11

THE WAR ON THE HOME FRONT: THE DRAFT AND CIVIL UNREST

“Conscription was neither equitable nor popular in either the North or the South. Both systems favored the rich. In the North, draft liability could be commuted for a $300 fee, while in the South owners of slaves were exempted … The governors of Confederate states exempted tens of thousands of men from draft liability.”

— David R. Segal, Recruiting for Uncle Sam

Tensions between the North and South had been building for nearly fifty years prior to the outbreak of war, yet when armed conflict did erupt, it came as a surprise to many people. While the question had been raised several times in the past whether an individual state had the right to withdraw from the nation, or whether several states could form a new confederacy, it had never so dramatically demanded an answer.

When civil war erupted in early 1861, it was in response to states rights, and not directly due to the issue of slavery. Nonetheless, almost all the rifts of the preceding decades could be attributed to differences between abolitionists and radical Republicans in the North and proslavery Democrats in the South.

In the years immediately preceding the war, three historic events that set the stage for Southern secession were all concerned with the issue of slavery. In early 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the various U.S. territories, but Republicans and even many Northern Democrats refused to accept this opinion. Soon after, newly elected Democratic President James Buchanan (1857–1861) asked Congress to admit Kansas to the Union as a slave state, an act that enraged many Northern politicians and voters and contributed to the election of abolitionist Republican Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Tensions continued to smolder throughout Buchanan's unpopular presidency and, in 1859, fanatical abolitionist John Brown attacked the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), hoping to ignite a general slave uprising.

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln assumed broad powers in order to see the country through the crisis of civil war, and was regarded by some as a dictator. His unwavering resolve, however, helped move the United States toward reunification and reconciliation.

After Lincoln was elected in November 1860, Southern states began to secede. Seven left the Union and formed the Confederate States of America by the time the new U.S. president was inaugurated in March 1861. Despite a conciliatory inaugural speech, the seceding states remained recalcitrant, seizing Federal forts and arsenals in the South, raising troops, and granting commissions in their own forces to Southern officers who had or were willing to resign their commissions in the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Revenue Cutter Service.

On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces commanded by Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire on the Union garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, igniting war between the followers of the two opposing governments and flinging the country into turmoil. (An overview of the war can be found in Appendix B. Thousands of books contain descriptions of the various battles of the war, and several of the best resources can be found in Appendix C and Appendix D.)

The Northern View

Cries of “On to Richmond” resounded throughout the Northern states as war hysteria spread and the Union began to implement the Anaconda Plan. Thousands of ninety-day volunteers rushed to join state regiments, and the country moved to put down the rebellion and restore the Union. This goal marked the Northern struggle from beginning to end, as exemplified by Abraham Lincoln.

Unfortunately, many of the Union's other leaders were not so steadfast in their resolve. Maj. Gen. George McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac, the main Union army in the East, demonstrated great organizational talents in training troops and organizing military units. However, he consistently refused to engage the enemy in battle, and after he botched the 1862 Peninsula Campaign—a plodding attempt to capture Richmond—and refused to pursue and destroy the Confederate army after the September 1862 Battle of Antietam, Lincoln finally removed him from command in November 1862. Generals who immediately followed McClellan were, unfortunately, not much more satisfactory.

As the death toll from the conflict mounted, Lincoln feared that preserving the Union alone might not be enough to maintain public support for the war, and he announced a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in the wake of Antietam and followed it with a formal proclamation on January 1, 1863. From that point onward, the war was no longer simply a pragmatic one of national unity, but also a moral one of abolition.

In the last years of the war, hard-edged generals like Ulysses S. Grant inexorably led the Union to victory against the Confederacy.

Some Northerners, however, resented the idea that they might be forced to fight for the rights of blacks. When a draft was initiated in 1863, riots broke out in many Northern cities. The worst was in New York City, where the riots were led by Irish immigrants, who, being at the bottom of the social ladder, disliked the idea that blacks might advance socially and feared having to compete with them for jobs. Irish volunteer firemen attacked the officials drawing the names of those being drafted, battled with the police, and assaulted blacks on the streets, hanging many from lampposts and even burning an orphanage for black children. In the course of the violence, stores and warehouses were looted and burned. Finally, heavy rains, the police, and troops ordered in from the battlefield at Gettysburg were able to subdue the violence, which lasted for three days.

