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U.S. Ch. 10
Antebellum = time before the Civil War
 A word we use now
 People at the time didn’t use it because no one knew a war was coming!
More terms:
 Pro-slavery = you want it
 Antislavery = you don’t like it
As we’ve seen, controversy over slavery only got worse as new territories and states were
admitted to the Union.
 Slavery = “peculiar institution”
o Peculiar—or, odd—because there was slavery in a country whose
Declaration of Independence said that “all men are created equal.”
o Also, Latin word peculium means “private property.”
 And slaves of course were considered property
o Also, use of the word slavery was considered improper by some
 It’s important to keep in mind that not all Northerners wanted to end slavery
completely
o there weren’t many abolitionists
 NOT many Stowes or Garrisons.
 Many northerners just didn’t want slavery to expand into new states and
territories.
o And this wasn’t because of moral reasons.
o It was because this meant competition
 Farmers with slaves could out-compete the small farmers who
didn’t have slaves.
o 1854—formation of Republican Party
 Made up of former Whigs, Northern Democrats, etc. who opposed
the expansion of slavery
After Mexican War, U.S. got lots of new territory.
 Would it be slave or free?
o 1st issue is California
o Due to the gold rush and the all the people who moved there, California
was ready for statehood by December 1849.
 Would it be slave or free?
 Most Californians wanted it to be free, and they wrote a
constitution outlawing slavery.
 But most southerners assumed it would be a slave state
since so much of it lay below the Missouri Compromise
line
o What about the other territories gained during the war—New Mexico and
Utah Territories?
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Henry Clay—“Great Compromiser”—proposed a compromise in Congress to get the
issue settled and hopefully please both Northerners and Southerners
 Called Compromise of 1850
o 4 parts:
 1.) California comes into U.S. as free state
 2.) Stronger Fugitive Slave law—law requiring northerners to
return runaways to their southern owners.
 Anyone convicted of helping an escaped slave faced a fine
of $1,000 and up to 6 months in jail.
 Northerners promise to enforce it (most didn’t though).
 3.) Slave trade in Washington D.C. abolished
 but slavery remained there
 4.) New Mexico and Utah territories would have popular
sovereignty—people living there could vote whether or not they
wanted to have slavery.
o The Compromise initially got rejected (as a whole), but after 8 months, all
parts of it were passed separately.
 So for the time being, a compromise was made
 And war was avoided
 War is still NOT inevitable at this point.
 Also interesting to note that the Missouri Compromise is basically
dead now.
Many northerners didn’t like the Fugitive Slave Law.
 Many of them felt that their “state’s rights” were being violated because the
national government was telling them what to do.
o Many northern states passed laws saying that any person who came onto
their land was free, and that they wouldn’t enforce the Fugitive Slave Law.
 Many also participated in the Underground Railroad.
o NOT a railroad
o NOT underground.
o System used to help slaves escape to freedom.
o Consisted of lots of secret routes that slaves took to either the free North
or to Canada
 “Stations,” which were usually white people’s homes, existed all
along the routes.
 Escaped slaves could hide there and get food and supplies before
moving on to the next station.
 People who helped escaped slaves were called
“conductors.”
 Harriet Tubman was the most famous conductor.
 An escaped slave who went back to the South
approx. 19 times and was responsible for helping
approx. 300 slaves escape to freedom.
1852—publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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Only a few years after the Compromise of 1850, more controversy arose over slavery
expanding to territories
 This time, it involved the Kansas and Nebraska Territories.
o Would they be slave or free?
 Missouri Compromise of 1820 had already said they’d be free.
 But wasn’t that pretty much dead by now?
o One of the biggest supporters of popular sovereignty at this time was a
Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas
 Douglas proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
 Called for popular sovereignty in both territories.
 Act passed in 1854.
 So again, the Missouri Compromise is basically
dead—not officially, but it might as well be.
