Civil War Journal: The Battles

Thomas Nelson, William C. Davis, Brian Pohanka, Don Troiani, William C. Davis, Brian Pohanka, Don Troiani

• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Year: 1997
• ISBN:
  9781418559038
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

"Of more than one thousand battles fought during the war, " William C. Davis notes, "a few have risen to lasting fascination and prominence, some even regarded as 'turning points.' The battles included in this book are those that caused the greatest casualties, produced the greatest feats of heroism, and won or lost major campaigns. They decided the course of the war in the East and the West, set the standard for valor and sacrifice, defined who the American soldier was to be in this war and in the future, and established the American military tradition."

This volume presents accounts of five Confederate victories (Fort Sumter, First Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, and Franklin), five Union victories (New Orleans, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and Nashville), and three stalemates ( Monitor v. Virginia, Antietam, and Charleston). Also included are chapters on solder life, the steadfast Iron Brigade, and the first volunteer African-American combat troops recruited in the North-the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry. From the first shot in Charleston Harbor to the one-day decimation of the Southern army on the outskirts of Nashville, these pages are colored with the wide range of expectation and disappointment that frustrated the country during four years of war.

FORT SUMTER

The BOMBARDBARDMENT OF FORT SUMTER ignited the bloodiest conflict in American history, a war in which 620,000 Americans lost their lives. It was a war with many facets: a war of power between two rival presidents of one nation, a war of honor for one officer who would carry the weight of the war for the rest of his life, and ultimately a war of hope for millions of black Americans who dreamed of freedom.

^ºThe roots of the Civil War lay in the American Revo–lution and the founding of the republic. Between the Revolution and the Civil War there was a growing series of political conflicts between slave states and free states over what the national policy should be on issues affect–ing slavery. ^•

ALR

These sectional tensions came to a climax in the mid-nineteenth century; a war between the states seemed inevitable. Two years before his election to the White House, Abraham Lincoln predicted that war would come. During an unsuccessful bid for the Senate, in a speech that focused on the issue of slavery, he said to his listen–ers: “I believe this government cannot endure perma–nently half-slave and half-free.”

^ºSlavery was certainly the most important cause of the Civil War, although some have argued that slavery did not cause the war because the typical southerner did not own slaves and the typical northerner did not particularly care whether black Americans were freed or not. While that observation is true, the institution of slavery precipi–tated the war because slavery was the most crucial right that the South saw as being threatened.^• The Civil War was fought over the right of individual states to deter–mine how their voters wanted to live, and slavery was the most visible example of a challenge to this right.

CC	Catherine Clinton
WCD	William C. Davis
EFG	Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
WWG	William W. Gwaltney
BP	Brian Pohanka
ALR	Armstead L. Robinson
DR	David Roth

The South enjoyed a monopoly on the world’s cotton for most of the first half of the nineteenth century and saw no reason to expect anything different for the 1860s. In fact, when war came in 1861, the Confederacy anticipated the European nations would pressure the North by every means to keep the cotton corridors open. This cotton econ–omy required a large labor force and perpetuated slavery as the most efficient means for cultivating this cash crop. In the photograph above (left), despite its being an image from a region occupied by the Northern army, contrabands (as slaves in Union-held areas were called) sort through ginned cotton. The severity of this way of life is apparent in the demeanor of the slave family above (right) and the condition of their living quarters as they were photographed in 1863 near Fredericksburg.

In the 1860s slavery was virtually abolished in the North, but in the South, which had a population of nine million people, four million were slaves. Roughly one in every seven Americans was a slave.

^ºThe practice of slavery in the United States was some–thing of an aberration. It had run its course in almost every Western nation by the beginning of the nineteenth century and probably would have ceased to exist in the American South had it not been rejuvenated by the invention of the mechanical cotton gin, which made slavery profitable again. Most towns in the South had slave markets, where slaves were treated very much like cattle and prices were based on a slave’s skills. The agrar–ian nature of the southern economy—which prospered on cotton, sugar, and tobacco—called for a large work force whose primary virtue was endurance. In that envi–ronment, slaves worked “from can to can’t”; that is, from when one “can see” in the morning, when the sun came up, until “can’t see” at night, when the sun went down.

WWG

To maintain the institution of slavery, the southern slave owners had to maintain a balance of terror and humanity.^• In return for obedience and productivity, slaves received food and shelter. Punishment was administered for disobedience, but not in such ways as to hamper future productivity. Of course, consistent disobedience was dealt with severely, and ^ºsome slaves did everything they could to resist.^• They knew their white masters had power over them because the law of the land protected slavery, but many slaves were determined to find freedom in the North.

EFG

In the late 1850s a small but highly vocal abolitionist movement spread across the North proclaiming that slavery was inhumane and immoral. The well-known orator Frederick Douglass, a self-freed slave who had been born to a slave mother and a white slaveholding father, became a voice for all slaves who yearned to be free. During one of his speeches, Douglass argued, “The vital question at stake is not whether slavery shall be extended or limited, but whether the four million now held in bondage are men, entitled to the rights and liberties of men.”

Disagreement over slavery led to conflicts between the two cultures in the United States: the industrialized, free-labor North and the agricultural, slave-labor South. The issue, however, was not really one of racism, because ^ºin the 1850s northerners were every bit as racist as southerners. Instead it was a question of the nature of society^• and economics, but ultimately it became an issue of political power.

EFG

At the 1860 Democratic convention in Charleston the issues of states’ rights and slavery split the party. The north–ern Democrats were determined to reject the proslavery plank of the –southern Democrats and chose Stephen Douglas as their standard-bearer. –Douglas, however, was abhorred by the southerners. William L. Yancey of Ala–bama bluntly demanded, “We are in a position to ask you to yield.” The north–erners refused, and so Yancey and fifty other delegates walked out, held their own convention, and nominated Vice President John C. Breckinridge as their candidate.

James L. Petigru (above), a respected Charles–ton jurist, was a Unionist.After the state declared its indepen–dence on December 20, 1860, he allegedly told a friend, “South Caro–lina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum.”

Opposite page: Taken prior to his elec–tion as president, this is the only known full-length photograph of Abraham Lincoln. Although he had repeatedly stated that he would not act against slavery in those states in which it already existed, he was viewed as an abolitionist in the South, and his elec–tion polarized the secessionist move–ment. Lincoln’s most direct statement about the fragmenting Union was made in his inaugural address, March 4, 1861: “In your hands, my dissatis–fied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. . . . You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and defend’ it.”

As the country expanded and territories sought statehood, the U.S. Congress and the White House debated whether slavery would be allowed to expand into the western frontier, which at that time was everything west of Kansas. ^ºAs long as there were an equal number of free states and slave states, there would be an equal number of senators in Congress from the North and from the South. Thus that branch of Congress would not be dominated by either side. ^•

WCD

During the decades before the war, a series of compromises were devised in Congress that allowed new states to be admitted while maintaining the balance between slave and free states. The first compromise occurred in 1818 when Missouri petitioned Congress for admission as a slave state, which would have given the slave states a majority in the Senate. The situation was resolved when Maine separated from Massachusetts in 1819 and petitioned for statehood as a free state. Congress, however, still had to address the question of slavery in the area acquired by the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. In legislation known as the Missouri Compromise, Missouri was admitted to the Union with the stipulation that slavery would be limited in the Louisiana Purchase to those territories below latitude 36°30’.

When the question of slavery in the new territories aroused sectional tensions again thirty years later, Congress honored the 36°30’ boundary line in legislation dubbed the Compromise of 1850. Four years later, however, the Kansas-Nebraska Act voided the Missouri Compromise by dissolving the geog...