The 20 Most Significant Events of the Civil War

by Alan Axelrod

  Copyright © 2017 by Alan Axelrod

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  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Rain Saukas

  Cover photo credits: Library of Congress

  Print ISBN: 9781510715202

  Ebook ISBN: 9781510715226

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Anita and Ian

  My thanks to Mike Lewis, who had this idea and who thought of me when he wanted to make a book out of it, and to Veronica Alvarado, who edited the manuscript.

  CONTENTS

  Introduction: For the Sake of Argument and Understanding

  A Civil War Timeline

  One:

  May 22, 1856

  The Gentleman from South Carolina Canes the Gentleman from Massachusetts

  Two:

  March 4, 1861

  “Black Lincoln” Is Inaugurated

  Three:

  April 12, 1861

  General Beauregard Opens Fire on Fort Sumter

  Four:

  September 22, 1862

  Lincoln Issues the “Preliminary” Emancipation Proclamation

  Five:

  April 9, 1865

  Lee Surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia

  Six:

  November 19, 1863

  Two Minutes at Gettysburg

  Seven:

  November 4, 1864

  Lincoln Wins Reelection

  Eight:

  July 13, 1863

  New York Draft Rioters Set Fire to the Orphan Asylum for Colored Children

  Nine:

  April 14, 1865

  John Wilkes Booth Assassinates Abraham Lincoln

  Ten:

  July 21, 1861

  The Rebels Win at Bull Run

  Eleven:

  June 1, 1862

  Lee Rises to Top Command in the Confederacy

  Twelve:

  July 4, 1863

  Vicksburg Falls to Grant

  Thirteen:

  May 7, 1864

  Defeated, Grant Advances

  Fourteen:

  April 6–7, 1862

  Shiloh Creates a New American Reality

  Fifteen:

  May 20, 1862

  Congress Passes the Homestead Act of 1862

  Sixteen:

  May 2, 1863

  Stonewall Jackson Falls to Friendly Fire at Chancellorsville

  Seventeen:

  November 7, 1862

  Lincoln Chooses Burnside to Lead the Army of the Potomac

  Eighteen:

  August 28–30, 1862

  Lee Divides and Conquers at the Second Battle of Bull Run

  Nineteen:

  October 16–18, 1859

  John Brown Raids Harpers Ferry

  Twenty:

  March 8, 1862

  The Ironclads Clash at Hampton Road

  Twenty-One:

  Lest We Forget

  The 20 Most Significant Civil War Books

  Index

  About the Author

  Photos

  INTRODUCTION

  For the Sake of Argument and Understanding

  THERE IS A story from World War II about a pilot and co-pilot who flew C-47 Skytrains as part of the extremely hazardous India-China Ferry across the Himalayas, a mission popularly known as “Flying the Hump.” The pilot always carried with him into the flight deck the makings of a gin martini—gin, vermouth, some olives, and a shaker. After a few flights, his co-pilot finally asked: “What’s with all the martini stuff?”

  “If we gotta bail out somewhere over these mountains, beyond rescue, in the middle of nowhere, I’m going to take all this ‘stuff’ and start making a martini as soon as I hit the ground,” he explained. “I guarantee you that, within two minutes, somebody will show up to argue with me that whatever I’m doing is no way to make a martini. Then you’ll be happy I took this gear with us.”

  It may be that the only surer way of starting an argument than this is to express an opinion about the Civil War. To those as passionate about their history as they are about their martinis, the causes, course, events, outcomes, personalities, and what-ifs relating to America’s deadliest war still pack the urgent punch of current events, even more than 150 years after Appomattox. There is a pleasure and a fascination about Civil War disputes, but there is also a sense of earnestness and a genuine importance. As many historians have pointed out, the American Revolution may have won our independence from Britain, but it was in the Civil War that an enduring nation was finally, and painfully, born. We Americans—along with everyone in every other part of the world who had any interest in the United States—continue to share a stake in that war. It is important that each of us creates an understanding of it.

  Toward that end, I want to start, or in certain cases restart, some arguments about the Civil War—minus the violence of the war itself, of course—by offering my ranking of the twenty most significant events in (and leading up to) the bloodiest and most consequential conflict fought on American soil. I present the events ranked in order of their significance rather than in their chronological order (which you will find, however, in the timeline that follows this introduction), and I do so with the intention of persuading you that what I have included and the order in which I have included it is spot-on accurate.

  That is my intention. It is not, however, my expectation.

  No, like that World War II “Hump” jockey, I expect an argument, and, if it is a good one, I expect that everyone involved will learn a lot more than any of us would from memorizing a chronological history.

  We learn the most from arguments that are made not just from a basis of verifiable fact, but also from clear criteria rather than mere opinion or gut feeling. The criteria I have consulted for inclusion and ranking of the top-20 most significant events include the following:

  1. The event’s effect as cause or trigger of the war.

  2. The event’s decisiveness—Was it a war-winning/war-losing event (both in military terms and in terms of public opinion, morale, and support)?

  3. The event’s magnitude and scope—for instance, the size and cost of a battle.

  4. The event’s enduring postwar significance in American history, politics, society, culture, and/or in military history and technology.

