Outline

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Course Learning Outcomes for Unit V Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

2. Describe the effects social ideologies had on the Patriot or U.S. military.

3. Examine the innovations and technological advances directly related to the U.S. military.

7. Evaluate differences in the U.S. military during times of peace and war.

Reading Assignment Chapter 7: The Civil War, 1863–1865, pp. 181–217

Unit Lesson Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation set the tone for the North and thus the country in 1863. It was risky, as many Northerners were outraged at fighting the war over this cause. However, despite its ability to fragment Northern society, a cry for freedom invigorated the war effort. At this trying time militarily, the North needed

any source of new or renewed support. The proclamation also paved the way for black soldiers to fight. This further increased the North’s already superior manpower. The South would later attempt to arm its slaves in an effort to tap this unused source of manpower. However, the South fought on the grounds that slaves were not truly men, and arming them was in contrast to this belief. It was implemented out of desperation at the end of the war, thus having very little effect except to erode the morale of many Southern fighters. To both armies, black recruits could have been helpful because both armies suffered from disease, casualties, and desertion. These factors led them to employ other

ways to man the war. Ironically, the South, fighting for states’ rights, embraced national conscription on a much wider scale than the North. This created a dilemma for the South on how to raise an army fighting for the Confederacy rather than individual states. Their national conscription policy expressed their belief in centralized authority, contrary to a main cause for the secession to begin with, which was a strong belief in the autonomy of individual states. The Confederacy enacted the first national draft law in American history. A glaring weakness in the Southern conscription law was that it allowed liberal exemptions and substitutions, based on the constitutional clause allowing the government to “raise and support armies.” The Northern conscription was known as the Enrollment Act, and it also allowed for exemptions and substitutions. One major problem with which the North struggled was morale. The North had expected a quick victory, but the war was so prolonged that many Northerners began to question the reasons for war and were agitated to accept terms with the South to end it. Of course, with famine and inflation rampant in the South, the Confederacy also suffered. Yet, prior to General Sherman, they seemed to suffer more silently. The North struggled loud and clear, even into late 1863 as it became clear that the South could not win the war. Despite being unable to win it, the Northern populace wavered as the South struggled to prolong the war. The continued fighting and horrendous Northern casualties made the election of 1864, when Lincoln was up for

UNIT V STUDY GUIDE

The Civil War, 1863–1865

Lincoln discusses his emancipation proclamation speech.

(Carpenter, 1864)

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reelection, very important. The election became a referendum on the war, with General George McClellan, the Democratic candidate, running on an anti-emancipation and pro-peace platform. Had Lincoln lost his reelection bid, chances are that the North would have negotiated an early end to the war in terms more favorable to the South than the ultimate unconditional surrender.

The South was under the impression that if they lost the war, the North would engage in mass reprisals. This was a mistaken belief (we now know), but it emboldened them to fight on in the face of overwhelming odds in terms of men and material. Many Southern soldiers, as their armies surrendered, continued to fight in marauding groups, such as Quantrill’s Raiders, which is where Jesse and Frank James got their start. Despite the crushing might of the North, the South continued to stalemate the war by refusing to see the end in sight. As a result, the weary Northern population was subjected to massive casualties, and this impacted their ability to appreciate the accomplishments of commanders such as Grant. Despite victory during the Battle of the Wilderness, Grant was soon known as a butcher, willing to sacrifice the lives of uncounted men because— despite heavy losses—the Northern soldier could be replaced. This assessment of Grant, while harsh, is not altogether incorrect. The North, with its larger numbers, was able to sustain defeats like those witnessed at Chancellorsville and even heavy losses during their victories such as in Gettysburg. Grant, though perhaps not loved by the Northern populace, had a bulldog tenacity that Lincoln appreciated. Both Grant and, possibly even more so, Sherman

engaged in warfare that affected not only the troops but the citizens of the South. He had what is now known as a scorched earth policy. Marching from Atlanta to the sea at Savannah and Charleston, his troops lived off the already depleted land and farms of the South and burned and destroyed what they did not take for their own use. Sherman’s army was particularly brutal as they marched up from Savannah through South Carolina, which many blamed for the start of the war because South Carolina was the first to secede. The Union wore down the ability and the morale of the South, and as the North began to bear its might on the South, the Confederacy began to crumble. Lincoln, who, in 1862, had truly feared losing when he stated, the North “shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth” (as cited in “Lincoln’s State of the Union Address,” 2009, para. 3), and Lincoln began to realize that perhaps this dream could be saved. The South could not secure foreign aid, Lincoln was reelected (thus ensuring peace would not occur), the blockade damaged trade, and the sieges starved the civilian population of the South (Millett, Maslowski, & Feis, 2012). This warfare began to break through the last decaying remains of Southern resolve. Despite the North’s clear advantage at this stage, many in the South refused to capitulate. The South did not admit defeat until Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse. The South had been battered by the March to the Sea and the trek to the Carolinas. Now surrendered, the South feared the North’s vengeance. Both sides were war-weary, and Southerners had little to fear from their Northern brethren. By winning the war, the North laid the foundation, or perhaps more accurately, failed to lay the foundation, for the South’s peaceable reentry into the Union, and thus lost Reconstruction. It has often been noted that while the South lost the war, they won Reconstruction. The lost cause united the former Confederates to establish a culture in the South that would continue to deprecate the black population for years to come in a status many would argue was little improvement from slavery.

Ulysses S. Grant (Hunter, 1865)

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References

Carpenter, F. B. (1864). Emancipation Proclamation [Image]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emancipation_proclamation.jpg

Hunter, B. (1865). USGrantvignette [Image]. Retrieved from

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USGrantVignette.jpg Lincoln’s State of the Union address. (2009). Retrieved from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-

history/lincolns-state-of-the-union-address Millett, A. R., Maslowski, P., & Feis, W. B. (2012). For the common defense: A military history of the United

States from 1607 to 2012 (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Free Press.