Introduction

The First Modern War

The Civil War has a powerfully mysterious effect on Americans. The present age seems to be so dismissive of the past, yet the Civil War as a topic of interest is more popular than ever. Few other events in U.S. history can match the rich symbolism and emotional appeal of the Civil War. Images of the war abound in American culture: blue and gray, Abraham Lincoln, Confederate flags, Lee and Grant, Emancipation, Pickett’s Charge, Sherman’s March to the Sea, Gettysburg, and Appomattox.

Outside of these images, though, the average person with more than a passing interest in the war has no place to go to gain a broad, general understanding of the events and people who were engaged in this conflict. More importantly, there often is no answer to the question the average person asks most often: What is the Civil War all about?

Everyone knows that people have written thousands of books about the war — why one more? The Civil War For Dummies meets the needs of the average reader who wants to be informed without being overwhelmed with details. This book is directed toward several types of readers: First, the person who desires accurate, easily accessible information about the major events and issues of the Civil War without encountering intimidating historical narrative or ponderous military interpretation. Second, the person who may want a refresher on the major events of the war, but do not want to struggle through the tomes of scholars or arcane minutiae of Civil War fanatics. Third, those who are looking for a fun, how-to approach to exploring Civil War battlefields to learn more about the events directly and to enhance their appreciation and understanding.

The Civil War was a landmark event in U.S. history. Everything was different in the United States after the war. The war caused the United States to pursue a different path after 1865. It has affected every generation of Americans in some way or another. In many ways, the U.S. government and society are still feeling the effects from the Civil War. No other event has had such a lasting effect; no other event has been so costly.

About This Book

To most people the past appears to be remote and inaccessible. The main message of this book is that history is most emphatically neither remote nor inaccessible! Politics, passions, and conflict, (both armed and ideological) have always marked U.S. history. You will find similarities to the current day in the events of the past. In this way, history in the proper context can connect you to the past.

History doesn’t have to be boring or intimidating. Everyone who hates history books will say that they are nothing more than dry lists of names and places and dates and jargon. That’s true enough, in most cases, if you only look that far. Although this is a different kind of history book, it does follow certain conventions found in most history books. This one, like most, is arranged chronologically. Like most history books, too, it tells a story, which has a beginning, a middle, and an end. What is different about this book is that you can start wherever you like. You don’t need to slog through the whole thing from beginning to end to understand what is going on. It is organized so that you, the reader, have maximum flexibility to pick and choose what you want to know. You can jump in at any point and still keep up with the story, or select a topic to read in a chapter that interests you. Wherever necessary, terms will be defined for you, or referenced elsewhere for a detailed explanation. Obviously, names, dates, places are here, too, but they are placed where you can refer to them if you need to, or find them easily if you want.

Map Legend

As you move through the book, you will encounter key terms. These will be in italic and defined for you. In the conduct of warfare, campaigns and battles are planned and fought with maps. Maps are important to understanding the whys and hows of the Civil War. You will find that the maps included in the book have similar symbols. Here is a key to the map symbols you will see.

How This Book Is Organized

The book itself covers a span of about 15 years, from 1850 to 1865. That span of years may seem to be a short period of time, especially for a history book, but these 15 years were as important as any in the history of the United States. To help you understand why, the book is organized into seven parts, each dealing with a major theme of the war. The chapters within the parts are organized to take you through the major events of the Civil War, highlighting important facts and points of interest. Each chapter will acquaint you with words and ideas that are important to the entire picture. At the end of each section you’ll find a summary of major points (just to make sure you didn’t miss anything important, or if you skipped through a few chapters) to help you along.

Part I: The War and Its Causes

You can argue about the causes of the Civil War forever. In fact, many people have made their living from creating a new, provocative reason for why Americans leapt to kill each other with a fury that still amazes, even today. It is safe to say that in certain parts of the country you can still get in a fistfight by proclaiming the inviolability of one’s pet interpretation of the cause of the war.

Part I takes the period 1850 to mid-1861 and provides an overview of what was happening in America at that time and shows how a long series of tensions, crises, and decisions (both good and bad) eventually led to the Southern states leaving the Union, and a final crisis that led to war. Conditions in the United States in 1860 were vastly different from what they had been in 1850. This part tells you what took place that made these changes so dramatic and why.