  My objective has been to adopt as fresh and unfiltered a perspective on the war as possible and to narrate each of the twenty events as if they were accounts being given for the very first time. This said, the discussion of each event also elaborates on the rationale for the choices made and how these choices account for the origins, conduct, and outcome of the Civil War.

  “Twenty events” is like the game of Twenty Questions. The first question the very concept should prompt is “Why not tw
enty-one or sixteen or just about any other integer?” The truth is that, for this question, there is no good answer. Twenty is one fourth of four score—a convenient number. Other than that, it is an arbitrary number. So this book concludes with a twenty-first chapter, which contains about ten more events for your consideration, each of which might have been included in the twenty, but wasn’t.

  A Civil War Timeline

  THIS TIMELINE LISTS the twenty most significant events of the Civil War in chronological order, together with an additional, unnumbered, ten discussed in Chapter 21.

  1856, MAY 22

  #1 The Gentleman from South Carolina Canes the Gentleman from Massachusetts

  South Carolina’s Representative Preston Brooks assaults abolitionist Charles Sumner, senator from Massachusetts, at his desk in the Senate chamber.

  1859, OCTOBER 16–18

  #19 John Brown Raids Harpers Ferry

  Radical abolitionist John Brown seizes the federal arsenal and armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia—today, West Virginia—with the intention of inciting and arming a slave rebellion.

  1860, DECEMBER 20

  South Carolina Secedes from the Union

  1861, MARCH 4

  #2 “Black Lincoln” Is Inaugurated

  While not an avowed abolitionist, Abraham Lincoln is opposed to the expansion of slavery, and his inauguration as the sixteenth president of the United States is sufficient to make secession and civil war inevitable.

  APRIL 12

  #3 General Beauregard Opens Fire on Fort Sumter

  After Major Robert Anderson, commanding the US Army garrison at Fort Sumter, refuses the demand of South Carolina’s governor that he surrender, P. G. T. Beauregard, the Confederacy’s first general, directs an artillery siege against the fort. This is the first battle of the Civil War.

  JUNE 8

  The United States Sanitary Commission Is Authorized

  JULY 21

  #10 The Rebels Win at Bull Run

  Confederate forces under Generals P. G. T. Beauregard, Joseph E. Johnston, and Thomas J. Jackson rout a Union army commanded by Irvin McDowell at the First Battle of Bull Run, near Manassas, Virginia, a short march from Washington, DC. It is the first major battle between the armies of the North and the South.

  NOVEMBER 8

  Confederate “Diplomats” Mason and Slidell Are Seized from the British-flagged Trent

  1862, MARCH 8

  #20 The Ironclads Clash at Hampton Roads

  The revolutionary proto-battleships CSS Alabama and USS Monitor, iconic products of innovation in industrialized warfare, fight to a stalemate.

  APRIL 8

  #14 Shiloh Creates a New American Reality

  Both the Confederate and Union public are appalled at the level of carnage in North American combat on an unprecedented scale.

  MAY 20

  #15 Congress Passes the Homestead Act of 1862

  Locked in a Civil War that is not going well, the Lincoln administration champions legislation designed to strengthen the Union along its East-West axis.

  JUNE 1

  #11 Lee Rises to Top Command in the Confederacy

  Robert E. Lee replaces a wounded Joseph E. Johnston as commanding general of the Army of Northern Virginia, the flagship force of the Confederacy.

  JULY 22

  The Dix-Hill Prisoner Exchange Is Signed

  AUGUST 17

  The Great Santee Sioux Uprising Begins in Minnesota

  AUGUST 24

  CSS Alabama Is Commissioned by the Confederate States Navy

  AUGUST 28–30

  #18 Lee Divides and Conquers at the Second Battle of Bull Run

  In a demonstration of his military genius and daring, Robert E. Lee purposely violates tactical convention by dividing his forces in the presence of the enemy—and achieves victory.

  SEPTEMBER 22

  #4 Lincoln Issues the “Preliminary” Emancipation Proclamation

  President Lincoln issues an executive proclamation that effectively makes the permanent abolition of slavery one of the objectives of the Civil War.

  NOVEMBER 7

  #17 Lincoln Chooses Burnside to Lead the Army of the Potomac

  Desperate to find a general who will bring the Union decisive victories, President Lincoln presses Ambrose Burnside into leadership of the premier force in the Union army—with disastrous results.

  1863, MAY 2

  #16 Stonewall Jackson Falls to Friendly Fire at Chancellorsville

  In the middle of a battle that would be called “Lee’s masterpiece,” Lee’s indispensable general, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, is mortally wounded by his own men.

  JULY 4

  #12 Vicksburg Falls to Grant

  Overshadowed by the victory at Gettysburg the day before, the fall of Vicksburg to Union general Ulysses S. Grant divides the Confederacy east and west and deprives it of vitally important Mississippi River navigation.

  JULY 13

  #8 New York Draft Rioters Set Fire to the Orphan Asylum for Colored Children

  Hard-pressed New Yorkers riot to protest conscription into an army to liberate slaves they fear will take their jobs.

