Spring 2025 Part 2

  

160 Years After the American Civil War

This year is a year of massive anniversaries. This is the 160th year anniversary of the end of the American Civil War. The American Civil War was the bloodiest war in American soil in the history of the United States of America resulting in almost 1 million people being dead from the war. To this day, this war is personal for us Americans. One of my ancestors (who was Johnson Brickhouse) was a Union solider during the U.S. Civil War too. Museums, reenactments, and other forms of commemorations relate to this monumental configuration. The war existed by complex factors. Yet, the main cause of the war was about the issue of slavery in America. After the Revolutionary War, America was debating among its people on what to do about slavery. Some back then wanted slavery immediately abolished, some wanted gradually abolished, and others wanted slavery to exist forever. The North and the South competed politically, socially, and economically for decades after 1776. After the Nat Turner insurrection, other slave revolts, the growth of the abolitionist movement, etc. the expansion of slavery continued. Opponents of slavery abhorred the expansion of slavery. This debate lead to violence like pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces fighting in Kansas during the 1800s. A lawyer named Abraham Lincoln opposed slavery and won the 1860 Presidential election. The South struck first by unjustly attacking Fort Sumter causing the American Civil War. The war was between the Union and the Confederacy. The Confederacy was headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. I'm from Virginia, so we Virginians know about the American Civil War very vividly. In the Western and Eastern theaters of the war, the Confederacy had many early victories. Later, the Union came back to cause a victory after the major Union victory at the Battle of Vicksburg (which cut the Confederacy in half). Union Generals like General Ulysses S. Grant led the Union to fight on for victory. Black American troops heavily contributed to the Union victory too. By April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant, and Abraham Lincoln lived to see that day. Yet, President Abraham Lincoln was unjustly assassinated by the coward John Wilkes Booth in early April 1865. The American Civil War used modern technology from railroads to ironclad warships. Reconstruction came after the war. The American Civil War caused a massive expansion of the federal government (via the 13th to 15th Amendments of the Constitution and other laws). To this day, the legacy of the American Civil War continues as we witness the rise of a new authoritarian President (i.e. Donald Trump) who wants his agenda of reactionary views to reign. Yet, the truth will always prevail in the end. We desire, in inspiration from God's Holy Spirit, to help freedom ring from one part of globe to the other part of the globe filled with righteousness, with holiness, and with a comprehensive devotion to justice for all.

 

The Antebellum Period

The Antebellum period of American history was one of the most important periods of world history. No one can fully understand the American Civil War without understanding the Antebellum period. That era of time lasted from 1789 with George Washington, who was elected as America's first President, until the start of the American Civil War in 1861. During the beginning, the American nation was birthed during the middle of the American Revolutionary War filled with the contradiction of claiming to support freedom, but its foundation was built on the great two crimes of slavery against African human beings and the genocide of Native Americans. By 1789, the United States Electoral College chose George Washington as the first President of the United States of America. The national capital moved from New York City to Philadelphia in 1790 and then to Washington, D.C. in 1800. George Washington promoted a strong national government. His government followed the leadership of Federalist Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, he assumed the debts of the states, and he created the Bank of the United States. Hamilton made a system of tariffs and other taxes to pay off the debt and provide a financial infrastructure. Alexander Hamilton was a creator of the Federalist Party, and the Anti-Federalists feared a too powerful central government. So, Congress adopted the United States Bill of Rights in 1791 to guarantee individual liberties like freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of religion, and the right to petition the government for grievances. February 1791 was when Major Andrew Ellicott hired Benjamin Banneker, an African American draftsman, to assist in a survey of the boundaries of the 100-square-mile (260 km2) federal district that would later become the District of Columbia. 

As America grew, the institution of slavery was more entrenched in the southern states. Pennsylvania was the first state in 1780 to pass an act for the gradual abolition of slavery. After the Haitian Revolution (when black people defeated French imperialists in 1804), slave owners fled to America. This alarmed Southern white racists who wanted more slavery. Thomas Jefferson was a racist who opposed the Haitian Revolution, and the Haitian Revolution inspired freedom movements globally. 

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison formed an opposition Republican Party (or Democratic-Republican Party). Hamilton and Washington presented the country in 1794 with the Jay Treaty that reestablished good relations with Britain. The Jeffersonians vehemently protested the Jay Treaty, and the voters aligned behind one party or the other, thus setting up the First Party System. The treaty passed, but politics became intensely heated. Serious challenges to the new federal government included the Northwest Indian War, the ongoing Cherokee–American wars, and the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion, in which Western settlers protested against a federal tax on liquor. Washington refused to serve more than two terms – setting a precedent. John Adams, a Federalist, defeated Jefferson in the 1796 election. War loomed with France and the Federalists used the opportunity to try to silence the Republicans with the Alien and Sedition Acts, build up a large army with Hamilton at the head, and prepare for a French invasion. The Federalists were right to have a strong federal government, but they were wrong to promote the Alien and Sedition Acts being against human civil liberties. However, the Federalists became divided after Adams sent a successful peace mission to France that ended the Quasi-War of 1798. During the first two decades after the Revolutionary War, there were dramatic changes in the status of slavery among the states and an increase in the number of freed black Americans. Inspired by revolutionary ideals of equality and influenced by their lesser economic reliance on slavery, northern states abolished slavery gradually.

Mary Meachum was an Underground Railroad leader in St. Louis, Missouri.

States of the Upper South made manumission easier, resulting in an increase in the proportion of free black people in the Upper South (as a percentage of the total non-white population) from less than one percent in 1792 to more than 10 percent by 1810. By that date, a total of 13.5 percent of all black people in the United States were free. In 1807, with four million slaves already in the United States, Congress severed U.S. involvement with the Atlantic slave trade. Then, the cotton gin came which caused the South to promote slavery even more for racist reasons and financial gain. The cotton gin increased the production of short-staple cotton. Cotton grew heavily in the South. The Industrial Revolution in Europe and New England wanted a high demand for cotton too for cheap clothing. This caused a larger demand for slave labor to develop new cotton plantations. Slavery increased by 20 percent in only 20 years. Then, Northern states focused more on manufacturing and commerce, while the South's economy was mostly dependent on agriculture. There were racial tensions being massive back then and today. There was the Upper South having tobacco crops too and enslaved people going to the Deep South. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 allowed any black person in America to be claimed as a runaway unless a white person testified on the person's behalf. Many free black people were kidnapped and sold into slavery without rescue. By 1819, there were 11 free and 11 slave states. This caused tensions. Freed black people were about 232,000 by the 1820s. Black Americans slaves were tortured, raped, families split apart, and heavily mistreated constantly. 

African Americans (who were free) in the early 19th century worked in homes and jobs in the cities. Many were stevedores, construction workers and grave diggers. Many black women were teachers, nurses, midwives, basket makers, etc. Some African Americans moved West. Racial discrimination was rampant, and black Americans competed for jobs with Irish and German immigrants. Many black people joined the abolitionist movement, churches, and other political organizations to fight slavery like the American Society of Free Persons of Colour (founded in 1830), the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Methodist churches, Baptist Churches, etc. The black church was an important community organization back then to show African Americans spirituality, fight discrimination, and celebrate African heritage. Preachers like Bishop Richard Allen wanted freedom for black people. After the Great Awakening, many black people joined the Baptist Church like First Baptist Church and Gillfield Baptist Church of Petersburg, Virginia. Free black people lived in Richmond, Virginia, New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, etc. where they formed businesses and had land. Many black people formed schools like Richard Allen (he formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church or the AME in 1816) and Absalom Jones. There were black slave revolts against tyranny like the Denmark Vesey plan of 1822 and Nat Turner's Rebellion of 1831 (in Southampton County. Many of my distant cousins are related to Nat Turner. We all heard stories about Nat Turner when I was very young). 

One of the most important religious movements in America was the Second Great Awakening. The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant revival movement that affected virtually all of society during the early 19th century and led to rapid church growth. The movement began around 1790, gained momentum by 1800, and, after 1820 membership rose rapidly among Baptist and Methodist congregations, whose preachers led the movement. It was past its peak by the 1840s. It enrolled millions of new members in existing evangelical denominations and led to the formation of new denominations. The Second Great Awakening stimulated the establishment of many reform movements, including abolitionism and temperance. Many in the Second Awakening left Freemasonry for moral and religious reasons.

Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams massively in the 1800 election. Jefferson caused the Louisiana Purchase to exist in 1803 to double the size of America that gave U.S. settlers vast areas west of the Mississippi River. This didn't take into consideration the lands of Native Americans spanning thousands of years. Jefferson supported expeditions to explore and map the new domain, most notably the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Jefferson believed deeply in republicanism and argued it should be based on the independent yeoman farmer and planter; he distrusted cities, factories and banks. He also distrusted the federal government and judges and tried to weaken the judiciary. Although the Constitution specified a Supreme Court, its functions were vague until John Marshall, the Chief Justice of the United States (1801–1835), defined them, especially the power to overturn acts of Congress or states that violated the Constitution, first enunciated in 1803 in Marbury v. Madison. The War of 1812 existed because the British violated American ships' neutral rights to harm France. The Redcoats forced 10,000 American sailors to join the Royal Navy to fight Napoleon. The British supported Native Americans attacking American settlers in the American Midwest with the goal of creating a pro-British Native American barrier state to block American expansion westward. The British wanted to annex part or possibly all of eastern North America which has been debated. Despite strong opposition from the Northeast, especially from Federalists who did not want to disrupt trade with Britain, Congress declared war on the United Kingdom on June 18, 1812. Both sides tried to invade the other and were repulsed. The American militia proved ineffective because the soldiers were reluctant to leave home, and efforts to invade Canada repeatedly failed. The British blockade ruined American commerce, bankrupted the Treasury, and further angered New Englanders, who smuggled supplies to Britain. The Americans under General William Henry Harrison finally gained naval control of Lake Erie and defeated the Native Americans under Tecumseh in Canada, while Andrew Jackson ended the Native Americans' powerbase in the Southeast. The Native Americans trying to have an expansion into the Midwest was permanently ended. The British invaded and occupied much of Maine. 