The chapters in Part I introduce you to two distinctly different American cultures at the time, each with a regional focus. You discover the political parties, personalities, and events that shaped this decade and become familiar with the central debate of this decade — the extension of slavery into the new territories.

Part II: Making War

After North and South went to war, they quickly found out that a great deal of work and planning had to be done before any soldier could step on a battlefield to decide which side would win the victory. Part II introduces you to broad issues related to fighting not only this war, but any war.

The two governments had to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, develop a national strategy, establish commands, organize units, and assign generals, recruit and train soldiers and provide them with supplies, arms and equipment. Developing an army is a very demanding business, something neither side fully realized in the first two years of the war.

Part II also shows you how the North and South compared in resources critical to success in war and how each nation had advantages to exploit — and weaknesses to protect. The main idea of this part is to give you some background on basic military concepts and terminology and to get you comfortably in the military mindset when you actually get into descriptions of strategy, campaigns, and battles.

Part III: Opening Moves, 1861–1862

This part explains how the war began as a fight between amateurs. Armed with a strategy and eager to get to a fight, both sides quickly discovered at places such as Bull Run, Shiloh, the Seven Days Battles, Perryville, and Antietam, that war is not as simple as it seems. Despite terrible losses, neither side showed any inclination of giving up. The war would be long and difficult, a great test for the fortitude and will of both the Union and the Confederacy. Part III shows how both armies adjusted to the shock of war and what leaders emerged to become world famous in just a few short months. Other Generals seemed to come and go rather quickly and are rarely heard of again.

The fighting in 1862 stretched from the Mississippi to the Atlantic. It was both bloody and ultimately indecisive, as each side sought to make the most of its opportunities. Northern army advances in Tennessee and naval successes at New Orleans were offset by brilliant Confederate victories in Virginia and the first invasion of the North in Maryland and Kentucky. The failure of these invasions marked the loss of the South’s best chance for a short war and decisive victory. As a result, the hope of diplomatic recognition or armed intervention from Europe on behalf of the Confederacy faded away.

In 1862, Lincoln made a fateful decision that changed the United States forever. With the Emancipation Proclamation, he reshaped the goals of the war for the North. Although of little importance at first, it grew to become a powerful strategic weapon in its own right.

The Union disaster at Fredricksburg in Virginia and inconclusive fighting at Stone’s River in Tennessee brought 1862 to a sad close.

Part IV: War to the Hilt, 1863–1865

In the spring of 1863, the Confederate armies were still in the field and still dangerous. The end to the war was nowhere in sight. The South appeared invincible in Virginia with Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, and Stuart leading its soldiers. The Union had made no progress towards victory, its soldiers poorly led and frustrated by defeat after defeat. In the west, Union forces seemed to have made no further progress than they had the previous year. As the year went on, events on and off the battlefield would change the direction of the war.

Confederate victories at Chancellorsville and Chicamagua created a crisis for Lincoln and the Union cause. But in July of 1863, the South suffered critical defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg and lost the strategic initiative. Confed-erate forces would never again have the ability to threaten the North. These critical battlefield defeats spelled doom for the Confederacy. Nevertheless, bitter, brutal fighting would continue for nearly two more years.

At Vicksburg the North had a new hero, Ulysses S. Grant, who became General in Chief of the Union armies. He provided the strategic direction and coordination that brought final victory. He also brought with him a cold and unflinching will to succeed and bring the war to an end by destroying the Confederate armies in the field. Still, victory was hardly assured, even in 1864. Lincoln had to be reelected and the North was growing weary of the war. Only clear victories would save the cause.

William T. Sherman’s conquest of Atlanta and the initiation of his famous (or infamous) March to the Sea was enough to return Lincoln to a second term. Grant, meanwhile, fought a series of very brutal and bitter battles in Virginia — the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbor. Never besting Lee and taking terrible casualties, Grant nevertheless brought the Confederates to bay, holding them in place at Petersburg for a siege that allowed the North’s superior resources and manpower to wear the Confederate army down.

This was war without illusions, or glory, or patriotism. This was war fought by remorseless, hardened men who were determined to finish the war one way or the other. The battles of 1864 and early 1865 are characterized by both their ferocity and scale and also by the short space of time between engagements. Neither side was willing to wait or draw the contest out any longer. They would fight until one or the other was destroyed or gave up.

