BG Steyr

In general it was a military conflict (1861-1865) between the United States of America (the Union) and 11

secessionist Southern states, organized as the Confederate States of America (the Confederacy). In the South, the

conflict is also known as the War Between the States.

The Civil War was the culmination of four decades of intense sectional conflict and reflected deep-seated

economic, social, and political differences between the North and the South. The South, overwhelmingly

agricultural, produced cash crops—cotton, tobacco, and sugarcane—for export to the North or to Europe, but it

depended on the North for manufactured goods and for the financial and commercial services essential to trade.

Underscoring sectional differences, the labour force in the South included nearly 4 million enslaved blacks.

Although the slaveholding planter class formed a small minority of the population, it dominated Southern politics

and society. Slaves were the largest single investment in the South, and the fear of slave unrest ensured the loyalty

of nonslaveholding whites to the economic and social system. It was to defend the right to maintain slavery that

the Southern states eventually went to war.

The Sectional Controversy

To maintain harmony between the Southern and Northern supporters in the Democratic and Whig parties, political

leaders tried to avoid the slavery question. But with growing opposition in the North to the extension of slavery

into the new territories, evasion of the issue became increasingly difficult. The Missouri Compromise of 1820

temporarily settled the issue by establishing the 36° 30’ parallel as the line separating free and slave territory in the

Louisiana Purchase. Conflict resumed, however, when the United States boundaries were extended westward to

the Pacific after the Mexican-American War. The Compromise Measures of 1850 provided for the admission of

California as a free state and the organization of two new territories—Utah and New Mexico—from the balance of

the land acquired in the war. The principle of popular sovereignty would be applied there, permitting the territorial

legislatures to decide the status of slavery when they applied for statehood.

The Shifting Balance

Despite the Compromise of 1850, conflict persisted. The South had become a minority section, and its leaders

viewed the actions of the US Congress, over which they had lost control, with growing concern. The Northeast

demanded for its industrial growth a protective tariff, federal subsidies for shipping and internal improvements,

and a sound banking and currency system. The Northwest looked to Congress for free homesteads and federal aid

for its roads and waterways. The South, however, regarded such measures as discriminatory, favouring Northern

commercial interests, and it found the rise of antislavery agitation in the North intolerable. Many free states, for

example, passed personal liberty laws in an effort to frustrate enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. The

BG Steyr

increasing frequency with which ”free soilers”, politicians who argued that no more slave states should be

admitted to the Union, won elective office in the North also worried Southerners.

The issue of slavery expansion erupted again in 1854, when Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois pushed through

Congress a bill establishing two new territories—Kansas and Nebraska—and applying to both the principle of

popular sovereignty. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, by voiding the Missouri Compromise, produced a wave of protest

in the North, including the organization of the Republican party. Opposing any further expansion of slavery, the

new party became so strong in the North by 1856 that it nearly elected its candidate, John C. Frémont, to the

presidency. Meanwhile, in the contest for control of Kansas, Democratic President James Buchanan asked

Congress to admit Kansas to the Union as a slave state, a proposal that outraged Northerners. Adding to their

anger, the US Supreme Court, on March 7, 1857, ruled in the Dred Scott case that the US Constitution gave

Congress no authority to prohibit slavery in the territories. Two years later, on October 16, 1859, John Brown, an

uncompromising opponent of slavery, raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in

an attempt to promote a general slave uprising. That raid, along with Northern condemnation of the Dred Scott

decision, helped to convince Southerners of their growing insecurity within the Union.

The Secession Crisis

In the presidential election of 1860, a split in Democratic party ranks resulted in the nomination by the Southern

wing of John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky and the nomination by the Northern wing of Stephen Douglas. The

newly formed Constitutional Union party, reflecting the compromise sentiment still strong in the border states,

nominated John Bell of Tennessee. The Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln on a platform that opposed the

further expansion of slavery and endorsed a protective tariff, federal subsidies for internal improvements, and a

homestead act. The Democratic split virtually assured Lincoln's election, and this in turn convinced the South to

make a bid for independence rather than face political encirclement. By March 1861, when Lincoln was

inaugurated, seven states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—had

adopted ordinances of secession, and the Confederate States of America, with Jefferson Davis as president, had

been formed.

