Chapter 11The Civil War1861-1865

Chapter 11 – Section 1The Opposing Sides

Get out a piece of paper

Divide it into 4 sections:

1. Northern Advantages2. Southern Advantages3. Northern Disadvantages4. Southern Disadvantages

Write down as many as you can from memory for each section.

Review – 1861What’s Already Happened

• Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Texas secede January – February

• Confederacy forms at the beginning of February

• Lincoln is inaugurated at the beginning of March

• Confederacy attacks Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861

• Lincoln calls for 75,000 military volunteers

• Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas secede

• Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland might secede

Advantages and DisadvantagesNorthern advantages:

- Financial – banking resources and knowledge are all concentrated in the Union

- Industrial – Union has nearly all of the industrial capacity of the U.S.

- Naval – all but one naval yard remained in Union hands

- Population – 22 million peopleSouthern advantages:- Military – great deal of military

talent went to Confederacy- Geographic – South must only

fight a defensive war

Northern v. Southern Railroads

Confederate Generals

Party Politics in the North• Lincoln still won less than half the

popular vote in the Union• Majority of voters would have refused

to support an antislavery war in 1861• War Democrats – majority of Northern

Democrats wholly supported the Union:“There are only two sides to the question. Every man must be for the United States or against it.

There can be no neutrals in this war, only patriots— or traitors.”

- Stephen Douglas• War Democrats opposed ending slavery• Copperhead Democrats – also known

as “Peace Democrats.” Given name by Republicans because they were dangerous for opposing the war.

Stephen Douglas

Northern political cartoon

Weak Southern Government

States’ rights and decentralized power make it hard to run a war. Southern people and politicians both protest:

• New taxes – necessary to pay for the war

• Martial Law – needed to tamp down pro-Union sympathy in areas like Tennessee

The Diplomatic Challenge

• Confederacy needs recognition

• Informal meeting in May, 1861

• Confederates, British, French

• No recognition forthcoming – French don’t want to act alone, and British don’t want to anger the U.S.

The South’s StrategyFight a defensive war of attrition

- Avoid battles to preserve military strength

- Make the Union come South

- Many Southerners believed this was cowardly and dishonorable- “The idea of waiting for blows,

instead of inflicting them, is altogether unsuited to the genius of our people.”

The North’s StrategyAnaconda Plan- Derogatory nickname Northern papers gave to the strategy

Strategy devised by General Winfield Scott- Blockade the South- Advance down Mississippi River – cut the South in two

Northern View at the BeginningPreserve the Union!

• War is to preserve American self-government

“Our popular government has often been called an experiment,” Lincoln told Congress on July 4, 1861. “Two points in it, our people have already settled— the successful establishing, and the successful administering of it. One still remains— its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. . . . This issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man, the question, whether a constitutional republic, or a democracy . . . can or cannot, maintain its territorial integrity, against its own domestic foes.”

McPherson, James M. (1988-02-25). Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States) (p. 309). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Going to WarNeither side is prepared for war at the outset• Union’s biggest problem is

having more soldiers than it can supply

• Northern cloth manufacturers created a cloth material from recycled wool called “shoddy”

Confederacy must create a navy from scratchNeither Union nor Confederacy has standard uniforms yetRampant corruption, particularly in the Union War Department

The Blockade and Naval War• Confederacy had 3,500 miles of

coastline• 10 major ports• 180 additional bays, inlets, river

mouths• Blockade was more like a sieve in

1861−“[G]o to the roof on a hot summer day, talk to

a half-dozen degenerates, descend to the basement, drink tepid water full of iron rust, climb to the roof again, and repeat the process at intervals until [you are] fagged out, then go to bed with everything shut tight.”

• Union strategy was to take control of coastal forts−Was incredibly successful – by the end of 1861

the Union controlled most of the strategic locations on the Confederacy’s Atlantic coast

First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas)

July 21, 1861Northern public opinion is demanding a battleLincoln likes idea of destroying Confederate troops massing near Washington D.C.Hoped it would end war earlier, without destroying large areas of the SouthMight open up way to RichmondWould not destroy social and economic system of the South

First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas)

Generals Winfield Scott and Irving McDowell are concerned that the troops are raw and untrained, should wait before battle.

Lincoln: “You are green, it is true; but they [the Confederates] are green, also; you are green alike.”

