There is a period in the history of the United States that they are trying to either forget about or distort its events as much as possible in order to please the current conjuncture. We are talking about the civil war in the United States, about what preceded it, what caused it, and what chance was missed by America, and the whole world in 1861-1865.
Yankee poster
Residents of the United States are often disparagingly referred to as "Yankees". But it is worth noting that this so-called slang nickname applies only to white natives of the American North! In the South of the United States of America, representatives of another branch of the white American people, or even a separate nation, live. These are the so-called “johnnies” or “dixies”, that is, southerners, the descendants of the population of an independent state of the Confederate States of America.
If you now ask anyone more or less versed in the history of the United States in 1861-1865, you can hear a completely stereotyped answer: there was a civil war to abolish slavery. And this is how they will answer not only in the countries of the former USSR, but also in most countries of the world. In general, everywhere except the American South itself, where the truth is still remembered.
background
The idea of US independence was born in the South. The natives of the most populous southern state of Virginia were the ideologist of this very independence, Benjamin Franklin, and the author of the American constitution, Thomas Jefferson. After the independence of the United States, it was the southerners - johnnies that formed the backbone of the American political, economic and cultural elite of the United States.
But by the 30s of the XIX century, the situation began to change dramatically. The American southern states are located in a subtropical climate, where it is possible to grow crops almost all year round, and first of all, cotton, tobacco and sugar cane, which were super-profitable by the standards of that time. Therefore, every inch of free land was put into action. The absence of free land in the South practically stopped the influx of emigrants and forced the population to intensify their own agricultural economy. In the South, advanced agricultural technology, the production of agricultural machinery and fertilizers flourished.
Johnny poster The South was also distinguished by a peculiar ethno-religious process. Johnny was based on people from England, who did not break the connection with the traditional Anglican Church, they were also diluted by emigrants from France and Spain, bringing their customs and habits into the formation of the Johnny mentality, which was characterized by openness, sincerity, morality, hospitality. There were also negative traits, such as excessive arrogance and fatalism.
Despite the established cliché, the North was absolutely not an industrial region, but lived mainly due to the same as the South, that is, through the sale of raw materials, primarily wood and furs. And since the forest does not grow like cotton, this forced the northern Yankees to engage in extensive farming, capturing more and more new territories. In addition, the flow of emigrants to the North increased. There were weeks when 15,000 seekers of happiness arrived in New York alone. Most of them had nothing but hope.
The basis of the emigrants were Germans, Dutch and British, who were not only Anglicans, but also Lutherans, or even belonged to extreme Protestant sects. The leitmotif of their creeds was that wealth is a sign of divine grace, that Americans are God's chosen people, compared to whom all others are nothing. As a result of the dominance of such a worldview, an image of a typical Yankee has developed - energetic, unprincipled, impudent, aimed primarily at personal enrichment and convinced of his absolute rightness, no matter what he does. It is clear that it became more and more difficult for two such types as Yankees and Johnny to get along in one country.
notorious slavery
Slavery took place throughout the United States, not just the South. Just the absence of plantations in the North meant that there were few slaves there, they were used mainly as domestic servants and the fact of slavery was not as conspicuous as in the South. Slavery was abolished in the North only at the end of 1865, after the end of the war and the death of Lincoln. True, laws were passed in the North, according to which a slave from one state, who ended up in the territory of another, automatically became free. That is why slaves from the South often fled to the North.
Back in 1808, the slave trade in the United States was banned, slaves were no longer imported from Africa, they were reproduced only in a natural way. This, in turn, pushed up the price of “black property” dramatically, which cost, for example, more than a horse. A slave was an expensive acquisition, which was not “spoiled” without special need. Therefore, the cruelty associated with the concept of "slavery" (shackles, whips, branding) for the American South was the exception rather than the rule. On small farms, slaves worked together with their masters; on large plantations, slaves were driven to work not so much by physical influence as by a system of incentives, including monetary ones.
In addition, in the South, a process that can be called “derabovolization” was in full swing, an increasing number of blacks received personal freedom from the hands of their masters, who also leased land to them. Thus, the process of integration of the black population into the social structure of the South proceeded gently. Moreover, a free black in the South received a significant part of the rights of a white man. He was a legal entity, could buy and sell property (including slaves), hold positions, and so on. It is no coincidence that when the war broke out between the North and the South, about 40 thousand Negroes volunteered for the army of the Southern Confederation. Many of them became officers, all black soldiers received pay similar to that received by whites.
Society in the South was slave-owning but not racist, while segregation flourished in the North. There was not a single black officer in the army of the northerners; black soldiers served in separate units, while they were paid less than their white colleagues.