In his inaugural address, Lincoln held that secession was illegal and stated that he intended to maintain federal

possessions in the South. On April 12, 1861, when an attempt was made to resupply Fort Sumter, a federal

installation in the harbour at Charleston, South Carolina, Southern artillery opened fire. Three days later, Lincoln

called for troops to put down the rebellion. In response, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee also

joined the Confederacy.

Resources of North and South

Neither the North nor the South was prepared in 1861 to wage a war. With a population of 22 million, the North

had a greater military potential. The South had a population of 9 million, but of that number, nearly 4 million were

enslaved blacks whose loyalty to the Confederate cause could hardly be assumed. Although they initially relied on

volunteers, necessity eventually forced both sides to resort to a military draft to raise an army. Before the war

ended, the South had enlisted about 900,000 white males, and the Union had enrolled about 2 million men

(including 186,000 blacks), nearly half of them towards the end of the war.

In addition, the North possessed clear material advantages—in money and credit, factories, food production,

mineral resources, and transport—that proved decisive. The South's ability to fight was hampered by chronic

BG Steyr

shortages of food, clothing, medicine, and heavy artillery, as well as by war weariness and the unpredictability of

its black labour force.

Even with its superior manpower and resources, however, the North did not achieve the quick victory it had

expected. To raise, train, and equip a massive fighting force from inexperienced volunteers and to find efficient

military leadership proved a formidable and time-consuming task. The South, with its stronger military tradition,

had more men experienced in the use of arms and produced an able corps of officers, including Robert E. Lee.

Only through trial and error did Lincoln find comparable military leaders, such as Ulysses S. Grant and William T.

Sherman.

The Confederacy enjoyed a certain advantage in conducting defensive operations on familiar terrain. If the South

could keep its army in the field until the North lost the will to fight, the Confederacy would win the war. In

contrast, the North needed to attack on a broad front and sustain long avenues of communication and supply.

Whereas the South merely had to defend itself, the North needed to destroy the South's capacity to make war and

compel total surrender. The strategy for achieving this goal that was most popular with the Northern press, the

public, and political leaders called for a direct overland march on Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital.

They believed that the fall of Richmond would demoralize the South and bring the war to a rapid close. Lincoln's

military advisers, however, convinced him to implement the ”Anaconda Plan”. Devised by General Winfield Scott,

it called for the establishment of a naval blockade around the Confederacy to prevent the importation of supplies

from Europe, followed by an invasion of the Mississippi Valley to cut the Confederacy in half.

Confederate leaders also differed on the most effective strategy. Davis thought in terms of a defensive war that

would wear down the North, attract foreign sympathy and support, and result in the acknowledgement of Southern

independence. But the long, exposed frontier between the North and the South rendered such a strategy unrealistic.

An alternate plan called for an offensive strike into the North before that section could mobilize its superior

manpower and material goods. Those who advocated this strategy believed that the more prolonged the war, the

less chance the South had of winning it.

The First Battle of Bull Run

The war began with both sides confident of an early victory. In May 1861, Union troops crossed the Potomac

River, captured Alexandria, Virginia, and moved into northwestern Virginia. The major Confederate army, some

22,000 men under the command of General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, was concentrated at Manassas Junction,

Virginia, a key railway centre about 48 km (30 mi) southwest of Washington, D.C. Seeking to deliver a mortal

blow to this army before reinforcements could reach it, General Irvin McDowell led a Union force of 30,000

towards Manassas. On July 21, in the First Battle of Bull Run, the Confederate troops, reinforced in time, won a

resounding victory. The result was not strategically significant, but the setback forced a humiliated North to

abandon hopes for a 90-day war and to raise a more substantial army. In contrast, the South left Bull Run with a

sense of overconfidence that impeded proper preparation for the long conflict ahead.

McClellan's Appointment

After Bull Run, Lincoln replaced McDowell with General George B. McClellan as commander of the newly

created Army of the Potomac. An able administrator and drillmaster, McClellan proceeded to reorganize the army

for what he expected to be an overwhelming demonstration of Northern military superiority. Popular with his

BG Steyr

troops, the 34-year-old commander was also a conceited, arrogant man, contemptuous of the president and already

suspect among Republicans because he vigorously opposed any tampering with the institution of slavery.

Ultimately, his tendency to overestimate the enemy and his excessive caution wore out Lincoln's patience.

