CIVIL WAR, 1862- AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

A

Overview

Furious military action flared in both the eastern and western theaters. In the West, Union victories at forts Henry and Donelson in February and at Shiloh in April gave the Union control of the heartland of Tennessee. The Battle of Pea Ridge in March frustrated a Confederate effort to gain a hold in Missouri, and the capture of New Orleans in late April cost the Confederacy its largest city and busiest port. Confederates responded with an invasion of Kentucky in late summer and fall, which ended in failure at the Battle of Perryville in October. Heavy fighting for the year ended with the inconclusive battle of Stones River or Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and unsuccessful opening movements in the Union campaign to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi. In the East, a Confederate victory at the Seven Days Battle in late June and early July turned back a major threat to Richmond, followed by another Southern triumph at Second Bull Run in late August, and the Union’s strategic success at Antietam in mid-September, which ended Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the North. The year closed in Virginia with a costly Union setback at Fredericksburg in mid-December. The year also saw the Confederacy enact the first national conscription act in American history, and the North place emancipation alongside unification as a second great war aim.

B

Minor Actions and Skirmishes

It would be a mistake to think of the Civil War only as a succession of major battles. Once the fighting was well under way, some kind of military action took place almost daily. The month of October 1862 was typical. Within its 31 days, two battles that resulted in heavy losses were fought. On October 3 and 4 the Confederates attacked Union forces holding Corinth, Mississippi. They were repulsed, but not until they had lost 4133 men killed, wounded, and prisoners, against a total Union loss of 2520 men. On October 8 Union and Confederate troops clashed in the Battle of Perryville, in Kentucky, and the casualties totaled 7600.

The same month saw smaller conflicts. One took place on the Hatchie River near Corinth, Mississippi, on October 5, and a chronicler describes the losses as merely “heavy.” The next day, in a 30-minute conflict at La Vergne, Tennessee, the Confederates lost 25 men and a Union force lost 14. On October 10 and 11 the Confederate cavalry leader J. E. B. Stuart occupied Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, destroyed cars and engines belonging to the Cumberland Valley Railroad, and seized 500 horses and a large quantity of Union Army supplies. On October 18 Confederate cavalry commanded by General John Hunt Morgan dashed into Lexington, Kentucky, and took 125 prisoners. In an action at Labadieville on the Bayou Lafourche, in Louisiana, on October 27, the Confederates lost 6 killed, 15 wounded, and 208 taken prisoner, while the Union loss was reported as 18 killed and 74 wounded. The month of October 1862 also saw numerous reconnaissances and skirmishes in which only one or two men were killed or wounded, casualties too small to be reported.

It would also be a mistake to think of the Civil War as a steady series of military actions, large or small. The stubbornest enemy of every soldier was not his opponent, but inactivity and boredom. For every hour a man spent in action, he endured many days during which he did nothing but respond to the routine formations of reveille, mess call, and retreat or march mile after mile on expeditions that led nowhere.

As 1862 began, the Army of the Potomac remained inactive. McClellan, although still popular with his troops, was now subject to mounting criticism from an impatient administration and public. The phrase “All quiet on the Potomac” became a taunt.

C

Grant’s Campaign in the West

On the western front, Grant waited for permission from his superior, Henry W. Halleck, to strike at the Confederates in Tennessee. Grant had picked his targets: Fort Henry on the Tennessee River; then Fort Donelson a few miles to the east on the Cumberland River. In January 1862 Halleck ordered the advance. It was to be a joint campaign with naval forces under the command of Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote. Foote’s gunboats attacked Fort Henry on February 6. The fort surrendered before Grant’s troops could be engaged. Fort Donelson proved to be a different story. Fighting began on February 12, but Fort Donelson held out until February 16. The two victories lifted spirits in the North, and Grant’s demand for “unconditional and immediate surrender” in response to the Confederate commander’s request for terms made the Union general famous.

The North, its elation heightened by a decisive Union victory in the Battle of Pea Ridge, also known as the Battle of Elkhorn Tavern, in Arkansas, on March 7 and 8, soon received more good news with a victory at Shiloh.

D

Battle of Shiloh

After taking Fort Donelson, Grant had wanted to move on the Confederate base in Corinth, Mississippi, where Albert Sidney Johnston, the Confederate commander in the West, was known to be assembling troops. Grant was ordered to delay his advance until Union General Don Carlos Buell, who had been operating in East Tennessee, could join him.

