THE GREAT EXPERIMENT: A NATION DIVIDED

PART V — A NATION AT WAR WITH ITSELF

Civil War, Emancipation, and the Price of Union

On April 12, 1861, Confederate artillery opened fire on Fort Sumter.

For decades, Americans had argued.

They had voted.

They had compromised.

They had taken disputes to Congress and the courts.

Now they were firing artillery at one another.

The political crisis had become a war.

At first, many Americans believed the fighting might be brief.

It would last four years.

It would mobilize millions of people.

It would devastate communities.

It would transform the federal government.

It would destroy slavery.

And it would cost more American lives than anyone in 1861 could have imagined.

The Civil War would determine whether the United States remained one country.

But as the conflict continued, it would come to determine something else as well:

What did freedom mean in the United States?

Two Governments

By the summer of 1861, two governments claimed authority over much of what had been the United States.

Abraham Lincoln led the United States from Washington.

Jefferson Davis led the Confederate States of America from Richmond.

Their governments faced very different challenges.

The United States possessed significant advantages in population, industry, railroad infrastructure, financial resources, and naval power.

The Confederacy controlled a vast territory and did not necessarily need to conquer the North.

It needed to survive.

If Confederate armies could defend their territory long enough, exhaust northern willingness to continue fighting, or secure international recognition and assistance, Confederate independence might become possible.

The United States faced the opposite problem.

It had to suppress a rebellion spread across an enormous region and restore federal authority.

No one knew how difficult that would become.

They would soon find out.

Bull Run Changes Expectations

On July 21, 1861, Union and Confederate armies met near Manassas, Virginia, at the First Battle of Bull Run, known in the South as First Manassas.

Civilians had traveled from Washington expecting to observe what some imagined would be a decisive Union victory.

Instead, Confederate forces prevailed.

Union troops retreated toward Washington.

The battle did not determine the war.

But it destroyed one dangerous illusion.

This would not necessarily be a quick conflict.

Both governments began building larger armies.

Training expanded.

Military organization improved.

And Americans prepared for a war whose scale was only beginning to become apparent.

The War Was Larger Than Virginia

Popular memory often focuses on the armies fighting between Washington and Richmond.

But the Civil War stretched across an enormous area.

Fighting occurred from Pennsylvania to Texas.

From Virginia to New Mexico Territory.

From Tennessee to Arkansas.

Naval forces fought along the Atlantic coast, Gulf of Mexico, and major rivers.

The Mississippi River became one of the most strategically important objectives of the war.

Controlling it could divide the Confederacy and give the United States a transportation corridor through the continent.

In the West, a relatively unknown Union officer began building his reputation.

His name was:

Ulysses S. Grant.

Grant Moves Forward

In February 1862, Grant's forces captured Fort Donelson in Tennessee.

The victory helped open important routes into the Confederate interior.

Grant became known for demanding surrender and for his willingness to continue moving against Confederate forces.

But the war in the West would be brutal.

At Shiloh in April 1862, Union and Confederate armies fought one of the bloodiest battles Americans had yet experienced.

Thousands were killed or wounded.

Shiloh demonstrated again that this war would not resemble the short contest many had imagined.

The country was beginning to understand the price.

The War Reaches Ordinary Americans

The Civil War was fought by armies.

But it was experienced by entire communities.

Men disappeared from farms, businesses, factories, and families to serve.

Women managed households and farms, worked as nurses, organized relief efforts, entered government employment, and struggled to support families disrupted by war.

Civilians lived under occupation.

Refugees fled armies.

Railroads and farms became military resources.

Food shortages became severe in parts of the Confederacy.

Inflation devastated household finances.

Disease moved through camps.

Letters arrived carrying news from distant battlefields.

Sometimes the news was that a husband, father, brother, or son was not coming home.

The war was becoming personal.

Disease Was an Enemy Too

Battlefields were only one source of death.

Civil War armies gathered enormous numbers of people into camps where sanitation was often poor and medical knowledge limited.

Diseases spread quickly.

Dysentery.

Typhoid.

Pneumonia.

Measles.

Malaria.

Infection.

For many soldiers, the greatest danger they faced was not a bullet.

It was disease.

Medical workers confronted casualties on a scale the country had never experienced.

The war forced improvements in military medicine, nursing, hospital organization, and systems for caring for wounded soldiers.

But those developments came amid extraordinary suffering.

Enslaved People Begin Changing the War

Something else had begun almost immediately.

Enslaved Americans understood that the presence of United States forces could create opportunities for freedom.

They began escaping to Union lines.

That created a problem for Union commanders.

What should they do when enslaved people arrived seeking protection?

Return them?

Free them?

Employ them?

Congress and military commanders developed policies gradually.