Some Northerners, however, resented the idea that they might be forced to fight for the rights of blacks. When a draft was initiated in 1863, riots broke out in many Northern cities.

Various pro-Southern and antiwar organizations also worked against the Union cause or on behalf of the Confederacy during the war, mostly in the slave-holding border states and in the Midwest. Such groups included the Copperheads and the Knights of the Golden Circle.

For more than a year, Lincoln dealt with a series of senior generals, among them Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, and Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, who he considered inadequate in terms of competence, aggressiveness, or a desire to preserve the Union. But by March 1864, he had found an able general whose attitudes about the war matched his own, and placed Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the head of all the armies of the United States. Grant, along with Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman in the West, was concerned not with capturing Richmond, but rather with a strategy of total war, annihilating the Confederate military forces, and destroying the South's infrastructure and ability to fight.

Early in the election of 1864, there was some notion that Union soldiers would rally around Democratic peace candidate George McClellan. The Democratic platform, however, was confused and at odds with itself, and many soldiers preferred to see the war to its conclusion, rather than acknowledge defeat and see all they had fought and suffered for thrown away. Lincoln went on to win an undisputed victory in the North.

Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy's greatest general, led the Army of Northern Virginia and drove it to perform almost superhuman feats.

War ended within months of Lincoln's second inauguration. When he was assassinated, just five days after Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant, he was elevated to the status of a martyr in the minds of many contemporary Americans.

The Southern View

In 1861, Southerners at all levels of society had a variety of reasons for linking their fates to the Confederacy. Loyalty to individual states, a burgeoning quasi-nationalism, and a sense of states' rights all played a part in the decision of Southerners to secede from the Union and form their own independent government.

Just as important, however, was that a relatively small, rich, very powerful landed aristocracy saw their wealth, lifestyle, and other interests threatened. This landholding upper class, along with most other whites in the South, feared that antislavery forces in the North would eventually have slavery abolished, destroying the South's plantation-based economy.

Such feelings were by no means universal. Indeed, there were pro-Union elements in every Southern state, and in some—notably Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia—large segments of the population were opposed to secession, mostly yeoman farmers who did not own slaves and ultimately had nothing to gain from rebellion.

Morale of soldiers and civilians was as important in the South as in the North. Shortages of staple food items and consumer goods caused by federal blockades of Southern ports contributed to sagging Southern morale and bread riots erupted in Richmond and a few other Confederate cities in 1863. Soldiers increasingly received letters from home telling of the hardships their loved ones were suffering, something that led to higher rates of desertion amongst Confederate forces than in the North.

After the twin defeats of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in the summer of 1863, the Confederacy lost all hope of European support and much of its ability to take the war onto Northern soil. From that point onward, the war became a slow, bloody struggle for survival that the South realized it was less and less able to win.

Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his forces to Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, on April 9, 1865. Influenced by Lincoln, Grant went out of his way to keep from humiliating the defeated Rebels.

Union forces intensified their operations in the South in 1864, destroying farms, cities, railroads, and anything else the Confederacy needed to continue fighting. Desertions soared as soldiers abandoned the army and returned to their homes and families. On April 9, 1865, with his army starving and undermanned, Gen. Lee surrendered to Lt. Gen. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia.

Other Confederate commands continued their increasingly hopeless struggle for several months but, before long, war ended for the South and Reconstruction loomed ahead of it.

Who Fought?

It is easy to think of the Civil War as simply being a conflict between two great armies of white men, along with some African Americans near the end of the war. Northerners and Southerners, however, could further be divided into men and women; officers and enlisted soldiers; whites and blacks; and many ethnic groups, including English, American Indians, Irish, Germans, Italians, and Jews. And, while a great many people came from families who had lived in America for several generations, there were also many people whose parents, or themselves, were immigrants. Consequently, many different sorts of people fought in or were otherwise directly affected by the Civil War.

