I would love to comment more on tr1cky's ideas, but unfortunately I have little time, so I'll just post this. It gets longer.
A House Divided.
While the decade of the 1860s was momentous all over the world, nowhere is it better evidenced than in Germany, Italy, and the United States. In Italy, the culmination of the
Risorgimento led to the unification of nearly the entire peninsula, which for so long had been shackled to the rule of one foreign empire or another. The events in Germany altered the balance of power in Europe drastically and changed the face of international politics. However, it is what happened in America that deserves the closest attention, for while its effects were initially rather limited, the shockwaves from the domestic conflict of the 1860s in the United States spread all over the world.
There is no better place to begin reviewing the 1860s in America than the year 1860 (technically the last year of the 1850s, but this critical decade was long in development). The previous decades had seen the rise of sectional tensions, especially between the northern states (who were generally more commercial oriented and more and more anti-slavery) and the southern states (whose collective economies relied on slavery in order to produce agricultural products at a profitable rate). A planned slave revolt, led by a northern abolitionist, one John Brown, was to have been kicked off by the seizure of a US Army arsenal in northern Virginia at Harpers Ferry in 1859; the federal response, led by Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee and a unit of Marines, ended in the surrender or death of all of the revolutionaries, as well as Brown's forcible capture. The would-be architect of the destruction of slavery was duly convicted by a jury and hanged by the neck until dead. Many abolitionist writers, including such eminences as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Victor Hugo, called Brown a martyr; most southern slave owners expected further attacks from the Republican revolutionaries, and began to arm. These tensions culminated in the 1860 presidential election, wherein four opposing candidates from sectional parties ran for the highest office in the country. John Bell, from the Constitutional Union party, gained his support from die-hard Whigs and Know-Nothings; the Democrats split, with the northern delegates nominating Little Giant Stephen Douglas and the southern Fire-Eaters putting forth John Breckinridge. The new Republican Party, though, held together, advancing a fairly moderate platform and nominating Abraham Lincoln as their candidate. These Republicans already had virtually complete control in the northern states, so they confined their campaigning to quiet campaign clubs; desperate, Stephen Douglas raced on a nationwide campaign tour to garner as much support as possible. The issue was never in doubt for the Republicans, though, and they were swept into office with a clear electoral majority. The manner in which Lincoln had been elected was somewhat ominous, though; almost no one cast a ballot for him in the entire South.
Not long after the election, but before Lincoln could take office from incumbent James Buchanan, the state of South Carolina seceded. As 1861 dawned, more states withdrew from the Union, all in the Deep South: Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi had all declared that they were seceding from the United States by March 1861. These states formed their own government, that of the Confederate States of America , which seized federal arsenals all across the southern states and elected as its president Jefferson Davis, a former Secretary of War. In Texas , a quarter of the US Army entered that of the CSA under David Twiggs, a veteran of the Mexican War of 1846-8. All of this was basically ignored by lame duck President Buchanan, who declared that the South had no right to secede, but I have no power to prevent them. Lincoln s representatives, though, desperately tried to seek peace. A conference was held in Washington , DC in February that fell through; a hastily-proposed Crittenden Compromise (after the style of those of 1820 and 1850) also failed to sway the southern states. Again, Buchanan failed to make preparations for war, so many of the northern state governors did so for him, buying up arms and gathering militiamen to turn into an extemporized Regular force. Finally, in March, Lincoln became President, and in his inaugural speech insisted that the South had no legal right to secede, and that he would not invade the South or attempt to end slavery, but that he would take action to preserve US federal property such as one of the only remaining US Army forts inside Confederate-held land, Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. The fort was soon surrounded by Confederate militiamen and some cadets from the Citadel. Buchanan sent a relief expedition in the unarmed merchantman
Star of the West to resupply the fort; the Citadel cadets, the only men in the Confederacy skilled with artillery, turned it back. Upon Lincoln's inauguration, he decided to send a new expedition with supplies to the fort in order to keep the men inside alive; when notified, the Confederate government decided to commence bombardment of the fortifications to try to force Fort Sumter's garrison to capitulate before the relief ships got through. On April 12, 1861, one Edmund Ruffin, a Confederate secessionist with the batteries under General P.G.T. Beauregard, fired the first shot of the civil war at the fort in the middle of Charleston harbor. After two days of constant bombardment, the fort's commander, Colonel Robert Anderson, surrendered Fort Sumter to the Confederacy and was allowed to return to the United States with his men. The American Civil War had begun.
