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Slavery was the fundamental issue that fueled the clash between northern and southern parts of the United States in 1861. For a long time after the war, apologists for the Confed-erate cause glossed over this point by claiming the war was over “states rights.” Southern states, however, only came to fear that the federal government might threaten their “rights” after the 1860 election of the Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. Lincoln had campaigned on a platform stating he would outlaw slavery in federal territories, though not in states where it already existed. But his victory came solely from his popular-ity in north. He received no electoral votes from states south of the Mason-Dixon line, and many southerners thus concluded that eventually they would lack the political power to block attempts to ban slavery anywhere in the U.S.

Yet disagreement over slavery did not in itself cause the war. American slavery predated the founding of the U.S., and the institution had been tolerated for over 80 years. Rather it was the existence of slavery, combined with the spread of sectional interests and perspec-tives over the previous generation, that ripped the country apart after Lincoln’s election. With the compromise of 1820, for example, national leaders had agreed to exclude slavery from the vast majority of federal territory at that time: all land above the line of latitude 36’ 30° excepting what became the state of Missouri. It was the spiritual movement of the Second Great Awakening (which produced numerous social reform efforts) that helped cre-ate a more vitriolic debate over American slavery. Although abolitionist ideas were not new, to that point they advocated the slow and gradual end of slavery. But the 1830s saw the birth of a “militant” abolitionist movement that demanded its immediate end, whose lead-ers included William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Their speeches and writings, along with abolitionist literature mailed by the American Anti-Slavery Society, produced sometimes violent backlashes in both the north and the south, including riots and attacks on post offices.

Such clashes were relatively few, however, and did not yet represent a national crisis over slavery. Alarming tensions began after the Mexican War, for the huge area acquired via the Mexican Cession reopened the question of slavery in the territories. During the war itself, Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot proposed banning slavery from any territories

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acquired from Mexico (the “Wilmot Proviso”), which was not passed. But California’s efforts to gain statehood soon brought the issue to a head. The resulting Compromise of 1850 owed its passage in Congress more to the procedural engineering of Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas rather than any genuine spirit of cooperation.

California’s admission to the Union meant that free states now outnumbered slave states in the Senate. (Congressmen from slave states had long been a minority in the House of Representatives due to northern population growth.) But southerners gained a new strong Fugitive Slave Act whose provisions threatened the liberty of northern blacks and also wor-ried northern whites. The latter soon acquired a greater appreciation for the horrors of slavery via Harriet Beacher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

The 1850s witnessed a succession of crises that continued to enflame sectional tensions. Stephen Douglas soon destroyed whatever he had accomplished in 1850 by champion-ing the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. This law revoked the ban on slavery in older federal territories established in the Compromise in 1820, allowing residents of these regions to decide the question themselves. This idea was known as “popular sovereignty,” and had gained popularity in the election of 1848. But both abolitionist and pro-slavery groups—the latter mostly residents of Missouri from across the border—sought to sway the outcome, generating violence in “Bleeding Kansas” in 1854–55 and a crisis over the territory’s con-stitution. In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court, pronouncing its verdict in the Dred Scott case, ruled slavery could not be banned in federal territories, claiming that doing so violated the Fifth Amendment protection of property. But Chief Justice Roger Taney went further, claiming blacks were not and could never be U.S. citizens. Northerners, already alarmed over previous developments and crises—including an attack on Massachusetts senator and abolitionist Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate—were shocked by the ruling. Appar-ent growing northern sympathy for abolitionism in turn upset southerners, particularly the support John Brown received after his failed raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, and subsequent execution in 1859—a raid whose purpose was to acquire arms to facilitate a slave revolt against southern slaveholders.

Ironically, most white southerners did not own slaves. Of those who did, most owned one or perhaps a few. But about half of southern slaves lived on large plantations owned by rich landholders who comprised a tiny proportion of the entire white population. Nonethe-less, slavery was a form of racial domination that shaped all of southern society. Even the poorest white family was free. Moreover, many whites regarded slave owning as a means to improve their economic and social status. A different dynamic operated in the north, where land prices were high and industrialization had dramatically increased the number of free urban laborers. Many poor northerners had hopes of moving west to start their own farms—hopes that seemed threatened by the prospect of large slave owners moving into new territories and buying extensive tracts of land to farm with slaves. Just as many south-erners came to believe that all northerners were abolitionists (in fact, most were not, and held strong prejudices against blacks), many in the north came to believe in a “slave power” or “slavocracy” that was trying to manipulate the federal government for the benefit of southern interests. These were the underlying anxieties that each successive political crisis exacerbated in the late 1840s and 1850s, leading to the final one that almost destroyed the United States.