The Border States

Although a military stalemate prevailed for much of 1861, the North scored some critical successes in securing the

border states of Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri, where Unionist sentiment prevailed but where

secessionists were also strong. Maryland's importance lay in its proximity to Washington and in Baltimore's

position as a key railway link to the midwest. Kentucky and Missouri were important to Northern war strategy

because they controlled the approaches to the Mississippi, Tennessee, and Cumberland river valleys, through

which Union forces could bring the war into the Confederate heartland. To ensure Maryland's loyalty, Union

troops occupied Baltimore and imposed martial law. Kentucky sought to remain neutral, but in September 1861,

when Confederate troops crossed into the state, Kentuckians enlisted overwhelmingly in the Union cause. In

Missouri, Union troops helped to secure the state, while driving the pro-Confederate governor into exile. In

Virginia, the western counties repudiated the ordinance of secession, formed a provisional government, and in

1863 were admitted to the Union as the new state of West Virginia.

The Peninsular Campaign

With his reorganized Army of the Potomac, McClellan was finally prepared to take the offensive in the spring of

1862. Rejecting the strategy of an overland march on Richmond, he moved his army of 100,000 men into the

peninsula between the James and York rivers. From this point, southeast of Richmond, he advanced on the

Confederate capital. In the Battle of Fair Oaks and Seven Pines (May 31-June 1), a Confederate attack was

repulsed, and Lee was chosen to replace the wounded General Joseph E. Johnston as commander of the Army of

Northern Virginia. By June, McClellan's army approached Richmond. The cautious commander, however,

overestimating Confederate strength, halted his march and waited for reinforcements. Meanwhile, General

Stonewall Jackson moved his Confederate army up the Shenandoah Valley and crossed the Potomac. Although

turned back, he succeeded in convincing the Northern high command that he posed a threat to Washington. In

response, the government withheld from McClellan the reinforcements he felt necessary for an attack on

Richmond.

Seeking to exploit McClellan's excessive caution, Lee, reinforced by Jackson's men, marched an army of 85,000

against the Union forces massed near Richmond. In the Seven Days' Battle (June 25-July 1), neither side was

capable of delivering a mortal blow to the other. Nevertheless, McClellan, believing himself vastly outnumbered,

ordered a retreat to the James River, thus dismally concluding his Peninsular campaign. A disappointed Lincoln

named as his general in chief Major General Henry Halleck, who had had some recent successes in the West.

McClellan retained command of the Army of the Potomac, but Lincoln brought from the West General John Pope

to head a new army, consisting largely of troops that had been held back in northern Virginia to check Jackson.

Union Defeats in the East

Pope's tenure was short-lived. On August 30, in the Second Battle of Bull Run, the combined Confederate forces

of Lee, Jackson, and General James Longstreet inflicted heavy casualties on Union troops and sent them reeling

back to Washington, where Pope was relieved of his command. Following up on this victory, Lee in September

1862 startled the North by invading Maryland with some 50,000 troops. Not only did he expect this bold move to

demoralize Northerners, he hoped a victory on Union soil would encourage foreign recognition of the

BG Steyr

Confederacy. McClellan, with 90,000 men, moved to check Lee's advance. On September 17, in the bloody Battle

of Antietam, some 12,000 Northerners and 12,700 Southerners were killed or wounded. Lee was forced back to

Virginia; Lincoln, angered that McClellan made no effort to cut off Lee's retreat, relieved the general of his

command.

In late 1862, the Army of the Potomac resumed its offensive towards Richmond, this time under the command of

General Ambrose E. Burnside. On December 13, he unwisely chose to challenge Lee's nearly impregnable

defences around Fredericksburg, Virginia, on the Rappahannock River. In still another disaster, Union forces

suffered more than 10,000 killed or wounded and were forced to retreat to Washington. Burnside too was relieved

of his command.

Grant's Initial Successes on the Mississippi

While a stalemate settled over the eastern front, Union military operations in the West proved far more successful.

The objective was control of the Mississippi Valley, thereby splitting the Confederacy in half and cutting off the

flow of men and supplies from Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. Early in 1862, Grant, with the support of a fleet of

ironclad ships, succeeded in capturing Fort Henry, Tennessee, on the Tennessee River. With the later capture of

Fort Donelson, Tennessee, on the Cumberland River, along with about 16,000 Confederate troops, the way was

clear to sweep down the Mississippi. Meanwhile, west of the river, Union troops defeated a Confederate force at

Pea Ridge, Arkansas (March 6-8), consolidating Union control of Missouri.