Every state loyal to the Union provided regiments of soldiers to the U.S. military, every state that joined the Confederacy provided regiments of troops for the defense of the South—especially Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia—and some states, notably the Northern slave states, provided regiments of troops to each side. And, within each state, there were individuals who chose to throw in their lot with one side or the other, based on a variety of personal reasons and circumstances. While both sides struggled to keep their ranks full throughout the war, the Confederacy in particular suffered from a continual shortage of manpower.

Union soldiers and sailors were mainly white, but significant numbers of blacks and American Indians also served. Confederate soldiers were also mainly white and included some American Indians (policies preventing blacks from fighting in the Southern forces were not repealed until near the end of the war, too late for any to be put into uniform). In many cases, the Confederacy was so undermanned that it had to make do with anyone it could attract into the service. In the C.S. Navy, for example, many sailors were not Americans at all, but rather sailors and adventurers from a variety of nations, notably Great Britain.

Beyond simply being “white,” many of the soldiers on both sides came from ethnic groups that, if anything, were more distinct during the Civil War than they are today. Soldiers often formed into regiments made up wholly or largely of troops from the same ethnic background.

Regional nicknames became common during the Civil War, as units from around the country came into contact with each other. For example, “Dutchman” was used for anyone of German origin, and “Mick” was a disparaging term for an Irishman. That such terms are listed in this chapter should not be taken as a sanctioning of their usage.

Germans

About a million Germans lived in the United States when the Civil War broke out, about half of them having arrived since the German Revolution of 1848. These immigrants made their homes mostly in the large urban areas of Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and St. Louis (although significant numbers also settled in southern Texas). By 1860, the country had twenty-eight German-language daily newspapers in fifteen cities. Because of the areas they occupied, Germans were widely represented in the Union military forces and much less so in the Confederate forces.

Several all-German regiments served in the Union forces, many in the XI Corps, and there were also a number of German artillery units. Germans who fought for the Union included generals Franz Sigel, August von Kautz, Godfrey Weitzel, and Carl Schurz, whose career as a professor at the University of Bonn was dashed by his role in the German Revolution. Among the most famous Germans to fight for the South were Capt. Justus Scheibert and Maj. Johann August Heinrich Heros von Borcke, both of whom served as Confederate staff officers (neither of them were Americans, however, and both ultimately returned to Germany).

Nicknames applied to Germans in the mid-nineteenth century included “cabbagehead,” “sauerkraut” and “sausage.” “Prussian,” from the northern German region, had long been applied to Germans in general, but during the nineteenth century was also applied to arrogant or militaristic Germans. Similarly, “Junker,” a word for a German nobleman, was used increasingly during the 1800s to mean an overbearing or militaristic German. “Dutch,” from the German Deutsche, or “German,” was also used in nicknames (e.g., a German bartender or neighbor might be referred to as “the Dutchman”).

In the C.S. Navy, many sailors were not Americans, but rather sailors and adventurers from other nations, notably Great Britain.

Hispanics

About ten thousand Americans of Spanish descent fought on both sides of the Civil War. In the Southwest, many Tejanos, Hispanic natives of Texas, fought in most of the ninety-or-so actions fought in Texas. It is uncertain if there were any non-Tejano all-Hispanic regiments, but there probably were not. A number of individual Hispanic soldiers became prominent during the war, among them Union generals Don Carlos Buell and Edward Ferrero.

In the 1800s, the most common derogatory term for a Hispanic was “Dago,” from the common Spanish name Diego (it was not until the late 1880s that it was applied mainly to Italians). “Greaser” was a common epithet for Mexicans that originated in Texas during the 1830s prior to the Mexican War.

By 1860, the country had twenty-eight German-language daily newspapers in fifteen cities. Because of the areas they occupied, Germans were widely represented in the Union military forces and much less so in the Confederate forces.

