Girding for War: The North and the South, 1861-1865

1
Chapter 20

• Girding for War The North and the South,
  1861-1865

2
Causes of the American Civil War

• Sectionalism / States Rights
• Slavery Issue
• Economic differences
• Industrialization
• The election of Lincoln

The 33-star American flag of 1860
The original flag of the 7 Confederate states
3
Lincoln's Inauguration (March 4, 1861)

• Seceded before March 4
• South Carolina
• Alabama
• Mississippi
• Florida
• Alabama
• Georgia
• Louisiana
• Texas

• Under consideration
• Virginia
• Arkansas
• North Carolina
• Tennessee
• Kentucky
• Missouri
• Maryland
• Delaware
• West Virginia

Voted to secede after Lincolns inauguration
Mountain white region of Virginia stayed and
formed a new state
4
Repeat Southern Session Map

• PEACH States that seceded before Lincolns
  inauguration
• BLUE States that voted to secede after Lincoln
  is inaugurated March 1861
• YELLOW The all-important Border States where
  slavery was legal but they stayed with the Union
• GREEN High population northern states.
  Minnesota (1858) and Kansas (1861) were last to
  enter. West Virginia broke away from Virginia.

5
Civil War begins Fort Sumter

• All but two of the federal arsenals in the South
  had gone with the Confederacy by March
• Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South
  Carolina was running short of supplies
• Lincoln told South Carolina of his intention to
  provision the fort and they took it as reinforce
• Carolinians opened fire on April 12, 1861 the
  battle was over 34 hours later. Considered the
  official start of the war by many.

6
Who has the advantage?

• Northern advantages
• Economy farms factories
• Controlled the sea / navy
• Trade with Europe
• Population
• 75 of the wealth
• Newly arriving immigrants.

• Southern advantages
• Fighting a defensive war
• Thus, did not have to win
• High morale (early)
• Most talented officers
• Southern boys were bred to fight / military
  schools
• Had most of the forts because of the Indian
  attacks.

7
Is Cotton King?

• Productive crops from 1857-1860 had left Britain
  with a surplus so when the North blockaded
  exports, Europe was still well supplied
• When supplies in Britain began to run low, they
  simply depended on Northern confiscated imports

• The real crops that swayed British support
  occurred with grains. Poor harvests in Europe
  forced the British to depend on Northern grain
  exports
• Fear of losing these kept the British out of the
  war directly.

8
Foreign Diplomacy

• The Trent Affair - late in 1861, the North
  commandeered a British steamer and forcibly took
  two confederate diplomats on their way to Britain
• The British protested and Lincoln capitulated
• Another crisis arose over the building of
  Confederate commerce-raiders in England
• The most successful was the Alabama (seen below)

• In 1863, Britain began seizing such ships so that
  the North would not stop sending grain
• The protest in the North led to cries for
  attacking Canada again.

9
Monroe Doctrine

• Napoleon III of France took advantage of the war
  by installing a puppet government in Mexico City
  in direct violation of the Monroe Doctrine
• When the war ended, Secretary of State William
  Seward threatened to send troops and Napoleon
  retreated.

Maximilians execution
William Seward
Napoleon III
10
Jefferson Davis

• Resigned from the Senate when his home state of
  Mississippi seceded
• Appointed then later elected Pres. of the
  Confederate States of America
• Reluctantly accepted the office
• He was constantly at odds with the states which
  had seceded over States rights issues
• Usually got turned down by state governments when
  he asked for volunteers, money and supplies
• He was never really able to unify the Confederacy
  for its own defense.

11
Abraham Lincoln

• Abused the Constitution in order to preserve it
• Lincoln proclaimed a blockade
• Increased the federal army
• Appropriated 2 million to three men for military
  purposes
• Allowed "supervised" voting in the border-states
• Suspended certain newspapers and the writ of
  habeas corpus
• All done without congressional approval!

Circa 1860
12
A Volunteer Army

• In the beginning both sides relied on volunteers
  to fill the need for soldiers
• It wasn't until 1863 that Congress passed a
  conscription law when volunteering began to slack
  in the North

• The Confederacy had a tougher time and in both
  North and South the wealthy could buy their way
  out of enlistment.

LEFT A London News engraving titled Enlisting
Irish and German Immigrants depicts a scene in
New York with Union recruiters talking to recent
arrivals. The sign in the background promises
they will be paid a total of 600 for there
service.
13
Draft riots

• In 1861 volunteers on both sides were easy to
  find but after that not so much. This scene
  depicts one of the many anti-draft riots that
  took place in the North.

14
Not quite a BUS

• The Washington Treasury issued 450 million of
  green-backed paper money not adequately supported
  by gold reserves
• The government was relying on the faith of the
  Union which was shaky
• The National Banking System was passed by
  Congress in 1863, the first step toward a unified
  banking network since 1836.

Hard currency was hard to come by because people
in the North hoarded coins. In 1863 the
government was forced to print fractional
dollars. The example on the right is for 25
cents.
15
The first American Millionaires

• As in any war, there were those who profited
  tremendously before, during, and afterward.
• Manufacturers of weapons and clothing made huge
  profits off of both sides. Innovations in
  machinery were enjoyed particularly in the North
  which managed to increase productivity even while
  most of its' work force was fighting the war.
• In 1860, the South possessed 30 of the nations
  wealth.
• By 1870, that total was down to 12. The South
  was devastated in every sense and would never be
  the same again.

Uh, its been 143 years and were still waiting