Gen. Winfield Scott

Gen. Irving McDowell

First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas)

- Almost everyone at the First Battle of Bull Run

First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas)

Battle ends as a Confederate victory when the Union troops break and retreatBloodiest battle in American history up to that pointSmashes Union hopes for a quick victoryGeneral McDowell relievedLeads to General George B. McClellan becoming General-in-Chief of the Union Army

General George McCellan

The Secession of Western Virginia

• Numerous counties west of the Shenandoah River and north of the Kanawha River• ¼ of Virginia’s white population• Culturally and economically tied to Ohio and Pennsylvania, rather than Virginia• Largest city (Wheeling) is only 60 miles from Pittsburgh, but 330 miles from

Richmond• Resentment against “tidewater aristocrats” who run the state• Slaves taxed at 1/3 of value – all other property taxed at full value

The Secession of Western Virginia

May 21 – July 13, 1861: Military campaign in which Union forces defeated Confederate forces in the area

Allowed West Virginia Unionists to assemble

June 11, 1861 – Wheeling Convention – immediate or gradual secession

October 24, 1861 – people of West Virginia participated in a referendum – elected delegates to a constitutional convention for a new state of “Kanawha”

The War in Western VirginiaConfederacy sends Robert E. Lee

to drive the Union forces out of Virginia and back to Ohio

Lee fails, miserably

By the end of October, 1861, Lee has gone to South Carolina to work on coastal defenses

New nickname in Richmond newspapers becomes “Granny Lee”

Top of Cheat Mountain, WV

Unionism in East TennesseeUnionists assemble in Knoxville

in May of 1861

They assemble again at Greeneville in June of 1861

Led by:Andrew Johnson – only U.S. Senator from a seceding state who remained loyal to the UnionWilliam G. Brownlow – editor of the Knoxville Whig

Hated slave-owning aristocrats

Johnson

Brownlow

Unionism in East TennesseeThe Tennessee Unionists hear of a

coming Union invasionAttack Confederate troops and burn five crucial railroad bridgesUnion troops do not attack – invasion called off by General William T. Sherman• Sherman eventually relieved of

command, sent to an obscure post in Missouri

Confederates crack down:• Martial law declared• Hundreds of Unionists imprisoned• 5 bridge-burners executed• Brownlow imprisoned – printing

press turned into an arms factory

The Western TheaterKentucky’s importance:“I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky.”

- Abraham Lincoln

• Strategically important Ohio River on the northern border

• Western portion of the state commands an important part of the Mississippi

Columbus, KentuckyRail junction eyed by both North and South

Confederates, commanded by General Leonidas Polk, waiting in northwest Tennessee

Union troops, commanded by Ulysses S. Grant, waiting in Cairo, Illinois

Grant and PolkGrant• West Point graduate from bottom half of class• Fought in the Mexican War• Forced to resign from the army in 1854 for drunkenness• Failed in numerous businesses afterward• By 1861 worked in a leather shop in Galena, Illinois• Only military experience in town, so was asked to

organize volunteers• Promoted to Brigadier General by his local congressman,

and because there were so many volunteers the Union was scraping the barrel for commanders

Polk• Also a West Point graduate• Graduated near the top of his class• Resigned from the Army in 1827 to

become a minister• Was a bishop in the Episcopal church at

the beginning of the war

End of Kentucky’s NeutralitySeptember 3, 1861

Confederate Army under Polk takes Columbus

In response, Union forces under Grant take the strategically important towns of Smithland and Paducah

Confederates generally viewed as the invaders

Converted Kentucky to warlike Unionism

September 18, 1861 – Kentucky legislature votes to expel “the invaders” – effectively fighting for Union now

Meanwhile, In Washington…McClellan, an engineer, redesigns

the fortifications around D.C.Gets rid of any 90 day enlistment troops and replaces them with three-year enlistment troopsBegins relentlessly drilling and training the amateur army he inheritedBelieves Lincoln to be incompetent and an imbecileOpenly disrespects President on multiple occasions- “…nothing more than a well-

meaning baboon.”

…Nation Growing Restless

Rest of the nation is desperate for some military actionLincoln is still too timid to override his generals, due to his lack of military experience“The Prest. Is an excellent man, and, in the main wise, but he lacks will and purpose, and, I greatly fear he, has not the power to command.”

- diary of Edward Bates, Lincoln’s Attorney General

Mason, Slidell, and the Trent Affair

• November 8, 1861• James Mason – Virginia• John Slidell – Louisiana• The Trent – British ship• Were to seek diplomatic

recognition from Britain and France• Mason and Slidell slipped the

Union blockade in the South, got to Havana, Cuba

• In Havana they boarded a British ship, the Trent

• Union captain, without orders, decided to capture Mason and Slidell himself

Mason, Slidell, and the Trent Affair

• British were outraged about interference with their ship

• Caused a diplomatic crisis• Mason and Slidell held at a

naval prison in Boston• Charles Sumner had to

convince President Lincoln that anti-American rage over the affair had broken out in Britain

• By Christmas Lincoln had to admit defeat and release both men to avoid war with Britain

The End of 1861By the end of Lincoln’s first year as President:- Union lost North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, and

Virginia- Union has suffered a demoralizing military defeat- Union had to admit defeat in the Trent Affair- Massive, expensive Army just sitting in winter quarters- U.S. Treasury lived on credit due to war expenses- Farms in the Northwest had a labor shortage due to

workers enlisting- The Mississippi River, the route for all Northwestern farm

produce, was closed, so there was no market for it- “The people are being bled and as they believe to no

purpose and will not long submit to it.”