American Civil War - Part I

Hello, if you have waited this entire semester for us to talk about the Civil War, then today is your day. Welcome to, um, the last few lectures of the semester, um, in which we are going to cover, uh, predominantly the events of the American Civil War. Um, because for, I guess, at least two weeks now, not counting days off for yearbook report, we have, um, talking, we have been discussing all of these events that will lead Americans, um, to the start of the Civil War. And, um, last week in particular, we talked about the chain of events that would leave, lead America into this conflict. Um, and perhaps you remember that one of the pivotal moments or the pivotal events preceding the American Civil War will be the election of Abraham Lincoln as the American president in 1860. And when this happened, um, there will be a lot of people who lived in the American South who will claim that, you know, Lincoln doesn't represent our interests, uh, he is not our president because he wishes to outlaw the institution of slavery. And as a consequence, between November 8th, um, 1860, uh, when, you know, Lincoln was officially elected, through March 4th of 1861, when he was officially inaugurated as the American president, um, there were, um, a lot of states who will exit the Union, meaning exit the United States of America, and instead formed rebel states, also known as the Confederate States of America.

We've also said that, um, the predominant reason why these states would secede was because of their policy of states' rights to preserve slavery. Because, you know, as we have discussed in previous weeks, um, in the 19th century in particular, the economies of the American South were heavily dependent on and were financed by the enslaved labor directly, right? Um, all of that said, however, if you were to ask President Abraham Lincoln on his attitudes on slavery, um, at the time of his election, and honestly, you know, in his speeches leading up to, um, his election to be the president, or, you know, during his campaign, he never, um, in his speeches or privately, would enforce the idea of abolitionism, right? Um, he never said that he would pass policies as president of America to abolish slavery, right? Um, and at the outbreak of the Civil War, you know, slavery was perhaps not on his mind that much, right? And in fact, during his speech at the famous inaugural address that he delivered on March 3rd, 1861, when he was inaugurated as the president, um, he will kind of repeat the pledge to quote, "not interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists." So this was right before, like, a month and change days before the Civil War will actually start, that he would make this announcement, right? So he was neither for the expansion of enslavement nor for the abolition of slavery, but he rather, um, will kind of work to keep the status quo, right? Uh, to kind of leave things the way they are in terms of slavery. And in fact, in 1961, and then also later, continuing into 1962, Lincoln was actually more concerned about this issue or this fact that the Southern states had actually seceded, right? And instead, during the beginning of the Civil War, he was rather concerned with preserving the American Union, right? And actually, in that same inaugural address that he delivered, he will kind of hint to us just that sentiment. He will emphasize, um, that, quote, "the Union of these states is perpetual, and no state can lawfully get out of the Union," right? So he will claim actually that the secession of the rebel states is unconstitutional, it's, um, illegal. And even though, um, at the time of his inauguration, you know, America was kind of, um, a split between the two political identities, right? We have the United States of America, and we have the Confederate States of America, right? So he was kind of deeply troubled by the coming of this, this union. And he emphasized that he would not draw the first blood. He'd say, if it came to a conflict, as it was kind of becoming evident in the 1860s, he would say, you know, "I will not be the one who will draw the first blood." Okay, so it's unconstitutional, uh, I disagree with the, um, with the way in which the Confederate states had seceded. However, I will not, uh, blow the first fire, if my metaphors are not there today, but, you know, what I'm, you know, what I'm trying to say. He said he will not be the one to start the war. Instead, he would call for the preservation of the Union. And instead, he will call on to the Confederate states to kind of self-reflect and to kind of reevaluate their decision to secede. And instead, Lincoln will plead to the unison and he promised that, quote, "there will be no invasion, no using of forces against, uh, or among other people anywhere."

And in the final paragraph of his speech, here's what he says. He says, "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion might have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and heartstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." So this is like the concluding paragraph of his inaugural address. And in it, um, he will kind of remain cautiously optimistic that the peace of the Union will prevail, and that the good within the American people, those better angels of our nature, will actually prevail in America and the years to come when he will be the president. And that, too, side note, by the way, is the reason why he will not call for the abolition of slavery in the early years of the war, right? Because he was fearful of the fact that this flat-out freedom, uh, that American government would grant to African Americans would actually further divide the nation, that is, further divide white people, uh, between whether to abolish slavery or not, right? And so in 1860, 1861, and 1862, the version of Abraham Lincoln could not have been, what Lincoln could not have been, this hero that millions of black Americans living in bondage at that point in history were kind of hoping for. But they nevertheless will remain hopeful.