 This ticked off a lot of northerners because both
Kansas and Nebraska were clearly above the
Missouri Compromise line
 After the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, thousands of pro-slavery and
antislavery people poured over the border into Kansas…
o …to vote in the elections for territory legislatures
o Included a lot of pro-slavery people from Missouri (a slave state) who just
came into the territories and illegally voted for slavery.
 So pro-slavery people won the election (fraudulently), and slavery
was allowed in Kansas at least temporarily.
 President Franklin Pierce, a moderate, officially recognized
Kansas as a slave territory.
 A big conflict then breaks out.
 Pro-slavery (Lecompton) and anti-slavery (Topeka) people set up
different governments in Kansas, and violence broke out.
 Called “Bleeding Kansas.”
 Proslavery people burned Lawrence, an abolitionist
town.
 In retaliation, radical abolitionist John Brown led a
raid on a proslavery camp and killed 5 proslavery
people.
o Split open their skulls with broadswords.
o Brown never got punished for it though
everyone knew who did it.
 All hell broke loose in Kansas.
 1856-1860—approx. 200 people killed, several
hundred wounded, and $2 million in property
damage.
There was also violence in the U.S. Senate.
 May 1856
 1 day after proslavery forces burned Lawrence, Kansas
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 Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner (antislavery) gave a fiery speech in front
of the Senate called “The Crime Against Kansas”
o Blamed pro-slavery people for Bleeding Kansas.
o For 2 days, Sumner attacked slavery and the South
o He did most of his finger-pointing at a South Carolina Senator named
Andrew Butler.
 Butler was a real dignified, elderly, Southern gentleman
 He wasn’t even there at the Senate meeting at the time (to defend
himself).
 “southern honor”
 Insults like Sumner’s were a no-no
 Some people probably thought death was better than having
your honor insulted, especially when you aren’t there to
defend it.
o Butler’s nephew, a Congressman named Preston S. Brooks (in the House
of Representatives, which wasn’t in session at the time), was watching the
speech from the gallery.
 He saw his uncle being insulted
 So during the lunch break, he walked into the Senate meeting,
pulled out a heavy oak walking steak, and beat Sumner senseless—
blood everywhere
 Brooks beat Sumner until his stick broke, and Sumner didn’t return
to the Senate for a couple of years—he claimed he was
incapacitated, but we don’t really know if he was exaggerating.
 Brooks was kicked out of Congress after the incident, but was
reelected 2 years later—and he returned to Congress before
Sumner did!
 “Bleeding Kansas” and the Sumner incident show that
things were getting more violent at this time.
o John Brown heard about Lawrence and the Sumner beating, and this set
him off.
Politics also getting more nasty and divided at this time too:
1856 Presidential election
 2 main candidates were John C. Frémont (Republican) and James Buchanan
(Democrat).
o Whigs pretty much dead by this time.
 Abraham Lincoln, who represented Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives
at the time, was a Republican and campaigned for Frémont.
o Lincoln gave a speech saying that the only way to end the sectional
tension was for one side to yield
 Who should yield?
 Lincoln said “the side that’s in the wrong.”
 What did this mean? 3 things:
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 1.) He was clearly saying that slaveholders were in the
wrong.
 2.) He was basically saying the Republicans were an antislavery party (although many people already knew this)
 3.) He was suggesting that compromise could no longer
happen.
 Up to this time, compromises had always worked in
the government—Missouri Compromise,
Compromise of 1850, idea of popular sovereignty,
Kansas-Nebraska Act.
 Now Lincoln was suggesting that compromise was
no longer possible.
 Buchanan wins election.
o Many people believe that if Frémont had won, the South might’ve seceded
from the Union.
A month later, a very important Supreme Court case took place—Dred Scott case
 Scott was a slave who lived with his owner in Missouri, a slave state.
o Scott’s owner was an army doctor who did a lot of traveling
 During one of his trips, he took Scott into Illinois, a free state.
 When Scott got back to Missouri, he sued for his freedom.
 Scott claimed that since he’d lived in free land for a little
while, he was free.
