The Civil War

On March 4, 1861. Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office as President of the United States. Less than a month had passed since the formation of the Confederacy. In his inaugural address as President. Lincoln appealed to the southern states to stay in the Union. He promised that he would not interfere with slavery. He warned that he Gould not allow them to break up the United Stares by seceding. Quoting from his oath of office, he told them: ‘You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I have a most solemn one to preserve. Protect and defend it’. "The southern states took no notice of Lincoln's appeal. On April 12 Confederate guns opened fire on Port Sumter. A fortress in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, that was occupied by United Slates troops. These shots marked the beginning of the American Civil War. Some people found it difficult and painful to decide which side to support. The decision sometimes split families. The son of the commander of the Confederate navy was killed fighting in a Union-ship. Two brothers became generals - but on opposite sides . And three of President Lincoln's own brothers-in -law died fighting for the Confederacy.

In both men and material resources the North was much stronger than the South. It had a population of twenty- two million people. The South had only nine million people and 3. 5 million of them were slaves. The North grew more food crops than the South. It also had more than five times the manufacturing capacity, including most of the country's weapon factories. So the North not only had more fighting men than the South, it could also keep them better supplied with weapons, clothing , food and everything else they needed. The North faced one great difficulty. The only way it could win the war was to invade the South and occupy its land . The South had no such problem. It did not need to conquer the North to win independence. All it had to do was to hold on until the people of the North grew tired of fighting . Most southerners believed that the Confederacy could do this. It began the war with a number of advantages. Many of the best officers in the pre-war army of the United States were southerners. Now they returned to the Confederacy to organize its armies. Most of the recruits led by these officers had grown up on farms and were expert riders and marksmen. Southerners denied that they were fighting mainly to preserve slavery. Most were poor farmers who owned no slaves anyway. The South was fighting for its independence from the North. They said just as their grandfathers had fought for independence from Britain almost a century earlier. The war was fought in two main areas in Virginia and the other east coast states of the Confederacy, and in the Mississippi valley. The Confederate forces in Virginia had two great advantages. The first was that many rivers cut across the roads leading south to Richmond and so made the city easier to defend. The second was their leaders. Two Confederate generals in particular, Robert E. Lee and Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, showed much more skill than the generals leading the Union army at this time. Jackson got his nickname "Stonewall" because he stood firm against advancing Union troops. A fellow officer, encouraging his soldiers shouted out, " Look, there is Jackson, standing like a stone wall!"

The Emancipation Proclamation

By the summer of 1862 President Lincoln realized that the North would only win the war if he could arouse more enthusiasm for its cause. On September 22 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation with this aim.  This Proclamation declared that from January 1, 1863, all slaves were to be made free-but only if they lived in areas that were part of the Confederacy. The Proclamation changed the purpose of the war, From a struggle to preserve the Union, it became a struggle both to preserve the Union and to abolish slavery. At the time not everyone was impressed by Lincoln's action . A British leader. Lord Palmerston, said that all Lincoln had done was " to abolish slavery where he was without power to do so, while protecting it where he had the power to destroy it. " Palmerston was right. But after the Emancipation Proclamation everyone knew that it was only a matter of time now before slavery was ended everywhere in the United States.

In the last week of June 1863. Lee marched his army north into Pennsylvania. At a small town named Gettysburg a Union army blocked his way. The battle which followed was the biggest that has ever been fought in the United States. In three days of fierce fighting more than 50.000 men were killed or wounded. On the fourth day Lee broke off the battle and led his men back into the South. The Confederate army had suffered a defeat from which it would never recover.

The Confederate capital was already in danger from another Union army led by General Grant. By March 1865. Grant had almost encircled the city and on April, 2 Lee was forced to abandon it to save his army from being trapped. He marched south, hoping to fight on from a strong position in the mountains. But Grant followed close behind and other Union soldiers blocked Lee's way forward. Lee was trapped. On April 9. 1865, he met Grant in a house In a tiny village called Appomattox and surrendered his army. The Civil War gave final answers to two questions that had divided the United States ever since it became an independent nation. It put an end to slavery. In 1865 this was abolished everywhere in the United States by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. And it decided finally that the United States was one nation. whose parts could not be separated.

Be it as it may, the war left bitter memories. The Civil War caused terrible destruction at home. All over the South cities and farms lay in ruins . More Americans died in his war than in any other, before or since. The dead on both Sides totaled 635.000.

Bibliography:

1.     The Norton Anthology of American Literature.

2.     A History of American Literature, A. Grey

3.     An Outline of American History.

4.      An Illustrated History of the USA.