BackStory

The Civil War, 150 Years Later

Men gathered at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for the laying of the cornerstone of the Soldier's National Monument on the anniversary of the battle, 1865 (Library of Congress)In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s beginning, BackStory presents a special three-part series on the war’s causes and consequences. Below are descriptions of each of the hour-long episodes, as well as links to the shows themselves. After listening, please take a moment and let us know what you think!

 

Part 1: THE ROAD TO CIVIL WAR

"The Hercules of Union Slaying the Great Dragon of Secession," 1861 (Library of Congress)

"The Hercules of Union Slaying the Great Dragon of Secession," 1861 (Library of Congress)

As America launches its multi-year commemoration of the Civil War, it’s easy to overlook the fact that back in the spring of 1861, disunion was anything but inevitable. This episode traces the dramatic six months leading up to the outbreak of war, and explores the complex layers of logic and emotion that Americans experienced as they looked into a very uncertain future. Listen here.

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Part 2: WHY THEY FOUGHT

23rd New York Infantry, ca. 1861-1865 (Library of Congress)

Two Soldiers from 23rd NY Infantry, c. 1861-1865 (Library of Congress)

Slavery, in a word, was what brought on the Civil War. But in the spring of 1861, most Southerners didn’t own slaves and only a tiny minority of Northerners were abolitionists. So how are we to understand the willingness of soldiers on both sides to take up arms against each other? Listen here.

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Part 3: QUESTIONS REMAIN

Ruins of Richmond and Petersburg RR Depot, 1865 (Lib. of Congress)

In this episode, the History Guys open up the phone lines and take listener questions about all aspects of the Civil War.  Listen here.

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Hungry for more? Subscribe here to BackStory’s special “Civil War 150th” podcast feed, which includes Civil War-related excerpts from our entire program archive.

 

26 Responses

  • We know that Virginia waited to secede. Virginian slaveholders, who also controlled much of the state’s political decisions, stood to lose a lot if the lower South successfully seceded because we also know that they profited greatly by selling their slaves south “down the river.” But still they waited to make up their minds.

    Virginia’s delay is all the more perplexing to me because of John Brown’s raid slightly more than two years before secession. in 1858, Virginians were outraged that the abolitionist Brown chose Harpers Ferry to launch a massive slave uprising intended to devastate Virginia first, and then the rest of the slave South. Did Virginia’s decision makers forget about John Brown when secession came up in 1860-61? Or, did they not see the connection between Lincoln’s election and Brown’s earlier raid that both opposed their slave economy, albeit in dramatically different ways?

    Certainly when Lincoln called for troops to put down the rebellion Virginia responded by seceding. So maybe it took an overt action on Lincoln’s part by calling up troops to invade the South to quell the rebellion that finally reminded Virginia of Brown’s failed invasion.

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    Ken
    1/26/2011 at 9:57 pm

  • This is not so much a reply to the above, but a question related to “why we fight.” Family lore has it that a great-great-great grandfather of mine (from New York state) fought on the Union side and served time as a prisoner of war in Sabine, Texas. This same lore holds that he was treated poorly (as were all prisoners of war there), and as a result did a form of lighting out for the territory shortly after the war’s end, saying that if people treated other people the way he had seen, he was going where there were no people. (He ended up in Oregon.) This may be an unusual query to send to a program based in Virginia, but I am curious about the war experiences of soldiers held in places other than Andersonville. We hear much about that (those that read about the Civil War anyway), but so little about the experience about the places that were not along the Eastern Seaboard. Was the disaffection felt by my great-great common? How much is known about these men?

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    Rita
    1/29/2011 at 4:36 pm

  • Ken’s question is intriguing to me as well… Jefferson County, home of Harpers Ferry and John Brown’s Raid, elects two Union representatives to the State convention, mostly due to the Federal gun factory being the local economic powerhouse. I’ve been doing some digging in the Secession Convention minutes hosted by Univ. of Richmond (http://collections.richmond.edu/secession/) and have turned up some fun ground.

    Particularly, it’d be great to see a feature on Ex-Governor Wise’s pressing of the Virginia Convention over the edge by ordering militia troops to seize federal installations on April 17-18, even though he had no right to issue the order. Did Wise hold a proverbial gun to the head of the Virginia Secession Convention and force their hand on secession by ordering milita to Harpers Ferry without permission?

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    JMRudy
    2/2/2011 at 10:34 am

  • Some of my ancestors were Moravians, living in the North Carolina settlements of Salem and Bethabara. The story I hear is that they didn’t fight for either side. Was this true of Moravians in general, or of other religious communities? What did the Quakers do? (many of them were active in the abolitionist movement, if I remember correctly.)

    I also have an odd hand-me-down in the form of a poem, supposedly recited by my great-grandmother, a resident of western NC. It goes like this: “Lincoln rode a fine horse, Davis rode a mule. Lincoln was a wise man, Davis was a fool.”. Ring any bells?

    Thanks for a fantastic podcast!

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    Rev. Kerri Hefner
    2/2/2011 at 11:51 am

  • What were they thinking? is a great question for the History Guys to focus on. I wonder if you know that NEH’s EDSITEment program has assembled over 30 lessons on the causes of the Civil War, as well as the political and military course of the war, and the war’s consequences. All of these lessons are based on primary sources, and would be a good place to start if one wants to understand what the participants were thinking.

    http://edsitement.neh.gov/edsitement-lessons-slavery-crisis-union-civil-war-and-reconstruction

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    joe
    2/23/2011 at 8:57 am

  • I am very interested in the same question as Ken and Rita ask – particularly with this twist: why did Virginia wind up going with the south? Maryland and Delaware were slave holding states – and yet went with the Union. Virginia – with the exception of “southside” – was agriculturally exhausted (like Delaware and Maryland – see the great westward migration in the early 19th century) and slavery was an agrarian institution, well on it’s way to collapse all on it’s own.

