army, Congress authorized enlisting 500,000 volunteers for three-year terms, after an initial rise in enlistments they gradually began to decline


In 1863 Congress was forced to pass National Draft Law, virtually all adult males were eligible to be drafted but a man could escape service by hiring someone to go in his place or by paying the government a fee of $300

Mobilization of the North: Wartime Politics

Opposition to the draft was widespread among laborers, and immigrants, a draft riot broke out in New York City in 1863 and Irish workers were at the center of the violence (they were angry that black strikebreakers has been used against them in a recent longshoreman’s strike), the Irish blamed the African Americans for the war and thought the war was being fought for the benefit of slaves who would be competing with white workers for jobs


Peace Democrats (Copperheads) were opposed to the war, feared that agriculture and the northwest were losing influence to the rise of big industry and the East, and that Republican Nationalism was eroding states’ rights


Lincoln assembled a cabinet representing every faction of the Republican Party, sent troops into battle (it was a domestic insurrection not a war) without asking Congress, increased the size of the regular army without receiving legislative authority, unilaterally proclaimed a naval blockade of the south


Lincoln’s greatest political problem was the widespread popular opposition to the war mobilized by the Peace Democrats, so he ordered military arrests of civilian dissenters and suspended the rights of habeas corpus (the right of an arrested person to a speedy, public trial), at first this was only used in the border states, but in 1862 Lincoln proclaimed that all persons who discouraged enlistments or engaged in disloyal practices were subject to martial law


In all more than 13,000 people were arrested and imprisoned for varying lengths of time, the most prominent Copperhead (Clement L. Vallandingham, a member of Congress from Ohio) was seized by military authorities and exiled to the Confederacy after he made a speech claiming that the purpose of the war was to free the blacks and enslave the whites


Lincoln also defied the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Taney issued a writ in the case Ex Parte Merryman requiring Lincoln to release an imprisoned secessionist leader from Maryland – Lincoln simply ignored the writ, after the war in 1866 the Supreme Court ruled in Ex Parte Milligan that military trials in areas where the civil courts existed were unconstitutional


The Election of 1864 took place amongst considerable political dissension, the Republicans had suffered heavy losses in the Congressional elections of 1862, and in response Republican leaders combined all the groups that supported the war into the Union Party and nominated Lincoln for president, Andrew Johnson (a war Democrat from Tennessee who opposed his state's decision for seceding) for vice president.


The Democrats nominated George B. McClellan, a celebrated former Union general who had been relieved of his command by Lincoln, adopted a platform of denouncing the war and calling for a truce (the Democrats were clearly the peace party in the campaign), tried to profit from growing war weariness and from Union's discouraging military position in the summer of 1864


Lincoln won the election of 1864 by a vote of 212 – 21 in the Electoral College but only by 10% in the popular vote, his victory was largely due to Northern military victories (the capture of Atlanta rejuvenated Northern morale and boosted Republican prospects in the election) and the fact that Lincoln made special arrangements to allow Union troops to vote

Sherman’s March to the Sea

Mobilization of the North: The Politics of Emancipation

Radical Republicans – Thaddeus Stevens (PA), Charles Sumner (MA), and Benjamin Wade (OH) wanted to use the war to abolish slavery immediately and completely


Conservative Republicans – favored slower, more gradual, and less disruptive processes of ending slavery, Lincoln embraced a cautious view on emancipation


Confiscation Act (1861) – declared all slaves used for “insurrectionary” purposes (in support of the Confederate military effort) would be considered freed


Subsequent laws in the Spring of 1862 abolished slavery in Washington DC and the western territories, provided compensation for owners who freed their slaves


Second Confiscation Act (July 1862) declared free the slaves of persons aiding and supporting the insurrection (whether or not the slaves themselves were doing so) and authorized the President to employ African Americans, including freed slaves, as soldiers

African-American Troops


Most of the North slowly accepts emancipation as a central war aim in order to justify the tremendous sacrifices that were being made to win the war


Emancipation Proclamation – after the Union victory at Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln announced that he would use his war powers to issue an executive order (to take effect on January 1, 1863) declaring forever free slaves in all areas of the Confederacy except those under Union control (Tennessee, western Virginia, and southern Louisiana), the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to the border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware,


