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5.3 Notes • Both the Union and the Confederacy mobilized their economies and societies to wage the war even while facing considerable home front opposition. Strengths and Weaknesses Confederates • Had the advantage of fighting only a defensive war to win • Had to move troops and supplies shorter distances than the Union • Had a long, indented coastline that was difficult to blockade • Had experienced military leaders (Robert E. Lee) and high troop morale • Hoped that European demand for its cotton would bring recognition & financial aid (but it didn’t) Advantages: North/Union • A population 2 ½ times the size of the South’s • Had a strong US Navy which gave the North command of the rivers and territorial waters • Controlled the banking and capital (money) • Had 85% of the factories, 65% of the farmland Political Goals • The Confederates were struggling for independence while the Union was fighting to “preserve the Union.” • States’ rights made it difficult for the Confederate government to win the war because the Confederates needed a strong central government with strong public support. The Confederates had neither, while the Union had a well-established central government. • The ultimate hope of the Confederates was that the people of the Union would turn against Lincoln and the Republicans and quit the war because it was too costly. The Confederate States of America • The Confederate constitution was modeled after the US Constitution except that it provided a single 6-year term for the president and gave the president an item veto (to veto only part of a bill). • Its constitution denied the Confederate congress the power to levy a protective tariff and to appropriate funds for internal improvements, but it did prohibit the foreign slave trade. • The Confederacy was short of money. It tried loans, income taxes, and impressment of private property but did not generate enough funds to wage a war. It issued more than $1 billion in paper money that caused inflation. By the end of the war, the value of a Confederate dollar was less than two cents. Lincoln and most Union supporters began the Civil War to preserve the Union but Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation reframed the purpose of the war and helped prevent the Confederacy from gaining full diplomatic support from European powers. Many African Americans fled southern plantations and enlisted in the Union Army, helping to undermine the Confederacy. Confiscation Acts • Early in the war, Union General Benjamin Butler refused to return captured slaves to their Confederate owners, arguing that they were “contraband of the war.” • The power to seize enemy property used to wage war against the US was the legal basis for the first Confiscation Act passed by Congress in 1861. • Soon after the passage of this act, thousands of “contrabands” were using their feet to escape slavery by finding their way into Union camps. • July 1862, Congress passed a second Confiscation Act that freed persons enslaved by anyone engaged in rebellion against the US. The law also empowered the president to use freed slaves in the Union army in any capacity, including battle. Emancipation Proclamation • After the Battle of Antietam, 1862, Lincoln issued a warning that enslaved people in all states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, would be free. Consequences: Since it applied only to enslaved people residing in the Confederate states outside Union control, it immediately freed only about 1% of the slaves. Slavery in the border states was allowed to continue. Still, it was of major importance because it enlarged the purpose of the war. For the first time, Union armies were righting against slavery, not just against secession. With each advance of Northern troops into the South, abolition advanced as well. The proclamation also authorized the use of freed The Border States • Four other slaveholding states might have seceded, but instead remained in the Union – Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky • In these states, the Union army resorted to martial law to keep the states under federal control. • Keeping the border states in the Union was a primary military and political goal for Lincoln. Their loss would have increased the Confederate population by more than 50%. th 13 Amendment • Standing in the way of full emancipation were phrases in the US Constitution that had long legitimized slavery. • To free all enslaved people in the border states, the country needed to ratify a constitutional amendment. • Even the abolitionists gave Lincoln credit for playing an active role in the political struggle to secure enough votes in Congress to pass the 13th Amendment. Gettysburg Address • Lincoln sought to reunify the country and used speeches such as the Gettysburg Address to portray the struggle against slavery as the fulfillment of America’s founding democratic ideals. • In his famous address on November 19, 1863, Lincoln rallied Americans to the idea that their nation was “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Lincoln was probably alluding to the Emancipation Proclamation when he spoke of the war bringing “a new birth of freedom.” His words and the abolition of slavery advanced the cause of democratic government in the US and inspired champions of democracy around the world. • Although the Confederacy showed military initiative and daring early in the war, the Union ultimately succeeded due to improvements in leadership and strategy, key victories, greater resources, and the wartime destruction of the South’s infrastructure. • Leadership: Ulysses S. Grant – “Unconditional Surrender” Grant • Key Victories: - The “Siege” of Vicksburg, Mississippi gave the Union control of the Mississippi River; this cut the Confederacy in two (separated Texas, Louisiana & Arkansas from the rest of the Confederacy) lasted 7 weeks before the Confederates surrendered - Gettysburg – the Confederate troops under Robert E. Lee invaded, surprising the Union troops; was the most crucial battle of the war and the bloodiest with more than 50,00 casualties; Confederates forced to retreat, never to regain the offensive Ulysses S. Grant • Commander of all the Union armies • Strategy: war by attrition – wear down the Confederate’s armies and destroy their vital lines of supply • Never let up and succeeded in reducing Lee’s army in each battle and forcing it into a defensive line around Richmond (Confederate capital). • The fighting foreshadowed the trench warfare that would later characterize WWI. • No longer was this a war “between gentlemen” but a modern “total” war against civilians as well as soldiers. Sherman’s March • General William Tecumseh Sherman led a campaign of deliberate destruction across the state of Georgia into South Carolina. • Sherman believed in total war. The Union troops under his command destroyed everything the enemy might use to survive. • Sherman took Atlanta in time to help Lincoln’s reelection in 1864. • Sherman marched into Savannah, and completed his campaign in February 1865 by setting fire to Columbia, the capital of South Carolina and the heart of secession. • Sherman’s march had its intended effects: helping to break the spirit of the Confederacy and destroying its will to fight.