Falling back from its position around Nashville, Tennessee, the Confederate army in northern Tennessee retreated

south towards Mississippi, where it tried to establish a new line of defence. Grant halted his advance at Shiloh,

Tennessee, and waited there to be reinforced by an army under General Don Carlos Buell. Hoping to destroy

Grant's army before the reinforcements arrived, a Confederate force under Beauregard and General Albert S.

Johnston staged a nearly successful surprise attack on April 6. With the arrival of Buell's men, however, the

combined Union force repulsed the attack, and the Confederates retreated into Mississippi. On May 30, Corinth,

Mississippi, a railway centre critical to Southern defences, fell, and by early June, Union troops had overrun most

of west and east Tennessee and controlled the Mississippi as far south as Memphis, Tennessee.

The Capture of New Orleans and the Battle of Murfreesboro

In a coordinated strategy, Union forces also moved up the Mississippi from the south. In April, a naval squadron

commanded by Captain David G. Farragut penetrated Confederate defences at the mouth of the Mississippi and

forced the surrender of New Orleans, Louisiana. On May 1 Union troops under General Benjamin F. Butler moved

into the Confederacy's largest city and principal port. During the last months of 1862, Grant consolidated his

position along the Mississippi. Buell, ordered to move on Chattanooga, Tennessee, clashed indecisively with

Confederate forces under General Braxton Bragg. In December, General William S. Rosecrans, who had replaced

Buell, confronted Bragg's troops in a three-day battle on the Stones River near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, forcing

them to retreat. Meanwhile, Grant prepared for an assault on Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last remaining

Confederate stronghold in the West, high on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. Considered by the

Confederates an impregnable fortress, Vicksburg resisted Union attacks, and Grant's army was bogged down in the

rugged terrain guarding the north and east approaches to the city.

Chancellorsville

When he assumed command of the Army of the Potomac, General Joseph ”Fighting Joe” Hooker promised to

reverse the long string of Union defeats in the East. In April, with an army of 130,000 men, he prepared to

challenge Lee, whose army of 60,000 was massed in Virginia, near Fredericksburg. While holding Lee's attention

BG Steyr

at Fredericksburg, Hooker dispatched a force around the town to attack the Confederate flank. Hesitant to use his

reserves at such a critical juncture, he chose to withdraw to a defensive position at Chancellorsville, Virginia. With

little hesitation, the combined forces of Lee and Jackson fell on Hooker's army and, in a fierce three-day battle

(May 2-4), inflicted such heavy casualties that Hooker was forced to retreat. Chancellorsville was also a costly

battle for the South. Lee lost nearly one-fifth of his men, as well as his brilliant general, Stonewall Jackson.

Gettysburg

Encouraged by the victory, Lee seized the initiative and moved his army into the North. Such an action, he hoped,

would relieve the pressure on beleaguered Confederate forces in the West and induce a war-weary North to agree

to a negotiated peace. In June, a Confederate army of 75,000 men marched through the Shenandoah Valley into

southern Pennsylvania. The Army of the Potomac, numbering about 85,000 and now commanded by General

George G. Meade, moved to check Lee's advance. These two massive armies converged on the small town of

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and on July 1 a battle began that many observers consider a turning point of the Civil

War.

In manoeuvring for position, Union forces managed to occupy strategic high ground south of Gettysburg. Lee's

army attacked the position at various points, only to be thrown back. On July 3, after an intensive artillery duel,

Lee ordered General George E. Pickett to charge the centre of the Union lines at Cemetery Ridge. The attack

failed. With his army suffering heavy casualties, Lee retreated, only to be blocked by the flooded Potomac River.

Much to Lincoln's dismay, however, Meade failed to exploit his advantage, and Lee's shattered army was

eventually able to retreat into northern Virginia. Yet again, Lee had sacrificed an enormous portion of his army in

the ill-fated attack.

Vicksburg

On the western front, in April 1863, Grant readied his forces for a renewed effort to capture Vicksburg. With the

support of Union gunboats and supply ships, he placed his army on the river south of the city. In a series of bold

manoeuvres that surprised the Southerners, Grant succeeded in dividing the Confederate defenders, and by mid-

May he had reached Vicksburg. For 47 days, with many residents taking refuge in caves to escape the incessant

bombardment, the siege was sustained. Finally, on July 4, the day after Lee's defeat at Gettysburg, the Confederate

garrison surrendered. The Union army had realized its objective in the West—the Confederacy split into two parts.

