Essay/Term paper: The civil war and its ending of slavery

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Social Issues

The Civil War and Its Ending of Slavery


This paper is about the civil war and about how it ended slavery with the
emancipation proclomation. I will also talk abou the physical loses of the war.


The South, overwhelmingly agricultural, produced cash crops such ascotton,
tobacco and sugarcane for export to the North or to Europe, but it depended on
the North for manufactures and for the financial and commercial services
essential to trade. Slaves were the largest single investment in the South, and
the fear of slave unrest ensured the loyalty of nonslaveholders to the economic
and social system.

To maintain peace between the Southern and Northern supporters in the
Democratic and Whig parties, political leaders tried to avoid the slavery
question. But with growing opposition in the North to the extension of slavery
into the new territories, evasion of the issue became increasingly difficult.
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 temporarily settled the issue by establishing
the 36° 30' parallel as the line separating free and slave territory in the
Louisiana Purchase. Conflict resumed, however, when the United States boundaries
were extended westward to the Pacific. The Compromise Measures of 1850 provided
for the admission of California as a free state and the organization of two new
territories—Utah and New Mexico—from the balance of the land acquired in the
Mexican War. The principle of popular sovereignty would be applied there,
permitting the territorial legislatures to decide the status of slavery when
they applied for statehood.

Despite the Compromise of 1850, conflict persisted. The South had become a
minority section, and its leaders viewed the actions of the U.S. Congress, over
which they had lost control, with growing concern. The Northeast demanded for
its industrial growth a protective tariff, federal subsidies for shipping and
internal improvements, and a sound banking and currency system. The Northwest
looked to Congress for free homesteads and federal aid for its roads and
waterways. The South, however, regarded such measures as discriminatory,
favoring Northern commercial interests, and it found the rise of antislavery
agitation in the North intolerable. Many free states, for example, passed
personal liberty laws in an effort to frustrate enforcement of the Fugitive
Slave Act .

The increasing frequency with which "free soilers," politicians who argued
that no more slave states should be admitted to the Union, won elective office
in the North also worried Southerners. The issue of slavery expansion erupted
again in 1854, when Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois pushed through
Congress a bill establishing two new territories -Kansas and Nebraska -and
applying to both the principle of popular sovereignty. The Kansas-Nebraska Act,
by voiding the Missouri Compromise, produced a wave of protest in the North,
including the organization of the Republican party. Opposing any further
expansion of slavery, the new party became so strong in the North by 1856 that
it nearly elected its candidate, John C. Fremont, to the presidency. Meanwhile,
in the contest for control of Kansas, Democratic President James Buchanan asked
Congress to admit Kansas to the Union as a slave state, a proposal that
outraged Northerners. Adding to their anger, the U.S. Supreme Court, on March 7,
1857, ruled in the Dred Scott case that the U.S. Constitution gave Congress no
authority to prohibit slavery in the territories. Two years later, on October
16, 1859, John Brown, an uncompromising opponent of slavery, raided the federal
arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virgini , in an attempt to promote a general slave
uprising. That raid, along with Northern condemnation of the Dred Scott decision,
helped to convince Southerners of their growing insecurity within the Union.

In the presidential election of 1860, a split in Democratic party ranks
resulted in the nomination by the Southern wing of John C. Breckinridge of
Kentucky and the nomination by the Northern wing of Stephen Douglas. The newly
formed Constitutional Union party, reflecting the compromise sentiment still
strong in the border states, nominated John Bell of Tennessee. The Republicans
nominated Abraham Lincoln on a platform that opposed the further expansion of
slavery and endorsed a protective tariff, federal subsidies for internal
improvements, and a homestead act. The Democratic split virtually assured
Lincoln's election, and this in turn convinced the South to make a bid for
independence rather than face political encirclement. By March 1861, when
Lincoln was inaugurated, seven states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—had adopted ordinances of secession, and
the Confederate States of America, with Jefferson Davis as president, had been
formed.

In his inaugural address, Lincoln held that secession was illegal and stated
that he intended to maintain federal possessions in the South. On April 12,
1861, when an attempt was made to resupply Fort Sumter, a federal installation
in the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina, Southern artillery opened fire.
Three days later, Lincoln called for troops to put down the rebellion. In
response, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee also joined the
Confederacy.

