Why did South Carolina secede from the Union?

1. Why did South Carolina secede from the Union? • Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential campaign. • South Carolina, along with ten other southern states, formed the Confederate States of America: • Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Arkansas.

2. Where did the initial conflict occur to spark the Civil War? • The CSA soldiers began taking over federal installations; however, Fort Sumter remained under Union control. • Although Lincoln sent ‘food for hungry men,’ Jefferson Davis declared war so that Union supplies would not reach the fort. • Major Anderson surrendered, but the fall of Fort Sumter united the North.

3. What was the Union’s military strategy called? • Winfield Scott, of Mexican-American war fame, devised the Anaconda Plan. • Under this plan, the Union would blockade southern ports, take over the Mississippi River, and capture the CSA capital, Richmond. • The plan was to split the CSA and ‘suffocate’ the sections.

4. Who were two of the most significant CSA generals? • General Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson played a key role in the Battle of Bull Run, a CSA victory. • General Robert E. Lee was an unconventional general. He blocked a Union advance on the CSA capital, claimed victory at the Second Battle of Bull Run, and battled at Antietam.

5. Who were two of the most significant Union generals at the beginning of the war? • General George McClellan led the Army of the Potomac through the bloodiest single-day battle in US history, Antietam. After, Lincoln fired him for being too cautious. • General Ulysses S. Grant led Union troops to capture Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, and to victory at Shiloh.

6. What were some new weapons of war introduced during the Civil War? • In 1862, Union ironclad the Monitorand CSA ironclad the Merrimack battled off the coast of Virginia. The era of wooden ships was over. • The Civil War also saw the introduction of the rifle, minie ball, and primitive hand grenades, and land mines.

7. What event almost caused Britain to side with the CSA? • In 1861, the CSA sent two diplomats to Britain to try to garner support for their government. • Captain Wilkes of the Union stopped the British merchant ship, the Trent, the two men were traveling on and arrested them. • Britain threatened retaliation; however, Lincoln released the men to avoid getting into a war with Britain. This was known as the Trent Affair.

8. What was the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation? • Issued on New Year’s Day 1863, Lincoln turned the Civil War into an ideological battle between freedom and slavery. • By freeing slaves in states in rebellion against the US, Lincoln knew Britain would not side with the CSA, the southern labor force would be reduced, and the border states would not secede.

9. How did political dissent figure into the Civil War? • Copperheads were Northern Democrats who urged peace with the CSA. • Both Lincoln and Davis suspended the writ of habeas corpus, or the right of the accused to know the charges against them, and to have a fair and speedy trial.

10. How did each side deal with having enough soldiers to fight? • Both the Union and the CSA enacted conscription laws, requiring men to register for military duty. However, both laws exempted the wealthy or those who could pay for a substitute. Thus, the Civil War became a ‘rich man’s war, but a poor man’s fight.’ • Due to this, draft riots broke out, most notably in New York City. Irish immigrants resented having to fight a war to end slavery, when job competition was already high.

11. What were some of the roles of African Americans in the Civil War? • African Americans enlisted in great numbers after the EP was passed. Although they made up only 1% of the North’s population, they comprised 10% of the soldiers. • Although most AAs were used for labor and discrimination was rampant, the African-American Massachusetts 54th Regiment inspired tremendous respect throughout the Union. • Slaves in the CSA collaborated with the Union, joined approaching Union troops, and helped destroy plantations. • The CSA responded harshly to AA soldiers, like at the Fort Pillow massacre, in which 200 AA prisoners were butchered and burned.

12. How did Civil War medicine change? • The federal government set up the US Sanitary Commission and named Dorothea Dix as the first superintendent of women nurses. • The Union’s death rate showed an improvement over previous years. • Clara Barton earned the nickname ‘Angel of the Battlefield’ due to her help and bravery at Antietam. After the war, she founded the American Red Cross.

13. What was Andersonville? • Andersonville, Georgia was home to the worst CSA prison camp for Union POWs. Poor sanitation, living conditions, disease, and food all contributed to 15% death rate amongst the prisoners. • Union prison camps were located in Elmira, NY and Camp Douglas, IL.

