ch.22: The Gettysburg Address

A primarily focus of this chapter is the Gettysburg Address. Do most kids still have to learn the speech word-for-word when they are young? If not, they should. I think everyone should read and understand the Gettysburg Address and think about what Lincoln was trying to say—about the war, the county, and the Constitution. You can peruse the speech on page 586 of Team of Rivals or go here to read it.

Lincoln was also beginning to cobble together a Reconstruction plan. It is clear from reading this chapter that this task was going to cause some serious political difficulties. Most historians agree, however, that had Lincoln lived, he might have been able to bring all the sides together to agree on some Reconstruction fundamentals.

Unfortunately, Andrew Johnson could not do this.  

ch.21: The Summer of '63

As Doris Kearns writes at the start of this chapter, “the summer of 1863 marked a critical transformation in the Union war effort.” Many things were taking place that would alter the course of the war. Let’s go over a few of them.

1. Lincoln decided to organize and deploy black troops. One can only imagine the impact this had in the South. Not so much in military terms, but just seeing black soldiers must have horrified the rebels. It was slavery and the race issue that caused the war. Now they have to fight against former slaves and freed blacks. The nation was indeed changing and the Southerners had to know that their day was past.

2. Things were going well in Tennessee for Union forces. Lincoln had always considered Tennessee an important military sector. It looked like that area, and its critical rivers, would soon be in Union hands.

3. The important battle of Gettysburg took place in early July of 1863. If you watched the Ken Burns Civil War series on PBS you probably know something about this 3-day battle (if not, watch the entire series, it is wonderful!). This was probably the turning-point for the Union forces. After suffering several defeats in early 1863, the men in blue turned back General Lee at Gettysburg. Lee suffered tremendous losses in his ill-fated Pickett’s charge on the last day of the battle. The high-tide of the Confederacy had been reached.

4. Ulysses S. Grant secured Vicksburg on July 4—the same day as the Union victory at Gettysburg. This key city on the Mississippi River further hemmed in rebel forces.


So Lincoln was hopeful that the war would end soon. But unfortunately, that would still take some time. Even though the Union armies now had the upper hand, many tough battles were still to come.         

ch.20: War Aims

When I teach my American Civil War class, there comes a time when we discuss military strategy. In Team of Rivals, you are now readings about battles and generals; as well as military wins and losses. So it seems a good time for you to consider what each side was attempting to achieve in this Civil War.

Take a look at the questions in the following scenario. Think about all of them from the perspective of both the Union and Confederate sides. Ponder these questions as you finish the book  Post your comments and/or talk to your friends about your answers. I think you will understand the Civil War much better after thinking about and examining these questions. And there are no right or wrong answers!         


You are a special group of high-level military and civilian strategists. Your group has been asked by the president (Lincoln/Davis) to devise an overall strategy for the war. The president is trying to decide on a comprehensive plan on how to fight and win the impending civil conflict. He also needs policy recommendations on a number of other specific issues. Some issues that he wants you to discuss include:

• Where to fight the war: what geographical areas should you focus upon and why?

• How to fight the war: offensive, defensive, or some other strategic plan?

• How long to fight.

• Overall war aims: what exactly does your side wish to achieve? (really think about this one)

• Will you draft soldiers or depend on volunteers? If you do institute a draft, how will it be done?

• Slavery? What will your policies be regarding slavery?

• Finances and taxes: how will you fund the war?

• Foreign diplomacy: what strategies will be used in dealing with the European powers? 

Your distinguished group should devise a preliminary list of recommendations and be able to discuss them with the class.   

ch.19: The Weapons of War

Throughout the Civil War, Americans read almost daily, in newspapers and letters, stories of terrible death and bloodshed. At Antietam, for example, the two sides suffered more than 23,000 casualties. Soldiers well understood that the mounting slaughter on the battlefields was due to new and powerful weapons, matched against outmoded ways of fighting.

New Weapons: The war created a demand for more powerful, more efficient weapons, and American inventors supplied them. Breech-loading rifles, rifled cannons shooting 200-300 pound shells, exploding canisters of shrapnel, and ironclad ships dealt death on both sides. Most battlefield casualties, however, were inflicted on and by infantrymen—about 85% of the soldiers—shooting it out in fire fights at 100 to 500 yards distance, firing volley after volley of musket shot into the entrenched or charging ranks of the enemy.

