Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (2 page)

Alongside these monumental studies the present effort to compress the war and its causes into a single volume seems modest indeed. Nevertheless, I have tried to integrate the political and military events of this era with important social and economic developments to form a seamless web synthesizing up-to-date scholarship with my own research and interpretations. Except for
Chapter 1
, which traces the contours of American society and economy in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, I have chosen a narrative framework to tell my story and point its moral. This choice proceeds not only from the overall design of the
Oxford History
but also from my own convictions about how best to write the history of these years of successive crises, rapid changes, dramatic events, and dynamic transformations. A topical or thematic approach could not do justice to this dynamism, this complex relationship of cause and effect, this intensity of experience, especially during the four years of war when developments in several spheres occurred almost simultaneously and impinged on each other so powerfully and immediately as to give participants the sense of living a lifetime in a year.

As an example: the simultaneous Confederate invasions of Maryland and Kentucky in the late summer of 1862 occurred in the context of intense diplomatic activity leading toward possible European intervention in the war, of Lincoln's decision to issue an emancipation proclamation, of anti-black and anti-draft riots and martial law in the North, and of hopes by Peace Democrats to capture control of the Union Congress in the fall elections. Each of these events directly affected the others; none can be understood apart from the whole. A topical or thematic approach that treated military events, diplomacy, slavery and emancipation, anti-war dissent and civil liberties, and northern politics in separate chapters, instead of weaving them together as I have attempted to do here, would leave the reader uninformed about how and why the battle of Antietam was so crucial to the outcome of all these other developments.

The importance of Antietam and of several other battles in deciding "the destinies of the continent for centuries" also justifies the space given to military campaigns in this book. Most of the things that we consider important in this era of American history—the fate of slavery, the structure of society in both North and South, the direction of the American economy, the destiny of competing nationalisms in North and South, the definition of freedom, the very survival of the United States—rested on the shoulders of those weary men in blue and gray who fought it out during four years of ferocity unmatched in the Western world between the Napoleonic Wars and World War I.

The most pleasant task in writing a book is the expression of gratitude to people and institutions that have helped the author. The resources of the Firestone Library at Princeton University and of the Henry E. Hun-tington Library in San Marino, California, provided most of the research material on which this book is based. A year at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, where part of this book was written, supplemented an earlier sabbatical year at the Huntington to give me the time and opportunity for reading, research, and writing about the Civil War era. These two rich and rewarding years in California were financed in part by Princeton University, in part by fellowships funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and in part by the Huntington Library and the Behavioral Sciences Center. To all of them I am especially indebted for the support that made the writing of
Battle Cry of Freedom
possible. To Gardner Lindzey, Margaret Amara, and the staff of the Behavioral Sciences Center who helped me gain access to the riches of the Stanford and Berkeley libraries I also express my appreciation. The staff of the Manuscripts Collection of the Library of Congress, and Richard Sommers as Archivist-Historian at the U.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, extended me every courtesy and assistance during research visits to these superb repositories. I also thank the staffs of the photographs and prints divisions at the libraries where I obtained photographs for the illustrations in this book. To Armstead Robinson I express belated thanks for permission to quote material from the manuscript of his forthcoming book
Bitter Fruits of Bondage
.

George Fredrickson read an early draft of this book and offered valuable suggestions for improvement, as did my colleague Allan Kulikoff who kindly read
Chapters 1
and
20
. Sheldon Meyer, Senior Vice President of Oxford University Press, has been in on the project from the beginning and has shepherded it through to conclusion with an expert helping hand. Managing Editor Leona Capeless at Oxford refined the manuscript with her careful editing and cheerful encouragement. To Vann Woodward I owe more than I can express. Teacher, friend, scholar, editor, he has guided my growth as an historian for nearly thirty years, offered the highest example of craftmanship, and done more than anyone else to bring this book to fruition. To Willie Lee Rose also I owe much as a friend and fellow graduate student at Johns Hopkins who did more than anyone else except Vann to introduce me to the mysteries of the guild.