The immediate effect of the Proclamation was limited since it only applied to slaves still under Confederate control, but it was very significant because it showed that the war was being fought not only to preserve the union but also to eliminate slavery, eventually the Proclamation became a practical reality and freed thousands of slaves


By the end of the war Missouri, Maryland, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana had abolished slavery, and the final step came in 1865 when Congress approved and enough states ratified the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery as an institution in all parts of the United States


In the first months of the Civil War blacks were not allowed to serve in the Union army, there were a few black regiments that did serve, but after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued black enlistment increased rapidly with 186,000 men eventually serving in the Union army


Some black regiments were fighting units (the 54th Massachusetts) with white commanding officers, but most black soldiers received menial tasks behind the lines, black mortality rate was higher than the rate for white soldiers because many died from disease while working in unsanitary conditions


African American soldiers were paid 1/3rd less than white soldiers (until the law was changed in 1864), and if African American soldiers were captured by the Confederate army they were either returned to slavery or executed (at Fort Pillow in Tennessee 260 African American soldiers were executed after surrendering)

Mobilization of the North: The War and Economic

Development The Civil War did not industrialize the

North, that had already been occurring, and in some instance the war hurt the economic development of the North by cutting manufacturers off from their southern markets and sources of raw materials, also by diverting needed labor and resources to military purposes


The Civil War helped the economic development of the North in some ways as well, coal production increased by nearly 20%, railroad facilities improved through the adoption of a standard gauge on new lines being built, the loss of farm labor forced many farmers to increase the mechanization of agriculture as more workers left the farms to fight in the war


Prices rose by 70% during the war while wages only rose by 40%, which resulted in a dramatic loss of purchasing power for laborers in the North, liberalized immigration laws allowed a flood of new workers into the labor market and helped keep wages low, increasing mechanization meant that many skilled workers lost their jobs, this economic environment saw the first national unions being formed (coal miners, railroad engineers, and others) and being bitterly opposed and suppressed by employers

Mobilization of the North: Women, Nursing, and the War

Women were thrust into new and unfamiliar roles during the Civil War, they took over positions vacated by men and worked as teachers, retail clerks, office workers, mill/factory hands, responding not only to the demand for labor but also to their own economic needs, above all women entered nursing (a field previously dominated by men)


Dorothea Dix as a member of the U.S. Sanitary Commission mobilized large numbers of female nurses to serve in field hospitals, by the end of the 1800’s nursing would become an almost entirely female profession, male doctors during the Civil War objected to working with female nurses but women argued that nursing fell within their appropriate roles since it was a nurturing and caring profession similar to the roles they already played as wives and mothers.

Mobilization of the NorthEventually female nurses will

stand up to doctors they feel are incompetent and challenge the dominant role of males in medical professions


Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony found the National Woman’s Loyal League in 1863 worked simultaneously for the abolition of slavery and the awarding of suffrage to women


Clara Barton (who would go on to form the American Red Cross) said in 1888 “At the war’s end, woman was at least 50 years in advance of the normal position which continued peace would have assigned her.” Many women looked back on the Civil War as a crucial moment in the redefinition of female roles and in the awakening of a sense of independence and new possibilities


Despite all of the improvements in nursing and sanitation twice as many men died of diseases (malaria, dysentery, typhoid, gangrene and others) as died in combat

The Mobilization of the South

Government of the Confederacy was moved to Richmond following the secession of Virginia

The Mobilization of the South: Confederate Government

The Confederate Constitution was almost identical to the Constitution of US but it did have some notable exceptions, it acknowledged the sovereignty of individual states (although not the right to secession), it specifically sanctioned slavery and made abolition practically impossible


Jefferson Davis was elected President, Alexander Stephens was elected Vice President without opposition to a six-year term, Davis was a moderate secessionist and Stevens actually argued against secession, the Confederate government much like the Union government would be dominated by moderates throughout the war


Jefferson Davis was a reasonably able administrator, he encountered relatively little interference from his cabinet, he served as his own Secretary of War, but he rarely provided genuinely national leadership, he spent too much time on routine items


There were no formal political parties in the Confederacy, but the congressional and popular politics were filled with dissension, some white southerners opposed secession and the war altogether


Many whites in the “backcountry” and “upcountry” regions refused to recognize the new Confederate government or to serve in the Confederate army, they began to be more openly critical as the course of the war turned against the Confederacy

The Mobilization of the South: Money and Manpower

Financing the Confederate war effort was a monumental and ultimately impossible task. The Confederacy faced significant economic challenges since they were unaccustomed to significant tax burdens, it depended on a small and unstable banking system that had little capital to lend (most wealth was tied up in slaves and land therefore was not liquid), the only specie in the South was seized from U.S.