Irish

In 1846, the Irish Potato Famine caused a mass exodus of people from Ireland and, by 1860, more than 1.5 million Irish immigrants lived in America, as well as many people of Irish descent. Large numbers of Irish fought on both sides during the war, more than 150,000 of them for the North, which fielded a number of Irish regiments and an entire Irish brigade. An uncertain number of Irishmen fought for the South, which was home to fewer Irish immigrants, and, as a result, colorful all-Irish units are a phenomenon associated with the Union armies.

After the war, some Irish soldiers were drawn to the Fenians, a quasimilitary organization equipped with surplus Civil War weapons that made a number of abortive military attacks into British-controlled Canada.

Common terms used to refer to the Irish in mid-nineteenth century America included “Paddy,” “Pat,” “Irisher,” “Irish American,” and the disparaging “Mick.”

Italians

Italians were one of the smaller European minorities in America at the time of the Civil War (although millions immigrated to the United States in the decades following the war). Nonetheless, Italians—many of them former followers of Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi—fought on both sides during the war, especially for the North.

Many of these former republican revolutionaries identified with the Union cause, and some of them joined the 39th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment. It was known as the Garibaldi Guard for its large number of Italian soldiers and was distinguished by red shirts similar to the ones they had worn when fighting tyranny in Italy.

Prominent Italians during the Civil War included Brig. Gen. Luigi Palma di Cesnola, whose military academy in New York City trained many young Italians for Union military service; Luigi Tinelli, a militia commander; and Francesco Spinola, who raised four regiments of Italian-Americans and led them as their general.

Women

Although women were not generally allowed to join the military at the time of the Civil War, a number found ways to serve the armed forces on both sides, some of them in uniform. Most of these were vivandieres or cantinieres (see chapter 12)—a European concept American military observers brought back from the 1853–1856 Crimean War—women or girls attached mostly to Union armies who carried water and ammunition to soldiers in combat, helped the wounded, and carried messages between commanders and their troops.

Notable women in uniform included Sally Tompkins, who ran a hospital in Richmond and was rewarded with the rank and pay of a captain, and Bridget Divers, who served as a trooper in her husband's unit, the First Michigan Cavalry. Quite a number of other women also served, almost always posing as men. When discovered, most were either honorably discharged or simply dismissed from service.

African Americans

In 1860, about 344,000 free blacks lived in the North, while nearly nine times as many, about three million, were enslaved in the South (which was also home to about 133,000 free blacks).

After the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans were allowed to enlist in the U.S. Army and about 179,000 of them did, many of them former slaves from areas occupied by Federal forces. Such black soldiers, however, were not treated particularly well. Pay for their first year in service was about half that of white troops, something that caused many morale and pay problems; casualty rates in combat were about 35 percent higher than average white units, in part because Confederate troops were less likely to take black prisoners; twice as many succumbed to disease, largely because they were poorly clothed; and fewer than one hundred were made officers, none of them greater than the rank of captain. About 37,300 of those who served were killed.

The 39th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment was known as the Garibaldi Guard for its large number of Italian soldiers, some of whom were former republican revolutionaries.

In the South, legislation was passed in March 1865 allowing blacks to enlist in the Confederate army, although it is not likely that many would have willingly joined. Before this effort could be organized, however, the war was over.

African Americans were referred to as “negroes,” “blacks” or “niggers,” a term which, while never benign, did not acquire its most hateful connotations until the years following the Civil War.

Slavery

Slaves were a part of American society from its earliest days and, by the time the Civil War broke out, at least three million slaves lived in the Southern states.

In 1860, about 344,000 free blacks lived in the North and about three million slaves lived in the South (which was also home to about 133,000 free blacks).

Slavery as an institution had become unprofitable by the end of the eighteenth century and was waning. The introduction of revolutionary new agricultural equipment like the cotton gin, however, once again turned large-scale plantation slavery into a paying proposition. Prices of slaves rose throughout the nineteenth century, increasingly as slavery was curtailed in the North and the territories. A healthy, young black male slave, who cost $500 in the 1830s, cost $1,800 by the late 1850s. Even as antislavery sentiment strengthened in the North, a Southern aristocracy grew increasingly rich from the fruits of slavery and became increasingly determined to ensure its continued survival.