14. What do most historians consider to be the turning point of the Civil War? • Gettysburg, Pennsylvania became the site of the most significant battle of the Civil War. The CSA was so crippled that Lee would never be able to gather enough troops and supplies to invade a northern state. • The CSA lost Stonewall Jackson and 28,000 were killed or wounded. • The Union lost 23,000, but gained a significant advantage over the CSA.

15. What was the significance of the Gettysburg Address? • In November 1863, after the siege of Vicksburg, in which the CSA was split in two, Lincoln gave a two-minute speech to dedicate a cemetery. • As a reflection of his evolution of thought on race relations, he helped turn people’s perspective on the war from saving the Union to fighting for abolition- and freedom for all.

16. What role did General William Tecumseh Sherman play at the end of the war? • Sherman and Grant both believed in total war, or the destruction of the enemy’s livelihood. Civilians were also targeted. Sherman’s march to the sea broke the CSA morale. • However, hatred and frustration were so intense at the end of the war, that former Confederates unleashed their anger on easy scapegoats- AAs.

17. How did the war end? • After the victories at Mobile Bay and Atlanta, Lincoln won the 1864 presidential election. • As the Union forces surrounded Richmond, Davis set the city ablaze and fled. • Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. The Civil War was over.

18. What were some of the major political changes of the war? • The Supremacy Clause is the common name given to Article VI, Clause 2 states that the Constitution shall be the ‘supreme law of the land.’ • Therefore, the states’ rights issue was destroyed; • Secession has never occurred again; • The power of the federal government increased due to the income tax, conscription, and the limiting of civil liberties.

19. What were some of the economic changes of the Civil War? • There was now a national standard currency; • The National Bank Act of 1863 set up a system of federally chartered banks, inspected banks, and set requirements for loans; • In addition, the Northern industrial economy boomed during war time. The resulting profits were re-invested in additional business ventures, while the Southern economy was destroyed. The destruction of plantations, roads, bridges, and machinery all led to a massive gap between the North and the South. • Overall, both governments spent $3.3 billion on the war. This figure represents more than twice what was spent by the government in the previous 80 years.

20. What were the casualties of the Civil War? • The Union lost 360,000 soldiers. • The CSA lost 260,000 soldiers. • Another 275,000 Union and 225,000 CSA soldiers were wounded.

21. What did the Thirteenth Amendment do? • The Thirteenth Amendment, in 1865, declared: • ‘Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall ever exist within the United States.’

22. What happened on April 14, 1865? • Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, a Southern sympathizer, in Ford’s Theatre in DC. • Lincoln died the next morning. It was the first time a US president had been killed. • Vice President Andrew Johnson took over; however, Lincoln’s murder increased the hostility between Republicans and Democrats. This would provide for many difficulties during Reconstruction.

23. What were some of the major problems the nation had to face during Reconstruction? • The nation had to deal with how to readmit the eleven former CSA states. • The nation also had to figure out how to transition four million African Americans from slavery to freedom. • What was the time span of Reconstruction? • 1865-1877

24. Before AL’s death, what was his proposal to readmit the CSA? How did the Republicans respond? • AL favored a lenient Reconstruction policy. He proposed that the Union would pardon all former Confederates who would swear allegiance to the Union and that the state could be readmitted to the Union when 10% of those on the 1860 voting rolls also pledged allegiance to the Union. • However, Radical Republicans, led by Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, favored a more strict policy. They proposed the Wade-Davis Bill, in which Congress would control Reconstruction, not the president. • AL pocket vetoed the bill, thus letting it die on his desk before the end of the congressional session.

25. What were some of the major accomplishments that Republicans secured for African-Americans? • The Freedmen’s Bureau provided AAs and poor whites food, clothes, clinics, and schools. • The Civil Rights Act of 1866 declared citizenship for AAs and forbade black codes that some Southern states had passed. These laws prevented AAs from owning land, carrying weapons, serving on juries, marrying whites, and traveling without permits. • The Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed equal protection under the law for all.

26. How did President Johnson respond to these new laws and to the Radical Republicans? • AJ vetoed both the Freedmen’s Bureau as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1866. • He also encouraged the former Confederate states not to pass the 14th Amendment. • However, in the 1866 Congressional elections, moderate and radical Republicans swept the elections. They gained a 2/3rds majority, thereby providing them with enough votes to override a presidential veto.