In 1814, the British raided and burned Washington D.C., but the British were repelled at Baltimore, where "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written to celebrate the American success. In upstate New York, a major British invasion of New York State was turned back at the Battle of Plattsburgh. In early 1815, Andrew Jackson decisively defeated a major British invasion at the Battle of New Orleans, and the Americans finally claimed victory on February 18, as news came almost simultaneously of Jackson's victory of New Orleans and the peace treaty that left the prewar boundaries in place. This "Second War of Independence" helped lead to an emerging American identity that cemented national pride over state pride. The War of 1812 also dispelled America's negative perception of a standing army as opposed to ill-equipped and poorly-trained militias. America had national euphoria after the victory at New Orleans. The Federalists declined in power. President Madison and most Republicans allowed the First Bank of United States to close down and it was an error. The Second Bank of America was created in 1816 to finance projects.  The Republicans also imposed tariffs designed to protect the infant industries that had been created when Britain was blockading the U.S. With the collapse of the Federalists as a party, the adoption of many Federalist principles by the Republicans, and the systematic policy of President James Monroe in his two terms (1817–1825) to downplay partisanship, society entered an Era of Good Feelings and closed out the First Party System. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 allowed for the entry of states of Maine being free and Missouri being a slave state. There were no more slave states allowed north of 36 30. In 1829, the British West Africa Squadron's slave trade suppression activities are assisted by forces from the United States Navy via the USS Cyane. On March 16, 1827, the Freedom's Journal begins publication being the first African American newspaper. 

The Monroe Doctrine was created in 1823 to reject European powers from trying to colonize or interfere in the Americas. In 1832, President Andrew Jackson ran for a second term under the slogan "Jackson and no bank" and did not renew the charter of the Second Bank, dissolving the bank in 1836. Jackson was convinced that central banking was used by the elite to take advantage of the average American, and instead implemented publicly owned banks in various states, popularly known as "pet banks." Andrew Jackson caused economic chaos and was very racist against black people and Native Americans. The Democratic-Republican party split into factions over the choice of a successor President James Monroe. The Democratic Party came from the split. They followed the views of Jefferson including Martin Van Buren. Henry Clay formed the Whig Party. The Whigs were split on the issue of slavery in the 1850s. The nation grew and oppressed Native Americans by displacing them in the West. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which authorized the president to negotiate treaties that exchanged Native American tribal lands in the eastern states for lands west of the Mississippi River. Its goal was primarily to remove Native Americans, including the Five Civilized Tribes, from desirable lands in the American Southeast. Thousands of deaths resulted from the relocations, as seen in the Cherokee Trail of Tears, which resulted in approximately 2,000 to 8,000 of the 16,543 relocated Cherokee dying along the way.  Many of the Seminole Indians in Florida refused to move west and fought the Army for years in the Seminole Wars. Many settlers came to New Mexico, California, Oregon, and other places. Some believed in the racist Manifest Destiny ideology that view that white American settlers were destined by God to expand across the continent to rule and dominate. In 1832, Sarah Harris Fayerweather, an aspiring teacher, is admitted to Prudence Crandall's all-girl school in Canterbury, Connecticut, resulting in the first racially integrated schoolhouse in the United States. Her admission led to the school's forcible closure under the Connecticut Black Law of 1833. In 1833, The American Anti-Slavery Society, an abolitionist society, was founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass becomes a key leader of the society.

Manifest destiny was rejected by modernizers, especially the Whigs like Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln who wanted to build cities and factories – not more farms. Democrats strongly favored expansion and won the key election of 1844. After a bitter debate in Congress, the Republic of Texas was annexed in 1845, leading to the Mexican–American War. The U.S. Army invaded Mexico at several points, captured Mexico City, and won the war decisively. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war in 1848. Many Democrats wanted to annex all of Mexico, but that idea was rejected by White Southerners, who argued that incorporating millions of Mexican people, mainly of multiethnic people, would undermine the U.S. as an exclusively white republic. Instead, the U.S. took Texas and the lightly settled northern parts (California and New Mexico). Simultaneously, gold was discovered in California in 1848. To clear the state for settlers, the U.S. government began a policy of extermination since termed the California genocide. A peaceful compromise with Britain gave the U.S. ownership of the Oregon Country, which was renamed the Oregon Territory. The demand for guano (prized as an agricultural fertilizer) led the U.S. to pass the Guano Islands Act in 1856, which enabled U.S. citizens to take possession, in the name of the country, of unclaimed islands containing guano deposits. Under the act, the U.S. annexed nearly 100 islands in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. By 1903, 66 of these islands were recognized as U.S. territories. June 1, 1843, was when Isabella Baumfree, a former slave, changed her name to Sojourner Truth and begins to preach for the abolition of slavery. August 1843 was when Henry Highland Garnet delivered his famous speech Call to Rebellion. Frederick Douglass begins publication of the abolitionist newspaper the North Star in 1847. Joseph Jenkins Roberts of Virginia becomes the first president of Liberia by 1847.  The women's suffrage movement began with the 1848 National Convention of the Liberty Party. The women's suffrage movement wanted fundamental justice for all women. Presidential candidate Gerrit Smith established women's suffrage as a party goal. One month later, the Seneca Falls Convention was organized, signing the Declaration of Sentiments demanding equal rights for women, including the right to vote. The women's rights campaign during first-wave feminism was led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Susan B. Anthony, among others. Stone and Paulina Wright Davis organized the prominent and influential National Women's Rights Convention in 1850.

 

Tensions Grow (among the North and the South)

The tensions among North and South existed long before the American Civil War. Back in the Revolutionary times, the North and the South competed for political power. After 1848, these tensions only grew. There were many anti-slavery elements in the North and pro-slavery elements in the South. By 1860, there were four million slaves in the South. It is important to note that abolitionists and anti-slavery black people fought for freedom in the South too. A small number of Northerners wanted to have the immediate abolition of slavery. A much larger number of Northerners opposed the expansion of slavery and sought to put it on the path of extinction. There were many violent reactions to abolitionist advocates in the North like the burning of an anti-slavery society in Pennsylvania Hall. Many resistance actions to slavery were peaceful, some people used self-defense, and they were outright resistance against slavery in other ways. Resistance is justified as slaves lived in a tyrannical state and a tyrannical system. Slavery is fascism and tyranny, so black people have every God-given right to resist slavery by any means necessary to have freedom. The slave rebellions by Gabriel Prosser in 1800, Denmark Vesey in 1822, Nat Turner in 1831, and John Brown in 1859 caused racist whites in the South to possess fear. These racists created stricter oversight of slaves was imposed and the rights of free black people were reduced. Southern racist white Democrats back then insisted that slavery was of economic, social, and cultural benefit, even to the slaves themselves (which is complete racist nonsense). Plantation owners relied on slavery for their economic power. The plantations produced resources which were used by European markets and Northern cities, so the North is not innocent in the slavery tyrannical system in America back then. Many Northern cities and regional industries were tied economically to slavery via banking, shipping, manufacturing, including their textile mills. Southern states benefited from slavery by having an increased apportionment in Congress due to partial counting of slaves in their populations. 

The Compromise of 1850 dealt with slavery. The Compromise of 1850 was created in a package of five separate bills passed by the U.S. Congress in September 1850 (promoted by Whig Senator Henry Clay, Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas, and President Millard Fillmore). It wanted to defuse tensions between slave and free states, but tensions grew. So, the Compromise of 1850 allowed California to enter the Union as a free state, strengthened fugitive slave laws with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, banned the slave trade in Washington, D.C. (while still allowing slavery to exist there), and created northern and western borders for Texas. The deal made New Mexico a territory and the Territory of Utah with no restrictions on whether any future state from this territory would be free or slave. Sojourner Truth gave her "Ain't I a Woman" speech at a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851. March 20, 1852 was when Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was published. December 1853 was when Clotel; or, The President's Daughter, by Williams Wells Brown, is the first novel published by an African-American. John Mercer Langston was one of the first African Americans elected to public office when elected as a town clerk in Ohio by 1855. 

The Missouri Compromise was repealed in 1854 with the Kansas–Nebraska Act; promoted by Stephen Douglas in the name of "popular sovereignty" and democracy, this act of Congress permitted voters to decide on the legality of slavery in each territory. Anti-slavery forces rose in anger and alarm, forming the new Republican Party. Pro- and anti- contingents rushed to Kansas to vote for or against slavery, resulting in a miniature civil war called Bleeding Kansas. By the late 1850s, the young Republican Party dominated nearly all Northern states, and hence the electoral colleges. The party insisted that slavery would never be allowed to expand and would therefore slowly die out. 

May 21, 1856 was when the Sacking of Lawrence in Bleeding Kansas took place. May 25, 1856 was when John Brown, whom Abraham Lincoln called a "misguided fanatic", retaliates for Lawrence's sacking in the Pottawatomie massacre. Wilberforce University is founded by collaboration between Methodist Episcopal and African Methodist Episcopal representatives in 1856. Harriet E. Wilson writes the autobiographical novel Our Nig in 1859. In 1859, Ableman v. Booth the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state courts cannot issue rulings that contradict the decisions of federal courts; this decision uphold the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and in August 22, 1859, the last known slave ship to arrive to the U.S., the Clotilde, docks in secrecy at Mobile, Alabama. The Supreme Court's 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford ruled that the Compromise was unconstitutional, and that free Black people were not U.S. citizens. The decision enraged Northerners, and the Republicans worried that the decision could be used to expand slavery. 

