User:South Nashua/Civil War/1861 Notes

1860

The American Civil War began in 1861, the first of four years in what would become the bloodiest war in U.S. History.

Lead-up to War
The roots of the Civil War's first year began several weeks before the beginning of its calendar year. Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln was elected In the 1860 presidential election and immediately, concerns regarding the topic of slavery that had been simmering since the birth of the country began to boil as pro-slavery advocates began to fear that abolitionist elements would end the practice of slavery outright.

Republicans held a platform that supported banning slavery in all the U.S. territories, something the Southern states viewed as a violation of their constitutional rights and as being part of a plan to eventually abolish slavery. While Lincoln opposed slavery, his position was that the stability of the country was paramount and efforts should be taken to phase out slavery gradually without conflict.

Constitutional Union Party candidate John Bell and Northern Democratic candidate Stephen A. Douglas advocated policies that also emphasized national unity, but aimed to maintain neutrality on the matter of slavery. However, the Democrats split, with Southern Democrats supporting U.S. Vice President James Breckinridge after concerns about the lack of a federal slave code in the party platform.

Lincoln dominated in much of the north, while Bell and Breckinridge split the south and Douglas struggled to find large bases of support.

On December 18, 1860, the Crittenden Compromise was proposed to re-establish the Missouri Compromise line by constitutionally banning slavery in territories to the north of the line while guaranteeing it to the south. The adoption of this compromise likely would have prevented the secession of every southern state apart from South Carolina, but Lincoln and the Republicans rejected it. It was then proposed to hold a national referendum on the compromise. The Republicans again rejected the idea, although a majority of both Northerners and Southerners would have voted in favor of it.

The election of Lincoln caused the legislature of South Carolina to call a state convention to consider secession. Prior to the war, South Carolina did more than any other Southern state to advance the notion that a state had the right to nullify federal laws and, even, secede from the United States. The convention summoned unanimously voted to secede on December 20, 1860 and adopted the "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union". It argued for states' rights for slave owners in the South, but contained a complaint about states' rights in the North in the form of opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act, claiming that Northern states were not fulfilling their federal obligations under the Constitution.

1861

Following the secession of Florida in January 1861, Florida troops seized most Federal property in the state with the exceptions of Fort Zachary Taylor at Key West and Fort Pickens at Pensacola. The Union navy established a blockade of the coast early in the war, with the state's Atlantic coast covered by the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and the Gulf coast by the East Gulf Blockading squadron.

Among the 34 U.S. states at the beginning of 1861, seven Southern slave states with cotton-based economies individually declared their secession from the U.S. and formed the Confederate States of America. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, a total of 48.8 percent. The first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, and South Carolina cast Electoral College votes without a popular vote for president. Of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession.

Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession. Outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal.

In Kansas Territory, years of pro and anti-slavery violence and political conflict erupted; the congressional House of Representatives voted to admit Kansas as a free state in early 1860, but its admission in the Senate was delayed until after the 1860 elections when southern senators began to leave.

Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state on January 29..


 * February 1 – American Civil War: Texas secedes from the Union.
 * February 4 – American Civil War: Delegates from six seceded states meet at the Montgomery Convention in Montgomery, Alabama.
 * February 8 – American Civil War: The Confederate States of America adopts the Provisional Confederate States Constitution.
 * February 9 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Weed Convention at Montgomery, Alabama.
 * February 11 – American Civil War: The U.S. House unanimously passes a resolution guaranteeing non-interference with slavery in any state.
 * February 18 – American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional president of the Confederate States of America.
 * February 23 – President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C. after an assassination attempt in Baltimore.
 * February 28 – Colorado is organized as a United States territory.

A pre-war February Peace Conference of 1861 met in Washington, proposing a solution similar to that of the Crittenden compromise, it was rejected by Congress. The Republicans proposed an alternative compromise to not interfere with slavery where it existed but the South regarded it as insufficient.

The slave states agreed to form a new federal government, the Confederate States of America, on February 4. They took control of federal forts and other properties within their boundaries with little resistance from outgoing President Buchanan, whose term was quickly ending.

Buchanan said that the Dred Scott decision was proof that the South had no reason for secession, and that the Union "... was intended to be perpetual," but that, "The power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union," was not among the "... enumerated powers granted to Congress."

One quarter of the U.S. Army – the entire garrison in Texas – was surrendered in February 1861 to state forces by its commanding general, David E. Twiggs, who then joined the Confederacy.

