Describe why the Civil War was both a modern war and a total war

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Key Takeaways
Innovations in Communication and Transportation
Innovations in Weaponry
Military Education and the Creation of the U.S. Military and Naval Academies

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The American Civil War was the culmination of the struggle between the advocates and opponents of slavery that dated from the founding of the United States. This sectional conflict between Northern states and slaveholding Southern states had been tempered by a series of political compromises, but by the late 1850s the issue of the extension of slavery to the western states had reached a boiling point. The election of Abraham Lincoln, a member of the antislavery Republican Party, as president in 1860 precipitated the secession of 11 Southern states, leading to a civil war.

The Union won the American Civil War. The war effectively ended in April 1865 when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. The final surrender of Confederate troops on the western periphery came in Galveston, Texas, on June 2.

It is estimated that from 752,000 to 851,000 soldiers died during the American Civil War. This figure represents approximately 2 percent of the American population in 1860. The Battle of Gettysburg, one of the bloodiest engagements during the Civil War, resulted in about 7,000 deaths and 51,000 total casualties.

Important people during the American Civil War included Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, whose election prompted the secession of Southern states; Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy; Ulysses S. Grant, the most successful and prominent general of the Union; and Robert E. Lee, Grant’s counterpart in the Confederacy.

American Civil War, also called War Between the States, four-year war (1861–65) between the United States and 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America.

The secession of the Southern states (in chronological order, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) in 1860–61 and the ensuing outbreak of armed hostilities were the culmination of decades of growing sectional friction over slavery. Between 1815 and 1861 the economy of the Northern states was rapidly modernizing and diversifying. Although agriculture—mostly smaller farms that relied on free labour—remained the dominant sector in the North, industrialization had taken root there. Moreover, Northerners had invested heavily in an expansive and varied transportation system that included canals, roads, steamboats, and railroads; in financial industries such as banking and insurance; and in a large communications network that featured inexpensive, widely available newspapers, magazines, and books, along with the telegraph.

By contrast, the Southern economy was based principally on large farms (plantations) that produced commercial crops such as cotton and that relied on slaves as the main labour force. Rather than invest in factories or railroads as Northerners had done, Southerners invested their money in slaves—even more than in land; by 1860, 84 percent of the capital invested in manufacturing was invested in the free (nonslaveholding) states. Yet, to Southerners, as late as 1860, this appeared to be a sound business decision. The price of cotton, the South’s defining crop, had skyrocketed in the 1850s, and the value of slaves—who were, after all, property—rose commensurately. By 1860 the per capita wealth of Southern whites was twice that of Northerners, and three-fifths of the wealthiest individuals in the country were Southerners.

Inspection and Sale of a Negro

Inspection and Sale of a Negro, engraving from the book Antislavery (1961) by Dwight Lowell Dumond.

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

The extension of slavery into new territories and states had been an issue as far back as the Northwest Ordinance of 1784. When the slave territory of Missouri sought statehood in 1818, Congress debated for two years before arriving upon the Missouri Compromise of 1820. This was the first of a series of political deals that resulted from arguments between pro-slavery and antislavery forces over the expansion of the “peculiar institution,” as it was known, into the West. The end of the Mexican-American War in 1848 and the roughly 500,000 square miles (1.3 million square km) of new territory that the United States gained as a result of it added a new sense of urgency to the dispute. More and more Northerners, driven by a sense of morality or an interest in protecting free labour, came to believe, in the 1850s, that bondage needed to be eradicated. White Southerners feared that limiting the expansion of slavery would consign the institution to certain death. Over the course of the decade, the two sides became increasingly polarized and politicians less able to contain the dispute through compromise. When Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the explicitly antislavery Republican Party, won the 1860 presidential election, seven Southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) carried out their threat and seceded, organizing as the Confederate States of America.

1860 presidential campaign

“The Undecided Political Prize Fight,” a lithograph depicting the presidential campaign of 1860 and featuring Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas.

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-USZ62-7877)

In the early morning hours of April 12, 1861, rebels opened fire on Fort Sumter, at the entrance to the harbour of Charleston, South Carolina. Curiously, this first encounter of what would be the bloodiest war in the history of the United States claimed no victims. After a 34-hour bombardment, Maj. Robert Anderson surrendered his command of about 85 soldiers to some 5,500 besieging Confederate troops under P.G.T. Beauregard. Within weeks, four more Southern states (Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) left the Union to join the Confederacy.

Fort Sumter

Confederate forces bombarding Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, in a lithograph by Currier & Ives.

Currier & Ives/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-ppmsca-19520)

With war upon the land, President Lincoln called for 75,000 militiamen to serve for three months. He proclaimed a naval blockade of the Confederate states, although he insisted that they did not legally constitute a sovereign country but were instead states in rebellion. He also directed the secretary of the treasury to advance $2 million to assist in the raising of troops, and he suspended the writ of habeas corpus, first along the East Coast and ultimately throughout the country. The Confederate government had previously authorized a call for 100,000 soldiers for at least six months’ service, and this figure was soon increased to 400,000.

