The Story of America: The House Divides

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The Story of America series with Hillsdale College professor and author of Land of Hope, Bill McClain. The Civil War was a culmination of many things, most of all slavery and the election of Abraham Lincoln. Let's get into the story.

Take it away, Bill. So that's how the Civil War began. It was a long road, a century in the making.

And now that in retrospect almost had to happen in some form or another. Few at the time believed it would take as long as it took to end or that the casualties would pile up as high as they did. But for Lincoln, there was one goal and one goal alone, the preservation of the Union.

It's important to keep in mind. It was not until well into the nation's bloodiest war that the ending of slavery itself would become an explicit northern objective. And you can see that from the elaborate emphatic professions of Lincoln in the first inaugural address that he had no intention, no inclination, as he said, to change the status of slavery as it had existed. As the war began, the North had big advantages. No doubt North had more people, 22 million compared to the South's 9 million, 4 million of which were slaves. The North had economic power that dwarfed the South from banking to manufacturing to shipping and other commerce.

And they produced most of the iron and coal in the country. There was a huge advantage of the North when it came to transportation too, railroads, ships, even horses and actual Navy and a pretty good sized one at that. So the odds at first glance were clearly stacked against the South, but there's more to war than material and industrial strength. The advantages the South enjoyed were significant and they were intrinsic advantages rather than extrinsic.

For one thing, victory for the South had a much easier path. To win, the South merely had to hang on to their territory. They had to hang on to their own land, their own homes. They had only to hold on to what was already theirs. The North had to fight and win control over huge amounts of hostile territory, 750,000 square miles of territory.

That's nearly the size of Mexico. And after a win, the North would then have the unenviable task of trying to get the South to rejoin the union, forcing it back into a union that it had rejected. Most important of all, the North was fighting for an idea, the idea of the union. The South was fighting to defend their homes, but there were more reasons for Southerners to feel optimistic for a triumph in this battle. One thing the South had on its side was time. If the South could simply prolong the war and its casualties long enough for Northerners to get tired of the cost of war and human life and financial costs too, they would just quit the war and let the South go and continue to trade with their new Southern partner.

There was a saying in Afghanistan and some of their leaders that fleshes this line of thinking out, asked about America's superior fighting power in military technology and Afghan General Lyn Linton, they have the watches, we have the time. It was true of the 21st century, and it was a very large advantage the South enjoyed over the North. The South also had the hope that one of its great European trading partners, completely dependent on cotton, might eventually join the South's side.

So for example, Great Britain. The South also had remarkably talented military leaders, arguably the best in the nation. Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and others who'd left the Union Army to join the Confederacy's cause. And the South was filled with young and older men alike who were used to shooting. They were used to shooting squirrels at long distances for food and fun. They were great marksmen, and great marksmen make for a fierce and effective army of resistance.

And that's not all. Lincoln was up against it at home. He was a new president. His big victory was not a big one. It was crushing in the northern states. But remember, he did not get a single electoral vote from the southern state.

So his support was not long, wide, or deep. And he didn't have a true national army. There had always been this prohibition against the notion of a standing army, going back to the founding. So Lincoln would have to create a national army, and he'd have to do it very quickly.

And it wasn't pretty. He called up the state militias. They would show up at mustering points, dressed up in their home uniforms, which ranged in colors from red to black to emerald.

One New York regiment even came dressed in Turkish garb with fez hats. The army, in short, was visibly a mess. To turn this assembly of men into a functioning army would take time, skill, and real patience. And you may remember that this was the great task in the Revolutionary War of George Washington.

How to create a continental army that would hold together, that would be effective in battle, that would be disciplined, that wouldn't desert at the first opportunity. Lincoln faced this challenge as well. And Lincoln knew that he'd have to get some early wins in this new war, because if he had a string of early losses, people would lose confidence in the Union's ability to achieve its objectives. And there was a sentiment, a feeling, that this war wasn't going to last very long. It was very deeply ingrained in the North because of the superiority advantages that were baked into the cake. Lincoln, when he signed up his first volunteers, it was for a 90-day enlistment, hoping that some decisive wins, especially a strike on the Confederate Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, which was only 90 miles from Washington, that that would end things.

