US History I Honors: Unit 12: Civil War

Second American Revolution

The civil war is often referred to as this, considering the resulting industrialization and modernization seen in the North

Fort Sumpter

This fort was in Charleston Harbor and cut off from supplies

April 12th

• Lincoln was constitutionally obligated to defend it but he needs to avoid provoking the South

  • Walks the middle line: sends a peaceful supply ship

• The South fires on the ship and initiates a 34 hour bombardment without casualties

This electrifies the North: No longer unprepared and unwilling

• “The Fort was lost but the Union was saved” → emotional change
  

Newspapers blame the South. 

April 15th, Lincoln: Secession = rejection of democracy

• Authorizes war spending without congressional approval

• So many people respond to fight that some have to be turned away

• Blockade of Southern ports

• Suspend Habeas Corpus

Ignites the South → Think Lincoln is waging war, and Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina leave the union (now 11 states)

West Virginia becomes a state by not wanting to secede

Border States

4 Slave states stay (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware) = “Border States”

Did not leave because they believed that the South fired first

• Lincoln needs to keep them happy (esp KY) → cannot make the war about emancipation

• Decides that the war is to preserve the Union

On to Richmond

rallying cry for the North, thinking it would be a short war

First Battle of Bull Run / Manassas Junction

This first battle Demonstrates how ill-prepared the country was → people gathered and set up picnics to watch and got trampled

Stonewall Jackson (South) arrives and wins, making the North realize the enormity of the task

• Myth of Southern Invincibility

Anaconda Plan

Lincoln’s plan after the First Battle of Bull Run to win the civil war

• Use a blockade to cut off supplies and starve the South

• Divide Confederacy and cut off the Western states by taking the Mississippi River

• Raise and train an army of 550k to take Richmond

• Paid by:

  • Raising income tax to 3% passed by Congress

    • Loans above 140 million were authorized

Legal Tender Bill

This creates paper money

Peninsula Campaign

Led by “Tardy George” McClellan → very cautious and never good enough

• Begins a string of Northern Defeats because Lee and Jackson are good

• Begins a revolving door of Union Generals

  • Robert E Lee becomes General and clears the peninsula

George McClellan

This Union general was very cautious and never good enough

John Pope

This Union general was arrogant and had foolish bravado

Second Bull Run

This battle is Lee vs. Pope. Confederacy wins and the Union is in disaster. Pope is removed

Monitor vs Merrimac

Fight for control of the Chesapeake Bay

• Hampton Roads led to Richmond and DC

• The Confederates had an ironclad ship → impenetrable to cannons

  • The Union built the Monitor in response

This battle renders wooden sailing vessels obsolete

Hampton Roads

Location of Monitor vs. Merrimac: a crucial location for control of the Chesapeake bay, as this led to Richmond and DC

Farragut

This guy captured New Orleans, forcing the South to cross the Mississippi for commerce

• Crippling for the South since it cannot export cotton

Shiloh

The Union wins in the West

Nothing was captured (only fought over a field)

Ulysses S. Grant captures forts and moves to Mississippi and is meat by the Confederates

Huge casualties (24k)

Antietam

Fought in Maryland: Border State → first attack actually in the Union

The Confederacy wanted success in theeEast and take advantage of momentum

• No longer a morally respectable position in the South: now they are invaders too

• Wanted to Convince Great Britain to enter war for cotton

• Le predicted that they would be seen as friends, not conquerors and MD would join them

The single bloodiest day in American history. McClellan fails to pursue Lee

Tactically: A draw (stalemate) BUT Lee’s plan fails and Lincoln claims victory because he needs it

• Issues the Emancipation Proclamation: Designs war to focus more on slavery

• A diplomatic stroke that prevents Britain from supporting the South

Importance: 

• Horror (Matthew Brady photographed after the battle)

• Great Britain

  • Public no longer tolerates missteps: McClellan needs to be replaced

Special Order 191

A copy of this ends up in McClellan’s hands before Antietam, so he knows what Lee will do ahead of time

Matthew Brady

This person photographed the aftermath of Antietam and depicted the horrors of war

Fredericksburg

Confederates arrive first and get highground

Shift from McClellan to Burnside is a shift from slow and methodical to reckless

• Attacks up the hill under fire (idiot) → Burnside’s Slaughter pen → bloodbath

Burnside

This Union general was reckless and led to a bloodbath at Fredericksburg

Trent Affair

The South needed diplomats as much as soldiers

• Closest GB ever came to entering the war

• Mason and Slidell were sent to negotiate, and Seward wanted to stop them

• Fired at the vessel, Mason and Slidell imprisoned → Britain very mad “Outrage on the British Flag”

