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10LincolnandWar.pptxLincoln, War, and the Slaughter of the American Working Class
The American Civil War 1861-1865
The American Civil War is still, without doubt, the most traumatic experience in American History. Far more so than the American Revolution, the World Wars, and 9/11.
New estimates put the number of soldier deaths at 750,000 or above. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/civil-war-toll-up-by-20-percent-in-new-estimate.html
This does not include the many civilian deaths through disease, starvation, heartbreak, etc.
About 22 million lived in the North and 9 million in the South at the time of the war. There was about a 3.5 to 2.5 ratio of deaths North to South, but this means that the South lost a greater percentage of its population.
About 36,000 African American soldiers were killed.
In the following slides, we’ll recount the seminal events leading up to the war.
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We can go back to the very foundations of the United States when the Fugitive Slave Clause (Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3) and the 3/5th Clause (Article 1, Section 2. Par. 3) of the Constitution effectively legalized slavery without explicitly mentioning slavery.
Also, Amendment 10 “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” leaves the issue of slavery and other legal, commercial, and social matters up to the states.
Arguments and ill feelings regarding these issues began almost immediately, and tensions almost led to violence in 1820 when the Missouri Compromise staved off revolt and kept the balance between slave state and free state representation.
Texas independence from Mexico followed by its attempt to join the U.S. created tensions before and after the delayed admission in December of 1845, during the Polk Administration.
Polk’s (murderous?) manipulation of international politics led to massive gains in U.S. territory. He gave Mexico little chance to a avoid war that resulted in the loss of the that nations northern half, and he negotiated for the acquisition and consolidation of the Northwest, completing the U.S. march to the Pacific.
This created all kinds of problems for the slavery balance. The Wilmot Proviso, which might have solved the problem, though admittedly in the non-extentionist favor, was rejected. When California asked to join the Union as a free state, it engendered yet another crisis. Half of the state was below the Missouri Compromise line. There was a call in Congress to split California into one free and one slave state.
Then Clay (again) proposed a compromise that delayed secession, but may have ensured it at the same time.
Battle of San Jacinto
April 21, 1836
1845
O’Sullivan
Popularizes Term
Manifest Destiny
Clays Compromise 1850
California Enters Union as a Free State
Territories to Have No Restrictions on Slavery
Enforce Fugitive Slave Law
No Slaves in D.C.
Recall from the last presentation that Clay’s 1850 Compromise brought California in as a free state and ended the D.C. slave market on the one hand, and intensified enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act and (opposite of the Wilmot Proviso) made slavery possible in all of the newly acquired territories on the other.
Four years later, the Stephen Douglas bill, that would make slavery possible in all of the U.S. territories, was passed. This Kansas-Nebraska Act would be the death knell for any prospect of a peaceful resolution to sectionalism. The North and the South were at this point likely polarized beyond reconciliation.
Pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocates began to stream into the Kansas territory to try to assure that their faction would prevail. This led to extreme violence and atrocities by both sides.
The radical abolitionist John Brown became notorious for his brutal retaliations against the pro-slavery contingent.
Newspapers began to use the term “Bleeding Kansas” to describe the horrors.
In retrospect, this might be considered the beginning of the Civil War that would break out officially half a decade later.
Sack of Lawrence Kansas May 21, 1856
Pottawatomie Creek
Osawatomie
Bleeding Kansas
In 1857, the Taney Supreme Court confused the slavery situation to the point that there was no clear distinction between a slave state and a free state. The United States had become a nation whose priority seemed to be the protection of private property in the form of slavery above all other considerations.
Dred Scott Decision
Some abolitionists began to feel that violent conflict was the only possible route to a free society.
Harper’s Ferry Oct. 1859
John Brown left Kansas and brought a small army of abolitionists to invade the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, Va. His intent was to arm slaves and foment a Nat Turner type rebellion that would in turn ignite slave rebellions throughout the South. Pro-slavery Southerners became highly agitated at what appeared to be Northern sympathy for Brown’s terrorist tactics.
Lincoln- Douglas Debates
1858
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The Kansas-Nebraska Act had awakened Abraham Lincoln to the slavery issue. He had been a non-extentionist and an advocate of a back to Africa movement, but had never been an abolitionist. In the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign he decided to challenge incumbent Stephen Douglas in a series of debates, largely over slavery, that brought Lincoln national attention. These debates were taking place a year after the Dred Scott decision and during the “Bleeding Kansas” violence.