How hard could that be? Well, that question was answered quickly, abruptly, rudely, and rather decisively by the first major land battle at Bull Run, not far from the nation's Capitol. The force of 37,000 Union soldiers was humiliated by a Southern force led by General Jackson, Stonewall Jackson. The Northern troops were outflanked, outfought, outmaneuvered, outclassed entirely.

They came racing home along with some onlookers and picnickers, observers who thought it might be fun to watch a real-life battle in action. They would be disabused of such a silly and trivial notion very quickly, as the North was also disabused of the idea this war would be easy and quick. At the same time, the General-in-Chief, Winfield Scott, a hero of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War, but a man who was 74 years old and not in particularly good health, Winfield Scott put together a grand plan of action known as the Anaconda Plan, named after the huge South American snake that squeezes its prey to death. That was the Union's plan, use its superior Navy to blockade the Southern ports, which would have the twofold negative effect of not letting much needed imports into the region, and the economy of the South depended on imports and it depended on exports. The Anaconda squeezed the economic engine out of the South, cotton, by not letting the South's biggest export out of the country. It was a great strategy on paper, but there was only one problem. It took too long. And you've been listening to Hillsdale College Professor Bill Maclay tell one heck of a story about the Civil War, its start a century in the making, but as Professor Maclay said, almost inevitable. Civil War is still happening all over the world, but this one, our Civil War, one of the most catastrophic of all time.

We continue the story with Bill Maclay, the story of America's Civil War here on Our American Stories. Is your body trying to tell you something? Maybe you feel more tired in the morning. Maybe your focus isn't as sharp as it used to be. Maybe you're having trouble sleeping or feeling bloated.

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Let's return to the story. Winfield Scott put together a grand plan of action known as the Anaconda Plan. It was a great strategy on paper, but there was only one problem. It took too long. Embargo's take time.

Blockades take time. And time was not on Lincoln's side. So he replaced the aging Scott with the first of his many generals with General George McClellan, whose task was to advance the war and take the battle to the South with speed and decisive victories. McClellan soon disappointed Lincoln, too. He was a stiff and snobby man, a West Pointer who believed in thorough preparation and training of his troops, and as a result, delayed any move on Virginia until March of 1862, what must have felt like an eternity for Lincoln.

It didn't help matters that the arrogant McClellan had open contempt for Lincoln's intellect and talents. Eventually, McClellan was ready to take on the objective of seizing Richmond and came up with a very good plan to do it instead of a direct Southern march through the tough terrain of Northern Virginia. McClellan would move his army of 120,000 down the Potomac River to the Chesapeake Bay South to the piece of land between the James and York Rivers, where Jamestown and Yorktown were, and then proceed from the Southeast up to Richmond.

McClellan's opening salvo went well. His army was within 25 miles of Richmond, but that early success was squandered due to McClellan's endless fussing and hesitancy, which all but lost any military momentum. Into that vacuum came General Lee of the Confederacy, who through a series of brilliant tactical moves, beat back McClellan's advances, all of which ended in a Union retreat.

War is tricky, and soon Lee would suffer from precisely the opposite problem of McClellan's. Buoyed by confidence, maybe too much confidence, Lee decided to attack the North in Pennsylvania and Maryland. A bold thing to do as the South's advantage was fighting a defensive war, and yet this was going on offense in a big way, hoping that it would show potential European supporters reasons why they ought to join the South's cause. The South was strong enough to prevail.

Well, it turned out to be a bigger gamble with far more risk than the Lee could have imagined. It turns out General McClellan's intelligence unit secured Lee's battle plans, secret orders that gave the Union troops a huge advantage. It was a big advantage, but once again McClellan failed to act decisively, giving Lee time to gather his forces. The two armies would meet at Antietam Creek in Maryland on September 17, 1862.

