Well hey there and welcome back to Heimler’s History. We’ve been going through Unit 5 of the AP U.S. History curriculum and in the last video we talked about the election of Abraham Lincoln and the resulting secession of the Southern states. And now, at long last, we got ourselves a Civil War to talk about. So I can hear the faint sound of your brain cows lowing to get milked, so let’s get to it. So this video is trying to answer the following question: What were the various factors that contributed to the Union victory in the Civil War? And I know I just spoiled the ending—yes, the Union wins the war—and if you didn’t already know that, well, you know, sorry. Now, from the outset, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that the Union, which is to say, the northern states, would win the war. Both sides had their advantages, and just because I’m feeling a little saucy, let’s compare those strengths in a chart. The South had the advantage of fighting a defensive war. No need to invade anybody, just stay put and fight off the aggressor. Additionally, the South possessed far greater and more experienced military leaders like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The North, on the other hand, had the advantage of population, which is to say about four times that of the southern states. Additionally, the North had possession and command of a robust navy by which they could control the seas and rivers. The North also had an economic advantage since they possessed most of the banks and manufacturing districts and something like 70% of America’s railroads. Finally, the North had the advantage of a well-established central government. Unfortunately, the South who had just written up a Constitution eschewing centralized power would struggle in this area throughout the war. So even though I listed more advantages for the North, that doesn’t mean each item on both lists were weighted equally, which is to say, neither side could look at the other and assume they would win in a landslide. Victory for either side would cost both an awful lot of money and blood. Now in order to fight this war, both the Union and the Confederacy had to mobilize their entire economies. In the North, manufacturers answered the call by rapidly modernizing their productive capacity. In fact, many of the future barons of industry like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller got their start by manufacturing an astounding number of goods for the Union effort. The South relied mainly on tariffs and taxes on exports to raise revenue for the war, but this plan faltered with Union naval blockades, and in general, the South was a hot mess financially during the war. Now, you would think that everyone in both the Union and the Confederacy would be all for the war against the other. However, there was substantial opposition on the homefront. In the South, the Confederacy launched another attempt to pay for the war by introducing a war tax, but since the Confederacy was built on the notion of states’ rights, many people and states simply refused to fund this centralized effort with their tax money. In the North they arguably dealt with even more opposition. A chief example on this count would be the New York City Draft Riots in 1863. So at that point, there was a law on the books that said if any man was called up to fight, he could pay $300 to duck out of his draft responsibilities. Now in those days, $300 was a buttload of money and you had to be decently wealthy to afford it. And so working class men saw this as a fundamental injustice. It’s like they were saying, “So there’s an option to avoid going to get killed in the war, but it’s only available to the rich. Yeah, that dog don’t hunt.” And so a gathering of men in New York City to protest this injustice turned violent, and at least 120 people were killed as a result. Okay, so all that we’ve done so far is talk about the advantages each side enjoyed and how this was a kind of total war for both AND how there was opposition to the war on the homefront. So with all of that settled, let’s talk about the course of the war itself, and to do that, let’s go back to Lincoln’s election in 1860. Lincoln was very clear that he would not stand for southern secession, but neither did he relish starting a war over it. However, a little event that occurred at Fort Sumter gave Lincoln all the permission he needed. So Fort Sumter was a federal possession that happened to be located in Confederate South Carolina, which to put it mildly, was awkward. South Carolinians cut off supply lines to the fort coming in from the North, and rather than fighting about it, Lincoln announced that he would be sending provisions to the Union troops trapped there. So the South had a choice: either let these federal troops be resupplied, or blow up the incoming supply ships. And faced with that decision, they went ahead and started firing on the Union suppliers, and that is pretty universally agreed upon as the first official salvo of the war. Now the first part of the war definitely belonged to the Confederacy, and to illustrate that, let’s look at one of the first major battles in the conflict, the First Battle of Bull Run. In this battle, 30,000 Union troops marched to confront Confederate troops at Bull Run Creek in Virginia. And just to add a little sauce to this, I should mention that civilians actually came out with picnics to watch this battle. “Hey honey, grab some sandwiches. We gotta go watch a bunch of people get blown up. And don’t forget the kids!” Anyway, the