 The case eventually went to the Supreme Court
 Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote the decision
 The Court said several things:
 1.) Scott was NOT free
 2.) Scott was NOT a citizen because when
the Constitution was written, the founders
never meant for him to be a citizen.
 Moreover, the Founding Fathers
thought slaves were “inferior”
beings.
 3.) Since Scott wasn’t a citizen, he couldn’t
even sue in a court.
 4.) Scott was property, and because of 5th
amendment’s guarantee of due process of
law, a slaveholder could not be deprived of
his property.
 So slaveholders could take their
slaves wherever they wanted.
 So what did the Court’s decision mean for the idea of “popular sovereignty”?
o It meant it was dead—an “empty” phrase.
 EXAMPLE:
 You have a slave
 According to the Dred Scott decision, that slave is your property
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
And because of the 5th amendment, you CANNOT be deprived of
your property
 You move to a territory that has voted to outlaw slavery, and you
settle there.
 Someone tells you, “you can’t bring your slave here because we’ve
voted to outlaw slavery.”
 You tell them, “but the Supreme Court says that I can’t be
deprived of my property.”
 Supreme Court wins out
 Also, what did the Court’s decision mean for the Missouri Compromise line?
o Chief Justice Taney declared it to be unconstitutional.
 Many historians believe the Dred Scott decision (and the
controversy it caused) was one of the main causes of the Civil
War.
1858 midterm elections
 Race for a Senate seat in Illinois—Stephen Douglas vs. Lincoln
 Douglas
o Democrat
o Incumbent (he was already the Illinois Senator and was running for reelection).
o Pop. sovereignty guru
 vs. Abraham Lincoln
o Republican
o big underdog
o believed slavery was immoral and opposed expansion of slavery
 During the campaign, they had 1 of the most famous debates in U.S. History—
Lincoln-Douglas Debates.
o Lincoln called slavery a “vast moral evil.”
 Douglas had always wanted to look at slavery as a political issue,
and Lincoln wanted him to see it was a moral issue.
o Lincoln also asked Douglas if settlers in a territory could vote to outlaw
slavery in their territory before it became a state?
 In other words, was popular sovereignty legal?
 REMEMBER: Douglas loved popular sovereignty
 REMEMBER: What had the Dred Scott decision already
said about this?
 Supreme Court had already said that slaves were property,
and that people couldn’t be denied their property.
 So the idea of popular sovereignty was already declared
dead—a state or territory could NOT tell people that they
couldn’t bring their slaves there.
 Lincoln knew this, and so did everyone else.
 So Lincoln had put Douglas in a trap.
o Douglas responded to the question by saying that if people didn’t want
slavery in their territory, then all they had to do was elect representatives
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who wouldn’t enforce slave property laws there—in other words, they
could get around the Dred Scott decision this way.
 Weak answer.
 Douglas won the Senate seat
 But Lincoln impressed a lot of people with his skillful debating.
o Because of the debates, Lincoln gained a lot of popularity in the
Republican Party
o And some people started thinking he might make a good candidate for
president in the upcoming 1860 election.
The next year—1859—the violence over slavery got worse.
 John Brown led a group of 21 men, black and white, to Harpers Ferry,
Virginia.
o His plan was to break into a U.S. army arsenal, steal weapons, and give
them to slaves in the area so they could rebel.
o Brown hoped that slaves all around the area would hear about his plan,
flock to him, join the rebellion, and then spread the rebellions all over the
South.
 It didn’t work.
 A unit of U.S. Marines led by Robert E. Lee surrounded Brown’s
group, killed several of them, and arrested Brown.
 Standing in front of the judge, Brown said, “Now, if it is deemed
necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the
ends of justice and mingle my blood further with the blood of my
children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose
rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments,—
submit; so let it be done!”
 He was sentenced to hang, and as he climbed the scaffold,
he handed a note to one of the Virginia authorities that said,
“I John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this
guilty land; will never be purged away; but with Blood.”
 This message was prophetic (he was right)!!!