Before the storm
The established bourgeoisie of the North had long been thinking about how to get their hands on the wealth of the South. But this did not work out while representatives of johnny were in power in the United States. Recall that in the United States there is no direct presidential election. The head of state is chosen by the so-called electors, several representatives from each state based on the results of voting in the state. The Yankees came up with a multi-way combination, the essence of which was to first provoke a war with Mexico, which the Americans brilliantly won by taking 45% of its territory from Mexico, and began to cut into new states here, where flows of settlers rushed from the oversaturated emigrants of the North. Naturally, most of them voted for the Yankee presidential candidate. And as a state votes, so do its electors. Thus the number of Yankee electors grew, while the number of Johnny electors remained the same. This tactic led to Yankee President Abraham Lincoln coming to power in 1860 for the first time in decades. This did not bode well for Southerners, as Lincoln intended to raise taxes on them, prohibit direct sales of cotton to foreign consumers, and impose a number of other economic sanctions. All this threatened a serious blow to the economy of the South. Therefore, the southern states, in accordance with the then constitution, began the process of secession (secession). Eleven states announced their withdrawal from the United States (South and North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas and Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi), which announced the creation of a new sovereign state of the Confederate States of America (CSA).
At the beginning of 1861, this state acquired all the attributes of independence: a constitution, an anthem, a flag, the President of the Confederation, Jefferson Davis, was elected. CSA as an independent state was recognized by France, England, Spain and Mexico.
Thunderstorm
Johnny troops were leaving units in the North and returning to the South. The Yankees were returning to the North. Everything went on sedately and peacefully until the United States announced that Fort Moultrie, which stood on an island off the coast of South Carolina, was their territory. The southerners agreed, but suspended food supplies, after all, they are not obliged to feed foreigners! But the northerners did not bring food either. Completely starving soldiers - 84 people - led by their commander Robert Anderson, suddenly attacked the coastal Fort Sumter and began to destroy food supplies. In order to prevent uninvited guests from getting provisions, the southerners shot at warehouses from artillery guns and demanded in an ultimatum form that the Yankees get out. During the shelling of the warehouses, not a single Yankee was wounded, but leaving the fort, the northerners decided to finally solemnly lower their Stars and Stripes flag and fired a salute on this occasion. One of the guns exploded, and gunner Daniel Howe, who was standing nearby, was killed. This episode was presented to the population under such a sauce: "the rebels (in the sense of the southerners) attacked our (!!!) fort, the victims are incalculable." In the wake of the indignation that swept the North, Abraham Lincoln ordered his troops to commit an act of aggression against the independent state of the KSA.
At the beginning of the campaign, in 1861-1863, the northerners were unlucky, the southerners bravely defended their sovereignty and smashed the troops of the occupying Yankees. It was then, in 1863, that Lincoln adopted the so-called "Declaration of Emancipation", according to which freedom was granted to slaves living in the KSA. In the North, as well as in the territories of the South, occupied by the troops of the northerners, the former position of slaves was preserved. By his decree, Lincoln pursued two goals: to sow chaos behind enemy lines, since the slaves were the main labor force in the rear of the southerners, and to justify aggression against the Confederacy to the world community by fighting slavery.
If the first task was partially solved, since many slaves found out about their liberation only after the end of the war, then the second goal was achieved by 100%. In this war, all "advanced mankind" began to "cheer" for the northerners.
Results
In 1865, the North completely defeated the johnny at the expense of inexhaustible human resources supplied by powerful emigration. Having filled up with the corpses of enemies not only the battlefields, but also cities and villages, the Yankees stopped the movement of the South to independence. The war for the ideals of northern capitalism cost the country 650,000 lives. The losses are huge, considering that the total population of the United States in 1861 was 31 million people, of which 5 million were Negro slaves. Entire states were set on fire and destroyed, as happened with the states of Georgia, both Carolinas and Louisiana during the raid on them by the army of northerners led by General Sherman. It was the civil war between the North and the South that went down in history as the bloodiest war of the 19th century, surpassing even the Napoleonic wars in terms of the annual number of casualties.
Slaves, having received freedom, were not integrated into society in any way, and many of them were on the verge of starvation. In order to survive, some of them went to large cities, becoming a cheap and disenfranchised labor force. Others began to stray into gangs and terrorize the local white population, which in response began to gather at night in detachments of the “invisible empire” (Ku Klux Klan) for protection at night. The region, which did not know before this serious racial hostility, blazed with clan crosses and robbed houses of white residents. Blacks didn't get rights, and white johnnies lost them. Until 1877, the South lived as an occupied territory: with an appointed administration and lack of rights in front of it of the local population.