Chickamauga and Chattanooga

Having secured the Mississippi, the Union high command decided to drive the Confederates out of east Tennessee,

in preparation for sweep into Alabama and Georgia. In the fall of 1863, Rosecrans and an army of 55,000 men

captured Chattanooga. Further advance, however, was checked when they faced a reinforced Confederate army of

70,000 men under Bragg's command. In the Battle of Chickamauga (September 19-20), the Union forces were

badly beaten. Forced to retreat to Chattanooga, Rosecrans's army was besieged by Confederates entrenched on the

heights commanding the supply lines to the city. Grant, now in full command of the Union forces in the West,

replaced Rosecrans with George H. Thomas and headed for Chattanooga with part of his Army of the Tennessee.

In the three-day Battle of Chattanooga (November 23-25), Union forces dislodged the Confederate defenders and

forced them into a disorderly retreat.

BG Steyr

By the end of 1863, the war had turned in the Union's favour. After his defeat at Gettysburg, Lee was unable to

sustain any further offensive operations in the North. The Union army in the West had divided the Confederacy,

and its success at Chattanooga made it possible to bring the war into Alabama and Georgia.

Grant's Plan for Victory

Confident he had finally found the right person, in early 1864 Lincoln appointed Grant commander in chief of all

Union forces. Having already demonstrated his military prowess in the West, Grant moved to exploit the Northern

superiority in manpower and materials to wear down the enemy. At the same time, he designed a strategy that

would tighten the stranglehold around the Confederacy. The Army of the Potomac, directed by Grant and Meade,

would engage Lee in northern Virginia and move on Richmond. An army commanded by Sherman would march

south from Chattanooga into Georgia and capture Atlanta. Still another army under General Philip Sheridan would

operate in the Shenandoah Valley and deprive Lee's forces of supplies and food from that region.

The Wilderness Campaign

In late March, the Army of the Potomac, numbering 115,000 men, began its march. When it reached a desolate

area near Chancellorsville, known as the Wilderness, the Union forces encountered Lee's army of 62,000 men. In a

two-day battle (May 5-6), fought largely in a thick, almost impenetrable forest, both sides suffered heavy

casualties. Unlike his predecessors, though, Grant continued his march, determined to keep the pressure on the

enemy. The two armies clashed again at Spotsylvania Courthouse (May 8-12), in Virginia, with both sides

sustaining heavy losses and neither able to score a decisive victory. After Lee repulsed him at Cold Harbor,

Virginia, just north of Richmond, Grant chose to bypass the Confederate capital. He crossed the James River and

advanced on Petersburg, Virginia, a railway centre critical to Richmond's supply line. This attempt to isolate

Richmond failed when a reinforced Confederate army successfully maintained its position around Petersburg. On

June 20, Grant laid siege to the city, but the defenders held out for another nine months. Several attempts to breach

the defences, as in the Battle of the Crater, were beaten back, and Grant's offensive operations in Virginia were

brought to a temporary halt.

The Capture of Atlanta

In the Shenandoah Valley, Sheridan's army engaged Confederate forces commanded by General Jubal A. Early

and forced them to retreat from the region. With even more devastating success, in the summer of 1864, Sherman's

army of 90,000 advanced towards Atlanta, Georgia. Several attempts to turn them back, including a battle at

Kennesaw Mountain, ultimately failed. Sherman cut Atlanta's principal supply line, and on September 1

Confederate troops abandoned the city. The war-weary North, frustrated by the continuing stalemate in Virginia,

enthusiastically greeted the victories of Sheridan and Sherman, no doubt helping to ensure Lincoln's reelection in

November.

After losing Atlanta, the Confederate army under the command of General John Bell Hood tried to undermine

Sherman's extended supply line, boldly moving into Tennessee on the assumption that Sherman would be forced to

follow them to protect Chattanooga. Instead, Sherman dispatched part of his forces to counter Hood and readied

his army for a march across Georgia to Savannah and the sea. On November 30, Hood battled a Union force under

General John M. Schofield at Franklin, Tennessee; his troops sustained heavy losses in several unsuccessful

charges against the Union lines. Subsequently, in the Battle of Nashville (December 15-16), a Union force

commanded by Thomas scored a decisive victory over Hood, crushing Confederate resistance in the West.

