The Civil War The ap instructional strategies discussed below for Chapter 14 of American

Free-Response Questions.

1. 
   Analyze the differences and similarities between the Union and the Confederacy in terms of their wartime goals, political systems, the methods used to finance the war and recruiting troops, war strategy, and the economic and social effects of the war.
   

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  Possible thesis statement: When compared, the Union and Confederate governments adopted similar legal, financial, and military strategies. The North and South differed, however, in terms of their wartime goals and the economic consequences of the war.
  

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  Goals. Their goals were very different. Union sought initially to reunify the states and by 1863, to reunify the states in a nation free of slavery. The Confederacy sought to retain its independence as a nation free from Union political, social, economic, and ideological control.
  

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  Political systems. Their constitutions were similar, with the two exceptions being that the Confederacy stated that individual states were sovereign and sanctioned slavery. Moderate leaders dominated the Confederate and Union governments throughout the war. Davis, unlike Lincoln, was not a successful president largely because he failed to provide a genuinely national leadership.
  

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  Financing the war. Differences largely prevailed in this category. The South began with several difficulties: a small and unstable banking system with little to lend, wealth that was primarily invested in non-liquid assets such as slaves and land, and a society that was not used to paying significant taxes. The Confederate Congress initially tried to requisition funds from the states with little success, and was forced to pass an income tax in 1863. Neither effort produced much revenue. Like the Union, the Confederacy issued paper currency. However, not only did it produce more than two times that of the Union, it also failed to establish a uniform currency system. This led to widespread inflation.
  

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  Recruiting troops. Both sides originally called for volunteers, but within less than a year, enlistments declined. Both sides eventually resorted to conscription acts, with the Confederacy taking the lead in April 1862 by drafting all white males between 18 and 35 for three years. The Union passed a similar law in March 1863. Both sides allowed a draftee to avoid service if he could pay for a substitute. The Confederacy also exempted one white man on each plantation with 20 or more slaves. Both sides were hesitant to recruit African Americans. Union troops gradually admitted blacks that largely served as laborers for the Union forces. Only at the very end of the war did the Confederacy authorize the conscription of slaves, but the war ended before this took place.
  

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  Fighting the war. Wartime strategy is what divided the Confederacy, largely because of the states’ rights advocates who tried to obstruct any effort Davis and his government made to centralize decision-making authority. Nonetheless, the Confederate government successfully centralized in important areas and in so doing, became more like the Union.
  

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  Economic effects of the war. The southern economy was all but destroyed by the war. Its overall production of goods declined by more than a third, while in the North, production increased somewhat. Because most of the fighting occurred in the South, its land and infrastructure were virtually destroyed. It lost most of its slave labor force during the war.
  

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  Possible conclusion: While the South believed it was very different from the Union from which it had seceded, the Confederate government adopted similar legal, financial, and military strategies used by Lincoln and the Republican Congress. Differences, however, were apparent in terms of the goals of and economic consequences for both the North and the South.
  

2. Discuss the role transportation played in the outcome of the Civil War.

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  Possible thesis statement: The ability to transport troops and needed supplies, as well as military communication, played a large role in the outcome of the Civil War.
  

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  Railroad transportation. Railroads made possible the transportation of large numbers of troops and their supplies. At the beginning of the war, the North had a better transportation system than the South, with twice as much railroad track and better-integrated lines than the South. The South had less lines, trains that were not very reliable, and a system that had already begun to deteriorate by the beginning of the war.
  

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  River transportation. The Union navy was able to navigate the western rivers and thus, successfully transported supplies and troops that attacked Confederate strong points. The South had no significant navy.
  

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  Union blockade strategy. The blockade of the southern coast and the eventual seizing of southern ports succeeded in keeping needed food supplies from the South. Although the southern economy depended on agriculture, it was primary based upon profitable single crops. Thus, the blockade denied necessary food supplies to citizens and soldiers alike.
  

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  Possible conclusion: When the Civil War began, the North had the advantage in terms of transportation systems. It had twice as many railroads and a better-integrated rail system, it had a strong navy and naval presence both in the Atlantic Ocean and on the western rivers. This advantage helped the North win the war.
  

3. To what extent did the politics of emancipation free the slaves?

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  Possible thesis statement: The politics of emancipation gradually paved the way to free the slaves.
  