As Southerners resigned their seats in the Senate and the House, Republicans were able to pass bills for projects that had been blocked by Southern Senators before the war, including the Morrill Tariff, land grant colleges (the Morill Act), a Homestead Act, a transcontinental railroad (the Pacific Railway Acts), the National Banking Act and the authorization of United States Notes by the Legal Tender Act of 1862. The Revenue Act of 1861 introduced the income tax to help finance the war.


 * March 11 – American Civil War: The Constitution of the Confederate States of America is adopted.
 * March 21 – Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, gives the infamous Cornerstone Speech in Savannah, Georgia, in which he declares that slavery is the natural condition of blacks and the foundation of the Confederacy.
 * March 28 – Confederate Arizona: convention in present-day Tucson ratified the ordinance of secession of southern part of New Mexico Territory.

Lincoln's inaugural address on March 4 declared his administration would not initiate civil war.

He argued that the Constitution was a more perfect union than the earlier Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, that it was a binding contract, and called any secession "legally void". He had no intent to invade Southern states, nor did he intend to end slavery where it existed, but said that he would use force to maintain possession of Federal property. The government would make no move to recover post offices, and if resisted, mail delivery would end at state lines. Where popular conditions did not allow peaceful enforcement of Federal law, U.S. Marshals and Judges would be withdrawn.

Speaking directly to "the Southern States," he reaffirmed, "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed and both sides prepared for war. The Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on "King Cotton" that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America.

No mention was made of bullion lost from U.S. mints in Louisiana, Georgia and North Carolina. In Lincoln's inaugural address, he stated that it would be U.S. policy to only collect import duties at its ports; there could be no serious injury to the South to justify armed revolution during his administration. His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union, famously calling on "the mystic chords of memory" binding the two regions.

The South sent delegations to Washington and offered to pay for the federal properties and enter into a peace treaty with the United States. Lincoln rejected any negotiations with Confederate agents because he claimed the Confederacy was not a legitimate government, and that making any treaty with it would be tantamount to recognition of it as a sovereign government. Secretary of State William Seward who at that time saw himself as the real governor or "prime minister" behind the throne of the inexperienced Lincoln, engaged in unauthorized and indirect negotiations that failed. President Lincoln was determined to hold all remaining Union-occupied forts in the Confederacy, Fort Monroe in Virginia, in Florida, Fort Pickens, Fort Jefferson, and Fort Taylor, and in the cockpit of secession, Charleston, South Carolina's Fort Sumter.

On March 28, the newly formed Arizona Territory voted to separate from New Mexico Territory and join the Confederacy. The move increased Union officials' fears of a secessionist movement to separate Southern California from the rest of California and join the Confederacy.

That fear was based on the demonstrated Southern Californian desire for separation from the rest of California in the overwhelming vote for the 1859 Pico Act, the strength of secessionists in the area, and their declared intentions and activities, especially in forming militia companies.

The remaining eight slave states rejected pleas to join the Confederacy following a two-to-one no-vote in Virginia's First Secessionist Convention on April 4, 1861.

Fort Sumter
Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter.

During the secession crisis following Lincoln's election as President of the United States in 1860, a group of Southern sympathizers in California made plans to secede with Oregon to form a "Pacific Republic". Their plans rested on the cooperation of Colonel (Brevet Brigadier General) Albert Sidney Johnston, headquartered in Benicia, California, who commanded all the Federal troops of the Department of the Pacific. Johnston met with some of these Southern men, but before they could propose anything to him he told them that he had heard rumors of an attempt to seize the San Francisco forts and arsenal at Benicia, that he had prepared for that, and would defend the facilities under his command with all his resources and to the last drop of his blood. He told them to tell this to their friends.

Deprived of his aid, the plans for California and Oregon to secede from the United States never came to fruition. Meanwhile, Union men feared Johnston would aid such a plot and telegraphed Washington asking for his replacement. Brig. Gen. Edwin Vose Sumner was soon sent west via Panama to replace Johnston in March 1861. Johnston resigned his commission on 9 April, and after Sumner arrived on 25 April, he turned over his command and moved with his family to Los Angeles.

After the fall of Fort Sumter, both sides scrambled to create armies. President Abraham Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the rebellion, which immediately caused the secession of four additional states, including Virginia. The United States Army had only around 16,000 men, with more than half spread out in the West. The army was commanded by the elderly Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott, veteran of the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War.