Mints located there and was only worth about $1 million


The Confederate congress tried not to tax the people directly instead requisitioned funds from individual states, most states were unwilling to tax their citizens and paid their shares (when they paid them at all) with bonds or dubious notes, eventually had to pass an income tax in 1863 which could be paid by farmers "in kind" or with produce (the income tax only raised about 1% of the total costs of the war),


The Confederate government issued bonds in such great quantities that the public lost faith in them and stopped buying them, and attempts to borrow money from Europe using cotton as collateral did not work out much better


As a result, the Confederacy began issuing paper currency in 1861 (which is the least financially stable of the financing methods available to them), by 1864 the Confederate government had issued $1.5 billion in paper money, but did not establish a uniform system of currency, the national government, states, cities, and private banks all issued their own bank notes, produced widespread chaos, and confusion, resulted in disastrous inflation (prices rose 9,000% over the course of the war)


The Confederacy began the war by calling for volunteers to serve in the army but by the end of 1861 the number of volunteers was declining,


Conscription Act of 1862 – all white males between 18-35 were drafted for 3 years of military service, could avoid service with a substitute and exempted one white man for every 20 slaves he owned, poor white southerners objected to the draft so much so that it was repealed in 1863, “It’s a rich man’s war, but a poor man’s fight”


Slaves were used by the Confederate military for manual labor, cooking, laundry, and other menial tasks freeing up white men to fight in the war, even so they faced a serious manpower shortage, in 1864 the draft expanded to include 17 year-olds and increased the eligible age of service to 50 years-old, by 1865 there were 100,000 desertions prompting the Confederate congress to draft 300,000 slaves into military service

The Mobilization of the South: States’ Rights vs. Centralization State's Rights enthusiasts obstructed the

conduct of war, they did not like answering to any national authority, restricted Davis's ability to impose martial law and suspend habeas corpus, obstructed conscription, recalcitrant governors (Joseph Brown in Georgia, and Zebulon Vance in North Carolina) tried to keep their own troops apart from Confederate forces and insisted on hoarding surplus supplies for their own states’


The Confederate government enacted a "food draft" which allowed soldiers to feed themselves by seizing crops from farms in their path, impressed slaves over the objections of their owners to work as laborers on military projects, seized control of railroads and shipping, imposed regulations on industry, limited corporate profits

The Mobilization of the South: Economic and Social Effects of

the War The Civil War had devastating

economic effects on the South, it cut off planters and producers from markets in the North on which they depended, it made the sale of cotton overseas much more difficult, the war robbed farms and industry of necessary labor, southern production declines by 1/3rd during the Civil War


Almost all battles occurred in Confederacy, railroads destroyed, farm land ruined, the North’s naval blockade was so effective that by the end of the war the South experienced massive shortages of almost everything (most devastating was food and medical care)


Increasing instability in Southern society caused major food riots in Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Richmond, resistance to conscription, food impressments, and taxation increased throughout the Confederacy, hoarding was common and the black market thrived


While the men were off fighting women had to run the farms, manage the slaves, plow fields, harvest crops, some women worked for the government in Richmond, others became nurses or school teachers


Women began to question assumptions that they were unsuitable for certain activities, that they were not fit to participate actively in the public sphere, the war created a gender imbalance – woman had no choice but to find employment (no men left to be the head of household)


Confederate leaders were terrified of slave revolts during the Civil War so they enforced the slave codes and other regulations with particular severity, nonetheless many slaves managed to escape and get to the Union army in search of freedom, those that did not escape were certainly resistant to the authority that was left on the farms and plantations

Strategy and Diplomacy

Militarily, the initiative in the Civil War lay with the North since it needed to defeat the Confederacy while the South needed only to avoid defeat


Diplomatically, the initiative in the Civil War lay with the South since it needed to enlist the recognition and support of foreign governments while the North wanted only to preserve the status quo

Strategy and Diplomacy: The Commanders

Lincoln’s realized that numbers and resources were on his side and he could take advantage of the North’s material advantages, his objectives for the North’s armies were the destruction of the Confederate armies, not the occupation of Southern territory

