In the mid-19th century, just over fifty years after its independence, the United States appeared to many as a promised land, ready to become a great world power. However, contrary to appearances, the country was deeply divided. Industrialization had triumphed in the dynamic northern states, attracting a flood of European immigrants seeking their opportunity in a fairly liberal and literate society for the time. By contrast, the rural southern territories were more closed and technically backward. They were dominated by an elite owner of large plantations based on slave labor.
Although rich in sugar and tobacco, the main production of the South was cotton, which accounted for two thirds of the total value of North American exports. However, the large transactions used to be carried out by northern speculators, who, after acquiring the raw material from the planters, were in charge of supplying the growing demand of the European textile industries.
These agents, in turn, supplied the south with industrial goods that it did not produce, benefiting from the high tariffs applied to products from the Old Continent. This aroused the anger of the small farmers in the south, who, always on the verge of misery, concentrated many of their frustrations on these agents (and, therefore, on the north).
But over these dissonances gravitated another problem even more difficult to solve: the permanence of slavery, which had already been abolished in most civilized countries.
Slavery had divided Americans since the writing of their magna carta. Its third president, Thomas Jefferson, had tried unsuccessfully to abolish it (despite owning slaves himself). Over the years, various compromise formulas were established, which left the final decision in the hands of the states, with certain limitations.
For the southerners, slavery was a basic pillar of their society, and any reference to it was taken as an offense. In the northern states, although there were regulations that restricted the freedom of the black population, a large part of the bourgeoisie postulated abolition, not only for ethical and religious reasons, but also for practical ones. It was argued that slavery prevented farm wages from rising, thus plunging many white farmers into poverty.
Over the years the positions radicalized. In the early 1950s, there were more than two thousand abolitionist societies in the north, which, far from limiting themselves to political pressure, provided means and escape routes for runaway slaves. The publication in 1852 of Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, was a knock on the moral conscience of the Americans, reinforcing the position of the abolitionists.
The southern elite felt increasingly threatened. Although it dominated the Supreme Court and had parity in the Senate, it was losing strength in the lower house: the increase in population in the north translated into a progressive increase in its representatives. The organization of two new territories in 1854, Kansas and Nebraska, lit a fuse that no one could extinguish any more.
After arduous deliberations, the Senate authorized slavery in both demarcations, waiting for their inhabitants to rule on the matter. But with this authorization, the so-called Missouri Compromise of 1820 was violated, which prohibited slavery in the new territories that were north of the 36º 30' parallel.
The abolitionists sparked, and led to the appearance of a party, the Republican, where their leaders would have a place. Meanwhile, extremist groups of different kinds, willing to force the outcome of the planned consultation, turned Kansas into a veritable battlefield with hundreds of dead and wounded.
This is how the presidential elections of November 6, 1860 were reached. Four candidates presented themselves: the constitutionalist John Bell, in search of a gentlemen's consensus; Democrats Stephen Douglas and John Breckinridge, respectively against and in favor of the extension of slavery to the new territories; and the Republican Abraham Lincoln, an antislavery who did not intend to change the status of the southern states, but to prevent slavery in the new ones.
Electoral votes gave victory to Lincoln, who however would have to wait until March 4 of the following year to be inaugurated. The politicians of the south decided to take advantage of this long interregnum, protected by the secessionist fever that was spreading everywhere.
In December, the South Carolina Parliament issued the following statement: "The union now existing between South Carolina and other states, called the United States of America, is hereby dissolved." Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas would join in the following months. Later Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina followed.
Its representatives, meeting in Montgomery (Alabama), signed a new Constitution, very similar to the federal one, but which added: "The institution of black slavery, as it exists today in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the land government." The president chosen to head this alliance of states was the distinguished and respected Jefferson Davis. The capital of the new Confederate States of America was established in Richmond, Virginia.
