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Chapter 53 : "Our White Men Cutting One Another's Throats" - The American Civil War Part One: The War Begins When Abraham Lincoln uttered the words "our White men are cutting one another's throats" to a deputation of Blacks at the seat of government in Washington D.C. in 1862, not even he could have foreseen the slaughter that would take place over the next three years in his country: more Americans were to die in that Civil War than what were ever to be killed in any war before or ever since. Once the Union had been established, it faced two critical issues: whether the United States of America should be a federation or a confederation; and whether the institution of indentured labor - in effect a lighter form of slavery - should be allowed to continue or not. Together these two issues led to the American Civil War, which can be counted as one of the great turning points in American history: it set the new nation against itself, the South, supporting confederalism and indentured labor; against the North, who favored federalism and the abolition of slavery. Great White armies fought each other and finally decimated the South, all in an argument over the future of the Black race. Growth in Territory The United States of America soon started expanding after the War of Independence with Britain. Territories to the west of the original 13 colonies, which all lay on the eastern seaboard of the continent, had in the interim been steadily filling up with Whites. In 1791, Vermont, a frontier region settled chiefly by New Englanders, became a state; this was followed by Kentucky in 1792, Tennessee in 1796, and Ohio in 1803. Under the president Thomas Jefferson, the Louisiana Territory, a vast tract of land encompassing the lands between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, was acquired for the United States. Originally ceded by France to Spain in 1762, after the French and Indian War, the territory had been given back to France in 1800. The new French leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was short of cash for his government, offered to sell the territory to the new American government for $15 million - a bargain that Jefferson snapped up, in an instant doubling the size of the United States. Fourteen states were wholly or partly created out of the Louisiana Territory alone. In 1810, the United States forcibly annexed (from Spain) the territory called West Mexico: a strip of land along the Gulf of Mexico extending westward from East Florida to the mouth of the Mississippi River. Weakened at home and in her colonies, Spain then ceded to the United States the remaining part of her North American possessions, called East Mexico, and now called Florida, in 1819. Westward Migration A second wave of White westward migration took place in the aftermath of the economic hardship on the eastern seaboard which followed the war with Britain in 1812: Whites poured into Louisiana and a state was officially declared there in 1812. Indiana followed in 1816, Mississippi in 1817, Illinois in 1818 and Alabama in 1819. Life in these frontier territories was dangerous and difficult. The settlers were faced not only with the problems of clearing land and building stable communities, but were also continually subjected to attacks by Amerinds. In the face of all the problems the frontiersmen became hardy and daring: a belief in what was called manifest destiny and idealism took hold, propelling the settlers on where others might have given up. Cotton Industry In the Southern states the economy became more and more centered on the growing of cotton, using a labor-intensive Black slave-population. The South grew wealthy on this cotton based economy: great towns and cities were built which rivaled those built on the original eastern seaboard. Many Southerners lived lives of near aristocratic opulence. But underneath the façade a time bomb was ticking: the interlinked issues of Black slavery and the right of the central government to interfere in the right of states to regulate this practice (and other laws) had not gone away: indeed with the passage of time they came to dominate the political debate. In contrast to the agriculturally based south, the northeast was marked by rapid industrialization: caused partly by the emigration of farmers to more fertile lands in the south and west; but also driven on by necessity as a result of the economic hardship which followed the War of 1812. The North also had a larger population than the South: a factor which ultimately caused the American Congress to weigh heavily in favor of bringing in protective tariffs for northern industry. The introduction of tariffs protecting northern industry were opposed by the South for two reasons. Firstly it illustrated the problems with federalism: because the northern states had a larger population, they had a majority in congress; and secondly, with virtually no major industrial capacity of its own, the South objected to being forced to gratuitously pay higher prices for northern industrial goods. Slavery As the American Constitution recognized slavery and most of the signatories to the Constitution themselves owned slaves, nothing was done to either end the practice of slave owning or encourage it. This ambiguous state of affairs resulted in some states allowing slavery and others forbidding the practice. By the end of the 18th Century, all the states north of Maryland, except New Jersey, had provided for the abolition