CIVIL WAR, 1861- AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Both sides prepared for what would become a much longer war than either at first imagined. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers poured into the armies, and the respective economies tried to adjust to meet the demands of supplying huge military forces. On the battlefield, the Confederates won victories in Virginia at the First Battle of Bull Run in mid-July, and in Missouri at Wilson’s Creek in August. Despite these setbacks, the Union army and navy took steps to begin oper

ations along the upper Mississippi River and along the southern Atlantic coast. The goal was to implement Winfield Scott’s Anaconda Plan to seize control of the Mississippi River and institute a naval blockade of the Confederacy. Away from the military sphere, the Trent Affair presented the Lincoln administration with a major diplomatic crisis that threatened to involve Britain in the American war.

A

First Battle of Bull Run

On July 16, 1861, a Union army, led by General Irvin McDowell, began to move toward Confederate troops under General Beauregard that were grouped about Manassas Junction, 40 km (25 mi) southwest of Washington, D.C. The two armies did not meet until July 21. The battle, known as First Bull Run or First Manassas, started well for the North. However, with the arrival of Confederate reinforcements and the heroic stand of General Thomas J. Jackson, who earned the nickname “Stonewall,” the battle ended in an overwhelming victory for the South. Most of the Union troops straggled back to Washington in near panic.

The defeat shocked the North. The people suddenly realized that the war could be a grim struggle that might last for years. Governors offered more troops and hurried forward regiments with full ranks. The Union War Department pushed the organization of long-term volunteers. General George B. McClellan was ordered to Washington from western Virginia, where he had made a name for himself in a series of small battles. McClellan took charge of the troops in and around the capital, enforcing discipline and instituting intensive training. By the end of October he had a well-equipped, well-trained army that was known as the Army of the Potomac. In November he replaced the aged general Winfield Scott as general-in-chief.

B

Fighting in the West

Fighting had also begun farther west. In St. Louis, Missouri, on May 10, 1861, a Union force captured a large band of men believed to be training for Confederate service. The seizure of the men caused a riot in the streets where 30 people were killed. Thereafter, Missouri, torn between North and South, would be a state with a civil war of its own. On August 10 a Union Army under Nathaniel Lyon attacked a pro-Southern force under Ben McCulloch and Sterling Price at Wilson’s Creek, near Springfield, in southwestern Missouri. Lyon and the Union forces were decisively defeated. For the remainder of 1861 Missouri continued to be a battleground for both Northern and Southern sympathizers.

As early as April 22, Union forces had begun to concentrate at Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio River flows into the Mississippi. By fall, Kentucky, which had remained neutral for several months, had shown that it would definitely remain in the Union. Neither side needed to respect Kentucky’s neutrality any longer. In early September the Confederates grouped troops at several places in Kentucky, with the largest number in Columbus, on the Mississippi River. When the Confederates occupied Columbus, the Kentucky legislature asked the U.S. government for help. In response to the Confederate troop movements, a Union force under Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant occupied Paducah, Kentucky, at the mouth of the Tennessee River. On November 7, Grant occupied Belmont, Missouri, opposite Columbus. The Confederates quickly threw a strong force across the river. After a sharp battle, Grant succeeded in withdrawing most of his 4000 men, and the battle ended without a clear victory for either side. Belmont was the Union commander’s first battle of the war.

C

South Carolina Forts

Also on November 7, 1861, a federal naval officer, Flag Officer Samuel F. du Pont, took 17 wooden cruisers into Port Royal Sound on the South Carolina coast. Du Pont’s guns pounded the shore batteries at Fort Beauregard and Fort Walker so effectively that after several hours the defenders evacuated the forts. Du Pont sent in convoy transports, supply ships, and 12,000 men under General Thomas W. Sherman. The men landed with little opposition late in the afternoon and took possession of the forts. Thus, early in the war, the Union established an important base for operations along the southern coast.

D

Trent Affair

Simultaneously the Union met and survived its first diplomatic crisis of the war, known as the Trent Affair. In the fall of 1861 the Confederacy sent James Murray Mason and John Slidell as commissioners to Britain and France. The two men ran the Northern blockade to Havana, Cuba. On November 7, 1861, they left Cuba on the British ship Trent. The next day, Captain Charles Wilkes of the U.S. vessel San Jacinto stopped the Trent, searched it, and took the two Confederate representatives on board his own ship and later to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor.

The North hailed Wilkes as a hero, but by seizing the commissioners from a neutral ship, he had violated principles of international law that the United States had upheld for 50 years and had even gone to war for in 1812. The British ministry demanded an apology and the release of the two men. Many in the North clamored for war with Britain. Lincoln, however, was cautious, and in England, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, used his influence on behalf of peace. After allowing time for the war fever to cool, the United States admitted that Wilkes had acted without authorization, disavowed him, and liberated the Southern commissioners. A war that might have been fatal to the Union was thus averted.