Download Additional Material: Causes

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Causes
Slavery was the fundamental issue that fueled the clash between northern and southern
parts of the United States in 1861. For a long time after the war, apologists for the Confederate cause glossed over this point by claiming the war was over “states rights.” Southern
states, however, only came to fear that the federal government might threaten their “rights”
after the 1860 election of the Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln to the presidency.
Lincoln had campaigned on a platform stating he would outlaw slavery in federal territories,
though not in states where it already existed. But his victory came solely from his popularity in north. He received no electoral votes from states south of the Mason-Dixon line, and
many southerners thus concluded that eventually they would lack the political power to
block attempts to ban slavery anywhere in the U.S.
Yet disagreement over slavery did not in itself cause the war. American slavery predated
the founding of the U.S., and the institution had been tolerated for over 80 years. Rather it
was the existence of slavery, combined with the spread of sectional interests and perspectives over the previous generation, that ripped the country apart after Lincoln’s election.
With the compromise of 1820, for example, national leaders had agreed to exclude slavery
from the vast majority of federal territory at that time: all land above the line of latitude
36’ 30° excepting what became the state of Missouri. It was the spiritual movement of the
Second Great Awakening (which produced numerous social reform efforts) that helped create a more vitriolic debate over American slavery. Although abolitionist ideas were not new,
to that point they advocated the slow and gradual end of slavery. But the 1830s saw the
birth of a “militant” abolitionist movement that demanded its immediate end, whose leaders included William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Their speeches and writings,
along with abolitionist literature mailed by the American Anti-Slavery Society, produced
sometimes violent backlashes in both the north and the south, including riots and attacks
on post offices.
Such clashes were relatively few, however, and did not yet represent a national crisis over
slavery. Alarming tensions began after the Mexican War, for the huge area acquired via the
Mexican Cession reopened the question of slavery in the territories. During the war itself,
Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot proposed banning slavery from any territories
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acquired from Mexico (the “Wilmot Proviso”), which was not passed. But California’s efforts
to gain statehood soon brought the issue to a head. The resulting Compromise of 1850 owed
its passage in Congress more to the procedural engineering of Illinois Senator Stephen A.
Douglas rather than any genuine spirit of cooperation.
California’s admission to the Union meant that free states now outnumbered slave states
in the Senate. (Congressmen from slave states had long been a minority in the House of
Representatives due to northern population growth.) But southerners gained a new strong
Fugitive Slave Act whose provisions threatened the liberty of northern blacks and also worried northern whites. The latter soon acquired a greater appreciation for the horrors of
slavery via Harriet Beacher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
The 1850s witnessed a succession of crises that continued to enflame sectional tensions.
Stephen Douglas soon destroyed whatever he had accomplished in 1850 by championing the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. This law revoked the ban on slavery in older federal
territories established in the Compromise in 1820, allowing residents of these regions to
decide the question themselves. This idea was known as “popular sovereignty,” and had
gained popularity in the election of 1848. But both abolitionist and pro-slavery groups—the
latter mostly residents of Missouri from across the border—sought to sway the outcome,
generating violence in “Bleeding Kansas” in 1854–55 and a crisis over the territory’s constitution. In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court, pronouncing its verdict in the Dred Scott case,
ruled slavery could not be banned in federal territories, claiming that doing so violated
the Fifth Amendment protection of property. But Chief Justice Roger Taney went further,
claiming blacks were not and could never be U.S. citizens. Northerners, already alarmed
over previous developments and crises—including an attack on Massachusetts senator and
abolitionist Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate—were shocked by the ruling. Apparent growing northern sympathy for abolitionism in turn upset southerners, particularly the
support John Brown received after his failed raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, and subsequent
execution in 1859—a raid whose purpose was to acquire arms to facilitate a slave revolt
against southern slaveholders.
Ironically, most white southerners did not own slaves. Of those who did, most owned
one or perhaps a few. But about half of southern slaves lived on large plantations owned by
rich landholders who comprised a tiny proportion of the entire white population. Nonetheless, slavery was a form of racial domination that shaped all of southern society. Even the
poorest white family was free. Moreover, many whites regarded slave owning as a means
to improve their economic and social status. A different dynamic operated in the north,
where land prices were high and industrialization had dramatically increased the number
of free urban laborers. Many poor northerners had hopes of moving west to start their own
farms—hopes that seemed threatened by the prospect of large slave owners moving into
new territories and buying extensive tracts of land to farm with slaves. Just as many southerners came to believe that all northerners were abolitionists (in fact, most were not, and
held strong prejudices against blacks), many in the north came to believe in a “slave power”
or “slavocracy” that was trying to manipulate the federal government for the benefit of
southern interests. These were the underlying anxieties that each successive political crisis
exacerbated in the late 1840s and 1850s, leading to the final one that almost destroyed the
United States.