of slavery. Caught in a web of indecision, the US Congress sometimes acted for, and sometimes against slavery: an ordinance in 1787, prohibited slavery in the northwest territory; but in 1793, it passed the Fugitive Slave Law, which permitted a slave owner to reclaim escaped slaves from anywhere in the United States - upon production of "proof of ownership." At differing times from 1791 onwards, the Union admitted states which had legalized slavery and those who did not. Slave owning states accepted into Union included Kentucky, Tennessee, and Louisiana; non-slave owning states included Vermont, Ohio and Maine. In 1808, sensing that the Black population was already growing, the US Congress passed a law forbidding the further importation of Blacks into the country: it did not however abolish slavery itself. The Missouri Compromise It was only when the state of Missouri applied for membership of the Union in 1818, that the issue became hotly debated: representatives from those states in Congress who had abolished slavery, expressed concern that the admission of a slave owning state into the Union from west of the Mississippi River would create a precedent for the future admission of slave owning states from the Western Territories into the Union. A law called the Missouri Compromise resulted, in terms of which Missouri itself was admitted to the Union, but slavery was prohibited in all other states to be created out of territory purchased from France (called the Louisiana Purchase). After the passing of the Missouri Compromise, the anti-slavery activists in the North began to organize politically against the practice. In reaction, the South, arguing that the very basis of their labor intensive cotton industry was threatened, passed stringent laws to keep its slaves under control. In 1840, Southern pressure on Congress caused the passing of the so-called Gag Resolution, which prevented Congress from considering any further petition presented to it on the subject of slavery. The debate over slavery then intensified, with the US Congress very often being split down the middle over the issue. Just as it seemed the issue was coming to a head, the attention of the nation was diverted by the outbreak of a new race war in the south: that with Mexico which erupted over the territory of Texas. The successful conclusion of the war with Mexico saw even more territories added to the union: Texas, Arizona, California, New Mexico and Oregon. The addition of these territories once again brought the debate on slavery to the fore. As before, the Congress vacillated and always tried to put the unity of the country first by trying out any number of compromises. In this way California was admitted to the union as a non-slave owning state: while the territories to the east of California (Arizona and New Mexico) were to be left to decide on their own on the issue. The Underground Railroad Then Congress passed a new fugitive slave law in 1850, which made much more effective the measures that could be taken by a slave owner to reclaim an escaped slave. Together with the laws allowing the "right to decide" on slavery for the new western territories, these contradictory laws became known as the Compromise Measures. However, many anti-slavery activists in the North refused to obey the rules laid down in the fugitive slave laws and actively helped escaped slaves travel to Canada through secret routes known as the Underground Railroad. In 1854, the issue of the dual attitude towards slavery flared up once again with the passage of a law repealing parts of the Missouri Compromise. As part of a new law dividing the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase into two further states, Nebraska and Kansas, it was decided that the territories' inhabitants could decide for themselves whether they wanted slavery or not. Anti-slavery activists saw in this law the institution of slavery being extended north from the original boundary established by the Missouri Compromise and increased their agitation against slavery and the fugitive slave laws. The act also brought about violent conflict in Kansas between abolitionist settlers who had emigrated from New England for the purpose of making Kansas a free state, and pro-slavery forces who invaded Kansas from the neighboring slave state of Missouri to vote in favor of slavery. The pro-slavery forces sacked and burned the anti-slavery town of Lawrence in May 1856, and in retaliation, John Brown, a fanatical abolitionist, led a group which killed five pro-slavery adherents at Pottawatomie Creek. In 1857, the US Supreme Court gave a judgment in the famous Dred Scott effectively sanctioning slavery when it declared that Black slaves were "property and not citizens" and that Congress had no right to prohibit slavery. Against this backdrop - with the US Congress being torn between pro and anti-slavery factions, and with the very principle of the Union being torn apart by divisions over the right of the central government to interfere in individual state's laws or not - the scene was set for the devastating civil war in America. Secession and War The election victory of a northern Republican Party presidential candidate, Abraham Lincoln, in 1859, proved to many Southerners that the commanding position in national affairs now belonged to the North, and that it seemed that all major decisions regarding social and economic matters would henceforth be taken by the North and imposed on the South. Interestingly enough, Lincoln himself initially advocated state control of slavery, not outright abolition.