BG Steyr

The Defeat of the South

On November 15, Sherman began his march to the sea. Leaving Atlanta in flames, his army of 60,000 men moved

virtually unopposed through Georgia on a 96-km (60-mi) front. Living off the land as they advanced, the Union

troops systematically destroyed anything that might help sustain the Confederate war effort. Savannah fell shortly

before Christmas, and Sherman's army continued northwards into the Carolinas, meeting little opposition. In April

1865, Mobile, Selma, and Montgomery in Alabama fell to Union forces. At the same time, Sheridan prepared to

join Grant for a conclusive assault on Lee's army.

In Virginia, Grant, in April 1865, finally succeeded in seizing the railway line supplying Richmond. Forced as a

consequence to abandon both Petersburg and Richmond, Lee retreated westward, hoping to join with the

Confederate army of Joseph Johnston in North Carolina. Grant blocked his way, and on April 9, 1865, Lee

surrendered to Grant at the small settlement of Appomattox Court House in southwestern Virginia. With Lee's

surrender, the remaining Confederate armies quickly collapsed.

The War at Sea

After the fall of Fort Sumter, Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of all Southern ports in order to stop the flow of

essential supplies to the Confederacy. A Union navy barely existed at this time, its ships having been designed to

fight on the high seas, not to blockade ports. Thus, before the blockade could be implemented, new ships had to be

designed and several battles had to be fought.

To break the blockade, which had become effective by 1862, the South unveiled a new weapon, the Merrimack, an

abandoned Union steam frigate that the Confederates covered with sheets of metal armour, converting it into an

ironclad capable of destroying Northern shipping. On March 8, 1862, the Merrimack (renamed the Virginia) sailed

out of Norfolk harbour in Virginia into Hampton Roads and easily sank two Northern vessels. This was an

impressive demonstration of the superiority of ironclads to the now-obsolete wooden ships. When the Merrimack

reappeared the next day, however, it encountered a newly arrived Northern ironclad, the Monitor, a spectacular

battle lasting several hours, neither ironclad sustained a substantial amount of damage, and neither was able to win

a decisive victory. Although the Merrimack returned to the safety of Norfolk harbour, its presence forced

McClellan to alter his route of march to Richmond.

Throughout the war, the Union navy conducted important operations in support of the army. In 1861, joint

operations secured Union beachheads at Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina, and at Port Royal, South Carolina. The

capture of Fort Henry in February 1862 and the fall of New Orleans on May 1, both with critical naval assistance,

enabled the Union to control the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers. Farragut's success in entering Mobile Bay in

August 1864, destroying a small Confederate fleet there, deprived blockade runners of a safe harbour. With similar

impact a joint naval-army operation in January 1865 effectively closed down Wilmington, North Carolina, which

had been the South's principal base for blockade runners.

Although the South lacked a substantial navy, Confederate raiders carried on warfare in various parts of the world

against Union merchant ships. The raider responsible for inflicting the most damage, the Alabama, was built in

England and commanded by Raphael Semmes. On June 19, 1864, a Union ship, the Kearsarge, engaged the

Alabama off the coast of France and ended its career as a Confederate raider.

The War and Foreign Relations

To make its bid for independence credible, the Confederacy expected foreign recognition and support, especially

from the two leading European powers, Great Britain and France. That confidence rested in large measure on the

BG Steyr

dependence of both nations on Southern cotton for their textile industries. England, for example, imported 75 per

cent of its cotton from the South. With trade now imperilled by the Union naval blockade, the South looked to

European intervention on its behalf.

When Britain and France formally declared their neutrality in the American Civil War in 1861, that constituted

recognition of the Confederacy as a belligerent power. The move encouraged the South, while it prompted a

vigorous protest from the Lincoln administration. When two Confederate representatives were forcibly removed

by Union authorities from the British steamer Trent in 1861, Lincoln released them in response to British pressure.

In 1863, on the other hand, Britain agreed to forbid construction of Confederate warships in British shipyards.

The Confederacy's ”cotton diplomacy” was undermined in several ways. Before the outbreak of the war, British

cloth manufacturers had stockpiled large quantities of cotton. Great Britain and the North, moreover, were engaged

in a mutually profitable trade, the Union purchasing arms and manufactured goods and Britain purchasing

Northern wheat. Finally, with the Emancipation Proclamation, public opinion abroad strongly favoured the Union

cause. That, coupled with the changing tide of the war after 1863, doomed the Confederacy's quest for foreign

recognition and intervention.