27. How did the Republicans respond to Johnson after his vetoes? • They sought grounds upon which to impeach AJ. • The HoR brought charges that AJ had violated the Tenure of Office Act when he fired the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton. • However, AJ did not actually violate the law, so AJ was impeached by the HoR, but came one vote shy of being removed from the presidency by the Senate.

28. What did the Reconstruction Act of 1867 do? • The Act established five military districts throughout the former CSA. • The districts were placed under military occupation under a Union general. They could be readmitted when they guaranteed AA men the right to vote and ratified the 14th Amendment. • AJ had also vetoed the Reconstruction Act.

29. What did the Fifteenth Amendment guarantee? • This amendment stated that no one could be denied suffrage because of ‘race, color, or previous condition of servitude.’ • The federal government passed the Enforcement Act of 1870 to punish those who prevented AAs from voting. • Republican Ulysses S. Grant won the 1868 presidential campaign with the addition of 500,000 southern AA votes.

30. What were the negative labels former Confederates gave to those they disagreed with? • Carpetbaggers were northerners who moved south after the Civil War. Most were teachers, doctors, and those willing to help rebuild. However, some were businessmen, who prioritized profits. • Scalawags were white Southerners who became Republicans. This created tensions between the rich whites and poor whites in the South.

31. What were some rights that African Americans gained after emancipation? • AAs were able to reunite with their families, they were able to move freely, there were some educational opportunities, churches developed, and some became politicians. • The first AA Senator was Hiram Revels. AA politicians focused on education and social programs.

32. How did the AAs make a livelihood during Reconstruction? • Without skills or education, many AAs remained on the plantations and became sharecroppers. Under this system, croppers worked a plot of land and gave the owner a portion of the crop yield. • Some became tenant farmers, in which they rented the land, but were able to keep their entire crop yield. • Mostly, these systems kept AAs trapped in a cycle of poverty, in which they could never gather enough to become self-sufficient and/or own their own land.

33. How did the former Confederates begin to channel their anger during Reconstruction? • The Ku Klux Klan developed first as a social club for former Confederates. • However, as AAs gained more rights, the KKK grew into a white supremacist organization that enacted campaigns of terror to scare AAs away from exercising their rights. • KKK members were usually from the upper classes and used terror tactics, such as lynchings, beatings, kidnapping, fire, and threats to intimidate their victims.

34. What were some laws/decisions that chipped away at AA rights? • In 1882, the Supreme Court ruled that the Enforcement Act was unconstitutional; • The Amnesty Act allowed former Confederates the right to vote; • The Freedmen’s Bureau was allowed to expire in 1872; • The Slaughterhouse SC cases ruled that civil rights were state rights, and therefore unprotected by the 14th Amendment; • The US v. Cruikshank SC case ruled that the federal government could not punish whites who oppressed AAs; • The US v. Reese SC case determined that the 15th Amendment did not provide anyone with the right to vote; it merely listed ground upon which the right to vote could not be denied.

35. Why did people begin to turn away from securing rights for AAs? • Radical Republicans CS and TS had died; • The Panic of 1873 distracted the nation; • The Republican Party, up through the Cabinet and the VP, was racked with scandals, like the Credit Mobilier scandal. • Northerners began to tire of the ‘Negro question,’ and abandoned the fight to secure equal rights.

36. How was the election of 1876 settled? • The campaign pitted Republican RB Hayes against Democrat SJ Tilden. However, due to contested votes, a deal was struck between the two parties. • This deal came to be known as the Compromise of 1877. It granted the presidency to Hayes, provided that the military occupation of the South be ended. • Thus, Hayes became president and the federal government turned away from AAs.

37. How did the South refer to what happened after the Compromise of 1877? • Once the federal troops pulled out of the South, the South achieved home rule, or the ability to govern itself without interference. • They called this return to power ‘redemption.’ • The former Confederates, with the help of the KKK, regained political power, stripped AAs of their new won rights, and wiped out educational and social programs. • Thus, there is a major debate amongst historians today whether or not Reconstruction had more positive or negative short-term and long-term effects. Was there a major change in Southern society, or did things end up pretty much as they began?