In the
three months that followed the election of Abraham
Lincoln, seven states seceded from the Union: South Carolina,
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. Representatives
from these seven states quickly established a new political organization,
the Confederate States of America.
On 8th February the Confederate States of America adopted a constitution
and within ten days had elected Jefferson
Davis as its president and Alexander
Stephens, as vice-president. Montgomery,
Alabama, became its capital and the Stars and Bars was adopted as
its flag. Davis was also authorized to raise 100,000 troops.
At his inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln
attempted to avoid conflict by announcing that he had no intention
"to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where
it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no
inclination to do so." He added: "The government will not
assail you. You can have no conflict without yourselves being the
aggressors."
President Jefferson Davis took the view
that after a state seceded, federal forts became the property of the
state. On 12th April, 1861, General Pierre
T. Beauregard demanded that Major Robert
Anderson surrender Fort Sumter in
Charleston harbour. Anderson replied
that he would be willing to leave the fort in two days when his supplies
were exhausted. Beauregard rejected this offer and ordered his Confederate
troops to open fire. After 34 hours of bombardment the fort was severely
damaged and Anderson was forced to surrender.
On hearing the news, Abraham Lincoln
called a special session of Congress and proclaimed a blockade of
Gulf of Mexico ports. This strategy was based on the Anaconda
Plan developed by General Winfield Scott,
the commanding general of the Union Army.
It involved the army occupying the line of the Mississippi and blockading
Confederate ports. Scott believed if this was done successfully the
South would negotiate a peace deal. However, at the start of the war,
the US Navy had only a small number of ships
and was in no position to guard all 3,000 miles of Southern coast.
On 15th April, 1861, Abraham Lincoln
called on the governors of the Northern states to provide 75,000 militia
to serve for three months to put down the insurrection. Virginia,
North Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee, all refused to send troops
and joined the Confederacy. Kentucky and Missouri were also unwilling
to supply men for the Union Army but
decided not to take sides in the conflict.
Some states responded well to Lincoln's call for volunteers. The governor
of Pennsylvania offered 25 regiments, whereas Ohio provided 22. Most
men were encouraged to enlist by bounties offered by state governments.
This money attracted the poor and the unemployed. Many African
Americans also attempted to join the army. However, the War Department
quickly announced that it had "no intention to call into service
of the Government any coloured soldiers." Instead, black volunteers
were given jobs as camp attendants, waiters and cooks.
Major General Irvin McDowell was given
command of the Union Army and in July,
1861, Lincoln sent him to take Richmond,
the new base the Confederate government. On 21st July McDowell engaged
the Confederate Army at Bull
Run. The Confederate troops led by Joseph
E. Johnston, Thomas Stonewall Jackson,
James Jeb Stuart, Jubal
Early, E. Kirby Smith, Braxton
Bragg and Pierre T. Beauregard,
easily defeated the inexperienced Union Army. The South had won the
first great battle of the war and the Northern casualties totaled
1,492 with another 1,216 missing.
After this defeat Abraham Lincoln decided
to appoint George McClellan as leader
of the the Army of the Potomac. McClellan, who was only 34 years old,
insisted that his army should undertake any new offensives until his
new troops were fully trained.
On 30th August, 1861, Major General John
C. Fremont, commander of the Union Army in St.
Louis, proclaimed that all slaves
owned by Confederates in Missouri were free. Abraham
Lincoln was furious when he heard the news as he feared that this
action would force slave-owners in border states to help the Confederates.
Lincoln asked Fremont to modify his order and free only slaves owned
by Missourians actively working for the South. When Fremont refused,
he was sacked and replaced by General Henry
Halleck. This upset the Radical Republicans
in Congress who wanted to turn the conflict into a war against slavery.
In the autumn of 1861 the main action took place in Kentucky. On 4th
September General Leonidas Polk and a
large Confederate Army moved into Kentucky
and began occupying high ground overlooking the Ohio River. Ulysses
S. Grant and his Union Army, had
been assembling at Cairo, Illinois. He now moved his troops into Kentucky
and quickly gained control of the mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland
rivers as they flowed into the Ohio. President Jefferson
Davis, aware that Union forces now controlled the main waterway
into the heartland of the Confederacy, sent in General Joseph
E. Johnston with reinforcements.
In November, 1861, Lincoln decided to appoint George
McClellan as commander in chief of the Union
Army. He developed a strategy to defeat the Confederate
Army that included an army of 273,000 men. His plan was to invade
Virginia from the sea and to seize Richmond
and the other major cities in the South. McClellan believed that to
keep resistance to a minimum, it should be made clear that the Union
forces would not interfere with slavery
and would help put down any slave insurrections.
