Civil War and the Promises of Freedom the Turbulent 1860S

Study Guide

Hst 110 chapter 10

Civil War and the Promises of Freedom – The Turbulent 1860s

1. William Walker

1. Anti-abolitionists

1. Often “respected leaders” among whites

1. Often motivated by economic fears

1. Election of 1860

1. Lincoln won without support from a single southern state

1. Lincoln still received more electoral votes than all opponents combined

1. Lincoln continued to argue for union right through his inauguration – indeed, in his March, 1861 Inaugural Address he promised not to interfere with slavery.

1. African Americans in the North were wary of Lincoln’s position on slavery

1. Abraham Lincoln on slavery and race

1. Lincoln believed in white supremacy

1. Lincoln wanted to compensate masters for their slaves and then send the slaves out of the United States.
2. Black people, and radical whites, reacted to Lincoln's plan to abolish slavery by compensating owners by reacting strongly against the idea, as it seemed to recognize slaves as property, rather than human beings.

1. Southern secession conventions

1. Convinced that Lincoln would destroy their "peculiar institution", South Carolina legislators voted to secede from the union.

1. All of the deep south states followed

1. Upper South states

1. Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee

1. Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri

1. Confederate States of America (CSA)

1. CSA constitution

1. Jefferson Davis

1. Robert E. Lee – appointed to command the Army of Northern Virginia, the main Confederate Army

1. Ft. Sumter

1. Federal island garrison at Ft. Sumter in Charleston Bay, South Carolina

1. Lincoln moved to provision the island garrison

1. April 12, 1861 - South Carolina (CSA) troops fire on Ft. Sumter

1. Opening phases of the Civil War

1. Material advantages of the North

1. Population

1. Industry

1. Railroads

1. Navy

1. Material advantages of the South

1. Defensive position

1. Better generals – better soldiers

1. Slave labor

1. Cotton diplomacy?

1. Strategy of each side

1. North
2. Quick victory

1. Anaconda Plan

1. Winfield Scott

1. Cut South in two – squeeze

1. South

1. Quick victory

1. Force political solution

1. Foreign aid

1. Politics of the War

1. Lincoln and divided politics

1. Radical Republicans

1. Moderate Republicans

1. Northern Democrats

1. Lincoln and a war for union

1. From the beginning of the war, Lincoln contended that saving the union was more important than abolishing slavery.

1. Slavery

1. Fear of alienating white public

1. Volunteer army

1. Fear of losing border states

1. Jefferson Davis

1. Weak federal government

1. Volunteer army

1. Prospects for foreign support

1. Slavery

1. The War -First Half – key battles and Anaconda

1. First Battle of Manassas, July 21, 1861

1. The nature of the fighting

1. The draft – both sides

1. General George B. McClellan

1. The west – Tennessee to the Mississippi

1. General Ulysses S. Grant

1. Battle of Shiloh - April 6–7, 1862

1. Battle of New Orleans - April 24–25, 1862

1. Siege of Vicksburg - May 18 – July 4, 1863

1. General Robert E. Lee

1. Battle of Antietam -September 17, 1862

1. Battle of Gettysburg -July 1–3, 1863

1. African Americans and the War – 1861

1. At the beginning of the war, free black Americansvolunteered by the thousands for military service - the government refused to enlist them.

1. Southern slaves slowed down – bided their time

1. Grapevine telegraph

1. Flight to union camps

1. Harriet Tubman

1. Confiscation Acts

1. Ben Butler - Union commander who began the policy of accepting runaway slaves as "contraband"

1. When slaves began to arrive at his fortifications near Hampton Roads, Virginia, General Benjamin Butlerdeclared them to be the "contraband" of war.

1. Black men and support – teamsters, construction, gravediggers (guns?)

1. Black women – nurses, cooks, livestock tenders

1. Changing political dynamics in Washington

1. First Confiscation Act passed by Congress August 6, 1861 specified thatany slaves used in the Confederate army would automatically gain their freedom.

1. Gens. John C. Fremont and David Hunterordered all slaves in their areas freed under the First Confiscation Act – Lincoln immediately countermanded their orders, and told them to stick to the letter of the law.

1. The second Confiscation Act, passed July 17, 1862, was virtually an emancipation proclamation. It said that slaves of civilian and military Confederate officials “shall be forever free,” but it was enforceable only in areas of the South occupied by the Union Army. Lincoln was again concerned about the effect of an antislavery measure on the border-states and again urged these states to begin gradual compensated emancipation.

1. Emancipation?

1. Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation

1. Lincoln decided to postpone his July 1862 decision to emancipate the slaves. Members of his cabinet told him to wait for a Union victory, when the decision would not look desperate.

1. Political concerns

1. Border states

1. England and France

1. Northern Democrats – In November northern Democrats gained seats in Congress, as many voters expressed dissatisfaction with the policy and lack of progress in the war.

1. White working-class people, especially Irish immigrants in NYC - Other than outright racism, many white working-class people opposed the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation out of fear that the freed slaves would rush into the North, and compete with them for jobs.