Strategy and DiplomacyLincoln first assigned Winfield

Scott as commanding general, later replaced by McClellan, and finally found an able general in Grant in 1864

Strategy and DiplomacyLincoln’s handling of the war effort

was constantly scrutinized by the Committee on the Conduct of the War, which was led by Benjamin Wade (OH) and it complained constantly of the insufficient ruthlessness of Northern generals, Radicals on the committee believed that there was a secret sympathy among the officers for slavery, often got in the way


Early in 1862 Jefferson Davis named Robert E. Lee as his principal military adviser, but Lee quickly left Richmond to lead the army in the field and Davis planned military strategy alone


Many of the officers on both sides were graduates of West Point and Annapolis, were closely acquainted and in some cases friendly with their counterparts on the other side


Grant and Sherman were able to see beyond their academic training and envision a new kind of warfare in which destruction of resources was as important as battlefield tactics

Strategy and Diplomacy: The Role of Sea Power

Union had an overwhelming advantage in naval power and was able to enforce the blockade of the Southern coast, and assisted Union armies in field operations


The blockade was never fully effective but it did have a major impact on the southern economy, keeping most ocean going ships out of southern ports, some blockade runners got through but not enough to help the economy of the South


The South placed iron plating on the hull of the captured U.S. frigate Merrimac (the Confederates renamed it the Virginia), the Virginia left Norfolk in 1862 to attack a blockading squadron of wooden ships at Hampton Roads, it destroyed two ships and scattered the rest, the next day, the Monitor arrived in Hampton Roads and put an end to the Virginia’s raids and preserved the blockade, neither ship could sink the other

The Virginia Theater,

1861-1863


The Confederacy experimented with small torpedo boats and hand powered submarines, in addition the iron-clad Virginia, but nothing was able to break the blockade


The Union navy was particularly important in the Western theater of the war, specifically along the Mississippi River, where the navy could transport troops and supplies to assist the army in attacking fixed Confederate land positions

Strategy and Diplomacy: Europe and the Disunited States

Charles Francis Adams was the American foreign minister to London, at the beginning of the war England and France were sympathetic to the Confederacy since they imported much of their cotton from the South and were eager to weaken the US (who was rapidly becoming an economic rival of England), but France was unwilling to intervene unless England did so first


English liberals considered the war a struggle between the free and slave labor, urged their followers to support the Union cause, workers who were limited in their voting rights expressed sympathy for the North, especially after the Emancipation Proclamation


King Cotton Diplomacy – the South argued that access to Southern cotton was vital to the England and French textile industries – failed, English had surplus of cotton, which was imported from Egypt, India, and other sources instead, and no European nation offered diplomatic recognition to the confederacy or intervened in the war


Neutrality implied that the two sides to the conflict had equal stature, but the Union insisted that the conflict was a domestic insurrection, not a war between two legitimate governments


Trent Affair – two confederate diplomats slipped through the Union blockade to Havana, boarded an English steamer (the Trent) for England, the San Jacinto stopped the British vessel and arrested the diplomats which was a clear violation of maritime law, eventually the diplomats were released with an indirect apology


The Confederacy buys six ships (commerce destroyers) from British shipyards (the Alabama, the Florida, the Shenandoah) which the Union protests is a violation of neutrality (arming a belligerent)


Except for Texas, which joined the confederacy, all the western states and territories remained officially loyal to the Union, southerners and southern sympathizers were active trying to encourage secession in the West, attempting to enlist white settlers and Indian tribes to support the Confederacy


There was vicious fighting in Kansas and Missouri, William C. Quantrill became a captain in the Confederate army, organized a group of guerilla fighters and terrorized the Kansas-Missouri border, Quantrill’s band of fighters were particularly vicious and were notorious for killing all in their path, they killed 150 men, women, and children in Lawrence, Kansas


Jayhawkers were Union sympathizers in Kansas who crossed into Missouri and exacted reprisals for actions of Quantrill and Confederate guerillas in Kansas, one Jayhawk unit was commanded by John Brown’s son and another by Susan B. Anthony’s brother


The border areas of Kansas and Missouri were among the bloodiest and most terrorized places in the U.S. during the Civil War


Confederate agents attempted to negotiate alliances with the Five Civilized Tribes, but the Indians supported the North due to general hostility to slavery, Indian regiments fought for both sides

Campaigns and BattlesThere were was no foreign intervention.