Two years later, after giving a particularly rousing speech at New York’s Cooper Union meeting hall, he became the surprise candidate as the Republican presidential nominee.
Lincoln’s Cooper Union Speech 1860
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Lincoln
1861-1865
Elected President of the United States in November 1860 with 180 of 303 electoral votes and 40 percent of the popular vote (defeating three other candidates including Douglas).
South Carolina secedes from the Union in December of 1860. Followed within two months by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. These were soon followed by Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
South Carolina militia laid siege to the federal armory at Ft. Sumter in the Charleston Harbor. This opened hostilities between South and North immediately after the election. The war had begun then in the last months of the Buchanan presidency.
Lincoln had gone from being a self-educated Kentucky farm boy to the pinnacle of American politics in its moment of grave crisis. In many quarters, he was expected to be a failure. Even hos own Executive Cabinet doubted his abilities at first.
From laborer to lawyer.
1832 Black Hawk War
Lincoln served as an Illinois militia officer during the Black Hawk War. He was in his early twenties at the time. While, by his own later recollections, he never saw combat, he see some of the more horrid affects of war.
Politics
1832 — Ran for the Illinois legislature; defeated. 1834 — Ran for the Illinois legislature and was elected Representative for Sangamon County. 1836 — Re-elected Representative to the Illinois legislature. 1838 — Re-elected Representative to the Illinois legislature. 1840 — Re-elected Representative to the Illinois legislature. 1846 — Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. 1854 — Elected to the Illinois legislature; resigned to run for U.S. Senate; defeated. 1858 — Ran for U.S. Senate; defeated. 1860 — Ran for President of the United States and was elected. 1864 — Re-elected President of the United States.
Salmon Chase
Treasury
William Seward
State
Edwin Stanton
War
Gideon Welles
Navy
Lincoln’s Cabinet
The Southern states that had seceded formed a new government know as the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis, a former U.S. Senator (Mississippi), became its president.
The new government was loosely modelled on the united States under the Articles of Confederation.
Feb. 1861
The Confederate States of America
Jefferson Davis
With Tad. Son Willie dies Feb. 1862
After Lincoln’s son died, his wife Mary suffered debilitating depression and Lincoln himself had to struggle with depression throughout the war.
Throughout the war, Lincoln and the North were handicapped by a lack of military leadership. Many of the finest American military men were from the South.
The North, on the other hand, had a far larger population of fighting age men and a much greater industrial capacity.
Bull Run
July 1861
Almost immediately, the South demonstrated its military superiority in its somewhat unexpected victory at Bull Run (Manassas).
Antietam
Sep 1862
The following year, the North had the opportunity to delivering a crushing blow to General Lee’s Virginia army, but failed. Still, the horrifically bloody encounter and near Southern victory scared the North and Lincoln.
Emancipation Proclamation
January 1863
Soon after Antietam, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves only in areas not controlled by the Union. It was a calculated and bold propaganda move meant to terrorize the rebel states but to keep the loyal slave states in the fold.
Habeas Corpus Act
March 3, 1863.
In the face of riots and other disruptions by dissenters in the border states, Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus and the Congress supported him a few months later.
The Federal Government not only jailed without those who seemed to be Southern operatives, it also jailed journalists who spoke in opposition to the Lincoln administration’s policies.
March 1863 -- The First Conscription Act.
Because of recruiting difficulties, an act was passed making all men between the ages of 20 and 45 liable to be called for military service. Service could be avoided by paying a fee or finding a substitute. The act was seen as unfair to the poor, and riots in working-class sections of New York City broke out in protest. A similar conscription act in the South provoked a similar reaction. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/tl1863.html
John Summerfield, Lincoln’s Substitute
When those living in squalid conditions, most of whom were Irish, learned that they would be drafted and that the rich could buy their way out of the draft, they rioted. Many died, although probably not as many as the more than 1000 reported at the time.
Draft Riots Summer of ‘63
Vicksburg
May-July 1863
The Union finally got a much needed victory at the siege of Vicksburg with the command of Union forces under Ulysses Grant. After the failure of a string of Union commanders, especially General McClellan, Grant caught Lincoln’s eye.
With the capture of Vicksburg, the Union had control of the Mississippi River.
Gettysburg
July 1863
At about the same time, General Meade met General Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg, which devastated both sides. It was the bloodiest confrontation of the war. Lee and his Confederates would never again press the war into the North.