Nearly 22,000 men were killed or wounded that day, making it the single bloodiest day of a very bloody war. There were no winners or losers in this battle. Essentially, it was a tie, a wash. Lincoln was not pleased with McClellan's performance. McClellan was removed and replaced with a more decisive and aggressive General, General Ambrose Burnside. As tough as Antietam was for the North, and it was tough, it may have been tougher on the South.

Their ability to attract support from nations around the world had been hindered. Lincoln saw an opportunity. He'd always been pondering ways to weaken the institution of slavery, though never a self-described abolitionist, he's always known what slavery was and spoke often about what it was, an unqualified evil. Now he was getting pressure from abolitionist groups and Republicans to do something. Lincoln understood that a move in this direction would be appealing to world powers and gain their support, while simultaneously ending any real chance of outside support by foreign powers of the Confederacy's cause.

It was a two for one deal in the end. So what held Lincoln back from moving earlier on this side? Well, it turns out slavery was protected by the Constitution itself. Lincoln had said this many times. He even addressed it in his campaign at his inaugural address.

It was not a mere trifle. Lincoln had a near religious view of the Constitution. It was the North Star, along with the Declaration of Independence, by which he was guided. Lincoln understood the very strength and future of the Union depended on devotion to the Constitution. He knew that if he were to use his executive power to end slavery, he would have to do it in a way that was also in accord with and compliant with the Constitution. And Lincoln had other issues to grapple with, very practical ones, tactical, political problems. For one thing, he wanted to keep the border states like Missouri and Kentucky, slave states that had not joined the Confederacy, he wanted to keep them out of the Confederacy and knew that any bold or sudden move to end slavery might well have the effect of pushing those border states into the arms of the Confederacy, which would be a disaster for the Union's prosecution of the war. Add to this the fact that Lincoln wasn't certain that a majority of Northerners would be for abolition. Lincoln was not only a statesman, but a master politician.

And he understood that it was always perilous to get too far ahead of public sentiment and opinion. Weighing all of these things, Lincoln decided in July of 1862 that the government should adopt a strong anti-slavery position, one that could be justified on military and diplomatic grounds. He knew that freed slaves could and would fight in the war on the Union side, which would be a good thing for the Union militarily. He also knew that abolition would bring support from the foreign capitals of the world, a huge diplomatic victory for the Union. As a constitution man, Lincoln would have vastly preferred for the Confederate states to abolish slavery on their own, but that didn't happen, wasn't likely to happen. And Lincoln was now prepared to use the power of his office, his power as commander in chief under the Constitution, explicitly by the Constitution itself.

Use that power to begin the process of ending slavery. Discussions with his cabinet about such a bold move met with mixed reactions. Some feared absolute chaos in the South, foreign intervention, precisely what Lincoln did not want. Others like Secretary of State William Seward thought it was a good idea, but thought the timing was wrong.

Better to wait until a big victory or two before announcing such a thing. Lincoln actually followed Seward's advice. It was a mere five days after Antietam on September 22nd, 1862, that Lincoln made public the first part of what has come to be called the Emancipation Proclamation. And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery and a terrific piece of storytelling as always by Professor Bill Maclay, author of Land of Hope. And you're hearing one heck of a story about the beginning of the Civil War right up to the Emancipation Proclamation and Lincoln's difficulty with weaving this all together and just trying to do one thing and one thing alone, and that's hold the Union together and by almost any means necessary. And my goodness, his ability to fire bad generals may be one of his great talents.

The story of the Civil War, the story of so much more than part of our Story of America series here on Our American Stories. Ever wolf down a Big Mac and thought, I could use some extra cash? Meet Drop, the ultimate rewards app. Earn free gift cards for getting your daily coffee or late night drive through effortlessly. Just link a card, shop and watch rewards stack. With Drop, it's like getting paid to indulge. Download Drop now and start earning.

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