Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

I�d like to address the question of why the North fought before the Emancipation Proclamation. Above, it was mentioned that Lee fought for Virginia. That is true. At the time of the Revolution, all the soldiers were fighting for their state. The concept of one people and one country formed slowly. People held two loyalties at the same time. For Lee, state loyalty over-rode national loyalty. For others, national loyalty trumped their state loyalty. The Jackson quotes I posted earlier demonstrate that attitude, and show that nationalism was not exclusive to the North.

Below are extracts from �Nothing But Victory�. The first tells what Grant said about why he was fighting. After that is a lengthy excerpt with the words of the men who filled the ranks of the Army of the Tennessee. Finally, a paragraph with one soldier's reaction to the Emancipation Proclamation.

(p 200)
�Writing his memoirs more than two decades later, Grant stated, �Up to the battle of Shiloh I, as well as thousands of other citizens, believed that the rebellion against the Government would collapse suddenly and soon, if a decisive victory could be gained over any of its armies.� Shiloh, he said, changed his mind. �I gave up all idea of saving the Union except by complete conquest.� Up to this time, it had been Grant�s policy, reiterated in dozens of general orders, to spare the property of civilians. �After this, however, I regarded it as humane to both sides to protect the persons of those found at their homes, but to consume everything that could be used to support or supply armies.� The passage of two decades had led the 1885 Grant to telescope into a single battle the metamorphosis that had in fact taken place in his thinking over the several months following the Battle of Shiloh. Nor was Grant the only one whose thoughts that summer were migrating away from ideas of a limited police action against a clique of insurgent politicians to an all-out war against a rebellious people. The ferocity of Confederate resistance not only at Shiloh but at battles elsewhere during the spring and early summer of 1862 brought Lincoln to the same conclusion.�

(p 213-215)
The same spring and summer developments that showed that a more resolute and forceful prosecution of the war was necessary also showed that the United States needed more soldiers. During the fall and winter of 1861-1862, a great surge of patriotic enlistment had fulfilled the demands of Lincoln�s summer 1861 call for troops. In the early spring of 1862, with the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson as well as Union victories on the periphery of the war, the end of the conflict seemed to be in sight. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton even suspended additional recruitment. The perspective changed in late spring and early summer. Shiloh showed Confederate will to fight. The continued animosity of Southern civilians showed how far they were from being conciliated, and the successful Confederate defense of Richmond, Virginia, proved that the war was far from over. One of Lincoln�s responses to the summer setbacks was to issue a call for 300,000 more volunteers, and Congress obligingly provided that if the requisite number of volunteers should not be forthcoming in any particular state or district, the draft would make up the difference.

Relatively few men were actually drafted that year, as a final great surge of patriotic enlistment during the late summer of 1862 fulfilled the quotas set by Lincoln�s call�

By this time, it was clear that army pay was little enough�and often months in arrears�and that soldiers� families would essentially be without their breadwinners. Nor were early efforts to subsidize soldiers� families proving adequate. Such concerns made the decision to enlist extremely difficult for married men.

In Newton, Iowa, forty-year-old Taylor Peirce and his wife, Katharine, �had a long talk� about whether Taylor should enlist. His going would leave her without help maintaining their home and caring for their three children. On the other hand, it appeared that �the rebellion could not be put down without the government got more help.� Other men were enlisting and leaving families in situations as difficult as theirs, and Katharine �would not have it said that her selfishness kept her husband from his post.� She gave her consent. Taylor finished up some sawing he had to do, and two days later he was on the rolls of the newly organizing 22nd Iowa Regiment.

In like manner, thirty-one-year-old William Winters talked with his wife, Hattie, before leaving her, their three children, and his harness-making shop in Hope, Indiana, and joining another new regiment, the 67th Indiana. Another thirty-one-year-old, Daniel Winegar, left his wife, Elvira, and their two small children when he left Belvidere, Illinois, in the ranks of the 95th Illinois Regiment. �I would not have enlisted,� he wrote, �only I thought it was my duty to defend our Country.� And so, in like manner, men all over the Midwest left wife, children, and livelihood to enter the army.

