Transcript Monday, November 9

5.3 Notes
• Both the Union and the Confederacy mobilized their economies and
societies to wage the war even while facing considerable home front
opposition.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Confederates
• Had the advantage of fighting only a defensive war to win
• Had to move troops and supplies shorter distances than the Union
• Had a long, indented coastline that was difficult to blockade
• Had experienced military leaders (Robert E. Lee) and high troop
morale
• Hoped that European demand for its cotton would bring recognition
& financial aid (but it didn’t)
Advantages:
North/Union
• A population 2 ½ times the size of the South’s
• Had a strong US Navy which gave the North command of the rivers
and territorial waters
• Controlled the banking and capital (money)
• Had 85% of the factories, 65% of the farmland
Political Goals
• The Confederates were struggling for independence while the Union
was fighting to “preserve the Union.”
• States’ rights made it difficult for the Confederate government to win
the war because the Confederates needed a strong central
government with strong public support. The Confederates had
neither, while the Union had a well-established central government.
• The ultimate hope of the Confederates was that the people of the
Union would turn against Lincoln and the Republicans and quit the
war because it was too costly.
The Confederate States of America
• The Confederate constitution was modeled after the US Constitution
except that it provided a single 6-year term for the president and gave
the president an item veto (to veto only part of a bill).
• Its constitution denied the Confederate congress the power to levy a
protective tariff and to appropriate funds for internal improvements,
but it did prohibit the foreign slave trade.
• The Confederacy was short of money. It tried loans, income taxes, and
impressment of private property but did not generate enough funds
to wage a war. It issued more than $1 billion in paper money that
caused inflation. By the end of the war, the value of a Confederate
dollar was less than two cents.
Lincoln and most Union supporters began the Civil War to preserve the
Union but Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation
reframed the purpose of the war and helped prevent the Confederacy
from gaining full diplomatic support from European powers.
Many African Americans fled southern plantations and enlisted in the
Union Army, helping to undermine the Confederacy.
Confiscation Acts
• Early in the war, Union General Benjamin Butler refused to return
captured slaves to their Confederate owners, arguing that they were
“contraband of the war.”
• The power to seize enemy property used to wage war against the US
was the legal basis for the first Confiscation Act passed by Congress in
1861.
• Soon after the passage of this act, thousands of “contrabands” were
using their feet to escape slavery by finding their way into Union
camps.
• July 1862, Congress passed a second Confiscation Act that freed
persons enslaved by anyone engaged in rebellion against the US. The
law also empowered the president to use freed slaves in the Union
army in any capacity, including battle.
Emancipation Proclamation
• After the Battle of Antietam, 1862, Lincoln issued a warning that
enslaved people in all states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863,
would be free.
Consequences:
Since it applied only to enslaved people residing in the Confederate
states outside Union control, it immediately freed only about 1% of the
slaves.
Slavery in the border states was allowed to continue.
Still, it was of major importance because it enlarged the purpose of the
war. For the first time, Union armies were righting against slavery, not
just against secession.
With each advance of Northern troops into the South, abolition
advanced as well. The proclamation also authorized the use of freed
The Border States
• Four other slaveholding states might have seceded, but instead
remained in the Union – Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky
• In these states, the Union army resorted to martial law to keep the
states under federal control.
• Keeping the border states in the Union was a primary military and
political goal for Lincoln. Their loss would have increased the
Confederate population by more than 50%.
th
13
Amendment
• Standing in the way of full emancipation were phrases in the US
Constitution that had long legitimized slavery.
• To free all enslaved people in the border states, the country needed
to ratify a constitutional amendment.
• Even the abolitionists gave Lincoln credit for playing an active role in
the political struggle to secure enough votes in Congress to pass the
13th Amendment.
Gettysburg Address
• Lincoln sought to reunify the country and used speeches such as the
Gettysburg Address to portray the struggle against slavery as the
fulfillment of America’s founding democratic ideals.
• In his famous address on November 19, 1863, Lincoln rallied
Americans to the idea that their nation was “dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.” Lincoln was probably
alluding to the Emancipation Proclamation when he spoke of the war
bringing “a new birth of freedom.” His words and the abolition of
slavery advanced the cause of democratic government in the US and
inspired champions of democracy around the world.
• Although the Confederacy showed military initiative and daring early
in the war, the Union ultimately succeeded due to improvements in
leadership and strategy, key victories, greater resources, and the
wartime destruction of the South’s infrastructure.
• Leadership: Ulysses S. Grant – “Unconditional Surrender” Grant
• Key Victories:
- The “Siege” of Vicksburg, Mississippi gave the Union control of the
Mississippi River; this cut the Confederacy in two (separated Texas,
Louisiana & Arkansas from the rest of the Confederacy) lasted 7
weeks before the Confederates surrendered
- Gettysburg – the Confederate troops under Robert E. Lee invaded,
surprising the Union troops; was the most crucial battle of the war
and the bloodiest with more than 50,00 casualties; Confederates
forced to retreat, never to regain the offensive
Ulysses S. Grant
• Commander of all the Union armies
• Strategy: war by attrition – wear down the Confederate’s armies and
destroy their vital lines of supply
• Never let up and succeeded in reducing Lee’s army in each battle and
forcing it into a defensive line around Richmond (Confederate capital).
• The fighting foreshadowed the trench warfare that would later
characterize WWI.
• No longer was this a war “between gentlemen” but a modern “total”
war against civilians as well as soldiers.
Sherman’s March
• General William Tecumseh Sherman led a campaign of deliberate
destruction across the state of Georgia into South Carolina.
• Sherman believed in total war. The Union troops under his command
destroyed everything the enemy might use to survive.
• Sherman took Atlanta in time to help Lincoln’s reelection in 1864.
• Sherman marched into Savannah, and completed his campaign in
February 1865 by setting fire to Columbia, the capital of South
Carolina and the heart of secession.
• Sherman’s march had its intended effects: helping to break the spirit
of the Confederacy and destroying its will to fight.