And also, um, we have hinted, this is kind of an oldish slide from last week, but just to refresh our memories, because it's been a while since we talked about this, right? We've hinted during our last lecture, um, that the actions at Fort Sumter in South Carolina's Charleston will be the ones to initiate the American Civil War. And Fort Sumter, if we were to keep up with the timeline, actually occurred one month after Lincoln's inaugural address, meaning that Confederates, uh, Confederate states, Confederate generals will ignore Lincoln's call to unity. Um, and we've also said that there were federal troops, um, stationed at Fort Sumter, 90, I'm sorry, 69 of the federal troops were stationed at Fort Sumter, to be precise. And since South Carolina was the state which will secede from the Union first, Lincoln was then faced with the decision of whether to recall the troops from Fort Sumter or not. Um, and most of his cabinet members, most of the cabinet members of his administration, most of his senior military advisors will actually urge Lincoln to go on and pull out the troops out of Fort Sumter to preserve the peace and to kind of try to keep things neutral. Um, but Lincoln actually thought differently. He thought, he felt that, like, you know, giving up Fort Sumter, uh, would mean or would make him appear as if he is actually given up on the Union itself. And instead, he will actually send some ships, these reinforcements approaching Charleston from the distance, um, with food, with supplies for these 90, I'm sorry, 69 federal soldiers, right? And we've said that as a response, um, the South Carolinians, the South Carolinian Confederates will follow the orders of the person named Jefferson Davis, who, if we remember, was the president of the Confederate States of America, and they will start to fire shots at the, uh, federal, um, ships approaching Fort Sumter, right? Um, and this will start on April 12th, 1861. And after, um, over a day of siege, after 34 hours of siege, Fort Sumter will officially fall into the hands of the Confederates, officially starting the American Civil War.

Also, let's remember that aside from South Carolina, um, the first, or among the first states to secede the Union were the state of, uh, Georgia, state of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, all of which will secede in January of 1869, with the exception of Texas, who will secede in February of 1869. Um, and so that's like the original seven states. And then after the fall of Fort Sumter, this will prompt additional Southern states to join the Confederacy. And in April and March, um, actually April and May of 1861, you will have states including Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia, who will also formally join the Confederate States of America, totaling up now to 11 states. And now also worth mentioning here is that the states of those states you see in like a brownish color, including Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, these states were known as the so-called border states, right? So they were kind of the border between Confederacy and the Union. And what that meant, because they were in this like geographical space between the Mason-Dixon line, these states will engage in very fierce debates in their local assemblies, in their local places of government, about whether to remain in the Union or to join the Confederates. And for example, the secession was declared by the pro-Confederate governments in the states of Missouri and Kentucky, but this will not become effective or approved by the federal government. Um, and in a lot of people inside of the legislature in these two states, in Missouri and Kentucky, were actually pro-Union, um, inside of that state government, and they would not allow for it to happen. They will kind of veto and refuse to ratify, uh, the constitution or the amendments to add these states to the Union, I'm sorry, to the Confederate States, right? And because of these disagreements, because you had pro-Confederate forces in these two states, they were kind of prevalent and dominant, uh, Missouri and Kentucky will, in the eyes of a lot of the Confederates, be viewed as the Confederate states, which is why there are 13 stars on the Confederate flag and not 11 stars on the Confederate flag, if you ever happen to wonder.

Okay, now that we've officially have the nation divided between Confederates and Unionists, let's spend a few words then talking about the nature of the Civil War and some of the major developments of the Civil War itself. So for those of you who are sending in requests asking, "Tanya, give us more of the military history," this one goes out to you. Okay, so the American Civil War, um, has often been dubbed as America's first modern war. What that means is that for the first time, perhaps, the warring sides will use massive forces and will use a very, or updated, um, deadly weapons which will be created by the American Industrial Revolution, also known in this course as the American Market Revolution, right? Um, and for example, the Civil War will be the first major war in which troops and supplies will be transported using all of these vast networks of railroads that we've discussed that were developed in the early 19th century's market revolution, right? Um, and the railroads were so much used, not actually, they were very much used for food and supplies, yes, but they were also used, interestingly, in the battle. And both Union and Confederate armies will both utilize these so-called railroad guns, which were essentially large pieces of artillery that were typically brought from, you know, naval ships, the old naval ships that were destroyed in previous battles, and now the artillery was from that naval ship installed onto the railway wagon. And you're looking at an example of the railroad gun used by Robert E. Lee's forces, Confederate forces, during the siege of Petersburg in 1864 and '65. And Petersburg is in, um, Virginia. Someone Google me fast, I think Petersburg is in Virginia. Okay.