Then a Southern state took the momentous decision to withdraw from the Union. On 20 December 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union and a few days later its state troopers laid siege to the federal garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston. Within a month the states of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia had officially withdrawn from the Union, to be followed a short while later by Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The Confederate States of America On 4 February 1861, delegates from six of the seceding states met at Montgomery, Alabama, and formed a provisional government called the Confederate States of America - an indication of the government form they preferred (a confederation having a much looser central government than a federation). On 8 February, they adopted a confederal constitution and the next day elected a provisional president and vice president; Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens respectively. They were elected unopposed in a formal election held in 1862. Seeing his country fall apart, president Lincoln tried hard to prevent a conflict: in his inaugural address as president on 4 March 1861, he made his position clear: He did not intend to interfere with slavery in the states where it existed; at the same time, he declared that no state had the right to leave the Union as and when it pleased. The First Shots Then events moved with surprising speed: on 12 April, the South Carolina troopers who had been peacefully besieging the garrison of Fort Sumter in Charleston all the while, began a cannon bombardment of the building. The Union troops surrendered two days later. Faced with armed rebellion, Lincoln's hand was forced: on 15 April, he called upon the loyal states for 75,000 volunteers to defend the Union, but the southern states which had not yet thrown in their lot with the rebels in the deep south refused to send troops: they too joined the confederacy. Black Troops
Before the Civil War, Blacks were not allowed to join state militias or the U.S. Army or Navy, and the federal government refused to give passports to free Blacks. This status had been confirmed by the US Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case of 1857, when it had ruled that Blacks could never be citizens of the United States. When the Civil War started, the Northern government initially refused to allow Blacks to be enlisted into the army. By 1862, the rules had been changed slightly: Blacks were allowed to enlist in segregated units, led by White officers. By the end of the war, more than 200,000 Blacks had served in the Northern Army and Navy. Differing Aims The North and the South had differing aims in the war, which were to determine their strategies: the South only wanted to maintain its independence; while the North wanted to suppress the secession. This meant that the North would have to invade the South: this led to the North being the offensive power in the war, with the South being the defensive power. First Battle of Bull Run The first major engagement of the war occurred in 16 July 1861, when a Northern (or Union) army advanced south against a Southern (or Confederate) army which had taken up position about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of the capital, Washington, DC. Finally engaging battle on 21 July, the struggle appeared initially to go well for the Union army. The Confederates were surrounded and only held together by the personal heroism of their commanding officer, general Thomas Jackson, who won the name "stonewall" for his refusal to give way or surrender (a phrase which has entered the English language with that meaning). Then Confederate reinforcements arrived and the Union armies suffered a major defeat, fleeing in chaos towards Washington. The defeat stunned the North: it had been presumed that the conflict would be a short and sharp affair, as the North was in theory the overwhelming power, having not only all the major industrial power but a population of over 22 million against the South's total of less than nine million. Mini Civil War in Missouri In May 1861, a mini civil war of its own broke out in the state of Missouri, with pro-confederates and pro-unionists taking up arms against each other in a bloody fratricidal strife which was never fully resolved. In August, a large pro-Union army invaded the state, and although they defeated a Confederate force at the Battle of Wilson's Creek in southwestern Missouri, the state continued to be torn apart by armed militia supporting the opposing sides. Kentucky The state of Kentucky had remained neutral: but by the time that the war had been raging for several months, this neutrality was ignored. In September 1861 the Confederates occupied the city of Columbus and that state's legislature formally asked the Union government for help. A Union force under the famous Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, moved into Kentucky and engaged the Confederates at the Battle of Belmont, which ended indecisively. Sea Invasion The North then achieved an important breakthrough: a seaborne invasion of the South Carolina coast saw a number of important forts along the southern coastline falling into Union hands, establishing a base for further operations inland. In November 1861, the Union general, Thomas Sherman, landed with a force of 12,000 men on the coast, almost without opposition. Near