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Civil War

• Part 1: Introduction

• Part 2: First total war

• Part 3: Impact of Technology

• Part 4: Political leadership

• Part 5: General Grant in the West

• Part 6: Eastern stalemate

• Part 7: Theories for Southern defeat

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Part 1: Introduction

• A) April 1861: Fort Sumter falls

• B) July 1861: First Battle of Bull Run

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A) April 1861: Fort Sumter falls• Lincoln re supplied it, after telling Southerners there was no

guns or ammunition in supplies

• Confederates still attacked the fort on the Island in harbor of Charleston, South Carolina

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(Continued)

• Thereafter, four more states from the upper South joined the Confederacy:

– Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas

• Lincoln held on to Maryland, a border slave state, only by suspending habeas corpus, there, and arresting Confederate sympathizers

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B) July 1861: First Battle of Bull Run

• Union army was march towards the Confederates at Manassas Junction

• After a period of battle that had lasted from dawn to midday, freshly arrived Union troops from Massachusetts excitedly charged up Henry Hill

• Confederate troops broke rank, and exuberant Union troops shouted, “The war is over!”

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(Continued)

• The Union troops gave way slowly at first, but discipline dissolved once the commander ordered a retreat, and the army quickly degenerated into a frightened, stampeding mob

• This rout at Bull Run sobered the North. Gone were the dreams of ending the war with one glorious battle

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Part 2: First total war

• Magnitude: The Civil War on the other hand, was the first war whose battles routinely involved more than 100,000k troops.

• This many combatants could only be:

A. Equipped through the use of factory produced weaponry

B. Moved and supplied through the help of railroads,

C. Sustained only through the concerted efforts of the CIVILIAN population as a whole.

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(Continued)

• The following were critical to the outcome of the war:A. The morale of the population as a whole,B. The quality of POLITICAL leadership,C. The utilization of the industrial and economic might.

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Part 3: Impact of Technology

• The Telegraph:

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(Continued)

• The Rifle: smooth bore Muskets which had served as the basic infantry weapon, gave way to the rifle.

– Easier to load, and the invention of the percussion cap made the rifle serviceable in wet weather.

– An effective range of 400 yards (5 times greater than the old muskets)

– Magnitude and casualties higher

– Emphasize defense over offense

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Part 4: Political leadership

• National experience consisted of one term in the House of Representatives!

• Shrewd judge of character and a superb politician

• To achieve a common goal, he overlooked withering criticism and personal slights

• Few presidents have better able to communicate to the average citizen.

• Popularity with the troops was called “universal.”

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(Continued)

• Effective military leader as commander in chief.

• Understood that the Union’s superior manpower and materiel would be decisive only when the Confederacy was threatened along a broad front.

• Knew how to deal with the border-states.

– At the beginning of the conflict, Kentucky officially declared its neutrality.

– Kentucky and Missouri gave the Union army access to the major river systems of the Western theater, down which it launched its first successful invasion of the Confederacy.

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Part 5: General grant in the West

• A) Personal background

• B) Military strategy

• C) Shiloh, Tennessee (April 1862)

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A) Personal background

• First decisive Union victory was won by general named Ulysses S. Grant

• An undistinguished student at West Point, Grant eventually resigned his commission and went back to civilian life

• When war broke out he was a store clerk in Illinois & promptly volunteered, and two months later became a brigadier general

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B) Military strategy

• “The art of war is simple: Find out where your enemy is, and get at him as soon as you can, and strike him as hard as you can, AND KEEP MOVING.”

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• Seized any opening, remain extraordinarily calm and clear headed

• Absorbed details on a map almost photographically

• Took advantage of the telegraph to track troop movements.

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C) Shiloh, TennesseeApril 1862

• Grant’s army was surprised, and in a day of fierce fighting his army was driven back to the Tennessee River, where they huddled in a cold rain

• General Sherman came upon him & was about to suggest to him a retreat, but he hesitated long enough to hear Grants intention to continue

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(Continued)

• Sherman complied & brought reinforcements, he ferried his troops across the river all night and counterattacked in the morning and drove out the Confederates

• Costly in blood to both sides: 23,000 casualties

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Part 6: Eastern stalemate

• Lincoln says, “ If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to BORROW it!”

• On the Confederate side, General Robert E. LEE eventually realized the South needed a decisive victory.

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(Continued)

• Sept. 1862 Confederate President Jefferson Davis allowed Lee to invade North, hoping to detach Maryland and isolate Washington.

– But Union soldiers discovered copy of Lee’s orders accidently left behind at a campsite by a Confederate officer.

– From this McClellan learned that his troops greatly outnumbered Lee’s & launched series of badly coordinated assaults near Antietam Creek

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(Continued)

• McClellan allowed Confederate Army to escape back to Virginia, so President Lincoln permanently relieved McClellan from his command.

• General Burnside replaced McClellan, with similar incompetence.

• In 1864 that Lincoln “Found his man,” and brought General Grant back East to be the head of all the Union Armies.

– Grant, with General Sherman, waged total war, &ultimately divided the East of the Confederacy with Sherman’s march on Atlanta and then to the sea in November December 1864.

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Part 7: Theories for Southern Defeat

• A) The South had a ‘loss of will’:

• B) South failed to gain European support:

• C) Died of democracy:

• D) North had more manpower and economic resources:

• E) Additional ‘colored’ troops:

• F) Bifurcation of the War:

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A) The South had a ‘loss of will’

• Counter-argument: They shifted objectives shifted from military to political means for triumph

– Exp: Using black codes instead of slave codes, for example to control blacks and their labor.

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B) South failed to gain European support

• Counter-argument: England would not have sent soldiers anyways

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C) Died of democracy

• By seceding in favor of states rights, individual governors wouldn’t pull together

• Counter-argument: 20th century wartime command economy was too centralized to produce pluralist limitations

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D) North had more manpower and economic resources

• Counter-argument: although raw data supports skewed resources, no military historian ever found that the South lost a single battle from this

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E) Additional ‘colored’ troops

• African Americans more than 1/4 of all Union soldiers.

• The white South was full of disillusionment, with the system crumbling around it; and “disloyalty” of the escaping slaves.

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NY City Draft Riots• 1863: Protests against the draft throughout the

North, led to riots and disturbances broke out in many cities.

• Three day span (July 13th-16th) killed 105 people.

• Anger at the draft for racial prejudice were what most contemporaries saw as the cause of violence– African American men were the major target of said

violence.

• Urban growth and tensions also contributed to the riots

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F) Bifurcation of the War

• West was won early by the Union.

• All the great Union generals come from West to East

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