Disunion! Civil War is Proclaimed! (1 Viewer)

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Uniforms is the topic of the day! As the article notes, in the beginning of the War uniform were far from -- uniform -- and reflected not just different aesthetic choices but idealogical differences.

The articles notes the atypical uniforms such as those worn by the 79th NY Volunteer Infantry and the Washington Artillery, a New Orleans militia batallion originally formed in 1838.


Garibaldi Guard Parading Past President Lincoln

However, the author notes that as the War progressed uniforms became standardized and the notion that war was a great adventure was replaced by something "far more grim and industrialized, fought not by individuals but by monolithic forces of blue and gray."

The article can be accessed here.

 

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June 17, 1861. Rejecting the vote by the voters of Tennessee for secession, East Tennessee Unionists meet in Knoxville. One faction, led by Thomas Nelson, rejected the vote of the rest of the State and charged vote fraud. A moderate wing led by Oiver Temple, concerned that the Nelson position would precipitate civil war with the Confederates denounced the General Assembly's position for secession but petitioned the General Assembly for separate statehood.

The General Assembly rejected the petition and the East Tennesse Unionists and the Secessionists prepared themselves for war.


East Tennesse Guerillas Declaring Themselves for the Union

The article can be accessed here.

 

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Major Robert Anderson of Fort Sumter fame is well known but what of Joseph Reid Anderson.


Joseph Reid Anderson in his uniform

As pointed out in this article, Joseph Reid Anderson was the head of the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia, the man who came to be known as the "Ironmaker of the Confederacy." Tredegar produced over 1,000 cannons during the Civil War, along with other munitions and railroad supplies.


Tredegar Iron Works

Anderson was a dedicated Confederate man but the article recounts how he had to reconcile his principles with the need to maintain Tredegar on a solid financial footing.

The article can be accessed here.

 

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June 20, 1861. The body of Major Theodore Winthrop of General Benjamin Butler's staff, late of the NY Seventh Regiment, who was killed in the Battle of Bethel while trying to rally his men, is buried.

Winthrop was a shy, diffident young man, a member of Greenwich Village's literary and artistic set, who in the late 1840s and 1850s found great adventure: he traveled Europe during the 1848 revolutions, crossed Puget Sound in canoe, and fended off hostile Indians with a six-shooter.


Theodore Winthrop (standing)

It was in the Civil War that he started to find his metre and started writing dispatches for the Atlantic Monthly. His third war dispatch would never be completed.

The article can be accessed here.

 

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In today's edition, "The Color of Money," an analysis of the Southern economy at the outbreak of war in 1861. In June 1861, a caricaturist in Harpers Weekly depicts a mockup of the half dollar of the "Centrifugal States of America."


New Coin for the CSA, Harper's Weekly, June 22, 1861

Among other things, the coin shows the twin bulwarks of the Confederacy: King Cotton and slaves, strengths that would prove to be weaknesses -- fatal weaknesses.

Reliance on a single crop proved to dangerous as the Union blockade became more effective than once thought. In additon, the value of the single largest asset in the United States -- the ownership of Slaves ($4 billion in 1860) -- plummeted almost immediately.

Thus, almost as soon as the War began, a large amount of the Confederacy's net assets evaporated.

The article can be accessed here

 

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June 1861. George Perkins Marsh, the new and first minister from the United States to the newly unified Kingdom of Italy. Marsh's job was to build an alliance with Italy that could serve the United States' war objectives, an important role considering that both France and England had only recently declared themselves neutral in the Civil War.



Things did not look initially promising. The first Prime Minister of Italy, Camillo Benso di Cavour, following the attack on Fort Sumter, said that he did not see how re-union was possible. However, by the time Marsh arrived, Cavour was dead and his successor reassured Marsh of Italy's sympathies for the United States.

Marsh apparently succeeded for he remained minister to Italy until 1882, when he passed away.

The article can be accessed here.

 

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A brief but well written account of two products of the Maryland Eastern Shore, Harriet Tubman (known as Moses in the African-American underground network and called General Tubman by John Brown) and Frederick Douglass, who really needs no introduction. They both travelled different roads to freedom.


Harriet Tubman later in life



The article can be accessed here.

 

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Up until the outbreak of the Civil War, the Underground Railroad had been a clandestine matter and slaves who were caught were liable to be sent back to their masters under the Fugitive Slave Act.


Effects of the Fugitive Slave Law 1850

However, by June 1863, the Railroad was hardly underground. By late May 1863, for example, more than 100 escapees had arrived in Harrisburg, Pa over the course of a couple of days (compared to just 800 in the previous decade). Moreover, few attempts were made to arrest runaways.