The 1860 Presidential Election

The 1860 Presidential election was one of the most important elections in human history. Abraham Lincoln, with his imperfections, won the election, and he was a threat to the Southern aristocracy, because Lincoln was a lifelong opponent of slavery. Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer and an Illinois state legislature, military veteran, and lawyer. He was born in Hodgenville, Kentucky in the South, and he grew to be one of the greatest President in American history. The end of the 1860 election caused the Southern states to secede and leave the Union to form the Confederacy. By 1860, the country was heavily divided among the anti-slavery Republicans and the pro-slavery Democrats.  The incumbent president, James Buchanan, like his predecessor, Franklin Pierce, was a Northern Democrat with Southern sympathies. Buchanan also adamantly promised not to seek reelection. From the mid-1850s, the anti-slavery Republican Party became a major political force, driven by Northern voter opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the Supreme Court's 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. From the election of 1856, the Republican Party had replaced the defunct Whig Party as the major opposition to the Democrats. A group of former Whigs and Know Nothings (which was a xenophobic, anti-immigrant party) formed the Constitutional Union Party, which sought to avoid disunion by resolving divisions over slavery with some new compromise. The Republicans had many people running for President like Abraham Lincoln, William Seward (a Senator from New York), Simon Cameron (a Senator from Pennsylvania), Salmon P. Chase (a governor of Ohio), Edward Bates (the former representative from Missouri), John McLean (an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court), Benjamin Wade (a Senator from Ohio), and William L. Dayton (a former Senator from New Jersey). The Republican National Convention met in mid-May 1860 after the Democrats had been forced to adjourn their convention in Charleston. With the Democrats in disarray and a sweep of the Northern states possible, the Republicans felt confident going into their convention in Chicago. William H. Seward from New York was considered the front-runner, followed by Salmon P. Chase from Ohio, and Missouri's Edward Bates. Abraham Lincoln from Illinois, was lesser-known, and was not considered to have a good chance against Seward. Seward had been governor and senator of New York and was an able politician with a Whig background. Also running were John C. Frémont, William L. Dayton, Cassius M. Clay, and Benjamin Wade, who might be able to win if the convention deadlocked. 

Chase, a former Democrat, had alienated many of the former Whigs by his coalition with the Democrats in the late 1840s. He had also opposed tariffs demanded by Pennsylvania and even had opposition from his own delegation from Ohio. However, Chase's firm antislavery stance made him popular with the Radical Republicans. But what he offered in policy he lacked in charisma and political acumen.The conservative Bates was an unlikely candidate but found support from Horace Greeley, who sought any chance to defeat Seward, with whom he now had a bitter feud. Bates outlined his positions on the extension of slavery into the territories and equal constitutional rights for all citizens, positions that alienated his supporters in the border states and Southern conservatives, while German Americans in the party opposed Bates because of his past association with the Know Nothings.

Into this mix came Lincoln. He was not unknown; he had gained prominence in the 1858 Lincoln–Douglas debates and had represented Illinois in the House of Representatives. Lincoln had been quietly eyeing a run since the debates, ensuring that they were widely published and that a biography of himself was published. He gained great notability with his acclaimed February 1860 Cooper Union speech, which may have ensured him the nomination although he had not yet announced his intention to run. Delivered in Seward's home state and attended by Greeley, Lincoln used the speech to show that the Republican Party was a party of moderates, not crazed fanatics, as Southerners and Democrats claimed. Afterward, Lincoln was in much demand for speaking engagements. As the convention approached, Lincoln did not campaign actively, as the "office was expected to seek the man". So, it did at the Illinois state convention, a week before the national convention. Young politician Richard Oglesby found several fence rails that Lincoln may have split as a youngster and paraded them into the convention with a banner that proclaimed Lincoln to be "The Rail Candidate" for president. Lincoln received a thunderous ovation, surpassing his and his political allies' expectations. Lincoln's campaign managers had printed and distributed thousands of fake convention admission tickets to Lincoln supporters to ensure and increase the crowd's support.

Abraham Lincoln had a hard time to win the nomination. He wanted to be the second choice of most delegates in order to into the 2nd round. As the convention developed, however, it was revealed that frontrunners Seward, Chase, and Bates had each alienated factions of the Republican Party. Seward had been painted as a radical, and his speeches on slavery predicted inevitable conflict, which spooked moderate delegates. He also was firmly opposed to nativism, which further weakened his support. Seward was right to oppose nativism. He had also been abandoned by his longtime friend and political ally Horace Greeley, publisher of the influential New-York Tribune. Seward won the first round and Lincoln was in second place as Lincoln predicted. Many voters switched from Seward to Lincoln. The convention was deadlocked. Abraham Lincoln's delegates convinced delegates to abandon Seward to go for Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was a moderate on political subjects including slavery, promoted economic issues, and had a strong oratory ability to allow the delegates to pick him to be the Presidential candidate of the Republican Party. Senator Hannibal Hamlin from Maine was his vice-Presidential running mate. The Republicans wanted tariffs to protect industry and workers, a Homestead Act granting free farmland in the West to settlers, and the funding of a transcontinental railroad. There was no mention of Mormonism (which had been condemned in the Party's 1856 platform), the Fugitive Slave Act, personal liberty laws, or the Dred Scott decision. While the Seward forces were disappointed at the nomination of a little-known western upstart, they rallied behind Lincoln, while abolitionists were angry at the selection of a moderate and had little faith in Lincoln. The 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago nominated Abraham Lincoln, a former one-term Whig Representative from Illinois. 

The 1860 Presidential election Democratic conventions were tumultuous, because the Democrats split into Northern and Southern party conventions. Its platform promised not to interfere with slavery in the South but opposed extension of slavery into the territories. The 1860 Democratic National Convention adjourned in Charleston, South Carolina, without agreeing on a nominee, but a second convention in Baltimore, Maryland, nominated Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas's support for the concept of popular sovereignty, which called for each territory's settlers to decide locally on the status of slavery, alienated many radical pro-slavery Southern Democrats, who wanted the territories, and perhaps other lands, open to slavery. Northern Democratic candidates were Stephen Douglas, James Gurthrie, Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, Joseph Lane, Daniel S. Dickinson, Andrew Johnson (a Senator from Tennessee), and Howell Cobb. Douglas' running mate was Hershel V. Johnson (the 41st Governor of Georgia). Douglas believed in popular sovereignty in allowing states to vote for slavery or not. Radical pro-slavery people called the Fire Eaters left the convention on June 18, 1860, because they would not adopt a resolution to extend slavery into territories whose voter didn't want it. 

With President Buchanan's support, Southern Democrats held their own convention, nominating Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. This convention took place on June 11, 1860, at Richmond, Virginia. This Southern Democratic convention decided to nominate Democrat John C. Breckinridge for president and Senator Joseph Lane from Oregon for vice president. The Breckinridge and Lane ticket was supported by the Buchanan administration. The 1860 Constitutional Union Convention, which hoped to avoid the slavery issue entirely, nominated a ticket led by former Tennessee Senator John Bell. Many in the xenophobic Know Nothing party and the Whig Party were in the Constitutional Union Party. Gerrit Smith was in the Liberty Union Party (he was a former representative from New York) being a Radical Abolitionist. Nonetheless, he remained popular in the party because he had helped inspire some of John Brown's supporters at the Raid on Harpers Ferry. In his letter, Smith donated $50 to pay for the printing of ballots in the various states. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas were rivals. There was the People's Party too.  Lincoln lost to Douglas in the Illinois Senate race just two years earlier. 

The 1860 Presidential election was long. In their campaigning, Bell and Douglas both claimed that disunion would not necessarily follow a Lincoln election. Nonetheless, loyal army officers in Virginia, Kansas and South Carolina warned Lincoln of military preparations to the contrary. Secessionists threw their support behind Breckinridge in an attempt either to force the anti-Republican candidates to coordinate their electoral votes or throw the election into the House of Representatives, where the selection of the president would be made by the representatives elected in 1858, before the Republican majorities in both House and Senate achieved in 1860 were seated in the new 37th Congress. Mexican War hero Winfield Scott suggested to Lincoln that he assume the powers of a commander-in-chief before inauguration. However, historian Bruce Chadwick observes that Lincoln and his advisors ignored the widespread alarms and threats of secession as mere election trickery.

Indeed, voting in the South was not as monolithic as the Electoral College map would make it seem. Economically, culturally, and politically, the South was made up of three regions. In the states of the Upper South, also known as the Border South (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri), unionist popular votes were scattered among Lincoln, Douglas, and Bell, to form a majority in all four. In the four Middle South states, there was a unionist majority divided between Douglas and Bell in Virginia and Tennessee; in North Carolina and Arkansas, the unionist (Bell and Douglas) vote approached a majority. In three of the seven Deep South states, unionists (Bell and Douglas) won divided majorities in Georgia and Louisiana and neared it in Alabama. Breckinridge convincingly carried only four of the seven states of the Deep South (South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Texas). The Deep South states had the largest enslaved populations, and consequently the smallest enfranchised free white populations. The election was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860, and was noteworthy for the exaggerated sectionalism and voter enthusiasm in a country that was soon to dissolve into civil war. Voter turnout was 81.2%, the highest in American history up to that time, and the second-highest overall (exceeded only in the election of 1876) or 1.5% of the voting age population.

Lincoln's main opponent in the North was Douglas, who won the popular vote in Missouri, electoral votes in New Jersey, and the second highest popular vote total nationally. Douglas was the only candidate in the 1860 election to win electoral votes in both free and slave states. In the South, Bell won three states and Breckinridge swept the remaining 11. Lincoln's election motivated seven Southern states, all having voted for Breckinridge, to secede before the inauguration in March. Although Lincoln received no votes in 10 Southern states, this was due not to his having been removed from the ballot in those states but rather to the Republican Party's absence in those states (parties rather than states printed ballots in that era). The American Civil War began less than two months after Lincoln's inauguration, with the Battle of Fort Sumter; afterward four further states seceded. Lincoln would go on to win re-election in the 1864 United States presidential election. The 1860 election was the first of six consecutive Republican victories. Despite Lincoln's commanding victory, this was the first election in American history in which the winner had failed to win his home county, with Lincoln narrowly losing Sangamon County, Illinois to Douglas.

Lincoln won the Electoral College with less than 40 percent of the popular vote nationwide by carrying states above the Mason–Dixon line and north of the Ohio River, plus the states of California and Oregon in the Far West. Unlike every preceding president-elect, Lincoln did not carry even one slave state; he instead carried all eighteen free states exclusively. There were no ballots distributed for Lincoln in ten of the Southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. There was a ballot in Virginia. This withheld 61 potential electoral votes from Lincoln, a fifth of what was the total 303 available to the other candidates. In a similar divide between North and South electors, Breckenridge carried nine of the ten states that withheld Lincoln from the ballot, the exception being Tennessee.

Lincoln won the 1860 election by November 1860. Then, the South left the Union. Lincoln's victory and imminent inauguration as president was the immediate cause for declarations of secession by seven Southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) from December 20, 1860 to February 1, 1861. They then formed the Confederate States of America. On February 9, 1861, Jefferson Davis was elected president of the Confederacy. Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina once voted against secession. They would later be part of the Confederacy. Missouri voted against secession too and stayed in the Union. 