(1)
Abraham
Lincoln, inaugural speech (4th March, 1861)
I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I
have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.
I consider the Union is unbroken. I shall take care that the laws
of the Union be faithfully executed in all States. There need be no
bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced
upon the national authority.
The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without
yourselves being the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven
to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one
to preserve, protect, and defend it.
(2)
William Seward, memorandum to Abraham
Lincoln (1st April, 1861)
My system is built upon the idea as a ruling one, namely, that
we must change the question before the public from one upon slavery,
or about slavery, for a question upon union or disunion. In other
words, from what would be regarded as a party question to one of patriotism
or union.
The occupation or evacuation of Fort Sumter, although not in fact
a slavery or a party question, is so regarded. Witness the temper
manifested by the Republicans in the free states, and even by the
Union men in the South.
I would therefore terminate it as a safe means for changing the issue.
I deem it fortunate that the last administration created the necessity.
For the rest, I would simultaneously defend and reinforce all the
ports in the Gulf and have the Navy recalled from foreign stations
to be prepared for a blockade. Put the island of Key West under martial
law.
(3)
Mary Livermore
wrote about her feelings when it became clear that the North was at
war with the South in her book My Story of the War (1887).
15th April, 1861: Drowning the exaltations of the triumphant South,
louder than their boom of cannon, heard above their clang of bells
and blare of trumpets, there rang out the voice of Abraham Lincoln
calling for seventy-five thousand volunteers for three months. This
proclamation was like the first peal of a surcharged thunder-cloud,
clearing the murky air. The South received it as a declaration of
war; the North as a confession that civil war had begun; and the whole
North arose as one man.
17th April, 1861: The 6th Massachusetts, a full regiment one thousand
strong, started from Boston by rail. An immense concourse of people
gathered in the neighborhood of the Boston and Albany railroad station
to witness their departure. The great crowd was evidently under the
influence of deep feeling, but it was repressed, and the demonstrations
were not noisy. Tears ran down not only the cheeks of women, but those
of men; but there was no faltering.
(4)
Oliver Howard remembers going home for
the first time after deciding to join the Union
Army in May, 1861.
Before entering my front gate, I raised my eyes and saw the picture
of my little family framed in by the window. Home, family, comfort,
beauty, joy, love were crowded into an instant of thought and feeling,
as I sprang through the door and quickly ascended the stairway.
My wife was patriotic, strong for the integrity of the Union, full
of the heroic spirit, so when the crisis came, though so sudden and
hard to bear, she said not one adverse word. I saw her watch me as
I descended the slope toward the ferry landing, looked back, and waved
my hat as I disappeared behind the ledge and trees.
(5)
Mary Boykin Chesnut, Richmond,
Virginia, diary entry (27th June, 1861)
In Mrs. Davis' drawing room last night, the president took a seat
by me on the sofa where I sat. He talked for nearly an hour. He laughed
at our faith in our own powers. We are like the British. We think
every Southerner equal to three Yankees at least. We will have to
be equivalent to a dozen now. He said only fools doubted the courage
of the Yankees or their willingness to fight what they saw fit. And
now that we have stung their pride, we have roused them till they
will fight like devils.
(6)
Oliver Howard described taking his
regiment, Third Maine Volunteers, on the way to Washington
in June, 1861.
At railroad stations in Maine, on the approach and departure of
our trains, there was abundant cheering and words of encouragement.
However, here and there were discordant cries. Few, indeed, were the
villages where no voice of opposition was raised. But, later in the
war, in the free States after the wounding and the death of fathers,
brothers, and sons, our sensitive, afflicted home people would not
tolerate what they called traitorous talk.
(7)
Edward Baker, speech in Congress on
Abraham Lincoln's decision to mobilize for war (10th July, 1861)
I propose to ratify whatever needs ratification. I propose to render
my clear and distinct approval not only of the measure but of the
motive which promoted it. I propose to lend the whole power of the
country, arms, men, money, and place them in his hands with authority
almost unlimited, until the conclusion of this struggle. I want sudden,
bold, forward, determined war; and I do not think anybody can conduct
war of that kind as well as a dictator.