  JULY 18

  The 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment Assaults Fort Wagner

  NOVEMBER 19

  #6 Two Minutes at Gettysburg

  Lincoln’s masterfully brief “Gettysburg Address” defines what is at stake in the Civil War.

  1864, APRIL 12

  Nathan Bedford Forrest Leads the Fort Pillow Massacre

  MAY 7

  #13 Defeated, Grant Advances

  Ulysses S. Grant becomes a strategic juggernaut, even in defeat, during his Overland Campaign.

  JULY 2

  Congress Passes the Wade-Davis Bill, Mandating a Punitive Reconstruction Policy

  SEPTEMBER 27

  Bloody Bill Anderson Leads the Centralia Massacre

  1865, APRIL 9

  #5 Lee Surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia

  Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia to U. S. Grant, precipitating the end of the Civil War.

  APRIL 14

  #9 John Wilkes Booth Assassinates Abraham Lincoln

  By killing President Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth deprived a shattered America of the single political leader most capable of healing the wounds inflicted by four years of the Civil War.

  1

  May 22, 1856

  The Gentleman from South Carolina Canes the Gentleman from Massachusetts

  Why it’s significant. The first battle of the Civil War opened on April 12, 1861, when P. G. T. Beauregard fired the first of some 4,000 cannonballs against Fort Sumter. The war itself, however, may have started five years earlier, not with an artillery bombardment, but with a battery of blows from a Southern congressman’s gold-headed walking stick rained down upon the head and body of a Northern senator. South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks beat Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner nearly to death in the US Senate chamber because the Northern abolitionist had made speech denouncing “slave power.” That political debate should be preempted by violence—one lawmaker against another, within the very heart of the national Capitol—foretold the coming war between the states.

  THE BEATING SEEMED to erupt from a rage of the heart, the product of a violent impulse. It was the afternoon of May 22, 1856. Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner was writing at his desk in the Senate chamber. South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks approached him, spoke to him in a calm, low voice—the tone and volume of voice that, in some people, precedes a whirlwind of violence.

  Confronted, Sumner began to stand. Before he could straighten himself, however, Brooks gripped his cane just below its gold head. The walking stick was made of black lacquered gutta-percha, a thick, rigid, heavy natural rubber, a material just flexible enough to resist breaking. Brooks brought it down upon the senator’s head, shoulders, back, and body time and time again, as if by irresistible reflex.

  As
if by reflex as well, the beaten man responded. By his own recollection, everything went dark after the first few strokes of the cane. Sumner no longer saw his assailant, or anyone or anything else for that matter, in the hallowed chamber. “What I did afterwards was done almost unconsciously, acting under the instincts of self-defense,” he later reported.

  Reeling beneath the machinelike blows, Sumner slid under his desk. It afforded no protection. The desk was bolted to the floor, the chair that went with it ran back and forth on a track laid into the floor. As he sat or lay in a semi-conscious heap beneath the desk, the chair effectively imprisoned him yet still left ample room for Brooks to continue wielding his cane. Blinded by the effusion of his own blood, Sumner managed to get to his feet. In doing so, he tore the desk from the floor in an animal effort to evade the bludgeoning.

  He staggered into the aisle, sightless, arms outstretched either to fend off the cane or to substitute for the sense of sight. Released from his trap beneath the desk, however, Sumner only made an easier target. Brooks was not finished with him. Using what he later admitted was the “full extent of [his] power,” the South Carolinian struck him in fresh places, across the face, the shoulders, and the head. At length, the gutta-percha, as if weary of bending, broke, snapping in two. Brooks retained the end with the golden head and continued to ply it, even as it shattered into even more pieces.

  “Oh Lord,” Sumner was heard to gasp as he at last lost consciousness—as he faded, bellowing (Brooks subsequently mocked him) “like a calf.”

  The Southerner would not let him lie, but, before his victim crumpled fully to the floor, he took hold of his lapel, in one hand gathering a fistful of the cloth, pulling the unconscious man partially upright before him. He now used the much-shortened stick to continue the beating at face-to-face range.

  * * *

  An act of passion—dreadful, awful, ungovernable, unstoppable. But hardly spontaneous. In fact, the force that drove the muscle that wielded the walking stick had been decades in gathering. Its accumulation began when the architects of American independence failed to face, let alone resolve, the issue of slavery. In his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson (a slave owner himself) condemned slavery, but other hands deleted the condemnation in subsequent drafts. When the Constitution was being drawn up in 1787, there were calls to include the abolition of slavery, but those voices were neither very loud nor very enthusiastic. In the end, the conservative voices prevailed. Yet the Constitution did not entirely ignore the subject of slavery. By stipulating that the importation of slaves—that is, the slave trade—was to cease by 1808 (Article I, Section 9), the framers (some have insisted) seem to have implicitly acknowledged an inherent wrong in the institution of slavery. At the same time, however, those same men created a document that both recognized and explicitly protected slavery. Article IV, Section 2 specified that slaves who escaped into a free state were not thereby freed; on the contrary, the government of a free state into which a slave escaped was obligated to ensure that the fugitive would be “delivered up on claim of the party to whom such labor may be due.”