The vital foreign policy principles of the Yankees won. Having conquered the South, the United States more actively took up Latin America, and then the whole world. But if Johnny had won, perhaps on the territory of the modern USA there would have existed two states, the USA (North) and CSA (South), each reminiscent of neighboring Canada or Australia, and for the inhabitants of these countries, the issue of fluctuations in the world price of cotton and grain than the number of army bases abroad and nuclear warheads in storage. A militaristic nightmare called "George Bush" would be impossible in principle.
P.S. In 2000, on the territory of the states that were part of the CSA, a large organization "League of the South" was created, which aims to awaken the national identity of the "johnny" and renew the independence of the Confederation.
The Civil War of 1861-1865 was the bloodiest military conflict in the history of the United States of America. The losses of both sides in killed exceeded 625 thousand people, over 400 thousand were wounded. The consequence of the Civil War was a radical change in the face of the state.
As befits an event of this magnitude, the American Civil War is surrounded by many myths, both in America and abroad.
1. The reason for the war was the issue of the emancipation of black slaves
The most common and enduring myth depicts northerners as supporters of progress, and southerners as ruthless exploiters.
This is completely untrue. Few people know that four slave states remained on the side of the North - Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland.
The real causes of the conflict lay in the economic sphere. For example, the parties had radically different approaches to the issue of taxes on imported goods - the industrialized North advocated the introduction of high taxes, while the South sought freedom of trade with the rest of the world. In fact, the northerners pushed through laws that were beneficial to them, and shifted the cost of industrialization onto the shoulders of the southerners, who were threatened with ruin by such a policy.
New US President Abraham Lincoln, elected in 1860, declared that all new states in the country would be free from slavery. Such a prospect promised a steady predominance of northerners in Congress and in power structures, which would allow them to pass any laws convenient for them without taking into account the opinion of the South.
This is what prompted the southerners to take active steps to protect their own interests.
2. Southern states seceded from the United States, committed a rebellion
President Abraham Lincoln called his opponents rebels, but at the same time he deliberately distorted reality.
The US Constitution did not prohibit the secession of individual states, although there was no permission to do so. Secession (that is, separation) took place in compliance with all formalities. Each state elected representatives to the state constitutional council who voted for or against secession. Based on the results of the voting, a “Decree on Secession” was issued.
Confederate government, left to right: Benjamin, Judah Philip, Stephen Mallory, Christopher Memminger, Alexander Stevens, Leroy Pope Walker, Jefferson Davis, John Henninger Regan, and Robert Toombs. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
On February 4, 1861, the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America opened, at which 6 states announced the formation of a new state - the Confederate States of America. On March 11, the Congress adopted the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, which replaced the previous Provisional Constitution.
Subsequently, the number of member states of the Confederation reached 11.
3. During the war, the South sought to extend slavery to the entire territory of the United States
As mentioned above, the South separated from the North and formed a separate state - the southerners had no plans to impose their will on the northerners. The struggle was for the "oscillating" states, where there was no predominance of one of the parties.
Officers of the 69th New York Infantry Regiment with Colonel Michael Corcoran, Fort Corcoran, Virginia. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
4. President Abraham Lincoln advocated the abolition of slavery throughout the United States from the beginning of the war.
The notion of Lincoln as a radical abolitionist is greatly exaggerated. Here are the words of Lincoln himself: “My main task in this struggle is to save the Union, and not to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing a single slave, I would do it, and if I had to free all the slaves to save it, I would do it too.
As for Lincoln's views on blacks, they looked like this: “I have never advocated and will not be for the social and political equality of two races - black and white, I have never supported the point of view that blacks get the right to vote, sit on a jury or held some office or married whites ... I will add that there is a physical difference between the white and black races ... and like any person, I am in favor of the white race occupying a dominant position.
The image of Lincoln as a great humanist was created by propaganda. In fact, Lincoln fought for the interests of the industrialists of the North and for the preservation of a unified state. The abolition of slavery became just one of the methods in the fight against the South.
Antietam, Maryland, President Lincoln on the battlefield. Photographer Alexander Gardner, October 1862. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
5. Opponents of slavery fought on the side of the North, its supporters fought on the side of the South
The most famous commander of the army of the North General Ulysses Grant was a slave owner. His slaves were not freed until the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery went into effect in 1865. When asked why he did not free the slaves himself, Grant replied: "Good help in the household is hard to find these days."
His main opponent, Commander of the Army of the South General Robert Lee, was an opponent of slavery and did not have slaves by the beginning of the Civil War. were not slave owners Southern Generals Joseph Johnston, Ambrose Hill, Fitzhew Lee and Jeb Stewart. Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis wrote that slavery in the South would "come to naught" regardless of the outcome of the war.
As veterans of the Army of the South wrote, they fought not for the preservation of slavery, but for "the preservation of our supreme and sacred right to self-government."
