Transcript War and the railroad - Nineteenth Century United States History

1861-1862
Life Goes on as the War Begins
This Day in History
• 1860: Abraham Lincoln elected President of the
United States
– first Republican to win the presidency
– Received only 40 percent of the popular vote
• 1861: Jefferson Davis elected President of the
Confederate States of America
– Ran without opposition, and the election confirmed
decision made by Confederate Congress earlier in the year.
– "Upon my weary heart was showered smiles, plaudits, and
flowers, but beyond them I saw troubles and thorns
innumerable."
– Six-year term as established by the Confederate
constitution.
– President until May 5, 1865, when the Confederate
government was officially dissolved.
The Beginning of the Wild West
• September 9, 1850: Gold-rich California
becomes the 30th state admitted into the
Union.
• June, 1859: Comstock Lode lures miners to
Virginia City, Nevada, in search of gold and
silver ore.
– Revitalizes the California mining economy
– Urges exploration of a road east across the Sierra
Nevada.
New Weaponry
• Oliver Winchester invented the repeating rifle
– Carried by the Union Cavalry
• Colt’s Army Model1860 repeating revolver
– Carried by Union officers
War Technology Advances
• Repeating weapons, improved canons and
artillery
– Improvements in steel and iron technology
• Warfare was much less organized into
formations
– Men began fighting low to the ground using cover
– More fortifications used
• Siege method used at Vicksburg, Petersburg, defense of
Richmond
Infrastructure Advancements
• Ironclad ships, torpedoes, submarines appeared
but did not make great impacts
• Railroads became key to transporting soldiers and
materiel
– Could move as many as 250,000 men at once
• Telegraph improved
– Troops began stringing them along marching routes
– Often tapped by enemy
“Team of Rivals”
• Lincoln’s cabinet represented every faction of the
Republican party
– Former Democrats, Whigs from New England,
Midwest, Middle Atlantic
• Secretary of State: William Seward
– Influential within the party
• Secretary of War: Gideon Welles
• Head of War Department: Simon Cameron
• Attorney General: Henry Bates
Constitution of Confederate States
of America
• March 11, 1861 adopted in Montgomery
– identical to US except
• Acknowledged sovereignty of individual states
• Did not include secession
• Specifically sanctioned slavery and made abolition
impossible, even by an individual state
States Rights Getting in the Way
• Resulted in resistance toward all government
efforts to exert national authority, even war
necessities
– Restricted government authority to impose martial law
and suspend habeas corpus and conscription
• Centralized actions did occur
– “food draft” soldiers fed themselves by seizing crops from farms in
their path
– Impressed slaves despite owner objections
– Took control of railroads, shipping
– Regulated industry
Confederate Leaders
• Montgomery convention named Jefferson Davis of
Mississippi president
– Public experience
– West Point Graduate
• Commanded Mississippi volunteers in Mexican War
– Senator from Mississippi
– Franklyn Pierce’s Secretary of War
• Alexander H. Stevens of Georgia vice president.
– Stevens originally argued against slavery
• Later elected by popular vote for 6 year term
– February 22, 1862
Forts Controversy
• Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor needed supplies
– Union would not surrender federal property
– Major Robert Anderson in command
• Sumter a threat to Lincoln’s commitment to no
surrender
– Unionists: surrender fort to avoid conflict
– Northern businessmen knew Confederacy would not
trade with north, but Europe
– Manifest Destiny: only fulfilled through Union
• Attempted to send in provisions April
Last Ditch Effort
• Confederate Secretary of War Leroy Walker to
PTG Beauregard at Charleston:
– “Do not desire needlessly to bombard Fort Sumter.
If Major Anderson will state the time at which …
he will evacuate.”
• Anderson received word of attack at 3:30 AM,
April 12
April: The Confederacy Acts
• Seized federal property within boundaries
– Forts, armories
• Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, SC could not be
taken and Major Robert Anderson refused to
surrender to General P.T. Beauregard
– Sent supply ships, informing south that no arms would be
sent unless the supply ships met resistance
• Confederate guns denied ships access to fort
• Confederacy denied US government authority in SC
Attack of Fort Sumter
• Confederates attacked April 12, 4:30 am
– Continued to April 13
• Anderson surrendered April 14
• Lincoln mobilized for war
– April 15: called for state militia
– No formal declaration of war; declared an insurrection
• Secession continued
– Virginia: April 17
• Richmond became the capital of the CSA
Money Problems
• States were unwilling to tax their citizens
– Confederate Congress’s attempt to tax to raise
funds thus failed
• Issued paper currency in 1861
– $1.5 billion in paper money issued
– 9000% increase in prices (inflation!)
– Killed Confederate morale
Davis’s Troubles
• Davis was a professional
soldier but did not create an
effective central command
system
– Named Lee Principle Advisor
but did not heed his advice
• Lee left to command the Army
of Northern Virginia
– Named General Braxton
Bragg as replacement
– Davis served as his own
secretary of war
USMA Confederate Alumni
• Most southern generals
and professional officers
graduated from the
USMA at West Point
and the US Naval
Academy at Annapolis.