 CONSEQUENCE—not many Stowes or Garrisons in the North, and there
certainly weren’t many J. Browns!
o But southerners hear about this and think northerners must be crazy and
trying to start a race war
o And perception is often more important than reality
o What did Northerners really think of the event?
o James McPherson argues that most northerners took a sort of
“praise the man, not the deed” stance.
Election of 1860
 4 candidates:
 1.) Republican candidate was Lincoln.
o He was a moderate when it came to slavery.
o He said he wanted to halt the spread or expansion of slavery
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
But he promised Southerners that he would not “interfere with
their slaves, or with them, about their slaves.”
 Democratic Party had split over slavery.
o 2.) Northern Democrats liked popular sovereignty and nominated Stephen
Douglas.
o 3.) Southern Democrats liked the Dred Scott decision and nominated John
C. Breckenridge of Kentucky.
 4.) John Bell of Tennessee represented Constitutional Union Party.
 Lincoln won
o However, he got only 39.8% of the popular votes.
o He won big in the Electoral College
o But he didn’t get a single electoral vote from the South.
 A lot of Southern states didn’t even put him on the ballot.
Lincoln’s election convinced many southerners that they were no longer going to have a
voice in the national government.
 REMEMBER: Buchanan was still president for about 4 months after the election
 Lincoln wouldn’t take office until March 1861.
 About 5 ½ weeks after the election, in December 1860, South Carolina seceded
from the Union.
o By February 1861, 6 more states had seceded (in this order)—Mississippi,
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas.
 These were all “Deep South” states, where slavery was arguably
more important.
 So the US crumbled under Buchanan, hence why he has such a
terrible reputation.
 February 1861—delegates from those 7 states met in Montgomery, Alabama,
where they formed the Confederate States of America, or the Confederacy, or
the CSA.
o Confederacy is NOT the same thing as the “South.”
 Several “southern” states never joined the Confederacy.
 And there were lots of “southerners” who didn’t support the
Confederacy (abolitionists, slaves, unionists, etc.).
o What’s a Confederacy?
 Group of states that unite for a common purpose.
 Usually, the individual state governments, not the national
government, have the final say on matters—emphasis on “state’s
rights.”
 Think back to our 1st national Constitution—Articles of
Confederation.
o They drew up a constitution very similar to the U.S. Constitution except
that it protected slavery.
o They elected former Mississippi Senator and Mexican War veteran
Jefferson Davis president of the Confederacy.
At this point, 8 slave states still hadn’t seceded.
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 There were fewer blacks in these 8 states than in the 7 that had already seceded,
so they arguably felt less threatened by Lincoln’s election.
o This included the “Upper South”—Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, North
Carolina
o And the “border states”—Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware.
Lincoln took office in March 1861.
 In his inaugural address, he again said he wouldn’t interfere with slavery where it
already existed.
o He was speaking to the southern states that hadn’t seceded and trying to
calm them down.
 He also said secession was illegal (according to the Constitution), but that there
didn’t need to be bloodshed to be bring the country back together.
 He also pointed to lots of events that have connected Americans throughout
history.
Lincoln really wanted to try to keep people in the seceded states feeling like “Americans”
for as long as possible.
 i.e., he wanted to keep the American flag “waving” in the seceded states.
o He told US postmasters in the Confederacy to keep flying the American
flag at the post offices and to keep delivering mail until the Confederate
states told them to leave.
o He told US judges in the Confederacy to do the same thing.
o He also wanted to keep U.S. troops in some of the federal forts in the
Confederacy.
 Lincoln thought it was essential to keep at least 1 American flag
flying in the Confederacy.
 By the time of his inauguration in March 1861, the Union only
controlled 4 southern forts.
 Eventually, all were either taken or abandoned except for Fort
Sumter, which protected the harbor in Charleston, SC.
 Lincoln sent supply ships to Fort Sumter, and Southerners
wouldn’t let the supply ships dock.
 Before the ships arrived though, Davis ordered
Confederates to fire on Ft. Sumter.
