Bellwork• What caused the South to eventually secede

from the union?

American History

Section 13, Unit 1The Union Dissolves

Objectives

• Identify some of the effects of the fall of Fort Sumter

• Analyze the military advantages each side possessed at the beginning of the war

• Explain how the draft laws affected who fought in the war

• Describe how women contributed to the war effort

Compromise

• By Abraham Lincolns inauguration in 1861, seven southern states had seceded.

• However, the debate was far from settled in the Upper South, with states like Delaware, Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland, who were closely tied to the North.

Compromise

• To save the Union, Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky proposed the Crittenden Compromise, which called for the Missouri Compromise line to be drawn west through the remaining territories.

• North of this line, slavery was illegal. South of it, slavery could expand.

Compromise

• Lincoln, however, opposed the plan, believing that slavery should not be spread.

• He knew that many Republicans would turn against him if he had allowed slavery to expand.

Compromise

• Lincoln did, however, support another version of Crittenden’s plan– that slavery be protected where it already is.

• Lincoln’s gesture had little effect. • Secessionists were caught up in making their

own nation and took little notice to Lincoln.

Compromise

• Lincoln was determined to preserve the Union.

• In his inaugural address, he was firm but cordial when he reminded southerners that secession is unconstitutional.

“There needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority… In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressor.”—Lincoln

Fall of Fort Sumter

• However, the South took little to heart from Lincoln’s words.

• Meeting little resistance, the Confederacy had taken over most federal forts, mints, and arsenals in their borders.

• However, one very important fort– Fort Sumter– remained under federal control.

Fall of Fort Sumter

• Fort Sumter was strategically located in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.

• The South needed the fort to control access to their major port city.

• By early March, the fort’s commander, Major Robert Anderson, had notified Washington that he was nearly out of supplies and that Sumter would soon fall.

Fall of Fort Sumter• The North did not want to

lose the fort– it would be an admission that South Carolina was truly out of the Union.

• Lincoln was hesitant to use force, fearing the reaction of slave states who were still part of the Union.

• Many of these states said they would leave if force was ever used.

Major Robert Anderson

Fall of Fort Sumter

• However, to do nothing would signify that weakness.

• Instead, Lincoln chose to simply supply Fort Sumter, rather than fight.

• If the Confederates attack the suppliers, then they are the aggressors, not the Union.

Fall of Fort Sumter

• On April 6, Lincoln sent a messenger to South Carolina’s governor, F. W. Pickens, that supply ships were coming. They had no soldiers or weapons.

• Pickens relayed this message to General P. G. T. Beauregard who ordered the federal troops in the fort to abandon. Major Anderson of Sumter refused to obey.

Fall of Fort Sumter

• On April 12, the Confederate forces opened fire on Sumter.

• For 34 hours, Confederates attacked Sumter and set much of the fort ablaze.

• Without any remaining ammunition, Anderson and his men surrendered.– Shockingly, no one on either side was killed or

seriously injured.

Fall of Fort Sumter

• On April 15, Lincoln denounced the attack and asked governors of loyal states to provide 75,000 militiamen to put down the uprising.

• They were only to serve for 3 months.

Choosing sides

• Lincoln’s fear of losing more states became a reality.

• Four states– Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina– responded to the presidents call for troops by seceding and making Richmond, Virginia the Confederate capital.

Choosing sides

• Four other slave states– Delaware, Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland– remained with the Union.

• While some in these states support secession, there was never enough support to make the move.

• In Delaware’s case, there simply was not enough slaves to justify leaving.

Choosing sides

• The mountainous countries of northwestern Virginia remained loyal to the Union.

• The people there had few slaves and long resented the rich planers of the lowlands.

• They set up their own state government and, in 1863, the state was admitted to the Union as West Virginia.

Choosing sides

• The people of the Upper South remained divided.

• Families and friends in the regions often fought one another because of the different sides of war.

Choosing sides

Note that while the territories did not “take sides”, many of the settlers there did support either the Union or the Confederacy and the territories became a battleground for the western expanse of the war

Preparing for War

• With a population of 22 million, compared the South’s 9 million (of which a third were slaves), the North seemed to have a huge advantage for the coming war.

• The North also enjoyed huge economic advantages, with over 85% of the nations industries and almost all the known supplies of copper, gold, iron, and other metals.

Preparing for War

• With such resources, the North could produce war products and replace lost or damaged equipment faster than the Confederacy.

• The North also had the advantage of better infrastructure, such as their railroad system.

• The Union could easily move supplies and troops.

