Factors of Historical Analysis - Chapter 14

Chapter 14 - A New Birth of Freedom: the Civil War

Social fact

1. "The expansion of the activities of the national government opened new jobs for women as clerks in government offices." p 537

- For many northern women in nineteenth century, took advantage of the wartime labor shortage to move into jobs in factories or nursing. They took a direct part in military campaigns or in organizations that gathered money and medical supplies for soldiers.   

2. "After a growing clamor for action by republican newspapers, members of Congress, and increasingly impatient Lincoln, did McDlellan lead his army of more than 100,000 men into Virginia." p 517

- In 1862, general Lee blunted McClellan's attacks and forced him to withdraw back to the vicinity of Washington, D.C. Successful of the defensive, Lee now launched an invasion of the North. 

3. "while the Union accomplished little in the East in the first two years of the war, events in the West followed a different course." p 518

- In February 1862, grant won the Union's first sighificant victory when he captured Fort Henry and Fort Donlson in Tennessee. At the same time, Grant withstood a surprise Confederate attack at Shiloh, Tennessee.

Cultural fact

1. "'No negro who has ever been a soldier,' wrote a northern official in 1865,'can again be imposed upon; they have learned what it is to be free and they will infuse their feelings into others." p 527

- For black soldiers themselves, military service proved to be a liverating experience. Service in army established men as community leaders and opened a door to political advancement.

2. "Even as the war produced unprecedented casualties, the northern protestant clergy strove to provide it with a religious justification and to reassure their congrations that the dead had not died in vain." p 530

- The religious press now devoted more space to military and political developments than to spiritual matters. Christianity and patriotism were joined in a civic religion that saw the war as God's mechanism for ridding the United States of slavery and enabling it to become what if had never been a land of freedom.

3. "It is sometimes said that the American Civil War was part of a broader nineteenth-century process of nation building." p 529

- The U.S. Civil War took place as modern states around the world consolidated their power and reduced local autonomy. 

Political fact

1. "The intense new nationalism made criticism of the war effort or of the policies of the Lincoln administration seem to Republicans equivalent to treason." p 531

- Republicans saw criticism of the war effort, and Lincoln consolidated executive power and twice suspended the writ of habeas corpus throughout the entire Union for those accused of "disloyal activities".

2. "Repulbicans laveled those oppesed to the war Coperheads, after a poisonous snake that strikes without warning. Mounting caualties and rapid societal changes divided the North." p 539

- Despite Lincoln's political skills, the war and his adinistration's policies divided northern society. It heightened existing social tenses and created new ones.

3. "Essentially, the Confederacy adopted a defensive strategy, with occasional thrusts into the North." p 516

- Lincoln's early generals found it impossible to bring the Union's advantages in manpower and technology to bear on the battlefield. In 1861, the North suffered from narrowness of military vision and its generals initially concentrated on occupying southern territory and attempting to capture Richmond, the Confederate capital.

Economic fact

1. "The Civil War was the first major conflict in which the railroad transported troops and supplies and the first to see railroad junctions such as Atlanta and Petersburg become major military objectives." p 513

- Railroad were vital to the war effort. The war saw the use of the telegraph for military communication, the introductio of observation baloons to view enemy lines, and primitive hand grenades and submarines. 

2. "The economic crisis, which stood in glaring contrast to the North's boom, was an unvoidable result of the war, but Confederate policies exggerated its effects." p 541

- The South's economic, unlike the North's, was in crisis during the war. Numerous yeoman families, many of whom had gone to war to preserve their economic independence, sank into proverty and debt. 

3. "To raise money, the government increased the tariff to unpresedented heights, imposed new taxes on the production and consumption of goods, and enacted the nation's frist income tax." p 536

- The government borrowed more than $2 billion by selling interest-bearing bonds, thus creating an immense national debt. To rationalize the banking system, Congress established a system of nationally charaterd banks which were required to purchase government bonds.