Few events in the critical landscape of United States history can surpass or parallel the Civil War in terms of its lasting effect in the nation’s politics, economy, and sociocultural structure. Whereas the Revolution questioned the authority of the English crown over the independent colonies in America, the Civil War saw the nation question itself in the realm of racial inequality. The events leading up to the war was a dramatic mix of political intrigue and philosophical inquiry into the nature and future of slavery as an economic and social institution. The war itself, lasting for four years, three weeks, and six days, was fought long and hard, and resulted in the victory of the United States – or the Union, led by Abraham Lincoln – over the Confederate States, led by Jefferson Davis and his top military commanders. The war left more than hundreds of millions of American citizens dead, and much more wounded in the field (Chambers 849). To this day, in fact, it remains one of the deadliest wars in American history. What caused a nation, racked by internal conflicts and political turbulence, to ultimately fight itself? What caused all of those soldiers to kill their compatriots who, just years before, had fought a larger, more fearsome enemy? These are the questions that pose opportunities for the contemporary scholar and historian to speculate about the lasting impact of the war, and whether its subtle effects still linger in the nooks and crannies of modern American society.
At the heart of the issue is, of course, the question of race, as well as what it meant for the two sides of the conflict. In the years leading up to the war, the American ideal for expansion and conquest became a more and more exciting endeavor. At the same time, slavery was fast becoming the norm, especially in the Southern states, where the cotton, rice, and tobacco industries needed vast human resources for sustainability. The American Revolution, of course, did not bring liberty to the slaves. In fact, the framers of the Constitution treated private property as sacrosanct and viewed slaves as property (McKay, et.al. 827). Between 1820 and 1860, as new lands in the South and West – territories such as Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana – were put to the production of cotton and sugar, the demand for labor skyrocketed. The upper South – Maryland and Virginia - supplied the slaves, originating from Dutch traders who brought them as prisoners from their colonies in Africa. Simultaneously, Congress, in the fit of westward expansion during this time, began to question whether the institution of slavery would be extended to the new territories. The pro-slavery South and the abolitionist North were constantly in tension, representing the clash between the preservation of the status quo and the implementation of change; between the conservative and the liberal; between the agricultural and the industrial. The state of South Carolina, in protest of the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, seceded from the Union in December of that year. Following that state’s example, ten others followed and formed the Confederacy, naming Richmond, Virginia as its capital (McKay, et.al. 829).
The Confederates, led by Jefferson Davis, were not die-hard slavers and racists that the modern mass media have so often painted them. At the time, they fought for what they believed in: liberty and independence from what they regarded as a tyrannical government led by Abraham Lincoln (McPherson 7). This cause proved to be a potent rallying point for young Confederate soldiers who genuinely believed in their eventual triumph. James McPherson, in his work What They Fought For, observes the commons strand of patriotism in Confederate letters:
“The Confederacy was their country; they felt a sense of duty to this country that had called on them to defend its very existence. "Sink or swim, survive or perish," wrote a young Kentuckian who went with the South, "I will fight in defence of my country."” (McPherson 11)
The Confederates’ cause was firmly rooted in their deep ideological conviction that slavery was right and that there were few outcomes worse than being invaded by the Union. Moreover, soldiers were also concerned with protecting their properties and homes from Northern encroachment – essentially the defence of the Confederate homeland. Even Union soldiers observed this motivation. McPherson observes:
“Some northern soldiers conceded this truth. They "fight like Devils in tophet," an Illinois sergeant wrote of the Confederates in 1862, because they were "fighting to keep an enemy out of [their] own neighborhood & protect [their] property. . . . Not that I consider their cause just but, right or wrong, if we thot or believed we was right it would be the same to us” (19).
As the war raged on, vengeance for comrades killed by Union troops also began to motivate Confederate soldiers. For some, it even became an obsession, passing on to their wives and children a creeping hatred of their Union counterparts. Although this sentiment was the exception rather than the rule, it cannot be denied that the conviction among Southern soldiers were ideologically motivated by the desire to rebel against Northern ideological encroachment.
On the other hand, the Unionists were motivated by the desire to preserve the nation created by the founders from dismemberment and destruction. In essence the North was fighting within the same historical strand that motivated the Southern states: the Constitution and the American Revolution. Whereas the Confederates interpreted the sacrifice of their forefathers as being motivated by racialism and slavery, however, the Unionists believed in the philosophical – and territorial – integrity of the Revolution’s legacy. For the natives of the North, the Civil War was their duty to uphold the United States as such – a united community of states whereby a single government could take action, and where members of such states cannot secede at will. As McPherson observes:
“Because, said northern soldiers almost as if in echo of Abraham Lincoln, once admit that a state can secede at will, and republican government by majority rule would come to an end. The dis-United States would fragment into several petty, squabbling autocracies, proving the contention of European monarchists and reactionaries that this harebrained experiment in democracy could not last. Government of the people, by the people, for the people would perish from the earth” (McPherson 30).
For immigrants that fought for the North – of which there were many – the Civil War proved to be an opportunity to have a say regarding the nation’s future. Irishmen, Italians, and other European immigrants felt that they had an interest in the maintenance of the integrity of the nation as much as any other man. For both natives and immigrants, secession was a deadly challenge to the foundation of law and order on which all societies must rest if they are not to degenerate into anarchy.
Like the Southerners, the Unionists were also motivated by patriotism. The soldiers believed in their duty to defend the country as a Union, and not merely as a separate entity from the Confederacy. They believed that the Union had a claim to defend itself from being disintegrated. Moreover, punishment for treason and determination to “clean out” the Rebels, whom they held responsible for starting the war, also motivated many northern soldiers. McPherson observes in one letter:
"I want to fight the rest of my life if necessary," wrote an Illinois sergeant to his sister, "before we recognize them as anything but Rebels and traitors who must be humbled." "We have got to whip and partially exterminate the South,'' agreed a Massachusetts lieutenant in 1863” (McPherson 40).
In this brief but hopefully comprehensive survey of the two sides of the American Civil War, it may be seen that the Union and the Confederacy had much more in common as believed. Although separated by their belief regarding race, they are both motivated by the legacy of the American Revolution. While the Union believed in the territorial integrity of the United States, the Confederacy believed in a segregated society. Perhaps this is what the ultimate tragedy of the war is: that most of the soldiers were driven by ideologies that were not so different after all.
Works Cited
McPherson, James. What They Fought For. Louisiana: LSUP, 1994. Print.
McKay, John P., Hill, Bennett D.; et.al. A History of World Societies. New York: Bedford St Martins, 2012. Print.