At the beginning of the Civil War, soldiers on both sides used smooth-bore muzzle-loading muskets accurate to only about 100 yards. These weapons had to be loaded by ramming powder and ball down the muzzle of the musket. By 1863, however, a new grooved or rifled musket was becoming the standard weapon, North and South: muzzle-loading Springfield and British-made Enfield rifles. Either variety could hit a man at 300 to 500 yards. The grooving of the weapons; barrels and the use of the so-called "Minie Ball," a bullet that expanded into the rifled grooves, increased the fire power—and decreased the life expectancy—of the Civil War soldier.

Slaughter: These new rifled muskets, along with the massive amounts of weapons available, made traditional ways of fighting a sure means of producing slaughter on the battlefield. By the time the generals learned to modify their combat tactics to meet the destructive power of the new technology—to fight their men in skirmishes by advancing them in groups and individually or to entrench them against deadly cannoneering—tens of thousands of soldiers had been wounded or killed. Infantry soldiers shot on the battlefield almost certainly died if hit in the head or chest. The minie ball shattered bones, tore apart arteries and tendons, and mangled intestines beyond repair. Wounds in arms or legs, which required immediate treatment if not amputation, frequently occurred when soldiers stood upright in order to ram their shots and power down the barrels of their weapons.

Death in the Hospitals: Those soldiers wounded but not killed in battle might still succumb to their deadliest enemy: the sickness and diseases associated with camp hospitals. Surgeons amputated limbs unaware that their filthy, blood-spattered hands and unsterilized cutting tools brought on infections more lethal than bullets. Indeed, more Civil War soldiers died from diseases contracted in poorly sanitized camps (malaria, typhoid, dysentery) and from infected wounds than from all the weaponry on the battlefield.One of 65 men in the Union army was killed in action; one in 56 died of wounds; one in 13 died of disease; one in 10 was wounded; one in 15 was captured. That men continued to fight against such odds is profound testament to their courage and will to win.

ch.18: A War of Liberation

Seward convinced the president that the Union would need a military victory before he could issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Otherwise, reasoned the Secretary of State, it would seem like a desperate maneuver. So Lincoln waited for that victory, but the situation only worsened. Lincoln had replaced McClellan but the new generals were no better. The Union army suffered serious defeats at Second Bull Run and Chancellorsville. By the late summer of 1862 the situation was so dire that the president brought McClellan back. On 17 September 1862, the great American armies met at Antietam. While the Union victory was slight, it was a victory—at least victory enough for Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

But we should remember, even as we praise Abraham Lincoln, that the role of the slaves must be considered in this “War of Liberation." In many ways, the slaves freed themselves during this great Civil War.

A WAR OF LIBERATION: THE ROLE OF BLACK AMERICANS IN THE CIVIL WAR, PART I: At the start of the Civil War, most white Americans wanted to limit the war to the question of secession. Slaves and free blacks, however, knew that the conflict had slavery as its root cause, and they acted with energy, courage, and resolution to turn the struggle into a war for freedom.

As federal armies penetrated rebel states, slaves responded by fleeing to Union camps. Not wanting to lose the support of slave owners who were loyal to the North, Lincoln initially discouraged the slaves from coming, but nothing could stem the tide. By the spring of 1863, thousands of fugitive slaves had either reached or were on the march toward Union lines. It was one of the greatest movements of people in our nation's history.

Faced with an avalanche of impoverished humanity, Union commanders responded by employing adult slaves as laborers, guides, and scouts, and by also setting up refugee camps for their families. Black women worked as cooks and nurses. The men built fortifications and did the heavy work like hauling supplies, building roads, and "slopping out" latrines. Thousands of others were paid subsistence wages to work abandoned cotton plantations. Deep within the Confederacy, moreover, those slaves too far from Union lines to run away simply stopped acting like slaves. They refused to take orders, resisted attempts to be relocated or sold, fled to the swamps and woods by the thousands, and shed their submissive behavior to await their day of liberation. As a result of their actions, the institution of southern slavery was so weakened that hundreds of slavemasters deserted the Confederate army to deal with this insubordination at home.

As the number of Union dead increased, it seemed logical to many northern whites, both abolitionists and moderates alike, that blacks should be used as fighting men, but resistance to that idea was strong. To arm fugitive slaves and free blacks would be telling the South and loyal slave owners in the border states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and West Virginia) that the war had become more than a fight to preserve the Union. It would have to become a war for liberation!