6. Black Americans fought only in the ranks of the army of the North
In the Confederate army, black Americans fought from the very beginning of the conflict, but, unlike the North, they were not united into consolidated regiments.
There is nothing surprising in this, since in the territory of the southern states, according to the 1860 census, there were at least 240 thousand free black citizens. About 65 thousand blacks fought with weapons in their hands on the side of the Confederation. In 1865, on the eve of the defeat, a decision was officially made in the South allowing the recruitment of black slaves into the army. It was even supposed to form a 300,000-strong Negro army, but these plans were not implemented.
Meanwhile, in the militias of individual states of the South, subordinate to the governor of the state, and not to the central government, slaves began to serve almost from the moment the Civil War began. The units of the Confederate army were often international in composition: for example, whites, blacks, Hispanics and Indians fought together in the 34th cavalry regiment.
Tennessee, 1864 Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
7. The victory of the North brought freedom to black people in the USA.
Indeed, the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, enacted in 1865, abolished slavery throughout the country. But the abolition of slavery gave blacks only personal freedom. There will be no question of giving them equal rights with the white population for many more decades.
Moreover, after the liberation of yesterday's slaves, the former owners drove them out of their lands, depriving them of all personal property. There was no violation in these actions, from the point of view of American laws.
At best, free blacks could go to work for their yesterday's masters. If this failed, then they were doomed to wander around the country in search of work. At the same time, a law was introduced in the United States prohibiting vagrancy.
As a result, this logically resulted in rampant "black crime", which, in turn, led to the creation of the racist organization Ku Klux Klan and numerous "lynchings" of blacks, which were the norm of American life until the middle of the 20th century.
The US CIVIL WAR of 1861-65 was the result of an acute conflict between the northern and southern states over the slavery of blacks. During the American Revolutionary War of 1775-83, slavery was abolished in the northern states of the United States. The leaders of the war for independence believed that it would gradually die out throughout the country due to its growing unprofitability. However, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, planters from the southern states switched from the production of unprofitable tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, the demand for which in the world market was rapidly increasing. The invention of the cotton gin during this period in the United States increased the profitability of cotton growing tenfold. The planters sought to take over as much free land as possible in the Western United States and involve them in their economic system. Their interests clashed with the interests of the northern states, which also claimed the western territories, but with the aim of developing free farms and capitalist entrepreneurship there.
In 1820, the free and slave states reached an agreement that, north of 36 ° 30 'north latitude, farms in which the labor of black slaves would not be created. This agreement was held until the late 1840s, when the question arose of whether slavery could be allowed in the territories conquered from Mexico in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. In 1854, in connection with the desire of southerners to legalize slavery in Kansas and Nebraska, located north of the conditional border, the conflict between supporters and opponents of slavery escalated, and the first armed clashes took place. In the same year, opponents of the expansion of slavery to new US states created the Republican Party of the USA. The radical minority of the party, speaking under the slogans of abolitionism, demanded the elimination of the institution of slavery throughout the United States as incompatible with fundamental national values.
In 1860, the leader of the Republicans, A. Lincoln, won the presidential election. The leadership of the slave states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana declared that the political program of the new administration was unacceptable to him and on February 4, 1861, a month before Lincoln assumed the presidency, announced his secession from the United States and the creation of his own state - Confederate States of America (CSA; Confederation). A wealthy planter, former Mississippi Senator, Secretary of Defense J. Davis was elected president, and former Georgia Senator A. Stevens was elected vice president. On February 18, 1861, they were sworn in. Stevens outlined the creed of the rebellious states: "The cornerstone of our state is that great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man, and that slavery—submission to a superior race—is his natural and normal state." On March 2, 1861, the state of Texas joined the CSA.
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Entering the presidency on 03/04/1861, A. Lincoln declared that he considers it his top priority to restore the unity of the United States, and postpones all reforms, including the prohibition of slavery in new territories, indefinitely. Lincoln's conciliatory stance did not affect Southerners. On April 12, 1861, Confederate troops attacked and captured Fort Sumter in South Carolina (this date is considered the beginning of the American Civil War). Lincoln declared the South in a state of rebellion and began recruiting 75,000 volunteers for the federal army (subsequently, conscription was introduced in the northern states). In response, 4 more southern states joined the CSA - Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina. The states of Kentucky and Missouri formed two governments each. The territories of Arizona and New Mexico, which did not have the status of states, announced their entry into the CSA. Several Indian tribes came over to their side. In 1861, 100,000 men were drafted into the Confederate Army. It was led by General R. E. Lee. In total, 2.7 million people were drafted into the army of the North during the war, and 1.1 million people were drafted into the army of the South.