 April 12, 1861, @ 4:30 a.m., the South Carolina
people—manning 2 other forts in the Charleston
Harbor—started firing on Ft. Sumter.
 The Union soldiers made a brave stand, but eventually ran
out of ammo and had to abandon the fort.
 No Union soldiers were killed in the fight
 But as the Union soldiers were leaving the fort, the
Union commander—Maj. Robert Anderson—used
the last little bit of ammo to fire a salute to the
American flag
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
And these last shots ended up killing 3 Confederate
men.
After Ft. Sumter, who looked like the bad guys?
 Who had fired first?
 The Confederacy
o Good move by Lincoln letting them fire first.
After Ft. Sumter, Lincoln declared the Confederate states to be in rebellion.
 He then demanded that each U.S. state send a certain number of troops to the U.S.
army to invade the Confederacy and put down the rebellion.
o Lincoln thought he had the loyalty of the Upper South—big mistake.
 The 4 upper South states—Virginia, Arkansas, N. Carolina, and
Tennessee—then seceded, upping the number of Confederate
states to 11.
 As Southerners, they couldn’t bring themselves to go to
war with other southern states.
 The Upper South joining was crucial for the Confederacy.
 When they joined, it doubled the white population
of the Confederacy (which was still greatly
outnumbered by the North, 22 to 9 million).
 Lots of good railroads and industry
 More food (mostly cash crops like cotton were
grown in the Deep South).
 After Virginia seceded, the Confederate capital was moved
from Montgomery to Richmond (partly as a “bravado”
statement since Washington D.C. was so close by).
 Most of the people who lived in western Virginia opposed slavery,
so later they broke away from Virginia and formed West Virginia,
which became a U.S. state in 1863.
 Border states (that had slaves)—Missouri, Delaware, Kentucky,
and Maryland—stayed in the Union.
Ft. Sumter was the beginning of the war.
 There were 2 sides fighting:
o 1.) U.S.
 Also called the Union or the North or the Federals
 Soldiers fought in navy blue uniforms (also called “blue coats”)
 Called “Yankees” or “Billy Yank”
o 2.) Confederacy
 Soldiers officially fought in gray uniforms (“gray coats”), but
many Confederate soldiers didn’t have official uniforms because
the Confederacy was short on supplies.
 Called “Rebels” or “Johnny Reb”
 Also called CSA
 Confederacy not the same thing as the South!!!
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 Many people considered the border states—Maryland,
Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri—to be southern states,
and they stayed with the Union
 Also, there were many southerners in the Confederate
states who did NOT support the Confederacy
 Including white Unionists and especially African
Americans!!!
 What was each side fighting for?
o The Confederacy was fighting for independence.
 When Jefferson Davis gave his inaugural address, he compared the
Confederate cause to the American Revolution.
 Psychological advantage for the Confederacy!
o Was the Confederacy also fighting to protect slavery?
 Few Confederates came out and actually said this.
 They said things like we’re fighting for our “homeland” or
“independence” or “states’ rights”
 But these things included slavery!
 The southern way of life was built around slavery, and
slavery impacted you whether you owned slaves or not.
 Only about 25% of southerners owned slaves, but…
 The Confederate economy, life, politics, etc. were all based
around the system of slavery.
 Also important to remember that the North’s
economy very much depended on southern
agriculture, which was produced by slaves.
 Much of the entire American economy before the
war depended on slavery (and the cotton slaves
grew).
 Most historians believe that without slavery, the Civil War
would not have happened.
 But most Northerners were NOT fighting to end slavery.
o Most were fighting to save the Union
 Not as inspirational as fighting for independence
o Later in the war (after Emancipation Proclamation), more Northerners say
they’re fighting the war to free the slaves
 But not very many said this early on.
 August 1862, Lincoln told newspaper editor Horace Greely, “If I
could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it, and
if I could save the Union by freeing all the slaves I would do it….
What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I
believe it helps to save the Union.”