Preparing for War

• The North, as well, was superior at sea.

• Most of the U.S. Navy was loyal to the Union and, because few Naval officers went to the Confederacy, the South had to build its navy from scratch.

Preparing for War

• The South, with it’s agricultural and slave economy, could not compare to the North.

• As well, their infrastructure was relatively poor in comparison and, due to a lack of natural resources, they struggled with replacing or fixing weapons, supplies, railway parts, and more.

Preparing for War

• However, the South had two major advantages over the North:1. The South only had to

stay on the defensive, protecting it’s territory until the North tired out.

2. The South had excellent military leadership.

General Benjamin Cheatham

Robert E. Lee

• Among their military leaders was Robert E. Lee.

• Lee was an expert combatant who had served in the Mexican War and who had captured John Brown at Harpers Ferry.

• Although asked by Lincoln to serve the Union, Lee chose to resign instead.

Robert E. Lee

• While Lee opposed both slavery and secession, he could not fight against Virginia, his home state.

• Lee said to his sister in a letter that he could not attack, “[his] relatives, [his] children, [and his] home.”

The armies

• By the end of 1861, the Union had more than 527,000 soldiers to the Confederacy’s 258,000.

• Most of these soldiers were between 18-29, but some– like drummer boys– were as young as 9.

The armies

• All social classes fought, but a Confederate conscription– draft– in 1862 and a Union law in 1863 put a major burden on poor farmers and working people.

• Wealthy men who were drafted could simply hire a substitute to fight for them or pay the government a fee to avoid service.

The armies

• In the South, anyone who owned 20 or more slaves was exempt from conscription.

• This policy was in response to slave owners who argued that they needed to stay home to make sure their slaves don’t run off.

The armies

• However, the South also required the economic benefit of slaves.

• The Confederacy needed food and cloth, but believed that slaves would not work without supervision.

The armies

• Some openly criticized the war and the draft. • Many immigrants in the North did not feel the

need to fight while some Southerners argued that the conflict was a “rich mans war and a poor man’s fight.”

Question: What does that mean?

The armies

• Estimates of the number of soldiers in the war vary.

• The U.S. government estimates that around 2,672,341 fought in the Union army and another 105,963 in the navy or marines.

• Among that were 180,000 African American enlistees and around 3,530 Native Americans.

Ely Parker, a Union Civil War General, and Native American

The armies

• Estimates of the number of Confederate enlistment are subject of debate.

• There is an estimate of around 750,000 men enlisted.

• Of these are 5,500 Cherokees, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Choctaws who were promised an all-Indian state with the possibility of having slaves.

Women and the War

• Women in the North and South joined the war effort.

• Some women actually dressed like men to join the war effort, like Loreta Janeta Velazquez (vuh-lahs-kuhs), a woman who fought in the Confederate army and then later became a spy for the South.

Women and the War

• Many other women, such as Rose O’Neal Greenhow, Elizabeth Bowser (who was Jefferson Davis’ maid), and Harriet Tubman all supplied information for either the Union or the Confederacy.

Women and the War• Many women served in medical roles, however.• The first group of women to volunteer were Catholic

nuns, who transformed their convents into emergency hospitals.

• Nuns, regardless of their location, served a neutral purpose in the war and treated all victims and were recognized by both the Union and Confederacy for their work.

Women and the War

• Elizabeth Blackwell, America’s first professionally licensed female doctor, helped run the U.S. Sanitary Commission.

• The commission fought to battle disease and infections that killed just as many people as bullets did.

Women and the War

• Around 3,000 women also served as nurses in the war.

• One nurse, Clara Burton, ministered and helped the union.– After the war, Burton went on to create the

American Red Cross.

Women and the War

• Throughout the states, women worked in federal factories, sewing rooms, and military arsenals, providing support both on and off the battlefield.

The Civil War

• As the nation prepared itself for war, many continued to hope that this war would be short.

• However, while the Union had various advantages over the South, we will see that victory– or an end of the war– will not come quickly.

Questions

• If you have any questions, please ask now.

Next Lesson

• In the next lesson, we are going to jump into the early stages of the Civil War

Review1. How did the Fall of Fort Sumter push the Union to finally

take action?2. Why is it that the Civil War can be considered a “rich man’s

war but a poor man’s fight”?3. Describe at least two (2) roles women took during the Civil

War.4. Describe three (3) advantages that the North had over the

South.5. What two advantages did the South have, however? 6. Why did Lincoln refuse to support the Crittenden

Compromise? 7. Why was Lincoln hesitant to outright attack the

Confederacy?