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  Politics of emancipation. Little agreement existed in the Congress on the issue of slavery. The Radical Republicans wanted to abolish slavery immediately. Conservatives favored a more gradual approach and less disruptive process than immediate and absolute abolition. President Lincoln initially sided with the conservatives. Congress took a tentative step early in the war with the Confiscation Act of 1861, which declared that all slaves used to support the Confederate military effort would be considered free. In early 1862, Congress freed all slaves in the District of Columbia and the western territories and compensated slave owners. In July 1862, the Radical Republicans backed the second Confiscation Act that freed the slaves of those who assisted and supported the Confederacy and authorized the president to employ African Americans in the Union Army.
  

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  Emancipation. As the Radical Republicans gained more momentum in Congress, President Lincoln shifted with the political tide. In September 1862, he announced that he intended to use his war powers to issue an executive order that would free all the slaves in the Confederacy. The Emancipation Proclamation was formally signed on January 1, 1863. By the war’s end, two Union slave states had abolished slavery, as had three Confederate states occupied by Union forces. Then, in 1865, Congress approved and the states ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery in all parts of the United States.
  

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  Possible conclusion: The politics of emancipation paved the way to freedom and led to the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. However, because emancipation only freed the slaves in the Confederacy, its initial effect was limited. It did, however, have great symbolic success, because it announced that the war was now being fought not only to save the Union, but also to eliminate slavery. It also served as an important tool in the freeing of slaves as the North began to occupy the South towards the war’s end.
  

3. 
   Excerpt from “First Confiscation Act,” August 6, 1861. (An act to confiscate Property used for Insurrectionary Purposes, 37th Congress, Session I, 6 August 1861.)
   

“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That if, during the present or any future insurrection against the Government of the United States, after the President of the United States shall have declared, by proclamation, that the laws of the United States are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the power vested in the marshals by law, any person or persons, his, her, or their agent, attorney, or employ, shall purchase or acquire, sell or give, any property of whatsoever kind or description, with intent to use or employ the same, or suffer the same to be used or employed, in aiding, abetting, or promoting such insurrection or resistance to the laws, or any person or persons engaged therein; or if any person or persons, being the owner or owners of any such property, shall knowingly use or employ, or consent to the use or employment of the same as aforesaid, all such property is hereby declared to be lawful subject of prize and capture wherever found; and it shall be the duty of the President of the United States to cause the same to be seized, confiscated, and condemned…”

6. 
   Excerpt from “Emancipation Proclamation,” January 1, 1863. (Abraham Lincoln, January 1, 1863 (Final Emancipation Proclamation, Official Copy). At the Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress.)
   

" . . on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom . . . And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. . . And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service . . .”

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  Slaves in the military effort. As indicated in Butler’s letter, Union Generals faced tremendous challenges early in the war, not the least of which was how to handle runaway slaves fleeing north to join the Union effort. He is uncertain what to do: can he “deprive their masters of their services?” Can  or should  he use the services of the mothers and fathers, but not their children? The Union was also concerned about the use of slaves for “insurrectionary” support of the Confederate army. Thus, Congress passed the first Confiscation Act in August 1861, which confiscated all slaves used for such purposes. In the second Confiscation Act passed less than a year later, slaves of anyone who committed treason against the United States or who was involved in any “rebellion or insurrection” against the United States “shall be declared and made free…” Furthermore, the Act authorized the President to employ freed slaves in “the suppression of this rebellion.”
  

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  Foreign sympathy for the Union. President Lincoln received the letter from Martin Tupper early in the war, a letter that expressed “sympathy” for the northern cause and opposition to the South’s decision to secede, as well as to their dependence upon slavery. He stated that within two years, England’s cotton supply would “have been secured from Africa, Asia, and Australia and then the treacherous South will have lost her best customer for ever.” He counseled Lincoln that American would have to learn to “be content to have fewer stars upon her banner” and praised the idea that the stars would be “of a brilliancy untarnished by the tears of Slaves.”
  

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  Role of free slaves in abolition efforts. The illustration of the “Watch Meeting” shows a group African Americans and white abolitionists anxiously waiting for the pronouncement of the Emancipation Proclamation, which was enacted at midnight. The illustration is an example of how whites and blacks worked together during the war for emancipation.
  

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  Domestic turmoil in the union over the draft laws. In July 1863, New York City witnessed four days of violent rioting in reaction to both the new Union draft laws and the Emancipation Proclamation. The city had a large number of working class whites, many of whom were Irish, who competed with free blacks for the lowest and most dangerous jobs. During the riots, angry white mobs attacked draft offices, industrial buildings, a few elite landmarks, and, New York's black residents. Rioters were angry about being forced to fight a war for a group of people whom many believed to be barely human. This engraving depicts a mob lynching of an African American in the streets of New York and demonstrates the degree of racism in the urban north, as well as anger about any effort of economic equality for free slaves.
  