On the Confederate side, only a handful of Federal officers and men resigned and joined the Confederacy; the formation of the Confederate States Army was a matter initially undertaken by the individual states. (The decentralized nature of the Confederate defenses, encouraged by the states' distrust of a strong central government, was one of the disadvantages suffered by the South during the war.)

May
At the outbreak of the Civil War, the secession of Southern California seemed possible. The populace was largely in favor of separation from California, militias with secessionist sympathies had been formed, and Bear Flags, the banner of the Bear Flag Revolt, had been flown for several months by secessionists in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.[3] After word of the Battle of Fort Sumter reached California, there were public demonstrations by secessionists. Only San Diego had a small Union garrison. However, when three companies of Federal cavalry were moved from Fort Mojave and Fort Tejon into Camp Fitzgerald, in Los Angeles, in May–June 1861, secession quickly became impossible.

June
Some of the first hostilities occurred in western Virginia (now the state of West Virginia). The region had closer ties to Pennsylvania and Ohio than to eastern Virginia and thus were opposed to secession; a pro-Union government was soon organized and appealed to Lincoln for military protection. Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, commanding the Department of the Ohio, ordered troops to march from Grafton and attack the Confederates under Col. George A. Porterfield.

The skirmish on June 3, 1861, known as the Battle of Philippi, or the "Philippi Races", was the first land battle of the Civil War. His victory at the Battle of Rich Mountain in July was instrumental in his promotion that fall to command the Army of the Potomac. As the campaign continued through a series of minor battles, General Robert E. Lee, who, despite his excellent reputation as a former U.S. Army colonel, had no combat command experience, gave a lackluster performance that earned him the derogatory nickname "Granny Lee". He was soon transferred to the Carolinas to construct fortifications. The Union victory in this campaign enabled the creation of the state of West Virginia in 1863.

On June 10, Union Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler, based at Fort Monroe, sent converging columns from Hampton and Newport News against advanced Confederate outposts. At Big Bethel, near Fort Monroe, Colonel John B. Magruder won the first Confederate victory.

The focus early in the Western Theater was on two critical states: Missouri and Kentucky. The loss of either would have been a crippling blow to the Union cause. Primarily because of the successes of Captain Nathaniel Lyon and his victory at Boonville in June, Missouri was held in the Union. The state of Kentucky, with a pro-Confederate governor and a pro-Union legislature, had declared neutrality between the opposing sides.

July
The Confederate States Army launched a successful campaign into the United States' recently organized Territory of New Mexico (1851), of the present day states of Arizona and New Mexico. Residents in the southern portions of this Territory adopted a secession ordinance of their own and requested that Confederate States of America military forces stationed further east in nearby Texas assist them in removing Union Army forces still stationed there. The Confederate Territory of Arizona was proclaimed by Col. John Baylor after victories in the First Battle of Mesilla on July 25, 1861, at Mesilla, New Mexico, and the capture of several Union forces.

In early summer, the commander of Union field forces around Washington was Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell, an inexperienced combat officer in command of volunteer soldiers with even less experience. Many of them had enlisted for only 90 days, a period soon to expire. McDowell was pressured by politicians and major newspapers in the North to take immediate action, exhorting him "On to Richmond!" His plan was to march with 35,000 men and attack the 20,000 Confederates under Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard at Manassas. The second major Confederate force in the area, 12,000 men under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston in the Shenandoah Valley, was to be held in place by Maj. Gen. Robert Patterson with 18,000 men menacing Harpers Ferry, preventing the two Confederate armies from combining against McDowell.

On July 21, McDowell's Army of Northeastern Virginia executed a complex turning movement against Beauregard's Confederate Army of the Potomac, beginning the First Battle of Bull Run (also known as First Manassas). Although the Union troops enjoyed an early advantage and drove the Confederate left flank back, the battle advantage turned that afternoon. Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson inspired his Virginia brigade to withstand a strong Union attack, and he received his famous nickname, "Stonewall" Jackson. Timely reinforcements arrived by railroad from Johnston's army; Patterson had been ineffective in keeping them occupied. The inexperienced Union soldiers began to fall back, and it turned into a panicky retreat, with many running almost as far as Washington, D.C. Civilian and political observers, some of whom had treated the battle as festive entertainment, were caught up in the panic. The army returned safely to Washington; Beauregard's army was too tired and inexperienced to launch a pursuit. The Union defeat at First Bull Run shocked the North, and a new sense of grim determination swept the United States as military and civilians alike realized that they would need to invest significant money and manpower to win a protracted, bloody war.