2 different statements:
 1.) “Without slavery, the Civil War wouldn’t have happened.”
o True
 2.) “The war was about slavery.”
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o False
 Union soldiers, especially at the beginning of the war, were
fighting to preserve the Union.
Union advantages
 1.) More people
o Union—22 million
o Confederacy—9 million (and 4 out of 9 million in Confed. were slaves).
 Union also had 6 million men of fighting age.
 And Confederacy only had 2 million.
 2.) Better industry and transportation (i.e. more railroads)
o But North is not industrial!
 North has about 75% of the nation’s farm acreage
 Used mainly to grow things like wheat and corn (food) and
not cotton.
 REMEMBER: Northerners depended on southern crops,
especially cotton, that were grown by slave labor.
o North has more industry than the South, but only about 15% of U.S. is
“industrial” at this time.
o North has 60% of nation’s livestock
 And horses and mules were the primary way of transporting the
armies (even though many historians call this war the 1st “railroad
war.”)
 3.) North already has a government with an infrastructure (basic services needed
for community to function).
o North has post offices, armies, navies, foreign relations departments with
ambassadors, etc.
o Confederacy has to start from scratch and create all of this stuff in a
couple of months!
Confederate Advantages
 1.) Lots of cotton
o Important for making $
o And for diplomacy (the Confederates knew England needed it, so they
could negotiate to get England to join their side).
 2.) Fighting a defensive war
o It was the Confed. that seceded
o And the North was trying to stop them from doing that
o So the North actually had to invade and defeat the South.
 The Confederates only had to hold on and wear out the North
(make them give up and leave the South alone), not destroy the
Northern army.
 Just like the colonists during the Revolution
 This is VERY important, because as late as the fall of 1864, it
looked like the North was ready to give up on the war and just let
the South secede.
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 3.) Home field advantage
o Most of the fighting takes place in the South, where southerners know
terrain and can get help from local population.
 4.) Psychological advantage of believing they’re better fighters—better with guns
and tougher.
o Many Northerners and Southerners believed this (i.e. especially after
Brooks beat Sumner in Congress).
o It wasn’t really true.
o But if the people of the time perceived it to be true, then it was important.
 5.) Better generals?—this is debatable.
o Confed. may have had a few more West Point graduates, but not many
more.
o Both sides had good and bad generals.
o Many people thought Jefferson Davis would be a better wartime leader
than Lincoln because Davis was a Mexican War veteran and a West Point
graduate.
 Lincoln had only served in the Illinois state militia and fought for
about 2 weeks in the Black Hawk War.
o By summer 1862, the top Confederate general was Robert E. Lee,
commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.
 At the beginning of the war, Lincoln had asked him to command
the Union army, and he declined.
 Lee felt he had to be loyal to his home state of Virginia first and
foremost.
 Since Lee turned down the opportunity to lead the Union army,
this might’ve been a psychological advantage for the Confederacy.
What were Civil War armies (and soldiers) like?
 About 3.5 million men served
o 2.5 million in Union army
o 1 million in Confederacy.
 Pay:
o Union soldiers got 13$ per month at beginning of war (16$/mo. at end)
o Confederates got 11$/mo. at beginning (and 13$/mo. at end)
o Average laborer of the day got about 1$ per day, so soldier’s pay was
pretty low.
 Average soldier
o 21-22 years old
 Average enlistment age was 18-35 at beginning of war and was
later expanded to 16-45 (in the South that was raised to 50 because
of man shortage).
o Farmer
o Protestant
Average soldier carried:
o 1.) Musket or rifled musket
 They were muzzleloaders
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
At the beginning of the war, most weapons were muskets that fired
round balls.
 Inaccurate with ranges of only 150-250 yards.
 But the rifled musket eventually replaced the regular musket
 Fired cone-tipped Minie-bullets
 Accurate up to at least 500 yards!
o 2.) A canteen
o 3.) cartridge belt (for ammo)
o 4.) backpack with blanket
o 5.) haver sack (carried rations, Bible, extra socks, etc.)
