The Civil War Read online

  —Confederate General Robert E. Lee

  * * *

  You, you the people of the South, believe there can be such a thing as peaceable secession. You don’t know what you are doing… This country will be drenched in blood. God only knows how it will end.22

  —Union General William Tecumseh Sherman

  * * *

  We seem to be drifting to destruction before our eyes, in utter helplessness.23

  —Northern Congressman Caleb Cushing

  * * *

  We are going to destruction as fast as we can.24

  —Confederate Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens

  * * *

  Some of you laugh to scorn the idea of bloodshed as the result of secession, and jocularly propose to drink all the blood that will ever flow in consequence of it. But let me tell you what is coming on the heels of secession… You may, after the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and of hundreds of thousands of precious lives, as a bare possibility, win Southern independence, if God be not against you, but I doubt it. I tell you that, while I believe with you in the doctrine of state rights, the North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction, where great interests are involved, such as the present issue before the country, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche; and what I fear is, they will overwhelm the South with ignoble defeat.25

  —Texas Governor Sam Houston, talking to fellow Southerners who wanted secession

  * * *

  The people of the South and those of the North are essentially two races of men, with habits of thought and action very unalike.26

  —Southern secessionist Albert Pike

  * * *

  I think it is to be a long war—very long—much longer than any politician thinks.27

  —Union General William Tecumseh Sherman

  * * *

  Better lose a million men in battle than allow the government to be overthrown. The war will soon assume the shape of Slavery and Freedom. The world will so understand it, and I believe the final outcome will redound to the good of humanity.28

  —Future U.S. president James A. Garfield

  * * *

  Free society! We sicken at the name. What is it [the North] but a conglomeration of greasy mechanics, filthy operatives, small-fisted farmers, and moonstruck theorists?… The prevailing class one meets with is that of mechanics struggling to be genteel, and small farmers that do their own drudgery, and yet are hardly fit for association with a Southern gentleman’s body servant.29

  —A Georgia newspaper, talking about the Northern people

  * * *

  Slavery cannot share a government with democracy.30

  —Southern secessionist Leonidas W. Spratt

  * * *

  Secession asserts the principle that the minority have the right to force the majority. There can be no government where such a principle is recognized.31

  —Southern Judge Garnett Andrews

  * * *

  I will never give rest to my eyes nor slumber to my eyelids until [the Union] is shattered into pieces.32

  —Southern secessionist Nathaniel Beverley Tucker

  * * *

  No power can prevent [secession]. Our destiny seems to be fixed.33

  —Confederate Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens

  * * *

  The time for war has not yet come, but it will come, and that soon; and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard.34

  —Confederate General Stonewall Jackson

  * * *

  All they want is to get you to fight for their infernal Negroes, and after you do their fightin’, you may kiss their hin’ parts for all they care.35

  —Southern farmer from Winston County, Alabama, talking about the slave owners

  * * *

  We will fight you to the death! Better to die a thousand deaths than to submit to live under you.36

  —Confederate General John Bell Hood

  * * *

  In thinking of America, I sometimes find myself admiring her bright blue sky, her grand old woods, her fertile fields, her beautiful rivers, her mighty lakes and star-crowned mountains. But my rapture is soon checked when I remember that all is cursed with the infernal spirit of slave holding and wrong; When I remember that with the waters of her noblest rivers, the tears of my brethren are borne to the ocean, disregarded and forgotten; That her most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged sisters, I am filled with unutterable loathing.37

  —Abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass

  * * *

  This step, secession, once taken, can never be recalled… We and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war.38

  —Confederate Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens

  * * *

  I am aware that many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation… I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard.39

  —Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, in his newspaper, The Liberator

  * * *

  I am decided; my course is fixed; my path is blazed. The Union and the Constitution shall be preserved and the laws enforced at every and at all hazards.40

  —President Abraham Lincoln

  * * *

  The time for compromise has now passed. The South is determined to maintain her position, and make all who oppose her smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel!41

  —Confederate President Jefferson Davis

  * * *

  The firing on that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen… At this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North… You will wantonly strike a hornet’s nest… It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal.42

