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BECOMING CONFEDERATES
Civil War watercolor of the battle of Savage’s Station, 1862, by Robert Knox Sneden
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BECOMING CONFEDERATES
On April 4, 1861, the Virginia state convention voted eighty-eight to
forty-five against secession, even though seven southern states had
already separated themselves from the United States. The majority of
Virginians were pro-Union until the attack on Fort Sumter and President
Lincoln’s call for volunteers. Once the fighting began,Virginians voted to
secede—becoming Confederates.
STANDARDS OF LEARNING
K.1, 1.2, 2.5, 2.11,VS.7, US1.8,
US1.9,VUS.7,VUS.14
KEY POINTS
•
The Civil War began as a struggle between those who believed in secession and those who
sought to preserve the Union. As the war progressed, however, the existence of slavery
itself, a “right” demanded by southern states, became the major issue of the war.
•
Both sides claimed to be the real Americans and heirs of the American Revolution. During
the war, the South compared its struggle to that of the colonies in 1776, while the North
emphasized the rhetoric of equality as presented in the Declaration of Independence.
•
When emancipation became a Union war goal, the presence of the Union army became a
principal agent in the liberation of slaves. Although black Virginians fought on both sides,
the vast majority served in the Union forces.
•
The majority of eligible white men served in the Confederate armies, leaving the home
front largely to be managed by women.
•
The decision to make Richmond the Confederate capital dictated that much of the war
would be fought in the one hundred miles between Richmond and Washington, D. C. More
battles were fought in Virginia than anywhere else, and the most prominent southern leaders were Virginians.
•
Northern superiority in manpower, raw and manufactured materials, and the lack of foreign
intervention were the decisive factors in the Confederate defeat.
BECOMING CONFEDERATES • 73
SECESSION
During the secession winter of 1860–61, white Virginians struggled with their competing allegiances.They were proud of being Americans but for decades had also thought of themselves as
southerners. In the end, most believed that they would stay with the Union if it did not attack
the seceded states. Thus, the elected convention that met in Richmond in early 1861 was overwhelmingly Unionist. But, within days of the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, and
Abraham Lincoln’s call for troops to suppress the rebellion,Virginia voted to secede.
CONFLICTING VIEWS
Robert Edward Lee wrote, “If Virginia stands by the old
Union, so will I. But, if she secedes (though I do not
believe in secession as a constitutional right, nor that
there is sufficient cause for revolution), then I will still follow my native State with my sword, and if need be with my
life.” On April 17, 1861, the Virginia state convention, by a
vote of 88 to 45, voted to secede. On April 20, Col. R. E.
Lee resigned his U.S. Army commission, and on April 22
he was give command of the Virginia state forces.
George Henry Thomas, a career army officer, was awarded this sword (pictured below) from his fellow citizens of
Southampton County for gallantry in the Mexican War. In
1861, he refused an offer to become Virginia’s chief of ordnance to remain in the U.S. Army. Promoted to general,
he earned the nicknames the “Rock of Chicka-mauga” and
“Sledge of Nashville” for his actions in Ten-nessee. When
he chose to side with the Union, his sisters in Virginia disowned him and refused to return his sword. They eventually donated it to the VHS.
Critical Thinking
Robert E. Lee and George H.Thomas
Discuss the decisions made by Robert E. Lee and George H.Thomas.Why would these have been
such difficult decisions? What other examples can you find that show friends and family fighting on
opposing sides of the Civil War?
74 • BECOMING CONFEDERATES
THE WAR IN VIRGINIA: 1861
Once Virginia seceded, the Confederate government moved its capital
from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond. This fateful decision determined that much of the war would be fought between Washington,
D.C., and Richmond. The first attempt by the Union army to capture
Richmond met defeat near Manassas on July 21, 1861. But the
resources of both sides were sufficient to survive a single defeat. The
Union occupied Alexandria. It wrested control of Unionist counties in
the West, which then seceded from Virginia and formed West Virginia.
Some Confederates, and later some historians, believed that making
Richmond the capital was a mistake because it placed too much
emphasis on defending Virginia.
With all my devotion to
the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of
an American citizen, I
have not been able to
make up my mind to
raise my hand against
my relatives, my children,
my home.