Black and white abolitionists, led by Frederick Douglass, argued persuasively for letting fugitive slaves serve as Union soldiers in the hope that the slaves' claim to immediate emancipation, and then to citizenship at the end of the war, would be strengthened by their valor in battle. Lincoln, who had all along resisted such a step, began to yield to the pace of events by the summer of 1862. The imminent collapse of slavery as an institution, the growing public sentiment in favor of arming blacks, and the international diplomatic advantages of freeing the slaves persuaded Lincoln to emancipate those slaves within areas controlled by the Confederacy and to begin recruiting black soldiers. In all, nearly 189,000 blacks--of whom 156,000 were former slaves--served in the Union army and in the United States Navy. The black army regiments, about 100 in total, were strictly segregated and commanded by white officers. Black sailors, on the other hand, served side by side with their white counterparts at sea.

A WAR OF LIBERATION: THE ROLE OF BLACK AMERICANS IN THE CIVIL WAR, PART II: The North's so-called "sable army" initially operated as a home guard, protecting black refugee camps from Confederate raiders. They engaged the enemy in bloody fighting at Port Hudson, Fort Wagner, Fort Pillow, Nashville, Vicksburg, Petersburg, up and down the Carolina coast, all over Virginia, and in scores of skirmishes in the Mississippi River Valley. Perhaps most important, these black soldiers, one-tenth of all Union forces, became by 1864 an army of liberation, rescuing thousands of slaves from behind enemy lines. The valor and courage black troops demonstrated under fire made ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment a virtual reality.

Fugitive slaves and black soldiers suffered terrible hardships during the war. Runaway slaves were sometimes killed and often viciously beaten when captured by Confederates, executed if caught in a soldier's uniform, and even brutalized by Union troops. Their refugee camps were sinkholes of exploitation and sickness. Black soldiers frequently bore the brunt of the heaviest fighting and were discriminated against in pay, rations, and supplies. Few rebel soldiers took black troopers as prisoners if they could avoid it. Insubordinate slaves within the Confederacy, moreover, were punished in ways far harsher than the usual treatment experienced by slaves before the war.

African-Americans, through their behavior as slaves and soldiers, forced all Americans to deal with slavery as a fundamental issue of the Civil War. Even the Confederate leadership came to appreciate this fact. In the last days before Lee's surrender at Appomattox, the Confederate Congress actually drafted legislation granting freedom to those slaves who would fight as soldiers for the South. In the words of Georgia Senator Howell Cobb, "You cannot make soldiers of slaves or slaves of soldiers. The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution, and if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong." Thus Americans, North and South, ended the war understanding what slaves had known from its beginning: that this great war spelled the destruction of the institution of slavery.

ch.17: Dark Times for the Union Cause

The Union cause appeared next to hopeless after the failure of the Peninsula campaign in 1862. The northern people, Lincoln’s Cabinet, and the president himself were all depressed and apprehensive about the prospects of a military victory.

Fortunately, Lincoln managed to hold his resolve. As Doris Kearns Goodwin points out, he called for more troops, reorganized the command structure of the military, and supported Stanton (pictured above) even while the public wanted the Secretary of War fired. And of even more importance, the author writes that Lincoln still “refused to let a subordinate take the blame for his own decisions.”

But what really altered the historical landscape during these dark and gloomy days is that Lincoln began to solidify his ideas on emancipation. So far, he had been hesitant to make any statements about fighting for freedom or emancipating the slaves. He might have personally thought otherwise, but he had so many constituencies to ameliorate. Now, with the Union teetering, Lincoln began to write the Emancipation Proclamation. He was about to change the Union war aims—and also change history.     

ch.16: McClellan on the "Attack"

Some Questions to Ponder

1. Why was President Lincoln so adamant about forcing McClellan to attack the Confederacy in the winter/spring of 1862? What had been going on? 

2. What was McClellan’s plan and why did Lincoln approve it even though he harbored some doubts about its feasibility?

3. Why do you suppose Lincoln retained incompetant generals like McClellan and Fremont when so many politicians were trying to get rid of those men?

4. Why did McClellan always think he was outnumbered? Was he? Where did he get his figures?

5. Who was Kate Chase and why does Doris Kearns Goodwin write about her so often?

6. What happened between the Monitor and the Merrimac?

7. How did McClellan do in the Peninsula campaign of 1862? Did he win or lose those "Seven Days" battles?

8. Why was it said at the time that McClellan was simply “out-generaled?” Was he? Explain.  

ch.15: A Death in the White House

Part of Lincoln’s political acumen is that he was able to navigate all the personalities in his cabinet. Simon Cameron was most likely included in the administration because of a deal made at the 1860 Republican convention. Cameron always had the reputation of being a shady, backroom, cigar-smoking politician. Lincoln probably didn’t want him, but a deal was made and Cameron became part of the team.