With the battle of Fort Sumter, Lincoln called for 74,000 volunteers for ninety days to crush the rebellion. However, many states that had thus far been on the fence turned to the Confederacy, refusing to raise arms against their brethren: Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia, and North Carolina all voted to secede and join the CSA, and the government's capital was moved to Richmond, Virginia. The two sides immediately began to make plans. Most believed that the war would be quickly over, and advocated a push towards the opposing side's capital city. Only Winfield Scott, a veteran of the Mexican War and countless other conflicts, proposed a longer-range plan, to crush the life out of the Confederacy by seizing the line of the Mississippi River, a key transportation artery, and to set up a blockade around the Confederate coastline to destroy their economy. While President Lincoln agreed with the Mississippi and blockade plans which were collectively dubbed the Anaconda Plan by the press he also wanted a push on Richmond to try to decapitate the Confederacy quickly. Meanwhile, the South continued to arm itself and prepare to defend their homeland. Confederate diplomacy was very active in these days, looking for support from Britain and France in particular. Napoleon III and Lord Palmerston, although favorably disposed to the Southern cause, were reluctant to commit themselves to Confederate independence, and didn't believe that the CSA could sustain itself. An army, under the command of Beauregard, lay in wait for any Federal attack on northern Virginia in Prince William County, while an army under Joe Johnston sat in the Shenandoah Valley farther west. Irvin McDowell, in command of the Federal extemporized volunteer Army of Northeast Virginia, moved into northern Virginia and contacted Beauregard's Army of the Potomac at Manassas. While McDowell dithered and prepared for a decisive battle to destroy the rebel army, Johnston's troops managed to beat off a Federal attack under General Robert Patterson and board trains bound for Manassas Junction. When the Union troops finally began their attack on July 21, Beauregard had been reinforced significantly by Johnston's troops. In a sanguinary contest that lasted into the afternoon, the Union attack was first repulsed by the Southern army (in which Col. Thomas Jackson's brigade stoutly resisted enemy attack and earned him the sobriquet Stonewall) and then was driven back in disorder to Washington. The Army of Northeast Virginia took shelter in the strong fortifications of Washington, DC, which the Confederate troops declined to test. Everyone knew now that the war would last far longer than any of them had expected.
George B. McClellan, new commander of the entire Union Army, prepared a new plan for invasion of Virginia. Instead of attempting to force his way overland across several major rivers and through a large forest to Richmond, McClellan decided to embark his army onto a naval flotilla and sail onto the Virginia Peninsula, from which he could easily assault the relatively undefended capital. Further west, Confederate attention would be attracted by a convergent attack on the critical Shenandoah Valley led by Nathaniel Banks. The Confederacy was forced to react to the Union moves quickly. In April, the lumbering Federal armies began to close in on the fertile Shenandoah, and the man in command of the Southern troops there, Stonewall Jackson of Manassas fame, prepared to conduct a brilliant campaign on interior lines. Utilizing the still wide separation between the converging armies of McDowell, Banks, and Rosecrans, Jackson's single corps fought battles at Kernstown, Front Royal, Winchester, Cross Keys, and Port Republic, smashing the Federal troops at each encounter. By the time the dust had settled, the men in blue were in retreat once again, and Jackson had managed to spend four months distracting Federal attention from the more important Peninsular front. Jackson's exhausted corps was ordered back to the defense of Richmond, which was under serious threat from a vast Federal army under McClellan himself.
