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"Sherman's March": how and for what the North and South fought in the United States
Artem Krechetnikov BBC, Moscow
November 14, 2014
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Image caption
General Sherman (leaning on the gun carriage) and his officers in the vicinity of Atlanta (photo 1864 from the Library of Congress)
150 years ago, on November 15, 1864, a key event of the American Civil War took place: the famous "march to the sea" of the northerners under the command of William Sherman began.
The starting point of the campaign was the capital of the state of Georgia - Atlanta.
Sherman's troops entered Atlanta on September 2, but there was nothing to capture, in fact.
The day before, the commander of the southern defense, General Hood, ordered to blow up 81 wagons of ammunition that could not be taken with them, since the northerners had cut the railway.
As a result, a huge fire broke out.
The world knows this story from the footage from the movie "Gone with the Wind", where Rhett Butler, whipping a horse, takes Scarlett out of the city through flames and explosions.
From November 15 to December 21, the 60 thousandth army of the Northerners marched in four columns 360 kilometers from Atlanta to Savannah, destroying everything on its way that could be destroyed and set on fire.
By that time, the war had been waged for 3 years and 7 months with varying success.
The purpose of such a radical measure was to economically ruin the South and deprive the enemy of the will to resist.
"The March to the Sea" serves as an illustration of how much mores have changed since then.
Nowadays, no army would resort to such tactics, especially on its own land.
The concepts of humanity and human rights at that time were far from modern ones.
Sherman forced the captured Southerners to dig up anti personnel mines with shovels, saying that otherwise his soldiers would die, and he was not obliged to feel sorry for the enemies.
Idea or pragmatism?
The main result of the Civil War was the abolition of slavery.
However, the opinion is that the northerners fought for a high idea,
it does not fully reflect reality, especially at the first stage.
Indeed, there was an influential abolitionist movement that demanded the abolition of slavery for moral reasons.
It united intellectuals (it is enough to recall "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe), religious moralists and just decent people from all walks of life.
Some abolitionists risked their lives to help slaves escape to the free states.
The southerners regarded this as theft and demanded the extradition of fugitives and the punishment of accomplices, which served as a constant cause for friction.
However, many opponents of slavery did not consider blacks to be their equals and did not seek to see them in the North.
It was even suggested that the fault of the Southerners is precisely that they imported slaves to America and created a problem.
Even more were those who, in the spirit of American individualism, believed that Southerners had the right to live as they wanted, and it was not necessary to interfere in their affairs.
This point of view was held by most of the political and business elite of the North.
However, over time, contradictions on other issues began to accumulate.
After the War of Independence, the rich and educated southern planters for several decades actually played the same role as the nobles in Europe.
Mainly, presidents, senior officials, generals and diplomats were recruited from them.
With the economic development of the North, there began to grow dissatisfaction with the fact that the region, which produces most of the GDP, is politically disadvantaged.
Image caption
General Sherman inspects the fortifications of the northerners (photo 1864 from the Library of Congress)
The psychological incompatibility increased.
In the North, work was in full swing, and the lifestyle of southern planters resembled the life of Russian landowners under serfdom.
In the eyes of the heroes of "Gone with the Wind", the Yankees were unpleasant, spiritless, fussy types who thought only about money.
They saw the southerners as pampered idlers, drowning in undeserved luxury.
In the 1850s, an unsolvable conflict arose over import tariffs.
The South, which lived by exporting cotton and tobacco to Europe and importing industrial products, demanded free trade, while the North, which was experiencing an industrial revolution, demanded protectionism.
Another problem was caused by the development of the Wild West, more precisely, questions about whether slavery should be allowed in the new states, and whether it is necessary to sell land there or give it away for free.
Under the first option, the lion's share of the land would be in the hands of planters who had money and cheap labor.
The northerners wanted everyone to be able to get an allotment in the new territories and become a farmer.
In addition, the southerners were afraid that the free states would eventually gain a strong majority in Congress and would be able to freely pass the laws they liked.
In 1854, after a long struggle, Congress approved the "Kansas Nebraska Act", which allowed the new states to independently decide on the issue of slavery, which temporarily calmed the southerners.
However, the election of the well known opponent of slavery, Abraham Lincoln, as president in 1860, reawakened their fears.
Secession The US Constitution did not directly allow or prohibit the withdrawal of states from the federation.
The first, on December 20, 1860, the "Act of Secession" was adopted by South Carolina.
During January, it was followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana.
On February 4, six states convened a Provisional Congress and proclaimed a new independent state: the Confederation of the States of America.