Because of the vested interest the South had in the plantation system, slavery remained viable in America well after it had been abolished by other nations. Britain outlawed the slave trade in 1807, authorizing the search and seizure of ships suspected of carrying slaves and payment for their liberation, and completely outlawed slavery in 1833. By 1840, Spain and Portugal had also officially outlawed the slave trade, but Portuguese ships remained a major source of smuggled slaves throughout the century. And throughout much of Africa and the Middle East slavery remained an institution for many years (even up to the present day in some areas).

Abolitionist sentiment had acquired momentum in America by 1831, with publication of the antislavery newspaper The Liberator. In 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society was founded in Philadelphia, and by 1840 the Underground Railroad was actively helping slaves escape into the North and Canada.

TYPICAL UNION AND CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS

Following are descriptions adapted from some created by the Gettysburg National Military Park of the typical combatants who served in the ranks of the opposing armies.

The typical Union soldier had been a farmer before the war who volunteered to defend his home and put down the rebellion of the Southern states. Like his Confederate enemies, he probably enlisted for the excitement of leaving the farm for a war that most believed would last only three months, but he also had patriotic reasons. Most Northern soldiers believed very strongly in the Federal government and despised the unjust accusations of southern politicians and secessionists. The departure of the southern states was a rebellion, and the Confederacy had to be brought back into the Union, whether they liked it or not! Most of the first volunteers were at least twenty years old, although there were others who were considerably younger. Most northern states required a man to be eighteen years old to stand in the ranks with a musket but some teenagers lied about their ages and got into the ranks anyway. As the need for manpower grew, teenage boys were accepted as musicians and older men were enrolled as quartermaster assistants, surgeons, and officers. By the time of the Battle of Gettysburg, the average age of a Union soldier in the rank-and-file was twenty-four though there were also quite a number of older soldiers, including many in their mid-forties.

With war on the horizon, in early 1861 the newly-formed Confederate government appealed to the Southern states to raise regiments of infantry, artillery, and cavalry. Many southerners responded to this appeal and enlisted for three or six months of service in state organizations known as volunteer regiments. As in the Union forces, the Confederacy soon found that it needed these regiments much longer than it had predicted and the length of service was changed to three years. The typical Confederate soldier had been a farmer prior to the outbreak of the war and by the time the Battle of Gettysburg was a lean veteran of many hard-fought battles. Southern volunteers enlisted for what they considered to be patriotic reasons — to protect their homes, state borders, and laws, and abandon a Federal government that was not representing their interests. A typical one-hundred-man company of soldiers was raised in the county where they lived. Once they were organized and offered to the state, the company went to a training camp usually located near the state capitol. They were then organized into regiments, elected officers, received clothing and arms, and began the process of becoming soldiers.

While abolitionist sentiment continued to grow, spurred in large part by books like Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, few people in the North actively opposed slavery until it became the major issue in the 1860 presidential campaign (for example, in the 1857 Dred Scott decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that neither slaves nor their dependents could be citizens of the nation or any state within it). In his speech accepting the Republican nomination, Lincoln summed up the political dilemma of slavery by stating that a country could not survive half-free and half-slave.

Thus, on the eve of the war, slavery existed largely in the South. Only about a quarter of Southern whites actually owned slaves and, of those who did, nearly nine out of ten owned fewer than twenty. In the Deep South, the majority of slaves lived and labored on cotton plantations, most of which had fifty or fewer slaves but some of which had several hundred. About half of all slaves in the South lived on plantations, working either as “field slaves” or in the homes of their masters as “house servants.” Enslaved blacks were also referred to as “slaves,” “negroes,” “blacks,” “niggers” or, by those squeamish about slavery, as “servants.”

Only about a quarter of Southern whites actually owned slaves and, of those who did, nearly nine out of ten owned fewer than twenty.

Slaves made up nearly a quarter of the population of many Southern cities and, in some, such as Charleston, South Carolina, actually outnumbered whites. Many of these slaves worked as house servants, but many others worked at trades, such as baking, blacksmithing, carpentry, and cobbling. Skilled slaves were often hired out by their masters, and slaves were sometimes allowed to hire themselves out.