For its part, the federal government was hesitant to act. Lincoln feared that the breakup of the Union was irreversible, and he was struggling to find a compromise. Although the Confederates soon put an end to their consensus initiatives: on April 12, 1861, they attacked Fort Sumter, a federal fortification that controlled the Charleston Bay (South Carolina) and that had not been evacuated despite previous warnings. The War of the States, or American Civil War, had just broken out.
From the outset, the balance of forces seemed to favor the north, which had more than twice as many states and population as the south, as well as a clear superiority in terms of industry, shipyards, and finance. However, in the military field the forces were more balanced.
Neither side was prepared for war, and the organization and composition of both armies, initially volunteers, were similar. However, the “rebel” troops from the south (as the northerners would call them), despite being worse equipped, were more motivated. In addition, their rural condition made them more adept at handling firearms.
To this we had to add that, at least during the first phase of the war, the Confederate officers were more efficient, and their troops followed them with blind faith. It would take some time for the Union Army to find generals of the caliber of Southerners Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, or Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson.
The commander-in-chief of the United States Army, veteran General Winfield Scott, devised a way to end the secession: the "Anaconda" plan, whose name referred to the way in which this snake kills its victims, suffocating them. The plan was to send a powerful force down the Mississippi Valley in order to control the river. Thus, the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas would be isolated from the rest of the Confederacy, which, together with a tight naval blockade, would suffocate the South economically and militarily.
Scott's plan required about three hundred thousand men and about three years. Washington politicians were not so patient. Lincoln, victim of the pressure, ordered a sudden attack on Richmond (only 160 km from the federal capital) to break the enemy's resistance capacity. But none of the battles derived from that action achieved its purpose.
By mid-1862, the Union commanders were convinced that Scott's view was the correct one. Finally, at the head of a powerful army, Ulysses S. Grant made his way down the Mississippi toward Vicksburg, whose cannons dominated the lower reaches of the river. Meanwhile, the northern fleet was blockading the rebel ports, and the pressure on the Confederate capital did not let up. The industrial and human capacity of the north could afford to feed several fronts at the same time.
In May 1863 the situation of the Confederation was very complicated. Although all attacks on his capital had been repulsed, Robert E. Lee's raid on the state of Maryland had not borne the anticipated fruit. Lee not only had not provoked a general uprising in favor of the Confederates, but also the bloody and indecisive battle of Antietam had advised a prudent withdrawal towards Virginia.
Now the Federals threatened Vicksburg, which had to be succumbed quickly, even at the cost of weakening General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia (the best troops in the South).
As if that were not enough, the economic situation of the Confederates was worsening. The effects of the maritime blockade were becoming more evident and cotton was piling up in warehouses. While inflation was rampant, some basic necessities, such as medicines, were increasingly scarce.
For his part, President Lincoln had decreed the emancipation of the slaves of the South. This, which hardly had any effect, earned him the sympathy of European public opinion. The Confederation gradually lost its diplomatic recognition.
General Lee proposed a plan: take the war to the heart of the north. More specifically, to Pennsylvania. His project could lighten the devastation that Virginia was suffering, and on the other hand, it would seek the destruction of the Army of the Potomac –the most important of the Union in the eastern scenario–, with which northern morale would be seriously damaged. With such a victory, Lincoln would be forced to negotiate.
General Lee's men, however, would lose to the tenacious George Gordon Meade at Gettysburg, the small town where his forces met in early July. On the 4th Lee decided to retreat.
The Battle of Gettysburg cost 25,000 casualties for Federal troops and 28,000 for the Confederate side. A few days later the news came that Grant had taken the city of Vicksburg. A cloud of pessimism hung over the southern states. In reality, the Confederates managed to hold out for another two years, and achieved some resounding victories –like that of Chickamauga–, but their fate was already cast.
This text is part of an article published in number 515 of the Historia y Vida magazine. Do you have something to contribute? Write to us at redaccionhyv@historiayvida.com.
