Unit 8 discussion

Unit 8 Primary Sources

George McClellan, 1862

Although a popular general with his troops (some would say because he did not put them into battle), McClellan exasperated Lincoln by not being particularly aggressive when fighting the Confederacy. McClellan’s military strategy should be compared with that of William Tecumseh Sherman, excerpted later. Within two years of being removed from his position, McClellan would be running against Lincoln for President

This rebellion has assumed the character of a War: as such it should be regarded; and it should be conducted upon the highest principles known to Christian Civilization. It should not be a War looking to the subjugation of the people of any state, in any event. It should not be, at all, a War upon population; but against armed forces and political organizations. Neither confiscation of property, political executions of persons, territorial organizations of states or forcible abolition of slavery should be contemplated for a moment. In prosecuting the War, all private property and unarmed persons should be strictly protected; subject only to the necessities of military operations….Military power should not be allowed to interfere with the relations of servitude, either by supporting or impairing the authority of the master; except for repressing disorder as in other cases.

William Tecumseh Sherman, 1864

This letter was written just before General Sherman moved in on Atlanta, Georgia, and then began his infamous “march to the sea,” where Sherman did carry out on his threat to bring the Civil War to the Southern home front (even though the viciousness of his campaign would be dramatically overstated by Southern whites in the years to come).

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know that I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will made more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power, for, it if relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling….You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride….

The Limits of Lincoln’s and the Union’s support for civil rights--

President Abraham Lincoln on the Union, 1862

Throughout the first two years of the Civil War, Lincoln was playing a balancing act between liberals and conservatives in the country who had radically different ideas regarding the role abolition should play in the war. Even though Lincoln became the “Great Emancipator” it is worth considering to what extent abolition was simply more of a war aim (in other words, a way to break the back of the white Confederacy) than it was a humanitarian gesture.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be ‘the Union as it was.’ If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slavery I would do it, and if I could it be freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

Excerpt from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, 1863

After the awful carnage of Gettysburg (where Lee’s Army suffered a major defeat), Lincoln travelled to the town to dedicate the Soldier’s National Cemetery. This address is widely regarded as one of the best known speeches in American history, and it must be one of the shortest ones to achieve such distinction.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing, whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of war. We have some to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper than we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we can not dedicate- we can not consecrate- we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

An African-American soldier, James Gooding, complains to Lincoln, 1863

The following letter was one of hundreds sent to Lincoln from blacks in the military who were not satisfied with the roles they had been assigned, nor with the prevalent racism still extant in the military ranks. But the very fact that over 100,000 blacks participated in the Union war effort went a long way towards overturning racial stereotypes in the nineteenth century.

Now, the main question is, are we Soldiers, or are we Laborers? We are fully armed, and equipped, have done all the various duties pertaining to a Soldier’s life, have conducted ourselves to the complete satisfaction of General Officers, who were, if anything, prejudiced against us, but now accord us all the encouragement and honors due us….The patient, trusting descendent of Africa’s Clime have dyed the ground with blood, in defense of the Union, and Democracy….Now, your Excellency, we have done a Soldier’s duty. Why can’t we have a Soldier’s pay? You caution the Rebel’s chieftain, that the United States knows no distinction in her soldiers. She insists on having all her soldiers of whatever creed or color, to be treated according to the usages of War. Now if the United States exacts uniformity of treatment of her soldiers from the insurgents, would it not be well and consistent to set the example herself by paying all he soldiers alike?

President Lincoln Calls for Reconciliation in Second Inaugural Address, 1865

This speech is famous for the conciliatory tone struck with regards to the Confederacy. An important issue to consider is how conciliatory were Northern whites going to be after Lincoln was assassinated by a Confederate sympathizer.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it- all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war…One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war…Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained….Each side looked for an easy triumph. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other….If we suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence must needs come, but which having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove…shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly we hope- fervently we pray- that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God will that it continue, until all the wealth piled up by the bond-man’s two-hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice towards none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

White Southerner, Sidney Andrews, on Confederate resentment, 1866

Although the damage done by Union General Sherman may have been overstated, there was no overstating the reality that the South was ruined after the Civil War, though in many ways because of the ineptitude of its leadership.

The “Shermanizing process,” as an ex-Rebel colonel jocosely called it, has been complete everywhere. To simply say that the people hate that officer is to put a fact in very mild terms….Certain bent rails are the first thing one sees to indicate the advent of his army…. “It passes my comprehension to tell what became of our railroads,” said a travelling acquaintance; “one week we have passably good roads, on which we could reach almost any part of the State, and the next week they were all gone- not simply broken up, but gone; some of the material was burned, I know, but miles or iron have actually disappeared, gone out of existence.”….

There is a great scarcity of stock of all kinds. What was left by the Rebel conscription officers was freely appropriated by Sherman’s army, and the people really find considerable difficulty not less in living than in travelling. Milk, formerly an article, much in use, can only be had now in limited quantities; even at hotels we have more meals without that with it. There are more miles than horses, apparently; and the animals, whether mules or horses, are all in ill condition and give evidence of severe overwork….

Columbia [South Carolina] was once the gem of the state….It is now a wilderness of ruins. Its heart is but a mass of blackened chimneys and crumbling walls…Every public building was destroyed, except the new and unfinished state-house….The poverty of this people is so deep that there is no probability that it can be finished, according to the original design, during this generation at least….The ruin here is neither half so eloquent nor touching as that at Charlestown. This is but the work of flame…Those ghostly and crumbling walls and those long-deserted and grass-grown streets show the prostration of a community- such prostration as only war could bring….

A man of much apparent intelligence informed me that the negroes have an organized military force in all sections of the State, and are almost certain to rise and massacre the whites about Christmas time.

Another had heard, and sincerely believed, that General Grant’s brother-in-law is an Indian, and is on his staff, and that the President has issued an order permitting the general son’ to marry a mulatto girl whom he found in Virginia…..The people of the central part of the State are poor, wretchedly poor, for the war not only swept away their livestock and the material resources of their plantations, but also all values- all money, stocks, and bonds- and generally left nothing that be sold for money but cotton, and only a small proportion of the landholders have any of that….