“In Their Own Words: Beaufort District during the Civil War”

The Civil War is a timely topic as the Sesquicentennial commemorations are occurring throughout the nation.  We live amongst the remains of the Civil War fought 150 years ago – and seldom do we acknowledge the sites of horrific battles; the scars on our churches, buildings, and national character; or, its impact on the American psyche.  For four long and terrible years, the United States was interrupted by a brutal war that helped define American democracy. 

In popular memory, the Civil War is often seen as having been fought solely between the North and the South over the issues of slavery or state’s rights.  During the course of the war, however, both the Union and Confederacy faced numerous internal divisions.  They were divided by fierce controversies over conscription, the curtailment of civil liberties, and the unequal economic burdens of war.  One’s experience of the war often depended on where one and the members of one’s family were physically located.  In no manner was the Civil War a civil war.    

Civil War 150: Exploring the War and Its Meaning through the Words of Those Who Lived It goes beyond the surface view of the conflict by revealing the deep divisions in the country before the war and gives an in-depth look at the lives of soldiers and the home front as well as the political process of creating emancipation. The readings and discussion groups dig even deeper into first person accounts about the circumstances of the Civil War, their perceptions of the war, and ultimately their understandings about the war.

The institution of slavery had been a source of contention since the founding era. The South Carolina Declaration of Causes looks back to Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence as a model and as the source of the core principles of the new slaveholding republic.  Both the South Carolina Declaration of Causes and Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address deal with the nature of the American federal union, while offering very different views of the Constitution.

1.      How did Southern and Northern understandings of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the nature and purpose of American republicanism differ?  How did these different perspectives shape the question of secession and of slaveholding?

2.      The editorial in the Charleston Mercury calls for the convening of a secession convention “at the earliest possible time.”  Why was time such an issue?  What did the election of Abraham Lincoln as president signify to the Mercury? Judging from this piece, so you think contemporary Southerners anticipated war as a consequence of secession?

The assigned readings suggest that many Americans, North and South, approached the secession crisis with well-developed preconceptions of the causes of the conflict, and whom to blame for it.

3.      Consider how assigning blame for the war affects one understanding of what the war means to them:

a.      What, for Charles C. Jones Sr., was the religious significance of the war?

b.      How might the use of biblical imagery have affected the way northern readers understood slavery, or the cause and purpose of the Civil War?

c.       Douglass enthusiastically embraces the coming war.  Why? 

d.      Does Greeley’s letter to Lincoln achieve the author’s purpose for writing it? How does the act of writing the letter help Greeley make sense of his experience of the Civil War?

4.      The nation’s early republican ideals did not extend to tens of thousands of people of African descent who were kept in forced servitude.  How would you characterize attitudes toward slavery of:

a.      Abraham Lincoln

b.      Frederick Douglass

c.       The Citizens of Liberty County Georgia

d.      The Confederate senators

e.      The missionaries/teachers

5.      The Emancipation Proclamation is often remembered as a major turning point in the lives of African Americans throughout the United States.  It applied almost exclusively to states and regions in rebellion, however, failing to extend to slaves in the four Border States (Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri and Delaware and the recently seceded from Virginia mountain area of West Virginia). 

a.      How did the adoption of emancipation as a war goal and the raising of black troops change the meaning and the experience of the war in the Union and in the Confederacy?

b.      How did the Emancipation Proclamation change public opinion regarding the war in the North and the South?

c.       Was it simply a military tactic or was it meant to have a more permanent, social impact?

6.      Initially, Americans in both the Union and the Confederacy believed that the war would be a short, nearly bloodless fight. After the initial years of the war, it became clear that neither of these assumptions would come to fruition.

a.      How did families deal with the worsening of the war?

b.      How were the Confederate and Union reactions similar?

c.       What role did the development of new technology, like the railroad and telegraph, play in the changing role of families at home during the war?

d.      How did newspaper reports affect public perception of the Union and Confederate successes and failures?

e.      How did war change the role of women in society as a whole?

7.      Discuss presidential leadership in times of crisis, with an emphasis on Lincoln. 

a.      How did he shape the presidency?

b.      Did he set a precedent for future American leaders?

8.      How did the Civil War shape and change the relationship between the states and the federal government?

9.      What did you find most surprising or unexpected about the writings chosen for this discussion group?

10.  According to a 2011 Pew Research Center poll, 48% of Americans believe that the Civil War was fought “mainly about state’s rights” while 38% believe that slavery was the root cause.  What do you think?  Was the Civil War fought “mainly about state’s rights” or was the root cause the issue of slavery?  Will the discussion today of these first person accounts affect your answer?