The End of Slavery

At the outset of the war, Lincoln and Congress made it clear that their sole objective was to maintain the

supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union. Conscious of the need to retain the loyalty of the border

slave states, the president exercised caution in dealing with the slavery issue, but he could not avoid it. Not only

were slaves fleeing to the Union lines and claiming their freedom, but slave labour was of critical value to the

Confederate war effort. Moreover, freed slaves could be enlisted in the Union army; by the end of the war some

186,000 black men, most of them recruited or conscripted in the slave states, had served on the Union side.

On August 6, 1861, Congress passed the Confiscation Bill, which ordered the seizure of all property, including

slaves, used ”in aid of the rebellion”. Nevertheless, the legal status of such slaves was left uncertain, and federal

policy vacillated during the first 18 months of the war.

The preliminary proclamation of emancipation, issued by Lincoln in September 1862, stipulated that on January 1,

1863, in those states or portions of states that were still engaged in rebellion, the slaves would be ”forever free”.

Despite the reprieve granted the South, Lincoln thought it unlikely that the Confederate states would choose to

return to the Union. Nevertheless, partly to appease a sceptical Northern public, Lincoln had made it clear that

preserving the Union, not abolishing slavery, remained his principal objective. When he later issued the

Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln defended it on the grounds of military necessity; emancipation would, he

declared, weaken the productive forces of the Confederacy and thus hasten the end of the war. Tennessee and the

loyal border slave states were excluded from the proclamation, as were designated portions of Louisiana, Virginia,

and West Virginia. (The 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery throughout the United States, was ratified in

December 1865.)

When much of Tennessee, Louisiana, and North Carolina had fallen to Union armies, Lincoln appointed military

governors to bring those states back into the Union. On December 8, 1863, the president issued a Proclamation of

Amnesty and Reconstruction. Except for high military and civil officers of the Confederacy or its states, all

Southerners who took an oath of loyalty to the Constitution and swore to obey the wartime legislation and

proclamations regarding slavery would be granted amnesty. As soon as 10 per cent of a state's 1860 electorate had

complied with these provisions, that state could write a new constitution, elect new state officers, and send

members to Congress. This plan became the basis of presidential Reconstruction, bringing Lincoln into sharp

BG Steyr

conflict with Republicans in Congress who demanded protection for the freed slaves and a more thorough

reconstruction.

Results of the War

Measured in physical devastation and human lives, the American Civil War was the costliest war in the experience

of the American people. When the war ended, 620,000 men (in a nation of 35 million people) had been killed and

at least that many more had been wounded. The North lost a total of 364,000 (nearly one of every five Union

soldiers) and the South 258,000 (nearly one of every four Confederate soldiers). More men died of disease and

sickness than on the battlefield; the ratio was about four to one.

The physical devastation was largely limited to the South, where almost all the fighting took place. Large sections

of Richmond, Charleston, Atlanta, Mobile, and Vicksburg lay in ruins. The countryside through which the

contending armies had passed was littered with gutted plantation houses and barns, burned bridges, and uprooted

railway lines. Many crops were destroyed or confiscated, and much livestock was slain. More than $4 billion

worth of property had been wiped out through emancipation, the repudiation of Confederate bonds and currency,

the confiscation of cotton, and war damage.

The war settled the question of the permanence of the Union; the doctrine of secession was discredited, and after

1865 states would find other ways to manifest their grievances. The war expanded the authority of the federal

government, with the executive branch in particular exercising broader jurisdiction and powers than at any

previous time in the nation's history. The US Congress, meanwhile, enacted much of the legislation to which the

South had objected so strenuously before the war, including a homestead act, liberal appropriations for internal

improvements, and the highest tariff duties in American history to that date. Economically, the war encouraged the

mechanization of production and the accumulation of capital in the North. The needs of the armies in the field

resulted in the mass production of processed foods, ready-made clothing, and shoes, and after the war, industry

converted such production to civilian use. By 1865 the United States was on its way to becoming an industrial

power.

Finally, the American Civil War brought freedom to nearly 4 million blacks. But the attitudes that had sustained

slavery in the South for more than 300 years did not end with the war, and were not properly dealt with in the

Reconstruction, thereby creating tensions and problems that would persist through the 20th century.