CHAPTER 15

THE WAR OF THE UNION

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 Content
I – THE CAUSES OF THE WAR
II - END OF THE WAITING GAME
III- FOUR YEARS OF FIGHTING
IV- AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
 In U.S. history, the conflict (1861–1865) between the
northern States (the Union) and the southern United
States that seceded from the Union and formed the
Confederacy.

It is generally known in the South as the War

Between the States and is also called the War of the
Rebellion (the official Union designation), the War
of Secession, and the War for Southern
Independence. The name Civil War, although much
criticized as inexact, is most widely accepted.
 I – THE CAUSES OF THE WAR
The American Civil War was fought between the northern
and southern States from 1861 to 1865. There were two
main causes of the war.
I -1 The issue of slavery
The economy of the South was based on agriculture, and
the South depended on slaves for this.

The North was more industrial, with a larger population

and greater wealth.
 Northerners attributed the economic backwardness
of the South to slavery.

The South was ever alert to protect its “peculiar

institution,” even though many Southerners
recognized slavery as an anachronism in a supposedly
enlightened age.
 I-2 The Issue of States’ Rights
The South’s attitude was that each State had the
right to make any law it wanted. E.g. if southern
States wanted slavery, the US government could not
prevent it.

 In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President.

He and his party, the Republicans, were against
slavery, but said that they would not end it.

The southern States did not believe this.

Many of them became secessionists, believing that
southern States should secede from the Union (become
independent from the US).

 In 1860 there were 34 states in the US. Eleven of them

(South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia,
Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and
North Carolina) left the Union and formed the
Confederate States of America, often called the
Confederacy.
Jefferson Davis became its President, and for most
of the war Richmond, Virginia, was the capital.
Union Flag vs Confederate Flag
 II - END OF THE WAITING GAME

Lincoln’s victory in the presidential election of

November 1860 made South Carolina’s secession from
the Union on December 20 a foregone conclusion.
By February 1, 1861, five more Southern States had
seceded.
On February 8, the six States signed a provisional
constitution for the Confederate States of America.
The remaining Southern States as yet remained in the
Union, although Texas had begun to move on its
secession
 II-1- Lincoln and Secession
Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861.
In his inaugural address, he reassured southerners that he
had no intention of interfering with “slavery in the States
where it exists” but secession was another matter.
He also pleaded for a restoration of the bonds of union,
but the South turned a deaf ear.
On April 12, Confederate guns opened fire on the federal
garrison at Fort Sumter in the Charleston, South Carolina,
harbor and signaled the end of the tense waiting game.
On April 15, 1861, Lincoln issued a war proclamation. A
war had begun.
 II-2 Taking Sides
Lincoln’s war proclamation led four States of the
upper south to join the Confederacy: Virginia seceded
on April 17; Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina
followed quickly.

Between the enlarged Confederacy and the free-soil

North lay the border slave states of Delaware,
Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, which, despite
some sympathy with the South, would remain loyal to
the Union.
 III- FOUR YEARS OF FIGHTING
Over the next four years after the breakup of the war
on 12 April 1861, the Union army tried to take control
of the South.

In the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861, 35 000
Confederate soldiers under the command of Thomas
Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson forced a greater
number of Union forces (or Federals) to retreat
towards Washington, D.C..
Confederate General Robert E. Lee invaded Maryland
in September 1862.

Huge battles that followed, Shiloh, Antietam, Bull Run

and Chickamauga, have become part of America’s
national memory.
In the battle of Gettysburg in which 50,000 men
were killed or wounded Lee was forced to retreat
to Virginia, never to invade the North again.
 After the battle of Gettysburg in 1863, in a speech
known as the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln
said that the North was fighting the war to keep the
Union together so that ‘…government of the people, by
the people, for the people, shall not perish from the
earth’.
The Civil War was certainly the most catastrophic event
in American history. More than 600,000 Northerners and
Southerners died in the war, a greater number than all
those who had died in all other American wars
combined. As many as 50,000 died in a single battle.
 IV- AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
Slaves and former slaves played an important part in
the war. Some gave information to Union soldiers,
because they knew that their best chance of freedom
was for the North to win the war.
On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves in
the Confederate states.
 The 13th Amendment was ratified on Dec 18, 1865 -
It abolished slavery in the United States.
 Many former slaves wanted to become Union
soldiers, but this was not very popular among white
northerners. In spite of this opposition about Some
186,000 black soldiers would join the Union Army by
the time the war ended in 1865, and 38,000 lost their
lives.

Women on both sides worked as spies, taking

information, and sometimes even people, across
borders by hiding them under their large skirts.
Many served on the front lines as nurses.
 V- THE END OF THE WAR

In the South especially, people suffered greatly and had

little to eat.

On 9 April 1865, when the South could fight no more,

General Robert E Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S
Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. A total of
620 000 people had been killed and many more wounded.

in December 1865, Congress ratified the 13th Amendment

to the U .S . Constitution, which abolished slavery.
 the war was over but feelings of hostility against the
North remained strong.
John Wilkes Booth, an actor embittered by the South’s
defeat, decided to kill President Lincoln.
On 14 April 1865 he approached the President in
Ford’s Theatre in Washington and shot him. Lincoln
died the next morning.
The killing of President Lincoln showed how bitter
many people felt. The South had been beaten, but its
people had not changed their opinions about slavery or
about states’ rights.
 CONCLUSION
The war ended the debate over slavery that had
divided North and South since the drafting of the
Constitution in 1787. During the Reconstruction the
United States truly became united in every sense of
the word.
 Question
 1- What is American Civil War?
 2. What are its causes?
 3. what is secession?
 4. How many States seceded after Lincoln’s election?
 5- Why did they secede?
 6. What is the difference between the Confederacy and the Confederation?
 7. who won the war?
 8. Did African Americans get benefit from the war? Why?
THANK YOU

Dr. ETTIEN