During the years of the Civil War in the United States, military operations were conducted on a vast territory bounded on the north and west by the Potomac, Ohio, and Missouri rivers, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the south by the Gulf of Mexico. The northern states (population 22 million) were covered with a dense network of railroads and had a developed industry (almost the entire metallurgical, textile and arms industry of the United States was concentrated in them). About 9 million people lived in the southern states, including 4 million black slaves. The South did not have the necessary economic base to wage a long war.
The war plan of the slave owners of the South was adventurous in nature and was calculated on the use of surprise and help from Great Britain and France. It was supposed to quickly seize a number of states, strike at Washington and force the federal government to accept the conditions of the leadership of the Confederation. The strategic plan of the northerners was passive-defensive (see "Anaconda").
At the 1st stage of the war (1861-62), the only goal of A. Lincoln and his supporters was to restore the unity of the United States; the question of the elimination of the institution of slavery and the fate of the western territories was not raised. For a year and a half, the federal troops were mostly defeated in clashes with the forces of the CSA. Already in the first serious battle at Manassas (or Bull Run), near Washington, on July 21, 1861, the northerners were defeated by the southerners. They suffered two defeats in an attempt to capture the capital of the southern states - Richmond (in the battles of 26.6-2.7.1862 on the Chicahomini River and 11-13.12.1862 at Fredericksburg). However, the attempts of the southerners to seize Washington ended in failure. On September 16-17, 1862, they failed to defeat the federal army in the Battle of Antietam and were forced to withdraw across the Potomac River. In the west and south, Northern troops under the command of Generals W. S. Grant and B. Butler, supported by the squadron of Admiral D. G. Farragut, occupied Memphis, Corinth and New Orleans. The northerners blocked the ports of the southern states with their fleet, thereby depriving them of communication with Great Britain and France. The actions of the cruisers of the southerners ("Alabama", etc.) caused significant damage to the merchant fleet of the northerners, but did not have a serious impact on the course of the war.
Under the influence of military failures, A. Lincoln and his supporters carried out a number of measures that gave the methods of conducting a civil war a revolutionary character. In 1862, a law was passed on the confiscation of property of rebels and the death penalty was introduced for treason against the United States. On May 20, 1862, the federal government issued the Homestead Act, which actually introduced a ban on the spread of slavery to new territories and contributed to the establishment of a farmer's way of developing agriculture in them. The Homestead Act provided the Lincoln administration with the support of the general population of the United States. On January 1, 1863, the “Proclamation on the Emancipation of Slaves” prepared by the federal government came into force in the states included in the CSA (slaves were freed without redemption, but also without land; in the slave-owning states that remained loyal to the US government, slavery was preserved).
In 1863, a new stage of the war began, which was characterized by important changes in the political life of the country, in the strategy and tactics of the federal army, which received significant replenishment: 186,000 blacks joined the fighting units of the northerners (72% of them came from the southern states); 250 thousand blacks served in the rear units.
Although the troops of the northerners were defeated at Chancellorsville on May 2-4, 1863, a turning point occurred in the war. Of particular importance was the battle between the federal army under the command of General J. Meade and the southerners at Gettysburg (Pennsylvania) 1-3.7.1863, in which the southerners suffered a crushing defeat. Success was achieved by northerners in the Mississippi River basin, where the army of US Grant besieged and forced the surrender of the fortress of Vicksburg on 4/7/1863. As a result of this victory, the entire line of the Mississippi was in the hands of the northerners, the territory of the Confederation was divided into 2 parts. In 1863, the international positions of A. Lincoln's government also strengthened. This was largely facilitated by the policy of Russia, which was interested in the existence of a united United States, opposing Great Britain and France, which at that time were its main rivals. The arrival in September - October 1863 of two Russian squadrons (in New York and San Francisco) was perceived in the United States and in Western European countries as a friendly demonstration against the Lincoln government.
The fighting of the northerners from March 1864, after the appointment of US Grant as commander-in-chief of the federal armed forces, was decisive.
On September 19-20, 1864, a new defeat was inflicted on the army of the southerners at Winchester. Of great importance was the "march to the sea", carried out by the army of northerners under the command of General W. T. Sherman. On September 2, 1864, she occupied Atlanta, and on December 21 - Savannah, reaching the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.
In the fall of 1864, A. Lincoln won a new victory in the presidential election. By this time, the outcome of the American Civil War was virtually a foregone conclusion. Republicans took the success in the presidential election as a mandate to completely abolish black slavery in the United States. In January 1865, Congress considered and approved the 13th amendment to the Constitution, which completely banned slavery in the country. The position of the Republicans on the issue of the future fate of former slaves has also changed. The US government abandoned plans to export blacks to Africa and Latin America and agreed that former slaves, who fought for their liberation with weapons in their hands, were worthy of American citizenship.