In the next three and a half months, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina joined him.
These 11 states adopted their constitution declaring slavery eternal, and elected former Senator from Mississippi Jefferson Davis as president.
The capital of the Confederacy was the main city of Virginia, Richmond.
The state of the Northerners was called the "Union"during the war.
It included 23 states, including the slave owning Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland, which remained loyal to Washington after an internal struggle.
The Indians, who themselves owned slaves, and most importantly, did not want a mass migration of northern colonists to their lands, sided with the Confederacy.
On March 4, 1861, Lincoln took the presidential oath of office.
In his inaugural speech, he declared the creation of the Confederation illegal, but promised not to use force against the southern states and not to abolish slavery in those territories where it existed.
The reason for the war was the capture by the Southerners on April 14 of Fort Sumter in South Carolina, which was federal property.
When the shelling began, the commander of the garrison, Major Robert Anderson, surrendered without a fight, but demanded that the southerners salute him with a hundred rifle volleys before lowering the US flag.
The bullet accidentally hit the ammunition box, the explosion killed two of Anderson's subordinates, privates Daniel Howe and Edward Galloway.
They became the first victims of the Civil War.
On the evening of the same day, Lincoln signed a declaration on the beginning of hostilities and the recruitment of 75 thousand volunteers.
During the war, the North accounted for 22 million people of the population (9.1 million in the South, including 3.6 million slaves), 60% of the territory, almost all industry, most of the merchant and military fleet, 70% of railways, 81% of bank deposits.
My highest goal in this struggle is the preservation of the union, not the preservation or destruction of slavery.
If I could save the union without freeing a single slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some slaves and not freeing others, I would do it.
But I do not intend to change my often expressed personal desire that all people everywhere should be free Abraham Lincoln, interview with the New York Times on August 22, 1862
Nevertheless, the war began unfavorably for him.
In the first major battle of Bull Run in western Virginia on July 21, 1861, the northerners were defeated and fled.
There was a panic in the capital.
On July 25, Congress passed the "Crittenden Johnson resolution", declaring the sole purpose of the war to preserve the territorial integrity of the country and demanding that the Administration not take any action against the institution of slavery.
After the defeat of the Northerners at Bell's Bluff on October 21, the Confederates almost captured Washington.
For gentlemen from the South, officer service was a hereditary occupation, and in the army of the northerners, command positions up to colonel's were completed by inexperienced volunteers.
The commander in Chief, General McLellan, became a byword for his indecision.
Grant, Sherman and other capable military leaders advanced only during the battles, but the personnel leapfrog continued throughout the war.
The Southerners were more motivated and united.
There were restrictions on civil rights in the North, which, by the way, is still blamed on Abraham Lincoln, but people who considered the war unnecessary could express their opinion.
In the South, as the Russian military historian Alexander Svechin pointed out, they would simply have been shot for such a thing.
For the northerners, a compromise was possible under certain circumstances, but not for their opponents.
In the end, the North managed to win the war thanks to economic, numerical and naval superiority.
The ports of the South were blocked, trade died, the population and the army began to suffer from a lack of basic necessities.
Image caption
The Confederate flag captured by the Northerners during the "march to the sea", xp stored at the Museum of History in Atlanta.
In 1884, when the 20th anniversary of those events was celebrated, the owner of the trophy, former private of the 56th New York Regiment Lewis Young, returned it to the southerners as a sign of reconciliation
Captain Butler from the movie "Gone with the Wind", as you know, made a fortune by risking his life to deliver fabulously expensive goods to the South.
Revolutionary steps But the main role was played by the will and determination of Lincoln.
On December 30, 1862, he bypassed Congress and signed the "Proclamation on the Abolition of Slavery", which took effect within 48 hours.
Previously, the prevailing opinion in Europe was that the war was going on because of the ambitions of the northerners, who talk about freedom, but themselves do not allow the South to dispose of its own fate.
Now they have become fighters for a noble cause.
English textile factories suffered from interruptions in cotton, mass layoffs began.
London and Paris were preparing to recognize the Confederation and send a fleet to lift the blockade, but under the pressure of public opinion they were forced to reconsider their plans.
About 180 thousand slaves, having learned about the proclamation, fled from their masters and joined the army of the North, served as guides and scouts.
Even earlier, in May 1862, at the initiative of Lincoln, Congress passed the "Homestead Act", which prohibited slavery on new lands and guaranteed everyone a free allotment of 160 acres.
Image caption
Lincoln statue in the US Congress Building
For the European poor, America has become a beacon of hope and a promised land.