War with Britain The Confederacy then sent two "commissioners" - ambassadors by any other name - to France and Britain to try and drum up support. The two men ran a Northern naval blockade to get to Havana in Cuba. Then, on 7 November 1861, they left Cuba on the British ship Trent. The next day, Captain Charles Wilkes of the U.S. vessel San Jacinto, stopped the Trent, searched it, and took the two Confederate representatives on board his own ship and later to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. By arresting the Confederates on board a neutral ship, the Union had however clearly violated a well established principle of international law of the inviolability of neutral powers. Indeed, the US Congress had gone to war with Britain only some 50 years previously, in the 1812 war, over this very issue when British ships had seized American ships sailing to France. For a while it seemed as if Britain would enter the war against the Union: only an apology by the Union government and the release of the Confederate Commissioners to continue their journey served to avoid the direct involvement of Britain in the war, which would have been a serious blow to the Union. As it was, the precedent had been set: from then on Britain would openly favor the Confederates, even allowing Confederate warships to be built on the British shipyards. Finally the links between Britain and the Confederacy were cemented by the personal friendship of the British Jewish prime minister of the time, Benjamin Disraeli, and the Confederate Jewish Secretary of State, Judah Benjamin. Disraeli's views on race (discussed in an earlier chapter) made him personally sympathetic to the Confederate cause. When Benjamin was forced to flee the South at the end of the war, he stayed as Disraeli's personal guest at the latter's private house in England. The Union Strikes South In January 1862, the Union finally launched its first major invasion south: an army under Ulysses Grant advanced on two forts held by Confederates, Fort Henry and Fort Doneslon. Both were taken after a short engagement and siege, the first major Union victory of the war. These victories were followed up by a further victory over a Confederate force at the Battle of Pea Ridge, also known as the Battle of Elkhorn Tavern, in Arkansas, in early March 1862. Battle of Shiloh On 6 April 1862, a Confederate army, which had managed to creep up on Grant's army undetected, launched a surprise attack on the Union camp at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. The battle, which became known as the Battle of Shiloh, saw two days of savage fighting, ending in the defeat of the Confederate attackers. Losses were staggering: 13,000 out of more than 62,000 Unionists and 10,700 out of 40,000 Confederates. The scale of the losses - with four times as many Americans dying in the one battle as had died in the entire American war of Independence, shocked all sides. First Ironclad Engagement Both the Union and Confederates possessed some of the latest technology available: including the innovative ironclads, or iron ships, which were to revolutionize naval warfare. Early in March 1862 the Confederate ironclad, the CSS Virginia (also known as the Merrimack), entered the mouth of the James River in Virginia, attacking a number of wooden Union ships enforcing a blockade of the state's major seaport. The Virginia was impervious to the fire of the wooden ships, and sank one and ran another three aground in quick succession. The Union forces were soundly beaten, but the next day a Union ironclad, the USS Monitor, arrived in the area and engaged the Virginia - the first ironclad naval clash in the world. They fired shells at each other for hours, often hitting but never doing any damage. Finally, their crews exhausted, they called it a draw. The Shenandoah Campaign The Union then set as its objective the capture of the capital city of the Confederacy, Richmond in Virginia. However, the Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson was operating with a relatively small army of 16,000 men in the Shenandoah Valley, just to the south of Washington D.C..
When the Union attack on Richmond started, Stonewall received orders to prevent the Union from sending reinforcements to the Union army in the south. Jackson then opened a remarkable campaign, deceiving the Unionists into believing he had a huge army. By mobility and inventiveness, Jackson won victories in the valley at McDowell, Front Royal, Winchester, Cross Keys, and Port Republic before withdrawing to help in the defense of Richmond. Jackson's tactics succeeded; to oppose him and the 16,000 men who fought with him for most of the campaign, the North deployed an army of 55,000 men, sorely needed elsewhere. Richmond Attacked The Union drive on Richmond then took place, starting with the landing of a 100,000 strong Union army in April 1862, which then took Yorktown after a month-long siege. Advancing on Richmond, the Union forces were met in battle by a Confederate force at Fair Oaks, only 10 kilometers from Richmond. The Confederates were defeated, but the advance on Richmond ground to a halt as well. After this battle, the Confederate general Robert E. Lee, was appointed commander of the Confederate army of Northern Virginia. Lee soon became an idolized figure in the South, with his outstanding ability as a military commander and strategist combined with his personality often being the only thing which kept the entire South from crumbling. Seven Day's Battle From 25 June to 1 July 1862, a series of running battles took place between the Union and Confederate forces, known as the Seven Day's Battle. On the second day, the Unionists drove back a Confederate attack north of Richmond, but failed to follow up on the victory by advancing to Richmond, only eight kilometers away.