February 25, 1863 - Signs a Bill establishing a
National Banking System,
which among other things created a national currency (green backs), and provided new methods the fund the war.
Order of Retaliation Lincoln orders the killing of Confederate POWs in retaliation for the South’s killing of black POWs fighting for the Union.
July 30, 1863
“It is the duty of every government to give protection to its citizens, of whatever class, color, or condition, and especially to those who are duly organized as soldiers in the public service. The law of nations and the usages and customs of war as carried on by civilized powers, permit no distinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war as public enemies. To sell or enslave any captured person, on account of his color, and for no offence against the laws of war, is a relapse into barbarism and a crime against the civilization of the age.
The government of the United States will give the same protection to all its soldiers, and if the enemy shall sell or enslave anyone because of his color, the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy's prisoners in our possession.
It is therefore ordered that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war.”
By this point in the war, many mothers from both the North and South had lost entire families.
In the highly charged religious environment spawned during the 2d Great Awakening, both sides claimed that they were fighting to preserve Christian values.
Medicine was still very primitive and couldn’t keep up with the slaughter. Injured or wounded men would often develop infections. At the first sight of gangrene, doctors would opt for amputation.
Late in 1863 Lincoln delivered what is surely one of the greatest propaganda (recruiting) speeches of all time. Meant ostensibly to honor the dead at Gettysburg, it was a call to redouble the efforts of the North despite the carnage.
As Lincoln says here, the very possibility of democracy in the world was at stake. Whether true or not, Lincoln seems to have believed it and it was this that motivated his continued prosecution of the war.
Lincoln visited battlefields, at great risk to himself and to the consternation of those attempting to protect him.
Despite his lack of military experience, Lincoln was a hands-on Commander-in-Chief, often sitting for hours and days by his telegraph waiting for war news. He would make suggestions and demands of his Generals that they ignored to their peril. Lincoln fired many of his generals when he deemed them ineffective.
Lincoln finally hired Grant and his close friend General Sherman to lead the war effort. Grant was tenacious and single minded. While not the tactical equal of Robert E. Lee, he was aware of his resources and used them to end the war.
Sherman would become famous for expositing the notion of Total War. You do not win wars by engaging enemy forces, said Sherman, you win by destroying the means to wage war. Sherman led his army through the South destroying crops and manufacture and perhaps most importantly, civilian morale.
Grant – Sherman and
Total War
Lincoln’s re-election was not a certainty and in an attempt to secure the votes of pro-Union Southern Democrats in the loyal border states, as well as to send a message to martially ambivalent Democrats in the deep South, Lincoln replaced Northern abolitionist Republican Hannibal Hamlin with Southern Democrat Andrew Johnson.
Hannibal Hamlin
Maine
Andrew Johnson
Tennessee
Lincoln was looking to future and already attempting to win the hearts of what was certain to be a defeated people. Knowing that it was going to be a gargantuan and delicate task to reform the union, he went to the South’s former capital after the Battle of Richmond to talk to Southern civilians and to hear their stories.
April 4, 1865
The President Tours Richmond
Atlanta
Nov. 64
Appomattox
April 9, 1865
Following Grants tactical losses, but strategic victory in the South, and Sherman’s destruction of Georgia, Grant finally caught Lee and his troops at Appomattox. When Lee surrendered, the war was essentially over.
Six days later, Lincoln was dead. In a plot hatched by actor John Wilkes Booth, he and a group of co-conspirators planned to kill Lincoln, Johnson, Seward, Stanton, and several others, to throw the government into disarray and to re-ignite the war. Lincoln was the only one killed.
Lincoln was shot on the evening of April 14th 1865 and died early the next day.
It is one of great “what if”s of history (what Historians call a counterfactual). How would the process of reconstructing the nation have gone had Lincoln lived. How different might the nation be today?
Remember, Lincoln was a corporate lawyer at one point and was firmly pro-business. One can imagine that he might very well have become an anti-labor president in the early phases of the Gilded Age. He was, after all, willing to sacrifice as many young working class men as was necessary to secure the boundaries of pre-secession America.
April 14, 1865
With the exception of Booth, who was reportedly killed by a soldier a week and a half after the assassination, the conspirators were rounded up, tried, and executed. This included Mary Surratt, whose son was a conspirator. Her guilt is debated by historians to this day.
