CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CIVIL WAR, 1861-1863

1. In 1860 and 1861 seven cotton states seceded, formed the Confederate States of America, and elected Jefferson Davis President.

2. The capture of Fort Sumter (April, 1861) and Lincoln's call for troops were followed by the secession of four more Southern states.

3. In 1861 an attempt was made to drive back the Confederate line in Virginia; but this ended in disaster at the battle of Bull Run.

4. In 1862 the Peninsular Campaign failed, Pope was defeated at Bull Run, Lee's invasion of Maryland was ended by the battle of Antietam, and Burnside met defeat at Fredericksburg.

5. In the West in 1862 the Confederate line was forced back to northern Mississippi, and New Orleans was captured. Great battles were fought at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Perryville, and Murfreesboro.

6. On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln declared free the slaves in the states and parts of states held by the Confederates.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The constitution of the Confederacy was the Constitution of the United States altered to suit conditions. The President was to serve six years and was not to be eligible for reëlection; the right to own slaves was affirmed, but no slaves were to be imported from any foreign country except the slave-holding states of the old Union. The Congress was forbidden to establish a tariff for protection of any branch of industry. A Supreme Court was provided for, but was never organized.

[2] Jefferson Davis was born in 1808, graduated from the Military Academy at West Point in 1828, served in the Black Hawk War, resigned from the army in 1835, and became a cotton planter in Mississippi. In 1845 he was elected to Congress, but resigned to take part in the Mexican War, and was wounded at Buena Vista. In 1847 lie was elected a senator, and from 1853 to 1857 was Secretary of War. He then returned to the Senate, where he was when Mississippi seceded. He died in New Orleans in 1889.

[3] Property of the United States seized by the states was turned over to the Confederate government. Thus Louisiana gave up $536,000 in specie taken from the United States customhouse and mint at New Orleans.

[4] Read "Inside Sumter in '61" in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 65-73.

[5] Read "War Preparations in the North" in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 85-98; on pp. 149-159, also, read "Going to the Front."

[6] An interesting account of "Scenes in Virginia in '61" may be found in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 160-166.

[7] "The Confederate army was more disorganized by victory than that of the United States by defeat," says General Johnston; and no pursuit of the Union forces was made. "The larger part of the men," McDowell telegraphed to Washington, "are a confused mob, entirely disorganized." None stopped short of the fortifications along the Potomac, and numbers entered Washington. Read Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 229-239. "I have no idea that the North will give it up," wrote Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy. "Their defeat will increase their energy." He was right.

[8] George Brinton McClellan was born in Philadelphia in 1826, graduated from West Point, served in the Mexican War, and resigned from the army in 1857, to become a civil engineer, but rejoined it at the opening of the war. In July, 1861, he conducted a successful campaign against the Confederates in West Virginia, and his victories there were the cause of his promotion to command the Army of the Potomac. After the battle of Antietam (p. 363) he took no further part in the war, and finally resigned in 1864. From 1878 to 1881 he was governor of New Jersey. He died in 1885.

[9] Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Ohio in 1822, and at seventeen entered West Point, where his name was registered Ulysses S. Grant, and as such he was ever after known. He served in the Mexican War, and afterward engaged in business of various sorts till the opening of the Civil War, when he was made colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Regiment, and then commander of the district of southeast Missouri. When General Buckner, who commanded at Fort Donelson, wrote to Grant to know what terms he would offer, Grant replied: "No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." This won for Grant the popular name "Unconditional Surrender" Grant.

Andrew H. Foote was born in Connecticut in 1806, entered the navy at sixteen, and when the war opened, was made flag officer of the Western navy. His gunboats were like huge rafts carrying a house with flat roof and sloping sides that came down to the water's edge. The sloping sides and ends were covered with iron plates and pierced for guns; three in the bow, two in the stern, and four on each side. The huge wheel in the stern which drove the boat was under cover; but the smoke stacks were unprotected. Foote died in 1863, a rear admiral.

[10] The islands in the Mississippi are numbered from the mouth of the Ohio River to New Orleans.

[11] Read Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 465-486.

[12] Farther west the Confederates attacked the Union army at Corinth (October 4), but were defeated by General Rosecrans.

[13] In January, 1862, the Confederate line west of the Mississippi stretched from Belmont across southern Missouri to Indian Territory; but Grant drove the Confederates out of Belmont; General Curtis, as we have seen, beat them at Pea Ridge (in March), and when the year ended, the Union army was in possession of northern Arkansas.