The American Civil War, 1861 - 1865
Terms Audio
You can either listen to the Civil War and Reconstruction terms presentation online or you may download the files so that you can listen to them anywhere.
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The Civil War (War Between the States, War of the Rebellion, 2nd War of Independence)
The Civil War is one topic in American history that continues to cause controversy and debate among historians, scholars, and even the general public today. People throughout the United States from many backgrounds that are even somewhat familiar with history share different views of what the Civil War was fought over and even what started it to begin with. I think, personally, that it is best to start with the idea of sectionalism to begin to understand why the Civil War came about to begin with. Sectionalism is the idea that a certain geographical section (in this case a section in the U.S.) began to see itself based on a set of cultural traits that made it separate or different from other sections of the U.S.
Sections - North, South, & Border States
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The North - this section of the country (the dark blue states on the map) developed very different from the southern sections of the country (the gray states). The North primarily had an economy based on fishing, industry, and small farms. It was originally settled for mainly religious reasons (remember back to Pilgrims and Puritans from last year) which shaped the way they viewed things such as the role of government and slavery (by 1861 states in the Northern section did not allow slavery). The North believed that a strong central government in Washington D.C. took more importance than state level problems. They were certainly proud to be from their state, but they recognized the country as a whole as more important and how they identified themselves.
The South - this section is represented by the dark gray states that you see on the map. These states were originally settled for economic reasons which were centered on large and small farms. There was little industry. Because their economy was based on agriculture, slavery survived throughout the South as the nation developed. Slavery was not very successful in the North because industry required skilled labor, whereas with agriculture, only simple labor was needed to plant and harvest crops. 90% of the land in the South or southern section, was controlled by 10% of the population that operated large farms called plantations which thrived with slave labor. People in the South believed that government was there to help the states with dealing with countries overseas and to help govern when two or more states were in disagreement. They believed that the states should have nearly as much power as the national or federal government and identified with their states more than they did the national government. They were "Virginians" or "Georgians" first and Americans second.
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Border States - The border states which were: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware - believed a little of what the North and a little of what they South believed. They sometimes identified with the Northerners, while others identified with Southerners. They had an economy mixed with some industry and some farming. Slavery was legal in all of the border states, but it was not as common as in the Southern states. This made border states important to both sections and would cause problems for them when conflict broke out in 1861.
Republicans & DemocratsThe nation had several political parties that were created and died before the Civil War, but to keep it simple, we're only going to concern ourselves with the two main political parties when the Civil War began in 1861.
Republicans were almost all located in the North. They were either against the spreading of slavery to the new Western territories, or some were against slavery at all. They believed that the federal government was and should be much more powerful than the states. Democrats were located in the South (and even some in the North), they were either for the institution of slavery or at least did not believe that the federal or national government had the right to control it, only the states had that right. They believed that states should have nearly as much power as the national or federal government.
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The Nation Splits - Civil War
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As a Republican, President Abraham Lincoln, won the election of 1860. He won without receiving a single vote in any southern state, this led the Southerners to believe that they did not have a voice in politics. Since the North had 2/3 more people than the South, Northern states counted more in the electoral college than did Southern states and thus Republicans won the 1860 election (the Democrats ran three candidates during the 1860 election which further made them weaker because they divided their votes between three candidates whereas the Republicans were unified behind on candidate, Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was not totally against slavery, he held the popular view that slavery where it existed was protected by the Constitution, BUT slavery should NOT be allowed to spread to the new states forming in the West.
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Confederate President Jefferson Davis
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Feeling that Northern states controlled all the power and were against the South, Southern states began to leave or secede, from the Union. South Carolina and six other Southern states left the United States and formed a new country of their own called the Confederacy. Eventually the Confederacy grew from seven states to ten after Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to put down what he called a rebellion by the Southern states. The Confederacy eventually added three more states (Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland). They chose Jefferson Davis as their president. Davis was born in Kentucky but moved with his family to Mississippi where he owned a large plantation with slaves and attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point where he became an officer and served in the Mexican American War in the 1840s and eventually became the U.S. Secretary of War before the Civil War.
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War
With the formation of the Confederacy in January and February of 1861, the Confederates believed that any U.S. forts located in the South became the property of the Confederacy. On April 14, 1861, after U.S. troops stationed at Fort Sumter in Charleston refused to surrender the fort to Confederates there, Confederate artillery opened up on the fort, this marked the beginning of the Civil War. Lincoln called for volunteers and in some states, like Missouri, he declared martial law. Martial law is when the elected government is taken from power in that state or region and replaced by a military government that controls everything. Martial law meant that Union troops controlled what happened at the state capital in Missouri at Jefferson City. Martial law could, and was, declared in some cities so that the military could keep peace in those cities. Under martial law citizens have less constitutional rights than under normal government control.