(8)
On the outbreak of the war Carl
Schurz asked Abraham
Lincoln for permission to form a regiment in New
York.
I promptly received the desired authority for raising the regiment,
and departed for the City of New York. I found the people of New York
in the full blaze of the patriotic emotions excited by the firing
upon Fort Sumner and the President's call for volunteers. There were
recruiting stations in all parts of the town. The formation of regiments
proceeded rapidly. Wealthy merchants were vying with each other in
lavish contributions of money for the fitting out of troops, and numberless
women of all classes of society were busy stitching garments or bandages
for the soldiers, or embroidering standards.
In New York, I found that many of the German cavalrymen I had counted
upon had already enlisted in the infantry regiments then forming.
But there were enough of them left to enable me to organize several
companies in a very short time, and I should certainly have completed
my regiment in season for the summer campaign, had I not been cut
short in my work by another call from the government. I received a
letter from the Secretary of State informing me that circumstances
had rendered my departure for my place at Madrid eminently desirable,
and that he wished me to report myself to him at Washington as soon
as possible.
(9)
The conservative New York Herald published an article about
the Radical Republications during the early part of the American Civil
War (23rd July, 1861)
Who are they? They belong to that fanatical abolitionist clique
who are labouring to divert this war from its legitimate objective
into an exterminating crusade against Southern slavery.
(10)
John Singleton Mosby, letter to
his wife after the battle of Bull Run
(22nd June, 1861)
There was a great battle yesterday. The Yankees are overwhelmingly
routed. Thousands of them killed. I was in the fight. We at one time
stood for two hours under a perfect storm of shot and shell - it was
a miracle that none of our company was killed. We took all of their
cannon from them; among the batteries captured was Sherman's - battle
lasted about 7 hours - about 90,000 Yankees, 45,000 of our men. The
cavalry pursued them till dark - followed 6 or 7 miles. General Scott
commanded them. I just snatch this moment to write - am out doors
in a rain - will write you all particulars when I get a chance. We
start just as soon as we can get our breakfast to follow them to Alexandria.
We made a forced march to get here to the battle - travelled about
65 miles without stopping. My love to all of you. In haste.
(11)
Henry Villard reported the battle of
Bull Run in July, 1861, for the New
York Tribune.
When the Unionists resumed their advance, the rebels successfully
resisted their rather desultory attacks at different points. With
every unsuccessful onward attempt there was a rapid melting away of
the assailants. Fewer and fewer officers and men could be rallied
for another advance. Towards four o'clock, the rebels felt strong
enough to take the offensive. A brigade with a battery under Earle
managed to strike the Federal right on the flank and rear and throw
it into utter confusion, which spread rapidly along the whole front.
Now came the disastrous end. Without any formal orders to retreat,
what was left of the several organizations yielded to a general impulse
to abandon the field. Officers and men became controlled by the one
thought of getting as far as possible from the enemy.
(12)
In his autobiography Oliver Howard
described fighting at Bull Run on 21st
July, 1861.
I saw Burnside's men, who had come back from the field with their
muskets gleaming in the sunshine. They had some appearance of formation
and were resting on their arms. I noticed other troops more scattered;
ambulances in long columns leaving the field with the wounded. There
were men with broken arms; faces with bandages stained with blood;
bodies pierced; many were walking or limping to the rear; meanwhile
shells were shrieking and breaking in the heated air. I was sorry,
indeed, that those left of my men had to pass that ordeal.
When forming, I so stationed myself, mounted, that the men, marching
in twos, should pass me. I closely observed them. They were pale and
thoughtful. Many looked up into my face and smiled. As soon as it
was ready the first line swept up the slope, through a sprinkling
of trees, out into an open space on high ground. An enemy's battery
toward our front and some musketry shots with no enemy plainly in
sight caused the first annoyance. Soon another battery off to our
right coming into position increased the danger. And, worse than the
batteries, showers of musket balls from the wood, two hundred yards
away.
Many officers labored to keep their men together, but I saw could
effect nothing under fire. At last I ordered all to fall back to the
valley and reform behind the thicket. Before many minutes, however,
it was evident that a panic had seized all the troops within sight.
Some experienced veteran officers, like Heintzelman, entreated and
commanded their subordinates, by turns, to rally their men; but nothing
could stop the drift and eddies of the masses that were faster and
faster flowing toward the rear.
