Civil War Overview
by Staff EditorThere have been many tragic and momentous events that have taken place on American soil. From the war of independence to the assassination of presidents to political and social discord between its citizens to terrorism, America has seen its share of upheaval. No battle, political scandal or act of defiance however, has managed to scar America on the level the Civil War did.
Between 1861 and 1865, Americans fought against each other in what is arguably the bloodiest conflict ever to take place on the home front. More American lives were lost in the Civil War than in any other conflict in the nation's history. Nearly two percent of the total population (over 560,000 people) was killed and another three percent (roughly 970,000) were wounded, an astounding figure considering the American population was a mere 32 million people, a fraction of what it is today.
Also known as the War of the Rebellion and the War of Secession, the Civil War was a result of the secession of 11 Southern states from the Union after the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln as the 16th President of the United States. These 11, now known as the Confederate States of America fought the 23 northern states in a battle to bring the Union back together. It has been debated that the issue of slavery was also at the forefront of the war but its general intent was to salvage a crumbling Union that was slowly showing signs of becoming two solitudes.
The exact causes of the Civil War run so deep that historians still have a hard time coming up with an exact definition of what caused it. The roots of the causes run through political, economic, social and psychological elements that date back to the signing of the Constitution.
At the time the U.S. Constitution was signed, there were major differences between the northern and southern states but the two factions managed to put them aside in the common interest of forming an independent nation. These differences though pushed aside, only continued to grow as America matured. The South, which subsisted primarily on agriculture and whose economy thrived on slavery, felt left behind the wealthier North, which was thrown into an industrial revolution it could scarcely keep up with.
There was also a growing dissonance between the northern and southern states regarding the issue of slavery in the early 19th century. The North was in the throes of its industrial revolution and was in need of more labor for its booming factories. It believed that if slaves were freed from the South, they would migrate North and provide the labor it so badly needed. It was also in favor of tariffs on imported goods in order to protect its growing industries.
The South, meanwhile, had a more agriculturally based economy, relying heavily on slave labor and goods acquired from overseas, pitting it squarely against the North when it came to tariffs.
The hostility bred by these differences was only heightened after 1820 when the Missouri Compromise was enacted to put an end to the issue that was truly at the heart of the discord: whether or not slavery should be permitted in the growing territories of the West. They were eventually entered into the Union as free states, raising concern among Southerners who feared their position as equals in the Union. In turn they supported the annexation of Texas as a slave state. They wanted to protect slavery, a backward institution in the forward-moving young nation due to the fact that it was at the heart of their economy.
The debate over slavery only got worse as the century reached the midway point. It all but dissolved the Whig party and bore the Republican Party headed by Abraham Lincoln, a Northern abolitionist. Southern slaveholders were up in arms at the political and economic power shifts that saw the balance of power and influence change hands from the prominent Southerners of years past to rich northern industrialists, thanks to the proliferation of immigration to the North. Most Southerners and former Whigs joined the Democratic Party in the hopes of counterbalancing the shift. When Lincoln and his Republicans won the 1860 presidential election, it all but sealed the deal for many Southern states already fed up with the Union. It was time to go.
By the time Lincoln was inaugurated in 1861, seven Southern states, namely South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas had broken ties with the Union. Forming the Confederate States of America, they elected their own president, Jefferson Davis, within 10 days of secession, seized control of federal forts and property within their borders, began amassing an armed forces, established a capital at Montgomery, Alabama and even created a Confederate flag.
In his inaugural address, Lincoln stated that he had no intention of inciting conflict with any state that supported slavery. He insisted that, "The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without yourselves being the aggressors."
Jefferson Davis meanwhile, as president of the Confederate States, adopted the position that once a state seceded from the Union and joined the Confederacy, all federal forts became the property of the state. It was this position that would set off the igniting factor that would spark the Civil War.
On April 12, 1861 Confederate General Pierre T. Beauregard demanded that Fort Sumter in South Carolina be handed over to his government. An offer was made to surrender the fort in two days, once all existing supplies were used up. The offer was rejected and Beauregard and his Confederate soldiers opened fire. In a battle that lasted 34 hours, the fort was severely damaged and eventually taken by the Confederacy.
After the battle, President Lincoln ordered the blockade of other Confederate ports in the hopes of strongarming a peace deal. On April 15, 1861, he ordered the governors of the Northern states to provide troops to deal with the insurgency. Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee refused and joined the Confederacy. The new 11-state Confederacy now had a population of nine million, nearly half of which were slaves. The Union consisted of 21 states and over 20 million people.