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Secession and War

Another contributing factor to the outbreak of the Civil War was the lack of leaders or institutions that could forge an effective national consensus or compromise to counter the country’s growing polarization. The Whig political party disintegrated in the 1850s, and by the 1860 election, the Democrats had split, with southern and northern wings each running different candidates (Stephen A. Douglas and John C. Breckinridge, respec-tively). Many of the men who in earlier years had acquired the standing to craft a possible compromise, such as Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun, had died by the early 1850s. Of the younger generation of politicians, perhaps Stephen A. Douglas had the ability to do so. But any possibility of him championing a national reconciliation was squandered with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and his efforts to preserve the Union on the eve of secession were too little, too late. Instead, four men ran as presidential candidates in the election of 1860.

Northern states provided all of the electoral votes Abraham Lincoln needed to win the presidency. For many southerners, the North’s ability to win the executive branch outright posed a mortal danger to the existence of slavery within the United States, though Lincoln and the Republicans only sought to ban it from federal territories, and abolitionists were a minority within the population. South Carolina was the first to act on these fears, declaring its secession from the Union on December 20, 1860. By February 1, 1861, it had been joined by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, and soon thereafter repre-sentatives from each met in Montgomery, Alabama to declare the birth of a new nation, the Confederate States of America, or simply the Confederacy.

Most of these states comprised the Lower South, where large plantations with numerous slaves that produced cotton and other staples for export flourished. In contrast, those in the Upper South—Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee—choose not to secede from the Union at this time, along with Arkansas. These states had more diversified, though still primarily agricultural, economies and lacked the large numbers of big plantations preva-lent in the Lower South. But slavery was still legal in the Upper South, and while many there were sympathetic to the Confederate cause, they were not yet prepared to abandon the Union. Even in the original Confederate states, support for secession was not universal, but strong enough to command support from the majority of the population.

What ultimately pushed the Upper South (except Kentucky) into the Confederacy was the Lincoln administration’s reaction to the fall of Fort Sumter. Lincoln would not assume the presidency until early March, and the outgoing Buchanan administration did little to address the crisis. In the interim, some politicians attempted to craft a last-minute compro-mise that would maintain the Union and peace, but all efforts failed. Meanwhile, seceding states seized federal installations in their midst. By the time Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, only three such posts had avoided that fate, including Ft. Sumter, located on an island in the middle of the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina—and its supplies would last only a few more weeks.

In early April, Lincoln dispatched a ship to resupply Ft. Sumter, but with no arms or reinforcements, and publically announced its mission. Though aware that the effort could provoke an armed response, Lincoln had other options if he wanted to begin a war. Rather, it

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appeared the best option for avoiding conflict while holding to the promises in his inaugural speech to retain federal posts. Confederate authorities sought to induce the fort’s surrender before the ship arrived, thereby avoiding the dilemma of either allowing it through or using armed force. But the post commander, Major Robert Anderson—who was unaware of the supply mission—saw no reason to hasten his submission given that his men would soon run out of stores anyway. With the ship’s approach forcing the issue, Confederate forces began firing upon Ft. Sumter at 4:30 AM April 12, 1861. Anderson surrendered the next day, and the American Civil War had begun.

Box 6.1 Josiah Gorgas

Photographic portrait of Josiah Gorgas http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Josiah_Gorgas.jpg

Nineteenth-century photo of Confederate Powder Works http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/augusta/sibleymill.html

Josiah Gorgas went a long way to improving southern industrial capacity during the war. Appointed Confederate Chief of Ordnance, he helped establish a gunpowder manu-facturing plant at Augusta, Georgia (pictured above) as well as cannon foundries in that state and a new ironworks at Selma, Alabama.

Box 6.2

Figure 6.1 The cabinet at Washington, Harper’s Weekly, July 13, 1861, p. 437

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Goldstein Foundation Collection [LC-DIG-ppmsca-19482].

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Figure 6.2 The cabinet of the Confederate States at Montgomery; from photographs by Whitehurst, of Washington, and Hinton, of Montgomery, Alabama.

Lincoln’s cabinet contained a number of strong personalities, including Republicans with a great-er national reputation than his own. Inducing them to accept his leadership and work together was one of his first accomplishments as president. William H. Seward, pictured here standing, was perhaps his biggest challenge. In early 1861 he pursued policies independently of Lincoln’s approval, but soon became a loyal and effective member of the cabinet. Other Federal officials of note include Simon Cameron to Seward’s right, Lincoln’s first Secretary of War who was replaced by Edwin Stanton in 1862; and Gideon Wells on the far right, his Secretary of the Navy. Amongst the Confederate cabinet, here sitting in its first capital at Montgomery, President Jefferson Davis (seated, third from right) himself may have been the most fractious personality. For example, throughout the war he quarreled with his Vice President Alexander Stephens (seated, far right). Stephen Mallory, the Confederate Navy Secretary, is seated second from the left.