Um, now another example of the ways in which the war was modern, um, will be the introduction of steamships, which were also invented, if you remember, during the Industrial Revolution. And this will kind of revolutionize, revolutionize, uh, the naval warfare during the American Civil War as well. Um, and there was a famous sea battle between two vessels, one of which was the, uh, was the US Union vessel called the Monitor, and the Confederate vessel called the Merrimack, which will occur in March of 1862. This was also known as the Battle of Hampton Roads, also occurring in Virginia. And even though the Merrimack and the Monitor in the battle will kind of be inconclusive, um, it was history, it was like significant because it was history's first naval battle using, uh, using explicitly, uh, steamships, or using only steamships, which were also known as the so-called ironclads. And this battle was kind of used to show the superiority of the steamships in naval battles, uh, over the previous versions of the vessels, which will be, you know, the wooden ships, right?

And then another important invention in the Civil War, making the war itself modern, was the revolution in arms manufacturing. Um, and in previous wars, it's worth mentioning, the American soldiers will use, uh, things like, you know, the traditional muskets, which were accurate, yes, but only at a very short range. However, during the Civil War, soldiers will introduce more modern rifles, which will have greater accuracy and were deadly at wider or longer ranges, this time approximately 600 yards, which will kind of secure accuracy and efficiency of these modern rifles. And the Civil War will also be the first war in which soldiers will rely on the so-called repeating rifles, repeating because they could fire several shots without having to be reloaded. And for example, uh, the most commonly used rifle by the Confederate soldiers was the so-called Spencer repeating rifle, which was kind of invented in the late 1860s, but will kind of become commonly used in 1861 and 1862. And you are looking on the slide, what you're looking on the right-hand, uh, of your slide is an advertisement in the, uh, Scientific American, which was a like a journal that people read, that was advertising, um, the Spencer rifle. Spencer was one of the most commonly used, right? And this rifle was able to fire seven shots at once with a single loading, right?

Now, as a consequence, um, of all of this modern technology, a consequence was unfortunately that there were also larger number of fatalities, right? Um, and the newest, the freshest data I could gather for you on the number of casualties of the American Civil War, the number is constantly changing with the introduction of new data, of course, but the latest number, the latest estimate is that over 750,000 people will die in the American Civil War, right? Either from wounds inflicted on the battlefield or afterward, or due to different kinds of diseases that soldiers would contract while on, while fighting in the war, right? Um, and that number, 750,000, um, still to this day makes the Civil, American Civil War, America's deadliest conflict. If we were to look throughout the history of all of the wars in which Americans have been involved, this was the war in which most Americans perished. And just for the perspective, the death toll in the American Civil War actually exceeds the total number of all Americans who will die in the nation's other wars up until, yeah, and like a period, actually any war that Americans fought in history, including, you know, Revolutionary War, including the War of 1812, but also modern wars like the Vietnam War, like, um, uh, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, right? So all of these together do not total to the number of casualties of people that perished during the American Civil War. So that's how deadly it was.

Now, after the, the fall of Fort Sumter, which, as we said, will initiate, um, the start of the American Civil War, both sides will start to, of course, recruit their armies, um, and employ their main generals, kind of devising their main war strategies as well. Um, and in terms of the two different war strategies, one of Union, one of the Confederates, um, on the side of the Union war strategies, there will be a chief strategist called George Winfield. And he was a 75-year-old military person with a load of military experience, and he came up with chief objectives of the Union army, kind of constructing the Union's war strategy. And he will call it the "quote-unquote Anaconda Strategy," hitting perhaps at the fact or hinting perhaps at the fact that the Union army would kind of slowly, uh, entwine and kind of slowly but decisively crush the Southern resistance, almost like an anaconda would crush the prey it was hunting and grabbing, right? And the first point of the Anaconda Strategy was that in order for the Union to win, they must first make sure that the capital of the Union, Washington D.C., stays heavily defended and stays heavily fortified. Because historically, if we were to look at the history of all the world battles, once the capital city of your empire, country, monarchy, state is destroyed, then your entire political entity crumbles, right? So you have to defend your city capital. And we also, in terms of Union, we, um, we need to start to pressure the, or pressure on the Confederate capital, which at the time was no longer, um, Montgomery, Alabama, but rather at the start of the war was the, um, Richmond, Virginia, right?