  —Confederate Secretary of State Robert Toombs, warning against the South’s impending attack on the Union’s Fort Sumter

  2

  Call to Arms

  In April of 1861, eleven Southern states had either seceded or were about to secede from the Union. In his First Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln had tried to assure his “dissatisfied fellow countrymen” that war was not necessary—that the U.S. government would not assail them—unless the South was itself “the aggressor.” But as each Southern state joined the Confederacy, the people’s excitement in becoming an independent nation increased, and emotions in the South rose to a feverish pitch. It was with incredible naivety that men on both sides rushed off to join in a war they thought would be easily won. The federal government’s Fort Sumter, located in the middle of Charleston Harbor, became the war’s flash point when Southern soldiers attacked it on the morning of April 12, 1861.

  * * *

  At half-past four, the heavy booming of a cannon. I sprang out of bed. And on my knees—prostrate—I prayed as I never prayed before.43

  —Southern diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut, upon hearing the guns beginning the war at Fort Sumter

  * * *

  Our Southern brethren have done grievously wrong, they have rebelled and have attacked their father’s house and their loyal brothers. They must be punished and brought back, but this necessity breaks my heart.44

  —Union Major Robert Anderson, after being forced to surrender Fort Sumter

  * * *

  So Civil War is inaugurated at last. God defend the right.45

  —Northern diarist George Templeton Strong

  Abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass

  “What a change now greets us! The Government is aroused, the dead North is alive, and its divided people united… The cry now is for war, vigorous war
, war to the bitter end, and war till the traitors are effectually and permanently put down.”46

  South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum.47

  —Southern Judge James L. Petigru, upon hearing that South Carolina had seceded from the Union

  * * *

  We looked forward to the time when we could give the Yankees a taste of our steel, and we were confident that when the time came we would be victorious.48

  —Confederate soldier Robert S. Hudgins

  * * *

  We seceded to rid ourselves of the rule of the majority.49

  —Confederate President Jefferson Davis

  * * *

  You have made the greatest mistake of your life, but I feared it would be so.50

  —Union General Winfield Scott, to Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who declined Scott’s offer to take command of the Union armies

  * * *

  The die was cast; war was declared…every person, almost, was eager for the war, and we were all afraid it would be over and we not be in the fight.51

  —Confederate soldier Sam Watkins

  * * *

  To fight against slaveholders, without fighting against slavery, is but a halfhearted business… Fire must be met with water… War for the destruction of liberty must be met with war for the destruction of slavery.52

  —Abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass

  * * *

  I know how strongly American Civilization now leans on the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and sufferings of the Revolution. And I am willing—perfectly willing—to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.53

  —Union soldier Sullivan Ballou

  * * *

  The young men carry dress suits with them. Every soldier, nearly, has a servant with him, and a whole lot of spoons and forks, so as to live comfortably and elegantly in camp, and finally to make a splurge in Washington when they shall arrive there, which they expect will be very soon.54

  —A Southern woman in Rome, Georgia

  * * *

  There are only two sides to the question. Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war, only patriots—or traitors!55

  —Northern Senator Stephen A. Douglas

  * * *

  Of the civil war I say only this… It is Slavery against Freedom; the North wind against the Southern pestilence. I saw lately, at a jeweler’s, a slave’s collar of iron, with an iron tongue as large as a spoon, to go into the mouth. Every drop of blood in me quivered! The world forgets what slavery really is!56

  —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  * * *

  This is a death struggle and will be terrible.57

  —Union General William Tecumseh Sherman

  * * *

  I will receive 200 able-bodied men if they will present themselves at my headquarters by the first of June with good horse and gun. I wish none but those who desire to be actively engaged. My headquarters for the present is at Corinth, Miss. Come on, boys, if you want a heap of fun and to kill some Yankees.58

  —Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest

  * * *

  Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S.; let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.59

  —Abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass

  * * *

  While our soldiers fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them. My place is anywhere between the bullet and the battlefield.60

  —Union nurse Clara Barton

  * * *

  I express it as my conviction before God that it is the duty of every American citizen to rally round the flag of his country.61