Suspected by local Union authorities, General Johnston evaded arrest and joined the secessionist militia company, the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles as a private, leaving Warner's Ranch on 27 May in their journey across the southwestern deserts to Texas, crossing the Colorado River into the Confederate Territory of Arizona, on 4 July. A. J. King, Undersheriff of Los Angeles County, and other influential men in El Monte, California, that had formed another secessionist militia on 23 March, the Monte Mounted Rifles, were thwarted in their plans to assist Johnston when Undersheriff King ran afoul of Federal authorities and when army officers at San Pedro held up a shipment of arms from John G. Downey, the Governor of California, preventing the activation of the Rifles.

August
George B. McClellan was summoned east in August to command the newly forming Army of the Potomac, which would become the principal army of the Eastern Theater. As a former railroad executive, he possessed outstanding organizational skills well-suited to the tasks of training and administration. He was also strongly ambitious.

North Carolina was an important area to the Confederacy because of the vital seaport of Wilmington and because the Outer Banks were valuable bases for ships attempting to evade the Union blockade. Benjamin Butler sailed from Fort Monroe and captured the batteries at Hatteras Inlet in August 1861.

Charged with all the supervision of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Santa Barbara counties, on 16 August Major William Scott Ketchum steamed from San Francisco to San Pedro and made a rapid march to encamp near San Bernardino on 26 August, and with Companies D and G of the 4th Infantry Regiment later reinforced at the beginning of September by a detachment of 90 First U.S. Dragoons and a howitzer. Except for frequent sniping at his camp, Ketchum's garrison stifled any secessionist uprising from Belleville, California and a show of force by the Dragoons in the streets of San Bernardino at the end of election day quelled a secessionist political demonstration during the September gubernatorial elections in San Bernardino County. Union commanders would rely on the San Bernardino Mounted Rifles and Captain Clarence E. Bennett for intelligence and help in holding the pro-Southern San Bernardino County for the Union in late 1861 as Federal troops were being withdrawn and replaced by California Volunteers.

September
Neutrality in Kentucky was first violated on September 3, when Confederate Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk occupied Columbus, considered key to controlling the Lower Mississippi. Two days later Union Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, displaying the personal initiative that would characterize his later career, seized Paducah. Henceforth, neither adversary respected the proclaimed neutrality of the state; while the most of the state government remained loyal to the Union, the pro-Confederate elements of the legislature organized a separate government in Russellville that was admitted into the Confederate States. This sequence of events is considered a victory for the Union because Kentucky never formally sided with the Confederacy, and if the Union had been prevented from maneuvering within Kentucky, its later successful campaigns in Tennessee would have been more difficult.

On 25 September, the District of Southern California was established, with its first Headquarters at Camp Latham, west of Los Angeles; this was later moved to Drum Barracks. This District was first formed to control the secessionist majority population in Southern California. This district included Tulare County to the north, which at the time was much larger than it is now, including all of what is now Kings, Kern, and Inyo counties and part of Fresno County. From Camp Latham, Ketchum's regular soldiers were relieved on October 20 by three companies of the 1st California Cavalry sent out to San Bernardino County and establish Camp Carleton and later Camp Morris. Volunteer troops were also sent to Camp Wright in San Diego County to watch the southern overland approach to California across the Colorado Desert from Fort Yuma, located on the west bank of the Colorado River. They were also to intercept secessionist sympathizers traveling to the east to join the Confederate Army.

November
November 1, he had maneuvered around Winfield Scott and was named general-in-chief of all the Union armies, despite the embarrassing defeat of an expedition he sent up the Potomac River at the Battle of Balls Bluff in October.

December
On the Confederate side, General Albert Sidney Johnston commanded all forces from Arkansas to the Cumberland Gap. He was faced with the problem of defending a broad front with numerically inferior forces, but he had an excellent system of lateral communications, permitting him to move troops rapidly where they were needed, and he had two able subordinates, Polk and Maj. Gen. William J. Hardee. Johnston also gained political support from secessionists in central and western counties of Kentucky via a new Confederate capital at Bowling Green, set up by the Russellville Convention.

The alternative government was recognized by the Confederate government, which admitted Kentucky into the Confederacy in December 1861. Using the rail system resources of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, Polk was able to quickly fortify and equip the Confederate base at Columbus.

= References =

Chaitin, Peter M. The Coastal War: Chesapeake Bay to Rio Grande. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1984. ISBN 0-8094-4732-0.