A People's Contest, Vol I: The Civil War as it Unfolded

By Kenneth Kellogg

The American Civil War is the most written-about war human beings have yet fought. And yet, its controversies are still being argued over: Was it about slavery or States' rights? Did the South ever have a chance to win? And above all, how did it become such a desperate struggle, claiming the lives of more Americans than any other conflict? 

The story of the Civil War has become still more relevant in recent times, as the nation still grapples with the cultural divide between city and rural, North and South, and the unfinished struggle for the rights of minorities. "A People's Contest" takes a different approach than the classical histories, using a day-by-day account which illuminates how decisions were made and how the momentous events unfolded. And the people who were part of it, politicians, generals, soldiers, and private citizens, give their voices to the story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: May 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9781977218315

Kenneth Kellogg

Kenneth Kellogg is an Aerospace engineer with a deep interest in history. With the help of several talented friends, he has put together the story of the Civil War.

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A People’s Contest, Vol I

The Civil War as it Unfolded

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Copyright © 2024 Kenneth Kellogg

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A People’s Contest, Volume I

1861

January 1861

February 1861

March 1861

April 1861

May 1861

June 1861

July 1861

August 1861

September 1861

October 1861

November 1861

December 1861

Glossary

Dramatis Personae (Significant Persons)

Civil War Units and Ranks

Further References

Full Text of Lincoln’s First Inaugural Speech

...there are many single Regiments whose members, one and another, possess full practical knowledge of all the arts, sciences, professions, and whatever else, whether useful or elegant, is known in the world; and there is scarcely one, from which there could not be selected, a President, a Cabinet, a Congress, and perhaps a Court, abundantly competent to administer the government itself. Nor do I say this is not true, also, in the army of our late friends, now adversaries...

This is essentially a People’s contest.

– Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress in Special Session, July 4, 1861

January 9, 1861

The United States was beginning to come apart. The agitation over slavery, which had been constantly building instead of decreasing after the Compromise of 1850, had at last resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln, and numerous anti-slavery members of Congress. Several of the Southern states had already threatened to leave the Union, and the month before, South Carolina gone from threats to action. A convention had been assembled and it unanimously passed an Ordinance of Secession.

But it could not stop there. As one pundit had written, South Carolina is too small for a country, and too big for a lunatic asylum. Either more Southern states would join her, or she would eventually be compelled to rejoin the Union to be able to trade with the rest of the country without high tariffs. And if that happened, it was highly unlikely that there would ever again be a serious secession movement. It was now or never for the South.

On this date, Mississippi decided for now. Their Convention passed its ordinance of Secession, including a suggestion that the Southern slave states band together and form a nation of their own:

AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of Mississippi and other States united with her under the compact entitled The Constitution of the United States of America.

The people of the State of Mississippi, in convention assembled, do ordain and declare, and it is hereby ordained and declared, as follows, to wit:

Section 1. That all the laws and ordinances by which the said State of Mississippi became a member of the Federal Union of the United States of America be, and the same are hereby, repealed, and that all obligations on the part of the said State or the people thereof to observe the same be withdrawn, and that the said State doth hereby resume all the rights, functions, and powers which by any of said laws or ordinances were conveyed to the Government of the said United States, and is absolved from all the obligations, restraints, and duties incurred to the said Federal Union, and shall from henceforth be a free, sovereign, and independent State.

[ . . . ]

Sec. 4. That the people of the State of Mississippi hereby consent to form a federal union with such of the States as may have seceded or may secede from the Union of the United States of America, upon the basis of the present Constitution of the said United States, except such parts thereof as embrace other portions than such seceding States.

Thus ordained and declared in convention the 9th day of January, in the year of our Lord 1861.

But if the United States was to break in two, it led to a second question: would the split be peaceful, or would there be war? Southerners urged that there be peace. After all, the United States had been founded with the idea that a people had the right to leave a government if it imposed laws they judged to be wrong. Why should they tamely submit to the destruction of their way of life, and be dominated by the more populous North? And a number of Northern voices agreed. If the South was to be pinned by bayonets to the rest of the country, they argued, what happened to the ideal of liberty?