Americans, four long years of bloody combat produced more carnage than any other war in American history, before or since. More than 618,000 Americans died in the course of the Civil War, far more than the 115,000 who perished in WWI or the v318,000 who died in WWII—more, indeed, than died in all other American wars prior to Vietnam combined.

For every 100,000 people in the population:

In the Civil War, 2,000 died.

In WWI, the number was 109.

In WWII, the number was 241.

CAMPAIGNS AND BATTLES

VIRGINIA THEATER

July 1861-July 1862

August-December 1862

1863

Campaigns and Battles: The Opening Clashes, 1861

The Union and Confederacy fought their first major battle of the war in northern Virginia. A Union army of over 30K under the command of General Irvin McDowell was stationed just outside Washington. About 30 miles away, at Manassas, was a slightly smaller Confederate army under PGT Beauregard. If the Northern army could destroy the Southern one, Union leaders believed, the war might end at once. In mid-July, McDowell marched his inexperienced troops toward Manassas. Beauregard moved his troops behind Bull Run, a small stream north of Manassas, and called for reinforcements, which reached him the day before the battle. The two armies were now approximately the same size.

Campaigns and Battles: The Opening Clashes, 1861 On July 21, in the First Battle of Bull Run, McDowell almost succeeded in dispersing the Confederate forces. But the Southerns managed to stop a last strong Union assault and then began a savage counterattack. The Union troops, exhausted after hours of hot, hard fighting, suddenly panicked. They broke ranks and retreated chaotically….The Confederates, as disorganized by victory as the Union forces were by defeat, and short of supplies and transportation, did not pursue. The battle was a severe blow to Union morale and to the President’s confidence in his officers. It also dispelled the illusion that the war would be a quick one.

Campaigns and Battles: The Opening Clashes, 1861

Elsewhere, in Missouri, rebel forces gathered behind Governor Claiborne Jackson and other state officials who wanted to take the state out of the Union. Nathaniel Lyon, who commanded a small regular US Army force in St. Louis, moved his troops into southern Missouri to face the secessionists. On August 10, at the battle of Wilson’s Creek, he was defeated and killed—but not before he had seriously weakened the striking power of the Confederates. Unionists held the state.In the western mountains of Virginia, G.B. McClellan, who had moved east from Ohio, ‘liberated’ the anti-secessionists. They remained loyal (1863/statehood). This was a propaganda, not a strategic victory for the Union.

Campaigns and Battles: The Western Theater, 1862

After the battle at Bull Run, military operations in the East settled into a long and frustrating stalemate. The first decisive operations in 1862 occurred, therefore, in the western theater. Here the Union forces were trying to seize control of the southern part of the Mississippi River; this would divide the Confederacy and give the North easy transportation into the heart of the South. Northern soldiers advanced on the southern Mississippi from both the north an south, moving down the river from Kentucky and up from the Gulf of Mexico toward New Orleans.


In April, a Union squadron of ironclads and wooden vessels commanded by David G. Farragut gathered in the Gulf of Mexico, then smashed past weak Confederate forts near the mouth of the Mississippi, and form there sailed up to New Orleans. The city was virtually defenseless because the Confederate high command had expected the attack to come from the north. The surrender of New Orleans on April 25, 1862, was the first major Union victory and an important turning point in the war. From then on, the mouth of the Mississippi was closed to Confederate trade, and the South’s largest city and most important banking center was in Union hands.


Farther north in the western theater, Confederate troops under the command of Albert Sidney Johnston were stretched out in a long defensive line, whose center was at two forts in Tennessee, Fort Henry and Forth Donelson, on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers respectively. But the forts were located well behind the main Southern flanks, a fatal weakness that Union commanders recognized and exploited. Early in 1862, US Grant attacked Fort Henry, whose defenders, awed by the ironclad riverboats accompanying the Union army, surrendered with almost no resistance on February 6. Grant then moved both his naval and ground forces to Fort Donelson, where the Confedrates put a stronger fight by finally, on February 16, had to surrender. By cracking the Confederate center, Grant had gained control of river communications and forced Confederates out of Kentucky and half of Tennessee.