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  Role of emancipation in the Union goals. While the Union entered the War initially with the primary goal of reuniting the North and South, two years later it added a new goal  reuniting the Union under a nation in which slavery would be abolished. A precedent was set in April 1862 when Congress passed a law that abolished slavery in the District of Columbia and paid former slave owners $300 in compensation for their loss of property. This was the first time federal power had been used to emancipate slaves. The Harper's Weekly illustration depicts a large gathering of African Americans in Washington, DC on the fourth anniversary of emancipation. The Emancipation Proclamation became the formal vehicle of emancipation when it declared that slaves in the Confederate states “henceforward shall be free.” It also declared that the U.S. government, including the “military and naval authorities” must “recognize and maintain” the freedom of the slaves, and that the freed slaves would be “received into the armed services of the United States.” The fact that emancipation was limited only to the slaves in the Confederacy and did not include those living within Union lines indicates that Lincoln was still trying to limit the negative political repercussions of such a decision.
  

2. 
   After reading Chapter 14, show students excerpts pertaining to the New York City Draft Riots from New York: A Documentary Film by Ric Burns. To learn more about this film, go to the PBS website at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/newyork/series/index.html) The approximately 20-minute segment located toward the end of Episode 2, “Order and Disorder: 1825-1865,” provides excellent information about the New York City Draft Riots. Then, show students the segments of the riots that are visually portrayed in the popular motion picture, The Gangs of New York. Using information about the Draft Riots learned in their textbook and in these excerpts, stimulate a class discussion based upon the following questions: How did the interpretation in Gangs compare and contrast with Burns’ interpretation, as well as what you read in your book? Who were the primary victims of the riots? How was this both a class and a race riot? Why do you think most Americans have never heard about the Draft Riots, the most violent in our nation’s history? Why were they called the “Draft Riots”?
   

3. Stage a classroom debate on any one of the following:

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  The historical accuracy of the film.
  
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  The life and career of the unit commander, Robert Gould Shaw.
  
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  The history of the Shaw memorial  the original located in Boston and a replica located in the Smithsonian.
  
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  The experiences of African-American soldiers who fought with the North.
  

6. 
   Ask students to write a letter from any of the following perspectives:
   

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  Jefferson Davis explaining how and why the South seceded.
  
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  An American defending the Civil War to a foreigner.
  
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  Abraham Lincoln after signing the Emancipation Proclamation.
  
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  An African-American soldier fighting in the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry.
  
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  A Union nurse at Gettysburg.
  
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  A Northern prisoner of war at Andersonville.
  
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  A Southern soldier preparing for Pickett’s Last Charge.
  
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  Robert E. Lee as he was preparing to surrender the Confederate Army.
  

7. Assign a three-day, in-class project during which all the students will work in one of four groups to learn more about the following domestic legislation that the Republican Party passed during the war:

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  Homestead Act
  
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  Morrill Land Grant Act
  
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  Pacific Railroad Act
  
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  National Bank Acts
  

Each group must explain the exact provisions of the act, how their act supported the Republicans’ aggressive nationalist program to promote economic development, why they think southern Democrats may have opposed their act, and the long-term effects of their act on the United States as a whole.

8. 
   Divide the class into six groups as follows:
   

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  women nurses involved in the war
  
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  northern and southern women war spies
  
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  free African Americans involved in the war
  
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  slaves who fought in the war
  
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  Jayhawkers
  
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  Quantrill’s raiders
  

Each group will explore the roles their people played in the war and determine how their experiences either helped or hindered the war efforts in the North and the South. Groups will elect two spokespersons to present their findings to the class.

10. 
    Invite students to watch any of the following five movies at home either with their families or with a group of friends from class: Glory, Gods and Generals, The Red Badge of Courage, Cold Mountain, or Gettysburg. Or have them watch all or parts of the Ken Burns documentary, The Civil War. Then, have them answer the following:
    

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  What does this production tell you about the Civil War, especially the involvement of ordinary soldiers, both black and white?
  

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  Do you think this film was a realistic portrayal of the Civil War? Why or why not? Be specific.
  
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  In your opinion, is this movie of any real use to understanding this period in American history? Be specific about how and why  or why not.