Without the love and companionship of my wife Patricia this volume could never have come into existence. Not only did she help with some of the research and read early drafts with a sharp eye for confused or overblown rhetoric; she also joined me in the tiresome but essential task of correcting proofs, and suggested the title. Finally to Jenny, and to Dahlia and her friends, I express warm appreciation for helping me understand the potential as well as problems of Civil War cavalry.

J. M. M.

Princeton

June
1987

Contents

Editor's Introduction

Prologue: From the Halls of Montezuma

1. The United States at Midcentury

2. Mexico Will Poison Us

3. An Empire for Slavery

4. Slavery, Rum, and Romanism

5. The Crime Against Kansas

6. Mudsills and Greasy Mechanics for A. Lincoln

7. The Revolution of 1860

8. The Counterrevolution of 1861

9. Facing Both Ways: The Upper South's Dilemma

10. Amateurs Go to War

11. Farewell to the Ninety Days' War

12. Blockade and Beachhead: The Salt-Water War, 1861–1862

13. The River War in 1862

14. The Sinews of War

15. Billy Yank's Chickahominy Blues

16. We Must Free the Slaves or Be Ourselves Subdued

17. Carry Me Back to Old Virginny

18. John Bull's Virginia Reel

19. Three Rivers in Winter, 1862–1863

20. Fire in the Rear

21. Long Remember: The Summer of '63

22. Johnny Reb's Chattanooga Blues

23. When This Cruel War Is Over

24. If It Takes All Summer

25. After Four Years of Failure

26. We Are Going To Be Wiped Off the Earth

27. South Carolina Must Be Destroyed

28. We Are All Americans

Epilogue: To the Shoals of Victory

Afterword

Abbreviated Titles

Bibliographic Note

Index

Illustrations

Maps

The Southern Economy

The Election of 1860 and Southern Secession

The Battle of Bull Run (Manassas)

The Kentucky-Tennessee Theater, Winter-Spring 1862

The Battle of Shiloh, April 6–7, 1862

Jackson's Shenandoah Valley Campaign, May–June 1862

The Peninsula Campaign, April–May 1862

The Seven Days' Battles

Confederate Raids and Invasions in the West, Summer—Fall 1862

The Battle of Second Manassas (Bull Run)

Antietam, September 17, 1862

Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862

Union Efforts to Get at Vicksburg, Winter 1862–63

Stones River (Murfreesboro), Dec. 31, 1862–Jan. 2, 1863

The Vicksburg Campaign, April–July 1863

Chancellorsville, May 2–6, 1863

Gettysburg, July 1–3, 1863

The Road to Chickamauga, June–Sept. 1863

Chattanooga, Oct.–Nov. 1863

The Wilderness and Spotsylvania, May 5–12, 1864

Spotsylvania to Petersburg

The Campaign for Atlanta, May—Sept. 1864

Hood's Tennessee Campaign, Oct.–Dec. 1864

Editor's Introduction

No period of American history makes greater demands on the historian than that of the Civil War. To meet this extraordinary challenge all the classic accounts have resorted to multivolume solutions. The one by Allan Nevins, for example, required eight large volumes, and another has used that many without attempting to be comprehensive. One of the remarkable aspects of the present achievement is that the author has been able to cover the period so completely and admirably within the covers of one volume. It is a large volume, to be sure, and will probably be the longest of the ten in
The Oxford History of the United States
. That it should, despite its size, cover the shortest period assigned calls for some comment on the part of the editor.

First, a look at the disparity between the length of the book and the brevity of the period. Precious little correlation exists between the importance, complexity, and abundance of historical events and the length of the time it takes for them to occur. Some history of momentous consequence requires centuries to unfold, while history of comparable importance can take place with staggering speed. Here we are clearly dealing with history of the latter type. In his Preface to this volume, James McPherson has spoken of the Civil War generation as having "lived through an experience in which time and consciousness took on new dimensions." These new dimensions have to be reckoned with by the historians recording the experience. If participants in that era had the experience of "living a lifetime in a year," historians can reasonably demand more pages and chapters to do justice to such years. That also helps to explain why far more has been written about these particular years than any others in American history. The more written, the more disclosed, and the more questions and controversies to be coped with by latter-day historians.