Now, secondly, um, the plan was that the federal navy needs to be cut off, or the, uh, the Union navy needs to cut off the Confederates and the entire South from these supplies. And so basically, um, in April of 1861, shortly after the, uh, the Fort Sumter incident, President Lincoln will initiate a naval blockade as the official naval strategy to prevent the South from conducting any trade, um, closing all of the ports and cutting off essentially cutting off Confederacy's access from foreign goods, as well as taxes from weapons, as well. So they thought that cutting off supply would, um, exacerbate the situation for the Confederates. And this blockade will remain in place until the very end of the war in 1865. And now the final component of the Anaconda Strategy, uh, will be to divide Confederacy, um, by trying to invade South from different geographical spaces, but to use rivers to penetrate into the Confederate territory. And so the North will rely on the Union army will rely on transporting their armies, reinforcements, supplies through using Tennessee, Mississippi, and Cumberland rivers in order to approach the South.

Now, on the Confederate side, um, the diplomacy was actually much simpler. Because the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, was kind of perhaps more experienced in warfare than Lincoln in terms of, you know, military strategy. And, you know, he had a degree, Jefferson Davis had a degree from a prestigious military academy, the West Point, and he will command a regiment during the Mexican-American War. So he kind of gained experience in tactics and strategy. And under Davis, the Confederate nation will become far more centralized than the old South in the 19th century or previous years, decades, had been. And the government will, the Confederate government will start to instantly raise armies, but they had to do so from scratch. They will also take control of the railroads of the Southern railroads, and they will start to build manufacturing plants to kind of meet the demand for supply, like uniforms, like, uh, weapons, and like food, and things of that nature. However, Jefferson Davis and Confederates will fail to find a fairly effective way to utilize the South's major source of money, which of course, we know, was cotton, right? And actually, in the early part of the war, Davis, uh, Davis will try to suppress cotton production. He will start to urge the local planters and plantationists to grow food instead of cotton. And also, he will be banning cotton exports, which was kind of like an odd, different, shocking kind of strategy. But the reason what he was doing here with the strategy is that he was hoping that such policy, or with such policy, the South, the Confederates would actually become more economically independent, more economically self-sufficient, and not so much have to depend on the imports from the North. And he will also hope that this strategy will force other international powers, other foreign nations in Europe, including nations like Great Britain and France, to intervene into the Civil War. So he was hoping he can pull them in on the side of the Confederacy, right? Because he thought, well, they will pull in because they depend on the South for, they depend on the South heavily, uh, for the cotton imports, right? Um, and all of this, all this strategy was known as the King Cotton Diplomacy, right? And it was used as a strategy by the Confederates in the early years of the Civil War. And part of this, uh, Cotton King Diplomacy will be that you will have Confederate diplomats, envoys, international envoys, traveling overseas seeking assistance in places like London, London and Paris, capitals of Great Britain and France, respectively. And they will even succeed in winning a promise from the French prime minister to recognize Confederacy, but with the caveat, French will say, "Only if Britain recognizes Confederate States of America as its own separate entity and into a separate nation, then we will agree to admit to, to recognize Confederate States of America as a separate entity, right?" However, um, the cotton diplomacy altogether will turn out to be extremely ineffective. Um, and the British foreign minister will actually even refuse to meet with Confederates, partly because, you know, the Union army, or the Unionists will also send envoys to London, and they will pressure him not to side with Confederates. And partially because Great Britain will depend heavily not just on cotton, but more so on wheat from the American Northern countries, just as much, actually, they depended on the cotton from the South. So if they had to prioritize, English said, "We would rather feed our people than have cotton supplied to our textile mills in our textile industry, right?" And instead, British will, in fact, start to promote cultivation of cotton or import of cotton from other places of the world, such as, you know, Egypt, and also India, and rely on them rather than American South to supply them with cotton.

