The civil war

Introductory note

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR began on April 12, 1861, when the opening guns were fired on Fort Sumter, a fort belonging to the US Government and guarding the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.

Upon seceding, South Carolina had demanded that the fort be evacuated and turned over to the state. President Buchanan had refused, and so South Carolina had prevented food from reaching it and finally made it surrender by a sudden attack. The next day, the Stars and Stripes came down, and a wave of rage swept the North, bringing a great response when two days later Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to serve three months.

Fort Sumter had been fired upon for the purpose of shaking the remaining eight slave states out of the Union and into the Confederacy. Four of them responded to those shots and seceded, making eleven in all.

The war, which was to «end in ninety days», lasted four years, resulting in the preservation of the Union and the abolition of slavery. Its importance in the stream of American history is immense. But it failed to resolve many old problems and created countless new ones. Neither did it secure for the Negro a full participation in a free society.

(From "Abraham Lincoln's World" by G.Foster)

_AT FIRST the war went badly for the North. They had the bigger population, the greater wealth, the more arms factories; but their soldiers were untrained, unready and unwarlike. The Southerners had great skill in riding and shooting. Their general, Robert E. Lee, was ably seconded by "Stonewall" Jackson and they won a succession of brilliant victories.

In those yearly years the North had no soldier to compare with Lee or Jackson. But they had Lincoln. For four years he shouldered an almost unbearable burden of defeats and disasters and of disloyalty in his Cabinet by those he thought were his friends. He was saddened by the terrible slaughter on both sides, and in his personal life, by the death of his elder son and the mental illness of his wife. But he was unshaken by defeats, by sadness or disappointments. Generals failed; he appointed others. Armies fought badly; he sent them reinforcements. The people's courage was failing; his speeches revived it. He never lost courage or faith hi the righteousness of his cause.

Gradually the tide turned. He appointed General Grant to take command - not without considerable opposition from the rest of the Cabinet. Grant was of humble origin, shabby in dress, rough in speech and manners, and there were many stories of his hard drinking. Lincoln knew that these stories were exaggerated and, when a member of the Government demanded that, because of his drinking, Grant should be dismissed, Lincoln replied - with a touch of humour that was characteristic of him - "Grant wins battles. If I knew what kind of liquor he drinks I would send a barrel or so to some other of my generals."

Grant proved worthy of Lincoln's trust. Jackson had been killed in 1863, and now the armies of Grant and Sherman, Grant's second in command, were advancing everywhere. In November 1864, Sherman with an army of 60,000 men marched off from Atlanta, southwards into Georgia. For a month nothing was heard of them. Then on Christmas Day, Lincoln received a telegram from Sherman:

"I BEG TO OFFER YOU AS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT THE CITY OF SAVANNAH."

They had marched 300 miles, from Atlanta to the sea, all the way through enemy country.

The enemy forces had been cut in half.

In January Sherman marched northwards again to where Grant was attacking Lee. Final victory could not be far away now; and now that the triumph of his policy was assured, Lincoln issued a proclamation setting free every man, woman and child in the USA. Slavery was ended.

On April 9th, Lincoln received a message from Grant:

"GENERAL LEE SURRENDERED THIS MORNING ON TERMS PROPOSED BY MYSELF."

And, though fighting did not cease until May 26th, the Civil War was over. Lincoln's unconquerable spirit, his steadfast faith in his country's true destiny, his resolute leadership had won the day.

He now turned from leadership in war to reconciliation in peace, and he showed as great a nobility of spirit in reconciling former enemies for peace as he had shown in heartening his country for war.

One of the most terrible battles of the American Civil War was fought in July 1863 at Gettysburg. In November of that year a portion of the battlefield was dedicated as a final resting-place for those men of both armies who died there. The chief speech on that occasion was given by Edward Everett, a celebrated orator. Lincoln was asked to "make a few remarks." Everett's speech lasted two hours, Lincoln's for two minutes; it was over almost before the crowd realised that it had begun. But the Gettysburg speech is now one of the world's immortal pieces of literature. Here is a fragment of this speech generally called The Gettysburg Address.

"The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

(From G.E. Eckersley. Book 4, p.p. 281-284, 290-291)