Another bloc of Southerners resented Northern criticism of slavery and restrictions on slavery but opposed secession as dangerous and unnecessary. However, the "conditional Unionists" also hoped that when faced with secession, Northerners would stifle anti-slavery rhetoric and accept pro-slavery rules for the territories. It was that group that prevented immediate secession in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas when Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. He took no action against the secessionists in the seven "Confederate" states but also declared that secession had no legal validity and refused to surrender federal property in those states. (He also reiterated his opposition to slavery anywhere in the territories.) Preparing to form an army, on March 6, 1861, Jefferson Davis called for 100,000 volunteers to serve for twelve months. The political standoff continued until mid-April, when Davis ordered Confederate troops to bombard and capture Fort Sumter.

Lincoln then called for troops to put down rebellion, which wiped out the possibility that the crisis could be resolved by compromise. Nearly all "conditional Unionists" joined the secessionists, including for example presidential candidate John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party, whose home state of Tennessee was the last to secede. The Virginia convention and the reconvened Arkansas convention both declared secession, as did the legislatures of Tennessee and North Carolina; all four states joined the Confederacy. Missouri stayed in the United States but had an unrecognized dual government. After the Civil War begun, Douglas then threw his support behind Lincoln and undertook a tour to bolster support for the Union, making visits to Virginia, Ohio, and Illinois. Douglas declared "There are no neutrals, only patriots and traitors". However, three months after Lincoln's inauguration, Douglas contracted typhoid fever and died in Chicago on June 3, 1861. By April of 1861, President Abraham Lincoln experienced the greatest political crisis of his life which was the American Civil War. Abraham Lincoln knew of the stakes, and his surprising contributions to the Union in its victory included stories that no movie can capture. The future Union victory against the Confederate enemy was one of the greatest blessings in American history. The war started after the Confederacy used an illegal, unjust attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina in April 1861. As time went onward, President Abraham Lincoln would be a more compassionate progressive man in 1865 than in 1860 indeed. 

 

The American Civil War Starts

 

The American Civil War was on by the 1860s. After Abraham Lincoln was elected as the new President of the United States of America, the secession crisis grew. South Carolina's legislature called a state convention to consider secession. South Carolina did a lot to promote the falsehood that any state had the right to nullify federal laws (even just federal laws) and secede from the Union. On December 20, 1860, the South Carolina convention unanimously voted to secede and adopted a secession declaration.  It argued for states' rights for slave owners but complained about states' rights in the North in the form of resistance to the federal Fugitive Slave Act, claiming that Northern states were not fulfilling their obligations to assist in the return of fugitive slaves. The "cotton states" of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed suit, seceding in January and February 1861. Among the ordinances of secession, those of Texas, Alabama, and Virginia mentioned the plight of the "slaveholding states" at the hands of Northern abolitionists. The rest made no mention of slavery but were brief announcements by the legislatures of the dissolution of ties to the Union. However, at least four—South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas —provided detailed reasons for their secession, all blaming the movement to abolish slavery and its influence over the North. Southern states believed that the Fugitive Slave Clause made slaveholding a constitutional right which is ludicrous and wrong. These states agreed to form a new federal government, the Confederate States of America, on February 4, 1861. They took control of federal forts and other properties within their boundaries, with little resistance from outgoing President James Buchanan, whose term ended on March 4. Buchanan said the Dred Scott decision was proof the Southern states had no reason to secede and that the Union "was intended to be perpetual". He added, however, that "The power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union" was not among the "enumerated powers granted to Congress." A quarter of the US army—the Texas garrison—was surrendered in February to state forces by its general, David E. Twiggs, who joined the Confederacy. The truth is that the Confederate Constitution cited slavery as the reason for the Confederate existence.

As Southerners resigned their Senate and House seats, Republicans could pass projects that had been blocked. These included the Morrill Tariff, land grant colleges, a Homestead Act, a transcontinental railroad, the National Bank Act, authorization of United States Notes by the Legal Tender Act of 1862, and the end of slavery in the District of Columbia. The Revenue Act of 1861 introduced income tax to help finance the war. It is important to note that the Republicans were more progressive politically back than the Democrats back then. On March 4, 1861, Lincoln was sworn in as president. In his inaugural address, he argued that the Constitution was a more perfect union than the earlier Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was a binding contract, and called secession "legally void." He did not intend to invade Southern states, nor to end slavery where it existed, but he said he would use force to maintain possession of federal property, including forts, arsenals, mints, and custom houses that had been seized. The government would not try to recover post offices, and if resisted, mail delivery would end at state lines. Where conditions did not allow peaceful enforcement of federal law, US marshals and judges would be withdrawn. No mention was made of bullion lost from mints. He stated that it would be US policy "to collect the duties and imposts"; "there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere" that would justify an armed revolution. His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union, famously calling on "the mystic chords of memory" binding the two regions.

The Davis government of the new Confederacy sent delegates to Washington to negotiate a peace treaty. Lincoln rejected negotiations, because he claimed that the Confederacy was not a legitimate government and to make a treaty with it would recognize it as such. I agree with President Abraham Lincoln on that point. Lincoln instead attempted to negotiate directly with the governors of seceded states, whose administrations he continued to recognize. Complicating Lincoln's attempts to defuse the crisis was Secretary of State William H. Seward, who had been Lincoln's rival for the Republican nomination. Embittered by his defeat, Seward agreed to support Lincoln's candidacy only after he was guaranteed the executive office then considered the second most powerful. In the early stages of Lincoln's presidency Seward held little regard for him, due to his perceived inexperience. Seward viewed himself as the de facto head of government, the "prime minister" behind the throne. Seward attempted to engage in unauthorized and indirect negotiations that failed. Lincoln was determined to hold all remaining Union-occupied forts in the Confederacy: Fort Monroe in Virginia, Fort Pickens, Fort Jefferson, and Fort Taylor in Florida, and Fort Sumter in South Carolina. 

The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces opened fire on the Union-held Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter is located in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. Its status had been contentious for months. Outgoing President Buchanan had dithered in reinforcing its garrison, commanded by Major Robert Anderson. Anderson took matters into his own hands and on December 26, 1860, under the cover of darkness, sailed the garrison from the poorly placed Fort Moultrie to the stalwart island Fort Sumter. Anderson's actions catapulted him to hero status in the North. An attempt to resupply the fort on January 9, 1861, failed and nearly started the war then, but an informal truce held. On March 5, Lincoln was informed the fort was low on supplies. Fort Sumter proved a key challenge to Lincoln's administration. Back-channel dealing by Seward with the Confederates undermined Lincoln's decision-making; Seward wanted to pull out. But a firm hand by Lincoln tamed Seward, who was a staunch Lincoln ally. Lincoln decided holding the fort, which would require reinforcing it, was the only workable option. On April 6, Lincoln informed the Governor of South Carolina that a ship with food but no ammunition would attempt to supply the fort. Historian McPherson describes this win-win approach as "the first sign of the mastery that would mark Lincoln's presidency"; the Union would win if it could resupply and hold the fort, and the South would be the aggressor if it opened fire on an unarmed ship supplying starving men. An April 9 Confederate cabinet meeting resulted in Davis ordering General P. G. T. Beauregard to take the fort before supplies reached it. At 4:30 am on April 12, Confederate forces fired the first of 4,000 shells at the fort; it fell the next day. The loss of Fort Sumter lit a patriotic fire under the North. On April 15, Lincoln called on the states to field 75,000 volunteer troops for 90 days; impassioned Union states met the quotas quickly. On May 3, 1861, Lincoln called for an additional 42,000 volunteers for three years. Shortly after this, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina seceded and joined the Confederacy. To reward Virginia, the Confederate capital was moved to Richmond.

Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, West Virginia, and Kentucky were slave border states who people had divided loyalties to Northern and Southern businesses and family members. Some men enlisted in the Union Army and other people were in the Confederate Army. West Virginia separated from Virginia and was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, though half of its counties were secessionists. Maryland's lands surrounded Washington. D.C. and was cut off from the North. It had anti-Lincoln officials who tolerated anti-army rioting in Baltimore and the burning of bridges. They did this to hinder the passage of troops to the South. 

The image above showed the Battle between the USS Monitor and Merrimack.

The American Civil War was fierce and very violent. At least 237 battles took place with high casualties. Historian John Keegan said that the American Civil was "one of the most ferocious wars ever fought." Pro-Union forces were in the Confederacy too. As many as 100,000 men living in the South served in the Union Army or pro-Union guerrilla groups. They came from all classes. According to Elizabeth D. Leonard, between 500 and 1,000 women enlisted as soldiers on both sides, some disguised as men. Women served as spies, resistance activists, nurses, and hospital personnel. By early 1861, Union General Winfield Scott made the Anaconda Pln to win the war by using a blockade to stop trade into the Confederacy. Abraham Lincoln promoted parts of this plan by in April 1861 ordering a blockade of all Southern ports, commerical ships could not get insurance, ending regular traffic. The blockade shut down the cotton industry in the South. Some British people aided in trading to the Confederacy. 

Like World War 2, the American Civil War has diverse theaters which were the Eastern Theater, the Western Theater, the Trans-Mississippi Theater, Lower Seaboard theater, and the Pacific Coast Theater. The Union had an advantage in population and industrial resources. The Union had 22 million people and the Confederacy had 9 million people with 3.5 million unjustly enslaved African Americans. The Union also had the West with massive resources to aid in building weapons and other tools for warfare. The Union had a larger railroad system along with a well organized Navy system. The Confederacy had many previous U.S. military leaders like General Robert E. Lee from Virginia. Lee once opposed secession and then joined the Confederacy for state's rights reasons. The Confederacy wanted to fight long enough to negotiate a deal to maintain slavery in their lands. They didn't need to rule over the Union but attack the Union to make it give up. Abraham Lincoln evolved from 1861 to even not banning slaves if it meant to maintain the Union to desiring to ban all slavery in America completely by 1865. The American Civil War started slowly and then grew rapidly. 

