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Michigan State University
College of Social Sciences
Department of History
HST 304 - Civil War Era
Mr Summerhill, Mr Knupfer
Study Guide, Week 2
Reading Assignment: Read Michael Fellman, Lesley J. Gordon, and Daniel E. Sutherland, This
Terrible War: The Civil War and Its Aftermath (New York: Longman, 2008), pp. 79–134; view
and study Summerhill lecture, “Amateurs at War”; documents on Confederacy, Shiloh as
indicated in the weekly schedule.
Writing Assignment: Inline Essay. See separate instructions.
The second week of your study covers the early years of the war, including foreign affairs,
military organization, the opening struggle for the border states, to the beginning of the summer
campaigning of 1862 (the reading assignment concludes with the consequences of the Seven
Days Battles in July 1862). During this period the Union forces gained significant victories in
the West, while Confederate forces won significant victories in the East, in effect producing a
stalemate. Northerners grappled with the consequences of a “limited war” strategy that confined
their military and political efforts to reconstructing “the Union as it was” before the war, while
Southerners basked in the glow of early victories that appeared to vindicate their sense of
invincibility and their strategy of the “offensive defense” or “cordon defense.” As you read,
consider the implications of such strategies: how did they reflect the two sides’ respective
domestic politics? Second, your grasp of military operations will have a better grounding in
their larger context if you think in terms of campaigns rather than of individual battles. For
instance, the major campaigns of the war (such as the Peninsula Campaign, or the campaign in
the Trans-Mississippi West in 1861-1862), consisted of a series of battles leading to a
culminating clash (the Seven Days or Pea Ridge).
I. First, make sure that you have a good grasp of basic events, people, and issues. You should be
able to discuss comfortably (when, where, why, how, what) the following items:
“Limited war” strategy: Anaconda Plan, Crittenden-Johnson Resolutions
Trent affair
Edwin M. Stanton
Gideon Welles and Stephen Mallory
Judah P. Benjamin and William Henry Seward
Tennessee and Cumberland River Campaigns, to Shiloh
Chief John Ross
Peninsula Campaign
General George McClellan
General Robert E. Lee
II. The following general questions should help direct your study of lectures and text for this
week.
HST 304 Online, Week Two Study Guide, Page 2
1.
War, as the saying goes is just politics by other means. As you read through these
chapters consider how domestic politics in both sections shaped the strategies and
attitudes of the two sides. Fellman spends a good deal of effort discussing martial
attitudes in the Union and the Confederacy: why?
2.
How did 19th century Americans raise, recruit, and train soldiers? What kind of
“training” did these men receive and how well did it prepare them for the battlefield?
Why did men join the armies and fight?
3.
What strategies did the two sides opt for at the start of the war? Did early military
operations (Bull Run, Ball’s Bluff, Pea Ridge, Shiloh) confirm or contradict the wisdom of
these choices? (Clues about this issue can be found scattered through the text reading
assignment.)
4.
Fellman et al. describe Confederate diplomacy as “naive and wrongheaded.” Why? do
you agree? What, in your view, were the strengths and weaknesses of Union diplomacy?
5.
How would you describe the role of the Union and Confederate navies in this war: what
were their central tasks and how did those tasks influence the design and deployment of
the ships they built?
6.
What did Americans on both sides learn about “the scope of war” from the fighting along
the Kansas/Missouri border that began in 1861 and intensified into extensive guerrilla
warfare early the following year? The success of failure of military operations along the
border (especially Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee) depended upon control of the
area’s majestic riverways (the Mississippi, Tennessee, and Cumberland in particular).
Why? How did military campaigning use and exploit river systems in this area?
7.
Fellman et al. refer to the native Americans of Indian Territory as having “expanded the
scope of war by forming, in effect, another border state.” What do they mean?
8.
Note the authors’ conclusions about the consequences of Shiloh and Seven Days, pp. 128,
134. Compare/contrast these two campaigns: what did they teach each side? What
changes did they bring to the war effort?
9.
Read Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address. What kind of country did he believe the
Confederacy to be? How did he expect his government to foster that kind of society?
How does his speech compare with Lincoln’s first inaugural?
10.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) was a prolific author and journalist who is now ranked
among the American literary giants. His The Devil’s Dictionary (1906) is one of the
most-cited works in the country’s literary corpus (noted for its humorous and wry
definitions, such as “WAR: n. A by-product of the arts of peace”). Bierce enlisted in an
Indiana infantry regiment and saw action at Shiloh, Pickett’s Mill, and Chickamauga;
after the war he wrote many short stories and essays drawing on that experience,
including his most famous “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1906). After a long,
eventful, and varied career as a journalist, Bierce disappeared while traveling in the
Southwest in 1914. The selection “What I Saw of Shiloh,” should be read as a
reminiscence (first published in 1881), not an eyewitness account written right after the
event.
HST 304 Online, Week Two Study Guide, Page 3
How would you describe the tone of this piece? Does it celebrate the achievements of
Bierce’s fellow Union soldiers? How does it treat their Confederate enemies? What kind
of terrain does Bierce describe: can you get a mental picture of the arena of battle? What
does Bierce mean by describing the destruction of a part of an Illinois regiment as “very
well deserved”? Think about the nature of the fighting as Bierce describes it here: in
what ways did Civil War battles like Shiloh reflect the military attitudes and preparation
of the soldiers?
III.
Additional study and exploration.
The recommended reading list includes the inaugural speech of Confederate Vice
President Alexander Stephens. A Unionist before the war who had opposed Georgia’s
secession, Stephens nonetheless proclaimed what he believed was the South’s consensus
on black inferiority in this speech about race as the “cornerstone” of the Confederacy. Is
race the only argument that matters to Stephens? What kind of society does he envision
for the new Confederacy?
We also have listed the Confederate constitution as a recommended document; this is for
your reference, and for comparison/contrast to the United States constitution. After
reviewing the document, consider why the Confederates would write a new constitution
instead of just adopting the old one. After all, hadn’t they argued that there really wasn’t
anything wrong with the U.S. constitution, that the issue had been its misinterpretation
by abolitionists? Why write guarantees for slavery into a new constitution?