• The men were given back without an apology and details were fabricated

  • Linoln is resolved to avoid the war

Failure of Cotton Diplomacy

The South fails to get foreign help

• They were so efficient in the years before the war that GB had a surplus

• By the time they ran out, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued

• Other sources of cotton included what the North seized, India, and Egypt

  • King Wheat + King Corn > King Cotton

Morrill Land Grant Act

States get land for agriculture and technology colleges

Morrill Tariff Act

This act raises the tariff

Homestead Act

This act is meant to settle the great plains: give land if farm for 5 years

Pacific Railway Act

This act creates a railroad from CA to the eastern states

National Bank Acts

These establish the national bank

Federal Conscription Act

This creates a draft in the Union for those 20-45

Legal Tender Bill

This creates paper money in the North

millionares

In the North, worker’s wages cannot keep pace with the rising economy, increasing the money gap and creating a new class of ________

Peace Democrats / Copperheads

Northern Democrats opposing all war

Moderates

This sect of the Republicans wanted to end slavery

Radicals

This sect of the Republican party wanted male equality for all and money set aside to educate Black people

$300 men

Paying for someone to fight for you

Jefferson Davis

President of the Confederacy, who had to push state rights but lacked authority due to their stupid government

1864

In this election, Lincoln is chasing poor chances

• Widespread war criticism. Conservatives are furious about emancipation

• Radical republicans are angry → campaign against Lincoln → Congressional Committee on Handling of war

• However, the opposition bails out to avoid splitting the party

• Lincoln chooses Jackson: Stayed in the senate after TN left

  • Unconditional surrender: fight until victory

• Republicans supported → “don’t change horses midterm”

Turning point: September 1864, Sherman burned Atlanta and lifted spirits

Northern Democrats: Douglas dies. Want to push negotiated peace → Tardy George McClellan

• However, he turns around and says no to ending the war → 45% of popular vote

  • Lincoln: electoral landslide : 70% of soldiers vote for him

Sherman

This general burned Atlanta and gave Lincoln a boost in popularity

Lincoln’s Concerns on Emancipation

1. Keeping the border states in the Union

2. Constitution *appeared* to give legal sanction to slavery

3. Prejudiced Northerners

   1. Premature action could be overturned by the next election -- change needs to be permanent

Benjamin Butler

•  refused to return Southern slaves back to the South (“contraband of war”)

1. Congress catches up to army: slaves considered contraband of war and are free

2. Freed slaves of people actively engaged in war (in the South)

   1. President authorizes freed slaves to fight in the army

Contraband of War

The Union troops did not want to make the slaves stay slaves in the South, confiscated them as this

Confiscation Acts

Slaves are considered contraband of war and are free (Congress)

Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln signed this executive order after Antietam to free all Southern slaves;

• War focuses more on slavery

  • Prevents Britain from supporting the South

• Free all Confederate slaves after the Antietam “victory”

• Didn’t actually free any slaves → South wouldn't just set them free

• Union army no has a cause → free slaves as they go down

• 1st time the government is actually committed to an emancipation policy

• Now have to fight to the END

• Butternut region (southern Ohio) protests and enlistment goes down. Huge slave influx

13

This amendment frees all slaves, even in border states

• Does not pass the house, but Lincoln lobbies members and does really shady stuff
  

Thaddeus Stevens: The greatest measure of the 19th century was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America

States now have to ratify after Lincoln’s death

Ends ⅗ compromise and slavery but not Dred Scott (issue of citizenship)

Thaddeus Stevens

“The greatest measure of the 19th century was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America”

Chancellorsville

VA

The Southern economy is in shambles: losing slaves and experiencing desertions

Union general Thomas Hooker (lol) outnumbers the confederates 2:1

• Lee divides the army and Jackson flanks and dies

• Lincoln is pressured to consider peace deals from Copperheads

  • Lee knows he needs to move his ass because the South is starving

Gettysburg

• Lee wants to capture the army or the city

• Union gets the high ground and the Southern army is destroyed

• Day 1: Crossroads: ill-prepared southern generals didn’t take advantage of their opportunities

• Day 2: Little Round Top; lee tries to flank but Chamberlain is just too good

• Day 3: Pickett’s charge and destruction

The South never again takes the offensive

Vicksburg

Last lynchpin to close Mississippi

• Closes Mississippi to the South (ANACONDA PLAN!!!!!!!!!!)

