Civil War(1863-64)

key Civil War battles

• First Bull Run (July 1861)– war would not be over quickly– Union: need to modernize – Union: fear of fighting in the east

Civil War 1861-62

• modernizing army• modernizing government

Civil War 1861-62

• modernizing army• modernizing government• from union war to emancipation war• from conciliation to pragmatism

key Civil War battles

• First Bull Run (July 1861)• Antietam/ Perryville (September 1862)– Confederacy hopes to secure border state and

foreign support, but– border states continue to support Union– emancipation proclamation (Britain continues to

support Union)

Civil War 1863-64

• problem of conscription

Civil War 1863-64

• problem of conscription– intersecting with race: New York draft riots (July

1863)

Civil War 1863-64

• problem of conscription– intersecting with race: New York draft riots (July

1863)– intersecting with scarcity: Richmond bread riots

(April 1863)

Civil War 1863-64

• problem of conscription• problem of black soldiers– embraced by Union after Fort Wagner (July 1863)

You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you, then, exclusively to save the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. . . . [But when the war is won] there will be some black man who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it.

-Lincoln, letter to Democrats (August 1863)

Civil War 1863-64

• problem of conscription• problem of black soldiers– embraced by Union after Fort Wagner (July 1863)– denied by Confederacy• treatment of black Union soldiers• suspending of prisoner exchange (Andersonville)

key Civil War battles

• First Bull Run (July 1861)• Antietam/ Perryville (September 1862)• Gettysburg/ Vicksburg (July 1863)– G: Confederacy hopes to bring about end of war

through decisive military victory, but– G: Lee overreaches himself and is defeated– V: victory of pragmatic war

key Civil War battles

• First Bull Run (July 1861)• Antietam/ Perryville (September 1862)• Gettysburg/ Vicksburg (July 1863)• Atlanta (August 1864)– hard war– cutting loose from supply lines (march to the sea)

Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds of thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance. . . I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success.

-Sherman, to mayor of Atlanta (Sept. 1864)

We cannot change the hearts of those people of the South, but we can make war so terrible. . . . [and] make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before the would again appeal to it.

-Sherman, Memoirs

Charleston, 1865

Wartime Reconstruction(1863-64)

Others of the colored people joined in; some whites on the platform began, but I motioned them to silence. I never saw anything so electric; it made all other words cheap; it seemed the choked voice of a race at last unloosed. . . Just think of it!—the first day they had ever had a country, the first flag they had ever seen which promised anything to their people, and here, while mere spectators stood in silence, waiting for my stupid words, these simple souls burst out in their lay, as if they were by their own hearths at home!

-excerpt from Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment (1870)

further reading

Mark Grimsley, The Hard Hand of War: Union Policy toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865 (1995)

Willie Lee Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment (1964)