Civil War and Reconstruction As a Foundation for What America Becomes in the Gilded Age and After

Civil War Between Brothers (and Sisters): Comparison of Strengths

 

Issues

The Union (the North)

The Confederacy (the South)

Basics

23 states (4 slave[1]); 22M people.

11 states; 9M people (5.5M white; 3.5M slave)

Goal of war

Stop the secession (only later is slavery an official objective of the war)

Secede

Infrastructure, banking

Money in place (2X banking)

¾

Infrastructure, communication

Communication in place (telegraph lines)

¾

Infrastructure, government –people

Central bureaucracy in place

Bureaucracy to build

Infrastructure, government –system itself

Constitutional system of government

Government equivalent to Articles of Confederation

Infrastructure, manufacturing technology

Technology to manufacture; 6X South

¾ (and only 3% of firearm manufacture)

Infrastructure, transportation –land

Railroad network in place (some varied gauges)

Inadequate railroads (varied gauges)

Infrastructure, transportation –sea

Navy in place to block ports

Dependent on imports

Infrastructure, transportation –sea - protection for

Navy in place

Navy on order from British and French

Leadership

Abraham Lincoln

Jefferson Davis

Population, for manufacture

People to manufacture (quantity & consolidation)

¾

Population, for military

400K soldiers = immigrants

20 slave/1 white exemption

Population, for military¾the negatives

(But NY draft riots in 1863)

(But 1865 law to conscript 300K slaves)

Raw materials for manufacturing

Raw materials

Raw materials

 

Civil War Between Brothers (and Sisters): Comparison of Loss

 The % numbers are from McPherson’s What They Fought For.  Numbers don’t include losses from prisons (Encyclopedia of American History).

 

Issues

The Union (the North)

The Confederacy (the South)

Enlistments

1,557,000

1,082,000

Wounded

275,000

100,000 minimum

Dead, #

365,000

200,000

Dead, %

5%

11-12%

 

South’s Assumptions and Realities

 

Assumption

Reality

Britain and France need our cotton. “King Cotton diplomacy” will win.

Could get Egyptian cotton

Also needed Northern wheat

Britain and France need our orders for a navy—ironclads/rams.

Union threat of war with them, plus South’s failure to win at Gettysburg (1863)

Northwest needs our rivers to get to market.

Unaware of the Northeast-Northwest connection by canal and railroad grid

Rivers opened South to Union forces (US Grant in 1862)

We’re fighting a defensive war just like the Patriots.

War on the homeland—disruption of food supplies and civilian losses, as shown in Sherman’s March.

We’re experienced fighters.

North had Singer sewing machine, Borden milk, immigrant solders.

We have experienced generals.

North had, when he was sober, U.S. Grant; North had William Sherman.

We’re fighting for a higher cause of liberty.

Abraham Lincoln, Radical Congress, Radical officers, and the Emancipation Proclamation—Slavery became the cause and liberty became the cause.

 

Timeline and the Phases of Reconstruction; Beginning of the So-Called Gilded Age

 

Date

Details

1861-04

Fort Sumter (harbor of Charleston, SC)—Union intent to “hold, occupy, and possess” federal property in the South.

Provisions in short supply, unarmed supply ship.

2 days firing by the South and surrender of fort.

South became the aggressor.

1861-07

 

Bull Run (near Manassas, VA)

Officially a Southern victory

1862-04

 

 

Shiloh Church (near Pittsburgh Landing, TN)

A mixed outcome with each side having a claim to success, but the South is unable to stop the Union’s moves (led by U.S. Grant) into the Mississippi.

1862-09

Antietam (creek near Sharpsburg, MD) - Lee attacks.

2,100 Union deaths and 2,700 Confederate; wounded 18,500.

Stalemate, but Lee retreated¾Official victory Lincoln needed.

1863-01

Emancipation Proclamation - freed slaves in rebellious territory only, not in the border states still in the Union—a beautiful chess move. His action:

§         Did nothing that could be stopped

§         Did not offend the slave-holding Union states

§         Blocked Radical Republicans—pressing Lincoln for more hostile actions to South

§         Blocked the radical press—arguing for emancipation

§         Blocked the Radical military—freeing slaves they found

§         Blocked British ruling class sentiment toward South (The British public was increasingly anti-slavery as were the textile workers, who remained supportive of the North even as they lost jobs.)

1863-07

Gettysburg (PA)¾Lee attacked. Why? Hopes for France and Great Britain as allies – for an equivalent to Saratoga in the American Revolution.

165,000 troops; Southern charge (George Pickett’s charge), 14-15K. 5K made it to engage the Union forces. Later, Confederate retreat.

Consequence:

§         Union had clout to threaten to Britain and France. (The South had no Saratoga.)

§         British blocked delivery of ironclads/rams

§         French blocked delivery of 6 vessels. (FYI: French in June had occupied Mexico City, placed Maxmilian of Austria as Emperor of Mexico.)

1863-12

Lincoln Plan¾Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

§         Premise—The states never left the Union.

§         Presidential control

§         10 % legal voters taking oath of allegiance accepting end of slavery

§         Amnesty with the oath

§         Legitimate state government, representatives and senators to Congress

 

1864 Per this plan, Arkansas, Tennessee reconstructed, but Congress not admit.

1864-05 - 09

Sherman’s March through Georgia to the Sea¾William T. Sherman

§         60K Union soldiers

§         300 miles long

§         60 miles wide.

To “forage liberally on the country”

1864-11

Re-election of Lincoln

1865-02

Sherman’s March to the Carolinas

1865-02

Meeting: Hampton Roads (VA)

Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward with Confederate  Vice President Alexander Stephens

Lincoln offered compensation for lost slaves.

