Civil War 1

Running head: CIVIL WAR

Civil War

Márcio Padilha

College of Southern Idaho

HITS 111 – Tremayne

Fall/2009
 Civil War 2

Civil War

The American Civil War, which erupted out of ideological antagonistic

disparities over the issue of slavery, caused tremendous disruptions in

civilian life and altered the then existing dynamics between the northern and

the southern societies beyond all expectations ().

While campaigning for the presidency of the United States, Lincoln,

realizing that “at no time was slavery on the verge of dying out naturally” (),

expressed his views against the expansion of slavery beyond the states in

which it already existed, setting a wave of unrest over the southern states,

where slaveholding was a brutal [yet accepted] system that sought to strip

black people of all human rights, reducing them to the status of cattle,

swine, wagons and other property”(). Therefore, any social revolution and

government emancipated the slavery would have the potential of financially

decimating a plantation owner.

In a social construct where slaves commonly experienced forced

separation from their families and, when run away, were hunted down with

“negro dogs”, captured and incarcerated (), the Republican victory in that

election resulted in seven Southern states declaring their secession from the

Union with hostilities being initiated by the Confederate, i.e. southern, attack

at a Union, i.e. northern, military installation ().

According to the status quo of the era, both south and north exhibited

dissimilar profiles as to economy, industrialization and ethnic composition.

 Civil War 3

Therefore, to withstand the massive power of the north, the South needed to

centralize rather than fight separately. Furthermore, tens of thousands of

Confederate Soldiers who had volunteered for just one year’s service,

planning to return home in the spring to plant their crops, soon discovered a

fast return home would not happening. (). Such proposition demanded

immediate social change in that now white women headed households and

performed a man’s work, including raising crops and tending to animals ().

In addition to the many inhospitable conditions men would face in the

Civil war, it was apparent that confederate policies which allowed for the

favoring of the upper classes, such as the possibility hiring and sending one’s

substitute to war, caused a social rift in the south. (). Furthermore, on

another front, the infectious diseases, which plagued soldiers in both fronts

of the war, turned out to be the real killers () which, in association with lack

of appropriate food and clothing, made the winters deadly.

Whereas a sense of loyalty to cause had been present since the

inception of the war, both soldiers and civilians, Union or Confederacy, clarity

as to the real purpose of the war was not such an attainable thing ().

In the short span of four years, Confederates created a culture and an

ideology of nationalism, immediately forging their own national symbols and

identity, a cultural phenomenon which didn’t happen in the Union. With the

onset of the war, a tidal wave of change rolled over the north as well.

Factories and citizen’s associations geared up to support the federal

 Civil War 4

government and its executive branch gained new powers. Whereas Northern

firms lost their southern markets, southern debt became uncollectable ().

In the end, two important presidential acts would take place with deep

effects for the post-war south. The combination of the 1861 Confiscation Act,

which confiscated all property used for insurrectionary purposes, with the

1863 Emancipation Proclamation led many southerners to absolute socio-

economic demise ().

In a brief period of approximately four years, the Civil War, which

cumulatively resulted from a series of socio-economic and racial tensions,

led the American society from relative apathy in regards to the inherent

human rights issues of slavery to absolute social polarization over the

economic implications that freedom would have to some segments of

society; ultimately causing one end of the social spectrum to overpower the

other and, after having done so, reassert itself and move towards

reconstruction.
 Civil War 5

Bibliography

Norton, M. B., Katzman, D. M., Blight, D. W., Chudacoff, H. P., Logevall, F.,

Bailey, B., et al. (2005). A People and a Nation: A Hostory of the United

States, Vol. 1. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Oates, S. B., & Errico, C. J. (2007). Portrait of America, Vol. 1. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin Company.