With every break-up, however, comes the less-than-idealistic but unavoidable issue of who gets to keep the valuables. There were numerous installations belonging to the U. S. Federal government on Southern lands: forts, navy yards, customs houses, and even mints where money was coined. South Carolina swiftly decided that what was on her soil was rightfully hers. State troops seized nearly all of the forts and arsenals within the State borders.

With one exception. Major Robert Anderson, guessing what was about to happen, had evacuated his eighty-odd U. S. Army soldiers in the city of Charleston to the unfinished Fort Sumter on an island in the entrance to the port. The South Carolinians were outraged, and had begun setting up batteries of cannon to bear on the fort.

On this same date, a cargo ship named Star Of The West sailed into the channel, carrying supplies for the Federal garrison in Fort Sumter. The Southerners had no intention of allowing the fort to be reinforced, and opened fire with their cannon. Major Anderson, knowing that if he fired on the Rebel guns to help the Star Of The West he would very likely start civil war then and there, ordered his cannoneers to stand down. A Southern shot hit the Northern ship, and seeing no support from the fort, she turned around and sailed away.

No lives had been lost, and peace returned for the moment. But in a real sense, the first shots had already been fired.

January 10, 1861

Florida had also assembled a convention for the issue of secession, and on this date, the state became the third to leave the Union. Passed by a vote of 62 to 7, the Ordinance of Secession was short and to the point:

We, the people of the State of Florida in Convention assembled, do solemnly ordain, publish and declare: That the State of Florida hereby withdraws herself from the Confederacy of States existing under the name of the United States of America, and from the existing Government of said States: and that all political connection between her and the Government of said States ought to be and the same is hereby totally annulled, and said union of States dissolved: and the State of Florida is hereby declared a Sovereign and Independent Nation: and that all ordinances heretofore adopted in so far as they create or recognize said Union, are rescinded: and all laws or parts of laws in force in this State, in so far as they recognize or assent to said Union be and they are hereby repealed.

Done in open Convention, January 10th, A. D. 1861.

Florida also had a fort on an island near Pensacola, where it could not be easily overrun by massed state militia. On this same day, U.S. Army Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer decided that the fort, named Fort Pickens, was the safest place for his little command. He ordered his 51 soldiers and 30 sailors to destroy over 10 tons of gunpowder at a second nearby fort, spike the cannons at a third fort, and then move into Fort Pickens.

This was no premature move. State takeovers of U. S. forts and arsenals was now going on in many places in the South, some even before secession had been declared. On this date, Forts Jackson and St. Phillip in Louisiana were seized. These were the key forts controlling the outlet of the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico.

January 11, 1861

The country was still in the process of installing telegraph wires to cities in various places. This led to situations where some cities could communicate almost instantly, while other cities, especially those to the west, might take days or a week or more to send their news. Charleston was connected, so New York and Washington had learned of the firing on the Star of the West almost immediately. The New York legislature gave a prompt and angry response:

Concurrent Resolutions tendering aid to the President of the United States in support of the Constitution and the Union

STATE OF NEW YORK, In Assembly, Jan. 11, 1861

Whereas, Treason, as defined by the Constitution of the United States, exists in one or more of the States of this Confederacy, and

Whereas, the insurgent State of South Carolina ... has, by firing into a vessel ordered by the Government to convey troops and provisions to Fort Sumter, virtually declared war; and whereas, the forts and property of the United States Government in Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana, have been unlawfully seized with hostile intentions; … therefore

Resolved, That the Legislature of New York, profoundly impressed with the value of the Union, and determined to preserve it unimpaired, hail with joy the recent firm, dignified and patriotic Special Message of the President of the United States, and that we tender to him, … whatever aid in men and money he may require to enable him to enforce the laws and uphold the authority of the Federal Government. . .

Now, although President Buchanan had indeed denied that a state had a right to secede, he also held that the Federal government did not have the right to coerce a state back into the Union. More definite measures would have to wait until the new President took office.

And by coincidence on this same date, in Montgomery, Alabama, yet another Southern convention voted for secession. And this time the suggestion of of the Southern states joining together was made formal:

And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as a permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States,

Be it resolved by the people of Alabama in Convention assembled , That the people of the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, be and are hereby invited to meet the people of the State of Alabama, by their Delegates, in Convention, on the fourth day of February, A. D., 1861, at the city of Montgomery, in the State of Alabama, for the purpose of consulting with each other as to the most effectual mode of securing concerted and harmonious action in whatever measures may be deemed most desirable for our common peace and security.

