Transcript Chapter 20

Chapter 20
“Girding for War: The North and
South”
Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter
South Carolina Assails Fort Sumter
• Federal arsenal in South Carolina. One of the few Union
forts still in the North’s hands after secession.
• 100 men guarding the fort called for reinforcements.
Lincoln told Confederacy that the Union was sending
supplies
• South Carolina looked upon the action as an act of war
and fired the fist shots of the Civil War
• Lincoln made it clear that the Union would not fire the
first shot.
• This was a ploy to guarantee that the border states
would remain in the Union.
Border States
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Missouri
Kentucky
Maryland
Delaware
Border States
• The remaining Border States were crucial for both sides, as they
would have almost doubled the manufacturing capacity of the South
• Maryland’s close proximity to DC was a concern
• Lincoln’s Quest to keep the Border State
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Calling the war a war to save the union not free the slaves
Declaration of martial law in the border states
Suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland
Supervised voting in the border states
African-Americans denied the right to fight
Advantages/Disadvantages
• Northern Advantages
– More population
– More railroads
– More money
– Immigrants
– More industrial
capacity
– Better technology
– More food (farms)
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Southern Advantage
– Better generals
– Need only hold off
North
– Homefield
advantage
Cotton the Lifeblood of the South
• Confederacy was expecting foreign
intervention in the war because of the
assumed European reliance on cotton.
• Help from Great Britain or France never
came because of the power of Uncle
Tom’s Cabin, and their reliance on the
North for food
• In the end Europe received cotton from
Egypt as well as from the North
Cotton
Trent Affair
• On November 8, 1861, the USS Jacinto, flouting
international laws, stopped the British mail packet the
Trent sailing from Havana to England and arrested two
Confederate diplomats and their secretaries who were
on a diplomatic mission to England. They were
imprisoned in Boston. The British government demanded
their release.
• Great Britain threatened war and sent troops to the
Canadian border.
• A two front war was possible when Lincoln apologized
and freed the prisoners averting the disaster
Foreign Affairs during War
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Alabama Claims - In 1862, the Alabama
escaped to the Portuguese Azores, took on
weapons and crew from Britain, but never
sailed into a Confederate base, thus using a
loophole to help the South
Napoleon III - installed a puppet government in
Mexico City, putting in the Austrian Archduke
Maximilian as emperor of Mexico, but after the
war, the U.S. threatened violence, and
Napoleon left Maximilian to doom at the hands
of the Mexican firing squad.
CSS Alabama
President Davis versus President
Lincoln
• The Problem with the South was that it gave
states the ability to secede in the future, and
getting Southern states to send troops to help
other states was always difficult to do
• Jefferson Davis was never really popular and
overworked himself
• Lincoln, though with his problems, had the
benefit of leading an established government
and grew patient and relaxed as the war
dragged on
Limitations on Wartime Liberties
• Blockade
• Illegally increasing the size of the army.
Congress only authorized to do this
• Suspension of the writ of habeas corpus
• Supervised voting in the border states
• Suspension of newspapers
Conscription laws
• During the American Civil War, the conscription law of
the North provided the opportunity for religious objectors
and others to buy their way out of the draft. Those who
refused or could not afford that option were treated
harshly under military law. Four thousand men served in
the military as unarmed legal conscientious objectors
(COs).
• Both sides used the draft
• 90% of Northern troops were volunteer
• Confederacy drafted “from the cradle to the grave”
Economics and Civil War
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North passed first ever income tax
North increased the protective tariff
Both sides borrowed money from people – war bonds
The National Banking Act was the first step toward a
unified national banking network since 1836, when the
Bank of the United States (BUS) was killed by Andrew
Jackson.
South had huge problems with currency and inflation
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9000% increase in inflation
North had an economic boom during the war
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Only 80% increase in inflation
Homestead Act
• Passed during the
Civil War
• Gave 120 acres of
land to anyone who
agreed to farm land in
the west
• Few succeeded at
first
Homesteaders