The Union troops had prepared to sail in early March, but before that could happen, the US Navy had to secure passage for them. The newly-extemporized Navy, which had to be almost entirely created from scratch by Gideon Welles and his assistant, Gustavus Vasa Fox, had managed to develop with the help of one John Ericsson a partially-submarine vessel clad in iron called the USS
Monitor. This ironclad ship, which was basically a floating platform for Ericsson's new turret design, was supposed to be able to punch easily through pretty much anything that the young Confederate Navy could muster. However, before the
Monitor could reach the Chesapeake, a new C.S. Ship whose skin couldn't be penetrated by any of the new Union shell ammunition was on the scene, and it had wreaked havoc with the Union blockading vessels. The
Monitor steamed for its battle with the CSS
Virginia, formerly the USS
Merrimack. At Hampton Roads in early March, the two iron titans fought a drawn battle, but the
Monitor could prevent the
Virginia from unduly damaging the US transports. McClellan's army was duly disembarked at Fort Monroe and began to slowly push up the peninsula. The capital protection forces under Johnston were able to scramble men to the scene as McClellan's dilatory advance gave the rebels plenty of time to gather reinforcements. Even so, McClellan was able to seize Yorktown and bull through the Confederate rearguard at Williamsburg. By May 25, the Federals were in sight of Richmond itself. Seeing this, McClellan split up his army for better organization; Johnston promptly ordered a double envelopment, trying to catch the Federals spread out and disorganized. At Fair Oaks on May 31 and June 1, the South launched its attack, but parts were delayed, so what was supposed to be a deadly double envelopment turned into a series of piecemeal attacks on a single front, which were easily repulsed. This near-disaster forced President Davis to get rid of Johnston and replace him with the hero of Harper's Ferry, Robert E. Lee.
As soon as Jackson's troops were close by, Lee launched his first attacks of what would become known as the Seven Days' Battles. On June 26, he attacked the Federals at Mechanicsville, but was repulsed in the same fashion as at Fair Oaks due to Jackson's absence. The next day, another attack was planned at Gaines's Mill, but again Jackson failed to carry out his role and the Federals first repulsed the Southern attack, and then withdrew in good order. McClellan had been spooked by Lee's repeated attacks and the demonstrations of more Confederate troops in front of Richmond, and ordered a general withdrawal to Harrison's Landing on the peninsula. Lee seized his chance and harried the individual Union corps as they attempted to reach safety on the Peninsula. At Peach Orchard, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, and Glendale-Frayser's Farm, the Federals easily beat off the Southern attacks, then on the First of July drew themselves up on Malvern Hill to defend the disembarkation point at Harrison's Landing. Fitzjohn Porter, in operational command of the Union troops at Malvern Hill, brilliantly threw back Lee's attack, in which the Confederate Army lost 5,000 men in 2 hours. Again McClellan ordered a senseless retreat, and soon the Federal army huddled in defeat on the banks of the James, despite never losing a battle in the past seven days. Lee had somehow pulled victory out of a string of defeats.
Lincoln, constantly reacting to the rebels' every move, ordered the creation of John Pope's Army of Virginia from the shattered commands that had been repulsed in the Shenandoah. Pope began a slow movement towards Richmond overland from the north, and Lee prepared to engage him directly. On August 29-30, the southerners landed a decisive defeat on Pope at the Second Battle of Manassas, whereat James Longstreet's Corps swung around to the Federals' rear while Jackson attracted their attention to the front. The Union army began to disintegrate again, but General Phil Kearny pulled defeat out of an utter rout by holding off Jackson's advancing corps for long enough for the remainder of the Army of Virginia to reach the safety of the Washington forts. The fight degenerated into a nighttime hand-to-hand running battle, in which Kearny was killed and the Federals managed to escape. Lee prepared to invade the North, in order to finally secure European recognition and support for the rebel cause. Lincoln in Washington desperately recalled McClellan from the Peninsula and had him formulate a new army out of the shreds of Pope's and the Army of the Potomac. Lee began to march north, issuing secret orders to his subordinate commanders and miraculously, one of these order sets fell into Federal hands. McClellan, with his usual alacrity (or lack thereof), launched his army across South Mountain towards the Confederate army at Sharpsburg; Lee barely managed to gather together his disparate corps before battle was joined at Antietam Creek on September 17. McClellan prepared for a general attack, but was repulsed in a series of sanguinary fights all along the line at the Bloody Lane, Burnside's Bridge, and in front of Sharpsburg itself. By the end, both armies had suffered enough casualties for the rebels to withdraw; the Union claimed the victory, with nearly 27,000 casualties on both sides. The United States had been saved, however temporarily.