A Union force, falling back to a place called Gaines' Mill, was subsequently attacked by a Confederate army and was defeated: the Confederates managed to seize the initiative and the Union drive on Richmond was turned back. The attempt to capture Richmond exacted a heavy toll: 16,000 Union casualties and 20,000 Confederate casualties, one fifth of Lee's army. Capture of New Orleans In the deep south however, the Unionists made good their defeat in the north: in April 1862, a combined Union naval and infantry force of 18,000 men advanced up the Mississippi River. The Confederates launched desperate efforts to stop the naval advance, laying chain cables across the river and then setting fire rafts adrift into the midst of the Unionist fleet. The Union force managed to evade all these hindrances and reached New Orleans, the capital of Louisiana on 25 April 1862. The massively outnumbered Confederate defenders in the city - some 3,000 men - then fled, leaving the city open to be occupied by the Unionists. For the rest of the war, New Orleans, the biggest Confederate city and the key to the Mississippi, remained in Union hands. Its loss was a disaster for the Confederacy. Confederate Victory in the North Even though New Orleans had fallen, in the north, the Confederate army was to achieve one of its major victories: on 9 August, Robert E. Lee attacked one of two Union armies attempting to link up, at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, near Culpeper, Virginia, and crushed them. Following up on this victory, Lee swooped on a Unionist army base at Manassas Junction, capturing a significant quantity of much-needed supplies. Lee then drew up a defensive line in anticipation of a renewed Union assault. Lee did not have to wait for long: on 29 August, a Union army of 62,000 men attacked the Confederate force of around 23,000. "Stonewall" had however not earned his nickname for nothing, and by a clever defensive strategy managed to withstand the overwhelming assault, creating such confusion in Union ranks that the Union commander thought the battle had been won, and sent a telegram to Washington D.C. announcing that the Confederates had been beaten. It was a premature telegram: within hours a Confederate artillery unit had reinforced Lee and the resultant bombardment decimated the Union force. The Northerners fled in utter defeat, pursued by the victorious Confederate troops. Nonetheless the Confederate victory had been dearly bought: although the Unionists lost 14,500 men to the Confederate's 9,200, the South could not afford endless losses on this scale, as the North had larger reserves upon which to draw. The South Overreaches Itself: The Battle of Antietam Flushed with the impressive victory, the South decided to go onto the offensive and move the theatre of the war out of Virginia into Union territory. The Confederates then invaded Maryland itself. This turned out to be a major miscalculation: although the Confederates were successful in their initial objective of capturing Harpers' Ferry in Maryland, the Confederate force of 35,000 was finally faced by a Union army of 75,000 men.
The Battle of Antietam followed in September 1862: outnumbered, the Confederates barely managed to hold off a Union attack, and were forced to retreat step by step back into Virginia. Not only was the invasion of Maryland a military defeat for the Confederates, but the Battle of Antietam became the bloodiest one day battle of the Civil War and indeed of all American history: the Union casualties were about 12,500 and Confederate casualties about 10,500. The Battle of Perryville By August 1862, the neutral state of Kentucky had been invaded by both Confederate and Unionist armies; the population itself had broken up into pro-Union and pro-Confederate camps. The Northern and Southern forces fought a large but indecisive battle in October 1862, the Battle of Perryville: it was only a union victory in as much that the Confederate forces withdrew south after the battle itself, but this retreat was not followed by a Union advance. Union Defeat at Fredericksburg Determined to try and advance somewhere, the Unionists then launched a full scale assault on the Confederate army in Northern Virginia, who had dug themselves into a well planned string of defensive positions around the hills near Fredericksburg in Virginia. On 13 December a huge Union army stormed the Confederate positions at Fredericksburg: the Confederate defenses were far too good, and the result was a slaughter. Union losses in killed, wounded, and missing amounted to 12,600, as opposed to Confederate losses of 5,300. Murfreesboro In Tennessee, the anarchy continued, punctuated only by a bloody battle between the opposing armies at Murfreesboro on the last day of the year 1862, southeast of Nashville. After three days of fighting, in which the two armies lost nearly 25,000 of the 76,000 men engaged, the Confederates withdrew, leaving the Union army equally shattered and unable to pursue the Southerners. The Union Attempt to Split the Confederacy The Union armies then developed a strategy which entailed advancing down the Mississippi River from the North and thereby splitting the confederacy