The political successes of Lincoln and the Republicans were reinforced by the final military victories. In January - March 1865, the federal army occupied South and North Carolina - the main stronghold of the rebels. On April 3, 1865, the capital of the CSA, Richmond, fell. On April 9, 1865, the Confederate army under the command of R. E. Lee was surrounded at Appomattox and capitulated. On April 26, 1865, the army, commanded by General J. E. Johnston, surrendered. The remaining troops of the southerners ceased resistance by 2/6/1865. The war ended with the complete defeat of the Confederacy. The victory of the northerners was overshadowed by the tragic death of A. Lincoln (15.4.1865).
The Civil War of 1861-65 was the bloodiest in US history. The losses of the North in killed and died from wounds and diseases amounted to 360 thousand people, in the South - 258 thousand people. As a result of the war, the state unity of the United States was restored, the institution of slavery was destroyed, favorable conditions were created for the restructuring of the system of social relations in the southern states (see Reconstruction of the US South) and the development of capitalism in US agriculture along the farmer's path.
Lit. : Kuropyatnik G.P. The Second American Revolution. M., 1961; Ivanov R.F.A. Lincoln and the American Civil War. M., 1964; Sogrin VV Ideology in American History from the Founding Fathers to the End of the 20th Century. M., 1995; Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: a political, social, and military history / Ed. D.S. Heidler, J.T. heidler. N.Y., 2000 (bibl.); Sogrin VV History of the USA. SPb. et al., 2003; Blair J. E. The essential Civil War: a handbook to the battles, armies, navies and commanders. Jefferson, 2006.
From February 1861 to April 9, 1865, America was engulfed in violent conflict. The tension that began to grow after the proclamation of US independence reached its peak. The civil war that broke out was not just a war for territories, it became a huge test for the identity of the country. The economy of the plantation south, which was based on cultivation and cotton and supported by the persistence of slavery, is considered the main reason for the outbreak of the American Civil War. However, other disagreements contributed to the outbreak of armed conflict.
Multicultural north
The residents of the North lived in separate apartments and traded with merchants from all over the world. They were calm about cultural, ethnic and aesthetic diversity, which cannot be said about the inhabitants of the South. The impact of the Industrial Revolution was also more felt in the northern regions, with the construction of factories and factories producing cheaper products for the first time in many decades. There was also a social shift in the north, with the working artisans becoming the professional worker class. Some historians consider industrialization to be one of the catalysts for the war. Finally, with the advent of factories, society no longer needed slavery. The pressure of the North increased with the appearance in different regions of the United States of freedom advocates who advocated the abolition of serfdom.
southern plantation system
On the other hand, some historians say that it was the South's slave-owning agricultural economy that precipitated the conflict. Plantation owners lived off income from the land, not from investment and production. The economy of the South was constantly dependent on plantations and used heavy human labor.
Some historians blame the cotton industry for the development of slavery, ignoring the fact that slavery was introduced in the 17th century before it began. For the most part, slaves worked on tobacco and sugar plantations in Virginia. Cotton was not the main profitable crop of the South's economy until the 19th century, however, slavery continued to spread.
Compromise of 1850
The supporters of slavery wanted to expand the boundaries they had established and introduce the use of slaves in other parts of the country, while the opponents of slavery did their best to prevent these attempts. The Senate formed an Select Committee to resolve major disputes, leading to the Compromise of 1850. Compromise is a set of five provisions that establish the main directions for expansion and the main agreements.
Texas retreated from New Mexico and renounced its claim to territory north of the Missouri Compromise Line, but retained the Panhandle. The states of Utah and New Mexico received sovereignty in the matter of maintaining slavery in their territory. California was given the opportunity to join the union as a free state, and Colombia banned the slave trade on its territory while maintaining slavery.
Basically, all points of the Compromise removed the tension between the regions, except for one. The Fugitive Slave Act, passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, required all states to support the capture and return of fugitive slaves to their masters. This forced the free states to comply with the law until the Habeas Corpus Act was passed. It implied the obligation of the state authorities to help the escaped slaves. Disputes gained momentum and flared up with greater force. Some historians consider this law, along with the president's threats, to be the main cause of the civil war. However, many consider as such the election of a new president, Abraham Lincoln, with his anti-slavery views.
When Abraham Lincoln became president on November 6, 1860, the rebellious states pledged to leave the union before his official inauguration. North Carolina passed its ordinance secession on December 20, 1860. Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia supported secession and created their own constitution, calling themselves the Confederate States of America. President Buchanan and newly elected President Lincoln refused to recognize the new state, while Jefferson Davis became President of the Confederacy. The Confederate army attacked and defeated the Union army at Fort Sumter, forcing it to surrender. The civil war has begun.
Important battles
In the civil war, 8037 soldiers died from April to November 1861, and by its end it could have counted from 620 to 850 thousand victims. Many died of starvation and two-thirds of the army died from disease.
Typhoid fever, pneumonia and dysentery quickly spread through the field hospitals, while military camps starved 56,000 soldiers to death. During more than 50 battles, broken bones and deep wounds most often led to amputation, and the operations, in turn, were not sterile. The only antiseptics were chloroform and whiskey.
The Battle of Antietam was considered the bloodiest battle in the history of the war, it was a confrontation between Robert E. Lee and George McKellen. This battle was a major turning point in the course of the war.
McKellen's victory over Lee on September 17, 1862, justified Lincoln's announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, which ended Lee's northward advance.
In addition to emancipating the slaves, the proclamation prohibited Britain from supporting and recognizing the Confederacy as a separate state. Left without its staunchest ally, the Confederation began to ponder its non-existent relationship with France.
"War is a hell of a way to resolve conflict"
Entitem witnessed the bloodiest battle of the war. Another battle that deserves the attention of historians is the Battle of Appomattox, which, in their opinion, was the last great battle of the war, despite the fact that it witnessed 250 more battles after it. On the morning of April 9, 1865, the Confederate troops under General Lee found themselves surrounded by the larger army of General Grant at Appomattox. Realizing that he could not win, Lee surrendered to Grant that evening at the home of Wilmer McLean. The formal surrender ceremony took place on 12 April.
The civil war was more than simple attempts to conquer new territories. The attempts of the South to keep slavery forced the inhabitants to unite. For supporters of the abolition of serfdom, this war and its results were an even greater incentive to promote ideas about the disappearance of slavery. For southern planters, by contrast, President Lincoln was a threat to their way of life. Slave states viewed Lincoln's Republican Party as a revolutionary organization created to end slavery.
With the end of the war, new laws began to appear to eradicate slavery. Southern planters took out their resentment and resentment on former slaves and their families. Jim Crow laws prevented slaves from living free lives by depriving them of the opportunity to enjoy simple civil rights. Terrorism was on the rise with the Ku Klux Klan burning crosses and civil rights workers fighting for the right to vote.
Slavery and its expansion was the catalyst for more serious disputes over states' rights. However, its existence would have ignited more and more disagreements and disputes for many centuries without any fundamental changes. The war ended slavery, but disputes over states' rights protected them, while the practices used in other conservative states had a great impact on their socially more progressive neighbors.
April 12 marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War, also known as the North-South War.
The main reason for the Civil War (1861-1865) was the sharpest contradictions between the different socio-economic systems that existed in one state - the bourgeois north and the slave-owning south.
In 1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States. His victory became a danger signal for the slave owners of the south and led to secession - the withdrawal of the southern states from the Union. South Carolina was the first to leave the United States at the end of December 1860, followed in January 1861 by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, and in April-May - Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina. These 11 states formed the Confederate States of America (Confederation), adopted a constitution, and elected former Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis as their president.
Richmond, Virginia became the capital of the Confederation. The withdrawn states occupied 40% of the entire territory of the United States with a population of 9.1 million people, including over 3.6 million blacks. The Union was left with 23 states. The population of the northern states exceeded 22 million people, almost the entire industry of the country, 70% of the railways, 81% of bank deposits were located on its territory.
First stage of the war (1861-1962)
The fighting began on April 12, 1861 with the attack of the southerners on Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay, which, after a 34-hour shelling, was forced to surrender. In response, Lincoln declared the southern states rebellious, proclaimed a naval blockade of their coasts, drafted volunteers into the army, and later introduced conscription.
The main goal of the northerners in the war was proclaimed the preservation of the Union and the integrity of the country, the southerners - the recognition of the independence and sovereignty of the Confederation. The strategic plans of the parties were similar: an attack on the capital of the enemy and the dismemberment of its territory.
The fighting of the main forces unfolded in the direction of Washington-Richmond.
The first major battle took place in Virginia at the Manassas railway station on July 21, 1861. 33,000 soldiers of Northern General Irwin McDowell opposed 32,000 Confederates led by Pierre Beauregard and Joseph Johnston. The troops of the northerners, having crossed the Bull Run stream, attacked the southerners, but were forced to start a retreat that turned into a flight.
The defeat at Manassas forced the Lincoln government to take vigorous measures to deploy and strengthen units and formations, mobilize the economic resources of the North, and build defensive structures. A new strategic plan ("Anaconda Plan") was developed, which provided for the creation by the forces of the army and navy of a ring around the southern states, which was supposed to be gradually compressed until the final suppression of the rebels.
McDowell was replaced by General George McClellan, who had previously commanded the Army of West Virginia.
In April 1862, a 100,000-strong army of northerners under the command of General McClellan again made an attempt to capture Richmond, but on the outskirts of the capital of the southern states they met a well-prepared system of engineering fortifications. In the battle of June 26 - July 2 on the Chicahomini River (east of Richmond) with an 80,000-strong army of southerners, the northerners were defeated and retreated to Washington.
In September 1862, the commander-in-chief of the rebel army, General Lee, made an attempt to capture Washington, but could not achieve victory and was forced to withdraw. An attempt by the northerners to launch a new offensive on Richmond was also unsuccessful.
To the west and south in the Mississippi Valley, hostilities were sporadic. Northern troops under General Ulysses Grant occupied Memphis, Corinth, and New Orleans.
Influenced by failures at the front, the threat to Washington and the demands of the population of the northern states, Congress in 1862 carried out a series of measures in order to change the methods of warfare. At the same time, a law was issued on the confiscation of the property of the rebels.
Of particular importance were the law on homesteads (land plots) adopted on May 20, 1862, which gave the right to a US citizen who did not fight on the side of the South, to receive a piece of land, as well as the Lincoln Proclamation of September 22, 1862 on emancipation from January 1, 1863 Negro slaves in the rebellious states (slavery was prohibited by law in the northern states). Negroes were freed without ransom, but also without land. They could serve in the army and navy.
The second stage of the war (1863-1865) was characterized by important changes in the political life of the country, in the strategy and tactics of the federal army.
On March 3, 1863, for the first time in the history of the United States, conscription was introduced. In the northern states, the army was replenished with new formations, about 190 thousand blacks joined it (72% of them came from the southern states), 250 thousand blacks served in the rear.
The beginning of May 1863 was marked by the Battle of Chancellorville, during which the 130,000-strong Northern army was defeated by General Lee's 60,000-strong army. The losses of the parties amounted to: among the northerners 17,275, and among the southerners 12,821 people were killed and wounded. The northerners again retreated, and Lee, bypassing Washington from the north, entered Pennsylvania. In this situation, the outcome of the three-day battle for Gettysburg in early July assumed enormous significance. As a result of bloody battles, Lee's troops were forced to retreat to Virginia, to clear the territory of the Union.
On the western theater, after a multi-day siege and two unsuccessful assaults, Grant's army captured the fortress of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863. On July 8, General Nathaniel Banks' soldiers took Port Hudson in Louisiana. Thus, control was established over the Mississippi River Valley, and the Confederacy was divided into two parts. The year ended with a landslide victory at Chattanooga, the gateway to the East.
In the early spring of 1864, under the general leadership of Ulysses Grant, who was appointed commander-in-chief of the northerners in March, a new strategic plan was developed that provided for three main attacks: and take possession of Richmond; The 100,000-strong army of General William Sherman had the task of advancing from west to east, bypassing the Allegheny Mountains from the south, capturing the main economic regions of the southerners in Georgia, reaching the Atlantic Ocean and then attacking the main forces of the army of General Joseph Johnston from the south; Butler's army of 36,000 was to advance on Richmond from the east.
The offensive of the federal troops began in early May 1864. The "march to the sea" of General Sherman's army from the city of Chattanooga (Tennessee) through the city of Atlanta was of great importance. Overcoming the resistance of the southerners, Sherman's troops occupied Atlanta on September 2, captured the city of Savannah on December 21 and reached the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Then Sherman led his troops north, occupied the city of Columbia (February 18, 1865) and went to the rear of the main body of Lee's army, whose situation had become hopeless.
In the spring of 1865, federal troops under Grant resumed their offensive and occupied Richmond on April 3. The troops of the southerners withdrew, but were overtaken by Grant and surrounded. On April 9, Lee's army capitulated at Appomattox. The rest of the Confederate troops ceased resistance by June 2, 1865. Shortly after the victory, on April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was mortally wounded by a Confederate agent and died the next day.
The results of the war
The Civil War was the bloodiest in US history. The losses of the northerners amounted to almost 360 thousand people killed and died from wounds and more than 275 thousand wounded. The Confederates lost 258,000 killed and about 100,000 wounded. The military spending of the US government alone has reached $3 billion.
In the United States, during the Civil War, for the first time in American history, a mass regular army of the modern type was created. The experience and military traditions acquired in 1861-865 were used during the formation of the American army half a century later, during the First World War.
As a result of the Civil War, at the cost of great losses, the unity of the United States was preserved and slavery was abolished. Slavery was outlawed by the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which took effect on December 18, 1865.
Conditions were created in the country for the accelerated development of industrial and agricultural production, the development of western lands, and the strengthening of the domestic market.
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