In early 1865, the two remaining Confederate armies under Lee and Johnston, shrinking away daily from disease, desertions, and combat losses, made one final attempt to join forces and continue the war. Lee was stopped at Appomattox Court House, and General Johnston stopped a few days later near Durham, North Carolina, by overwhelming numbers of well-trained, well-led, and well-supplied Union armies. Surrender was the only option, and Lee set the example of courage and nobility in defeat that is unmatched in U.S. history. Grant too, set the example of a generous and unvengeful victor, a model for American military leaders ever since.

By April 1865, the Confederate government ceased to exist; Jefferson Davis was a fugitive, and the cause was lost. Ironically, Abraham Lincoln’s death was the final blow — one that would wound the South for generations. Part IV looks at the causes of defeat and the reasons for victory. Like the causes of the war, the causes for defeat are subject to debate. These points will enable you to pick your position, or make up another one.

Part V: Behind the Lines

Between December 1862 and April 1863, the armies were in winter quarters. Part V gives you a chance opportunity to remove yourself from the battle lines and camps of the armies. It focuses on those issues and events behind the lines that shaped the course of the war and the future of the country just as much as the events on the battlefield did.

A great deal of change was happening, but only a very few grasped its significance. The war unintentionally created strong centralized governments that had to take on more authority to conduct the war. Both governments found that they had to use unorthodox ways to finance a very expensive war. No longer able to rely on volunteers to do the fighting, both governments had to resort to the very unpopular measure of conscription to fill the ranks depleted in the first two years of war. Extraordinary measures were needed to supply the armies with everything from haversacks to howitzers. Diplomats waged a careful war of words to influence France and Great Britain, two powerful countries very interested in the outcome of the war for their own reasons.

Politics, alas, never takes a holiday. The war had aroused deep emotions, and these did not disappear when the guns began to fire. Both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were burdened with vicious political infighting and struggles over who should lead the war effort. Incompetent Generals, appointed to please one political faction or another, plagued both armies and cost the lives of good men. The U.S. and Confederate States Congresses continued to make new laws and deal with contentious issues that had not been resolved before the war. Many new laws had long-lasting effects. Part V shows how states’ rights — the battle cry that created the Confederacy — became a double-edged sword for the new nation.

Part V also discusses the critically important role women and Blacks played in this conflict for both the North and South, and takes a look at the experience of the common soldier. Through drill, comradeship, and the fierce experience of the battlefield, Billy Yank and Johnny Reb, completely new to military activities, became an equal with the finest fighting men the world has ever seen.

Part VI: The Civil War Tourist

This part puts what you’ve learned into action. Armed with a bit of knowledge of strategy, weapons, tactics, personalities, and descriptions of the battles, anyone can proceed to a Civil War battlefield or historic site and gain additional insights and appreciation for what occurred there. Of course, all the information you need is provided in the previous parts of this book. No matter what your level of interest in the war or willingness to delve into details, the chapters in Part VI provide tips and guidelines to get you motivated and help you conduct a successful tour that will add to your understanding of the Civil War and connect you with history.

Part VII: The Part of Tens

This is a standard concluding chapter in the ...For Dummies books that provides the author with a place to put neat things not already said in the text. These purely arbitrary lists of ten things are intended to stir up a bit of discussion, debate, and the long-awaited fistfight.

Icons Used in This Book

Sometimes you need some help in finding what’s important quickly. In this book, you will find several types of icons — little pictures next to the text that get your attention and point you to the information you want. Look for these icons throughout the book. Here’s what each means:

This icon lets you know about important, emerging personalities that contribute a lot to the war and are remembered through history.

This icon highlights information related to the North.

This icon highlights information related to the South.

This icon emphasizes important events that signaled a turning point in a battle or the war itself.

This icon points out especially important information.

This icon relates to battlefield visits and points out a good idea or best way to do something to make your visit better.

Where to Go from Here

In military terms, after you know your objective, you will have to examine the ground you will cover. If you are uncertain of how to plan your campaign, you can start at the very beginning of the book. If you have a campaign plan in mind, you can look at background information, move right into the battles, or look for ammunition in The Part of Tens. You can even begin planning a battlefield visit right away and come back to parts of the book you like later on. Anyway you go, you will find what you need to bring your campaign to a victorious conclusion. Johnny Reb and Billy Yank await your discovery!