battle began with the Union positively mopping the floor with the Confederacy, but once Confederate reinforcements arrived under the command of Stonewall Jackson, they sent the inexperienced Union soldiers to flight. And this first major conflict disabused both sides of the dream that this would be a short and tidy war. Now we could talk about battles all day, and that would be fun, but you won’t need to know many of the battles for purposes of your exam. So let’s talk overall strategy for both sides. One of the main Union strategies was called the Anaconda Plan and basically that meant that the North would lean heavily on its naval advantage in order to blockade Southern ports and control the Mississippi River, which, if they could do, would effectively split the Confederacy in half. The Southern strategy largely relied on foreign help, especially from Britain and France. And you may be wondering, why in the world would Britain and France care anything about helping the Confederacy? And the reason is: cotton. Both those countries relied heavily on exported southern cotton to keep their textile industries humming. And so Southerners were pretty confident that King Cotton, as they called it, would convince both countries to come to their aid. Unfortunately, both countries were rude enough to discover that both India and Egypt could produce cotton like mad, and therefore King Cotton wasn’t as powerful as they thought. But as the war ground on, ultimately the Union succeeded due to improvements in leadership and strategy, key battle victories, and the wartime destruction of the South’s infrastructure, and let’s look at each of those in turn. With respect to Union leadership, Lincoln about went crazy for lack of good generals to lead Union men. But with the rise of generals like Ulysses S. Grant who rarely retreated and pressed the Confederates hard into their own territory, the tide began to turn. As far as strategy goes, we could talk about a lot of things, but I’ll only mention one, namely, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1862. Now when you think about the Emancipation Proclamation, probably the first thing you think is that this is the magnificent document that freed the enslaved people of America. But here’s where I tell you ehhhhh. Think about it. In the Emancipation Proclamation Lincoln unequivocally freed all enslaved people beginning on January 1st, 1863. But go back and read it and you’ll see that he actually only freed enslaved people in those states that were in active rebellion against the United States, which is to say, the Confederacy. There were actually five states in the Union, called the Border States, which were in fact slave states: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia. Those states were NOT in active rebellion against the Union and therefore, slavery was allowed to remain active within their borders. So Lincoln freed enslaved people in the Confederacy where he technically had no authority to do so, and did not free them in the Border states where he DID have authority to do so. That’s why I say that the Emancipation Proclamation was more a military strategy than a document of freedom. However, that’s not to say it didn’t work. In announcing this proclamation, Lincoln effectively changed the scope of the war. It wasn’t merely about saving the Union anymore, although that was certainly still in view. Now it was about eradicating slavery in the United States. And it was a good strategy because it did two things. First, a good number of enslaved workers in the Confederacy used this as an opportunity to escape their plantations and run to the safety of Union lines. Some of them actually took up arms and fought for the Union cause. Additionally, it basically closed the door on British help for the South. Once the war was cast as one against slavery, the British, who had recently abolished slavery themselves would be very unlikely to take up the cause, especially when the need for southern cotton wasn’t nearly as acute. Now another reason the Union succeeded was because of some key victories in battle, and although there were several significant battles on this count, let me just mention one, namely the Battle of Vicksburg. As a result of this battle, the Union gained control of Mississippi under the leadership of General Grant, and that meant that the plan of cutting the Confederacy in half had been accomplished. Additionally, the devastation of the South’s infrastructure also ensured the Union victory. After Grant captured Vicksburg, he sent another General, William Tecumseh Sherman to capture Atlanta. But Sherman did more than just capture Atlanta: he basically burned it to the ground. And from Atlanta, Sherman and his men embarked on the devastating March to the Sea. In this march from Atlanta to Savannah, Sherman destroyed railroads and generally held to a scorched earth policy burning crops and land and making it near impossible for the South to recover its strength. And so combine those victories with the devastation of Southern infrastructure and the success of the Union naval blockade, and that’s how you get Union general Grant and Confederate General Lee meeting at the Appomattox Courthouse on April 9th, 1865. Here Lee formally surrendered to Grant and the war was over. Okay, if you need more help, then check out this Unit 5 playlist right here. If you need everything you need to get an A in your class and a five on your exam in May. If you want me to keep making these videos, then you can let me know by subscribing, Heimler out.