in two. For this purpose two large army groups were assembled, with the first aim of capturing the important Confederate town fortress of Vicksburg. The Union advance was cut to ribbons in December 1862, at the Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs. The first Union attempt to cut the South in two failed dismally. The Grierson Commando In April 1863, one of the most audacious engagements of the entire war was successfully completed by a Union cavalry detachment under the command of Benjamin H. Grierson. Leading a force of 1700 men, Grierson's force left La Grange, Tennessee, in April 1863. Sixteen days later, after covering 966 kilometers (or 600 miles), he reached Baton Rouge, Louisiana. On the way he destroyed miles of railroad, took 500 prisoners, and eluded thousands of Confederate troops sent against him, losing only 24 men along the way. The Second Drive on Richmond The Unionists then relaunched a drive on Richmond: an army totaling 134,000 well-equipped men set out for what the North hoped would be a knockout blow of the Confederate forces in Virginia. "Stonewall" Jackson met the main thrust of the Union assault in May 1863, taking two days to defeat the numerically superior Northerners once again, with the assault on Richmond collapsing for the second time. During this battle, known as the Battle of Chancellorville, "Stonewall" Jackson was accidentally killed by fire from his own Confederate troops: the loss of this ablest of all American generals was a grievous blow for the Southern war machine. The Union defeat had however once again exacted a disproportionately heavy toll from the Southerners: 17,300 Union causalities as against 12,750 Confederate casualties. Percentage wise, this was a far greater blow to the Southern armies; slowly, but surely, the tide of the war started to turn. Fall of Vicksburg In April, the Unionists relaunched their attempts to take the Mississippi River valley. Despite suffering heavy losses, the Union Commander Ulysses Grant managed to push south to Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, with an army of 44,000 men, where they quickly overwhelmed the 6,000 Confederate defenders in a short battle on 12 May 1863. Grant then advanced on Vicksburg once again, defeating two advance assaults by the Confederate army defending the city. Finally, after two failed and extremely costly assaults on the city itself, Grant decided to lay siege to the city rather than wear his forces out trying to capture the fortress. The siege lasted six weeks, with the Confederates finally surrendering the city on 4 July 1863. The Confederacy was cut into two and the South was dealt a near fatal blow: after the fall of Vicksburg, an outright military victory by the South no longer became a realistic option. Gettysburg In the light of the rapidly deteriorating military situation, the South tried to play an all or nothing campaign: Lee pushed north to Pennsylvania, hoping to inflict a decisive victory on Union soil. On 1 July 1863, the Confederate and Union forces met in battle at the little town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Initially the Union troops managed to ward off a determined Confederate assault; the Confederate attacks continued over the next two days, with huge losses being inflicted on all sides. Finally, outnumbered, under supplied and having taken massive casualties, the Confederates were forced to retreat. The battle was a decisive Union victory, even though a quarter of all the men who took part in the battle fell: the Northerners suffered about 23,000 casualties to the Southerners 25,000. The Union force was too devastated to pursue the Confederates. In November 1863, Lincoln dedicated a national cemetery to those who had died in the Battle of Gettysburg. His speech, known as the Gettysburg Address, became famous as an expression of the principles for which the North claimed to be fighting, and reaffirmed his determination to see the country reunited. Lincoln Suspends Democracy Although the North had won two of the most important engagements of the war to date, at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, anti-war sentiment had grown in the North to the point where open rebellion broke out. A great number of Whites in the North, as Lincoln had correctly predicted, did not care one way or the other on the issue of slavery, and many became weary of war which seemed to be dragging on indefinitely. Also, the decision by Lincoln to rule autocratically as a result of the rigors of the war, greatly upset many in the North, who questioned his behavior in the light of the very democratic principles for which he claimed to be fighting. Lincoln indeed had suspended many of the tenements of democracy: critics of the war were arrested and detained without trial for long periods. The most famous example was an anti-war congressmen from Ohio, Clement L. Vallandigham, who was arrested in May 1863 after making an anti-war speech. A military court sentenced him to prison, but Lincoln changed the penalty to banishment to the Confederacy. Then on 1 June 1863, Lincoln suspended the principle of freedom of speech - a right guaranteed by the first amendment to the Constitution - by banning publication of the Chicago Times, which had become increasingly anti-Lincoln. An uproar followed, and Lincoln was forced to back down on the issue. Anti-Black Riot in New York City Then in 1863, the Union government launched a forced conscription campaign - the first in the North - in New York