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The North planned to control all of the South's coastline and inland rivers such as the Mississippi River. They believed by controlling these areas with their powerful Navy, would prevent the South from receiving help from foreign countries such as France and Britain and would prevent them from shipping supplies to their armies. This plan to "squeeze" the South out of supplies and shipping was called the Anaconda Plan. When ships block supplies from coming into the South from other countries, this was called a blockade and it's meant to keep the South from receiving food, weapons, and supplies from overseas. Another tactic the North used during the Civil War was the siege. A siege is when an army surrounds a city controlled by the enemy and does not allow any supplies or troop reinforcements to arrive for the enemy trapped inside the city, it's meant to starve them out, much like a blockade does on water.
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From 1861 to 1865 the Civil War waged in the Southern section of the United States. In January of 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which was a turning point in the war. The Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in only the states of rebellion such as South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Florida, and others. It DID NOT free the slaves in the border states which Lincoln did not recognize as being in rebellion even though the border states provided thousands of Confederate troops during the Civil War. This meant that slaves in Missouri were NOT impacted by the Emancipation Proclamation. It wouldn't be until the issue of the 13th Amendment passed after the war that slaves in Missouri would legally be free. Lincoln's issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation changed the direction of the war as one to only preserve the Union to one that not only wanted to preserve the Union but also free several million African-Americans in slavery. This gave Lincoln more support from the abolitionists, or people who were very strongly against slavery.
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Confederate General Robert E. Lee
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Last year we talked in detail about the Civil War and many of the generals that fought in the war, just as a refresher, here I'll only mention that of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia and his arch enemy, Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Lee's job was to protect the Confederate capital in Richmond, by 1865, Grant had captured Richmond and was on the heels of a retreating General Lee. In April 1865, believing he had no other real choice, Lee surrendered his men to Grant at Appomattox which pretty much meant the war was over. We'll talk more about Grant later.
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The End of War - Reconstruction
The Civil War had cost over 625,000 dead soldiers from both North and South, or roughly 2% of the total population of the United States at the time, most of those dead were from disease. Now the big question became what would happen to those who had fought against the United States and how would the country begin to heal? How much, if any, would the South be punished?
John Wilkes Booth
Lincoln's Assassination: On April 14, 1865, Lincoln attended a play at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. He was there to see the play, My American Cousin, a popular play at the time. An actor and former Confederate sympathizer (someone who agreed with the ideas of the South), John Wilkes Booth, entered the presidents private booth on the balcony. He opened the door and shot President Lincoln in the back of the head before jumping from the balcony onto the stage and through the back to a waiting horse for his getaway.
Booth had organized originally to kidnap the president and other officials but eventually changed the plan to murder. He and a few others attacked other important US government officials. Eventually Booth was caught and killed in a gunfight and fire, those that helped him were also caught, most were hanged. What Booth didn't realize is that his actions not only did not help the South, it hurt it. Lincoln's plan to reconstruct the South was lenient and based more on healing wounds than punishing. Lincoln's death gave radical republicans who wanted to punish the South for the war a reason to gain power.
Booth had organized originally to kidnap the president and other officials but eventually changed the plan to murder. He and a few others attacked other important US government officials. Eventually Booth was caught and killed in a gunfight and fire, those that helped him were also caught, most were hanged. What Booth didn't realize is that his actions not only did not help the South, it hurt it. Lincoln's plan to reconstruct the South was lenient and based more on healing wounds than punishing. Lincoln's death gave radical republicans who wanted to punish the South for the war a reason to gain power.
Much of the South was destroyed or damaged from fighting a war there for four years. Property values collapsed and not many Southerners had money to spend. Cotton was worth very little, banks closed, railroads were in shambles, and many southerners were homeless. Soldiers returned home wounded, many unable to work.
Each former Confederate state would have to start new state governments, but the federal government was unsure who would be in charge of creating these new governments. Lincoln had thought that it was the duty of the President, while Congress believed it was their job. What was the future of the former slave population? Would they be complete citizens? Would they be able to vote or hold political office?
Reconstruction Plans - Lincoln's Plan (before he died) said that 10 percent of a states population had to swear allegiance to the the United States (a promise to be loyal and defend the U.S.). Lincoln's plan for reconstruction was not very harsh and did not really punish the former Confederates or their leaders, it was more of a plan to come back in the Union as quickly and peaceably as possible.
Many in Congress agreed with President Lincoln's wishes, but a decent sized group in Congress did not, they wanted to punish the South for starting the Civil War. Called Radical Republicans, they wanted full citizenship right away for African Americans. They wanted to replace the former rich white plantation owners who had controlled much of the South before the Civil War, and replace them with smaller farms. They wanted to create an organization called the Freedman's Bureau, which helped former slaves with education, work, and any other assistance needed for former slaves to become successful citizens. Within five years the Freedman's Bureau supervised over 4,000 schools for African American children.