The early era of the American Civil War from 1861 to 1862 had a complete stalemate with both Union and Confederate victories. America still had to contend with the Confederate enemy. By July 1861, German Scott sent General Irvin McDowell and more than 30,000 Union troops to do battle with the Confederate forces waiting outside of Washington, D.C. The Union and Confederate armies met at Bull Run, a creek newar Manassas, Virginia. I'm from Virginia, so Manassas is at Northern Virginia. During the first hours, the Union forces had the upper advantage. There was a determined Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson who sent them back to Washington. Confederates nicknamed him Stonewall Jackson to refuse to give up. The Battle is known as the Battle of Bull Run in the North and the Battle of Manassas in the South. After the battle, it was self evident that the war would be long and bloody. It was a Confederate victory Abraham Lincoln responded by calling for more Union troops and replacing McDowell with General George B. McClellan. So, McClellan was organizing his Union Army of the Potomac. Then, General Ulysses S. Grant was in the Mississippi Valley wing of the Anaconda Plan. By February 1862, Grant directed the attack and capture of two Confederate strongholds of Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Dunlson at the Cumberland River. His bold action drove the Confederate forces from Western Kentucky and much of Tennessee that boasted Union morale. Yet, in April 1862, Grant fought a terrible battle in southwest Tennessee. In just 2 days of fighting, almost 25,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded. The Battle of Shiloh horrified both the North and South and temporarily damaged Grant's rising reputation. The Union won the Battle of Shiloh. Some good news is that the Battle of Shiloh was a foundation for the future victory of Union forces of getting New Orleans. Days later, Union ships under the command of David Farragut saile through the Gulf of Mexico and seized the tial southern port of New Orleans. Farragut sailed north hoped to capture the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, but Vicksburg being ruled by the Union would have to wait. Union control of the Mississippi would take time. 

The American Civil War was found in the Southwest as far as New Mexico and Arizona. The American Southwest had gold mines and access to California and the Pacific Ocean. Neither sides had many troops in the region. 

In 1862, in New Mexico, there was a Confederate force marching up the Rio Grande from Texas. Their goal was to drive Union troops out of the Southwest and capture it for the Confederacy. The Confederacy failed in that goal. The rebel troops were defeated in late March 1862 in the Battle of Glorieta Pass. There was a destruction of a supply train by a Union force under Major John Chivington and Lt. Col. Manuel Chavez. The Confederates later retreated back into Texas, never to mount another real threat to the Union control of the Southwest. The Union and the Confederacy wanted loyalty of Southwestern residents. The Union got help from Mexican American militia groups in Texas. These groups worked to disrupt Confederate supply lines. Both sides courted Native American groups all over the West. The Cheyenne were able to bargain with the Union government for land in return for their aid. The Confederates persuaded the Creeks and Choctaw (who are sellouts) to support their cause. The Confederates wanted support from the Cherokees. Some Cherokees allied with the Union and some with the Confederacy. There were battles of the American Civil War in the sea. One battle was the Union ship Monitor clashed with the Confederate ship Virginia off the Virginia coast. The Union hired an European engineer to design the Monitor. The Confederate ironclad Virginia ship was done by refitting a Union ship previously known as the Merrimac. By March 9, 1962, these two ironclad ships were in battle. Neither ship had a victory, but it started the end of the wooden warships used in warfare. Most of the American Civil War in the Eastern Theater took place in the state of Virginia. The war in 1862, was a stalemate in which the war could have gone either way. After the Battle of Bull Run, General McClellan took control of the Union forces. He wanted to go to Richmond, but he was cautious. He wanted his troops to be ready before such an attack would commence. President Abraham Lincoln wanted immediate military Union victories. Lincoln didn't want to give McClellan all of the troops that he asked for. Lincoln wanted a large Union force to be around Washington, D.C. to protect the capital of America. Confederate Stonewall Jackson led a campaign by the Spring of 1862 in the nearby Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. This increased Lincoln's concerns. By midsummer 1862, President Abraham Lincoln wanted McClellan to take action. Then, McClellan reluctantly took his forces across the Chesapeake Bay. The force was at the peninsula southeast of Richmond. They marched toward the capital of Richmond in the Peninsula Campaign. McClellan had a larger force than Robert E. Lee, but Lee's forces won. The reason was that Lee took advantage of McClellan's cautious style, and the Union forces stalled. McClellan retreated to Washington, D.C. After the retreat, President Abraham Lincoln replaced McClellan. That was a mistake as the Second Battle of Bull Run took place in late August 1862. That battle resulted in Lee's forces causing a crushing Union defeat. Stonewall Jackson was instrumental in outmaneuvering a larger Union force and nearly destroying it before the Federal troops could retreat. The South called the battle the Second Battle of Manassas. This energized Robert E. Lee. President Lincoln returned McClellan to command of Union forces. Lee and McClellan would later be the leaders of the single bloodiest day of the American Civil War.

Abolitionists gave Abraham Lincoln pressure to end slavery. At first, Abraham Lincoln tried to downplay the slavery issue. As time would go on President Abraham Lincoln recognize the need of using black people to fight for the Union side. African American soldiers fighting for the Union were fighting for their survival and the extinction of slavery in American society. Abolitionists like Frederick Douglas and William Lloyd Garrison and thousands of people who supported them wanted Abraham Lincoln to promote the emancipation of slaves. Slavery was unpopular in Europe, so Abraham Lincoln had to make a decision. As time continued, President Lincoln would make the right decision in endorsing banning slavery in America by law. Great Britain was reluctant to aid the Confederacy, except for some wealthy interests. Many enslaved African Americans were under Union control as a result of the changing battlefield. Early on, Union General Benjamin Butler had hundreds of black refugees into his camps and want to do manual labor. He called the black people contraband, which was offensive. Union General John Fremont was heroic to declare enslaved people who came under his command in Missouri as free. Lincoln reversed Fremont's order, because he feared retribution from the border states. Abraham Lincoln wanted a victory, so he worked on a plan for the emancipation of enslaved African Americans who were living in Confederate states. In the summer of 1862, he expressed his idea to his own cabinet. They were surprised. The cabinet members agreed with his plan, but they waited. Abraham Lincoln wanted a Union victory before advancing his Emancipation Proclamation. General Lee and the Confederates had confidence after having many victories. By early September 1862, Lee led his troops into Maryland, which was a border state with many Southern supporters. Lee wanted a pro-Confederate uprising in Maryland to surround D.C. Robert E. Lee wanted more supplies too. This battle of Antietam in Maryland would be a major Union victory. Lee wanted his Proclamation to the People of Maryland to allow Maryland to join the Confederacy, but the people of Maryland refused to do so. The two armies fought at Sharpsburg, Maryland. McClellan's troops fanned out near Antietam Creek. By September 17, 1862, Union troops attacked Lee's army in three phases. The Union forces moved from one side of the Confederate line to the other. By the end of the day, more than 23,0000 soldiers were killed or wounded. The Battle of Antietam was the bloodiest single day of the American Civil War. Lee's army was exhausted, and he retreated into Virginia. Maryland stayed in the Union. Union losses exceed Confederate losses, but it was an American victory. President Abraham Lincoln then announced the historic Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. The Emancipation Proclamation was a military decree that freed all enslaved people in states still in rebellion after January 1, 1863. It didn't apply to loyal border states or to places that were already under Union military control. Lincoln wanted the proclamation to allow some southern states to surrender before the January 1st deadline. Many black Americans praised the decision like preacher Jonathan C. Gibbs and Frederick Douglass. Others were not so happy as viewing the Emancipation Proclamation as not going far enough like William Lloyd Garrison. Many Republicans wanted Lincoln to go further. Many Democrats felt it was too far. The Emancipation Proclamation was a new era of the American Civil War. 

There were the growing needs for true dignity shown to the African American soldiers. The ban on black soldiers in the Union Army soon ended. The abolitionist governor of Massachusetts supported the creation of the all-black 54th Massachusetts Regiment. By the end of the war, 180,000 African American volunteers served in the Union Army. Black soldiers fought hard in the battle of Port Hudson, Mississippi, in June 1863. Later, the 54th Massachusetts Regiment followed Robert Gould Shaw, their commander, to fight in Fort Wagner, South Carolina. During the assault, Shaw and many of his men were killed in the unsuccessful battle. The 54th earned respect for its courage and hard work. One solider received the Congressional Medal of Honor, the first of almost 2 dozen African American soldiers to be decorated for bravery. African American Union soldiers had to fight discrimination in the military. Many were assigned to menial work. Some were not paid equally. Confederate forces massacred more than 100 African American soldiers at Fort Pillow, Tennessee when they wanted to surrender. African Americans supported the Union, and 70,000 lost their lives. Many enslaved black Americans gave food to the Union forces, some acted as spies and scouts for Union forces too. Some emancipated slaves created their own military unions. Many regiments of former slaves were in South Carolina, Kansas, and Missouri. Some former slaves came into Union camps, some got paid for work, and were inspired by the changing times.

The Homefront during the American Civil War from 1861 and 1865 was filled with many events. African Americans started to fight and the North and the South during the American Civil War experienced massive changes. In the North, industries have changed. The drop in southern cotton damaged the large cotton textile industries. Other industries boomed in the North like clothing, weapons and other supplies. A more mechanized industry helped to compensate for the higher demand for more resources. To pay for the supplies for the Union military, the government passed the income tax on individual earnings. The income tax back then was only 3 percent of all income over $800 a year. As the war went on, the tax was increased. The Union raised tariffs and did other things to grow revenue and helped northern industry by raising the cost of imported goods. Wartime funds came heavily from the sale of government bonds. This means that in return for the purchase price, the buyer received a certificate promising to pay the holder a larger amount of money at a future date. The Union sold billions of dollars worth of bonds to banks and individual people. Citizens were promoted to buy bonds as an act of patriotism. Congress passed the Legal Tender Act in 1862 to increase the amount of cash in circulation and help people buy war bonds. This law allowed the Treasury to issue paper money of greenbacks because of the color of the paper used. This is the first time that America had a single, common currency that its citizens could use to purchase goods. Before the war, the south and the north wanted Western lands to either support or ban slavery. With the war, that issue was null and void. The Homestead Act was passed by Congress in 1862 to allow western land to be available at a low cost to those who will farm it. The war helped to expand the intercontinental railroad planning. The Pacific Railroad Act granted land to companies to build rail lines through Union territory. 