At Fort Monroe in Virginia, Union General Benjamin Butler refused to return several escaped enslaved men being used by the Confederacy, describing them as “contraband of war.”

The term spread.

So did the movement of enslaved people toward Union forces.

This is important.

Emancipation did not begin simply because the federal government decided one day to free enslaved people.

Enslaved Americans themselves helped force the issue.

They escaped.

They provided intelligence.

They worked for Union forces.

They sought protection.

They pushed the question of slavery directly into the war.

The conflict was beginning to change.

Lincoln Faced a Difficult Decision

Lincoln had entered the war focused primarily on preserving the Union.

But slavery supported the Confederate economy and war effort.

Enslaved labor produced food, maintained farms and plantations, constructed fortifications, and freed white southern men for military service.

That made slavery not only the institution at the center of the secession crisis.

It also made slavery a military issue.

Lincoln increasingly considered emancipation as a war measure.

But timing mattered.

The United States still contained loyal slaveholding border states.

Lincoln did not want to drive them into the Confederacy.

He also wanted a military success before announcing a major emancipation policy.

That opportunity came in September 1862.

At a place called Antietam.

The Bloodiest Day

Confederate General Robert E. Lee took his Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland.

On September 17, 1862, Lee's army met Union forces commanded by General George B. McClellan near Sharpsburg.

The Battle of Antietam became the bloodiest single day in American military history.

Approximately 23,000 men were killed, wounded, or missing.

Lee eventually withdrew to Virginia.

The Union had stopped his invasion.

Lincoln now had the military moment he had been waiting for.

Five days later, he issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

The nature of the war was about to change.

Emancipation

Lincoln warned that enslaved people in areas remaining in rebellion on January 1, 1863, would be declared free.

The rebellious states did not return to the Union.

So on January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation.

Its reach was significant—but it was also limited.

It did not abolish slavery everywhere in the United States.

It did not apply to the loyal slaveholding border states.

It exempted certain areas already under Union control.

And declaring freedom did not mean the federal government could immediately enforce freedom everywhere the proclamation applied.

Confederate territory still had to come under United States control.

But the proclamation fundamentally changed the character of the conflict.

The United States was no longer fighting only to restore the Union.

The destruction of slavery in the rebellious states had become an official objective of the war.

As Union armies advanced, the reach of emancipation advanced with them.

Freedom Was Becoming a Military Objective

The Emancipation Proclamation did something else.

It authorized Black men to serve in United States forces.

African Americans had already been pressing for the opportunity to fight.

Now that opportunity expanded dramatically.

By the end of the war, nearly 200,000 Black soldiers and sailors had served the United States.

Many had been enslaved.

Now they wore United States uniforms.

They guarded railroads.

Built fortifications.

Served aboard ships.

Fought in major engagements.

And died in battle.

The transformation was extraordinary.

People once legally considered property were now serving in the armed forces fighting against the government created to protect slavery.

The enslaved were becoming participants in their own liberation.

The 54th Massachusetts

One of the most famous Black regiments was the 54th Massachusetts Infantry.

Its enlisted ranks were composed of Black soldiers, while its commissioned officers were white, as was then federal policy.

In July 1863, the regiment participated in an assault on Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina.

The attack failed.

The casualties were severe.

But the courage demonstrated by the 54th helped challenge racist claims that Black soldiers would not fight effectively.

Other Black regiments served across the war.

Their service added military strength to the United States and gave the struggle for emancipation another dimension.

Freedom was no longer simply being debated in government offices.

Black Americans were fighting for it.

1863 — A Turning Point

The summer of 1863 produced two of the most important military developments of the war.

One occurred in Pennsylvania.

The other occurred along the Mississippi River.

Together, they dramatically changed the strategic situation.

Gettysburg

Robert E. Lee again carried the war north.

His army moved through Maryland and into Pennsylvania.

From July 1 through July 3, 1863, Union and Confederate forces fought around the small town of Gettysburg.

The battle was enormous.

On the third day, Confederate forces launched the attack remembered as Pickett's Charge against the center of the Union position.

It failed.

Lee's army withdrew toward Virginia.

The Confederacy had suffered a major defeat.

Lee would continue fighting for nearly two more years.

But his invasion of the North had been stopped.

Vicksburg

Almost simultaneously, Ulysses S. Grant was conducting a campaign hundreds of miles away.

His objective was Vicksburg, Mississippi.

The fortified city commanded a critical stretch of the Mississippi River.

Grant maneuvered his army through a difficult campaign, eventually surrounding Vicksburg.

On July 4, 1863, the Confederate garrison surrendered.

The United States gained control over the Mississippi River.

The Confederacy was effectively split geographically.

Gettysburg and Vicksburg did not end the war.

But together they represented a major shift.

The United States had gained strategic momentum.

