(Editor's Note:This is the first in a planned series of articles commemorating the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. All quotes and information in this article can be found in "What This Cruel War Was Over" by Chandra Manning (2007, Alfred A. Knopf), which is available at the Parlin-Ingersoll Library in Canton.)
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"The fact that slavery is the sole undeniable cause of this infamous rebellion, that it is a war of, by, and for Slavery, is as plain as the noon-day sun."
Thirteenth Wisconsin Infantry Regiment
"…any man who pretends to believe that this is not a war for the emancipation of blacks…is either a fool or a liar."
Morgan's Confederate Brigade
One hundred and fifty years ago this April an effort to send supplies to Fort Sumter spurred a battle between Union forces and members of the newly formed Confederacy which was the opening salvo in what has come to be known as the Civil War. The devastating conflict claimed the lives of countless men, caused the destruction of millions of dollars in property, and created fault lines which are still visible in the American psyche today. But what was the reason for the war?
While most of us remember our history classes which taught us the cause of the war was slavery, scholarship in recent years has questioned black emancipation as the central issue in the conflict. State's rights, economics, Constitutional questions have all been touted as the main issue behind the fighting. The end of slavery, to many, was only a ruse, a facade behind which the real factors were hiding.
But historian Chandra Manning, in her 2007 book "What This Cruel War Was Over," decided to take another look at the conflict through the eyes of those she considered unjustly overlooked in the voluminous literature about the war -- the soldiers who did the fighting. Using camp newspapers and letters to home from both sides, Manning took great pains to work for a valid consensus of a majority of the soldiers while still acknowledging views to the contrary. What she found, as evidenced by the quotes above, was a view of the war by the rank and file in the trenches about the cause and importance of the war.
While it is true that the seceding states had questions about the Constitutionality of the federal government's interference with state's rights, the primary question revolved around the power of the federal government to affect the institution of slavery, specifically limiting it in newly added territories.
Southerners also considered any attack on slavery an attack on their culture, their economic structure, even on their manhood. Not only did their economic prosperity stem directly from the use of slave labor, the very structure of southern society depended upon the idea of a social hierarchy with everyone filling a specific role. If one brick of the foundation was taken away, particularly one as important as slavery, the entire structure would fall.
Surprisingly this was the feeling of the vast majority of southern soldiers, even though most of them did not own slaves. As white males, they felt they were defending their place in society, which included the protection of their wives and children. If slaves were freed, not only would they exact vengeance against their former masters, other dependents, such as their wives, could begin to question their place in society, which could lead to the destruction of the family. And many of the non-slave-owning soldiers felt the culture of the south could eventually allow them to purchase slaves themselves, helping them to a higher rank in southern society.
The protection of slavery was even given a religious significance, with many clergy calling attention to the fact the Bible called on slaves to obey their masters, expressing the opinion that opposition to slavery was un-Christian. They also proposed slavery was helping the slaves by bringing them out of a state of barbarism and exposing them to both civilization and Christianity.
The centrality of slavery to the war was not just a tenet of Confederate soldiers, Most Union soldiers saw the war as an effort to bring about emancipation. However, while many of the northerners understood the reason for the war, they did not entirely agree with it, at least at the beginning. Many of them felt uneasy about having to fight for the freedom of African Americans, questioning why they had to shed their blood for the freedom of another and, to many, inferior race.
However, as the war progressed, Manning saw a change of heart in the soldiers' letters. The war was the first time many of them came into direct contact with either blacks or slavery itself. The more they saw, the more they came to hate the institution. They objected to the idea of some human beings being forced to toil for the benefit of others without reaping any of the rewards themselves. In particular, they found slavery offended basics moral principles, particularly the sanctity of family as children and parents were torn apart for economic gain and slave women were sexually assaulted by their masters, not to mention the horrible spectacle of slave masters selling their own children born by slave mothers.
As the war progressed, many northerners also began to see the war as divine punishment on the country for allowing slavery to flourish, many of them recognizing for the first time the responsibility of the non-slave-owners of the north for the perpetuation of the institution.
This did not always mean, however, a softening of the northern whites' attitude toward black people. Many of the northern soldiers still believed in the inferiority of African Americans. At the same time, with the introduction of black soldiers who fought side by side with whites, many northerners began to express support for reforms almost unheard of just years before, such as equal pay for black soldiers and even allowing blacks, particularly black soldiers, to vote.
On the other side, many southerners also saw the war as divine punishment, although they believed the faults condemned were individual -- excessive swearing, drinking, and in particular unscrupulous businessmen using the war to take advantage of others (specifically southern soldiers and their families) for their own personal gain -- rather than an attack on the society itself.
For many southern soldiers, according to Manning, the final straw came when the Confederacy approved the enlistment of slaves as soldiers to beef up their numbers. Even though black soldiers would still be considered slaves both during and after the war, many white soldiers questioned the practice of arming slaves when the main purpose of the war was to protect white society from those same slaves.
Above all, Manning wrote, the Civil War forced Americans, particularly white northerners, to confront slavery not just in the abstract but as a concrete fact.
But the question remains. How did the idea of slavery and its destruction first take hold among the northern citizens, many of whom had never seen a black person, let alone a slave? And what was the event which began the struggle -- the firing on Fort Sumter? The election of Abraham Lincoln? The Missouri Compromise? The fighting in "bloody Kansas?"
For many, the real start of the Civil War began in a more quiet way.
It began with a book.
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CANTON —