Early on Sunday, April 6, 1862, Johnston’s army, which had come up to the federal lines undetected, struck Grant’s army, which was encamped at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. The Battle of Shiloh followed. At the end of the second day of fighting the Union forces drove back the attackers. Shocking losses, 13,000 out of more than 62,000 Federals and 10,700 out of 40,000 Confederates, appalled both sections of the country. Although victorious, Grant was accused of lacking elementary caution and found himself reviled in the North. The South mourned the loss of Johnston, one of its ablest commanders, who was shot and bled to death.

E

Monitor and Virginia

In the spring of 1862, McClellan proposed to Lincoln that the North invade Virginia by way of the peninsula between the James and York rivers. However, an unexpected development in that area threatened to prevent the offensive. On March 8 the Confederate ironclad vessel, the Virginia, which was made from the salvaged Merrimack, entered Hampton Roads, Virginia, at the mouth of the James. A number of wooden men-of-war of the Union fleet were in the roads enforcing the blockade. The Virginia destroyed two ships and disabled another. The North was thrown into panic. The next morning, however, the Virginia was challenged by the Monitor, a Union ironclad. The two armored ships bounced shells off each other’s sides for four hours without doing any serious damage. Although the battle ended in a draw, the Virginia no longer controlled the area’s waters. Soon after, when the Confederates withdrew from Norfolk, they destroyed the Virginia to keep it from falling into Northern hands. McClellan continued with his plans for invading Virginia.

F

Invasion Plans

Lincoln agreed with McClellan that an attempt should be made to capture Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. Lincoln favored an overland invasion route. McClellan, however, insisted on moving the Army of the Potomac by water to the peninsula between the York and James rivers and attacking Richmond from the southeast. Lincoln finally consented to this plan on condition that generals Irvin McDowell and Nathaniel P. Banks be left behind for a short time with about half of the army to defend Washington, D.C.

G

Shenandoah Valley Campaign

Lincoln needed the troops in Washington, D.C., because the federal capital was threatened by Stonewall Jackson, operating with a handful of men in the Shenandoah Valley. When McClellan’s invasion began, Jackson was ordered to prevent reinforcements from reaching the Union commander. Jackson then opened a remarkable campaign, deceiving the enemy into believing he had a huge army. Even in a battle he lost at Kernstown on March 23, he convinced his adversary, General James Shields, of his strength although he had only 4200 men. By mobility and inventiveness, Jackson won victories in the valley at McDowell, Front Royal, Winchester, Cross Keys, and Port Republic before withdrawing to help in the defense of Richmond. Jackson’s tactics succeeded; to oppose him and the 16,000 men who fought with him for most of the campaign, the North held back 55,000 men under Banks, McDowell, and John C. Frémont, men that McClellan needed badly on the peninsula.

H

Peninsular Campaign

On April 2, 1862, McClellan arrived with 100,000 men at Fort Monroe, at the southeastern tip of the peninsula. He took Yorktown after a month’s siege but let its defenders escape. On May 31 Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston tried unsuccessfully to stop McClellan’s drive at Fair Oaks, only 10 km (6 mi) from Richmond. Johnston was wounded in the battle, and Robert E. Lee replaced him as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee’s courage and courtesy won him the warm affection of his troops. His outstanding ability as a general was to make him idolized in the South and respected and feared in the North. At times, as the war progressed, only the genius and personality of General Robert E. Lee kept the Confederate Army from crumbling.

Soon after Lee’s appointment, a series of engagements known as the Seven Days’ Battle took place, lasting from June 25 through July 1, 1862. On the second day, Union General Fitz-John Porter drove back a Confederate attack at Mechanicsville, 8 km (5 mi) northeast of Richmond. However, instead of pushing on to Richmond, McClellan began to withdraw. He ordered Porter to fall back to Gaines’s Mill. There, on June 27, a Confederate charge led by John B. Hood broke the Union center. McClellan then ordered the army to fall back on Harrison’s Landing on the James River, where he would have the cover of Union gunboats. On July 2, after sharp rear guard actions at Savage’s Station, Frayser’s Farm, and Malvern Hill, the last engagement in the Seven Days’ Battle, McClellan reached Harrison’s Landing and safety.

The Peninsular campaign was over, with heavy losses on both sides. There were 16,000 Union casualties. Lee suffered even more, with casualties of over 20,000 men, about one-fifth of his army. However, he had stopped McClellan’s drive on Richmond. Lincoln’s administration held McClellan at fault for not having taken Richmond. McClellan blamed the administration for not having sent reinforcements.

