Time for a Tide Turning

The battle at Gettysburg is considered a turning point in the Civil War because Lincoln used his win at Gettysburg to help fight for freedom of all people. The Union won the battle at Gettysburg because they had more people to replace the people who were injured or killed while fighting. The Confederates and Union had the same amount of people fighting in the battle, but the Union had more people to replace than the Confederates. From Brian Williams, Military History Online, 2007, and E.B. Long, The Civil War Day by Day, Doubleday and Co., Garden City, NY, 1971., I have discovered that a total of 23,040 people from the Union were killed, wounded, or missing, compared to 20,650-25,000 Confederates. The Union still ended with a larger army than the Confederates, even after losing more people than the Confederates. The total size of the Union army in December, 1863 was 918,000 men, while the total size of the Confederate army was 278,000 men. This is because they had more replacements available than the Confederacy. Also, fighting mainly occurred in the South. Since the South had been pillaged, it needed to resupply and if they had won the battle at Gettysburg, that would have helped to resupply the South.  However, they did not win the battle at Gettysburg, and therefore were not able to resupply.

                Total war means taking away all supplies in order to keep an army strong.  Total war causes armies to worry about their families at home, so the army’s moral gets crushed.  It was not acceptable for Sherman, Grant, and Sheridan to conduct a total war campaign in the Confederacy. First of all, Sherman purposely made people suffer from total war. According to Pathways to the Present. Chapter 11, Sections 3 and 4. PearsonSuccessNet.com., Sherman once wrote,” “War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.” Sherman was saying that the more violent the war was the least amount of time it would last. He wanted the war to end quickly so that he could gain control over the South. He wanted more people to agonize so the war would finish sooner. He hurt other people for his own benefit, which is unfair. Sherman targeted large, major buildings, factories, bridges, farms, and railroads in cities. Citizens’ towns were destroyed, so they had nowhere to live. Also, Grant took away the supplies that civilians needed to survive. Lincoln ordered Grant to destroy the South’s army capacity and confront Lee’s army in the West. Grant was told to destroy crops and property that the army is depending on. The goal may not have been to kill civilians, however taking away their resources, like homes and food, made it difficult for the civilians to survive. America: Pathways to the Present. Chapter 11, Sections 3 and 4. PearsonSuccessNet.com. explains, “To avoid being killed by the shells falling on their homes, residents dug caves in hillsides, some complete with furniture and attended by slaves.” Civilians had to leave their homes and eat anything they could find, like rats. Total war affected armies and civilians in negative ways, including people suffering and the loss of necessities.

                Part of the nation reacted positively, while some of the nation reacted negatively to the end of the war. First of all, civilians in Washington D.C were joyful that the war had ended. Lincoln was physically and emotionally fatigued because he put all of his effort into fighting the war. Also, Northern soldiers began to cheer as Lee was walking away, but Grant made them stop. Grant said, “Because we won they are our countrymen.” The Northern soldiers were ecstatic, but they had to control their excitement in order to move forward. Another side was the Southern soldiers. They were not mad because they wanted to honor their new leader. They were also relieved that the war was over, due to exhaustion. On the other hand, John Wilkes Booth and Lewis Paine revolted at the end of the war. The picture below, found at http://www.edline.net/files/_zJGmH_/071c2c342438efbc3745a49013852ec4/Lincolns_Assassination_Document_Analysis.pdf, shows Booth shooting Lincoln at Ford’s Theater, while attending a special performance of the comedy, "Our American Cousin.” Abraham Lincoln Papers. Library of Congress Manuscript Division and Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/malhome.html explains, “Lewis Paine, attacked Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Henry Seward.” Both attacks by Booth and Paine were on April 14, 1865. These two men reacted violently to the end of the war, while soldiers and civilians were content with the end of the war. 

Freedom Didn't Fall From Above

Enslaved Americans got freedom from below. The fugitive slaves made themselves a problem in order to convince Lincoln to free them.

Abraham Lincoln did not give freedom to all slaves. His goal was to preserve the Union. He said in his reply to an open letter from Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune in 1862, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or to destroy Slavery.” If freeing all slaves meant saving the Union, then he would free them. However, if preserving slavery helped save the Union, he would do that. Lincoln said in the same reply, “I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.” Lincoln would prefer to free all slaves, but saving the Union is more important to him. Lincoln did free some slaves in order to save the Union. In the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1663, Lincoln stated, “All persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” He only freed slaves who were in a state that wished to rebel against the United States. Lincoln’s priority was saving the Union. Since some slaves threatened to go against the United States, they were freed by Lincoln. Freedom from above meant that slaves were granted freedom by people with power. Lincoln did not give freedom to all slaves and he only did give it to some to help the Union.

            The freedom of slaves came mainly from below. The slaves became a problem in order to cause some change. General Ambrose E. Burnside wrote to the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, in a letter, “They are now a source of very great anxiety to us; the city is being overrun with fugitives from surrounding towns and plantations— Two have reported themselves who have been in the swamps for five years— it would be utterly impossible if we were so disposed to keep them outside of our lines as they find their way to us through woods & swamps from every side.” Fugitive slaves were camping out in Berlin and they refused to leave. The government was forced to give them freedom since they made themselves a problem. They worked hard to stand up for a change, which means their freedom came from below. The image below shows the fugitive slaves flooding into Chickasaw Bayou, Mississippi and making themselves a problem in order to become free. These slaves were staying camping out on the land in Mississippi and they refused to leave. They revolted as an act of desperation to become free.

            Slaves in America became free from Lincoln by working hard. Lincoln wanted to do whatever would save the Union, no matter how that impacted slavery. Slaves got freedom from below by working hard to revolt.

Sources:

Letter from General Ambrose E. Burnside to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, March 21, 1862: Reprinted in Berlin, Ira, Barbara Fields, Steven Miller, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland, eds. Free At Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom and the Civil War. New York: New Press, 1992, pp. 34–35.

Image: Engraving, “Slaves from the plantation of Confederate President Jefferson Davis arrive at Chickasaw Bayou, Mississippi,” 1863