City. A mob, made up mostly of foreign-born laborers, chiefly Irish-Americans, attacked and burned the draft headquarters and other government offices. For four days, the mob fought off police, firemen, and the local militia. Blacks were targeted by the White mob as the primary cause of the conflict in the first place, and attacks took place at random on any passing non-White. The Union government was forced to divert a part of the army facing the Confederates in Virginia back to New York City to restore order. Similar disturbances took place in other parts of the Union, although not on the same scale as in New York City. Chickamauga By this stage of the war, countless localized clashes were taking place on a daily basis up and down the entire length of the front, which now extended over several states running from the eastern seaboard to the Gulf of Mexico. In September, a Union force launched a major drive against the important Confederate rail center of Chattanooga in Tennessee. The Confederates withdrew from the city, preferring to make a stand outside, at Chickamauga. After very nearly being defeated by a clever Confederate defense, the Unionists won the Battle at Chickamauga, which was notable for the Union Commander giving up halfway through and personally fleeing to Chattanooga. The military situation for the Northerners was only saved by one of his officers fighting off the final Confederate assault. The battle then ended in a stalemate, and the Union troops then followed their commander back into Chattanooga. The Confederates managed to lay siege to the Union forces in that town, but were ultimately driven off in two famous battles, at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, both outside the city. In battles lasting three days, the Unionists achieved the incredible feat of dislodging the Confederates from their well fortified positions; the region fell under complete Union control by the end of the year. The Wilderness In May 1864, the Southern and Northern armies once again engaged each other in the thick woods of the Wilderness, Virginia, close to the old battlefields of Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg. In fierce fighting which was marked by great confusion, neither side managed to inflict a decisive defeat upon the other, but losses were heavy: about 18,000 on the Union side and about 11,000 for the Confederates. The South was slowly bleeding dry, by the time of the great assault on the South of that year, the Union army taking part in that campaign numbered some 235,000 men. Against this the Confederates could only put 135,000 under-supplied and under-fed men into the field. Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor In the interim, Ulysses Grant had been appointed commander in chief of the Northern forces. Disregarding the losses in the Wilderness, Grant ordered the union army to press home an attack, the first time the Northern army had done so after such a major battle. The Union army pushed south and in May, a ten day battle erupted in the small town of Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia. Once again the losses on the Union side were enormous: another 17,000 casualties. Ordering his army on, Grant then pushed on to try and seize Richmond once again. The Confederate army, under the command of Robert E, Lee, drew together its reserves and met the Union charge head on at Cold Harbor, Virginia, within sight of Richmond. The Battle of Cold Harbor followed: it was a major defeat for the Union side, who lost more than 7,000 men against the Confederate losses of less than 1,500. Petersburg Having failed to take Richmond once again, the Unionists then tried to attack the Confederate capital from the south, and launched an encircling movement, striking south before turning north and attacking Richmond before the Confederates could swing their army round. The plan nearly worked, with the Confederates only becoming aware of the troop movements at the very last moment. The Union advance was halted at the town of Petersburg, south of Richmond, by a desperate rearguard Confederate action: the town was placed under siege, which lasted for more than a year. Sinking of the Alabama The failure to take Richmond for the third time caused great depression in the Union, only tempered by the news of the naval victory off the coast of Europe. The Confederate ironclad, the CSS Alabama, one of the ships the British had built especially for the South, had played havoc on the Union's trade and supply routes to Europe, sinking dozens of Union ships and capturing many prisoners. In June 1864, the Alabama landed at Cherbourg in France for repairs and to off load its prisoners. Outside the harbor, waiting for the Alabama to come out, was the USS Kersarge, and the two ships engaged on 19 June 1864. The battle was short and sharp: the CSS Alabama was sunk in less than two hours. The CSS Florida, second among the great Confederate raiders, was captured in violation of international law in the harbor at Bahia (now Salvador), Brazil, in October 1864. The CSS Shenandoah, which had been taking prize vessels, chiefly whalers, in the Pacific, did not learn that the war was over until 2 August 1865. It succeeded in making its way to Liverpool, England, in November 1865, and there its captain turned it over to the English authorities. Chapter 53: Part Two: The Confederacy Defeated and the Ku Klux Klan All material (c) copyright Ostara Publications, 1999. Re-use for commercial purposes strictly forbidden. |
