A SURVEY OF AMERICAN HISTORY

Unit 2: Westward Expansion and Civil WarPart 17: The Civil War (I)

FOUR MORE STATES SECEDE

• Abraham Lincoln responded to the loss of Fort Sumter by immediately calling for 75,000 volunteers to serve for three months in a federal militia.

• This call for a militia had unintended consequences, particularly in the states known as the Border States.

• The Border States were the states that still allowed slavery but had not seceded from the Union: Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia, plus Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri.

FOUR MORE STATES SECEDE

• In response to Lincoln’s call for a militia, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia seceded from the Union and joined the Confederate States.

• Their argument was that Lincoln was preparing to act too aggressively towards the states that had already seceded, rather than pursuing peace by diplomatic means.

• By May 23, 1861, the CSA consisted of eleven states.

THE CREATION OF WEST VIRGINIA

In Virginia, however, fifty counties in the northwest of the state refused to secede. Instead, they seceded from Virginia itself and formed the state of West Virginia.

THE FIVEBORDER STATES

The five Border States — Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and the newly-formed West Virginia — remained part of the Union while also retaining slavery. Lincoln could not afford to lose their support.

HARRIET JACOBS

• Born into slavery on a North Carolina plantation in 1813.

• Published Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, a sensational autobiography, in 1861.

• Wrote frankly about how her master, James Norcom, sexually abused her and threatened to sell her children if she refused his sexual advances.

• Escaped slavery in 1835, hiding in her grandmother’s attic for the next seven years. Reached freedom in Philadelphia in 1842.

HARRIET TUBMAN

• Born into slavery on a Maryland plantation in 1822.

• Published an authorized biography in 1869, detailing her Civil War experiences.

• Moved to Port Royal, South Carolina, when the Civil War broke out in 1861, to help runaway slaves reach freedom.

• Convinced David Hunter, a United States Army General at Port Royal, to emancipate all the slaves in the district, long before all slaves were set free.

WINFIELD SCOTT

• Served as Commanding General of the United States Army for twenty years.

• Commanded forces in the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and the Second Seminole War. Became military governor of Mexico City after the American conquest of Mexico.

• Nominated as the Whig Party’s candidate for the Presidency in 1852, even though the incumbent Millard Fillmore was already a Whig President.

WINFIELD SCOTT

• Seventy-four years old, extremely overweight, and suffering from various ailments when the Civil War broke out.

• Came up with a plan to end the rebellion in the Confederate States without using the Army to crush the rebels.

• Advocated a blockade of Southern ports, cutting off trade between the Confederacy and the rest of the world, and then using the Mississippi River to cleave the Confederacy in half.

MEANWHILE,ON THE GROUND...

• Following Virginia’s entry into the Confederate States, the city of Richmond became the capital of the Confederacy.

• This placed the Confederate capital only one hundred miles from the Union capital of Washington, DC, and the border of the United States.

• Public opinion in the North was overwhelmingly in favor of a full-scale attack on the South and an advance on Richmond.

THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN

• A little less than 20,000 Confederate forces were camped at Manassas Junction, Virginia, an important point on the train lines of the South.

• About the same number of Union forces advanced on Manassas, crossing the river of Bull Run, launching a surprise attack on the Confederates.

• At first, the Union forces had the advantage and the Confederates struggled to fight back. But then...

THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN

• ...Confederate reinforcements arrived via the railway running through the Shenandoah Valley.

• These reinforcements overwhelmed the Union forces, sending them into disarray. The Union forces retreated and broke ranks, leaving the Confederates to conquer them.

• The Confederate brigadier general Thomas J. Jackson received the nickname ‘Stonewall’ for successfully commanding his men to not flee from Union advances.

GEORGE B. McCLELLAN

• Appointed as Major General of the Union Army at age thirty-four, making him the second-most powerful man in the armed forces after Winfield Scott.

• Achieved military successes in defending the Virginian counties that became West Virginia.

• Summoned to Washington, DC, by Abraham Lincoln, directly after the Union loss at Bull Run.

• Became commander of the Army of the Potomac, responsible for defending Washington, DC, in the summer of 1861.

THE FRÉMONT EMANCIPATION

• Roughly concurrent with McClellan’s promotion, Major General John C. Frémont was placed in command of the Department of the West.

• In August 1861, he placed the state of Missouri under martial law and proclaimed that he would confiscate the property of anyone in armed rebellion against the United States. This property included slaves, who he said he would declare free.

• Lincoln ordered the repeal of the proclamation in September, largely because he had to keep the Border States on his side.

THE TRENT AFFAIR

• In November 1861, a United States ship intercepted a British mail ship called the RMS Trent to remove two Confederate diplomats onboard.

• The diplomats were bound for Europe to ask Great Britain and France to recognize the independence and sovereignty of the Confederate States.

• The incident led Britain to threaten war with the United States. To avoid a second war, Lincoln ordered the release of the diplomats and allowed them to resume their journey.

A SURVEY OF AMERICAN HISTORY

Unit 2: Westward Expansion and Civil WarPart 17: The Civil War (I)