Maybe during peacetime, Cameron could have handled his duties. But a corrupt politician trying to operate the growing War Department during an internal rebellion—that’s asking a little too much. Lincoln found a way to gracefully let Cameron go and hired Edwin Stanton as Secretary of War. Stanton was a strong personality but an extremely competent administrator. He took a corrupt department and turned it around. It’s difficult to see how the Union could have conducted the war without Stanton’s efficiency. And as we are learning in Team of Rivals, Lincoln was able to deal with these personalities. He gave Stanton room to do his job even when the new secretary annoyed friends and politicians alike. Lincoln handled these situations.

The tragedy in this chapter is the death of Lincoln’s son Willie. The book includes many references and quotes on what a bright and vivacious boy he was. Even reading this book now, I become teary-eyed when I get to this chapter. With all the political problems and difficulties that Lincoln and Mary had to endure, this was a devastating blow. Mary never fully recovered and Lincoln spent much time trying to assuage her grief—all the while conducting a Civil War (a war that wasn’t going very well).

Notice in the chapter how unimpressive the medical community was. Once Willie became sick, the medical establishment could do little—they didn’t understand much about germs, viruses, and infections yet. They were still bleeding people. Doctors didn’t do much except hope that the patient recovered.                

ch.14: General McClellan

No individual from the American Civil War is as despised and detested as much as Union General George B. McClellan. Historians have not judged him well--agreeing that he was an incompetent commander and leader. His soldiers liked him; but he was extremely arrogant and pompous to his superiors—especially to Lincoln (his boss and Commander-in-Chief).

It always seemed to me that nothing better reveals Lincoln’s class than his relationship with McClellan. And in contrast, Lincoln’s character brings out the many faults and weaknesses of George McClellan.

When it became clear that Winfield Scott was too old and feeble to lead the Union forces, Lincoln had to find a new general. That duty would fall to McClellan—he was charismatic, the troops adored him, and he was able to train the men for combat—something that was sorely needed at the start of the war.


But McClellan had two major faults (among many). First, his ego was enormous; he thought himself the savior of the Union. Reading his letters—where he calls himself a savior—you wonder if he understood democracy and representative government at all. But early in the war, he was all Lincoln had. And Lincoln withstood McClellan’s many slights: leaving the president waiting in the parlor for hours, and calling him a baboon to name just a few. McClellan had little respect for Lincoln and allowed his feelings be known. Lincoln had every reason to fire and/or court-martial McClellan, but he cared little about egos and simply wanted to win the war. So the president continually showed his class by taking the general's slights--hoping that McClellan would prove to be useful on the battlefield. 


McClellan’s other flaw—which we will see more of in Team of Rivals—if that while he was an outstanding trainer, he seemed afraid to actually send his troops into battle. He continually made excuses for not pursuing the enemy. Lincoln begged him to take action—and McClellan still would hesitate. Lincoln kept the general as long as possible before finally firing him after the Battle of Antietam in the late summer of 1862. And by the way, McClellan was Lincoln’s Democratic Part opponent in the 1864 election—Lincoln crushed him, helped in a great measure by the soldier’s vote!    

chs.12-13: Inauguration to Bull Run

In chapter 12 of Team of Rivals, we see “Lincoln the speechwriter” at work crafting his inaugural address. Notice how important words were to Lincoln. And he knew that his words would be seriously parsed for hidden meaning by both sections of the country. I particularly like the touching story of Senator Douglas holding Lincoln’s hat at the inauguration ceremony. These two great men from Illinois had been rivals for years—yet always respected each other's political talents.

During his first few days in office, Lincoln was criticized by both ends of the Republican Party political spectrum. Some thought he was going too far—being too radical; others saw him as a Southern appeaser. This is a continual problem in the American political system. Moderate politicians like Lincoln must manage a political organization that includes many different factions. And as we will see in this book, he did an outstanding job keeping his party together through these difficult times. But it was not smooth sailing at the beginning.

One of the main questions that still baffles historians concerns Lincoln’s larger purpose in the war. Was he pondering the end slavery from the start, or was his only aim to win the war? We are still not absolutely sure. Lincoln seems to have gone through a process where emancipation became more and more important as the war progressed. But unfortunately, we don’t know what Lincoln was thinking at the start of the conflict. As you read this book, think about Lincoln's views on slavery and emancipation and how his sentiments might have been changing due to the circumstances on the battlefields.

At the end of chapter 13, we witness the first of many Union defeats at Bull Run. So full of hope and excitement to end the rebellion quickly, Union efforts did not begin well. And it would get worse for Lincoln and the North. What many Americans still do not realize is how close the Union came to losing this war. What a different country that would have produced!