Gettysburg Becomes Something More

Several months after the battle, Americans gathered at Gettysburg to dedicate a national cemetery.

Abraham Lincoln spoke for only a few minutes.

His speech became known as the Gettysburg Address.

Lincoln looked backward to the Declaration of Independence and its assertion that all men are created equal.

He described the war as a test of whether a nation based upon liberty and popular government could endure.

And he looked toward what he called:

“a new birth of freedom.”

The meaning of the war had changed.

The Union still had to be preserved.

But increasingly, preservation of the Union and the destruction of slavery were becoming connected.

The Confederacy Was Still Fighting

It would be a mistake to assume the war was essentially finished after Gettysburg and Vicksburg.

It was not.

The Confederacy still possessed large armies.

Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia remained formidable.

Confederate forces won another major victory at Chickamauga in September 1863.

Fighting continued across multiple theaters.

The year 1864 would become one of the war's bloodiest.

And Ulysses S. Grant would now be given responsibility for coordinating Union armies on a national scale.

Grant and Lee

In March 1864, Lincoln promoted Grant to lieutenant general and placed him in command of the armies of the United States.

Grant's strategy depended upon something previous Union campaigns had often failed to achieve:

Sustained pressure.

Union armies would operate simultaneously against Confederate forces across multiple theaters.

Grant accompanied the Army of the Potomac as it fought Lee's army through Virginia.

The Wilderness.

Spotsylvania Court House.

Cold Harbor.

Then Petersburg.

The casualties were staggering.

But unlike earlier commanders who often withdrew after major battles, Grant continued moving and maintained pressure.

Lee could still inflict enormous losses.

But replacing Confederate soldiers and supplies was becoming increasingly difficult.

The war had become a contest of endurance.

Sherman and the War Against Resources

Meanwhile, General William Tecumseh Sherman commanded major Union operations farther south.

His forces advanced toward Atlanta.

Atlanta fell in September 1864.

Sherman then began his famous March to the Sea, moving from Atlanta toward Savannah.

His forces targeted railroads, supplies, agricultural resources, and infrastructure that could support the Confederate war effort.

The objective was larger than defeating Confederate armies in conventional battle.

It was to undermine the Confederacy's ability and willingness to continue the war.

The campaign brought destruction directly into the southern interior.

For civilians in its path, the war was no longer distant.

It was at their farms, towns, railroads, and homes.

War Had Become Total in Its Reach

The Civil War was not a “total war” in exactly the same sense the world would experience in the twentieth century.

But by 1864, the distinction between battlefield and home front had narrowed considerably.

Railroads were military targets.

Factories were military resources.

Food supplied armies.

Farms supported soldiers.

Telegraph lines carried military information.

Enslaved labor supported the Confederate economy.

Both governments used conscription.

Both struggled with dissent.

Both faced enormous financial pressures.

The United States expanded taxation and federal financial systems.

The Confederacy struggled with severe inflation and shortages.

War had reached deeply into American society.

An Election During a Civil War

Remarkably, the United States held a presidential election in 1864 while the war was still underway.

For much of the year, the outcome appeared uncertain.

The casualties were enormous.

The war had continued far longer than many expected.

Some northerners wanted negotiations.

Others insisted the Confederacy had to be defeated.

Military developments changed the political atmosphere.

The capture of Atlanta strengthened confidence in Union victory.

Lincoln won reelection.

The war would continue.

And so would emancipation.

Ending Slavery Permanently

The Emancipation Proclamation was enormously important.

But Lincoln and other antislavery leaders understood its limitations.

It had been issued as a wartime measure.

It did not apply everywhere.

Something stronger was needed if slavery was to be prohibited permanently throughout the entire United States.

That required changing the Constitution.

Congress proposed the Thirteenth Amendment.

Its central principle was direct:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, could exist within the United States or places subject to its jurisdiction.

The amendment passed Congress in January 1865.

It still needed ratification by the states.

But the constitutional destruction of slavery was now moving forward.

Richmond Falls

By early 1865, the Confederacy's military situation was deteriorating rapidly.

Sherman moved north through the Carolinas.

Grant maintained relentless pressure against Lee around Petersburg and Richmond.

Confederate resources were disappearing.

Desertion increased.

Supply systems deteriorated.

On April 2, 1865, Lee's position around Petersburg became untenable.

Confederate forces evacuated Petersburg and Richmond.

The Confederate capital fell.

Lee attempted to move west, hoping to obtain supplies and perhaps join other Confederate forces.

Grant pursued him.

The road was running out.

Appomattox

On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee concluded that his army could no longer continue effectively.

He met Ulysses S. Grant at the home of Wilmer McLean in the village of Appomattox Court House, Virginia.

Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia.

Grant offered terms that allowed Confederate soldiers to return home after giving their parole not to take up arms against the United States.