President Lincoln saw the opportunity to prevent the European nations from recognizing the Confederacy. Britain and France were really only refusing to recognize the Confederacy on two grounds: that of the apparent staying power of the Union confirmed by the bloodbath of Antietam just now and that annoying little practice of slavery which the South insisted on pursuing. Thus far, Lincoln had tried to prevent the war from being about slavery, so as to coax the rebelling states back into the fold. Now that this was clearly impossible, and now that he had a shred of possibility of backing himself up, he issued a proclamation emancipating the slaves of the Southern states but only the ones currently in rebellion to take effect at the beginning of next year. The French and British were once again scared off; the North had gained some breathing room. Now it was time to deal with the Confederacy but McClellan's usual lack of speed had allowed the Confederacy to once again get away. Lincoln promptly fired McClellan and replaced him with Ambrose Burnside. Burnside moved into central Virginia, aiming once again for Richmond, but was halted on the Rappahannock River while waiting for bridging equipment. This gave Lee more time to form up on the formidable Marye's Heights beyond the town of Fredericksburg on the southern bank; when Burnside threw his troops into the attack on December 13, 1862, they were repulsed fourteen times with devastating loss, despite personal bravery. The US Army lost nearly 13,000 men that day with exactly zero gain, and retreated back across the Rappahannock two days later. The Eastern theater of the Civil War had remained bloodily indecisive that year.
In the West, the Federals were definitely ascendant. General Ulysses S. Grant, a commander Henry Halleck's Department of Missouri, was ordered to make an amphibious assault on the forts of Henry and Donelson along the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. Fort Henry, which wasn't particularly easy to defend, was abandoned by the Confederates in February for Donelson; Grant invested Donelson and began a siege. The rebel command, under John Floyd, Gideon Pillow, and Simon Boliver Buckner, attempted to break through the Union lines, but couldn't make headway and were thrown back into the fort by vigorous counterattacks. Pillow and Floyd managed to escape, but Buckner was left behind with nearly 12,000 soldiers, trapped in the fort. He attempted to surrender to Grant, but the Federal commander responded with the famous, "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted." The rebels were cowed; Buckner gave up his command on February 16, and Grant got a nickname: "Unconditional Surrender". The Southern cordon defense of Tennessee was now broken; Albert Sidney Johnston, in charge of the defense of that state, was forced to withdraw further south when Grant and Don Carlos Buell took Nashville nine days after Buckner's surrender. At Corinth, Mississippi, Johnston concentrated 40,000 men in preparation for a counterblow. Grant, who was intent on taking that city as a base for operations into northern Mississippi, was halted by order of Halleck so as to wait for Buell, who was hastening from Nashville. Johnston seized his opportunity and launched an immediate attack on Grant's ill-defended cantonment at Shiloh on April 6. The Federal outposts were quickly driven in, and suddenly Grant found his army under heavy attack by troops under Johnston's and Beauregard's command. As the Union troops were forced back towards Pittsburgh Landing, a large number of blue-clad troops were cut off and surrounded by the Confederate soldiers; this "Hornet's Nest" resisted attack for seven hours before finally being overwhelmed. The sacrifice of these troops gave Grant time to form a solid defense line in front of Pittsburgh Landing; in a futile attempt to charge the position, Johnston was killed leading his men. During the night of the sixth, Buell's troops finally arrived on the scene and were ferried across the river to join Grant; on the seventh, Buell and Grant launched a massive counterattack that drove Beauregard's men from the field in disarray. This battle, nearly as bloody as Antietam later that year, was decried by the press in the North, and Grant was condemned widely for spending his soldiers wastefully. Lincoln came to the rescue of his commander, saying, "I can't spare this man. He fights." Through the rest of the year, Grant pushed south into Mississippi, and although he was not able to gain a decisive victory over the Southern troops, he seized Corinth and made preparations to attack Vicksburg, the strongest fort on the Mississippi River. In eastern Tennessee, Buell and later his successor, William Rosecrans, moved slowly against Confederate troops under Braxton Bragg, who finally was engaged on December 31 in a battle that lasted for four days at Murfreesboro, where a tactically drawn battle ended in some of the highest casualty rates of the war and a Southern withdrawal.
