The Civil War Months: A Month-By-Month Compendium of the War Between the States

by Walter Coffey

Overview

The Civil War obliterated America's past, along with many of the founders' visions of what America should be. Replacing those visions was the America that we have today. Any true understanding of America, both past and present, must include a specific understanding of this conflict.

This work, with a thought-provoking introduction exploring the true causes of the war, traces the entire story of the conflict in a concise monthly summary. In addition to all the major events that shaped the war, key facts that have disappeared from most mainstream texts are also included, such as:

• Both Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis lost young sons during the war

• The legendary Robert E. Lee faced intense southern criticism for military failures in the war's first year

• U.S. forces battled the Sioux Indians during the war, leading to the largest mass execution in American history

• A former Ohio congressman was banished to the South by Lincoln for opposing the war

Facts are explored and myths are exposed as the conflict is put in its proper chronological perspective. For anyone seeking a general resource guide to the seminal event in American history, this is required reading.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781468580228
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	05/31/2012
Pages:	470
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.05(d)

Read an Excerpt

THE CIVIL WAR MONTHS

A Month-By-Month Compendium Of The War Between The States

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By Walter Coffey

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Walter Coffey
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-8022-8

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Chapter One

January 1861

Anxiety was spreading throughout North and South. South Carolina had already seceded from the Union, and although President James Buchanan opposed the action, he declared that he had no right under the Constitution to stop it. In South Carolina's Charleston Harbor, the Federal garrison had been forced to abandon Fort Moultrie, withdrawing to the more secure Fort Sumter.

Buchanan sent a naval convoy to resupply the Federals at Sumter. State militia began mobilizing in Charleston as more southern states seceded. Congress scrambled to devise yet another compromise to preserve the Union. New York City threatened to secede, while "Bleeding" Kansas finally gained statehood. Most northerners still believed that the southern states would eventually return to the Union without bloodshed.

THE STAR OF THE WEST MISSION

After weeks of deliberation, President Buchanan decided to dispatch the civilian merchant vessel Star of the West to reinforce and resupply Major Robert Anderson's Federal troops at Fort Sumter. By this time, Anderson's men were isolated in the harbor by South Carolina state militia. The Federals would eventually need supplies to remain in the fort, but the government of South Carolina had barred any assistance to them.

Star of the West was an unarmed steamer whose mission was intended to be secret. However, her departure from New York City on January 5 was printed in city newspapers that were forwarded by southern sympathizers to South Carolina. The two hundred soldiers of the 9th U.S. Infantry aboard Star of the West were ordered to hide below decks, but by the time the ship reached Charleston on January 9, the South Carolinians were expecting her.

Cadets from the South Carolina Military Academy, or The Citadel, fired on Star of the West from Morris Island. These were the first shots of the war, and artillerists on Fort Moultrie joined in the firing. The Federals at Fort Sumter, unaware of the ship's presence or mission, did not assist Star of the West. After sustaining two minor hits, the ship withdrew and returned to New York.

Upon learning about the mission, Anderson threatened to fire on Charleston in retaliation. South Carolina Governor Francis Pickens responded that such an act would mean war. Anderson relented, but the incident galvanized extremists on both sides. Charleston Mercury editor Robert B. Rhett wrote that South Carolina "has not hesitated to strike the first blow, full in the face of her insulter. We would not exchange or recall that blow for millions! It has wiped out a half century of scorn and outrage."

An editorial in the Atlas and Argus of Albany, New York stated, "The authority and dignity of the Government must be vindicated at every hazard. The issue thus having been made, it must be met and sustained, if necessary, by the whole power of the navy and army."

NEW YORK THREATENS SECESSION

Mayor Fernando Wood proposed that New York City secede from the Union and declare itself a free city so that it could continue trading with the South. Two-thirds of U.S. imports and one-third of U.S. exports came in and out of New York. This included southern cotton, which was traded more in New York than in any other Atlantic port.

Despite widespread fear that the lack of southern trade would devastate the New York economy, city officials rejected Wood's proposal. In time, the loss of southern markets in New York ports was replaced by troop transport, Midwestern grain, and Pennsylvania petroleum.

THE CRITTENDEN COMPROMISE

President Buchanan submitted a message to Congress stating that the southern secession was beyond his executive powers under the Constitution. He wrote that Americans should "pause at this momentous point and afford the people, both North and South, an opportunity for reflection ..."

Buchanan urged Congress to quickly adopt a measure under debate in the Senate that had been introduced by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky. The bill was known as the "Crittenden Compromise," and it contained four provisions intended to reconcile North and South:

• The original Missouri Compromise line (thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes) would be extended to the Pacific Ocean and slavery would be prohibited north of the line.

• Slavery would be permitted on Federal property in the South.

• Masters of fugitive slaves would be compensated with Federal funds.

• "Personal liberty" laws in northern states that nullified controversial Federal fugitive slave laws would be repealed.

A Senate committee approved the Crittenden Compromise bill, but it failed in the House of Representatives. In response, the Senate adopted a resolution declaring that the Constitution "needs to be obeyed rather than amended." The bill failed largely because too many politicians in both North and South believed that it offered too little, too late.