IN 1863, the Union created conscription. That means that it was a craft to meet the deamnd for new troops as the casaulty rates were very high in the war. This policies allowed any white man between ages 20  and 45 could be called for required military service. Yet, a man could pay 300 dollars ot have a replacement. So, the richer Americans could escape conscription. Back then, laborers earned less than 2 dollars day. Recent immigrants and others were drafted too. Many people hated conscription, and some were racists who scapegoated African Americans for job issues. This anger led to the New York Draft Riot of 1863. This was when a mob of poor racist white working class men went on a four day rampage destroying factories that made supplies. This racist mob attack African Americans, even women and children. Many black people died. These riots spread into other northern cities, so the North was not a racial paradise for black people just like the South wasn't either. There were Peace Democrats who opposed Lincoln's conduct of the war and stopped the fighting. Their opponents called them traitors and Copperheads. Many Copperheads wanted to be loyal to the Union. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus to promote the war effort. This was controversial and for me, I morally oppose Lincoln's abolishment of habeas corpus (though I understand why he did it). Lincoln gave the military the power to arrest people suspected of disloyalty to the Union including people who criticize the President and others who participated in the draft riots. The draft riots were racist terrorists, so those involved in them should be imprisoned. 

The South had more economic turmoil by the war. There was the Union blockade that increased economic recession in the South. There were some blockade runners that escape the blockade, but the blockade was mostly successful. The South had to depend on their own farms and factories for survival. Union forces blocked rivers and rail lines making it difficult to send the food to markets. Jefferson Davis had trouble to finance the Confederate war effort. There were more than 3 million slaves n the South. There were inflation raise and riots because of shortage of food in many places of the South. Southern leaders argued about what to do. Davis was stubborn. The Confederacy used conscription, stole private property, and suspended habeas corpus. After this, some southerners wanted Jefferson Davis impeached, and some in Georgia even talked of seceding from the Confederacy. 

The life of the soldier was harsh, had danger, had comradery, and had other experiences. Soldiers faced death every day. Many of them lived in game, played games, and did religious ceremonies. Some wrote extensive journals and some were homesick. Almost half of all eligible men in the North and about 80 percent of eligible men in the South served in the military during the American Civil War. Many soldiers in the border states would find relatives on the opposite side. So, relatives would sometimes fight each other in battles. Medical technology was not advanced today as it was back then. So, many of the injured on the battlefield had limbs amputated. Some didn't have anesthesia. Illness spread in camps because of a lack of clean water and the lack of sanitation. Many black Americans in Confederate camps were killed outright. More than 12,000 Union soldiers died of disease and malnutrition. Many women were soldiers in the war, some took over family business, and others were spies. Some women in the North and the South marched into battle, cooked food, did laundry, and many African American women were spies and guides. Nurses helped people among both sides. They cared for the sick and gave medical supplies in the battle. President Abraham Lincoln supported the creation of the United States Sanitary Commission which caused women to oversee hospitals and sanitation in military installations. This expanded the federal government role in the public health of America. Clara Burton was a nurse to helped wounded soldiers too. The North sang sons like The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Confederates sang the racist song of Dixie. President Abraham Lincoln loved The Battle Hymn of the Republic with tears in his eyes desiring the song to be sang again. 

 

The image showed the Battle of Vicksburg being created by Thure de Thulstrup. There was the assault on Fort Hill, fighting between Union and Confederate forces on June 25th, 1863, at the 3rd Louisiana Redan, known as Fort Hill during the siege of Vicksburg.

The Battle of Vicksburg (The Turning Point)

The Battle of Vicksburg was a major turning point of the American Civil War. It lasted from December 29, 1862, to January 11, 1863. After the battle ended, it split the Confederacy in half and literally started the beginning of the end of the American Civil War. Before the battle, the Union had only limited success in achieving their military goals. Soon, after months of difficult fighting and military setbacks, the Union had many military successes in 1863, along with the inclusion of black American people in the Union military. The war ended in less than 3 years after the Union officially allowed African Americans to fight for freedom and justice. 1863 was the year when the Confederacy was started to end its wicked reign. Union General U.S. Grant's troops battled the Confederates in Kentucky and central Tennessee by late 1862. The major focus of the Union's western campaign was in the Mississippi River (as it is the lifeblood of the spread of tons of resources in America economically). The Anaconda Plan (of using a blockade of the Atlantic Ocean to prevent supplies from going to the Confederacy) depended on gaining control of the Mississippi River. That would cut the South in half. The Confederacy had Port Hudson, Louisiana, and Vicksburg, Mississippi. Lincoln said that "Vicksburg is the key!...The War can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket." General Grant made many attempts to win Vicksburg, but Vicksburg, being controlled by the Union, would not be easy. The fortress of the Confederates at Vicksburg was high above the Mississippi waters. On the city's western edge, Confederate gunners could use deadly fire on gunboats that might come to them. In May 1862, the rebels started one assault under Union Admiral David Farragut. Grant even tried to dig a canal, so Union ships could bypass the area of the river ruled by Vicksburg batteries. Farragut failed. A Union assault in late 1862 stalled out in the many swamps, creeks, and woods guarding the northern part of the city. By the spring of 1863, Union General Grant made a new plan to take over the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg. Grant would march his troops southward through Louisian to a point south of Vicksburg. At the same time, he ordered a cavalry attack on rail lines in central Mississippi to draw Confederate attention away from the city. By April 20, 1863, some 20,000 of Grant's men crossed the river and headed northeast to capture the Mississippi state capital at Jackson. After ruling the city, the Union turned west to Vicksburg, gaining control of the main rail line leading into the city and farmers. Vicksburg was completely cut off.

General Grant made two frontal assaults against the Confederates but failed to break their defenses. So, on May 22, 1863, Grant placed Vicksburg under siege. A siege is a military tactic in which an army surrounds, bombards, and cuts off all supplies to an enemy to force it to surrender. For over a month, Union guns kept up a steady fire from land and river. Many civilians were walking in the street hearing bombs regularly. The constant fire and lack of supplies slowly weakened the rebels' defenses in Vicksburg. Finally, on July 4, 1863, the Confederate commander found that the situation was hopeless and ordered his rebel forces to surrender. The siege of Vicksburg was over, and the Union had a great victory. Days later, after it had learned of the Vicksburg surrender, the Confederate garrison at Port Hudson, Louisiana also surrendered to the Union. With these places being ruled by the Union again, the Confederacy was split in two. The American Civil War was entering its final phase. 

 

The Battle of Gettysburg (and Beyond)

The Union troops advanced in the West. The situation was different in the East. There was the Union victory at Antietam, Maryland, and Lincoln soon replaced General McClellan for failing to pursue the retreating Confederates. McClellan's successor was General Ambrose Burnside, headed south, hoping to win a big victory. The Army of the Potomac met with General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at Fredericksburg, Virginia, by December 1862. I'm from Virginia, so Fredericksburg is in Northern Virginia near the mountains. Burnside had 120,000 troops, while Lee had fewer than 80,000 people. General Lee aided by General Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet, soundly defeated the new Union commander. Union casualties were more than double that of the Confederacy. President Abraham Lincoln replaced Burnside with General Joseph Hooker, who launched his own offensive against General Lee in the Spring. The two armies clashed at Chancellorsville, just west of Fredericksburg. The Confederates defeated the Union in that battle. The loss at the Battle of Chancellorsville harmed the Union. President Lincoln was angry over the defeat, saying what will the country say. In that battle, Stonewall Jackson lost his life fighting. He was shot accidentally by his own men. Jackson died a few days after the battle. Lee was upset over the loss of Jackson, but Lee wanted to have international support to demoralize the Union. General Lee made a huge error by desiring to invade the North. By June 1863, Lee's army went through Virginia's Shenandoah Valley and going into Union territory to go to Pennsylvania. 

Robert E. Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania made many Union forces have grave concerns. The Union Army of the Potomac was headed by General Geroge Meade, and he wanted to engage the Confederate forces. A Confederate unit headed for the town of Gettysburg, because they wanted to get footwear from the shoe factory there. On the morning of July 1, 1863, General Lee's soldiers ran into several bridges of Union cavalry commanded by General John Buford. Buford's men spread out northwest of town and called for reinforcements. This was the start of the important Battle of Gettysburg. This battle would first for the next three days with massive causalities among both sides. When the first battle started on the first day, both sides fought. The Confederates won at first. They pushed the smaller Union force back through the town and came onto higher ground to the south. By night time, they halted the Confederate advance. This allowed General Meade to bring up the rest of his Union army and strengthen the Union position. Union troops dug in along a two and a half mile defense line from Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill southward along Cemetery Ridge. The Federal line ended at two more rocky Hill, Little Round Top and Big Round Top. The Union now held the high ground. So, Confederate General James Longstreet regretted that reality. When July 2 came, Lee's men prepared to assault both ends of the Union line. Lee ordered one force to move against the northern part of Meade's defenses while General Longstreet attacked the southern end of Cemetery Ridge. By late afternoon, Longstreet's troops fought against a large body of Union soldiers that had mistaken abandoned Little Round Top and moved westward off Cemetry Ridge. Both sides fought each other for hours in some of the fiercest fighting of the war. Yet, the rebels failed to breach the Union line. The Union troops found the undefended position on Little Round Top. They hurried forward just in time to meet the gray tide of Confederates rushing uphill. Anchoring the Union defense on the hilltop was a Maine unit under Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain. Chamberlain's men stood firm against numerous Confederate attacks. Yet, their numbers and ammunition decreased. Chamberlain ordered a bayonet charge that shocked and scattered his exhausted rebel enemy. Hundreds of Confederates surrendered, and the fighting ended. Night fell, and the Union still had the high ground. General Lee was not fearful despite opposition from Longstreet. Lee believed that he had a victory in sight. The General Lee of the Confederacy attacked the one more time. The result was disastrous. In the early afternoon of July 3, 1863, Lee started an artillery barrage aimed at the center of the Union line. He had hope that his cannon would break the Union defenses in advance of an infantry attack on Cemetry Ridge. When Lee's men including a division under General George Pickett marched to the ridge, thousands of Confederates were mowed down by Union rifle and cannon fire.