Now, as a result, as you can imagine, um, Confederate states at the outbreak of the war will end up with a huge stockpile of cotton bales sitting in the warehouses of the Confederate, uh, government, and they were now unable to sell them because now you have a blockade by Lincoln, and now you have international powers not wanting your cotton anyways, right? This crisis of overproduction of cotton will drive down the price of cotton in the South, pressing, pressuring and impoverishing the Southern farmers greatly. And so for those reasons, the majority of the early part of the war, or for the majority of the early part of the Civil War, the South will, um, instead largely stay on the defensive side rather than being on the, on the offensive side, because they were struggling economically due to inefficiencies of Jefferson Davis's, Davis's cotton diplomacy.

Next, if we are to focus on some of the major developments of the war, while trying to hopefully simplify things and not to talk about every single battle, which would probably take forever, um, we should instead observe some of the most impactful events of the American Civil War. Now, we understand the Civil War, historians understand the Civil War, um, as being fought between two major fronts. One, the, the one front on the East, also known as the Eastern Theater, and one fought on the West, also known as the Western, Western Theater. And the demarcation line between those two, um, territories, or the lines separating the two territories, the two fronts are, are the Appalachian Mountains, okay?

Now, in terms of the Eastern Theater, um, the main Union army that fought most of the battles within the Eastern Theater will also be known as the Army of the Potomac. And that will be initially an army that was led by General Irvin McDowell, okay? In the early stages of the war, the Army of the Potomac, which was the Union army of the Eastern Theater, was led by McDowell. And most of the war's fighting, um, on the Eastern territory was fought between and on this like very short span, very short territory between Washington and Richmond, between the capital of Union and capital of the Confederate States. Um, and this was like this short, like, I think it's approximately like, what, 100 miles between the two cities, in which most battles on the Eastern front will take place. Um, and during the first two years of the war in particular, most of the fighting will occur in places like Virginia and Maryland. And for example, one of the first significant engagements of the Civil War will occur in July of 1861, known as the First Battle of the Bull Run. If you were to look at the map, then you would see that it's right here, okay? So, uh, right here in the place called Manassas, okay? So this is where it happened. Now, President Lincoln will initiate the march of, uh, 37,000 of the Union soldiers, hoping that they can just come there, overrun the Confederate soldiers quickly, uh, and then when they reach Manassas by the, the Bull Run, then they could just march on straight on to Richmond, right? Um, and so kind of following the Anaconda Strategy, Lincoln thought, well, if we can go straight for the capital, right? We can zip in the war early, we can make Richmond fall, because again, if capital falls, the Confederacy falls, right? And it was kind of a very bold first move. If we were to look at it from the military strategic perspective, it actually proved to be disastrous for, well, both Union and Confederates. Um, in the Union army, led by General McDowell, will kind of almost achieve their purpose early. They will kind of want to arrive to Manassas, but Confederates will receive reinforcements and they will push out the Union offenses fairly early, and the Union army will start to retreat and kind of flee frantically back to the Washington D.C. Um, and when it was all said and done, it kind of happened really quickly. Um, it was a very sobering experience, both for the Union army that kind of lost, but also for the Confederate armies, because neither of the two sides were too ready. Um, and, uh, you know, both sides thought that, you know, war would be short, but at this point, it was becoming obvious it will be anything but, right?

And then the Eastern Theater will remain, after this first and first large engagement, the Eastern Theater will remain fairly quiet for a few months, um, because the Union army lost. However, Lincoln, after the Battle of Bull Run, will replace General McDowell with a new person known as George McClellan. And George McClellan now becomes kind of the head general of the Army of the Potomac. And his first task will be to reorganize, to retrain the Union army. Um, and when he was successful in accomplishing that, he, however, was fairly reluctant to just send him off to battle, um, because he hoped that instead of having this large-scale loss of life, that the two opposing sides of the war could kind of reach a compromise. In the meantime, while the Union army was kind of still in training, however, he was pressured by President Lincoln and he was ordered to lead the army of 100,000 of Union soldiers to try and occupy Richmond again. This will happen between June and July of 1862. And the army of McClellan will, you know, uh, come very close to the city of Richmond itself. They were approximately 60 miles away from the Confederate capital. And there, the Army of the Potomac will encounter the Confederate army, which at this point was led by General Robert E. Lee. And Lee's armies and McClellan's armies will kind of engage in a series of battles. This is like, this is an X right here, which you can see. They were kind of close to Richmond, but not in the downtown Richmond, if you will. They will engage in approximately weeks-long battle, and this was known as the Seven Days' Campaign, okay? Um, and these Confederate forces, when it was all said and done, after about a week of fighting, um, will keep pushing the Army of the Potomac more and more northward. Um, and then finally, the two sides will clash again, kind of after they were pushed out, after the Union army was pushed out of Richmond, they kept coming north and north. And ironically, um, they will meet Confederates again for the second time at the Battle of Bull Run, hence the Second Battle of Bull Run. And in it, the Confederates, this time still under the command of Lee, will yet again, for the third time, emerge victorious against the Union Army of the Potomac.