Sale was a constant threat to most slaves, and even those owned by relatively benign masters might be sold if they had to pay off debts. Fathers, mothers, and children, not to mention grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles, might be sold off individually and separated forever, without any recourse. Being sold to a more undesirable location was also used as a punishment.

Discipline on the plantation was maintained by the slave masters and their overseers through physical punishment or the threat of it. Even slave owners who were considered kind or lenient were likely to resort to whippings at times, and the harshest masters employed mutilation, torture, and killing to enforce their rules. Offenses that could lead to a slave being beaten included talking back, working slowly, being late to the fields, or trying to run away.

Nonetheless, thousands of slaves did run away. Many were subsequently caught and brought back to face punishment, while some grew fearful and returned on their own. Some escaped for good, to the North, Canada, or the territories, or lived in small communities in the wilderness.

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation laid the groundwork for ending slavery throughout the United States and, two years later in 1865, passage of the Thirteenth Amendment made slavery illegal under the Constitution.

Filling the Ranks

Early in the war, volunteers flocked to join state regiments in great numbers, responding to the calls from presidents Abraham Lincoln in the North and Jefferson Davis in the South and from their own local leaders.

Unfortunately, recruiters were not very selective, and many men with disqualifying factors, including physical disabilities, were nonetheless enlisted. Once units were formed, however, regimental surgeons tended to be fairly discriminating in removing unsuitable enlistees prior to combat. As the war dragged on and stories of its horrors drifted home in letters and from soldiers maimed and discharged, enthusiasm waned among enlistees, and it became more and more difficult for states to form new regiments. Eventually, the personnel needs of the opposing armed forces could not be met by volunteers alone and they had to seek other methods.

The Draft

Troop shortages were felt first in the Confederacy and then in the Union. This need for additional troops resulted in the passage of the Confederate Conscription Act of April 16, 1862, in the South and the Enrollment Act of March 3, 1863, in the North.

The Confederate law required troops already in the army to serve an additional two years and subjected white males aged eighteen to thirty-five to three-year enlistments (later, in 1863, the upper age was raised to forty-five and by 1864, the range was widened to ages seventeen to fifty). Initially, there were various exemptions, notably for slave owners. By 1863, however, slave owners had to pay a $500 “commutation fee” to be exempted, and substitutions were prohibited.

The Union conscription law made men aged twenty to forty-five subject to conscription. While no exemptions were allowed, Northern men could hire substitutes or pay a $300 commutation fee each time their names were drawn in the draft lotteries.

Whether or not the intent of substitutions, exemptions, or commutation fees were to allow the more affluent to avoid military service, this was their practical effect, a fact that did not escape the attention of those who could not afford these options.

Questions also arose on both sides as to the legality of draft laws. Southern governors, particularly Joseph Brown of Georgia, vehemently objected to conscription, and insisted that a central government did not have the power to enforce such laws over a confederacy of independent states. In the North, citizens reacted to the draft laws in many cases by rioting.

Ultimately, only about 2 percent of the troops in Union armies were draftees, while about 20 percent of Confederate soldiers were drafted.

Bounties

In the North, soldiers were not drafted from districts that could fill their troop quotas with volunteers. Thus, local citizens, politicians, and draft boards sought ways to entice enough people to join the military so that no one who did not wish to go would be forced. Bounties were one of the most widespread methods.

Ultimately, only about 2 percent of the troops in Union armies were draftees, while about 20 percent of Confederate soldiers were drafted.

Cities offered “volunteers” as much as $1,000 cash to enlist in their districts and often filled all of their troop requirements in this way. Unfortunately, the caliber of such men was almost uniformly bad. While many were family men trying to take advantage of a financial windfall, a disproportionate number were rogues or petty criminals who became bounty jumpers, taking bounties, enlisting, deserting, and then moving on to new areas and enlisting again in return for other bounties. Penalties for desertion could be as severe as execution, but bounty jumpers were actually caught so rarely that threat of death did not markedly curb the practice.