• Cuts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas from the South. Grant is brought back to the East

  • Ships made with rams → huge blow to south → “meatgrinder warfare”

Total War

This is a term that refers to Annihilating the will of the rebels so they would not fight again

• Meat Grinder warfare: follow Lee and kill as many men as possible because the Union outnumbered

Meatgrinder Warfare

Following Lee and downing his men as long as they keep moving

Sherman’s March to the Sea

• Sherman leads 100k from Chattanooga TN on a campaign of deliberate destruction through GA and SC → breaks the will of the South

• Destroys rail centers, burns Atlanta, Savannah (Christmas Gift), Columbia SC (capital)

• No longer a war between gentlemen. 

  • South starves between blockade and Sherman

Surrender at Appomattox Court House

After Richmond falls, the Confederates want peace

• Very dignified: Grant lets the Southern men keep horses, rifles and he fed them

• Chamberlain received the surrender

  • Empathy

John Wilkes Booth

Lincoln’s assassin

10% plan

This plan was made by Lincoln

• Goal: Shorten the war, ensure emancipation lasts

• The terms must be light in interest of inclining rejoining the union

  • Minimum test of political loyalty

  • Must take an oath of allegiance and accept [the principle] of emancipation

    • Once 10% of a state does so, they can region the Union

Wade-Davis Bill

After Lincoln’s 10% Plan:

• It says that 50% of people in the state must take the oath in order for a state to rejoin

Freedmen’s Bureau

1865

• Pseudo-welfare agency

• Helps free-Black people and poor white people

• At first, it had the authority to take land confiscated from confederates and give it to freed slaves 

  • “40 acres and a mule”

    • But later Johnson pardons the confederates, which means they get their land back, and Congress sides with the confederates over the free Blacks (because for them it was the intuitive thing to do)

Oliver O. Howard

With the Freedmen’s Bureau, he establishes 300 schools for Black people, teaches them to read

Black Codes

These codes technically reinstated rules of slavery during reconstruction

Freed Black people cannot vote, testify

Eventually led to sharecropping

Joint House and Senate Committee Report

Congress essentially asserts its right to control the process of readmitting the Southern States. 

14

This amendment Requires: Citizenship for Blacks and all people born and naturalized in the USA

• States cannot deprive of life, liberty, or property without due process 

  • Applies due process to states

• States now required to uphold the rights of citizens

Impact: Alters judicial landscape, Federal rights > state rights in the future

• Disqualifies former confederate leaders from voting unless pardoned by Congress

• Repudiate Confederate debt

• Women felt left out

  • Angry that Black men > White women

  • Does not guarantee right to vote but would penalize states that didn’t protect it

1866

These are “off year” elections

Radicals vs Black codes and Johnson

• Johnson tries to get back authority by getting allies on Congress

• Actively campaigns, appeals to racists, swing around the circle tour → tries to get Congress

• Republicans “Wave the Bloody shirt” → what did we give up to win?

  • Appeal to anti-Southern sentiment → easy win

First Reconstruction Act

Former Confederate States (not Tennessee) divided into 5 military districts

• Union army sent to protect Black rightsHigher requirements to rejoin union (guarantee Black males the right to vote) and ratification of the 14th Amendment

• Bill didn’t specify who could write the Constitution.

  • States didn’t agree

Second Reconstruction Act

This act made it so Election was in the hands of the military: election superion. South refuses to vote

Third Reconstruction Act

This act made it so the 14th Amendment only needs to be approved by 50% of those who actually vote

Johnson Impeachment

Congress feared that Johnson would replace the military leaders with his symphasizers

Tenure of Office Act

Passed to protect Edwin Stanton Contrary to constitution: President cannot remove a federal official without senate approval

1868

This election is as follows:

• Republicans ran a war hero (Grant). 

• Democrats run Horatio Seymour (irrelevant)

• Some Northern states don’t let Blacks vote (KY, DE), didn’t ratify amendment

• Grant wins by only 300k in popular vote. 500k free Blacks vote and shift the balance

  • Gave him the victory

  • Shifted moderate perspective: now they want to protect the Black vote

    • Catalyst of 15th A. State cannot prohibit any vote

40 Acres and a Mule

After the end of the war, Blacks hope for this to become independent Farmers

Sharecropping

This system prevented cash liquidity

Planters did not have any cash to pay laborers, and laborers did not have money for land

• Freedmen rented land on credit → shared crops. No moral obligation from planters anymore

• Less help from planter = tenant farming, more independent and less is owed

  • Everyone plants cotton and prices go down. Locks the system so no one can make enough

Hiram Revels / Blance Bruce

Name a Black senator

Scalawag

Southern Republicans (former Whigs) after the war

Carpetbagger

Northerners moving South to take advantage of business opportunities

Credit Mobilier Affair

Transcontinental railroad, government gave out land grants for the railroad

• Goal: build a railroad (not necessarily efficiently)

• Mobilier Company: Goal to scam government as much as they could

• 2 companies built toward each other → faster = more money made. Made subcontracts.