—R. E. Lee, 1861
The battle of Dranesville, drawn by Robert Knox Sneden, a topographical engineer with the 40th New York Volunteers
BECOMING CONFEDERATES • 75
THE WAR IN VIRGINIA: 1862
During 1862, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson led a successful campaign in the Shenandoah Valley.
In a second attempt to capture Richmond, the Union waged the Peninsula campaign from the
southeast. Here generals Lee, Jackson, Joseph E. Johnston, Richard S. Ewell, and J. E. B. Stuart outmaneuvered the larger Union force under the command of General George McClellan. The victorious Confederates then advanced into Maryland but were stalemated at Antietam. This gave
President Abraham Lincoln the opportunity to issue a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation,
thus redefining the war’s purpose as a campaign to end slavery.The year ended with the opposing armies facing each other across the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg.
Above: McClellan's headquarters drawn by Robert Knox Sneden; Below: Sneden’s sketch of a street in Fredericksburg in December 1862
76 • BECOMING CONFEDERATES
Primary Source
Robert Knox Sneden
People often ask how the VHS acquires the objects, manuscripts, and books that make up its collections. Most materials are donated; others are purchased from dealers or from individuals. Often, the
Society is aware of the existence of significant items for years and patiently works to acquire them.
Other times, these items seem to come to the Society by chance.
An example of this last sort of acquisition is the set of scrapbooks of Robert
Knox Sneden, whose illustrations appear
in this chapter. Sneden was a draftsman
and topographical engineer attached to
Union Brigadier General Samuel P.
Heintzelman’s Third Corps. Born in Nova
Scotia, Sneden grew up in New York City,
where he eventually enlisted in the
Union army. Much of his wartime service took place in Virginia. He also spent
time in seven southern prisoner of war
camps.These scrapbooks include more
than 400 drawings and 100 maps executed by Sneden of his wartime experiences.
After the war, Sneden assembled his
work into four volumes and probably
intended to have them published. He
died in 1918, and the scrapbooks
descended unpublished through his family. During the Depression, an heir used
them as collateral for a loan.The borrower defaulted, and the scrapbooks
remained secluded in a Connecticut bank Above: The titile page of Sneden’s “Army Diary of the War of the Rebellion,
vault until 1994.That year, they were dis- 1861–5”; Below: selections of Sneden’s work are part of the display in The Story of
Virginia.
covered and acquired by the VHS
through the generosity of Mr. and Mrs.
Floyd D. Gottwald.The scrapbooks are considered
one of the most significant Civil War collections to
be rediscovered in recent years.
The discovery of the scrapbooks led historians at
the Society on a search for more information about
this elusive artist.The trail led these historical
detectives from Virginia to New York, and from New
York to Arizona, to recover five volumes of memoirs compiled by Sneden after the Civil War.This
additional material consisted of approximately 5,000
pages of handwritten text and 900 watercolor
drawings and maps.
BECOMING CONFEDERATES • 77
THE WAR IN VIRGINIA: 1863
During 1863, the southern economy deteriorated.The Union blockade obstructed the export of
cotton, which was the basis of much of the southern economy. Price inflation and material shortages led to food riots in several cities, including Richmond in April when angry housewives broke
into a number of shops around Capitol Square. The economy was further damaged as 38,000
Virginia slaves escaped to Union armies in 1863. The Confederate victory at Chancellorsville in
May was Robert E. Lee’s greatest triumph, but it was here that Lee’s most valuable subordinate,
Stonewall Jackson, was mortally wounded. The last Confederate offensive was the failed
Gettysburg campaign in July.
Above: Quarters of U.S. Sanitary Commission at Brandy Station, November 1863, drawn by Robert Knox Sneden; Below: a sketch of Petersburg, June 1864,
by Sneden.
78 • BECOMING CONFEDERATES
THE WAR IN VIRGINIA: 1864
A new Union commander, Ulysses S. Grant, decided that the destruction of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, not Richmond, was his goal. He determined to remain almost perpetually engaged in
combat because he knew the Confederates could not replace their losses. Lee fought off Grant’s
advances in a deadly series of battles: the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, and Cold
Harbor. In June, Grant’s army laid siege to Richmond and Petersburg. Meanwhile, Confederates in
the Shenandoah Valley,
under Jubal A. Early, slowly
gave way to Philip H.