Jennifer L. Weber

The innovations and advances of the Civil War included improvements in medicine, communication, transportation, and weaponry.

Identify the factors that made the Civil War the “first modern war”

Key Takeaways

Key Points

The telegraph allowed for swift communication between commanders and forces in the field.
A broad railroad network allowed rapid transportation of supplies and troops.
Ironclad warships —featuring heavy naval guns and sophisticated steam engines—also emerged during this period.
The introduction of rifling to muskets dramatically changed the nature of warfare, allowing soldiers to aim at a target from a much greater distance than was previously possible.
The United States Military Academy at West Point and the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis provided professional military education for officers.
The first field hospitals and rudimentary ambulance systems also appeared during this conflict.

Key Terms

Rifled Musket: A specific type of firearm made in the mid-nineteenth century that featured a rifled barrel instead of a smoothbore musket.
Ironclad Warship: An ironclad was a steam-propelled warship in the early part of the second half of the nineteenth century that was protected by iron or steel armor plates.

The American Civil War is often referred to as the “first modern war” due to an unprecedented mobilization of the civilian base in both Union and Confederate territory, and because it was hallmarked by technological innovations that changed the nature of battle. Some of the innovations and advances of the Civil War included new developments in medicine, communication, transportation, and weaponry.

Innovations in Communication and Transportation

Several communication and transportation improvements, including the telegraph and railroads, played a crucial role in this war. The telegraph allowed leaders in Washington and Richmond, the respective capitals of the Union and Confederacy, to communicate with commanders in the field, rapidly passing on intelligence and issuing orders in close to real time. By 1860, approximately 30,000 miles of railroad track, concentrated in the Northern states, reduced dependence on local farms and cities for supplies. Armies were thus able to operate for extended periods of time without fear of starvation. The mobility of forces also was greatly increased, as rather than marching, armies could be moved across the country within days by rail.

Innovations in Weaponry

Weaponry also changed significantly during the Civil War. The most lethal change during the Civil War was the introduction of rifling to muskets. In previous wars, the maximum effective range of a musket was between 70 to 110 meters. Tactics involved moving masses of troops to musket range, firing a volley, and then charging the opposing force with the musket’s bayonet. However, a bullet from an aimed rifled musket could hit a soldier more than 1,300 meters away. This drastically changed the nature of warfare to the advantage of defenders.

Nineteenth-century rifled musket: The use of rifles on the battlefield greatly increased casualties in the Civil War.

In terms of defensive fortification, wire obstacles—defensive obstacles constructed using barbed wire or concertina wire—are thought to have originated with Union General Ambrose Burnside during the Battle of Fort Sanders during the Knoxville Campaign. During that battle, telegraph wire was seen strung between tree stumps 30 to 80 yards in front of parts of the Union line.

At sea, the greatest innovation was the introduction of ironclad warships, which was facilitated by the development of heavy naval guns, more sophisticated steam engines, and advances in metallurgy that made steel shipbuilding possible. Ironclads were designed for multiple purposes, serving as high-seas battleships, coastal defense ships, and long-range cruisers.

Innovations also took place in air warfare. The Union Army Balloon Corps was established and organized by Professor Thaddeus S.C. Lowe during the summer of 1861, marking the first major-scale use of balloons in the military. The Balloon Corps devised a more efficient way of inflating the balloons during this time, substituting coal gas—which required the balloon to be inflated in a municipal-services center, walked out to the battlefield, and then returned within four days for reinflation—with hydrogen gas generators, which proved to be more compact and transportable. Initially the balloons were intended to aid in mapmaking; however, they were quickly co-opted for use in aerial reconnaissance. Though the balloons were useful in some battles, such as those of the Peninsula Campaign, military attitude shifted away from the use of balloons over time, and by August 1863, the Union Balloon Corps was disbanded. The Confederate Army also delved into ballooning during the Civil War, but was ultimately limited by shortage of supplies due to embargoes in place against the Confederacy.

Military Education and the Creation of the U.S. Military and Naval Academies

West Point cadets, ca. 1870: Training and the development of military science at the United States Military Academy at West Point played an important role in the Civil War.

These new technologies required new tactics to effectively wage war; thus, professional military education was also revolutionized during the Civil War. The United States Military Academy at West Point and the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis created dedicated cadres of professional officers with strong backgrounds in military science. The legacy helped forge the traditions of the modern U.S. officer corps of all service branches.

In terms of medical practice during the war, a new medicinal wing was created in the Union under the jurisdiction of a “Medical Director of the Army.” The first field hospitals, small tents with a few tables or beds for the wounded, were developed, and a system of transport of the wounded to general hospitals was created. The Confederacy generally had a less established medical service as a result of its more limited resources, vast rural areas, and fewer medical professionals.

The Monitor and the Merrimac, lithograph from 1886: The engagement between the Monitor and the Merrimac was the first engagement between ironclad warships in the Civil War.