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The Furnace of Civil War
Pages 453-459
The Army of the Potomac Marching Up
Pennsylvania Avenue 1861
•When President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 militiamen on April 15,
1861, he and just about everyone else in the North expected a swift war
lasting about 90 days, with a quick suppression of the South to prove the
North’s superiority and end this “foolishness”.
•On July 21, 1861, ill-trained Yankee recruits swaggered out toward Bull
Run to engage a smaller Confederate unit. They expected one big battle
and a quick victory for the war.
•Lincoln hoped that a Union victory at Bull Run would lead to the capture of
the Confederate capital at Richmond.
•The atmosphere was like that of a sporting event, as spectators gathered
in picnics to watch. However, after initial success by the Union,
Confederate reinforcements arrived and, coupled with Stonewall Jackson’s
line holding in dramatic fashion, sent the Union soldiers into disarray and
retreat.
“Stonewall” Jackson at Bull Run
• The Battle of Bull Run showed the North that this would not be
a short, easy war and swelled the South’s already too-large
ego.
• The Union’s defeat in battle at Bull Run in 1861 was
actually better than a victory because the defeat caused
Northerners to face up to the reality of a long, difficult war.
“Yankee” soldiers
“Rebel” soldiers
Later in 1861, command of the Army of the
Potomac (name of the Union army) was
given to 34 year old General George B.
McClellan, an excellent drillmaster and
organizer of troops.
But he was also a perfectionist who
constantly believed that he was
outnumbered, rarely took risks, and held the
army without moving for months before
finally ordered by Lincoln to advance.
At best, McClellan should be described as
cautious.
•At Lincoln’s urging, McClellan finally decided
upon a water-borne approach to Richmond
(the South’s capital). Called the Peninsula
Campaign, it took him about a month to
capture Yorktown before finally making it to
Richmond.
•At just this time, President Lincoln diverted
McClellan’s expected reinforcements and sent
them chasing Stonewall Jackson (right) who
was seemingly threatening attacks on D.C.
•After “Jeb” Stuart’s Confederate cavalry rode
completely around McClellan’s army, further
frustrating McClellan, Southern General Robert
E. Lee launched a devastating counterattack in
defense of Richmond—known as the
Seven Days’ Battle—lasting from June 26 to
July 2 of 1862.
Peninsula Campaign
Civil War Scene
A Federal brigade
repulses
a Confederate assault
at
Williamsburg, Virginia,
in
1862, as the Peninsula
Campaign presses
toward
Richmond. General
Winfield
Scott Hancock
commanded
the troops. For his
success in
this action, Hancock
earned
the nickname “The
Superb.”
– Lee achieved a brilliant, if bloody,
triumph at Richmond, yet the
ironies of his accomplishment are
striking.
– By his successful defense of
Richmond, and defeat of McClellan,
Lee had in effect ensured that the
war would endure until slavery was
uprooted and the Old South
thoroughly destroyed.
– Lincoln stated that the South could
not expect to return now
unpunished and, for the first time,
began to draft an emancipation
proclamation - while patiently
waiting for an opportune time to
officially release it.
With the Peninsula Campaign a failure, the Union strategy now turned to
total war. Summed up, the plan was to blockade, divide, and conquer. The
plan included:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Suffocate the South through an oceanic naval blockade.
Free the slaves to undermine the South’s very economic foundations.
Cut the Confederacy in half by seizing control of the Mississippi River.
Chop the Confederacy to pieces by marching through Georgia and the
Carolinas.
5. Capture its capital, Richmond, Virginia.
6. Try everywhere to engage the enemy’s main strength and grind it to
submission.
This was essentially General Winfield Scott’s “Anaconda Plan.”
•The Union blockade was quite “leaky” at first, but it later
clamped down by principally concentrating on the major inlets
and port cities responsible for loading cotton in bulk.
•Britain, who would ordinarily protest such interference in the
seas that she “owned,” recognized the blockade as binding,
since Britain herself often used blockades in her wars (and might
want to continue doing so in future ones).
•Blockade-running, or the process of smuggling materials
through the blockade, was a risky but profitable business, but the
Union navy also seized British ships, citing “ultimate destination”
(to the South) as their justification for doing so.
•The biggest Confederate threat to the Union blockade came in the form
of the ironclad Merrimack, an old U.S. warship reconditioned and plated
with iron railroad rails (the Confederates had renamed it the Virginia).
•Fortunately, the Union’s own ironclad, the Monitor, arrived just in time to fight
the Merrimack to a standstill in one of the most memorable battles of the war.
• The Confederate ship was later destroyed by the South in order to save it
from being captured the North.
•The lessons of the Monitor vs. the Merrimack were that boats needed to
be steam-powered and armored, henceforth. The day of wooden battleships
was dead.