When bounty jumpers did end up in units, they were almost always worthless as soldiers. They dragged down unit morale, caused excessive punishments to be instituted, and often had to be assigned to noncombat duties by commanders (for example as hospital orderlies, where they routinely robbed the sick and wounded of their own armies).

Criminals

While most Civil War soldiers were decent men, a substantial number of criminals ended up in the ranks of both sides, particularly the Union army, which attracted an unsavory element with its bounty system. And, just as a criminal element found ways to profit from the war, so too, was a brand of violent criminal created by the war. Men from both sides acquired a taste for killing and adventure during the Civil War, tastes that they sought to fulfill even after the end of hostilities.

Jesse James was one of the most famous of such outlaws. Born in Clay County, Missouri, in 1847, James was only fourteen when the war began. His family's farm was twice ravaged by pro-Union militia raids and, at the age of fifteen, he joined William Quantrill's band of Confederate mounted guerrilla “bushwhackers.” Quantrill's Raiders — a name that caught on in postwar reunions — were among the most savage irregular cavalry units of the war and were, debatably, little more than heavily-armed outlaws who took advantage of the chaos of war to ply their trade.

After the war, many of the men from units like Quantrill's continued to use the skills they had honed during the war to further criminal careers, among them James, who after the war was an outlaw until his death in 1882.

Reconstruction

As early as 1863, leaders in the North began to discuss how to “reconstruct” the South after the final shots of the war were fired. The Reconstruction period lasted for twelve years, from 1865 to 1877, during which Union troops occupied the secessionist Southern states and the Federal government strove to change the region's political and social institutions. It was the U.S. government's first major attempt at what would a century later be known as “nation building” — and, like those that would follow, it was marked by animosity and only limited success.

Many of the measures imposed under Reconstruction were intended to be retributive, and thousands of carpetbaggers flooded the devastated South seeking personal gain. These factors made Reconstruction a difficult, painful time for the South, and created many long-term resentments in its residents.

Lincoln and his closest generals had favored a plan for Reconstruction that would have helped mend the rifts of the war; had Lincoln survived, the country might have been less painfully reunified. Andrew Johnson, however, a Southerner himself, did not have the popularity or political force to see Lincoln's plan through, and his attempts led to his impeachment (although his opponents failed to remove him from office).

Three amendments to the U.S. Constitution were ratified during this period, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth, and these “Reconstruction Amendments” were intended to guarantee equality under the law to the entire adult male population of the country, regardless of race.

All of the seceding states were readmitted to the Union by early 1870, but violence, civil unrest, and military occupation continued throughout various parts of the South as late as 1877.

All of the seceding states were readmitted to the Union by early 1870, but violence, civil unrest, and military occupation continued throughout various parts of the South as late as 1877.

American Terrorism

During this period, many white Southerners resented the ability of newly enfranchised black voters to vote into office hated Republican politicians, black and white alike, and some of them reacted by forming white supremacy groups. Likewise, some former Rebel soldiers were not willing to surrender at the conclusion of the conflict and carried on a clandestine war in the guise of night riders, attacking freed blacks, Union military forces, and Republican politicians.

Many domestic terrorist organizations grew out of such activities during the era of Reconstruction, especially in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. One of the best-known and most successful of such groups was the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a secret society of white Southerners opposed to blacks, the Republican party, and the Federal government, which conducted terrorist activities during the period 1866–1872. It eventually absorbed many of the smaller groups that were active immediately after the conclusion of the war. For a time, the KKK was led by former Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who so hated blacks that he had ordered the slaughter of those serving as Union soldiers when they attempted to surrender during the war.

KKK members were sworn to secrecy and hid their identities behind white robes and hooded masks. Groups of them, using the flaming cross as their symbol, were especially active during election campaigns, when they used violence, rape, murder, and intimidation to help sway votes and prevent Republican political victories in their states. Favorite targets were local Republican leaders — both white and black — and blacks who no longer conformed to the antebellum standards of conduct.