  —Northern Senator Stephen A. Douglas

  * * *

  I long to be a man, but as I can’t fight, I will content myself with working for those who can.62

  —Northern author and nurse Louisa May Alcott

  * * *

  Our new Government is founded upon… its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It is so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind, from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the antislavery fanatics: their conclusions are right if their premises are. They assume that the Negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man.63

  —Confederate Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens

  * * *

  These new [soldiers] are running in… They fear the war will be over before they get a sight of the fun. Every man from every little country precinct wants a place in the picture.64

  —Southern diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut

  * * *

  We feel that our cause is just and holy.65

  —Confederate President Jefferson Davis

  * * *

  We are battling for our rights and homes. Ours is a just war, a holy cause. The invader must meet the fate he deserves and we must meet him as becomes us, as becomes men.66

  —Confederate Major John Pelham

  * * *

  I want to fight until we win the cause so many have died for. I don’t believe in Secession, but I do in Liberty. I want the South to conquer, dictate its own terms, and go back to the Union, for I believe that, apart, inevitable ruin awaits both. It is a rope of sand, this Confederacy, founded on the doctrine of Secession, and will not last many years—not five.67

  —Southern diarist Sarah Morgan Dawson

  * * *

  The army of the South will be composed of the best material that ever yet made up an army; while that of Lincoln will be gathered from the sewers of the cities—the degraded, beastly outscoring of all the quarters of the world, who will serve for pay and will run away as soon as they can when danger threatens.68

  —The Raleigh [North Carolina] Banner

  * * *

  Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

  He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

  He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

  His truth is marching on.69

  —Abolitionist Julia Ward Howe, from the song “Battle Hymn of the Republic”

  * * *

  It is not alone a fight between the North and the South; it is a fight between freedom and slavery; between God and the devil; between heaven and hell.70

  —Republican Congressman George Washington Julian

  * * *

  We are a band of brothers, and natives to the soil,

  Fighting for the property we gained by honest toil;

  And when our rights were threatened, the cry rose near and far:

  Hurrah for the bonnie Blue Flag that bears the single star!71

  —Southern songwriter Harry McCarthy, from the song “Bonnie Blue Flag”

  * * *

  A law was made by the Confederate States Congress about this time allowing every person who owned twenty Negroes to go home. It gave us the blues; we wanted twenty Neg
roes. Negro property suddenly became very valuable, and there was raised the howl of “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight.”72

  —Confederate soldier Sam Watkins

  3

  A Resolve to Win

  At the Civil War’s inception, both sides underestimated the other’s resolve to win. Southerners believed that their soldiers, who were typically more familiar with guns and horses than their Northern counterparts, would quickly prove the Yankees to be cowardly and unworthy opponents. Northerners dismissed Southern bravado and were confident that their well-equipped armies would quickly overwhelm their enemies. Soldiers of both sides feared that the war would be over in a matter of weeks and that they would not get an opportunity to fight.

  They were both wrong. The North under-estimated the Southern people’s resolve to persevere in spite of fewer resources, as well as their motivational advantage of “defending their homes.” The South underestimated the Northern people’s resolve to keep fighting for the Union in spite of suffering tremendous casualties on the battlefields.

  * * *

  We must do more than defeat their armies. We must destroy them.73

  —Confederate General Stonewall Jackson

  * * *

  Look, men! There stands Jackson like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians!74

  —Confederate General Barnard Elliott Bee Jr., pointing out General Stonewall Jackson at the Battle of First Manassas

  Union Army nurse Clara Barton

  “If I cannot be a soldier, I’ll help soldiers.”75

  I have served my country under the flag of the Union for more than fifty years, and as long as God permits me to live, I will defend that flag with my sword; even if my own native State assails it.76

  —Union General and Virginian Winfield Scott, to representatives of the Confederacy offering him command

  * * *

  I’m fighting because you are down here.77

  —A Confederate soldier, when asked why he fought

  * * *

  I would fight them if they were a million. The more men they crowd in there, the worse we can make it for them.78