The war and its outcome

14.3.1. On paper, the North possessed overwhelming military superiority over the South. The North had a free population of about 22 million. The South had a population of 9 million, including almost 4 million slaves. The North was a modern industrial power; the South was overwhelmingly rural. Yet the South had advantages as well. To succeed, the South did not have to invade and conquer the North. The South had only to prevent the North from invading and conquering the Confederacy. Improved weapons (most notably rifled muskets that were accurate at more than 300 yards) gave a lethal advantage to entrenched defenders over opponents who attacked them across open ground. Union soldiers did most of the attacking.

14.3.2. But soon the North's advantages began to have an effect. Goods and troops could be moved more quickly along many railroads which the North had. There were nearly 23 million people in the North against about 9 million people in the South. So the North had more people to fight. Northern factories could supply uniforms, guns, bullets and other im­portant things for the army. The South had few factories. And as the war continued, the South had more and more trouble supplying its army. The battle of Gettysburg was the decisive battle of the Civil War. It was a brutal three-day battle. Both sides suffered heavy losses, but the clash was considered a Union victory and a turning point in the American Civil War. The battle marked the last time that the Confederate Army invaded the North. Later President Lincoln went to Gettysburg to dedicate a cemetery for the fallen soldiers. He made a short speech known as the Gettysburg Address.

14.3.3. The Civil War finally established the United States as a nation–state. Americans before the Civil War spoke of the United States as a plural noun. Since the Civil War the United States has been a singular noun (The United States is …). The Founders’ Latin motto E Pluribus Unum (“From many, one”) finally became a reality. The Civil War had long-term economic and social results as well. The war seems to have sped Northern economic development. Northern women saw new possibilities open up during and after the war. In wartime they often took jobs previously done by men on farms and in factories, and thousands served in the Union nursing corps. Post-war women’s political and reform groups were larger and more militant than the groups that preceded them.

14.3.4. Finally and perhaps most importantly, the Civil War was a watershed in the history of African Americans. The war permanently ended slavery. On January 1, 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, ordering that all slaves in rebel territory be freed. The Proclamation marked a radical departure in policy, but reflected the overwhelming public sentiment in the North. About 3 million people were freed by the terms of the document, which is regarded as one of the most important state documents of the United States.

14.4. Abraham Lincoln, 16^th President of the USA.

14.4.1. Abraham Lincoln is one of the great leaders in American history. A humane, far-sighted statesman in his lifetime, he became a legend and a folk hero after his death. Lincoln rose from humble backwoods origins to become one of the great presidents of the United States. In his effort to preserve the Union during the Civil War, he assumed more power than any preceding president. Necessity made him almost a dictator, but he was always a democrat. A superb politician, he persuaded the people with reasoned word and thoughtful deed to look to him for leadership.

14.4.2. Abraham Lincoln's ancestry on his father's side has been traced to a weaver who emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1637. At an early age, his stepmother encouraged his quest for knowledge. Besides the family Bible, which Lincoln knew well, he was able to read the classical authors Aesop, John Bunyan, and Daniel Defoe. The biography of George Washington made a lasting impression on Lincoln, and he made the ideals of Washington and the founding fathers of the United States his own. At 23, Lincoln decided to run for a seat in the Illinois House of representatives. This was a logical step for Lincoln to take, for on the frontier a young man with ability and ambition could rise rapidly in politics.

14.4.3. He eventually became President of the USA and moved into the White House in 1861. Lincoln showed that he was going to be a strong president. By word and deed he became, to many people in the North, a symbol of the Union. Without this strong belief in the Union, the war could not have been won. Lincoln never lost sight of his responsibility to preserve the Union. Even the crusade against slavery remained a secondary purpose of the war. “What I do about slavery and the colored race,” he wrote, “I do because I believe it helps to save the Union.” Lincoln never recognized the Confederacy as an independent nation. He considered the Southern states only to be in rebellion against the federal government.

14.4.4. Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, by a half-crazed actor with pro-Southern sympathies, John Wilkes Booth. On that day, Lincoln and his wife, were to attend a performance at Ford's Theatre in Washington. Early that day, Lincoln held a Cabinet meeting at which Secretary of the Treasury McCulloch noted that he had never seen the president “so cheerful and happy.” Lincoln told his Cabinet about a dream he had had the previous night, which he interpreted to mean that a final victory was near. That night the Lincolns went to the theater as scheduled. At about 10:30 pm, Booth made his way into the box. Choosing a moment when all attention was fixed on the stage, he put a pistol to Lincoln's head and fired once. The President slumped in his seat, unconscious. Booth leaped to the stage, shouting “Sic semper tyrannis,” the Virginia state motto, meaning “Thus ever to tyrants.” He made his escape, but was killed while resisting arrest 12 days later.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-07