A Country Divided: America and the Civil War

            The Civil War. We’ve all read about it, heard about it, seen movies, TV shows and pictures of it. If asked, most people would explain that the Civil War was a war to free slaves in the South and abolish slavery.

            Part of it, but not all of it.

            The American Civil War, also known as the Great Rebellion, the War Between States, or the War of Southern Independence, broke out on April 12, 1861 and didn’t end until May 26, 1865. The start of the war was sparked by a Confederate General named P. G. T. Beauregard, who was given orders to open fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The end came when General Robert E. Lee from the South decided the bloodshed was needless and surrendered himself and his officers.

            Today we’re going to do something a little different. We’re going to focus on what caused the Civil War.

            The chief and immediate cause of the war was, yes, slavery. Southern states, including the 11 states that would later form the Confederacy, depended on slavery to support their economy. Southerners used slave labor to produce crops, especially cotton. Although slavery was illegal in the Northern states, only a small proportion of the Northern folk actively opposed it. The main debate between the North and the South before the war was whether slavery should be permitted in the Western territories recently acquired during the Mexican War (1846-1848), including New Mexico, part of California, and Utah. Opponents of slavery were concerned about its expansion, in part because they did not want to compete against slave labor. They made a living paying people, if the South got the Western territories signed on as slave states, then the Northerners would be out of business. Slave owners didn’t have to pay their employees. They owned their employees.

            By 1860, the North and the South had developed into two very different regions. Divergent social, economic, and political points of view, dating from colonial times, gradually drove the two sections farther and farther apart. Each tried to impose its point of view on the country as a whole. Although compromises had kept the Union together for many years, in 1860 the situation was explosive. The election of Abraham Lincoln as President was viewed by the South as a threat to slavery and ignited the war.

A picture of President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

During the first half of the 19th century, economic differences between the regions also increased. By 1860 cotton was the chief crop of the South, and it represented 57% of all U.S. exports. Don't get bored here, this is important stuff! Especially because of what we're going to deal with later on this month. Ahem, anyways...
The profitability of cotton, known as King Cotton, completed the South’s dependence on the plantation system and its essential need, slavery.

The North was by then firmly established as an industrial society. Labor was needed, but not slave labor. Immigration was encouraged. Immigrants from Europe worked in factories, built the railroads of the North, and settled the West. Very few settled in the South.

As a result, although both the South and the West were agricultural, the West allied itself with the Northern, rather than the Southern, point of view. Economic needs sharpened sectional differences, adding to the hostility between the states.

            In short, the country was heading towards war, though they wanted to avoid it as much as they could. The final straw came when Abraham Lincoln was elected President.

            The South had threatened to succeed (leave the United States to make their own country) from the United States if Lincoln was elected. “The man is a threat to our very wellbeing,” they declared. It was well known that the Republican President was against slavery, the plantation owners were afraid he’d abolish slavery if he was elected.

A Map of the Civil War, showing what states were Confederate, Union or neutral.

            No one actually believed the South would succeed, so it was with shock the Northern states were informed South Carolina was leaving the Union only a week or so after Lincoln won the election. The convention the leaders in South Carolina held unanimously passed an ordinance dissolving “the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States.” Similar meetings were held by other Southern states, and similar stands were taken, although not by unanimous votes. The first states to follow South Carolina’s course in 1861 were: Mississippi, January 9; Florida, January 10; Alabama, January 11; Georgia, January 19; Louisiana, January 26; and Texas, February 1. The North stood by in stunned silence as their neighbors and friends left them one by one. Everyone knew it was the beginning of war.

In April, President Lincoln called for states to send militias for national service to suppress the rebellion of the Southern states. They couldn’t just leave the United States, that’s what made America, well, the United States! The upper South refused to send their militias to stop the seceded states. Instead they joined the lower South in secession beginning with Virginia on April 17th; Arkansas, May 6; North Carolina, May 20; and Tennessee, June 8.