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Secession and War
Another contributing factor to the outbreak of the Civil War was the lack of leaders or
institutions that could forge an effective national consensus or compromise to counter
the country’s growing polarization. The Whig political party disintegrated in the 1850s,
and by the 1860 election, the Democrats had split, with southern and northern wings
each running different candidates (Stephen A. Douglas and John C. Breckinridge, respectively). Many of the men who in earlier years had acquired the standing to craft a possible
compromise, such as Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun, had died by the
early 1850s. Of the younger generation of politicians, perhaps Stephen A. Douglas had
the ability to do so. But any possibility of him championing a national reconciliation was
squandered with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and his efforts to preserve the Union on the eve
of secession were too little, too late. Instead, four men ran as presidential candidates in the
election of 1860.
Northern states provided all of the electoral votes Abraham Lincoln needed to win the
presidency. For many southerners, the North’s ability to win the executive branch outright
posed a mortal danger to the existence of slavery within the United States, though Lincoln
and the Republicans only sought to ban it from federal territories, and abolitionists were a
minority within the population. South Carolina was the first to act on these fears, declaring
its secession from the Union on December 20, 1860. By February 1, 1861, it had been joined
by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, and soon thereafter representatives from each met in Montgomery, Alabama to declare the birth of a new nation, the
Confederate States of America, or simply the Confederacy.
Most of these states comprised the Lower South, where large plantations with numerous
slaves that produced cotton and other staples for export flourished. In contrast, those in
the Upper South—Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee—choose not to secede
from the Union at this time, along with Arkansas. These states had more diversified, though
still primarily agricultural, economies and lacked the large numbers of big plantations prevalent in the Lower South. But slavery was still legal in the Upper South, and while many there
were sympathetic to the Confederate cause, they were not yet prepared to abandon the
Union. Even in the original Confederate states, support for secession was not universal, but
strong enough to command support from the majority of the population.
What ultimately pushed the Upper South (except Kentucky) into the Confederacy was
the Lincoln administration’s reaction to the fall of Fort Sumter. Lincoln would not assume
the presidency until early March, and the outgoing Buchanan administration did little to
address the crisis. In the interim, some politicians attempted to craft a last-minute compromise that would maintain the Union and peace, but all efforts failed. Meanwhile, seceding
states seized federal installations in their midst. By the time Lincoln took office on March 4,
1861, only three such posts had avoided that fate, including Ft. Sumter, located on an island
in the middle of the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina—and its supplies would last only
a few more weeks.
In early April, Lincoln dispatched a ship to resupply Ft. Sumter, but with no arms or
reinforcements, and publically announced its mission. Though aware that the effort could
provoke an armed response, Lincoln had other options if he wanted to begin a war. Rather, it
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appeared the best option for avoiding conflict while holding to the promises in his inaugural
speech to retain federal posts. Confederate authorities sought to induce the fort’s surrender
before the ship arrived, thereby avoiding the dilemma of either allowing it through or using
armed force. But the post commander, Major Robert Anderson—who was unaware of the
supply mission—saw no reason to hasten his submission given that his men would soon run
out of stores anyway. With the ship’s approach forcing the issue, Confederate forces began
firing upon Ft. Sumter at 4:30 AM April 12, 1861. Anderson surrendered the next day, and
the American Civil War had begun.
Box 6.1 Josiah Gorgas
Photographic portrait of Josiah Gorgas
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Josiah_Gorgas.jpg
Nineteenth-century photo of Confederate Powder Works
http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/augusta/sibleymill.html
Josiah Gorgas went a long way to improving southern industrial capacity during the
war. Appointed Confederate Chief of Ordnance, he helped establish a gunpowder manufacturing plant at Augusta, Georgia (pictured above) as well as cannon foundries in that
state and a new ironworks at Selma, Alabama.
Box 6.2
Figure 6.1 The cabinet at Washington, Harper’s Weekly, July 13, 1861, p. 437
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Goldstein Foundation Collection [LC-DIGppmsca-19482].
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Figure 6.2 The cabinet of the Confederate States at Montgomery; from photographs by
Whitehurst, of Washington, and Hinton, of Montgomery, Alabama.
Lincoln’s cabinet contained a number of strong personalities, including Republicans with a greater national reputation than his own. Inducing them to accept his leadership and work together
was one of his first accomplishments as president. William H. Seward, pictured here standing,
was perhaps his biggest challenge. In early 1861 he pursued policies independently of Lincoln’s
approval, but soon became a loyal and effective member of the cabinet. Other Federal officials of
note include Simon Cameron to Seward’s right, Lincoln’s first Secretary of War who was replaced
by Edwin Stanton in 1862; and Gideon Wells on the far right, his Secretary of the Navy. Amongst
the Confederate cabinet, here sitting in its first capital at Montgomery, President Jefferson Davis
(seated, third from right) himself may have been the most fractious personality. For example,
throughout the war he quarreled with his Vice President Alexander Stephens (seated, far right).