Within two years, 177,000 Germans and 144,000 Irish crossed the ocean and immediately enlisted in Lincoln's army.
On July 1-3, 1863, the Southerners who invaded Pennsylvania suffered a heavy defeat at Gettysburg for the first time.
At the same time, General Grant captured the key fortress of Vicksburg in Mississippi, taking about 25 thousand Southerners prisoner and cutting the territory of the Confederacy in two.
On November 7, the Confederates were defeated at Rappanahawk Station.
According to military historians, after these defeats, the South lost its chances of victory, since its human and economic reserves were exhausted.
From now on, the only question was how long he would last.
On the eastern front, the southerners stubbornly resisted throughout 1864, but in the west, the fall of Atlanta and the "march to the sea" made further struggle useless By the spring of 1865, only 54 thousand people remained at the disposal of the commander in chief of the Confederacy, General Lee.
On April 2, Richmond fell, on April 9, Lee surrendered to the commander in chief of the North and future president Ulysses Grant at Appomattox.
The next day, Jefferson Davis and members of his administration were arrested.
On May 13, there was a battle at the Palmito Ranch the last one that the southerners won.
On June 23, General Stand Watie and his part, consisting of Indians, surrendered.
The end was put in the war.
London and Paris supported the South during the Civil War: Britain for economic reasons, Napoleon III, because he hoped to subordinate the Confederation to his influence.
A number of southern states used to be part of French Louisiana, sold in 1803 by his uncle.
Official St. Petersburg, in spite of recent opponents in the Crimean War, sided with the North.
The advanced people, who rejoiced at the recent abolition of serfdom, warmly welcomed the fight against slavery across the ocean.
In Russian diplomatic documents and the press, the Confederation was referred to as the"outraged states".
From September 1863 to July 1864, the Russian squadrons of Admirals Lesovsky and Popov were in New York and San Francisco.
Popov gave his crews an order to intervene if the southerners tried to attack San Francisco from the sea.
About 500 American congressmen and officials visited the ships of the New York squadron.
"Russia and the United States fraternize"; " The Russian cross is intertwined with stars and stripes"; " An enthusiastic popular demonstration on Fifth Avenue, " American newspapers wrote.
"The municipality and the upper bourgeoisie shower honors on Russian officers.
But French and English sailors are not visible at all on the shore, although up to five thousand of them are located in the cramped space of the local sea parking lot.
The officers do not want to play a secondary role at the festivities, where the Russians are the lions, and the sailors are not allowed because the Americans lure them to their service," the London Times reported.
"President Lincoln would sincerely like the reception to reflect the sincerity and friendliness that our country feels towards Russia," said Secretary of State William Seward.
Forgetting for a while about its Republican and liberal beliefs, the White House expressed solidarity with St. Petersburg on the issue of suppressing the Polish uprising.
There has been no trace in history since then of military operations on American territory, except for clashes with Indians and the death in early 1945 of six picnic participants (the pastor's pregnant wife and five teenagers) in Oregon from the explosion of a bomb delivered by a Japanese balloon.
Almost four million people took part in the Civil War (2,803,300 from the North and 1,064,200 from the South).
359 thousand northerners and 258 thousand southerners died in battles, died of wounds and diseases, and in total more than 617 thousand people - more than the United States lost in all other wars in which it participated.
Military expenditures and material losses were estimated at 3.5 billion at that time, or about 210 billion modern dollars.
Military experts consider the Civil War in the United States to be the last war of the old type in the world, when the main types of combat operations were hand to hand and saber cutting.
However, it also brought some innovations.
On March 9, 1862, the first battle of ironclad ships in history took place on the Hampton Roads off the coast of Virginia.
On February 17, 1864, the southern submarine "Hanley", driven by the muscular force of eight sailors rotating the crankshaft, also torpedoed an enemy vessel (the corvette"Huysatonic") for the first time in history.
In the Battle of Seven Pines on May 31 - June 1, 1862, both sides used machine guns, although primitive, and did not have a significant impact on the course of the battle.
In August and September 1863, near Chattanooga, the northerners used barbed wire for military purposes.
For the first time, however, not in the world, but in American history, both sides resorted to forced mobilization (the southerners since April, and the northerners since July 1862).
In November 1864, Abraham Lincoln was elected to the next term on the wave of military victories.
On April 14, 1865, he was shot in the theater by the actor John Booth, who was avenging the defeat of the South and, pulling the trigger, exclaimed in Latin: "This is the fate of tyrants!"
On December 18, 1865, the abolition of slavery was enshrined in the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution.
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