Now, as you can tell by this point, uh, by, uh, the middle of 1862, the Confederate morale was actually kind of peaking, having defended Richmond twice by this point. And Lee will decide it was time for Confederates to actually start and plan a bold move on actually invading the North. And with the invasion, General Lee will kind of hope that he could bring these border states, these border slave states into the Confederacy. And he thought it would be a way to again pursue the King Cotton Diplomacy, to kind of sway in the foreign recognition that the Confederates were hoping for at this point. So he thought that, you know, with the successful invasion of the North, with the, uh, Confederate invasion of Washington D.C., that Britain and France will recognize Confederacy's independence, right? And for that reason, in September of 1862, Lee and his troops will push north into Western Maryland, um, heading towards Pennsylvania. Their goal was to, uh, also reach the city of Washington, um, as well. And they will start to engage in the so-called Battle of Antietam, uh, which will take place on September 17th of 1862, right? And in it, the Confederate forces were this time, perhaps for the first time in the war, actually outnumbered more than two to one. And subsequently, uh, Lee's invasion of the North will fail. So Antietam will be kind of a loss for the Confederates. And in fact, um, in terms of scale of the battle, kind of coming back to the topic of, oh, this actually was the first modern war in terms of, you know, armaments and the sheer scale of people who passed away, many historians argued that the Battle of Antietam was the most costly battle of the Civil War and the bloodiest single day in American history. Because during this battle, on this one day, September 17th of 1862, about 6,400 soldiers on both sides ended up dying in a single day. And another 17,000 will end up wounded after just one day of battling. Um, and in fact, again, just to put things into perspective for you, in terms of how many people that actually is, um, more Americans died on September 17th of 1862, when the Battle of Antietam was fought, than in any other day in the nation's history, including the Pearl Harbor invasion and D-Day invasion of World War II, and also including terrorist attacks, um, on September 11th of 2001, right? So very, um, in terms of, uh, casualties, also yet again, proof of another deadly battle.

Now, while the Union accomplished very little, with the exception of Antietam, very little in the Eastern front in these first two years of the American Civil War, there was a different story happening on the Western Theater, or on the Western front. Now, on the Western front, the architect of the military maneuvers will be the General, or then General and future President of America, known as Ulysses S. Grant. And in February of, um, 1862, sir, right before the Battle of Antietam, Grant will win the Union's first significant victory when he will capture Fort, where is it? Port, uh, Port Henry, right here, and also Port, uh, Donaldson. These both are kind of bordering, um, in the state of Tennessee, right? Um, and then in April of 1862, Union's naval forces will also be led by Grant in the South, um, and they will successfully attack and successfully acquire the port of New Orleans, right here. So the naval battle of acquisition of New Orleans by Union army in 1862 will be successful, as led by Grant. Um, and lastly, Grant's forces will also successfully defeat, uh, 44,000 of the Confederate soldiers, um, at the place called Shiloh, right here, at the edge of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. Um, and, uh, it was a very huge, all of these, uh, were very, um, much necessary victories in terms of the desires of the Union army. And these were all huge moves boosting up the morale of the Union soldiers in 1862 with the victories of Grant and the Western Frontier.