Sheridan's army. In the
course of the campaign,
Union troops devastated
the Valley render it incapable of supplying muchneeded foodstuffs to the
armies defending Richmond.
Left: Libby Prison, 1864, drawn by Robert
Knox Sneden
Right: On display in the Becoming Confederates Gallery is the uniform worn by J. E .B. Stuart when he was mortally wounded at
Yellow Tavern.
In the Classroom
Military Strategies
Divide the class into two groups and have each group study the military strategy of either the
Union or Confederate army. Research troop movements during 1864–65 and plot them on a current Virginia road map. Keep a journal covering the last year of the war from the viewpoint of a participant in the conflict.
BECOMING CONFEDERATES • 79
THE WAR IN VIRGINIA: 1865
The Confederate armies defending Petersburg and Richmond weakened as provisions dwindled
and casualties and desertions mounted during the nine-month siege. Union forces were continually strengthened from their supply base at City Point.The Federals moved west to break Lee’s
defensive line.The break occurred at Five Forks in Dinwiddie County on April 1. Lee sent word
to President Jefferson Davis that the army must abandon Petersburg and Richmond to avoid
entrapment. Union forces entered Richmond on April 3. On April 9, Lee surrendered to Grant at
Appomattox Court House.
Above: The ruins of Richmond, drawn by Robert Knox Sneden, shows the devastated city after the evacuation fire of April 2, 1865.
Critical Thinking
Ending Slavery
The Civil War ended slavery in the United States.
Would it have been possible to end slavery without
violence and bloodshed? If so, how?
In the Museum
The War in Virginia: 1865
Find the broadside
pictured far right.
What would it have
been like to live in
Richmond in April
1865?
Find the Union flag
(right) that was raised
over Richmond in 1865.
80 • BECOMING CONFEDERATES
THE CIVIL WAR & AFRICAN AMERICAN SOLDIERS
Black Virginians fought on both sides as soldiers and sailors. Of the 29,000 Confederates who surrendered at Appomattox, only thirty were black. By contrast, 5,723 black Virginians were recruited in Virginia as Union soldiers, and many others enlisted from northern states.
Despite their good record of service in 1776 and 1812, little effort was made to enlist African
Americans in the Confederate cause.When it became clear the war was being lost, Robert E. Lee
urged Jefferson Davis to free slaves who would fight for Confederate independence.A few African
American companies were recruited in March and April 1865, just before the war ended.
“Arlington, Va. Band of 107th U.S. Colored Infantry at Fort Corcoran,”
November 1865 (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Call
no. LC-B817-7861)
In the Museum
Examine a recruitment poster
What were the benefits for enlisting in the
Union army.What might some other benefits
be? Why was this poster printed in
Alexandria?
BECOMING CONFEDERATES • 81
WOMEN ON THE HOME FRONT
“The women were, by all odds, far worse rebels
than men,” wrote an observer during the Peninsula campaign. Most white Virginia women supported the Confederate cause, and many
became volunteers for the war effort.
Others formed a new working class in war
industries or assumed control of plantations and farms in the absence of men.
Women became government clerks and
factory workers for the first time. But
there were dangers as well as opportunities. The home front and war front were
often one and the same. Fear of marauding
soldiers and ever-worsening living conditions tested even the strongest of wills. Many
white women sewed uniforms, flags, tents, and
bandages. Others became nurses and hospital
matrons like Sally Tompkins (right).
Tompkins was the first American woman commisSally Tompkins
sioned a regular military officer. A native of Mathews
County, she funded and operated Robertson Hospital in Richmond during the war. Only 73 of
1,333 patients died in her hospital, an exemplary record for the time.When the Confederate surgeon general wanted to stop using private hospitals, Tompkins was made a captain in the
Confederate cavalry so that her hospital might remain open as a military facility.