 Daily life
o Eating
 On the march, soldiers took turns cooking
 Usually got beans, bacon, and bread
 Bread = either loaf bread, or more often, “hard
tack”—like a very hard cracker that could be
soaked with coffee or water; could break teeth.
 In camp, regular cooks were assigned to units in camp
 Usually got better food—vegetables, meat, soft bread.
 If a soldier didn’t get enough to eat, he could buy from a
“sutler”—like traveling concession stands run by people not in
army.
 Could buy fruits, canned goods (pretty expensive), tobacco,
stationary, pencils, socks
 Whiskey usually not allowed in camps (aside from special
holidays like Christmas)
 But soldiers often bought whiskey secretly from
sutlers at night.
o Daily duties
 Average soldier only spent about 15% of time in combat
 Other 85% spent either in camp or marching between camps.
 Time in camp spent getting ready for equipment
inspections, chopping wood, cooking, shining shoes, and
DRILLING!
 Letters of soldiers indicate they were very bored most of
the time
 And they hated drilling—they spent several hours per day
doing this.
 Officers wanted to keep soldiers busy to keep them
out of trouble.
 19th century farm boys weren’t used to all the
drilling and discipline of military life, so sometimes
they got in trouble.
 For minor infractions like being late, being
gone for a short time without permission, or
minor theft, punishment was usually just
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public humiliation designed to embarrass the
person—e.g. walking around camp wearing
a barrel that said “Thief.”
 Major infractions like desertion, murder, or
sexual assault led to court martials (military
trial) with senior military officials as judges
 If found guilty, soldiers could be
sentenced to prison or executed in
front of all the other men (actual
executions were rare though—only
250 on record in Union army).
 When soldiers had down time, they danced, gambled (bet
on cock fights, horse races, boxing matches), and played
baseball
 This was really when baseball became our national
pastime.
 Combat formation
o Usually included a very long main line of soldiers with skirmishers up
front.
o The purpose of the skirmishers was to draw out the enemy, and once the
fighting picked up, they would lie down.
 Casualties (dead or wounded)
o About 1 million total
 Union: 642,427 (110,100 Killed in Action)
 Confederate: 483,026 (94,000 Killed in Action)
 Union + Confed. = 30 million people
o About 620,000 total deaths during the war
 Union: about 360,000
 Confed.: about 260,000
 Almost 400,000 of these deaths were due to disease!
 Measles was a big killer (farm boys didn’t have immunity
to it)
 Dysentery also very bad (severe diarrhea that caused
dehydration)
 Almost all soldiers got diarrhea, but dysentery
caused tens of thousands of deaths.
 Knowledge of sickness and disease was very limited at this
time, so doctors often used the same tools on many
different men without disinfecting them.
 On the march, the hospital was simply a small canvas tent with a
surgical table outside.
 Hacksaws were the primary surgical instrument
(amputations were pretty common).
 Why did men join the army?
o 1.) patriotism (“our government needs you”)
o 2.) sense of adventure and travel
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
This was the 1st time many of these farm boys had gone very far
from home.
o 3.) peer pressure
o But these 3 things didn’t really make a soldier stay on the line and risk
death in combat…what did this?
 1.) The smallest military unit a soldier fought in was a company
(about 75-100 men), and these were like families
 Soldiers didn’t want to let their “families” down.
 10 companies made up a regiment, and regiments
always represented states (e.g. 3rd Ohio infantry, 5th
Virginia cavalry), so state or regimental pride was
important for the men.
 2.) Didn’t want people back home to think they were cowards.
 Most soldiers in a company were from the same towns or
counties, and if someone acted cowardly, another soldier
might write a letter home and tell about what happened.
 3.) Officers kept men in line
 Waved sword behind them, told them to remember their
training, and threatened court martial if men ran away.
 4.) religion
 Chaplains held services the night before battle to comfort
and inspire men
 5.) alcohol—“liquid courage”
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