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Robert E. Lee
PGT Beauregard
Braxton Bragg
Jubal Early
Richard Ewell
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Henry Heth
Ambrose Hill
Thomas Jackson
James Longstreet
Albert Johnston
Joseph Johnston
Lafayette McLaws
George Pickett
JEB Stewart
Isaac Trimble
Status of Free African Americans
• 250,000 free blacks in slaveholding states by 1861
– ½ in Virginia and Maryland
– Some earned money and managed to buy their freedom
– Often urban blacks
• Elizabeth Keckley: bough freedom for herself and her son with
earnings from being a seamstress
– Became seamstress, personal servant, and companion of Mary Todd
Lincoln
– Some set free by moral owners or after death of owners
Radical Republicans
• Radical Republicans
– Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania
– Charles Sumner of Maryland
– Benjamin Wade of Ohio
• Wanted to abolish slavery immediately and
completely
• Conservatives wanted to act moderately to
placate border slave states
Union territories not
permitting slavery
Union states
Union Territories
permitting slavery
Border Union states, permitting slavery
Kansas entered Union
Confederate states
Border States
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More white Americans lived there than in CSA
No desire to fight, little sympathy for CSA
Closer economic, geographical ties to North
More modern than Lower South
– Railroads, industry, cities
• Average slave population 10% (compared to 46%
in Lower, 28 in Upper South)
– Declining, free population growing
Missouri Conflict
• St Louis: one of the largest arsenals in nation
• Unionists vs. Pro-Confederates
– Non-military violence split state
• Battle of Pea Ridge (Arkansas): Confederates
pushed out of Missouri for remainder of war
– Unionists controlled state, still sentimentally divided
• Guerrilla warfare continued throughout war
Map, show border states surrounded dc
1861
• April, 1861: Kansas entered Union as a free
state
• Confiscation Act passed by Congress
• Declared all slaved used for purposes that
supported Confederate military cause must be
considered free
Northern Advantages
• Population
– 22 million vs. 9 million (1/3 slaves)
• Advanced industrial system
– Could manufacture own war materials
• Better transportation system
– More and better railroads and roads
• Union had superior naval power
– Enforced the blockade the south could not officially break
• Runners did get through
– Seized southern ports
– In west: Ships brought supplies, reinforcements, and
attacked strongholds
– South could only fight gunboats with land fortifications
Southern Advantages
• Armies were fighting a defensive war in familiar
territory
– Support of local people
• Commitment to cause firm
– Fought for independence
• Superior Leadership
• English and French support
– “King Cotton diplomacy”
• English manufacturers had surplus of raw cotton and finished
goods
• Later imported cotton from Egypt and India
Choosing Sides
• Sympathies of French and English ruling class
were with the South
– Importers of cotton
– Wanted to weaken the US since it was a rival in world
commerce
• US still a world power, so only way Europe would support
CSA was if it looked like they would win the war
– Irony: CSA needed Europe to win
– France would not take sides until England did so
“Neutral” England
• England reluctant to officially support slave
nation
– Support for Union came from a large English
antislavery movement
– Emancipation Proclamation cemented support
• England unofficially aided CSA
– Many in Europe declared neutrality
• Lincoln argues domestic insurrection, not war
between two sovereign nations
Raising Money
• Republican controlled Congress passed a series of
tariff bills to raise duties on imports
– Protection from foreign competition for domestic
producers
• Congress spurred completion of the
transcontinental railroad
– Created formally chartered corporations
• Union pacific Railroad company built west from Omaha
• Central Pacific Railroad built east from California
• Government provided free public lands and loans to the
companies
Income Tax Appears
• US government levied taxes on nearly all
goods and services
– 1861: income tax: unpopularity kept it from being
raised
Armed Forces
• 2 million served in the Northern forces
– Regular army in 1861: 16,000 troops, most in the
west to protect white settlers from Indians
– July 1861: Congress authorized enlisting 500,000
men
• Volunteered for 3 years instead of 3 months
Lincoln and the Constitution
• Government could not recognize secession
– Meant own distruction
– Maintain authority against disunion
• Lincoln used war powers of presidency
– Ignored parts of the Constitution “foolish to lose the
whole by being afraid to disregard a part”
– Sent troops into war without asking for Congressional
declaration of war
• Domestic insurrection required no congressional authority
– Unilaterally increased the size of the army, proclaimed
a blockade on the south
Copperheads
• Peace Democrats (Copperheads) mobilized
popular opposition to the war
– Lincoln responded by ordering military arrests of
civilian dissenters
• Suspended habeas corpus (right to a speedy trial)
• First used only in border states
Lincoln the Strategist
• Lincoln knew how to exploit the North’s
advantages
– Knew the proper objective was to destroy Confederate
armies, not occupy the south
– Could not find a good General
• General Winfield Scott was too old and retired in 1861
• George B. McClellan was a poor strategist
– Trained men well, reluctant to go into battle
• Chief of Staff General Henry Halleck made no decisions
Southern Economic Troubles
• Planters and producers were cut off from
northern markets
• Union blockade of CSA ports made export to
Europe difficult and expensive
• Farms and industries without large slave
populations were robbed of work force
– Production declined by more than 1/3
Pacific Railroad Bill: July, 1862
• Allows Central Pacific to build California line
• Simultaneously chartering Union Pacific
Railroad Company to build west
• The bill grants each enterprise 6,400 acres of
land and $48,000 in government bonds per
mile built. It does not designate a meeting
point for the lines.
