Chapter 14 History

Second American Revolution

The changing status of black Americans was only one dramatic example of what some historians call the Second American Revolution- the transformation of American government and society brought about by the Civil War.

Jefferson Davis

Davis was a planter, politician, and soldier born in Kentucky and raised in Mississippi. Jefferson Davis was the first and only President of the Confederacy from 1860-1865. He struggled to form a solid government for the states to be governed by.

Wade-David Bill

Another group now stepped onto the stage of politics- the free blacks of New Orleans, who saw the Union occupation as a golden opportunity to press for equality before the law and a role in government for themselves. Their complaints at being excluded under Lincoln's Reconstruction plan won a sympathetic hearing from Radical Republicans in Congress. By the summer of 1864, dissatisfaction with events in Louisiana helped to inspire the Wade-Davis Bill, named for two leading Republican members of Congress. This bill required a majority (not one-tenth) of white male southerners to pledge support for the Union before Reconstruction could begin in any state, and it guaranteed blacks equality before the law, although not the right to vote. The bill passed Congress only to die when Lincoln refused to sign it and Congress adjourned. As the war drew to a close, it was clear that although slavery was dead, no agreement existed as to what social and politicla system should take its place.

"10 percent" Reconstruction plan

As the Civil War progressed, the future political status of African Americans emerged as a key dividing line in public debates. Events in Union-occupied Louisiana brought the issue to national attention. Hoping to establish a functioning civilian government in the state, Lincoln in 1863 announced his Ten-Percent Plan of Reconstruction. He essentially offered an amnesty and full restoration of rights, including property except for slaves, to nearly all white southerners who took an oath affirming loyalty to the Union and support for emancipation. When 10 percent of the voters of 1860 had taken the oath, they could elect a new state government, which would be required to abolish slavery. Lincoln's plan offered no role to blacks in shaping the post-slavery order.

Transcontinental Railroad

Congress also made up huge grants of money and land for internal improvements, including up to 100 million acres to the Union Pacific and Central Pacific, two companies chartered in 1862 and charged with building a railroad from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast. (These were the first corporate charters issued by the federal government since the Second Bank of the United States in 1816.) It required some 20,000 men to lay the tracks across prairies and mountains, a substantial number of the immigrant Chinese contract laborers called "coolies" by most Americans. Hundreds of Chinese workers died blasting tunnels and building bridges through this treacherous terrain. When it was completed in 1869, the transcontinental railroad, which ran from Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco, reduced the time of a cross-country journey from four or five months to six days. It expanded the national market, facilitated the spread of settlement and investment of the West, and heralded the doom of the Plains Indians.

Battle of Gettysburg

Despite the accelerating demise of slavery and the decline of morale in the South, the war's outcome remained very much in doubt for much of its third and fourth years. In April 1863, "Fighting Joe" Hooker, who had succeeded Ambrose E. Burnside as the Union commander in the East, brought the Army of the Potomac into central Virginia to confront Lee. Outnumbered two to one, Lee repelled Hooker's attack at Chancellorsville, although he lost his ablest lieutenant, "Stonewall" Jackson, mistakenly killed by fire from his own soldiers. Lee npw gambled on another invasion of the North, although his strategic objective remains unclear. Perhaps he believed a defeat on its own territory would destroy the morale of the northern army and public. In any event, the two armies, with the Union soldiers now under the command of General George G. Meade, met at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the first three days of July 1863. With 165,000 troops involved, the Battle of Gettysburg remains the largest battle ever fought on the North American continent.

