The Civil War - Essay Example

The Civil War. The American Civil War (1861-1865), betweenthe Northern States (the Union) and the Southern States which seceded from the Union (the Confederacy), remains the single most important conflict in the history of the United States of America: both in terms of the loss in lives and its’ impact on the configuration of the Nation as we know it today. The Civil War originated in the growing polarization of the North and the South, was precipitated by particular circumstances and people and ran its’ course, to be followed by a critical period of Reconstruction. The Sections Go Their Ways (1808-1857). The growing polarization of the North and the South was mainly due to the markedly divergent economies of the two sections. The North experienced rapid industrialization, based on the adoption of technological innovation, which boosted production, but also widened the rich-poor divide. In contrast, agriculture was the mainstay of the Southern States, with cotton as the staple crop, catering to the demand from the North and Europe. Cotton plantations were structured around slavery. This difference in economic structure was reflected in the social attitude towards labor. An offshoot of industrialization was the advance in transportation, particularly the railroad, whose expansion through the North and West far outpaced its’ growth through the South. This again resulted in a difference in settlement patterns, making the North more urbanized than the rural South. The Coming of the Civil War (1850-1861). The existent North-South divide precipitated the rising specter of secession. This was countered by the Compromise of 1850, which recognized popular sovereignty, by which new territories joining the Union could formulate their own stand on slavery and enforced stricter Anti-fugitive Laws, according to which escaped slaves were denied trial and the masters’ claims of ownership were unquestionably accepted. This incensed the Abolitionists. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a poignant tale of the cruelty of slavery, was a wake-up call to social conscience and a contributor towards the Civil War. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 exacerbated the situation. This controversial territorial organization saw Stephen Douglas and the pro-slavery Southern lobby ensure the adoption of an amendment which repealed the Compromise of 1850. The Republican Party was formed in opposition to this Act. The battle lines were drawn and there were armed clashes between abolitionist and pro-slavery forces in Kansas (Drummond H. and E. Web site). Republicans protested when the Supreme Court, ruling in the Dred Scott case of 1854, denied the Negroes’ right to citizenship and to legal recourse, repealing the Missouri Compromise. Southerners were alienated by the abolitionist John Brown’s raid, with an ‘army’ of twenty men, on the federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry in October 1859. (National Archives and Records Administration. Web site). Events came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate, was elected President in 1860, on an anti-slavery platform. Fearing abolition and Northern dominance, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas seceded from the Union, to form the Confederate States of America, led by Jefferson Davies. The War to Save the Union (1861-1865). Lincoln was unequivocal in his stand that secession was illegal. Southern troops seized federal forts in their States in February 1861. Fort Sumter in South Carolina was besieged by the Confederates, who fired the first shot of the Civil War on 12 April, 1861, when Lincoln sent supplies to the fort. Fort Sumter surrendered to the South the next day, followed by the secession of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina (Drummond H. and E. Web site). Equipped with a strong navy, well-knit rail network, industry and superior numbers and effectively led by Lincoln, the North definitely had the upper hand. The South resorted to defensive tactics, aiming to wear down the North with a protracted war, confident that the manufacturing industries’ need for cotton would tilt things in its’ favor. A stalemate prevailed in 1861. The decisive moment came in September 1862, when Confederate troops, under Robert Lee and Stonewall Jackson, were repulsed by George McClellan’s Union troops at the Battle of Antietam, after horrendous casualties on both sides. Acknowledging growing public demand, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation of 1 January, 1863, by which all slaves in confederate states were declared free under federal law. Blacks flocked to join the Union Army. The next decisive confrontation was Grant’s siege and capture of the fortified confederate city of Vicksburg in May 1863, followed by the Battle of Gettysburg, in July 1863, when the Union troops under Meade defeated the confederates under Lee. Grant, as commander of the Union troops, along with Sherman, followed a policy of ‘total war,’ which ultimately brought the South to its’ knees, ending with Lee’s surrender to Grant on 17 April, 1865, at Appomattox Courthouse (Drummond H. and E. Web site). The North emerged from the war with an economy strengthened by war-impelled industry and modernization. The Civil War changed women from housewives to nurses, teacher, factory workers, farmers and clerks. Reconstruction and the South (1863-1877). Lincoln’s lenient Reconstruction plans for the South were contrary to the Radical Republicans’ objective of imposing harsh penalties on the Confederacy and granting full rights to the Blacks. After Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, Andrew Jackson continued Lincoln’s conciliatory approach, pardoning White Southerners, who formed their own governments and passed the ‘Black Code’ limiting the Black’s legal and economic rights. When the Republicans’ gained control of the Congress in the election of 1866, they enacted the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Fifteenth Amendment of 1869, guaranteeing the Blacks civil rights and suffrage. The Reconstruction Act of 1867 placed the South under temporary military rule and launched the period of Congressional or Radical Reconstruction, which lasted until 1877, under President Grant. Slave marriages were registered and legalized, independent black churches and public schools were established and blacks given a genuine share in political power: sixteen blacks served in Congress. Wage labor became the norm in sugar plantations, while cotton and tobacco plantations saw the emergence of share cropping, by which individual plots of land were rented by black families, who kept about half the crop for themselves, giving the remainder to the landowners. The Black laborers remained poor. The Ku Klux Klan, founded in 1866, violently targeted freedmen, black churches and schools and Republican leaders, until it was crushed by federal marshals in 1871. Ambitious plans for the Southern expansion of railroads and industry did not succeed due to lack of investors. Mounting Southern violence and erosion of Northern commitment, mainly due to reports of corruption, rising taxes and the economic depression, slowed Reconstruction. When the controversial election results led to the Compromise of 1877, by which the Republican Rutherford Hayes became President, but the Democrats were given control of the Southern States and federal intervention was ended, Reconstruction came to a halt and White supremacy and racial segregation became the norm (Foner E. and Mahoney O. Web site). The Nation put behind it the Civil War: it was ready to move on. Works Cited. Drummond, Henry and Elly. Web site. United States Civil War. 3 April 2007. < http://www.us-civilwar.com > Foner, Eric and Olivia Mahoney. 2007. America’s Reconstruction. People and Politics after the Civil War. Digital History Web site. 3 April 2007. < http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/reconstruction/index.html > National Archives and Records Administration Web site 30 September, 1998. American Originals. Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877). 3 April 2007. < http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/civilwar.html#brown > Read More