Module: O16P464HIW
The American Civil War: A Nation Divided
Tutor: Dr Thomas E. Sebrell II
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The American Civil War
INTRODUCTION
Overview
This course examines the American Civil War from three distinct, yet interrelated, angles: social, political and military. We will investigate, in depth, the root causes of sectionalism between North and South, the events and consequences of the war including an emphasis on the people involved, both military and civilian, inclusive of discussions of gender and race-related issues and experiences. Of equally importance, we will examine how the war impacted the United States and Europe diplomatically, particularly in regards to Britain and Ireland.
Course Aims & Objectives
By the end of the course you will have considered numerous crucial dynamics of US political, social and military history with a full understanding of how the American Civil War permanently changed the United States as a country, as well as why the war was also a global conflict which was not restricted by the American borders. In addition to gaining a synthetic understanding of the history of the subject, you will engage critically with historiography pertaining to the conflict.
METHOD OF ASSESSMENT AND TEACHING ARRANGEMENTS
Method of Assessment
Each student is required to write one essay, which should be approximately 1,500 words and is due on 6 March. The essay MUST contain footnotes, in addition to a bibliography. In-text citations are not acceptable.
The American Civil War
PREPARATION FOR CLASS
The following books offering a wide analysis of the subject are extremely helpful. Although they will provide you with an overview of the week’s topic, they are not a substitute for reading the topic-specific books required for the essay.
James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (1988).
James I. Robertson, Jr, Soldiers Blue and Gray (1988).
Charles P. Roland, An American Iliad (1991).
My aim in the reading list which accompanies the week-by-week programme is to suggest the range of work available. For the essay you should aim to read thoroughly at least six books on the list.
PREPARATION FOR ESSAYS
Key points for a successful essay:
● Books providing an overview of the subject are only useful as an introduction to each sub-topic of the subject. A sophisticated analysis requires much more work.
● Read widely in the secondary literature. You should aim to read thoroughly at least six books specifically on the topic. You should also aim to read journal articles dealing with the subject.
● You must include a discussion of historiography in order to get top marks in essays. Historiography is about the debates different historians have about the causes of events, the interpretation of facts, and the meaning significant occurrences hold for both historians and historical figures. In other words, historiography is the study of history and is a key part to any university-level essay.
● Make sure you have an argument. Think hard when choosing an essay question and then take a strong stand when answering it – do not simply provide a narrative.
● Do not plagiarise. If you have any questions what this means, please come see me.
The American Civil War
ESSAY QUESTIONS
1) Explain why and how sectionalism developed between North and South during the period from 1820 to 1860.
2) In what ways was the Confederate Government both the functioning head of a ‘nation’ and also dysfunctional political body?
3) How did women contribute to the Union and Confederate war efforts throughout the war?
4) Why were the Confederates far more successful in the Eastern Theater than in the Western Theater?
5) What was the African-American experience in the Union Army?
6) Compare and contrast the experiences of Union and Confederate prisoners at various prisoner-of-war camps situated in the North and South.
7) How was Britain impacted by the American Civil War?
8) Why did the South lose the American Civil War?
The American Civil War
WEEKLY PROGRAMME
16 January:
Who are you, who am I, and what are we doing here (and why is the study of the American Civil War so important in the 21st century?)?
We will analyse the development of sectional tensions from the Missouri Compromise to the 1860 Presidential Election and the start of the Secession Crisis. We will discuss the different key personnel involved – the newly-created Republican Party, Fire-Eaters, Northern Democrats and Southern moderates.
Drew Gilpin Faust, ed., The Ideology of Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Antebellum
South, 1830-1860 (1981).
Paul Finkelman, Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism: From the Missouri
Compromise to the Age of Jackson (2008).
Robert Pierce Forbes, The Missouri Compromise and its Aftermath: Slavery and the
Meaning of America (2007).
William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854 (1990).
James Brewer Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison at Two Hundred: History, Legacy and
Memory (2008).
John L. Thomas, The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison: A Biography (1963).
William S. McFeely, Frederick Douglass (1991).
Frederick Douglass, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (2001).
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave
(2001).
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852).
Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel, Bleeding Borders: Race, Gender and Violence in pre-Civil
War Kansas (2009).
Mark A. Graber, Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil (2006).
