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.