The failure of Pickett's charge caused Lee to reposition his division. Pickett told Lee that he doesn't have a division now. The Battle of Gettysburg was over. Over 50,000 men were dead and wounded. Almost of half of these were Confederates, nearly a third of Lee's fighting force. After the Battle of Gettysburg, there was no doubt that the Union would win the American Civil War. The only question was when the Confederacy would finally surrender. Lee stopped his invasion of the North. He came back to Virginia with his army. The South was never the same. In November 1863, President Abraham Lincoln came to Gettysburg battlefield to honor the fallen soldiers. The land of Gettysburg is sacred land for us Americans, because men lost their lives in the most brutal war in America's history in American soil. President Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address said that the Civil War was a struggle to fulfill the Declaration of Indepedence's words of all men are created equal and to preserve a nation to be unified. He called the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the Earth. After the victories of Vicksburg and Gettysburg, the Union continued to advance in the war. Lee's troops were in retreat and the Mississippi River was in Union's hands. Britain and France didn't officially recognize the Confederacy. The Confederate won some battles at Chickamauga, Georgia, but the South was soon to be defeated. 

The Union Wins the War

President Lincoln recalled General Ulyssess Grant from the Mississippi Valley by early 1864 to control the entire Union military effort. Lincoln knew that Grant wanted total victory. He was right. Grant wanted the Union to have a victory at the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia. Grant's campaign would last for many months. Grant fought Lee's army in the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor. Grant wanted to cause many losses to the Confederates in a firm fashion to cause the rebels to surrender. Thousands of Union and Confederate forces died in battles in Virginia. Some in the North shown public outrage. Grant's attack targeted the South's military and a total war philosophy to target rebel supplies, so the will of the rebels would not cause them to fight. The South had many losses. The Union's total war plan was displayed by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. In May 1864, he set out from the Tennessee Georgia border with 60,000 troops on a 250-mile march to the port of Savannah, Georgia. He marched to the sea. Sherman allowed his men to get supplies and burn things left behind which was of value. He came into Georgia, and Sherman's army tore up railroad tracks, destroyed buildings, and vandalized hundreds of private homes. Sherman captured Atlanta by September 2, 1864, and forced residents to leave. Atlanta was burned to the ground by Sherman's forces. Many Southerners called Sherman a brute, but slavery (which included rape, abuse, whippings, amputations, families being separated) was much more brutal than buildings being burned to the ground. I don't agree with vandalism or innocent property being destroyed unnecessarily, but human life is more important than property. Sherman captured Savannah by late December 1864. The Presidential election of 1864 caused President Abraham Lincoln to be re-elected again. He won it in November 1864. Lincoln's Presidential campaign was not easy as he lost support even in his own party. Some Republicans thought that he had too much authority, and some felt that he didn't do enough to stop slavery. Democrats were split and nominated Union commander George McClellan as the nominee. Many Union soldiers came home to vote for Lincoln as many Union victories existed. McClellan won 45 percent of the popular, but Lincoln won 212 of 233 electoral votes. The re-elction of President Abraham Lincoln was righteous in ending the chance of the Confederacy finding a peace deal with the Confederacy existing as a separate nation. By the Summer of 1864, General Grant drove up to Richmond. Yet, a Petersburg, Virginia (20 miles south of Richmond), the Confederates made a desperate stand.

Petersburg was a major railroad center. Grant wanted Petersburg to cut off rail lines to Richmond. Then, Grant turned to siege tactics like he did at Vicksburg. During the summer, fall, and winter of 1864, Grant's forces surrounded Petersburg. Fighting happened. Both side had trenches and used fortifications to guard attack. By March 1865, both sides had defenses 30 miles around Petersburg. The fighting was hard with more than 40,000 Union casualties and 28,000 Confederate deaths. Then, Union strength grew in comparison to the Confederate forces. By this time, the rebels wanted peace talks. By February 1865, Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens met with Abraham Lincoln to have an end to the war. Yet, talks failed. One reason was that Abraham Lincoln wanted to promote the Thirteenth Amendment which would ban slavery. The Confederates refused to oppose slavery. The 13th Amendment was ratified by December 1865. Abraham Lincoln knew that victory was inevitable, so he wanted the Confederates to be reunited with Union after the war was over. Many Northerners wanted the South to be harshly punished. By March 1865, President Abraham Lincoln gave his Second Inaugural Address being his most progressive speech. He said in the speech that slavery was immoral and the war was God's judgement against America for oppressing black people. He wanted no malice and the Confederates to surrender and be reunited with the Union with a generous reconciliation. Weeks later, the Confederates failed to make a final assault to end the siege at Petersburg. Lee ordered a retreat from Petersburg on the night of April 2, 1865. Then, Richmond was left defenseless, evacuated, and set aflame. Lee wanted to work with the rebels in North Carolina. Yet, Union forces went after Lee's forces. The rebels had a lack of food and constant Union resistance. Finally, Lee and his starving , exhausted soldiers were trapped in the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia. On April 9, 1865, General Lee finally surrendered to General Grant. The Union general refused to allow his soldiers to gloat. General Lee said "The war is over...the rebels are our countrymen again." 

The Civil War continued for months after April 1865. The South had 170,000 rebels. It would be until June 1865 when other Confederate generals all over the South surrendered. In Texas, African Americans celebrated June 19, 1865 as Juneteenth, the day of the news of surrender reached the Southwest. The Union won because of many reasons. The South in the beginning had unified leadership in Generals. Yet, the Union had more soldiers, more factories, more technological power, and a higher population to resist the rebels. Generals Grant and Sherman used tactics to decrease the time of the war, and new African American soldiers in the war helped to end the war sooner too. President Abraham Lincoln changed by the American War to see the war as bigger than just preserving the Union. He saw the American Civil War as a moral cause to give America a new birth of freedom in ending slavery and expanding the role of the federal government to help the people. The determination of African Americans and Lincoln definitely played a large role in causing a Union victory. Over 600,000 Americans died in the Civil War being huge. 

The Unjust Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln was one of the most tragic events in American history and world human history. Lincoln's assassination was a conspiracy as conclusively proven by tons of authors and other scholars. This conspiracy involved a cowardly murderer and Confederates who had a jealousy of the progress in American society nearing the end of the American Civil War. On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln wanted to relax. So, he was attending a new comedy called Our American Cousin, at nearby Ford's Theater. This was at Washington, D.C. just days after Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant. During the performance, actor and Confederate supporter John Wilkes Booth, approached the President's private box. Booth fired a single shot into the back of President Lincoln's head. Leaping to the sage, Booth was heard to call out "Sic Semper tyrannis! or Thus ever to tyrants in Latin. This is the motto of my state of Virginia. He also said that "the South is avenged." Mortally wounded, President Lincoln died the next morning at 7:22 am. in the Petersen House, opposite of the theater. President Abraham Lincoln was the first American President to be assassinated. 

Many in America loved him, and his funeral was very solemn. Booth was a target of a large manhunt. After many days, Booth was shot and killed while hiding in a barn in Virginia. Booth was part of a larger plot to kill not only Lincoln but Vice President and Secretary of State. Conspirators Lewis Powell and David Herold were assigned to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward, and George Atzerodt was tasked with killing Vice President Andrew Johnson. The plotters wanted chaos and panic in the North, so the South can continue with the war. The Secretary of State William Seward was also attacked and seriously injured by one of Booth's accomplices. Booth was especially angry at how Lincoln in one speech wanted some black people (especially black Union soldiers) given the right to vote. Booth was the only person who shot someone in the plot, Four his accomplices were later hanged as co-conspirators. Beyond Lincoln's death, the plot failed: Seward was only wounded, and Johnson's would-be attacker became drunk instead of killing the vice president. After a dramatic initial escape, Booth was killed at the end of a 12-day chase. Powell, Herold, Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt were later hanged for their roles in the conspiracy. It is important to note that the murderer John Wilkes Booth was initiated in the pro-Confederate secret society of the Knights of the Golden Circle in Baltimore, Maryland by late 1860. The Knights of the Golden Circle was a racist secret order that wanted to make slavery in the South and across Latin America plus Haiti. It was founded by George W. L. Bickley. The Knights of Golden Circle wanted to kindap Abraham Lincoln and make Breckingridge President, so the KGC (which is a prelude to the Klan) was a terrorist organization. In late 1863, the KGC reorganized as the Order of American Knights. In 1864, it became the Order of the Sons of Liberty, with the Ohio politician Clement L. Vallandigham, the most prominent of the Copperheads, as its supreme commander. In most areas, only a minority of its membership was radical enough to discourage enlistments, resist the draft, and shield deserters. The KGC held numerous peace meetings. A few agitators, some encouraged by Southern money, talked of a revolt in the Old Northwest intending to end the war. Booth attended Lincoln's second inauguration on March 4, 1865, writing in his diary afterwards: "What an excellent chance I had, if I wished, to kill the President on Inauguration day!"

On April 11, Booth attended Lincoln's last speech, in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for emancipated slaves; Booth said, "That means n______ citizenship...That is the last speech he will ever give." So, obviously John Wilkes Booth was an evil racist who was from Maryland. Enraged, Booth urged Powell to shoot Lincoln on the spot. Whether Booth made this request because he was not armed or considered Powell a better shot than himself (Powell, unlike Booth, had served in the Confederate Army and thus had military experience) is unknown. In any event, Powell refused for fear of the crowd, and Booth was either unable or unwilling to personally attempt to kill the president. However, Booth said to David Herold, "By God, I'll put him through." According to Ward Hill Lamon, three days before his death, Lincoln related a dream in which he wandered the White House searching for the source of mournful sounds. Lincoln's usual protections were not in place that night at Ford's. Crook was on a second shift at the White House, and Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln's personal bodyguard, was away in Richmond on assignment from Lincoln. John Frederick Parker was assigned to guard the Presidential Box at Ford's Theater.  Major Henry Rathbone  tried to capture Booth in the theater, but Booth stabbed him in the forearm. Booth exited the theater through a side door, and on the way stabbing orchestra leader William Withers Jr. As he leapt into the saddle of his getaway horse Booth pushed away Joseph Burroughs, who had been holding the horse, striking Burroughs with the handle of his knife.

