Mobilizing for War, North and South

I. Formation of the Confederate States of America

  • Recall that SC, MS, AL, LA, GA, FL and TX had already left by the time Lincoln assumed office
  • Confederates meet in February in Montgomery, AL, to form their government
  • They elected Jefferson Davis President on February 9, and he was inaugurated on February 18, a few weeks before Lincoln’s inauguration

II. Battle of Fort Sumter

  • Crisis had been developing since South Carolina seceded in December
  • Major Robert Anderson of the US Army had relocated his troops from Fort Moultrie to Sumter
  • SC prevented an unarmed ship from provisioning the Fort Sumter; seized all other federal property
  • On April 8, Lincoln says he will send supplies on unarmed ship
  • Confederate leaders almost unanimously agree it’s an act of aggression that must be answered
  • April 12-14 battle; Union surrenders; no casualties

III. Immediate aftermath

  • In the North: Lincoln calls on the states to supply 75,000 militiamen for 90 days to suppress the rebellion
  • In the South: Virginia secedes, followed by Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee

IV.  Robert E. Lee

  • As late as early 1861, Lee was denouncing secession in his correspondence
  • April 17: Virginia convention voted to secede
  • April 18: Lincoln requests through intermediary that he command the Union Army
  • April 20: Lee resigned from US Army
  • April 23: Lee took up command of the Army of Northern Virginia

V. Fear of standing armies

  • Powerful strain of anti-militarism dating back to the colonial era
  • Ordinary folks in the 17th and 18th centuries associated standing or professional armies with high taxes and victimization of civilians
  • Colonies relied on their own militia forces
    • What is a militia?
    • Militias evolved into critical social/political institutions in the colonies
      • Men elected their own commanders
      • Lincoln volunteered in the Illinois militia during the Black Hawk War and was elected captain. Many years later, he said this was “a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since.”

VI. Revolution

  • Heightened hostility toward standing armies
    • Resentment of quartering of British troops in private homes
  • Revolution was actually won by professional armies
    • George Washington’s Continental Army
    • Aid of French Army
  • But power myth holds (to this day) that the Revolution was won by volunteer militia units
  • Militia tradition enshrined in the Constitution
    • Second Amendment: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
  • Post-Revolution: US had a very small regular Army, while states maintained volunteer militia forces for emergencies

VII. Building up arms

  • Army ill prepared for war in 1860
  • It’s miniscule
    • Just 16,000 men serving as “regulars”
    • Widely scattered; most stationed at isolated posts in the Western territories
    • General-in-chief is 74-year-old Winfield Scott
  • Situation even worse in the South
    • A number of military leaders resign from the federal Army to join the Confederacy
    • But the Army has to be built from scratch

VIII. Use of militia system in the Civil War

  • 1861: Confederate Congress authorizes call for 100,000 volunteers to serve for 12 months; drew heavily from pre-existing militia regiments
  • Lincoln calls first for 75,000 men to sign on for 3 months; soon thereafter calls for 1 million volunteers
  • Both South and North essentially set quotas for the states
    • Chaotic, non-standardized system
    • Local communities provided weapons and uniforms
      • Hodgepodge of uniform styles and often outdated equipment
  • Response to initial calls for men was overwhelming in both the North and South
    • Recruiting typical took places at the local courthouse, with community members present
      • Meetings often called by individuals of high standing in the community who paid to outfit their regiment

IX. Military mobilization

  • Branches of service
    • Infantry, artillery cavalry
    • Vast majority (80%) serve in the infantry
  • More than one “army” in Union and Confederacy
    • “Army of the Potomac,” “Army of Northern Virginia”

X. Implications of volunteerism

  • Must understand that the division between battlefield and homefront was not so sharp
    • Transformation from soldier to civilian incomplete process
      • Soldiers did not go through process of military socialization that distanced them from civilians
      • Did not leave behind civilian identities
  • Communities sent men off to war
    • Example of the regimental flag
    • Surveillance: Thousands of letters being sent back home
      • Often published in local papers
    • Civilians all over the “war zone”
      • Family members go to find sons/husbands when wounded or killed; officers’ wives often stay with them in camp

XI. James McPherson on soldiers’ motivation

  • What motivated CW era soldiers to fight? How did they differ from the GIs of World War II? Why can we not map what we know about WWII soldiers back onto those who fought in the CW?
    • What is “primary group cohesion”?
  • What are the sources that McPherson draws on?
  • Are there weaknesses in his argument?
  • What does Lorien Foote say?

XII. Question of discipline

  • Historians tend to argue that discipline in the Civil War was notoriously lax
    • Men would not submit to regular military discipline
      • Much drinking, desertion, etc.
    • Even cases of men running unpopular officers out of camp
  • But there are also examples of discipline that today appear quite draconian
    • More men executed in the CW than all other wars combined (around 500, both North and South)
      • These executions incredibly public, ritualized affairs
    • And there corporal punishment was not at all unusual

“The crime of desertion has been one of the greatest drawbacks to our army. If the men who have deserted their flag had but been present on more than one occasion defeat would have been victory, and victory the destruction of the enemy. It may be therefore fairly asserted that desertion is the greatest crime of the soldier, and no punishment too severe for the offences. But the dislike to kill in cold blood—a Northern characteristic—the undue exercise of executive clemency, and in fact the very magnitude and vast spread of the offense, has prevented the proper punishment being applied. This is past; now the very necessity of saving life will cause the severest penalties to be rigorously exacted.” Harper’s Weekly, September 26, 1863

XIII. Corporal punishment

  • Flogging officially banned by Union in 1861 and in the Confederacy in 1862
  • But other corporal punishments remained widespread
    • Hanging by thumbs
    • Bucking and gagging
    • “Riding the rail”