Captain Heath, of the Third Maine, who, promoted subsequently to lieutenant
colonel and fell in the battle of Gaines Mills, walked for some time
by my horse and shed tears as he talked to me: "My men will not
stay together, Colonel, they will not obey me," he said. Other
brave officers pleaded and threatened. Surgeons staying back pointed
to their wounded and cried: "for God's sake, stop; don't leave
us!" Nothing could at that time reach and influence the fleeing
crowds except panicky cries like: "The enemy is upon us! We shall
be taken!" These cries gave increase to confusion and speed to
flight.
Heintzelman, with his wounded arm in a sling, rode up and down and
made a last effort to restore order. He sharply reprimanded every
officer he encountered. He swore at me. From time to time I renewed
my attempts. My brother, C. H. Howard, if he saw me relax for a moment,
sang out: "Oh, do try again!" Part of the Fourteenth New
York from Brooklyn rallied north of Bull Run and were moving on in
fine shape. "See them," said my brother; "let us try
to form like that!" So we were trying, gathering a few, but in
vain. Then I stopped all efforts, but sent out this message and kept
repeating it to every Maine and Vermont man within reach: "To
the old camp at Centreville. Rally at the Centreville camp."
(13)
General Pierre T. Beauregard, report
on the battle of Bull Run (July, 1861)
The conduct of General Jackson also requires mention as eminently
that of an able, fearless soldier and sagacious commander, one fit
to lead his efficient brigade. His prompt, timely arrival before the
plateau of the Henry House, and his judicious disposition of his troops,
contributed much to the success of the day. Although painfully wounded
in the hand, he remained on the field to the end of the battle, rendering
valuable assistance.
(14)
General Joseph E. Johnston, report
on the battle of Bull Run (July, 1861)
Our victory was as complete as one gained by infantry and artillery
alone can be. An adequate force of cavalry would have made it decisive.
It is due under Almighty God, to the skill and resolution of General
Beauregard, the admirable conduct of Generals Bee, Kirby Smith and
Jackson and of the Colonel Evans, Cocke, Early and Elzey, and the
courage, and unyielding firmness of our patriotic volunteers.
(15)
Walt Whitman
was living in Washington when the
Union Army returned after the battle
of Bull Run in July, 1861.
The defeated troops commenced pouring into Washington over the
Long Bridge at daylight on Monday, 22nd July. The day drizzling all
through with rain. The Saturday and Sunday of the battle had been
parched and hot to an extreme - the dust, the grime, and smoke, in
layers, sweated in, their clothes all saturated with the clay-powder
filling the air - stirred up everywhere on the dry roads and trodden
fields by the regiments, swarming wagons, artillery. All the men with
this coating of sweat and rain, now recoiling back, pouring over the
Long Bridge - a horrible march of twenty miles, returning to Washington
baffled, humiliated, panic-struck. Occasionally, a rare regiment,
in perfect order, with its officers (some gaps, dead, the true braves)
marching in silence, with lowering faces, stern, weary to sinking,
all black and dirty, but every man with his musket, and stepping alive;
but these are the exceptions.
(16)
Benjamin F. Butler, report published
on 30th July, 1861.
In the village of Hampton there were a large number of Negroes,
composed in a great measure of women and children of the men who had
fled thither within my lines for protection, who had escaped from
marauding parties of rebels who had been gathering up able-bodied
blacks to aid them in constructing their batteries on the James and
York rivers. I have employed the men in Hampton in throwing up entrenchments,
and they were working zealously and efficiently at that duty, saving
our soldiers from the labor under the gleam of the midday sun.
I have seen it stated that an order had been issued by General McDowell,
in his department, substantially forbidding all fugitive slaves from
coming within his lines or being harbored there. Is that order to
be enforced in all military departments? If so, who are to be considered
fugitive slaves? Is a slave to be considered fugitive whose master
runs away and leaves him? Is it forbidden to the troops to aid or
harbor within the lines the Negro children who are found therein,
or is the soldier, when his march has destroyed their means of subsistence,
to allow them to starve because he has driven off the Rebel masters?
In a loyal state, I would put down a service insurrection. In a state
of rebellion. I would confiscate that which was used to oppose my
arms, and take all the property which constituted the wealth of that
state and furnished the means by which the war is prosecuted, besides
being the cause of the war; and if, in so doing, it should be objected
that human beings were bought to the free enjoyment of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness, such objection might not require much
consideration.