After clearing everyone out of the room, including Mrs. Lincoln, the doctors cut away Lincoln's clothes but discovered no other wounds. Finding that Lincoln was cold, they applied hot water bottles and mustard plasters while covering him with blankets. Later, more physicians arrived: Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes, Charles Henry Crane, Anderson Ruffin Abbott, and Robert K. Stone (Lincoln's personal physician). Abraham Lincoln's wife kissed him before he passed. According to Lincoln's secretary John Hay, at the moment of Lincoln's death, "a look of unspeakable peace came upon his worn features." The assembly knelt for a prayer, after which Stanton said either, "Now he belongs to the ages" or, "Now he belongs to the angels." On Lincoln's death, Vice President Johnson became the 17th president of the United States. The presidential oath of office was administered to Johnson by Chief Justice Salmon Chase sometime between 10 and 11 am. Confederate Lewis Powell attacked William Seward's son Frederick W. Sewart, and George Atzerodt failed to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson. 

Lincoln was mourned in both the North and South, and indeed around the world. Numerous foreign governments issued proclamations and declared periods of mourning on April 15. Lincoln was praised in sermons on Easter Sunday, which fell on the day after his death. On April 18, mourners lined up seven deep for a mile to view Lincoln in his walnut casket in the White House's black-draped East Room. Special trains brought thousands from other cities, some of whom slept on the Capitol's lawn. Hundreds of thousands watched the funeral procession on April 19, and millions more lined the 1,700-mile (2,700 km) route of the train which took Lincoln's remains through New York to Springfield, Illinois, often passing trackside tributes in the form of bands, bonfires, and hymn-singing.

Poet Walt Whitman composed "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", "O Captain! My Captain!", and two other poems, to eulogize Lincoln.

Ulysses S. Grant called Lincoln "incontestably the greatest man I ever knew." Robert E. Lee expressed sadness. Southern-born Elizabeth Blair said that "Those of Southern born sympathies know now they have lost a friend willing and more powerful to protect and serve them than they can now ever hope to find again." African-American orator Frederick Douglass called the assassination an "unspeakable calamity."

British Foreign Secretary Lord Russell called Lincoln's death a "sad calamity." China's chief secretary of state for foreign affairs, Prince Gong, described himself as "inexpressibly shocked and startled." Ecuadorian president Gabriel García Moreno said, "Never should I have thought that the noble country of Washington would be humiliated by such a black and horrible crime; nor should I ever have thought that Mr. Lincoln would come to such a horrible end, after having served his country with such wisdom and glory under such critical circumstances." The government of Liberia issued a proclamation calling Lincoln "not only the ruler of his own people, but a father to millions of a race stricken and oppressed." The government of Haiti condemned the assassination as a "horrid crime." Edwin M. Stanton helped America to find the conspirators quickley. Sergeant Boston Corbett shot Booth in the back of his head. Another conspirator, John Surratt fled to Quebec where Roman Catholic priests hid him.  In September, he boarded a ship to Liverpool, England, staying in the Catholic Church of the Holy Cross there. From there, he moved furtively through Europe until joining the Pontifical Zouaves in the Papal States. A friend from his school days recognized him there in early 1866 and alerted the U.S. government. Surratt was arrested by the Papal authorities but managed to escape under suspicious circumstances. He was finally captured by an agent of the United States in Egypt in November 1866. So, the major conspirators in the assassination of President President Abraham Lincoln were John Wilkes Booth, Samuel Arnold, George Atzerodt, David Herold, Samuel Mudd, Michael O'Laughlen, Lewis Powell, Edmund Spangler, Mary Surratt, and John Surratt. They were tried by a military tribunal (except John Surratt), ordered by Johnson. Major General David Hunter was the presiding judge. 

The picture above showed President Abraham Lincoln in the middle and the assassins around him. 

The seven-week trial included the testimony of 366 witnesses. All of the defendants were found guilty on June 30. Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt were sentenced to death by hanging; Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold, and Michael O'Laughlen were sentenced to life in prison. Edmund Spangler was sentenced to six years. After sentencing Mary Surratt to hang, five members of the tribunal signed a letter recommending clemency, but Johnson did not stop the execution; he later claimed he never saw the letter. Mary Surratt, Powell, Herold, and Atzerodt were hanged in the Old Arsenal Penitentiary on July 7. Mary Surratt was the first woman executed by the United States government. O'Laughlen died in prison in 1867. Mudd, Arnold, and Spangler were pardoned in February 1869 by Johnson. Spangler, who died in 1875, always insisted his sole connection to the plot was that Booth asked him to hold his horse. John Surratt stood trial in a civil court in Washington in 1867. Four residents of Elmira, New York, claimed they had seen him there between April 13 and 15; fifteen others testified they either saw him or someone who resembled him, in Washington (or traveling to or from Washington) on the day of the assassination. The jury could not reach a verdict, and John Surratt was released.

President Abraham Lincoln's death made him a martyr and united his northern supporters and critics. Lincoln was viewed as a symbol of heroism and of freedom. If Lincoln survived the assassination attempt, America would be a lot different. Lincoln wasn't perfect, but he has grown to be more progressive by 1865 like supporting an Amendment to ban slavery, investments in science, etc.  

 

The End of the War and New Laws

The end of the American Civil War saw a massive expansion of the federal government and the development of Reconstruction. Reconstruction was a time of massive political change when black people were elected into high office for the first time in American history. Reconstruction ended by a far right backlash that prevented progress to go into the next level and the Compromise of 1877. This backlash involved the Klan and other terrorist groups beating, raping, and killing black men, black women, and black children. President Abraham Lincoln talked about Reconstruction issues long before his passing. There were debates by the Union about what to do with the defeated Confederacy. People debated on how to reunite the seceded states to the Union. There were power structures among the executive and legislative branch too. The South was heavily destroyed by the American civil War, businesses were closed, homes were burned, and properties were abandoned. African Americans were finally free from slavery which was a good thing. So, Reconstruction was created in an attempt to give black Americans full citizenship, means to make a living, and have true equality.  There were 2 views on how to treat the Confederacy. Some wanted the Confederacy to be immediately pardoned and have lax repercussions. They wanted no Confederate tried for treason. Another group of people (especially the Radical Republicans) wanted many Confederate leaders to be tried for treason and heavily punished before they were reunited to the Union. 3 million African Americans were free. General William Tecumseh Sherman proposed that millions of acres abandoned by planters or confiscated by the federal government should be given to former slaves (in forty acres and a mule). The Thirteenth Amendment banned slavery, but more laws were needed to give black people citizenship. Black people in the North, South, West, and Midwest wanted voting rights, access to education, living wages, and other rights. Many Republicans supported these policies, but they were rejected by most white southerners. President Abraham Lincoln wanted a moderate course. He wanted southern states to have 10 percent of each states' voters to support the Union in a loyalty oath to be reunited with the Union. He wanted the state's Constitution to ban slavery and provide African Americans education, then the state would regain representation in Congress. Lincoln wanted pardons to former Confederates and wanted compensate them for property (which Andrew Johnson supported). He recognized pro-Union governments in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee though these state denied African Americans the right to vote. Lincoln wanted reconciliation.

Radical Republicans wanted a different course, led by Representative Thaddeus Steven and Senator Charles Sumner. He wanted African Americans to have equal rights after the Confederates did violent crimes against black Americans. The Radical Republicans wanted full citizenship for black Americans and grant black people the right to vote. Congress passed the Wade- Davis ill in 1864 (instead of Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan). The law wanted a majority of the state's prewar voters to swear loyalty to the Union before the process of restoration could begin. The bill wanted equality for African Americans. President Lincoln ended the plan by not signing it into law beyond the 10 day deadline of the congressional session. Radical Republican's Freedmen's Bureau was supported by Lincoln. It wanted food, clothing, health care, and education to be given to both black and white residents in the South via the Bureau of Refugees, Freedman, and Abandoned Lands.  The Freeman Bureau reunited families separated by the war and war. It formed fair labor contracts between former slaves and white landowners. The Freedmen Bureau defended black people in court cases. It helped to promote citizens' rights for black people. President Andrew Johnson was a racist who wanted immediate southern reconciliation to the Union. He made pardons to Confederates. Johnson supported states' rights, didn't want black people to vote, and only required Southern states to ratify the 13th Amendment and draft a Constitution that abolished slavery.

The Southern states used black codes to violate the rights of African Americans to prevent them from having lands and be workers with lax wages. Vagrancy laws were made to prevent black people from owning lands. The Union used a military occupation of the South. Many white southerners openly used violence and intimidation to enforce the racist black codes. Congress fought back via activists and Radical Republicans plus moderate Republicans. 

 

Epilogue

Over one hundred and sixty years ago, the American Civil War was in existence. It was the bloodiest war in American history causing brother to fight brother, sister to fight sister, and families to split apart forever. It existed because of many factors. Yet, the one factor that caused the war to exist was the issue of slavery in American society. To own humans, to split families, to oppress people, to rape people, and to brand people involuntarily (which were all components of the Maafa and American slavery) were evil and unjust. Black people suffered oppression, and black people fought back in Africa, in the slave ships, in America, and beyond. America was birthed in the two great sins of the enslavement and oppression of African Americans and the genocide of Native Americans. That is the contradiction of history that we Americans must reckon with if we want America to experience true freedom and justice for all people. Likewise, all Americans aren't monolithic ideologically. It is important to acknowledge the many Americans back then who opposed slavery, fought for the Union, and believed in the federal government promoting human rights for humanity in a progressive fashion. Even President Abraham Lincoln (who was a lifelong opponent of slavery) had to be inspired by Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, other abolitionists, and Radical Republicans to see that the American Civil War is more than about preserving the Union. This war was part of a moral cause to let the oppressed slaves go free from bondage and injustice. At first, the war was a stalemate with massive Confederate victories done by Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, Joseph E. Johnston, and other generals. Yet, Abraham Lincoln used Union leaders like Winfield Scott, George B. McClellan, Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and other generals to defeat the Confederate enemy. The Union used a blockage of the Atlantic Ocean, defeated the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg (in Mississippi), and won many battles like Gettysburg to make an Union victory inevitable. More African American soldiers caused the Union side to be victorious too starting in 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation was a sign of new era of America. The war ended months after the evil assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Before Lincoln died, Lincoln invested in industry, inventions, and other manufacturing to cause America to be a massive economic powerhouse. One legacy of the American Civil War was the expansion of the federal government in Reconstruction, the 1960s Civil Rights laws, and beyond. Now in 2025, Trump wants to strip the federal government of massive powers, even firing innocent federal workers unjustly. What is past is prologue, and we have the responsibility to understand the American Civil War to stand up for our human liberties that our ancestors bleed and died for. 

By Timothy