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-132563].

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Figure 6.3 Attack on the Massachusetts 6th at Baltimore, April 19, 1861

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-56105].

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Figure 6.4 United States Volunteers attacked by the mob, corner of Fifth and Walnut Streets, St. Louis, Missouri; sketched by M. Hastings, Esq. Harper’s Weekly, June 2, 1861

Early in the war, the movement of Federal troops sparked riots in areas where southern sym-pathies were strong. In April 1861, the 6th Massachusetts Volunteers were attacked by a mob in Baltimore as they marched from one train station to another en route to Washington. A month later, crowds assaulted soldiers in St. Louis after Union authorities tried to incarcerate suspected rebels.

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War [LC-USZ62-132566].

Box 6.4

Figure 6.5 “Man Telling Woman ‘Ah! Dearest Addie! I’ve succeeded! I’ve got a substitute! . . . ’ ” in Harper’s Weekly, Aug. 30, 1862

The cartoon from an 1862 magazine indicates how women could induce men to volunteer by shaming them.

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War [LC-USZ62-127606].

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Box 6.5

Figure 6.6 Battle of Shiloh by Thure de Thulstrup c. 1888

Alexander G. Downing was a Union infantryman at the Battle of Shiloh. His account below de-scribes the tactical movements of his and opposing Confederate units on the first day of the battle:

The long roll sounded about half-past seven in the morning, and at once we formed a line of battle on the regimental parade ground. At about 8 o’clock we were ordered to the front, and marching out in battle line, about one-half mile, we met the rebels at Water Oaks Pond. Dresser’s battery was just in front of our regiment, we acting as a support to it. The rebels came up on our right, compelling us to fall back about eighty rods [a quarter mile] to our second position, where we remained until we were again flanked, when we fell back to within about one hundred yards of our parade ground, where we lay down on the brow of a hill awaiting the approach of the rebels in front. While in this position, Thomas Hains of Company E took off his hat, placed it upon his ramrod, and holding it up, shouted to the boys along the line to see what a close call he had had while out in front, for a minie ball had passed through the creased crown of his hat, making four holes. Before he could get his hat back on his head, a small shell burst over us and mortally wounded him.

By this time the rebels were marching right oblique [units on the right of the advancing line marching ahead of those to the left], just in front of us, in double line of battle with their two stands of colors flying. By order we waited until we could look them in the eye and then rose up and fired a volley at close range into their ranks, throwing them into great confusion. We then made a bayonet charge, capturing one of their standards, and together with the Eleventh and the Twentieth Illinois Infantry we captured Cobb’s battery and retook General McClernand’s headquarters. (Downing’s Civil War Diary, Des Moines: Iowa State Department of History and Archives, 1916, pp. 40–41)

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Popular Graphic Arts [LC-DIG-pga-04037].

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Illustration, “Battle of Malvern Hill” in Frank Leslie, The Soldiers in Our Civil War, 2 vol. (NY: Stanley Bradley, 1893), pp. 346–7.http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1&strucID=702478 &imageID=813319&word=Cannons&s=3&notword=&d=&c=&f=2&k=0&lWord=&lField=&sScope=&sLevel=&sLabel=&sort=&total=300&num=180&imgs=20&pNum=&pos=200

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Figure 6.7 “Yorktown, Va., Confederate fortifications reinforced with bales of cotton,” 1862

Among the building materials used by Confederate troops to construct defenses on the pen-insula were bales of cotton, seen here. Also note the destroyed carriage and cannon on the ground.

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War [LC-DIG-cwpb-01604].

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Figure 6.8 “District of Columbia. Company E, 4th U.S. Colored Infantry, at Fort Lincoln” 1863–1866

The 4th U.S. Colored Infantry—whose E Company appears in the photo above—contained African American men from free states, from Union border states, and escaped slaves from the south. Soldiers of the 4th U.S. Colored Infantry earned acclaim (and some Congressional Medals of Honor) for their service at Fort Harrison during the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm outside Richmond in September 1864.

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War [LC-DIG-cwpb-04294].

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Figure 6.9 “Battle of Fredericksburg, Va., Dec. 13, 1862,” Currier & Ives

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War [LC-USZC4-3365].

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Figure 6.10 Cobb’s and Kershaw’s troops behind the stone wall/A.C. Redwood 1886; Evans sc. Battles and leaders of the Civil War: Peoples pictorial edition, Vol. I, No. II, Part XI. New York: The Century Co., c1894, p. 174.

The first image of the Battle of Fredericksburg depicts one of the many Federal charges upon Marye’s Heights, with wounded and dead from previous attacks in the foreground. The second shows Confederate troops defending behind the stone wall at the base of the hill.

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War [LC-USZ62-134479].