In areas under Republican control, authorities were hard-pressed to quell the violence and were loathe to send their mostly black state militias against the KKK for fear of provoking a full-blown race war. In areas under Democratic control, the authorities themselves were frequently KKK members or sympathizers. Even when local law enforcement authorities did take action, KKK members often sat on juries or the judge's bench and saw that little or no justice would be meted out.

By the 1870s, most Americans — Northern and Southern alike — agreed that the KKK was out of control and even Forrest renounced their activities. In 1871, the Republican-led Congress authorized President Ulysses S. Grant to use Federal troops to restore order in the worst areas, where they had the power to arrest suspects and hold them indefinitely without trial (under the provisions of posse comitatus, it is normally illegal for government troops to be used as police against U.S. citizens, a fact as true today as it was in the 1870s).

By 1872, the KKK was dead as an organization, although there was a resurgence of violence as a political tool by smaller Southern groups, including the Red Shirts and the White League, from 1874 to 1877. It was not until 1915, however, that the name and iconography of the KKK was once again readopted.

Terms

ANACONDA PLAN: A plan for subduing the South formulated under Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott in early 1861. It called for a naval blockade of Southern ports, military control of the Mississippi River Valley so as to split the South in two, and placement of Federal armies to contain the movement of Confederate forces. Scott estimated a year of such treatment would force the South to capitulate. Lincoln initiated the first two components of the plan, but believed the third would be ineffective and called for a massive military buildup. The aging and infirm Scott resigned and was replaced by his field commander, Maj. Gen. George McClellan, a man forty years his junior.

BOUNTY JUMPER: Volunteers who joined the Union Army in exchange for sizable cash bounties offered in the latter half of the war but then deserted and reenlisted under different names for additional bounties. This process could be repeated almost limitlessly and generally with little fear of consequences. When bounty jumpers were caught, however, they were often shot.

CARPETBAGGERS: A Southern term for unscrupulous adventurers from the North who swarmed into the South during Reconstruction in search of political offices and financial gain. This name derived from a popular form of cheap luggage, the carpetbag, which many of them carried.

COPPERHEAD: A derogatory term used during the war to refer to Northerners with Southern sympathies who were considered capable of striking without warning — like the snake of the same name — against the Union war effort. People with such sympathies were strongest in the Midwest, which was home to many people of Southern descent. The most well-known Copperhead was Ohio politician Clement L. Vallandigham. Copperheads tended to be anti-black, conservative “peace Democrats” who sensed that the war was forever changing the ideal of an egalitarian, rural America. They favored state's rights over a stronger central government and believed that Lincoln's policies were destroying constitutional government. While they did win some local elections and exerted some influence within the Democratic party, the Copperheads were not ultimately very influential. Nonetheless, for years after the war the Democratic party suffered from charges of “Copperheadism.”

FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT: An amendment to the U.S. Constitution that prohibited the Federal or state governments from infringing on a citizen's right to vote on account of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (that is, having been enslaved). It was ratified February 3, 1870.

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT: An amendment to the U.S. Constitution adopted July 9, 1865, which provides a broad definition of citizenship; prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without first taking certain steps; and requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction.

KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE: A secret pro-Southern organization that flourished in the Midwest during the 1850s. During the war, this organization was thought to have been active on behalf of the Confederacy and may have had connections with the Copperheads.

SLAVE CODES: Legal codes established in Southern states that defined slaves as property rather than people. The codes prevented them from testifying in court against whites, learning to read or write, making contracts, leaving a plantation without permission, striking a white, buying or selling goods, owning firearms, gathering without white supervision, possessing antislavery literature, or visiting the homes of whites or free blacks. Slave patrols — similar to local militias — enforced the codes and arrested slaves who had left plantations, broke up unauthorized gatherings, and searched slave quarters for contraband. When slave insurrections were rumored or actually occurred, local slave codes were more strictly enforced and vigilance committees were often formed, beating, killing, and terrorizing blacks.

THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT: An amendment to the U.S. Constitution adopted December 6, 1865, abolishing and prohibiting the institution of slavery. It states that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” and that “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”