Peggy A. Russo, Terrible Swift Sword: The Legacy of John Brown (2005).
William Garrott Brown, Stephen Arnold Douglas (1902).
Carl Shurz, Abraham Lincoln (1919).
The American Civil War
23 January:
This week we will discuss the creation of the Confederacy, Lincoln’s First Inauguration and selection of Cabinet members.
We will then cover the commencement of war with the bombardment of Fort Sumter, further secession, and how the two sides were (or were not) prepared for war by the time of the first major battle at Manassas, Virginia.
This will be followed by an examination of the seriousness of the Trent Affair, how the blockade was beginning to affect the economy of North-West England, and how Britain and France became increasingly interested in the war’s events and considering if, and how, they could become involved.
Confederate diplomatic and naval construction activities in London and Liverpool will be analysed, as will the Union responses to these efforts.
William C. Davis, Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America (2002).
Felicity Allen, Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart (1999).
Joan E. Cashin, First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis's Civil War (2006).
John D. Majewski, Modernizing a Slave Economy: The Economic Vision of the
Confederate Nation (2009).
Emory M. Thomas, Inside the Confederate Nation: 1861-1865 (2005).
Abner Doubleday, Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-‘61 (1998).
Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861
(2000).
William C. Davis, Virginia at War: 1861 (2005).
Richard Blackett, Divided Hearts: Britain and the American Civil War (2001).
Howard Jones, Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign
Relations (2010).
The American Civil War
30 January:
We will examine how the war turned sharply against the South during the early months of 1862. This will also be our first heavy emphasis on women in the war, analysing Gen. Butler’s occupation of New Orleans.
We will then examine how the war, and warfare, changed drastically during the Spring and Summer of 1862 – the inaugural use of ironclad ships, the ‘Stonewall’ Jackson’s elevated status after the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, Robert E. Lee’s becoming commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, and McClellan’s doomed Peninsula Campaign.
Edward O. Cunningham, Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862 (2007).
Steven Woodworth, ed., The Shiloh Campaign (2009).
Michael D. Pierson, Mutiny at Fort Jackson: The Untold Story of the Fall of New
Orleans (2008).
Peter Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign (2008).
John Esten Cooke, The Life of Stonewall Jackson (2000).
Wallace Hettle, Inventing Stonewall Jackson: A Civil War Hero in History and Memory
(2011).
Markinfield Addey, Life and Military Career of Stonewall Jackson (2001).
Gary W. Gallagher, The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862 (2003).
Paul Christopher Anderson, Blood Image: Turner Ashby in the Civil War and the
Southern Mind (2002).
Kevin Dougherty, The Peninsula Campaign of 1862: A Military Analysis (2005).
Glenn David Brasher, The Peninsula Campaign and the Necessity of Emancipation:
African Americans and the Fight for Freedom (2012).
Alexander S. Webb, The Peninsula: McClellan's Campaign of 1862 (2001).
Emory M. Thomas, Robert E. Lee (1995).
Brian Holden Reid, Robert E. Lee: Icon for a Nation (2013).
Gary W. Gallagher, Lee and His Generals in War and Memory (1998).
Joseph T. Gratthaar, Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia: A Statistical Portrait of
the Troops Who Served Under Robert E. Lee (2011).
Brian K. Burton, Extraordinary Circumstances: The Seven Days Battle (2001).
Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Richmond Campaign of 1862: The Peninsula & the Seven
Days (2000).
Ethan Rafuse, McClellan’s War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union
(2005).
George Brinton McClellan, McClellan’s Own Story (1998).
Kimberley Anderson, The Rhetoric of Rebel Women: Civil War Diaries and Confederate
Persuasion (2013).
LeeAnn Whites, Alecia P. Long & E. Susan Barber, Occupied Women: Gender, Military
Occupation and the American Civil War (2009).
The American Civil War
Nina Silber, Daughters of the Union: Northern Women Fight the Civil War (2005).
Libra Rose Hilde, Worth a Dozen Men: Women and Nursing in the Civil War South
(2012).
Sarah E. Gardner, Blood & Irony: Southern White Women’s Narratives of the Civil War,
1861-1937 (2003).
Lyde Cullen Sizer, The Political Work of Northern Women Writers and the Civil War,
1850-1872 (2000).