Stephen Mallory, the Confederate Navy Secretary, is seated second from the left.
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-132563].
Box 6.3
Figure 6.3 Attack on the Massachusetts 6th at Baltimore, April 19, 1861
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-56105].
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Figure 6.4 United States Volunteers attacked by the mob, corner of Fifth and Walnut Streets,
St. Louis, Missouri; sketched by M. Hastings, Esq. Harper’s Weekly, June 2, 1861
Early in the war, the movement of Federal troops sparked riots in areas where southern sympathies were strong. In April 1861, the 6th Massachusetts Volunteers were attacked by a mob in
Baltimore as they marched from one train station to another en route to Washington. A month later,
crowds assaulted soldiers in St. Louis after Union authorities tried to incarcerate suspected rebels.
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War [LC-USZ62-132566].
Box 6.4
Figure 6.5 “Man Telling Woman ‘Ah! Dearest Addie! I’ve succeeded! I’ve got a substitute! . . . ’ ”
in Harper’s Weekly, Aug. 30, 1862
The cartoon from an 1862 magazine indicates how women could induce men to volunteer by
shaming them.
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War [LC-USZ62-127606].
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Box 6.5
Figure 6.6 Battle of Shiloh by Thure de Thulstrup c. 1888
Alexander G. Downing was a Union infantryman at the Battle of Shiloh. His account below describes the tactical movements of his and opposing Confederate units on the first day of the
battle:
The long roll sounded about half-past seven in the morning, and at once we formed a line of
battle on the regimental parade ground. At about 8 o’clock we were ordered to the front, and
marching out in battle line, about one-half mile, we met the rebels at Water Oaks Pond. Dresser’s
battery was just in front of our regiment, we acting as a support to it. The rebels came up on
our right, compelling us to fall back about eighty rods [a quarter mile] to our second position,
where we remained until we were again flanked, when we fell back to within about one hundred
yards of our parade ground, where we lay down on the brow of a hill awaiting the approach of
the rebels in front. While in this position, Thomas Hains of Company E took off his hat, placed it
upon his ramrod, and holding it up, shouted to the boys along the line to see what a close call
he had had while out in front, for a minie ball had passed through the creased crown of his hat,
making four holes. Before he could get his hat back on his head, a small shell burst over us and
mortally wounded him.
By this time the rebels were marching right oblique [units on the right of the advancing line
marching ahead of those to the left], just in front of us, in double line of battle with their two
stands of colors flying. By order we waited until we could look them in the eye and then rose up
and fired a volley at close range into their ranks, throwing them into great confusion. We then
made a bayonet charge, capturing one of their standards, and together with the Eleventh and
the Twentieth Illinois Infantry we captured Cobb’s battery and retook General McClernand’s
headquarters. (Downing’s Civil War Diary, Des Moines: Iowa State Department of History and
Archives, 1916, pp. 40–41)
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Popular Graphic Arts [LC-DIG-pga-04037].
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Box 6.6
Figure 6.7 “Yorktown, Va., Confederate fortifications reinforced with bales of cotton,” 1862
Among the building materials used by Confederate troops to construct defenses on the peninsula were bales of cotton, seen here. Also note the destroyed carriage and cannon on the
ground.
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War [LC-DIG-cwpb-01604].
Box 6.7
Illustration, “Battle of Malvern Hill” in Frank Leslie, The Soldiers in Our Civil War, 2 vol. (NY:
Stanley Bradley, 1893), pp. 346–7.
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1&strucID=702478
&imageID=813319&word=Cannons&s=3&notword=&d=&c=&f=2&k=0&lWord=&lField=
&sScope=&sLevel=&sLabel=&sort=&total=300&num=180&imgs=20&pNum=&pos=200
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Box 6.8
Figure 6.8 “District of Columbia. Company E, 4th U.S. Colored Infantry, at Fort Lincoln” 1863–1866
The 4th U.S. Colored Infantry—whose E Company appears in the photo above—contained
­African American men from free states, from Union border states, and escaped slaves from
the south. Soldiers of the 4th U.S. Colored Infantry earned acclaim (and some Congressional
Medals of Honor) for their service at Fort Harrison during the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm outside
Richmond in September 1864.
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War [LC-DIG-cwpb-04294].
Box 6.9
Figure 6.9 “Battle of Fredericksburg, Va., Dec. 13, 1862,” Currier & Ives
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War [LC-USZC4-3365].
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Figure 6.10 Cobb’s and Kershaw’s troops behind the stone wall/A.C. Redwood 1886; Evans
sc. Battles and leaders of the Civil War: Peoples pictorial edition, Vol. I, No. II, Part XI. New York:
The Century Co., c1894, p. 174.
The first image of the Battle of Fredericksburg depicts one of the many Federal charges upon
Marye’s Heights, with wounded and dead from previous attacks in the foreground. The second
shows Confederate troops defending behind the stone wall at the base of the hill.
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War [LC-USZ62-134479].
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