The conquest of the Mississippi as planned by Winfield Scott was proceeding apace. On April 24, not long after Grant's victory at Shiloh, Commodore David Farragut broke through a weak Confederate river fleet and seized New Orleans at the mouth of the great river; a few weeks later, Captain Charles Davis forced the surrender of Memphis, upriver in Tennessee. By this time, it was clear that the only real Southern bastion preventing complete Union control of the Mississippi was the great fortress of Vicksburg, Mississippi. While Farragut maneuvered his ships into position, defeating the CSS
Arkansas on the river and driving her into the Vicksburg base, Grant began an overland advance. In November, he began to drive General John Pemberton back towards the fortress, but the next month, an assault on the Chickasaw Bluffs under William Tecumseh Sherman was met with staunch resistance and repulsed. Vicksburg remained an extant barrier to Union control of the Great American River as 1862 ended.
In the east, Burnside, who had failed completely at Fredericksburg, was replaced by "Fighting Joe" Hooker. Hooker planned an envelopment of Lee's army, which sat at the Tabernacle Church not far from Fredericksburg. He ordered John Sedgwick with 40,000 men to drive Lee in his direction, while his own large army crossed the Rappahannock and moved into the town of Chancellorsville. Wily Bobby Lee wasn't sitting still all this time, though; he had found a route around Hooker's rear, and planned to envelop the envelopers by sending Jackson's corps around behind Hooker and crushing his army. At first contact on May 1, Hooker assumed his defensive position, thinking that if Lee attacked his defenses like Burnside had done at Fredericksburg, the Southern army would be easily vanquished and the road to Richmond would lie open. Lee did not oblige, sending Jackson on his end run in the hopes that Hooker wouldn't attack his weakened, divided army. The Federal commander, still clinging to his original plan, didn't leave his cantonments, and late in the afternoon of May 2 Jackson's corps appeared on the flank of the XI Corps, who were cooking dinner at the time. That corps, primarily composed of German immigrants, mostly fled, and Jackson continued to debouch onto Hooker's flank as the day turned into dusk. At this worst of all possible moments, Hooker's headquarters was hit by a Confederate artillery barrage and he got shell shock, failing to give any orders at all while Jackson's corps ran amok in his rear. Jackson, seeing that the Union troops weren't leaving, continued to lead the attack personally into the night, but was misidentified by one of his own men and hit by friendly fire in the dense wilderness. Over the next few days, Hooker regained his bearings and pulled his troops into a defensive position around United States Ford, all the while calling on Sedgwick to break through Early's weak defenses on Marye's Heights and hit Lee in the rear. Sedgwick was about as dilatory as McClellan had been, though, and only on the 4th of May did he break through Early's defensive line - after which Early simply countermarched and moved to isolate him on the ground north of Fredericksburg, just as Hooker's bridgehead was slowly contracting north of Chancellorsville. Hooker and Sedgwick finally withdrew north of the Rappahannock on the night of the 5th, and conceded the field. This crushing victory by the Confederacy came at a high price, though, and Lee's men lost over a quarter of their strength, although they killed a greater number of Union soldiers. Chancellorsville, while the greatest defeat yet suffered by the Federal armies, also showed signs of improvement by the men in blue; they had held on for three days after suffering what would normally have been a debilitating blow to any army, a far cry from the militiamen who broke and ran at Manassas two years ago. As Lee prepared to invade the North a second time, the generals of the Army of the Potomac could take solace in the fact that their men were now at the best they had ever been.