(17)
Zachariah Chandler, letter to Henry
W. Lord (27th October, 1861)
Lincoln means well but has no force of character. He is surrounded
by Old Fogy Army officers more than half of whom are downright traitors
and the other one half sympathize with the South. One month ago I
began to doubt whether this accursed rebellion could be put down with
a Revolution in the present Administration.
(18)
Henry Villard met
General William T. Sherman in 1861.
In his memoirs, Villard recalled how Sherman was extremely worried
at that time about the possibility that the Union Army would be defeated.
Sherman openly confessed, after he had
been assigned to the command of the department, that he had not wished
it and was afraid of his new responsibilities. With the vivid imagination
inherent to genius, he clearly saw how formidable were the difficulties
of the part he was expected to play in the suppression of the Rebellion.
They simply appalled him. He found himself in command of raw troops,
not exceeding twenty thousand in number. He believed that they should
be multiplied many times. He feared the rebel forces in the State
largely outnumbered his own, and he could not rid himself of the apprehension,
that, if he should be attacked, he would have no chance of success.
It was not really want of confidence in himself that brought him to
this state of mind, but, as it seemed to me, his intense patriotism
and despair of the preservation of the Union in view of the fanatical,
blood-thirsty hostility to it throughout the South. This dread took
hold of him, he literally brooded over it day and night. It made him
lapse into long, silent moods even outside his headquarters. He lived
at Galt House, occupying rooms on the ground floor. He paced by the
hour up and down the corridor leading to them, smoking and obviously
absorbed in oppressive thoughts. He did this to such an extent that
it was generally noticed and remarked upon by the guests and employees
of the hotel. His strange ways led to gossip, and it was soon whispered
about that he was suffering from mental depression.
(19)
Robet Dabney, who served under Thomas
Stonewall Jackson, wrote about him in his book Life and
Campaigns of Lieutenant-General Thomas Jackson (1866)
A part of the men of the 27th Regiment, in the Stonewall Brigade,
who had volunteered for twelve months, now found their year just expired.
Assuming that the application of the last conscription act was a breach
of faith to them, they demanded their discharge, and laying down their
arms refused to serve another day. Their Colonel, Grigsby, referred
the case to General Jackson for instructions. On hearing it detailed,
he exclaimed, his eye flashing, and his brow rigid with a portentous
sternness, "What is this bit mutiny? Why does Colonel Grigsby
refer to me to know what to do with a mutiny? He should shoot them
where they stand." He then turned to his adjutant, and dictated
an order to the Colonel to parade his regiment instantly, with loaded
muskets, to draw up the insubordinate companies in front of them,
disarmed, and offer them the alternative of returning to duty, or
being fusiladed on the spot. The order was obeyed, and the mutineers,
when confronted with instant death, promptly reconsidered their resolution.
(20)
In her
book, My Story of the War, Mary
Livermore described the work
of Mary Ann Bickerdyke on the hospital
boat.
After the battle of Donelson, Mother Bickerdyke went from Cairo
in the first hospital boat, and assisted in the removal of the wounded
to Cairo, St. Louis and Louisville, and in nursing those too badly
wounded to be moved. On the way to the battlefield, she systematized
matters perfectly. The beds were ready for the occupants, tea, coffee,
soup and gruel, milk punch, and ice water were prepared in large quantities,
under her supervision, and sometimes her own hand.
When the wounded were brought on board, mangled almost out of human
shape; the frozen ground from which they had been cut adhering to
them; chilled with the intense cold in which some had lain for twenty-four
hours; faint with loss of blood, physical agony, and lack of nourishment;
racked with a terrible five-mile ride over frozen roads, in ambulances,
in common Tennessee farm wagons, without springs; burning with fever;
raving in delirium, or in the faintness of death, Mother Bickerdyke's
boat was in readiness for them.
(21)
After the war a surgeon working with Mary
Ann Bickerdyke wrote about her achievements working on the Union
Army hospital ship.
I never saw anybody like her. There was really nothing for us
surgeons to do but dress wounds and administer medicines. She drew
out clean shirts or drawers from some corner, whenever they were needed.
Nourishment was ready for every man as soon as he was brought on board.
Everyone was sponged from blood and frozen mire of the battlefield,
as far as his condition allowed. His blood-stiffened, and sometimes
horribly filthy uniform, was exchanged for soft and clean hospital
garments. Incessant cries of "Mother! Mother! Mother!" rang
through the boat, in every note of beseeching and anguish. And to
every man she turned with a heavenly tenderness, as if he were indeed
her son.
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