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Andrew Johnson became president after Abraham Lincoln was killed. President Johnson was from North Carolina originally and grew up poor, he never attended school and when he was thirteen he moved to East Tennessee. Johnson was nothing like Lincoln on his views toward blacks and the South, he was openly racist and had no intention of allowing former slaves to become equals with their white neighbors. While Congress was out on recess, Johnson began his Reconstruction plan which was VERY lenient, or easy, on the South.
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President Andrew Johnson
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Johnson's plan created a UNION officer as a governor of each former Confederate state. Each governor would make sure that the 13th Amendment, which officially freed the slaves everywhere, was passed before any state could officially rejoin the Union. His plan also said that only those blacks who owned land could vote. Union troops were placed in each state to maintain or keep order. By December 1865, Johnson declared that his Restoration Plan was complete and that Congress only needed to approve the representatives and senators it had elected to go to Congress (many of whom were former officers in the Confederate Army). The Radical Republicans refused to support such a plan and began arguing against Johnson's plan.
In 1866 Congress created and passed the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which guaranteed citizenship to anyone born or naturalized in the U.S. It also prohibited (or kept from) a person's civil rights from being violated. Civil Rights are rights such as voting and other rights related to personal liberties.
By 1868, Congress was mad enough at the President that they decided that he needed to go. Impeachment is the process that Congress does to charge the president with "high crimes and misdemeanors," which in this case Congress said that since Johnson had ignored the Tenure of Office Act and fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, anyway, he had violated a law passed by Congress and thus could be impeached. The House of Representatives charged the President with impeachment, but to be removed from office the Senate must have a trial and then have 2/3 of the Senate vote for impeachment. In Feb 1868, the senate voted and was one vote short of convicting the president. While he was not removed from office, he agreed to not oppose the Radical Republicans further.
By 1868, Congress was mad enough at the President that they decided that he needed to go. Impeachment is the process that Congress does to charge the president with "high crimes and misdemeanors," which in this case Congress said that since Johnson had ignored the Tenure of Office Act and fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, anyway, he had violated a law passed by Congress and thus could be impeached. The House of Representatives charged the President with impeachment, but to be removed from office the Senate must have a trial and then have 2/3 of the Senate vote for impeachment. In Feb 1868, the senate voted and was one vote short of convicting the president. While he was not removed from office, he agreed to not oppose the Radical Republicans further.
In June of 1868, the 15th Amendment was added to the Constitution by the Radical Republicans. The 15th Amendment SPECIFICALLY said that states could not deny ANY man the right to vote on the grounds of race, color, or previous condition of servitude (meaning former slaves could not be denied the right to vote). It was only enforced in the South until Reconstruction ended.
In 1866, in response to control of the South by Radical Republicans, the Ku Klux Klan was formed in Pulaski, Tennessee. They had costumes and secret rituals. At first it was more of a political and social club, but soon groups of the Klan became very violent, not just against Northern "carpetbaggers," or people from the North that came South and made money or took positions of power (they carried bags made of carpet), but it also began to include blacks when they received more rights under Radical Reconstruction.
President Grant
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Ulysses S. Grant was elected president of the United States in 1868 under the Republican Party. Grant was a proven strong military leader but not so much in politics. Grant proved to be pretty much a follower of Congress and usually did not go against them. One of Grant's biggest faults was that he trusted people to do the right thing, in two terms as president his seven cabinet positions changed twenty-four times. Most of them were fired for doing bad or illegal things while in office.
During his administration, in 1873, there was a financial panic or collapse. Railroad companies that were building at crazy speeds borrowed too much money and could not pay it back, which caused major banks to go bankrupt. The Panic of 1873 triggered a deep economical depression. Tens of thousands of businesses closed, millions lost jobs. It took the country years to get out of the economic slump. |
Ulysses S. Grant
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Election of 1876
President Rutherford B. Hayes
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Rutherford B. Hayes, the three time governor of Ohio ran for president for the Republicans in 1876. The Democrats ran Samuel Tilden, a wealthy corporate lawyer and reform governor from New York. Due to both political parties cheating in the last few states to be counted, the election was determined a tie. In the end, team Tilden and the Democrats agreed to bow out and let the Republicans have the election, IF THE REPUBLICANS WOULD END RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTH. Team Hayes agreed and in 1877 Reconstruction ended and Hayes became president, this was known as the Compromise of 1877.
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This is the best video that explains everything you need to know about Reconstruction after the Civil War.
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Map that illustrates the number and deadliness of the battles.
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Slave distribution throughout the South and border states. The darker the shade, the more slaves the area had.
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Map showing the distribution of slaves in Missouri. Pay particular attention for any patterns you may see that might explain why some areas had more slaves than others.
Emancipation Proclamation
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