  • Siphoning off money and nobody paid attention. MASSIVE SCANDAL!!!!

Tweed Ring

William Tweed was a Democratic boss in NYC → ran a mob, much like those in all urban settings

• Demanded kickbacks and bribes.

• Paid the police off. $200 mil scam

• Cartoonist subtly pokes fun at them (Thomas Nast) and exposes the ring

  • People talking. Samuel Tilden was the prosecutor that brought down Tweed.

Samuel Tilden

Prosecutor that brought down the Tweed ring and was later chosen as the Democratic candidate in 1876

Whiskey Ring

Tax agents and liquor industry agreement for fraud

• Public defrauded → tax fraud. 

• Grant refuses to fire people involved

  • Scandals fracture Grant and the Republicans

1872

During this election, Liberal Republicans split off and say reform is needed and want to clean up corruption

• Civil service reform: jobs in government allowed only if someone is qualified → give test

• End railroad subsidies

• Lower tariff

• Withdraw troops from south

• Join with Democrats: Horace Greenlee

• Grant and the Republicans win by waving the bloody shirt

Panic of 1873

This event was a Product of war and overspeculation, especially with the railroad. Economic depression

• Economy now had money: call for government to pint more: Greenback Labor Party

• Question “easy money”

Gold standard

Each dollar represents a certain amount of gold

Greenbacks

This party wanted more money to be printed during the panic of 1873

Hard Money Men

These men in 1874, along with Grant, wanted to maintain the stability of the dollar, keeping it worth more and retaining its value

Nathan Bedford Forest

First leader of the KKK and adamant Confederate general

Amnesty act of 1872

This act gave  General amnesty, removed all restrictions except the great leaders

• Democrats take back over

Ex Parte Merryman

This case determines that Lincoln acted unconstitutionally when suspending habeas corpus

Cummings vs Missouri / Ex Parte Garland

These cases say that Loyalty oaths are unconstitutional because they are against bill of attainder and ex post facto

Slaughterhouse Case

This case Decreased protection under 14th Amendment

• Only applied to rights specifically in constitution

• New Orleans granted monopoly to a slaughterhouse and butchers challenged bc expensive

  • Court said state could limit rights under circumstances → can now limit other rights

Second Civil Rights Act of 1875

Passed by Congress, aiming to provide Equal accommodation in all places (schools, juries)

• Hard to enforce because the North is tired

1876

During this election: Democrats redeemed all 3 those states

• Republicans still divided over scandals and fear Grant going for a third term

• Liberals split from Grant → “half-breeds” : James Blane

• “Stalwarts” stick with Grant 

• BUSINESSMEN BECOME POWERBROKERS

• Stalwarts and Half-breeds block each other → settle on a compromise: governor of Ohio HAYES

  • Civil service reform, raise protective tariff, wave the bloody shirt (democrats = treason)

• Dems: Samuel Tilden who brought down the Tweed Ring. Reform Platform

  • Clear popular majority and led in electoral college, but did not get 185

  • Disputed returns in the 3 states → added up to 20 (Hayes could win)

  • Each sent 2 slates of electors to Congress but they appointed a special commission

  • 7 Democrats, 7 Republicans, and 1 Independent who was replaced with a Republican

  • Hayes wins

  • Democrats mad and threaten to filibuster, they also control the house

Redeemed

Democrats ________ states when the Union troops left

Half-Breeds

Liberal Republicans, also called _________, split from the Grant and nominated James Blane in 1876

Stalwarts

These Republicans stuck with Grant in 1876

Hayes

The Stalwarts and Half-breeds, after blocking each other, join together and nominate this governor of Ohio

Reform Platform

in 1876, The Democrats focused on tihs

Compromise of 1877

After the 1876 Election, it is agreed that Hayes becomes president but end federal support for Southern Republicans

• No troops = no Black rights because SCOTUS strikes down laws

• Hayes promises Southern Transcontinental railroad

• END OF RECONSTRUCTION=