Sarah Elder Hale - Nation at War. Soldiers, Saints, and Spies

In four years, 384 battles (and many more small armed conflicts) were fought in the War Between the States. This print depicts the Battle of Opequon (Virginia).

On March 4, 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln was worried as he prepared to take office as the 16th president of the United States. He had just completed a 2,000-mile trip from his home in Illinois, visiting five Northern states and making more than 20 speeches in an attempt to calm the people who had elected him.

Torn in Two

At the time of Lincolns inauguration, seven Southern states had already seceded from the Union. They refused to accept Lincoln as their president. They elected their own Jefferson Davis as the first president of the newly formed nation called the Confederate States of America. And now, as Lincoln prepared to take office, four more slaveholding states were ready to join their seven Southern neighbors.

Two presidents; two constitutions; two nations, each insisting on its own sovereignty. Was it lawful for states to withdraw from the Union and form their own confederation? Was the Constitution of the United States only a compact that states might, or might not, agree to uphold? Could certain states, through legal proceedings, bring their participation in the Union to an end?

For years these questions had been debated, but without resolution. The North and the South had grown apart, developing different ways of life with different kinds of problems. To the South, compromise no longer seemed possible. It wanted to govern itself as a separate nation. To the North, the formation of the Confederate States of America was widely thought to be treason. Confrontation between the North and the South seemed unavoidable. And on April 12, 1861, when the Confederates attacked Fort Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina, the war finally began.

The War Between the States

The Confederates called the confrontation the War Between the States. The federal War Department under Lincoln called it the War of the Rebellion. Those who tried to understand the war from a constitutional point of view called it the War of Secession. But no matter what they called it, few people believed that it would last very longmaybe three months at the longest. The North hoped that the South was not serious about its new confederacy, and the South hoped that the North would soon give in and let it go its separate way.

But each side underestimated the other. And it wasnt long before both sides realized that there was nothing more brutal and tragic than the hand-to-hand combat of a civil war.

North vs. South

In 1861, when the war began, there were approximately 18 million people living in the North, and the North controlled practically two-thirds of the nations railroads. The North had nine-tenths of the nations industry and most of the raw materials needed to keep its factories going.

The South had only half as many people as the North, and one-third of its population were slaves. With fewer troops, fewer guns and ammunition, and fewer supplies to keep the soldiers clothed and fed, the South appeared to be at a tremendous disadvantage.

The South, however, had one important advantage over the North that probably kept the war going for as long as it did. The South fought almost the entire war, with the exception of two battles, on its own soil. The North was forced to invade the South, shipping supplies across enemy lines and camping in unfamiliar, unfriendly territory.

General Grant and General Lee

When General Ulysses S. Grant took command of the Union army, he planned to keep attacking the South until the Confederates were worn down, no matter how many lives were lost. In order to trap the Confederate army, he turned his western army over to General William Tecumseh Sherman, with orders to move in behind Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Sherman began his march across Georgia, destroying Confederate supplies that lay in his path.

In the meantime, Grants own army began a battle with Lees that became one of the worst in American military history. All through the summer of 1864, Grant tried to get his army across the Rappahannock River in northern Virginia, while Lee resisted his attempts. At Cold Harbor, just 10 miles from Richmond, Virginia, Grant lost 12,000 men in half an hour. In fact, Grant lost more men than Lee had in his entire army, but he was able to replace his losses with fresh troops. Lee also suffered heavy losses. His army was reduced to half of its original size, but for him, there were no replacements.

Early in April 1865, Lee abandoned Petersburg and Richmond to the Union army. He tried to move his army west, but his movements were blocked. On April 9, surrounded by Union troops, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House. Sherman forced the remaining Confederate resistance to surrender near Durham, North Carolina, and the war was over.

Wars Aftermath

Now began the work of rebuilding a tattered nation still divided by different ways of life and very different needs. This period is called Reconstruction (18651877). The question of whether it was lawful for a state to secede from the Union had been resolved by war. The practice of slavery in America had been abolished. During Reconstruction, the people of the reunited nation had difficult challenges to face: addressing the economic needs of the South, bringing together the government, and integrating the newly freed slaves into society. The war was over, but many battles lay ahead for the people and leaders of the United States.

Fast Fact: 1 out of every 5 soldiers who took part in the Civil War was killed in battle or died in camp. Compare that number with 1 out of 12 who died in World War I, or 1 out of 11 who died in World War II.