I

Capture of New Orleans

Both North and South tended to underrate an event that took place while the country’s attention was fixed on the peninsula. To make the blockade of the South effective, the Union had to win control of New Orleans and the lower Mississippi. Early in April 1862, Flag Officer David G. Farragut started up the Mississippi with a squadron of combat ships and transports carrying 18,000 federal troops. Attempts to stop him with chain cables and fire rafts failed. Farragut pressed on past Fort Jackson and Fort Saint Philip and arrived at New Orleans, Louisiana, on April 25. He demanded the surrender of the city. Its Confederate defenders, numbering only 3000, withdrew. For the rest of the war, New Orleans, the biggest Confederate city and the key to the Mississippi, remained in Union hands. Its loss was a disaster for the Confederacy.

J

Second Battle of Bull Run

After the failure of the Peninsular campaign, Lincoln named Henry W. Halleck general-in-chief of the Union armies. The Army of Virginia was organized in June 1862. General John Pope, a former subordinate of Halleck’s, was put in command of the new army. Halleck ordered McClellan to bring his men back to Washington, where he was to join with the forces under Pope.

Lee concentrated on preventing this junction of Union armies. On August 9, 1862, Jackson attacked Pope’s advance units at Cedar Mountain, near Culpeper, Virginia, and defeated them. Pope withdrew to the north side of the Rappahannock River and waited for McClellan. Jackson, with 23,000 men, swung in a wide circle around Pope’s army. On August 26 he swooped down on the federal base at Manassas Junction, captured or destroyed supplies, and then made a stand at Manassas, the site of the First Battle of Bull Run.

On August 29, Pope with 62,000 men attacked Jackson. Jackson withstood the offensive, which was not well coordinated. Nevertheless, Pope believed that he had defeated Jackson and sent a wire to that effect to Washington. The following day, James Longstreet and Lee moved up to reinforce Jackson. Pope’s army was shattered by Longstreet’s artillery and infantry and fled in disorder. Lee pursued and tried to cut off Pope’s retreat the next day at Chantilly.

Pope, thoroughly and humiliatingly beaten, limped back to Washington. He had lost about 14,500 men to Lee’s 9200. Pope’s force was merged with the Army of the Potomac, and McClellan again was put in command of the entire force.

K

Battle of Antietam

After the Second Battle of Bull Run, Lee decided to invade Maryland. Although he knew that he could not successfully attack Washington, he wanted to move the fighting out of war-torn Virginia, and he wanted to interrupt the North’s supply lines. In addition, he thought that a success in the North might lead France or Britain to recognize the Confederacy. Lee moved across the Potomac River with his entire army and then sent the majority of his army under Jackson to Harpers Ferry. They were to seize the area and open up supply routes to the Shenandoah Valley. He then stationed the rest of his army at Sharpsburg, near Antietam Creek. McClellan with 75,000 men faced Lee across the creek. Jackson rejoined Lee after successfully capturing Harpers Ferry and the additional troups brought the total Confederate forces to about 35,000 soldiers.

The fighting began on September 17, and despite the superior number of Union forces, the Confederate Army was able to hold them off. Just as Union General Ambrose E. Burnside captured a bridge and led his men across the creek, A. P. Hill arrived with fresh reinforcements for Lee. The Union attack was repulsed, and the fighting stopped. Lee led his men in orderly retreat back to Virginia, and the North did not pursue him. Both sides had lost heavily, with total Union casualties of about 12,500 and Confederate casualties of about 10,500. The fighting was so fierce and the casualties so high that Antietam was the bloodiest one-day battle of the Civil War (and in all of U.S. history).

Although the outcome of the fighting was indecisive, Antietam was a major success for the Union. As a result of the battle, Lee lost approximately one-third of his men and gave up the idea of invading the North. Diplomatically the Confederate defeat at Antietam made it more difficult for France or Britain to openly support the Confederacy.

L

Emancipation Proclamation

Antietam was also the signal for a major shift in Union policy. From the beginning of the war, President Lincoln had insisted that his primary aim was the restoration of the Union, not the abolition of slavery. As the war continued, however, Lincoln saw that the preservation of the Union depended, in part, on the destruction of slavery. The Lincoln Administration believed that if they made the abolition of slavery a war aim, they could stop Britain or France from recognizing the Confederacy. Both Britain and France had long since abolished slavery and would not support a country fighting a war to defend it. Furthermore, emancipation might allow the North to undercut the South’s war effort, which was supported by slave labor.