We were also speaking of the Western Frontier. If we were actually to look even further west, in the second half of the war, or actually in the first and the second half of the American Civil War, the Civil War was troubling and dividing the residents in the territories of the American, of the American Southwest. And if you were to look at the map, you would notice that a lot of these territories were yet unorganized, they were yet to be admitted to the Union. Um, and that was probably the reason why these states were so divided and why these territories would also be included in the American Civil War. Because since the beginning of the American Republic, and now with the American Civil War, um, the question of slavery was kind of tied up with the status of all of these unadmitted states in the American Southwest. So both Confederates and Unionists felt like if these states could be, um, if these territories can be acquired by either Confederates or Unionists, then these states would either be free or slave states, respectively, depending on who acquires them, right? And Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, had actually long been interested in the expansion of slavery onto the American Southwest, in particular. And he will start to pursue this goal more aggressively during the American Civil War, starting with, or starting in October of 1861, when Confederate units marching from Texas will launch a full-out invasion of the territory of New Mexico. Um, and actually, people from Texas, um, will claim that, you know, New Mexico, this actually naturally kind of belongs to the territory or to be admitted as a part of the state of Texas itself, right? Um, and they will kind of hope to conquer the region, and they were hoping to use the acquisition of the territory of New Mexico as a gateway to the territories further west, to territories like California. Um, and, and they will kind of view these acquisitions, both of New Mexico and California, as a continuation of the Southern version, if you will, of Manifest Destiny. So out of vested interest will Confederates have in these territories. However, um, this invasion of New Mexico by Jefferson Davis, uh, will be halted because they will be defeated by the so-called Glorieta Pass in March of 1862. If you see like the X here, this is where the battle itself occurred. Um, and interestingly, um, they will be defeated, Confederates will be defeated because the Union armies were at this point reinforced, or during this battle, reinforced by the volunteers from territories like Colorado and the state of California. And Confederates were pushing to, they were kind of pushed to retreat to Texas because of these reinforcements. Um, and we can kind of say that, you know, these dreams of Confederate, uh, states to pursue their empire in the West will, with this battle, kind of start to collapse early in the war, or at least in the first half of the war.

Now, it's very important for us to study the impact of the Civil War on Native American societies because, as you can imagine, in all of these territories, there was a very heavy presence of Native American societies, particularly in the West. And with that said, um, one of Lincoln's first orders as the president will be to withdraw all of the federal troops from the West so they can focus on, uh, protecting Washington D.C. instead. And he will receive several pleas from Native American leaders living in the Western territories to reverse this decision, to not recall federal troops back to Washington, because they knew that if the federal Union troops go back, if they're pulled out, then this would leave Native territories very vulnerable for the Confederate army. And Lincoln will nevertheless recall the troops. Um, and perhaps needless to say, it will lead to endless conflicts between, honestly, anyone and everyone, between white settlers, between Union army, and between Confederate army and Confederate sympathizers as well. An example of this, uh, is the so-called U.S. Dakota War of 1862. And during this conflict, the people known as Dakota Sioux people, who were the native residents of Minnesota, will try to, of course, defend their territory. And in fact, since the early 19th century, since the early 1800s, white settlers will continue to invade the territory of Dakota Sioux people in the Minnesota Valley in particular. And the government will start to pressure native people to relocate to smaller reservations, which will be located in the Minnesota River, in particular, near the city of Minnesota itself. And at the reservation, they were mistreated by the federal troops who will push them almost nearly to the brink of starvation because they will refuse to supply reservations with food, with, uh, water, and just basic necessities that humans would need. And this, you will start to strike back, uh, and kind of in this act of sheer desperation, right? Um, and they will be determined to restore their ancestral hunting grounds, that they felt were necessary for them to feed their people, so to not be dependent on the federal government that is now cutting them off their food and supplies. And they will lead a series of attacks in the neighboring settling communities, kind of initiating the so-called U.S. Dakota War of 1862. However, as you can imagine, in the process, they will kill, they would end up killing approximately 100 of these white settlers. And as a response, the federal military court will sentence approximately 300 of them, 300 of the Dakota Sioux people, they will sentence them to death by hanging.

Now, worth mentioning here is that President Lincoln will actually step in and he will say, you know, "This perhaps is unjust." And he will go on and pardon the vast majority of those who have been sentenced to death by hanging. So he will kind of commute, or accept, 38 of these Sioux leaders. Actually, he will accept everyone except the 38 of the Sioux leaders who were kind of leading the rebellion itself. Um, and 38 of them will be, um, publicly hanged, um, in Mankato, Minnesota, on December 26th of 1862. And, uh, this is the depiction of that event you're looking on the slide to the right side, right? Um, in this event, the hanging of the 38 Sioux leaders of the U.S. Dakota War of 1862 still to this day remains the largest official mass execution in American history.

