Civil War - Beginnings

Civil War

April, 1861 - April, 1865

SIDES: North (UNION) vs. South (CONFEDERACY)

LEADERS: Abraham Lincoln (NORTH), Jefferson Davis (SOUTH)

Pre-war Causes

1) In the Presidential Election of 1860, four main candidates ran as the result of a split Democrat party and two other factions. Northern Democrats ran with Stephen Douglas, who called for congressional non-interference with the slave question in the territories. Southern Democrats, who wanted federal protection of slavery in the territories ran with President Buchanan's vice president, John C. Breckingridge. A third party entered the ring as the Constitutional Union party, a coalition of conservative Southerners and Northerners. This party, who was not strictly Republican or Democrat, nominated John Bell. Lastly, the new Republican party nominated Abraham Lincoln for the ballot. The Republicans opposed any spreading of slavery to the territories.

The election ended divisively as Lincoln won with 40% of the popular vote. The northern democrat Stephen Douglas came in second with 29% of the vote. Breckingridge, the other democrat, and Bell, the nominee of the Constitutional Union party, both came in with less than 20% of the vote.

Some leaders in the South promised to secede from the Union of Lincoln was elected President. South Carolina was the first to secede on December 20th, 1860. By February 1, 1861, Georgia and all of the Gulf states from Florida to Texas had joined South Carolina in seceding. These new states drew up a constituion and elected Jefferson Davis, a former senator, as their president.

2) The South considered itself as having the right to secede, in the view that the states had their own independence and sovereignty.

The election of Lincoln, the political tension on slavery, and the long-time cultural and economical differences between the North and the South combined together to cause a spark that would ignite an entire war.

First Firing - Fort Sumter - April 1861

In March of 1860, the newly formed Confederacy sent three peace commisioners to Washington to resolve the problem of federal forts. The main fort in question was Fort Sumter, which was located in the mouth of Charleston Harbor. All of the forts were in fact, Union property, and were still being controlled by the Union. The Confederates wanted the forts evacuated since they were on Confederate ground ( I think). Secretary of State Seward sent word that Fort Sumter would be evacuated (all Union troops would leave). However, on April 9, a squadron of Union ships was sent to bring supplies to the Union fort. Confederate troops opened fire on the still Union-controlled fort and after two days, the fort surrendered to the Confederate troops. Amazingly, no one was killed in the fight.

Consequences

Lincoln called up 75,000 troops to supress the secessionist states. When Lincoln called up his army to invade the South, the rest of the middle states then seceded to the Confederacy.

The Civil War had ultimately begun.