Many of the escaped slaves understood what would take whites a little longer to understand: that the War might turn into a struggle for freedom, not just union. Even in the deep South, slaves were apparently restive.

A revolution was also taking place in the minds of white who had long opposed abolitionism, some because it might split the Union. However, why thought some worry about splitting the Union when it was already split?

The article can be accessed here.

 

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In the summer of 1861, the port city of Savannah reflected the changes that were affecting many parts of Southern society as the Confederacy organized its government.


Orleans Park

In 1861, it was a very prosperous, cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse city. Every year hundreds of Northeners came south to work the docks. Enslaved workers, many of whom were skilled, were integrated into the economy. Wealthy men dominated politics and business.

However, with the onset of the War things started to change: the Northern workers were sent home, and African Americans took advantage of the upheavals taking place, by running away or seeking to profit materially from their masters' predicaments. Whites began to complain about African American seeking out wages and profits.

Simultaneously, cracks developed among Whites economically.

A war designed to safeguard slavery and tradition was having the opposite effect.

This article by a Professor of History at the University of Texas, Jacqueline Jones, who has written the book "Saving Savannah: the City and the Civil War, 1854-1872," can be accessed here.

 

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June 30, 1861. The Sumter, a Confederate ship manned by Captain Raphael Semmes, slips out the easternmost channel of New Orleans, evades a chase by a Union sloop-of-war and heads into the Caribbean. So began the commerce raiders on Union ships in the Atlantic, with the hopes of disrupting Union shipping. Over the next four years 110,000 tons of shipping would be sunk.


The Sumter avoiding Union ships at New Orleans

The Sumter survived until March 1862 or thereabouts when it was abandoned. Semmes would enjoy greater success with the Alabama.

The article can be accessed here.

 

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July 2, 1862. The Union ship South Carolina appears off Galveston, a main center for cotton exports to Europe. The South Carolina was there as part of the Anaconda strategy: to strangle the South by cutting off its waterways.


Port of Galveston before the Civil War

However, despite some initital successes this would prove to be difficult for Union ships due to many obstacles such as the world's largest barrier island, shallow bays and hundreds of miles of hot and dry cactus country that separated almost any landing beach fom a valuable target.

The article can be accessed here.

 

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As Union soldiers went off to war, the popular symbol urging them to do so in cartoons and speeches was "Columbia." Columbia was Britain's response to Britannia. By the 1850s Columbia was the symbol of the United States and often appeared with other popular symbols of that era such as "Brother Jonathan," not well known to most of us today. Brother Jonathan's attributes were later incorporated in the symbol of the United States used today, Uncle Sam. Columbia was not just used by the Union but also used by the Confederacy.


"The Spirit of 1861. God, Our Country and Liberty." Currier and Ives print, 1861.

The article can be accessed here.

For a slide show depicting Columbia in political cartoons up through the Civil War, please go here.

 

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July 4, 1861. President Lincoln calls Congress back into special session to approve the measures he took during their recess (ordering a naval blockade of Southern ports and calling for 75,000 volunteers).


Lincoln rallying troops to war, 1861

Lincoln sent the Congress a Message to be read at the Special Session (Presidents then did not read their addresses to Congress; instead they were read aloud by clerks to the Congress).

Not only was the Message intended to provide the basis for approving the steps he had taken but it was a call rallying the people of the United States to action, a call for a "struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the conditions of men -- to life artificial weights from all shoulders -- to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance in the race of life."

As a side note we can see the seeds of the Gettysburg Address. In discussing the issue presented by the attack on Fort Sumter ("immediate dissolution or blood"), Lincoln said thusly:

"And this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man, the question, whether a constitutional republic, or a democracy -- a government of the people, by the same people -- can, or cannot maintain its territorial integrity, against its own domestic foes."​

The article can be accessed here.

 

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Interesting article about soldiers in the respective armies bringing their pets with them or adopting strays and how they took on a semi-official role such as a bald eagle named Old Abe bald eagle named Old Abe who belonged to Company C of the Eighth Wisconsin Regiment.


Old Abe stands with the Eighth Wisconsin color guard at Big Black River Bridge, Mississippi, after the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863.

The article can be accessed here.

 

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The role of evangelical Christianity has not been sufficiently studied in the rise to power of the Republican Party in the mid 1850s. This is an article by Professor David Goldfield of the University of North Carolina Charlotte and is excerpted from the author's book "America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation."