With about 40K men, Grant advanced south along the Tennessee River to seize control of RR lines vital to the CSA. From Pittsburg Landing, he marched to nearby Shiloh, Tenn, where a force of almost equal to his own and commanded by AS Johnston and PGT Beauregard caught him by surprise. The result was the Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7. In the first day’s fighting (ASJ was killed), the Southerners drove Grant back to the river. But the next day, reinforced by 25K, Grant recovered the lost ground and forced PGTB to withdraw. After this narrow Union victory at Shiloh, Northern forces occupied Corinth, Miss, the hub of several important RRs, and took control of the Mississippi River as far south as Memphis


CSA General Braxton Bragg, now in command of the CSA army in the west, gathered his forces at Chattanooga (eastern Tenn) which was still CSA-controlled. He hoped to win back the rest of he state and then move north into Kentuky. But first he had to face a Union army (commanded at first by Don Carlos Buell, but now by William S Rosecrans), whose assignment was to capture Chattanooga. The two armies maneuvered for advantage inconclusively in northern Tennessee and southern Kentucky for several months until they finally met, on 12.31 to 1.2, in the Battle of Murfreesboro (aka Stone’s River). Bragg was forced to withdraw to the south, his campaign a failure. By the end of 1862, the Union was winning the Western Theater, but struggled in the more important Eastern Theater.

Campaigns and Battles: The Virginia Theater, 1862

GB McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac (ATOP) and the most controversial general of the war, was in command of Union operations as 1862 began. McClellan was a superb trainer of men, but he often seemed reluctant to commit his troops to battle. Opportunities for important engagements came and we, and McClellan seemed never to take advantage of them—claiming always that he was not ready or that his troops were VASTLY outnumbered.


During the winter of 1861-1862, McClellan concentrated on training his army of 150K near Washington. Finally, he designated a spring campaign whose purpose was to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond (why not confront and defeat the ANV?). But instead of heading overland directly toward Richmond, McClellan chose a complicated, roundabout route that he though would circumvent the Confederate defenses. The navy would carry his troops down the Potomac to a peninsula east of Richmond, between the York and James Rivers; the army would approach the city from there. The combined operations became known as the Peninsular campaign. It was a failure.


McClellan began the campaign with only part of his army. Approximately 100K, but 30K with McDowell remained to defend Washington. McClellan convinced Lincoln to send him the remaining troops and that the capital would be safe, but but before he could do so, a Confederate force under Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson changed his plans by staging a rapid march north through the Shenandoah Valley. Alarmed, Lincoln dispatched McDowell there instead but was unsuccessful in defeating or limiting Jackson’s brilliant “Valley Campaign” of May 4-June 9, 1862.


Meanwhile, CSA troops under JE Johnston were attacking McClellan’s advancing army near Richmond. But in the two day Battle of Fair Oaks (aka Seven Pines, May 31-June 1), they couldn’t repel the Union forces. Johnston, badly wounded, was replaced by RE Lee, who then recalled Stonewall Jackson. With 85K to face McClellan’s 100K, he launched a new offensive called the Battle of the Seven Days (June 25-July 1). Lee wanted to cut McClellan off from his base of the York River and then destroy the isolated AOTP. But McClellan fought his way across the peninsula and the set up a new base of supply on the James River. There, with naval support (fire power and supplies), the ATOP was safe.


McClellan was now only 25 miles from Richmond, with a secure line of water communication/supplies. He should have renewed the offensive---Lincoln urged it, but he refused. Lincoln was urged to replace McClellan. They agreed to a retreat to and defend Washington via joining up with General John Pope’s forces. Perhaps they could attack Richmond overland? As the AOTP left the peninsula by water, Lee moved north with his ANV to strike Pope before McClellan could join him.


Pope was as rash as McClellan was cautious, and the attacked the approaching Confederates without waiting for the arrival of all of McClellan’s troops. 2nd Battle of Bull Run (8.29-8.30) Lee threw back the assault and routed pope’s army, which fled to Washington. With hoes for an overland campaign against Richmond now in disarray, Lincoln removed Pope from command and put McClellan back in charge of all the federal forces in the region. ****************End of Test #2 Material

Documents

Chapter 14*: The Civil War, 1861-1865 I. The Secession Crisis II. The Mobilization of the North III. The Mobilization of the South IV. Strategy and Diplomacy