Emancipation would also clarify the status of slaves who were running away to the Union lines. These black people were refugees and later soldiers in the Union Army. This activity, called self-emancipation, presented a problem to the Union Army. Were these black people free, or enslaved? Should they be returned to their Southern masters under the fugitive slave laws? Some military leaders had already tried to deal with this dilemma. Benjamin F. Butler, a Northern general stationed in Virginia, claimed that he would not return slaves to their masters because they were property, and in war time, the enemy’s property can be seized. The Lincoln Administration agreed with Butler’s policy.

In addition, public opinion in the North had begun to favor abolition, and Congress, no longer needing to be concerned about the Southern states, had started passing legislation to end slavery. In 1862 Congress abolished slavery in the District of Columbia and prohibited slavery in the territories.

On July 22, 1862, Lincoln had informed his Cabinet that he intended to free the slaves in states that were in active rebellion. However, they had persuaded him to wait until a Northern victory because it would seem less like a desperate measure. Antietam served that purpose. Five days afterward, on September 22, Lincoln issued the first, or preliminary, Emancipation Proclamation. The final proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863, freed the slaves only in the states that had rebelled: Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and parts of Louisiana and Virginia.

The president issued the proclamation under the powers granted during war to seize the enemies’ property. Lincoln only had the authority to end slavery in the Confederate states, and then the slaves were freed only as the Union armies made their way throughout the South. In the states that remained loyal to the Union slavery was protected by the Constitution. Slavery was only completely abolished throughout the United States by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1865.

M

The Battle of Perryville

In August and September 1862, on the western front, the Confederate army invaded Kentucky. Although Kentucky was a slave state, it had not seceded from the Union. The people of Kentucky were divided over the issue of the war, and Kentucky recruits joined both the Confederate and the Union forces. When General Braxton Bragg, who was in charge of the Army of Tennessee, and Major General Edmund Kirby Smith decided to move into Kentucky, they split their forces and headed north from Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Union forces in Kentucky were under the command of Major General Don Carlos Buell. The armies met at the Battle of Perryville on October 8, 1862. The battle was marked by confusion on both sides and did not produce a clear victory, but the Confederates retreated.

N

Fredericksburg

After the Battle of Antietam, McClellan refused to take the offensive against Lee’s army. His patience at an end, Lincoln relieved McClellan, this time permanently. The command of the Army of the Potomac was given to Ambrose E. Burnside. On December 13, 1862, Burnside’s troops engaged the Army of Northern Virginia, placed in strong defensive positions on the hills near Fredericksburg, Virginia, south of the Rappahannock River. The result was a slaughter. Union losses in killed, wounded, and missing amounted to 12,600, as opposed to Confederate losses of 5300. In January 1863 Lincoln relieved Burnside and put General Joseph Hooker in command of the army.

O

Murfreesboro, or Stones River

Two weeks after Fredericksburg, the western front was the scene of an even bloodier battle. On December 31, 1862, General William S. Rosecrans, commanding the Union Army of the Cumberland, and General Braxton Bragg, leading the Confederate Army of Tennessee, engaged each other at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 47 km (29 mi) southeast of Nashville. After three days of fighting, in which the two armies lost nearly 25,000 of the 76,000 men engaged, Bragg withdrew from the field, but he left the Army of the Cumberland too badly hurt to resume operations for several months.

P

Naval Warfare

At the beginning of the war the Union blockade of Southern ports was not effective, because the North lacked ships to make it so. Blockade-runners, mainly British, made fortunes by landing cargoes of munitions and scarce goods at Southern ports. The Union, however, soon converted all kinds of seagoing craft to armed blockaders and began tightening the net. Armed forces closed a number of important ports. One federal expedition took Roanoke Island, North Carolina, on February 8, 1862. Another occupied New Bern, North Carolina, on March 14. A third expedition captured Beaufort, South Carolina, on April 11. Fort Pulaski, which guarded the approach to Savannah, Georgia, was taken by the Federals on the same day. At the end of 1862 the blockade was well on the way to strangling Southern commerce. In 1860, $191 million of cotton was exported, but the 1862 cotton exports amounted to only $4 million. In addition, the South had difficulty importing goods such as ammunition, shoes, and salt.

Although the Confederacy had no navy, it still found ways to cripple Northern commerce. In spite of its lack of shipyards, it managed to equip a number of ships for service at sea. It also ordered the construction or purchase of other ships in England. Over the protests of the Union government, three English-built ships, the Florida, the Alabama, and the Shenandoah, were delivered to Confederate naval officers and given the task of destroying the U.S. merchant fleet. These three raiders alone inflicted damage estimated at $16.6 million on Union shipping. The loss, while serious, was trivial in comparison to the effect of the Union blockade on the Southern economy.