Battle of Antietam

In August 1862, Lee again emerged victorious at the second Battle of Bull Run against Union forces under the command of General John Pope. Successful on the defensive, Lee now launched an invasion of the North. At the Battle of Antietam, in Maryland, McClellan and the Army of the Potomac, rebelled against Lee's advance. In a single day of fighting, nearly 4,000 men were killed and 18,000 wounded (2,000 of whom later died of their injuries). More Americans died on September 17, 1862, when the Battle of Antietam was fought, than on any other day in the nation's history, including Pearl Harbor and D-Day in World War II and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

First Battle of Bull Run

In the East, most of the war's fighting took place in a narrow corridor between Washington and Richmond- a distance of only 100 miles- as a succession of Union generals led the Army of the Potomac (as the main northern force in the East was called) toward the Confederate capital, only to be turned back to southern forces. The first significant engagement, the first Battle of Bull Run, took place in northern Virginia on July 21, 1861. It ended with the chaotic retreat of the Union soldiers, along with the sightseers and politicians who had come to watch the battle. In the wake of Bull Run, George B. McClellan, an army engineer who had recently won a minor engagement with Confederate troops in western Virginia, assumed command of the Union's Army of the Potomac.

John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who, as part of a conspiracy plot, assassinated Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865. After killing Lincoln, Booth was on the run for 12 days with his accomplice, David Herold. Booth and Herold were assisted by a series of people as they fled deeper into what they hoped would be the protection of the south.

Appomattox Court House

On April 9, 1865, realizing that further resistance was useless, Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. Although some Confederate units remained in the field, the Civil War was over. Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia was the site of the surrender of Confederate general Robert E. Lee to Union general Ulysses S. Grant.

Emacipation Proclamation

On January 1, 1863, after greeting visitors at the annual White House New Year's reception, Lincoln returned to his study to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. The document did not liberate all the slaves- indeed, on the day it was issued, it applied to very few. Because its legality derived from the president's authority as military commander-in-chief to combat the South's rebellion, the proclamation exempted areas firmly under Union control (where the war, in effect, had already ended). Thus, it did not apply to the loyal border slave states that had never seceded or to areas of the Confederacy already occupied by Union soldiers, such as Tennessee and parts of Virginia and Louisiana. But the vast majority of the South's slaves- more than 3 million men, women, and children- it declared "henceforward shall be free." Since most of these slaves were still behind Confederate lines, however, their liberation would have to await Union victories. Despite its limitations, the proclamation set off scenes of jubilation among free blacks and abolitionists in the North and "contrabands" and slaves in the South. By making the Union Army an agent of emancipation and wedding the goals of Union and abolition, the proclamation sounded the eventual death knell of slavery. Not only did the Emancipation Proclamation alter the nature of the Civil War and the course of American history, but it also marked a turning point in Lincoln's own thinking. For the first time, it committed the government to enlisting black soldiers in the Union army. He would later refuse suggestions that he rescind or modify the proclamation in the interest of peace. The evolution of Lincoln's emancipation policy displayed the hallmarks of his wartime leadership- his capacity for growth and his ability to develop broad public support for his administration.

13th Amendment

On January 31, 1865, Congress approved the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery throughout the entire Union- and in so doing, introduced the word "slavery" into the Constitution for the first time. This abolished slavery throughout the United States.

Battle of Vicksburg

On July 3, Confederate forces, led by Geroge E. Pickett's crack division, marched across an open field toward Union forces. Withering artillery and rifle fire met the charge, and most of Pickett's soldiers never recieved Union lines. Pcikett's Charge was Lee's greatest blunder. His army retreated to Virginia, never again to set foot on northern soil. On the same day that Lee began his retreat from Gettysburg, the Union achieved a significant victory in the West at the Battle of Vicksburg, Late in 1862, Grant had moved into Mississippi toward the city of Vicksburg. From its heights, defended by miles of trenches and earthworks, the Confederacy commanded the central Mississippi River. When direct attacks failed, Grant launched a siege, On July 4, 1863, Vicksburg surrendered, and with it John C. Pemberton's army of 30,000 men, a loss the Confederacy could ill afford. The entire Mississippi River Valley now lay in Union hands.

General Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee was the general over the confederate troops during the Civil War. He was defeated at Antietam when he retreated across the Potomac. He was also defeated at Gettysburg by General Meade's troops leading to his surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox Court House, Virginia.

General Tecumseh Sherman

Sherman was the general of the Union army put in charge of dividing the South by land. He led the March to the Sea and scorched Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah on the coast. He captured Atlanta in 1864.

The 54th Massachusetts Regiment

The 54th Massachusetts Regiment is best known for its service leading the failed Union assault on Battery Wagner on July 18, 1863. Battery Wagner was a Confederate fortification on Morris Island. This was one of the first major actions in which African American soldiers fought for the Union in the American Civil War. The soldiers in the 54th convinced many politicians and Army officers to the further enlistment of black soldiers because of the courage that they showed in battle.

The Battle of Gettysburg

The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the war. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union forces after losing 1/3 of his army. After this battle, the Confederate forces were never again able to threaten Northern territory seriously. There were more than 50,000 casualties and it was the bloodiest single battle in the war. This took place on July 1-3, 1863.

Monitor and Merrimac

The battle between these two ships took place on March 8 and 9, 1862. It is also known as the Battle of Hampton Roads. It is significant in naval history because it was the first battle between ironclad ships. The two ironclads fought for several hours on the 9, but neither was able to damage the other significantly, and the battle eventually ended without either side being able to claim a decisive victory. The Union's losses were far worse, but the Confederates did not succeed in breaking the blockade.

Sea Island Experiment

The most famous "rehearsal for Reconstruction" took place on the Sea Islands just off the coast of South Carolina. The war was only a few months old when, in November 1861, the Union navy occupied the islands. Nearly the entire white population fled, leaving behind some 10,000 slaves. The navy soon followed by other northerners- army officers, Treasury agents, prospective investors in cotton land, and a group known as Gideon's Band, which included black and white reformers and teachers committed to uplifting the freed blacks. Many northerners believed that the transition from slave to free labor meant enabling blacks to work for wages in more humane conditions than under slavery. When the federal government put land on the islands up for sale, most was acquired not by former slaves but by northern investors bent on demonstrating the superiority of free wage labor and turning a tidy profit at the same time.

Radical Republicans

The most uncompromising opponents of slavery before the war, abolitionists and Radical Republicans, quickly concluded that the institution must become a target of the Union war effort. Outside of Congress, few pressed the case for emancipation more eloquently than Frederick Douglass. From the outset, he insisted that it was futile to "separate the freedom of the slave from the victory of the government." The Radical Republicans were a group within the Republican party in the 1850s and 1860. They advocated for strong resistance to the expansion of slavery, opposition to the compromise with the South in the secession crisis of 1860-1861, emancipation and arming of black soldiers during the Civil War, and equal civil and political rights for blacks during the Reconstruction.

Homestead Act

The new American nation-state that emerged during the Civil War was committed to rapid economic development. Congress adopted policies that promoted economic growth and permanently altered the nation's financial system. To spur agricultural development, the Homestead Act offered 160 acres of free public land to settlers in the West. It took effect on January 1, 1863, the same day as the Emancipation Proclamation, and like the proclamation, tried to implement a vision of freedom. By the 1930s, more than 400,000 families had acquired farms under its provisions. In addition, the Morrill Land Grant College Act, named for Justin S. Morrill of Vermont, who introduced the measure, assisted the states in establishing "agricultural and mechanic colleges."

General Thomas Jackson

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was a Confederate general whose men stopped the Union assault during the Battle of Bull Run, which led to Confederate victory. He led the Shenandoah Valley campaign and fought with Robert E. Lee in the Seven Days Battle. Jackson was killed by fire at Chancellorsville.

General Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant led the Union to victory over the Confederates in April 1865. He was later elected the eighteenth president of the United States of America. While in office, he worked to implement Congressional Reconstruction and remove any remaining slavery. He aligned himself with the Radical Republicans during the late administration of Jackson.