Neither the North nor the South was prepared in 1861 to wage a war. With a
population of 22 million, the North had a greater military potential. The South
had a population of 9 million, but of that number, nearly 4 million were
enslaved blacks whose loyalty to the Confederate cause was always in doubt.
Although they initially relied on volunteers, necessity eventually forced both
sides to resort to a military draft to raise an army. Before the war ended, the
South had enlisted about 900,000 white males, and the Union had enrolled about
2 million men (including 186,000 blacks), nearly half of them toward the end of
the war.

In addition, the North possessed clear material advantages—in money and
credit, factories, food production, mineral resources, and transport—that
proved decisive. The South's ability to fight was hampered by chronic shortages
of food, clothing, medicine, and heavy artillery, as well as by war weariness
and the unpredictability of its black labor force. Even with its superior
manpower and resources, however, the North did not achieve the quick victory it
had expected. To raise, train, and equip a massive fighting force from
inexperienced volunteers and to find efficient military leadership proved a
formidable and time-consuming task.

Only through trial and error did Lincoln find comparable military leaders,
such as Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman. On August 30, in the Second
Battle of Bull Run, the combined Confederate forces of Lee, Jackson, and
General James Longstreet inflicted heavy casualties on Union troops and sent
them reeling back to Washington, where Pope was relieved of his command.
Following up on this victory, Lee in September 1862 startled the North by
invading Maryland with some 50,000 troops. Not only did he expect this bold
move to demoralize Northerners, he hoped a victory on Union soil would encourage
foreign recognition of the Confederacy.

McClellan, with 90,000 men, moved to check Lee's advance. On September 17,
in the bloody Battle of Antietam, some 12,000 Northerners and 12,700
Southerners were killed or wounded. Lee was forced back to Virginia; Lincoln,
angered that McClellan made no effort to cut off Lee's retreat, relieved the
general of his command.

In late 1862, the Army of the Potomac resumed its offensive toward Richmond,
this time under the command of General Ambrose E. Burnside. On December 13, he
unwisely chose to challenge Lee's nearly impregnable defenses around
Fredericksburg, Virginia, on the Rappahannock River. In still another disaster,
Union forces suffered more than 10,000 killed or wounded and were forced to
retreat to Washington. Burnside too was relieved of his command.

On May 1 Union troops under General Benjamin F. Butler moved into the
largest city and principal port. During the last months of 1862, Grant
consolidated his position along the Mississippi. Buell, ordered to move on
Chattanooga, Tennessee, clashed indecisively with Confederate forces under
General Braxton Bragg. In December, General William S. Rosecrans, who had
replaced Buell, confronted Bragg's troops in a three-day battle on the Stones
River near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, forcing them to retreat. Meanwhile, Grant
prepared for an assault on Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last remaining
Confederate stronghold in the West, high on the bluffs overlooking the
Mississippi River. Considered by the Confederates an impregnable fortress,
Vicksburg resisted Union attacks, and Grant's army bogged down in the rugged
terrain guarding the north and east approaches to the city. Encouraged by the
victory, Lee seized the initiative and moved his army into the North.

Such an action, he hoped, would relieve the pressure on beleaguered
Confederate forces in the West and induce a war-weary North to agree to a
negotiated peace. In June, a Confederate army of 75,000 men marched through the
Shenandoah Valley into southern Pennsylvania. The Army of the Potomac,
numbering about 85,000 and now commanded by General George G. Meade, moved to
check Lee's advance. These two massive armies converged on the small town of
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and on July 1 a battle began that many observers
consider a turning point of the Civil War.

In maneuvering for position, Union forces managed to occupy strategic high
ground south of Gettysburg. Lee's army attacked the position at various points,
only to be thrown back. On July 3, after an intensive artillery duel, Lee
ordered General George E. Pickett to charge the center of the Union lines at
Cemetery Ridge, Pennsylvania. The attack failed. With his army suffering heavy
casualties, Lee retreated, only to be blocked by the flooded Potomac River.
Much to Lincoln's dismay, however, Meade failed to exploit his advantage, and
Lee's shattered army was eventually able to retreat into northern Virginia. Yet
again, Lee had sacrificed an enormous portion of his army in the ill-fated
attack. In late March, the Army of the Potomac, numbering 115,000 men, began
its march.