MORE SOUTHERN SECESSION

Five southern states joined South Carolina in seceding from the Union: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana. Several members of Congress resigned after delivering emotional farewell speeches. Among them was Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, who declared, "It is known to senators who have served with me here, that I have for many years advocated, as an essential attribute of State sovereignty, the right of a state to secede from the Union ..."

Davis noted that southerners "tread but in the paths of our fathers when we proclaim our independence ... not in hostility to others, not to injure any section of the country, not even for our own pecuniary benefit, but from the high and solemn motive of defending the rights we inherited, and which it is our duty to transmit unshorn to our children." He concluded, "I am sure I feel no hostility to you, Senators from the North. I am sure there is not one of you, whatever sharp discussion there may have been between us, to whom I cannot now say, in the presence of my God, I wish you well."

Meanwhile, southern state militias seized Federal property within their states:

• Georgia troops seized the Federal arsenal at Augusta and Fort Pulaski near the Savannah River.

• Florida troops seized Fort Marion at St. Augustine and garrisons along the Gulf Coast.

• Alabama troops seized the Federal arsenal at Mount Vernon and forts protecting the vital naval port of Mobile Bay.

• Louisiana troops seized the U.S. Mint and Customs House in New Orleans.

Texas Governor Sam Houston was removed from office for opposing secession. Houston warned, "... Your fathers and husbands, your sons and brothers, will be herded at the point of a bayonet ... while I believe with you in the doctrine of States Rights, the North is determined to preserve this Union."

In Florida, Federal troops stationed at Fort Barrancas withdrew to Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island at the mouth of Pensacola Bay. The governors of both Florida and Alabama demanded the fort's surrender, but the Federals refused. Federal forces also garrisoned Fort Taylor in Key West, which became an important base of Federal operations.

KANSAS STATEHOOD

Kansas became the thirty-fourth state admitted to the Union. In 1854, the people of Kansas had been authorized to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery. This sparked a rush of pro-slavery and anti-slavery partisans into the region to influence elections.

At one time, Kansas had competing pro-slavery and anti-slavery governments in Lecompton and Topeka respectively. Elections were corrupted by fraud, intimidation, and violence. Radical abolitionist John Brown had become notorious for murdering pro-slavery men at Pottawatomie Creek, and the warring factions terrorized various towns. This earned the territory the nickname "Bleeding Kansas."

President Buchanan had offered Kansans twenty-three million acres of Federal land to accept the pro-slavery Lecompton government, but voters rejected this offer by a margin of nearly seven-to-one. In the vote for statehood this month, Kansans voted overwhelmingly in favor of making Kansas a non-slave state.

February 1861

The sectional rift between North and South had escalated from uncertainty to crisis, as six states had left the Union and began seizing Federal arsenals and forts. Desperate attempts to compromise had failed in Congress. Northerners were growing frustrated by the Buchanan administration's reluctance to stop the secession, while southerners were citing their Tenth Amendment rights under the Constitution to justify leaving the Union.

The seceded states formed a new government that was joined by a seventh state. A provisional president, vice president, and Congress were elected, while the U.S. president-elect began his journey to Washington. A high-ranking U.S. military commander was accused of treason. A last attempt at compromise was attempted, and a law that southerners had long opposed was enacted in the North.

THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA

Delegates from seven states assembled at a convention in Montgomery, Alabama to form a new southern constitution and government. The delegates represented the six seceded states (South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana) as well as Texas, which had not yet officially seceded. These states formed the Confederate States of America.

A provisional constitution was adopted that sought to preserve the original intent of the U.S. Constitution as envisioned by the founders. Since America's founding, many northerners had gradually adopted the opinion that the Union was indivisible and superior to the states. The southerners favored the founders' approach, in which government power was to be balanced between the Federal and state governments.

The Confederate Constitution prohibited protectionist tariffs, as southerners had long believed that high tariffs were used to benefit northern industry at the expense of southern agriculture. Tariffs were only to be used for necessities such as navigation, harbor development, and interstate commerce. Also prohibited were government subsidies for favored businesses, because southerners generally believed that these fomented corruption and waste at taxpayers' expense.

The document upheld the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) that protected slavery from Federal regulation. However, the foreign importation of slaves was prohibited. The Bill of Rights was incorporated into the Constitution's basic structure rather than added on later as in the U.S. Constitution.

THE PROVISIONAL CONFEDERATE CONGRESS

Under the Confederate Constitution, a provisional Congress was created, which issued $1 million in Treasury notes to finance defense and called for 100,000 volunteers to serve in the military for twelve months. Congress also created a navy, a post office, and a court system, and it authorized the Executive branch to send commissioners to Europe to negotiate treaties of commerce and/or alliance.

The states delivered the property they had seized from the U.S. government to the new Confederate government. Congress approved a special vote of gratitude to Louisiana for providing over $500,000 in coin that had been seized from the U.S. Mint and Customs House in New Orleans.