Carolyn Johnston, Cherokee Women in Crisis: Trail of Tears, Civil War and Allotment,
1838-1907 (2003).
Marilyn Mayer Culpepper, Trials and Triumphs: Women of the American Civil War
(1991).
Drew Gilpin Faust, Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the
American Civil War (1996).
Jennifer A. Stollman, Daughters of Israel, Daughters of the South: Southern Jewish
Women and Identity in the Antebellum and Civil War South (2013).
Giselle Roberts, The Confederate Belle (2003).
Victoria E. Ott, Confederate Daughters: Coming of Age During the Civil War (2008).
Nannie Haskins Williams, The Diary of Nannie Haskins Williams: A Southern Woman's
Story of Rebellion and Reconstruction, 1863-1890 (2014).
Nancy L. Rhoades, Wanted – Correspondence: Women’s Letters to a Union Soldier
(2009).
S. Emma E. Edmonds, Nurse and Spy in the Union Army: The Adventures and
Experiences of a Woman in Hospitals, Camps and Battlefields (2000).
Catherine Clinton, Public Women and the Confederacy (1999).
Belle Boyd, Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison (1865).
Elizabeth Brown Pryor, Clara Barton: Professional Angel (1987).
6 February:
We will discuss the Confederate victory at Second Manassas, setting the stage for Lee’s first invasion of the North.
This very important week will also focus on the battle of Antietam and its impact on the remainder of the war. The bloodiest single day of the war shocked the world, but perhaps not as significantly as did the subsequently-issued preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
We will, likewise, discuss the changing roles of African Americans in the war, the response from the Confederate government and Southern society, as well as Britain’s and France’s nearly becoming involved.
The American Civil War
William C. Davis, Virginia at War: 1862 (2007).
Matt Spruill, Summer Lightning: A Guide to the Second Battle of Manassas (2013).
John J. Hennessy, Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas
(1993).
David G. Martin, The Second Bull Run Campaign: July–August 1862 (1997).
Ezra Ayers Carman, The Maryland Campaign of September 1862, Vol. 1, South
Mountain (2010).
James M. McPherson, Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam, the Battle That Changed the
Course of the Civil War (2002).
Gary W. Gallagher, The Antietam Campaign (1999).
Marion V. Armstrong, Unfurl Those Colors!: McClellan, Sumner and the Second Army
Corps in the Antietam Campaign (2008).
B. Franklin Cooling, Counter-thrust: From the Peninsula to the Antietam (2007).
Jack C. Mason, Until Antietam: The Life and Letters of Major General Israel B.
Richardson, U.S. Army (2009).
Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic
Consequences of Emancipation (1977).
Harold Holzer, The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views (Social, Political,
Iconographic) (2006).
Burrus Carnahan, Act of Justice: Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Law of
War (2007).
William Alan Blair, Lincoln's Proclamation: Emancipation Reconsidered (2009).
Thomas E. Sebrell II, Persuading John Bull: Union & Confederate Propaganda in
Britain, 1860-65 (2014).
13 February:
Our focus will shift westward this week, covering the Confederate Army of Tennessee’s invasion of Kentucky, retreat after Perryville and another defeat at Stone’s River.
We will then shift back to the Eastern Theater to discuss Lincoln’s new strategy of dealing with unsuccessful generals, starting with the firing of McClellan in the autumn of 1862. Emphasis will then move to Lee’s continued success in Virginia.
Also during this week, we will examine the issue of medicine during the war.
The American Civil War
Kenneth W. Noe, Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle (2001).
Francs A. O’Reilly, The Fredericksburg Campaign: Winter War on the Rappahannock
(2003).
George C. Rable, Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! (2002).
William C. Davis, Virginia at War: 1863 (2009).
Gary W. Gallagher, Chancellorsville: The Battle and its Aftermath (1996).
Glenna R. Schoeder-Lein, The Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine (2008).
Margaret Humphreys, Marrow of Tragedy: The Health Crisis of the American Civil War
(2013).
20 February:
The focus for this week will shift to the pivotal Summer of 1863, where we will see yet another new Union commander, followed by Lee’s first sound defeat at Gettysburg, followed by the Vicksburg Campaign. With the death of ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, the class will shift attention onto other Confederate corps commanders in the Army of Northern Virginia, such as Longstreet, Hill and Ewell.
Abner Doubleday, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg (2001).