As the Southern states seceded, they seized and occupied most of the army forts within their borders or off their shores. Only four remained in the hands of the Union. Fort Sumter stood guard in the mouth of the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. The other three forts were in Florida. Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, Fort Pickens in Pensacola Bay, and Fort Taylor at Key West. Of the four, Sumter was the most important.

            That’s where General Beauregard comes in. He was given orders to take Fort Sumter, thus starting the Civil War as the first shots were fired in the month of April. The Northerners were infuriated by what the Southerners had done and demanded action. President Lincoln gave it to them, ordering on April 15 a proclamation that called up a total of 75,000 militia from the states. At the same time, calls for troops were sent to the governors of all states that had remained in the Union. On April 19 a second proclamation announced that Southern ports would be blockaded. A third proclamation, dated May 3, called for 42,000 three-year volunteers for the regular army and for 18,000 volunteers to serve one to three years in the navy.

            The War had begun.

            This is where most of your history books pick up. They detail about battles such as Bull Run, Shiloh, Gettysburg and Antietam. And of course we all know that when the war came to an end in 1865, Lincoln was shot not more than six days later by a crazed actor who had sworn his allegiance to the Confederacy. 

The flags of the South and the North.

            Yes, I know, I’m skipping over the main part of the war. I don’t think you need an overview on that. Why? Because I think what’s important here is to realize why the war happened. From all the information I’ve given you, what’s your conclusion? Why did Americans fight other Americans? Why is there still so much controversy on the Civil War today?

            Here are some points that I think are important.

            1. Greed. The South wanted to increase their production and money without having to pay employees. The North was afraid of being pushed out of business by the South and thus wanted slavery abolished. Both sides were in the wrong in that area.

            2. Politics. Southern and Northern politics were vastly different, not only on the matters of freedom vs. slavery but on other matters. The North needed a central government to build its roads and railways, protect its trading and financial interests, and control the national currency. The South depended much less on the federal government than did other regions, and Southerners therefore felt no need to strengthen it. In addition, Southern patriots feared that a strong central government might interfere with their way of life, particularly slavery. Sounds kinda like our politicians today, huh?

            3. Mindset. This is a very important point. Mindset is everything. Not all slave owners were bad, some of them treated their slaves very well and cared for them. And not all Northerners were good. What about those factory owners who employed children on such low wages and horrible working conditions that many of them died? Mindset is the way we think. A lot of very good Southerners simply supported the South because they were from there, they were loyal to their Southern heritage. It was their mindset, this was who they were. Cut dry and simple, yes, slavery is wrong. Yes, it needed to be abolished. But the war was more technical than that. It was a lot of things put together that caused it.

             Today there is still a lot of Southern vs. Northern attitudes. Again, that’s mindset. Thank goodness most of us have come to terms with the past, but there are still some people who get angry about the Civil War and the outcome. In all honesty that’s sad.

            The Civil War is a big part of American history, and I know as a fact you’ve all read about it. But sometimes history isn’t about the actual event, it’s about the events that led to the big clash. In the case of the Great Rebellion, sometimes disputes between brothers are worse than disputes between neighbors. We lost more Americans in that war than any other war we’ve been in since. Slavery was abolished, but not without a great price of blood, brotherhood and friendship.

            Special thanks to Microsoft ® Encarta ® Reference Library 2005. If you want to read more facts about the Civil War in great detail, this is the program to use.

            Little Known Fact: Did you know that one-third of the soldiers who fought for the Union Army were immigrants, and nearly one in every ten soldiers was African American? This was because the North was where most people from other countries moved to when they came to America.

Today in History: Today was the second day in the battle of Gettysburg in 1863. General Robert E. Lee was so far winning the battle and was determined to further his success of the previous day's fighting. The battle took place in Peach Orchard, Pennsylvania.

Come back next week when we give you some great books to read on the Civil War!