James Lincoln Collier - The Civil War: 1860 - 1865

T HE D RAMA OF A MERICAN H ISTORY

The CIVIL WAR

18601865

Christopher Collier

James Lincoln Collier

ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The authors wish to thank Professor David Blight of Amherst College for his careful reading of the text of this volume of The Drama of American History and his thoughtful and useful comments. The work has been much improved by Professor Blight's notes. The authors are deeply in his debt, but of course, assume full responsibility for the substance of the work, including any errors that may appear.

Photo research by James Lincoln Collier

COVER PHOTO: Corbis-Bettman

PICTURE CREDITS: The photographs in this book are used by permission and through the courtesy of:

Chapter I: Corbis-Bettmann : Edmund Ruffin, Abraham Lincoln, James Buchanan, Fort Sumter. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center : Montgomery County, VA. Library of Congress : New England whalers.

Chapter II: Corbis-Bettmann : Jefferson Davis. Library of Congress : deck of the Susquehanna , the Teaser , Bull Run, remains of Henry House.

Chapter III: Corbis-Bettmann : Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee. Library of Congress : French nobility, Burnside Bridge, dead soldiers after Antietam.

Chapter IV: Corbis-Bettmann : food riot, Northern army hospital, Clara Barton, Admiral David Farragut, deck of the Monitor . Library of Congress : Southern women rolling bandages.

Chapter V: Corbis-Bettmann : Vicksburg, black troops, dead soldier after Gettysburg. Library of Congress : Gettysburg.

Chapter VI: Corbis-Bettmann : Fort Sedgwick, William Tecumseh Sherman, Columbia, SC. Library of Congress : Missionary Ridge.

Chapter VII: Corbis-Bettmann : the Battle of the Wilderness, the McLean House, Richmond, VA.

@2000 Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, with permission from the copyright holders.

First ebook edition 2012 by AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.

Trade ISBN 978-1-62064-513-0

Library ISBN 978-0-7927-9566-7

The CIVIL WAR

18601865

C ONTENTS

P REFACE

OVER MANY YEARS of both teaching and writing for students at all levels, from grammar school to graduate school, it has been borne in on us that many, if not most, American history textbooks suffer from trying to include everything of any moment in the history of the nation. Students become lost in a swamp of factual information, and as a consequence lose track of how those facts fit together and why they are significant and relevant to the world today.

In this series, our effort has been to strip the vast amount of available detail down to a central core. Our aim is to draw in bold strokes, providing enough information, but no more than is necessary, to bring out the basic themes of the American story, and what they mean to us now. We believe that it is surely more important for students to grasp the underlying concepts and ideas that emerge from the movement of history, than to memorize an array of facts and figures.

The difference between this series and many standard texts lies in what has been left out. We are convinced that students will better remember the important themes if they are not buried under a heap of names, dates, and places.

In this sense, our primary goal is what might be called citizenship education. We think it is critically important for America as a nation and Americans as individuals to understand the origins and workings of the public institutions that are central to American society. We have asked ourselves again and again what is most important for citizens of our democracy to know so they can most effectively make the system work for them and the nation. For this reason, we have focused on political and institutional history, leaving social and cultural history less well developed.

This series is divided into volumes that move chronologically through the American story. Each is built around a single topic, such as the Pilgrims, the Constitutional Convention, or immigration. Each volume has been written so that it can stand alone, for students who wish to research a given topic. As a consequence, in many cases material from previous volumes is repeated, usually in abbreviated form, to set the topic in its historical context. That is to say, students of the Constitutional Convention must be given some idea of relations with England, and why the Revolution was fought, even though the material was covered in detail in a previous volume. Readers should find that each volume tells an entire story that can be read with or without reference to other volumes.

Despite our belief that it is of the first importance to outline sharply basic concepts and generalizations, we have not neglected the great dramas of American history. The stories that will hold the attention of students are here, and we believe they will help the concepts they illustrate to stick in their minds. We think, for example, that knowing of Abraham Baldwin's brave and dramatic decision to vote with the small states at the Constitutional Convention will bring alive the Connecticut Compromise, out of which grew the American Senate.

Each of these volumes has been read by esteemed specialists in its particular topic; we have benefited from their comments.

C HAPTER I : T HE C OMING OF THE W AR

THE CIVIL WAR was one of the greatest dramas in American history, a story so filled with blood, glory, terror, and triumph that it has been the subject of over fifty thousand serious books in English. Not just Americans, but people all around the world have been fascinated by it. The idea of brother against brother has always been compelling. The Civil War split Americans, in many cases dividing families so that brothers, fathers, and sons fought on opposite sides: Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky had one son a general in the Confederate army, another a general in the Union army.

The question that hovers like a ghost over any discussion of the Civil War is this: Did it really have to be fought? Was all that bloodshed, bringing death to 620,000 Americans, unavoidable? To understand why this conflict happened, we need to step back a little in time and watch the events leading up to it unfold.

At the Convention of 1787, when the U.S. Constitution was written, it became clear that there were natural differences between the Northern and Southern parts of the nation. Their climates were different, leading to differing kinds of farming and lifestyles. The South was agricultural, depending for almost all of its income on growing tobacco, rice, sugar, and, in the nineteenth century, especially cotton. The North, too, had its farms, but it also had a growing industry, a merchant fleet, a fishing trade; banks and export companies in New York and Philadelphia controlled the nation's commerce. As a consequence, the South was dependent on Northern export merchants and Northern ships to move its cotton and tobacco to markets, as well as on Northern banks for financing.