George Willison of Massilon, Ohio, was over forty years of age, had a wife and five children, and just enough money to get by. He seriously considered enlisting but decided the hardship on his family would be too great. Reluctantly he gave in to his eldest son�s urgent pleas and signed the papers for the young man to enlist instead. Young Charles Willison was just four months beyond his sixteenth birthday when he mustered in�

Other young men also gained the reluctant consent of their parents. William Eddington�s mother, a widow, had turned him down the year before. Now �Mother told me if I still wanted to go in the army I might do so.� He enlisted in the 97th Illinois. The parting was hard on the mothers. Before the brand-new 32nd Iowa left the little town of Nevada, the community held a banquet for the new recruits, �but there was so much sorrow and weeping at the thought of parting that our appetites were small,� recalled recruit John Ritland. �Mother could not swallow a morsel. I gave her an apple to take home.� �

Perhaps the recruit who best articulated his reasons for enlisting in the summer of 1862 was Sam Jones of Iowa City, Iowa, who that summer enlisted in the 22nd Iowa Regiment. �Up to this time,� Jones later wrote, �I had not thought it necessary that I should go. I had had a feeling that those who were enlisting were doing it because they delighted in the public martial display of the soldier life; but a feeling came over me at this time that I was needed in the defense of my country.� For Jones the whole issue of what he should do came down to two fundamental questions: �Could the government subdue the slave power, the power that was in rebellion?� And �For the government to do it�am I needed?� The answer he gave himself was �We, the people, are the government.� With that thought in mind, he explained, �I made up my mind to be a soldier and fight for my country, as many thousands like me were doing.�


Here is one soldier�s reaction to the Emancipation Proclamation later that year:
(p 224)
Two days later [after the Battle of Iuka] and half a continent away, Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that all slaves in areas still in rebellion against the United States as of January 1, 1863, would henceforth be free. Word of the proclamation had reached the troops in Mississippi and West Tennessee within a few days. John Campbell of the 5th Iowa was enthusiastic. �The 1st of January 1863 is to be the day of our nation�s second birth,� the Iuka veteran wrote. �God bless and help Abraham Lincoln�help him to �break every yoke and let the oppressed go free.� The President has placed the Union pry under the corner stone of the Confederacy and the structure will fall.�

[fusionbarnone]

Are wars fought for love or money? Which is the best for promising quarterly forecasts?

[mistermasan]

psst...slavery still exists. go to sudan or mauritania and get one. then liberate him/her. great story to tell the grandkids.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[The Happy Warrior]

Lost Causers certainly believe the war was about States' Rights.

[Reggie]

Although the emancipation of the slaves was certainly a good outcome of the war, I really don't think it was the cause. One can look at how the US treated Native American people after the Civil War to see how whites in the North really felt about the human rights of non-whites.

Furthermore, most of the slaves were brought to America by northern merchants and the northern states bought ton after ton after ton of cotton from slave states for decades knowing full well that blacks were picking the cotton under slave labor conditions.

[Fox]

[Adventurer]

You guys are looking at this from a black-and-white angle, pardon the pun. There was strong opposition against slavery in the North, but it was more about the South counting black people while they weren't free. Had the South not done that, then there would have been much less friction.

I would say that slavery was the elephant in the room no matter how some people try to spin it. Yes, states' rights were there in terms of debat and the idea of Nullification and people didn't like how the constitution was passed without guarding the rights of states adequately. They didn't want the Federal Government to have much power, and this sentiment is still strong in the South and to some extent outside of it.

[Reggie]

[Adventurer]

[quote="Reggie"]

[Steelrails]

Somewhere on this board I had a really long post about the causes of the Civil War. I can't find it.

I'm in a rush so I'll post some brief thoughts, I'll probably have to wait until tonight so I can look through my library and pull out some quotes and figures

Basically the War was largely about slavery. Without slavery this war probably does not happen. Things like "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and John Brown's raid into Harper's Ferry really motivated people in the North.

I don't think we fully appreciate the magnitude those two events had.

However the individual soldier was fighting for the guy next to him, and for his neighbors back home.

In the South I seriously doubt people were willing to fight to such a fanatical level simply to keep people enslaved. It was more about independence.

The war moved form Unionist to Abolitionist as the war progressed and attitudes hardened.

There is a popular quote- Before the war people often said "The United States are", after the war people said "The United States IS".

[Fox]

[djsmnc]

I'm just gonna bite the bullet here and say that the American Civil War, like many wars, occurred for a myriad of reasons.

[Adventurer]

[The Happy Warrior]

I agree with most of what you said, Steelrails.