1. Blacks and abolitionists

1. Battle of Antietam -September 17, 1862

1. Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation

1. If the Confederacy returned to the Union by January 1, 1863, they could keep their slaves.

1. It would free those slaves still in bondage in areas under rebellion on January 1, 1863.

1. It gave the Confederacy until January 1, 1863 to come back into the Union.

1. Emancipation Proclamation – January 1, 1863

1. Freed slaves only in areas where the Union had no control.

1. Provided for the recruitment and arming of free black and former slave soldiers - More slaves began to run away, dramatically affecting the South's war effort and morale.

1. The war became a war to free the slaves. The North gained the moral advantage.

1. Stopped the chances for an alliance between the Confederacy and either Britain or France.

1. Despite his Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln continued toadvocate some plan of emigration for the freedmen.

1. Jefferson Davis responded to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation by declaring that all free blacks would be enslaved, and he ordered the Confederate Army to capture and enslave all free blacks in the North.

1. Blacks in Blue

1. Massachusetts governor, John Andrew, was the first toraise a northern black regiment to fight for the Union.

1. Frederick Douglass helped to recruit and organize troops – his own son fought

1. Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Regiment

1. Robert Gould Shaw

1. In the fall of 1863 the 54th refused to accept any pay until their earnings equaled those of white soldiers. Federal government granted equal pay toward the end of the war and allowed free blacks to receive back pay for service only before January 1, 1864.

1. 54th and battery Wagner assault - July 18, 1863

1. The 54th was composed mainly of free blacks, rather than slaves.

1. The Confederacy won the battle, and the Union never took Battery Wagner.

1. The black soldiers fought impressively, and many in the North began to believe that blacks were capable of fighting bravely.

1. William H. Carney, who fought in the battle, was the first black man to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for his efforts (37 years later)

1. Media coverage

1. After observing black troops on the battlefield, Union commander Ulysses S. Grantsaluted the battlefield prowess of black soldiers.

1. Northern public opinion

1. Many white northerners were worried that black troops wouldbe cowardly and undisciplined.

1. Valor of black troops

1. South Carolina Volunteers

1. Example of former slave soldiers

1. Most black soldiers were former slaves

1. Like Robert Gould Shaw, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, as commander of the First South Carolina Volunteers, wanted not only to abolish slavery, but to show that blacks and whites were equal.

1. James Montgomery and the Second South Carolina Volunteers

1. Racism

1. Montgomery wanted to wipe out all evidence of slavery, especially the plantation houses.

1. Black troops eventually constituted as much as10 percent of the North's fighting force.

1. Southern reaction

1. Black troops and captive policy

1. CSA generally refused to recognize black soldiers as prisoners of war, and instead attempted to treat them like escaped slaves.

1. Nathan Bedford Forest

1. Black troops overrun

1. Fort Pillow massacre

1. President Lincoln

1. Northern public

1. General Order 11 - an order issued by Lincoln in response to the mistreatment of black soldiers - it threatened to execute southern prisoners

1. New York City Draft Riots - July 13–16, 1863

1. Gangs of New York

1. Class and race tensions

1. Working-class Irishmen, angry over suspected black attempts to take jobs, engaged in violence and destruction for four days, lynching blacks and burning black-affiliated businesses.

1. The War – Second Half – key battles – the Anaconda tightens

1. Occupation of Tennessee

1. General Sherman’s march to the sea - November 15 to December 21, 1864

1. Total war and “bummers”

1. Burning of Atlanta

1. Refugees

1. Special Field Order No. 15 - granted thousands of acres of confiscated land along the Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina coast to black families in 40-acre plots.

1. Wartime Reconstruction

1. Port Royal Experiment

1. First freedom

1. Ring Shout

1. Northern carpetbaggers

1. Nothing but freedom

1. Cotton

1. Davis Bend

1. Community

1. Cotton

1. St-Catherine’s Island

1. Tunis Campbell

1. Community

1. Election of 1864

1. Lincoln and Andrew Johnson

1. George McClellan

1. Soldier’s vote

1. Second Inaugural

1. Lincoln and Reconstruction

1. 13th Amendment – passed January 1, 1865 - ratified on December 6, 1865

1. Ten Percent Plan

1. The vote for former slaves?

1. Closing days of the CSA

1. Arming slave soldiers

1. CSA surrender - April 9, 1865

1. First freedom

1. Thousands of liberated black Americans immediately began toseek lost family members.

1. Freedman’s Bureau

1. Encouraging planters to revive their farms.

1. Monitoring contracts between landowners and workers.

1. Repairing southern social and economic order.

1. Without meaningful land reform, the Freedmen's Bureau pressured black freedmen to labor contracts (later, accept sharecropping arrangements).

1. Resistance to labor contracts.

1. Church

1. Schools

1. Lincoln assassinated – April 15, 1865

1. CSA surrender

1. John Wilkes Booth

1. Andrew Johnson

1. Presidential Reconstruction

1. “High confederate officials”

1. Presidential pardons

1. Johnson on confiscated lands

1. Southern Democrats

1. Black codes

1. Ku Klux Klan