And be it further resolved , That the President of this Convention be, and he is hereby, instructed to transmit forthwith a copy of the foregoing Preamble, Ordinance, and Resolutions to the Governors of the several States named in said resolutions.

Done by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, at Montgomery, on this, the eleventh day of January, A. D., 1861.

It was the genesis of the Confederate States of America.

January 15, 1861

George Templeton Strong was a prominent New York attorney who was also a dedicated diarist. Starting in 1835, he would write an entry nearly every day for 40 years. On this date, he expressed the disgust with President Buchanan's policy that was widespread in the North, and took an ominous step:

January 15. Nothing new from Washington, or from the insurgents of the South, except that the Old Pennsylvania Fossil [Buchanan] is rumored to have relapsed into vacillation and imbecility. It seemed a week ago as if her were developing germs of a backbone. Had this old mollusk become vertebrate, the theories by Darwin and the Vestiges of Creation would have been confirmed.

Rumors multiply and strengthen of an organization in this city intended to give aid and comfort to Southern treason by getting up such disturbances here as will paralyze any movement to strengthen the government by men or money.

[...]

Treated myself to a Maynard Carbine ($47.50) this afternoon.

--The Diary of George Templeton Strong

(The Maynard carbine was one of the early weapons that used a metal cartridge, allowing it to be loaded and fired as much as four times faster than a muzzle-loading musket.)

January 18, 1861

Already, men were having to think about which side to take. At this point in time, William Tecumseh Sherman was the head of the Louisiana State Military Academy in New Orleans. Secession fever was clearly running high in Louisiana, so Sherman wrote to the Governor and advised that he be replaced the moment the State determines to secede, for on no earthly account will I do any act or think any thought hostile to or in defiance of the old Government of the United States.

January 19, 1861

In spite of opposition from moderate members of the state legislature, including Alexander Stephens, Georgia became the fifth state to secede. The vote was 208 to 89. An additional six delegates, while protesting against secession, pledged our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to the defence of Georgia, if necessary, against hostile invasion from any source whatever. It was a time when many believed their loyalty to their state came first, and to the country, second.

January 21, 1861

Jefferson Davis was at this point a United States Senator from Mississippi in Washington, D.C. On this date, that changed, although he had as yet no idea what his next position was to be.

I rise, Mr. President, for the purpose of announcing to the Senate that I have satisfactory evidence that the State of Mississippi, by a solemn ordinance of her people, in convention assembled, has declared her separation from the United States. Under these circumstances, of course, my functions are terminated here. It has seemed to me proper, however, that I should appear in the Senate to announce that fact to my associates, and I will say but very little more.

-- Jefferson Davis, Farewell Speech to the Senate

Senator Jefferson Davis

Actually, Davis said a fair amount more, hoping for peaceful relations in the future, but warning that Mississippi would resist any invasion or attempt to enforce United States laws within her borders.

Note that Mississippi had formally seceded on January 9th, but the news had traveled more slowly than the word from Charleston. Four other Senators also gave their resignations on this day.

January 24, 1861

The Fort Sumter situation now seemed peaceful enough, and soldiers in the Union garrison were even allowed to come ashore and visit in Charleston. But those who considered the matter carefully knew trouble was brewing. The fort was not entirely finished (roughly half of the planned 135 guns had been mounted), but there were cannons and ammunition enough to stop any ships from entering Charleston harbor if the Northerners chose. And there was vital prestige to be thought of. On this date, the Charleston Mercury editorialized:

Border southern States will never join us until we have indicated our power to free ourselves—until we have proven that a garrison of seventy men cannot hold the portal of our commerce … The fate of the Southern Confederacy hangs by the ensign halliards of Fort Sumter.

There were actually 85 men in the garrison, but otherwise it would prove to be entirely true.

January 26, 1861

As William T. Sherman had feared, Louisiana seceded from the Union. The vote was a lopsided 114-17.

AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of Louisiana and other States united with her under the compact entitled The Constitution of the United States of America.

We, the people of the State of Louisiana, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance passed by us in convention on the 22d day of November, in the year eighteen hundred and eleven, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America and