Pacific Railroad Act passed in 1862
• Authorized the construction of the new
transcontinental link
– Provided grants of land and other subsidies to the
railroads for each mile of track laid
– Railroad companies became the largest landholders in
the west
– Expansion of railroad accelerated the transformation
of life west of the Mississippi
– Railroads looked to immigrants for inexpensive labor
• Central Pacific hired Chinese workers to carve tunnels
through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and used Irish and
black laborers to lay track
The Big Four
• Collis P. Huntington
– Brought in other three investors
– Bought influence in D.C., efforts to undermine
Union Pacific RR
• Mark Hopkins
– Bookkeeper, businessman, treasurer of Central
Pacific RR
• Leland Stanford
• Charles Crocker
Bosses of the Central Pacific
• Leland Stanford
– President of Central Pacific Board
• Charles Crocker
– His idea to recruit Chinese immigrants
• James Harvey Strobridge
– Construction boss; intimidated, abused workers
Working on the Railroad
• Who:
– Native-born whites, Mexican Americans, African
Americans
• Civil War Veterans, Freedmen
– Immigrants: Irish, followed by Chinese
• Distrusted by owners because of prejudice
• Hard work + low pay = high attrition rate
– Attrition: Lowering of numbers due to death or
retirement
Chinese Immigrants in the West
• Chinese peasants arriving in California in 1850
– Result of poverty, overpopulation from China
• Five-year stints in the mines
• Prospected or became laborers, domestic
workers, and fishermen
• Faced growing prejudice and increasingly
restrictive laws limiting opportunity
First Battle of Bull Run/First Manassas
• Washington hoped for a single battle war
• Civilians picnicking at the battlefield
• Retreat turned into a riot
• Union had 30,000 under Irvin McDowell
• Confederacy had a slightly smaller force under
P.G.T. Beauregard
– Numerical advantage did not help north, as
Confederate forces broke Union assault
General Problems
• McDowell: defeated (humiliated) at Bull
Run/Manassas
– replaced
• McClellan: brilliant trainer, organizer of army
– Did not fight as directed
– Ignored Lincoln’s advice
• Lincoln trained himself, became able strategist
• Pope
– Humiliated at Second Bull Run/Manassas
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Burnside: devastating defeat at Fredericksburg
Hooker
Meade
Grant
The Trent Affair and Other Problems
• Trent Affair: November 8, 1861
– Mason and Slidell taken off HMS Trent and brought to
Boston
– Britain demanded their release and an apology
– “One war at a time.”
• CSA bought destroyers from Britain
– Alabama, Florida, Shenandoah
– This violated laws of neutrality
– Fought Britain for damages
Homestead Act of 1862
• Any citizen or perspective citizen could buy
160 acres of public land for a small fee after
living on it for 5 years
Individual Rights Violations
• All who discouraged enlistments or engaged in
disloyal practices were subject to martial law
– 13,000 arrested or imprisoned
Emancipation Begins
• Spring: slavery abolished in Washington DC
and in western territories
– Owners compensated for losses
Ironclads Battle
• March, 1852: Monitor vs. Merrimac (Virginia)
– latter was an ironclad scuttled when Virginia
seceded
– March 8, the refitted Virginia attacked blockade at
Hampton Roads
• Destroyed 2 ships
– Monitor met Virginia on March 9, battled to a
draw, Virginia could no longer attack blockade
Economics in the North
• Republicans promoted nationalistic economic
legislation
– Coal production increased 20%
– Railroads improved with the standard gauge (width)
on new lines
– Loss of farm labor increased the mechanization of
agriculture (necessity being the mother of invention)
• Eliminated many skilled-labor jobs
Inflation, Immigration, Women
• Prices rose 80% as wages rose only 40%
• Immigration increased and flooded labor market with
workers
– Resulted in large increase in union membership
• National unions formed
– coal miners
– railroad engineers
– Opposed and suppressed by employers
• Women became teachers, sales clerks, office workers,
mill and factory workers, nurses
– United States Sanitary Commission led by Dorothea Dix
mobilized volunteers to serve in field hospitals
– Nursing almost entirely female profession by 1865