The author's position is that evangelical Christianity in the wake of the Second Great Awakening that convulsed the United States in the 1830s and 1840s brought a messianic zeal to the question of the extension of slavery into Kansas and Nebraska. The Republican's position on slavery was influenced by the belief that the USA was God's Chosen Nation but before His Blessing could be fulfilled the nation had to be cleansed of its sins and slavery was one of those sins.


Lincoln Debating Douglas in 1858.

Evangelical politics exacerbated the political feelings of the time and led to the Civil War.

His book is part of the continuing debate between historians that has gone on for many years whether the war was avoidable vs. unavoidable (i.e., the irrepressible conflict).

His book is recommended.

This very interesting article can be accessed here.

 

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July 1861. The U.S. Capitol was a mess. Before Congress was called back into session on July 4, the building was empty and it was taken over by the Army, becoming a barracks. The architect in charge, Thomas Walter, took on the job of turning it into a Capitol and when he left in 1864, the job would be all but finished.


Union Soldiers in front of the Capitol, 1861.

The article can be accessed here.

 

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In July 1861 President Lincoln had a problem. It's one thing to have a war to fight but quite another to pay for it. Lincoln gave this unenviable job to Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio.


Secretary Salmon P. Chase

As the Civil War began, the country's finances were a mess; a deficit had been run every year since 1857 and revenues from its source of income had decreased.

On July 17, 1861, Congress passed passed the first of Chase’s proposals. It enabled the Treasury to borrow as much as $250 million for the war effort by issuing demand bonds and notes, which could be purchased by anyone. There were bonds that matured in 20 years, interest-bearing Treasury notes payable in three years and notes that bore no interest but were payable on demand. These “Demand Notes” could be exchanged for coin at any time at one of the Treasury’s branches around the country. They came in small denominations like five, 10 and 20, which meant they could circulate as money.

These Demand Notes revolutionized the country's economy and lay the groundwork for the modern dollar. The bills we have in our wallets and purses today are the legacy of those war measures.

The full article can be accessed here.

 

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When the 12th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry left Boston on July 18, 1861 after an official review and marched back to their fort they broke into a song that would soon become famous throughout the land, "John Brown's Body." It eventually become the U.S. Army's most beloved anthem.


An early song sheet for “John Brown’s Original Marching Song”

However, what did the song mean? As this article notes, it could mean different things to different people, from abolitionism to a call for freedom for African Americans to a ralling cry against the rebellion.

Following the War, those interested in reconciliation chose to ignore the song, while those who wanted the reunited United States not to forget what the Civil War was fought for sang the song and sang it with gusto.

However, as the authors of the article note, "for as the 19th century closed and the nation’s racial animosities hardened, Americans who struggled to achieve justice for both whites and blacks surely appreciated that it would take more than a song, no matter how powerful or popular, to ensure that John Brown’s soul marched on."

The article can be accessed here.

 

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Several articles on the Battle of Bull Run can be accessed here.

 

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What kind of a man who has a good business with studios in the top two cities in 1861, with many wealthy clients and a man who would take photographs of several U.S. presidents (including aspiring politicians like one Abraham Lincoln of Illinois), decides he is going to give all that up and decide to do everything to photograph the Civil War, to capture it with the All Seeing Eye, the camera?


Mathew Brady, after he returned from the First Battle of Bull Run, on July 22, 1861.

Matthew Brady, that's who. Ultimately it would exhaust all of Brady's resources and leave him bankrupt but result in an amazing photographic archive. Brady, the father of war photography, who decided that that he would do all he could do to "candidly capture war through the uncomprising lens of his camera. For centuries, painters had presented war a certain way: glorifying generals, showing endless expanses of perfectly formed armies, recording the single heroic gesture that altered the course of battle. Even with the American Revolution, our mind’s eye forms a few select images — Lexington Green, Washington crossing the Delaware, the founders deliberating in Philadelphia. After Brady, war would be defined in a new way, more honestly, through the ordinary faces of the people doing the fighting, staring back at Brady as he stared at them."

As the War progressed, Matthew Brady would eventually organize a team of photographers and assign them to different theatres. By August 1862 he had 35 bases of operation and the results are amazing, even today. As the author of this piece notes "the Civil War remains vivid in our visual understanding because it was so well photographed. Thousands of soldiers stood before the camera on their way to serve. Many were photographed in death, including a solemn series of photographs Brady exhibited in New York just after the battle of Antietam."

Brady spent in excess of $100,000 of his own money to create this archive and he would never recoup this money. Eventually, the U.S. government in 1875 purchased most of it for $25,000.

The article can be accessed here.