J. Davis rejected because he wanted independence

Question: What does it tell you?

1865-04

Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse (VA) -  Lee’s army to 25K, rations short

1865-04

Lincoln assassinated

 

Evolution of Republican Issues

The Republican Party’s predecessor parties led it to have many of the issues previously associated with the Whigs, such as favoring internal improvements. They also countered the Whigs; for example, the Whigs were becoming nativist and the countermove was being pro-immigration. The X’s in the table are based on specific lists of platform issues in the Encyclopedia of American History. Other issues may also have been in the parties’ platforms.

 

Issues in the Campaigns of the Varied Anti-Slavery Parties

Liberty

Free Soil

Republican

1840, 1844

1848

1852

1856

1860

Free soil (including specifics such as supporting the Wilmot Proviso)

X
X
X
X
X

Pro-internal improvements in general and/or a transcontinental railroad

 

X

 

X

X

Homestead provision so people could get land

 

X

X

 

X

Pro-immigration

 

 

X

 

X

Pro (somewhat) protective tariff

 

 

 

 

X

 


 

Republican – Democrat Votes in House and Senate

Once the 11 Confederate states left the Union, those remaining in the Senate and House of Representatives could vote for what they wanted without having to negotiate with those favoring Southern issues. The change in party balance shows the results of secession: they get what they want.

 

 

1857

1861

Senators, Democratic

36

10

Senators, Republican

20

31

Representatives, Democratic

118

43

Representatives, Republican

92

105

 

The Future of the Gilded Age Seen in the Legislation of the Civil War

The issues passed by these Senators and Representatives included:

§         1861—Increased protective tariff with subsequent additions through 1869 raising tariffs to the rate of just under 50% (Protective tariffs became a Republican principle.)

§         1862 +—Transcontinental railroad established—land grants for a Northern route

§         1862—Homestead Act—160 acres of public land to heads of families for residence for five years, a small fee (In 1866 there was an equivalent act for Southern blacks, but its implementation was blocked by landowners short of labor in the South.)

§         1862—Land grant colleges (Morrill Act)—30,000 acres to states in the Union for each Congressional office held (Senator or Representative) to establish agriculture colleges (70 established)

§         1864—National banking system—uniform currency, with a tax on state bank notes driving them out of circulation (greenbacks again backed by gold in mid-1870s)

Timeline and the Phases of Reconstruction; Beginning of the So-Called Gilded Age Continued

Date

Details

1865-05

Andrew Johnson Plan¾Restoration

§         Premise—The states never left the Union; punish individuals

§         Presidential control like Lincoln’s with the addition of ratifying the 13th Amendment, repudiating war debt, and those $20K property holders had to personally petition to Johnson for amnesty

1865-12 Per this plan, 10 states ready for restoration.

1865-11

Black Codes¾New state legislatures started passing. Vagrancy laws forced employment with private individuals to pay fines; forbidden to rent or own land, could not change jobs, could not do work other than as farm or domestic labor.

Questions: Where have you heard the name or a similar name? Ask yourself how you would feel when you heard this if you’d had a son or brother die for the Northern cause or if you were a Congressman?

1865-12

13th amendment¾ratified

1866

Ku Klux Klan started

Intent white supremacy; used violence, continued past 1869, when officially disbanded.

1866 +

Congressional Reconstruction had been:

§         Congressional control

§         50 % legal voters took oath of allegiance accepting end of slavery

1866-03

Freedman’s Bureau—freedmen and abandoned lands—included education program

1866-04

Civil Rights Act¾Congress overrode Johnson veto

1866-06

14th amendment started and became a condition—Tennessee ratified and was readmitted to Union.

Question: What’s the Southern expectation? Why not join in?    Because other Southern states thought Radical Republicans would be defeated with the Congressional elections; they were wrong.

1866-07

Race riots against blacks, New Orleans and Memphis

1866-fall

Congressional Elections

1867 +

Congressional Reconstruction becomes:

§         First Reconstruction Act

§         Military Reconstruction (5 districts)

§         Expansion of Freedman’s Bureau

1868

Fifteenth Amendment proposed - Consequences on women’s suffrage and women’s organizations

1868-02 to 05

Impeachment of Johnson —Viewed as impediment to Radical Republicanism. Method used: Tenure of Office Act—In brief, those Senate approved must be Senate removed. 1 vote saved Johnson.

1868

U.S. Grant v. Horatio Seymour                 Bloody shirt v. white supremacy

1869

Promontory, Utah - Union Pacific & Central Pacific; so-called “Peace Policy”

1870

Ku Klux Klan Acts acts to try to stop them;13 volumes of Congressional testimony taken on the KKK.

1871

Department of Justice established; head=Attorney General

1872

U. S. Grant v. Horace Greeley (Democrat & Liberal Republican)

Issues of the Liberal Republicans – end Reconstruction, end protective tariff, begin merit system

Era: Grantism – Boss-ism – Tompkins Square Riot - Molly Maguires - The Gilded Age by Mark Twain

1873

“Crime of 73”- gold standard

 

Panic of 1873

1874

Women’s  Christian Temperance Union – Frances Willard

1876

Rutherford B. Hayes (Ohio Gov.) v. Sam Tilden (NY Gov.)

1877

Electoral Commission

Compromise of 1877

 


 

Copyright C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2011

 

WCJC Department:

History – Dr. Bibus

Contact Information:

281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu

Last Updated:

2011

WCJC Home:

http://www.wcjc.edu/

 

 



[1] Delaware, Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky