ASSESSMENT OF THE CIVIL WAR- AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Looking backward, anyone must marvel at the fact that the war lasted four years. All the advantages seemed to favor the North. In 1860 the 22 states that would remain in the Union (three more would come in before 1865) had a combined population of 22 million. The 11 states that made up the Confederacy could count only 9 million inhabitants, including almost 4 million black slaves. Most of the factories capable of producing war materials were located in the North, and the section was well equipped with railroads. It had a merchant marine and could maintain worldwide commerce. The South, on the other hand, was a region of farms. Although these farms produced products that Europe wanted, particularly cotton, the South had few ships, and its principal ports were soon closed.

Much has been made of the superiority of Southern commanders. Although Lee was more than a match for every opponent except Grant, Grant overcame the Confederate general by force of numbers and determination of will. Neither side had another corps commander equal to Stonewall Jackson, but Jackson was killed before the war was half over. In the West, the Union commanders clearly outmatched their opposites. No Confederate leader could stand comparison with Grant, Sherman, or Thomas. In naval operations, Foote, Farragut, and Porter had no Confederate rivals.

Little distinction can be made between Northern and Southern morale. Desertion was common on both sides. The North had its Copperheads, its bounty jumpers, and its draft rioters, and millions of Northerners were weary of the war long before its end. In the South, draft dodging and tax evasion were common, and fortunes were made by profiteers who preferred to run luxuries, instead of war supplies, through the blockade.

The South had two important advantages. First, it did not need to conquer the North. It could win the war simply by defending its soil and by waiting for the North to become so discouraged by repeated failures that it would grant independence. Second, the South could operate with shorter interior lines, thus making better use of its fewer men.

In the long run, Northern superiority in supplies and men was decisive. That Southern armies remained in the field and took a toll from their opponents until the spring of 1865 is a remarkable achievement in determination and fortitude. Lincoln’s position on slavery and democracy was equally important in the outcome of the war. The Emancipation Proclamation put an end to Southern hopes of foreign intervention. In the North the majority of the people remained firmly resolved that the Union must be restored.

A

Costs of the War

A1

Human

The human cost of the war far exceeded what anyone had imagined in 1861. The North placed roughly 2.2 million men in uniform (180,000 of them blacks), of whom about 640,000 were killed, wounded in battle, or died of disease. Of the 360,000 Northern soldiers who died, two-thirds perished from illnesses such as dysentery, diarrhea, measles, malaria, and typhoid. Casualties in Confederate forces are more difficult to estimate, but they probably approached 450,000 out of approximately 750,000 to 850,000 Confederate soldiers. Of these, it is estimated that more than 250,000 died. The proportion of battlefield deaths to deaths by disease was probably the same as in the Northern armies. Total deaths thus exceeded 600,000, and the dead and wounded combined totaled about 1.1 million. More Americans were killed in the Civil War than in all other American wars combined from the colonial period through the war in Afghanistan in 2001.

Human suffering also extended beyond the military sphere and continued long after fighting ceased. During the conflict, thousands of black and white Southerners became refugees, losing many of their possessions and facing an uncertain future in strange surroundings. Far fewer Northern civilians experienced the war so directly, although the citizens of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, saw their town burned by Confederate cavalry in 1864. An unknown number of civilians perished at the hands of guerrillas, deserters, and, less frequently, regular soldiers in both armies. After the war, many thousands of veterans struggled to cope with lost limbs and other wounds. Thousands of families faced difficult financial circumstances due to the death of husbands and fathers. The United States government made available small pensions for disabled veterans and widows of soldiers, and southern states did the same for former Confederate soldiers and their widows. In neither instance, however, were the funds sufficient to provide for all the needs of a family.

A2

Economic

The war generated spending on a scale dwarfing that of any earlier period in American history. In 1860, the federal budget was $63 million; in 1865, federal government expenditures totaled nearly $1.3 billion—a 20-fold increase that did not include the money spent by the Confederate government. An estimate in 1879 placed war-related costs to that date for the United States at $6.1 billion, including pension payments that would continue for many years. Figures for the Confederacy are very unreliable, but one estimate places expenditures through 1863 at $2 billion. After 1863, records for Confederate expenditures are not available. Whatever the total figure, there is no doubt that expenditures and indebtedness grew to a size that were not imaginable before the war.

The war also caused wide-scale economic destruction to the South. The Confederate states lost two-thirds of their wealth during the war. The loss of slave property through emancipation accounted for much of this, but the economic infrastructure in the South was also severely damaged in other ways. Railroads and industries in the South were in shambles, more than one-half of all farm machinery was destroyed, and 40 percent of all livestock had been killed. In contrast, the Northern economy thrived during the war. Two numbers convey a sense of the economic cost to the respective sections: between 1860 and 1870, Northern wealth increased by 50 percent; during that same decade, Southern wealth decreased by 60 percent.

B

Effects of the War

B1

Soldiers

The Civil War was the central event in the lives of most of the men who served in the armed forces. Many of them had never traveled more than a few miles beyond their homes, and the war took them to places they otherwise would not have seen, made them participants in great events, and often left them with scars that constantly reminded them of how much they had sacrificed. During the postwar years, thousands of men joined veterans’ organizations such as the Grand Army of the Republic in the North and the United Confederate Veterans in the South. They revisited the sites of their battles, raised monuments to commemorate their service, and, in large numbers, wrote reminiscences about their part in the war. For black men who fought for the Union, the war provided the strongest possible claim for full citizenship. They had risked their lives, along with their white comrades in the military, and they argued that they should have the right to vote and otherwise live as full members of American society.

B2

Civilians

The war touched the lives of almost every person in the United States. Women assumed larger responsibilities in the workplace because so many men were absent in the armies. In the North, they labored as nurses (previously a male occupation), government clerks, and factory workers and contributed to the war effort in other ways. Southern white women also worked as clerks and nurses and in factories, and thousands took responsibility for running family farms. Several hundred women disguised themselves as men and served in the military, a few of whom were wounded in battle. Although the war opened opportunities for work outside the household, its end brought a general return to old patterns of employment. Still, the war remained a major event in the lives of women as it did for the men in uniform.

Slave men and women in the South shouldered a major part of the labor burden, as they always had, and made it possible for the Confederacy to put nearly 80 percent of its military-age white men in uniform, a level of mobilization unequaled in American history. No group was more directly affected by the outcome of the war than the almost 4 million black people who were slaves in 1861. They emerged from the conflict with their freedom, which was confirmed by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in December 1865. However, blacks did not have equal rights until long after the war.

The war also touched children in profound ways. Fathers and brothers left home to fight, and thousands of boys 17 years old or younger entered military service as drummers, musicians, or soldiers in the ranks. Children behind the lines followed the progress of the war, pretending to be soldiers or nurses. All too often, they were affected by the loss of parents or siblings. Many grew to adulthood with a sense that whatever they might face in life, it would be less important than the great national crisis in which their fathers fought.

B3

Long-Term Effects of the War

The war was followed by twelve years of Reconstruction, during which the North and South debated the future of black Americans and waged bitter political battles. In 1877, the white South tacitly conceded national power to the Republican Party in return for the right to rule their own states with minimal interference from the North. Republican domination of presidential politics and a solidly Democratic white South were two legacies of the war and Reconstruction. Despite ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, black Americans failed to win equal rights during the acrimonious postwar political debates. As the 19th century closed, they faced a rigidly segregated life in the South and hostility across most of the North.

Despite the destruction, the war did settle the question of secession. Since 1861 no state has seriously considered withdrawing from the Union. In addition, the war brought slavery to an end. After the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, there was widespread acceptance of the fact that Union victory would mean general emancipation. Since the proclamation was a war measure that might be held unconstitutional after the war, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery, was passed by both houses of Congress early in 1865. It was ratified by three-fourths of the states and was formally proclaimed in effect on December 18, 1865.

The war also set the South back at least a generation in industry and agriculture. Factories and farms were devastated by the invading armies. The labor system fell into chaos. Not until the 20th century did the South recover fully from the economic effects of the war. In contrast, the North forged ahead with the building of a modern industrial state.

In conclusion, it must be remarked that the Civil War did not raise blacks to a position of equality with whites. Nor did the war bring about that emotional reunion that Lincoln hoped for when he spoke in his first inaugural address of “the bonds of affection” that had formerly held the two sections together.