Introduction 15A modern war
In many respects, the Civil War was a
watershed in the history of warfare, as it
ultimately took shape as a total or modern
war. The warring sides voiced the rhetoric
of ideology and cause, they employed
conscription, simplified strategies and tactics
to create armies of unparalleled size and
power, and they used these armies to strike
at the enemy and destroy their possessions.
At first, Northern commanders anticipated a
limited, short, and bloodless war that would
restore the Union without alienating the
Southern populace. They attempted to
quickly prevail by blockading Southern ports
and by capturing principal cities, including
the Confederate capital, Richmond. By the
end of 1861, however, Northern political
leaders had come to believe that Union
armies were actually losing the war because
they were trying to win the peace.
Perhaps more than any other aspect of
the war, rifled weapons gave rise to a longer
and more protracted war. These rifles gave
the armies a defensive advantage, and
Northern soldiers soon realized that they
could neither easily destroy Southern
armies nor capture fortified positions. By
early 1862, commanders fully understood
the lethal implications of such firepower,
at a time when Northern political leaders
came to embrace an expansive war to be
waged against the South's institutions.
Northern political leaders and commanders
sought not only to reduce Confederate
forces in campaigns of attrition, but also
to deplete the South's ability to wage war
by liberating slaves, destroying the region's
farms and factories, and most significantly,
breaking the spirit of the Southern people.South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun, who devised the
theory of nullification, was also an ardent defender of
slavery. I hold that in the present state of civilization.' he
once argued,'the relation now existing in the slave-holding
states between the two [races] is, instead of an evil, a
good - a positive good.' (Ann Ronan Picture Library)The Civil War ravaged the American
landscape for four years and instead of
conserving the old America it steadily and
profoundly reshaped the political, economic,
and social contours of the nation. By the
time it ended, the original American
republic was gone. The postwar republic
would be carved out of a world that the
war made.