Officers could retain certain personal property, and arrangements were made allowing men who owned horses or mules to take them home for spring planting.

The surrender was enormously significant.

The Confederacy's most prominent field army had ceased fighting.

But Appomattox did not instantly end every Confederate military operation.

Other Confederate forces remained in the field.

On April 26, General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered a large Confederate army to Sherman in North Carolina.

Other surrenders followed.

The war was ending in stages.

But Appomattox had made the outcome unmistakable.

The Confederacy could no longer realistically survive.

Then Came Another Shock

Five days after Lee's surrender, Washington was celebrating.

On the evening of April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln attended a performance at Ford's Theatre.

Actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth entered the presidential box and shot him.

Lincoln died the following morning.

The country had reached the end of four years of civil war.

The president who had led the United States through it would not lead the country through the peace.

Vice President Andrew Johnson became president.

The enormous task of rebuilding the Union would fall partly into his hands.

The War's Terrible Cost

The precise number of Civil War deaths remains a matter of historical study.

For generations, approximately 620,000 deaths was the figure commonly cited.

More recent scholarship has suggested the number may have been closer to 750,000 or more.

Whatever exact figure is used, the scale is difficult to comprehend.

Hundreds of thousands died.

Many more were wounded.

Families were shattered.

Communities lost large portions of a generation.

Much of the South's infrastructure and economy had been devastated.

Millions of formerly enslaved Americans faced the extraordinary challenge of building lives in freedom.

The Union survived.

But survival came at a terrible price.

What Happened to Slavery?

The Emancipation Proclamation had struck directly at slavery in the rebellious states.

Union military victory made emancipation increasingly real across Confederate territory.

But the final constitutional answer came later in 1865.

The states ratified the Thirteenth Amendment.

Slavery was prohibited throughout the United States, except as punishment for crime after conviction.

The institution that had existed in North America for generations—and had shaped the country's politics from before the founding through secession—was no longer constitutionally lawful.

The Civil War had answered one enormous question.

Slavery would not continue as a legal institution in the United States.

But ending slavery and creating equality were not the same thing.

Freedom Raised New Questions

Approximately four million people emerged from slavery.

What would freedom mean?

Would formerly enslaved people become citizens?

Would they vote?

Could they own land?

Could they enter contracts?

Would their marriages and families receive legal recognition?

Would they receive an education?

Would they participate in government?

Would the federal government protect their rights?

What obligations did former Confederate states have before returning fully to political life?

Who would determine the answers?

The president?

Congress?

The states?

The courts?

The Civil War had settled whether the Union would survive.

It had destroyed slavery.

But it had opened another enormous chapter in the American experiment.

What would America do with freedom once freedom had been won?

The Constitution Was About to Change

The Founders had created a Constitution that could be amended.

Now that process would be used to transform the relationship between the federal government, the states, and individual Americans.

Three amendments would emerge from the Civil War and Reconstruction era.

The Thirteenth Amendment would abolish slavery.

The Fourteenth Amendment would address citizenship, due process, and equal protection.

The Fifteenth Amendment would prohibit denying the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Together, they would fundamentally change the Constitution.

But words written into the Constitution and rights experienced in everyday life would not always be the same thing.

That struggle would define the next chapter.

The War Ended.

The Argument Over Freedom Did Not.

The Civil War preserved the United States.

It destroyed the Confederacy.

It ended slavery constitutionally.

It dramatically strengthened the role of the federal government.

And it transformed the meaning of American citizenship and freedom.

But the end of the war did not produce instant equality.

Formerly enslaved Americans would attempt to build schools, families, businesses, churches, communities, and political institutions.

Black Americans would vote and hold public office.

New constitutional protections would be created.

At the same time, violent resistance would emerge.

New restrictions would be imposed.

Federal commitment to Reconstruction would weaken.

And systems of racial segregation and disenfranchisement would eventually spread across much of the South.

The country had survived its greatest internal war.

Now came another test.

Could the nation transform emancipation into meaningful freedom?

NEXT — PART VI

Freedom and Reconstruction

What Happened After Slavery Ended?

The armies were going home.

The Union had survived.

Slavery had been destroyed.

But millions of Americans were entering freedom without knowing what protections that freedom would actually provide.

Congress and the president would clash over Reconstruction.

The Constitution would be amended.

Black Americans would vote and hold office.

The Freedmen's Bureau would operate across the South.

Former Confederate states would return to the Union.

Violence and organized resistance would challenge Reconstruction.

And eventually the federal government would retreat from much of the project.

Out of that struggle would emerge another chapter:

Jim Crow.

And generations later, Americans named Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. would confront questions of citizenship and equality that the Civil War and Reconstruction had transformed—but had not completely resolved.

THE GREAT EXPERIMENT CONTINUES.

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