The provisional Congress also selected Jefferson Davis of Mississippi to serve as provisional president and Alexander Stephens of Georgia to serve as provisional vice president of the Confederacy. Under the Confederate Constitution, the president and vice president would serve a single six-year term. The president was authorized to use line-item vetoes to prevent potentially irresponsible provisions from being placed in otherwise acceptable bills. Davis and Stephens were to serve until February 22, 1862, when the permanent government was scheduled to begin operation.

THE INAUGURATION OF JEFFERSON DAVIS

Jefferson Davis was notified that he had been selected president at his home in Brierfield, Mississippi. Davis had resigned from the U.S. Senate the previous month, and he had served as U.S. secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce (1853-1857). He and his wife Varina traveled to Montgomery; Davis delivered several speeches on the six-day journey hoping for a peaceful separation with the North but acknowledging that war could ensue.

A large crowd witnessed Davis's inauguration as the first provisional president of the Confederacy on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol on February 18. In his inaugural address, Davis asserted that southerners had not revolted. They had merely "formed a new alliance, but within each State its government has remained, and the rights of person and property have not been disturbed. The agent, through whom they communicated with foreign nations, is changed; but this does not necessarily interrupt their international relations."

Davis added: "Our present political position has been achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations. It illustrates the American idea that governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established ..."

Vice President Stephens declared: "Our new government is founded on the opposite idea of the equality of the races ... Its corner stone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man. This ... government is the first in the history of the world, based upon this great physical and moral truth."

Large crowds celebrated the inauguration and the birth of the new Confederacy. Bands played songs such as "Farewell to the Star-Spangled Banner" and "Dixie's Land," a minstrel song composed by northerner Dan Emmett.

Excepting his home state of Mississippi, Davis appointed a man from each of the other six Confederate states (Texas had recently voted to secede) to serve in his six cabinet positions: Robert Toombs of South Carolina as secretary of state, Leroy Walker of Alabama as secretary of war, Christopher G. Memminger of Georgia as secretary of the treasury, Stephen Mallory of Florida as secretary of the navy, Judah Benjamin of Louisiana as attorney general, and John Reagan of Texas as postmaster general.

Davis's first cabinet meeting took place in a Montgomery hotel room. Paper labels were stuck on room doors to designate the different departments and the president's office. Lacking an effective printing press, the Treasury hired a New York company to print Confederate currency.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN LEAVES SPRINGFIELD

U.S. President-elect Abraham Lincoln left his home town of Springfield, Illinois en route to his March inauguration in Washington, DC. Lincoln delivered a farewell address to over 1,000 people at Springfield's Great Western Depot:

"Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man ... I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of the Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail ... To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell."

Ahead of his arrival, Lincoln sent Republican advisors to Washington to try negotiating a compromise. He also wrote to New York Senator William H. Seward, the secretary of state-designate: "... I am for no compromise which assists or permits the extension of the institution (of slavery) on soil owned by the nation. And any trick by which the nation is to acquire territory, and then allow some local authority to spread slavery over it, is as obnoxious as any other."

Lincoln's train made several stops on its eastward journey, during which he delivered speeches that downplayed the crisis and avoided specifics. At Indianapolis, Lincoln was greeted by a thirty-four-gun salute and over 20,000 people.

Addressing the crowd from the balcony of the Bates House in Indianapolis, Lincoln rhetorically asked if it was wrong "if the Government ... simply insists upon holding its own forts (in the South), or retaking those forts which belong to it?" If it was wrong, then Lincoln argued that "the Union, as a family relation, would not be anything like a regular marriage at all, but only as a sort of free-love arrangement."

Lincoln announced support for a bill under debate in Congress that would raise tariffs on imports. This conformed to the Republican Party platform, which advocated higher tariffs to protect northern industry from foreign competition. Southerners had adamantly opposed higher tariffs for generations because the South heavily relied on imports, but the bill was likely to pass now that southern members of Congress had resigned.

At Columbus, Lincoln was notified that his election had been confirmed by the Electoral College. Lincoln supporters fearing that secessionists would sabotage the electoral process were relieved. Attending a grand reception and military ball, Lincoln said, "I think that there is no occasion for any excitement" regarding secession. In Pittsburgh, Lincoln declared, "There is really no crisis except for an artificial one!"

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from THE CIVIL WAR MONTHS by Walter Coffey Copyright © 2012 by Walter Coffey. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction....................ix
January....................1
February....................5
March....................12
April....................17
May....................25
June....................31
July....................35
August....................41
September....................46
October....................50
November....................54
December....................58
January....................64
February....................70
March....................78
April....................83
May....................90
June....................99
July....................106
August....................115
September....................123
October....................132
November....................137
December....................142
January....................151
February....................160
March....................164
April....................171
May....................177
June....................185
July....................193
August....................204
September....................208
October....................217
November....................224
December....................231
January....................238
February....................243
March....................251
April....................257
May....................264
June....................279
July....................296
August....................309
September....................318
October....................328
November....................340
December....................347
January....................355
February....................363
March....................371
April....................381
May....................401
Afterword....................409
Recommended Reading....................411
Index....................417