Now, aside from the impact it will have on the Minnesota Dakota Sioux people, the Union army will also make war on the people of the Navajo people, the native people of the territory of Arizona. And very similarly to Sioux, Navajo will kind of wish to retaliate against the white settlers for what they thought was breach of contract, what they thought was, you know, them stepping into their ancestral lands illegally, or, um, you know, involuntarily, if you will. And Navajo will begin their protest by raiding the farms of white settlers, and they will start to attack these material possessions of these settlers, including things like sheep. And this will start in early 1860. And over here, over the years, the Union army will decide to respond with violent retaliation. They will respond by burning their villages, by slaughtering their livestock, destroying their water sources, all in order to reduce Navajo to desperation and to reduce them to starvation, kind of replicating the policy that was applied to Sioux Dakotas. And as a consequence, um, thousands of the Navajo will be forced to surrender. And they, meaning the federal army, will force 8,000 of Navajo to move to the reservation that was established by the government. And we can kind of say that this forced deportation of Navajo people during the Civil War is known as the, uh, Navajo Long Walk, which took place, um, in 1864, towards the end of the Civil War. This kind of nearly mirrors the story, um, of the Trail of Tears, which, remember, occurred during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, decades earlier, right? Um, and in the Navajo Long Walk, Navajo were forced to walk over 3,000 miles from their ancestral home in Arizona to a reservation camp near New Mexico. Actually, I think the path of the Navajo Long Walk was one, was on one of the maps I showed you earlier, um, yeah, right here, this red line, um, will be known as the line walked by the Navajo in 1864.

Now, all that said, you know, um, these wars against Native Americans, um, were also part of this larger violence that kind of engulfed the entire nation during the Civil War. And the conflicts between them and the white settlers will also kind of be replicated as a part of the American Civil War. Now, before I wrap this up, um, worth mentioning here, um, will be that ironically, Confederacy, even though it defended slavery wholeheartedly, um, Confederates will treat Native Americans more fairly, perhaps, than the Union. And in fact, the Confederate Constitution, for example, will provide Native American tribes to elect their representatives to the Confederate Congress, to have their representatives in the government. Um, and Jefferson Davis also will push to remove the state jurisdiction over Indian reservations. He will say, "If there is a reservation on Confederate property, then Native Americans are free to govern them as they see fit," allowing them to kind of complete their self-government, kind of perhaps following in the along the lines of, you know, states' rights, right? If, if we have the right to be self-governed, and if we wish to, um, act independently from the Union, from the federal government of America, then so do you, native people, have the right to form your own government as well. Um, in some tribes, some peoples who were enslavers themselves, like for instance, the Cherokee people, they sided heavily with the Confederacy because they too, like Confederates, depended on, uh, or, or practiced, uh, enslavement, right? And after the war was, was over, um, in 1865, actually, this will be, um, like a tremendous consequence for the Cherokee, who were now forced to cede much of their land, much of their essential ancestral land to the federal government, and to accept former enslaved persons into the Cherokee Nation, and to kind of give out their land to formerly enslaved people, as per directives of the federal government, right?

You know, when I was preparing for this lecture, I thought that the American Civil War is a topic that is so much, it is covered heavily covered so much in American history, right? It's, it's kind of like, I'm sure that what I'm telling you today, a lot of this stuff is not new to you, which I guess is good. It's just so like, so many books have been written about the American Civil War, so many documentaries are made about it, so many, so many films, movies are made about it. It kind of captures heavy interest of American society. So I felt that, you know, when, when I wrote this lecture, and, you know, the lecture that comes up next, I felt as if, you know, there is no new information that I can bring to you about this conflict because it's so popular, because it's so, you know, covered. Um, however, I don't think that, um, it has been studied enough ways, and we haven't studied enough ways in which the Civil War impacted the Native American society. And perhaps, I hope this is some of this, at least, um, is new information to you, okay?

When we return for our last lecture of the semester, um, you will be listening, or we will cover, like, a different side of the war. We will cover what happened after the Emancipation Proclamation, and we will discuss how the war impacted the society at large. Um, so we'll kind of distance from military history and decide the, the social history, if you will. Um, and we will also wrap up the war and wrap up the semester. All right, um, have a wonderful remainder of your day, and I hope to see you back again next time. All right, bye-bye.