Other women such as Annie E. Johns of Danville were revered as hospital matrons. Virginia women supported the war effort by working
as laundresses, scouts, and spies. Belle Boyd, who engaged in spying
from Front Royal, was known as the Rebel Spy, and Nancy Hart
served as a scout for Stonewall Jackson. On the other hand,
some women worked against the Confederate cause. Elizabeth
Van Lew (left), a Richmond abolitionist, took food to Union prisoners at Libby Prison, feasted on Confederate fast days, and
placed a black servant, Mary Elizabeth Bowser, as a spy in the
White House of the Confederacy.
Elizabeth Van Lew
By 1863, conditions on the home front taxed even the most patriotic of Confederate women. With rising inflation, Confederate
money became nearly worthless, and women faced shortages in basic
necessities.
Critical Thinking
How did the status of women change during the Civil War? Have similar changes occured
in other wars?
82 • BECOMING CONFEDERATES
Primary Source
By the President of the United States of America: A Proclamation
Whereas on the 22nd day of September, A.D. 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United
States, containing among other things, the following, to wit:
“That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a
State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and
forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority
thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such
persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
That the executive will on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States or parts of
States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and
the fact that any State or the people thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of
the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of qualified voters of such
States shall have participated shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive
evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States.”
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the
authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said
rebellion, do, on this 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the first day above mentioned, order and designate as
the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the
United States the following, to wit:
Arkansas,Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St.
James, Ascension, Assumption,Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of
New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North
Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West
Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northhampton,
Elizabeth City,York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of
Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do
order and declare that all persons held as slaves within the designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free;
and that the Executive Government of the United States, including
the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain
the freedom of all said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free and to
abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed
services of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all
sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military
necessity, I invoke the considerable judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
BECOMING CONFEDERATES • 83
In the Classroom
The Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation was an important statement of Union war aims.With the issuing of the
proclamation on January 1, 1863, northern armies were fighting both to preserve the Union and to end slavery.
Lincoln believed that, under normal conditions, Congress did not have the right to free slaves in any state, an
action that was also contrary to the Republican party platform. But in war, the president, as commander in
chief, had greater authority. Slaves who came under the control of Union armies were considered “contraband
of war”—an internationally recognized status that justified the seizure of any property that could be used to
benefit an enemy.
Lincoln justified emancipation in terms of policy, not principle.The Second Confiscation Act, passed on July 17,
1862, identified individuals who supported the Confederacy as traitors and ordered the confiscation of their
property and slaves. Lincoln’s preliminary emancipation order, issued on September 22, 1862, reflected the
intent of this act. Lincoln warned the South that he would declare its slaves free if the Confederate states
remained “in rebellion against the United States.” This message was repeated in the Emancipation
Proclamation—hence the quotation marks around the second and third paragraphs. In the fourth paragraph,
Lincoln cited his authority as commander-in-chief and put emancipation into effect “as a fit and necessary war
measure for suppressing said rebellion.” The fifth paragraph exempts those areas under Union control from
the emancipation order. (The proclamation affected only those areas under Confederate control.) The final
paragraph, added on December 30, 1862, at the request of Lincoln’s secretary of the treasury, Salmon P.
Chase, reiterates the military necessity of emancipation but also declares it “an act of justice.”
Activities
•
We say the Civil War was about states’ rights and preserving the Union, but it was also about
slavery. The states’ right of seccession never would have been exercised or challenged had it
not been for the issue of slavery. Do you agree or disagree? Write a paper supporting your
position.
•
One theme we explore in this section is the effect of geography on the war. Use maps showing
political boundaries, topography, and roads and railroads to determine geography’s role in events
from secession through Appomattox.
•
Research the Civil War in your community.Were there battles nearby? How did women and
slaves respond to the war? Are there statues, markers, historic buildings, or other monuments?
•
Using Dudley T. Cornish’s The Sable Arm and Joseph Glathaar’s Forged in Battle, research African
American soldiers in the Civil War. Compare their struggles with those of the Tuskegee Airmen,
who fought during World War II.
•
Like many other southerners, white Virginians romanticized the Confederacy long after the war.
This glorification of the war has been called the Lost Cause. In what ways did the perpetuation of the Lost Cause influence the future progress of the commonwealth?
•
Research Confederate and Union generals.Write a biographical sketch of several leaders on
opposing sides. Compare their careers and academic and military training before 1861.
•
Economics: discuss supply and demand and inflation using examples from the war.
84 • BECOMING CONFEDERATES