    Clearly Virginia was deeply divided on the issue – see West Virginia secession – is this just an artifact of the poor quality of representation in the system at the time; in other words: only a small, elite (and reactionary) group was politically and economically enfranchised? I ask as a former student of Michael Holt’s who is persuaded by his argument that this was not a war over any of the particular issues, but over a failure of the two party (have it both ways) system.

    I ask as I see these economic migrations in my own family history. My great-great-grandfather from Chatham was one of the very few survivors of Pickett’s charge (good for me!), his family having migrated to Pittsylvania Co. from Lancaster Co. after the latter was exhausted by poor agricultural practices.

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    Scott
    3/11/2011 at 3:56 pm

  • My dad was descendant of Long Island English settling New Amsterdam. A period of history I’ve had to work to catch-up. (aren’t google books wonderful!) The Mott family, Elias Hicks, & his wife, are 3º, 4º cousins.

    My kin were in the room for the Flushing Remonstrance and grandpa Samuel Jennings delivered the Remonstrance to (the maligned, non-cross-dressing) Lord Cornbury.

    Benjamin Lundy, the Abolitionist, is close kin. During your recent show, I couldn’t help but remember reading Benjamin Lundy’s, “War In Texas!” broadsheet. I thought it creepily prophetic to reality. I’ll eagerly await the series. My moms dad was a Northern Alabaman with Ligon, Walthal, Featherstone, ties to 17th century Virginia.

    I’m reading Albion’s Seed to grasp some understanding of the different cultural experiments some colonies represent.

    I’ve trying to catch-up from a deficient education of Quakers. If Quakers had not existed, would we still knuckling our brow to our betters?

    I think you have a great podcast! Thank you.

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    Wallawalla Laager
    3/19/2011 at 1:34 am

  • When I re-read the first three paragraphs of my missive, I also note that these were considered by many, social and political cranks. Liberal, it seems, by its quality of life issues, living in the present. Penal and Psychiatric prisons were charged with higher expectations,

    One antebellum Northern Alabaman, 3ºg grandpa, is reported to have been an abolitionist . Sensible enough to not rile-up the neighborhood, but with strong Christian faith, it is reported. Didn’t some Southern States have rural Counties that disapproved of succession, even bold enough to revolt against the State? Most of my other relations had a single slave, or, more often, a black couple with their children. How common was that?

    It has been a pleasure to support your program. I believe in life-long learning and your podcast standard tends to elevate the discussion as it broadens the knowledge.

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    Wallawalla Laager
    3/19/2011 at 2:34 am

  • Just finished listening to the third installment of your Civil War discussion. When you ended your discussion with a caller named Wanda, I was instantly reminded of some words that I think are fitting with the point you tried to make. In Margaret Atwood’s book, Blind Assassin, she writes that
    “Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence. Time and distance blur the edges: then suddenly the beloved has arrived, and it is noon with its merciless light, and every spot and pore and wrinkle and bristle stands clear.”
    When you put this quotation in the context of why soldiers fought in the Civil War, it becomes clear that while the idea of “home” played a major role, that idea never matched up to what they ultimately came back to, and vice versa when considering the family members who waited for the return of their loved ones.
    I am a veteran. I study the Civil War as an attempt to make sense of my own past. Thank you all for what you do. It has been incredibly insightful to hear your thoughts.
    Keep up the good work.

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    Kate Dahlstrand
    5/4/2011 at 11:49 am

  • I earned my BA in history under Justus Doenecke at New College. He was (is!) an outstanding lecturer. When it came to the Civil War, he delivered two lectures: “how the South cannot possibly lose,” and “how the North cannot possibly lose.” He laid out completely convincing cases for both sides. For the third lecture, we rushed to class to see how it would all turn out!

    I love your podcast and have shared it on Facebook. I hope others will do the same.

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    Arlynda Boyer
    6/13/2011 at 12:45 pm

  • I wish I’d been on this site early enough to have asked a question for the show. Lots of Southerners research their genealogy, but unless they were plantation owners, you never hear them talk about slave ownership. The fact is, a lot of families owned just one or two people to help around the farm. From the limited research I’ve done, it appears that my family owned two slaves, in rural southwest Virginia. That is still a shameful admission, and certainly not one that the other genealogists in my family (generally older, genteel ladies) want to discuss — in fact, it’s something they would like to bury as deeply as possible. I wish I knew more about both this kind of slave ownership (and what like was like under this kind of slavery), and about the shame still associated with it.

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    Arlynda Boyer
    6/13/2011 at 2:06 pm

  • (and what like was like under this kind of slavery)

    Er, life.

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    Arlynda Boyer
    6/17/2011 at 3:12 pm

  • I would like to know how the Civil War got it’s name. By definition, a civil war is between different factions fighting for control of the same country. But, our Civil War was between a part of the country wanting to just leave. That being the case, it would seem, War Between the States sounds like a better description.

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    Mike
    10/4/2012 at 1:11 pm

  • This is an excerpt from my great-great-grandfather’s journals (1868-1937) on the Civil War:

    Civil War Years

    The War of the Rebellion came in time to count me out so far as soldiering is concerned. I was obliged to stay home much against my will. Like many another thoughtless youth I imagined that to enlist and go with the army would make a hero of me. But the recruiting officer looked at my small stature and said, “Men are what we want.” That settled me, and I tried to think I could be a hero at home by waiting on the lonely, almost helpless women left to care for themselves while their sons or husbands were gone. I cut all of one woman’s wood for a year and waited on several others more or less. In fact, all who stayed at home were kept as busy as beavers winter and summer caring for the “war widows,” so that I was only one among the number.

    The War of the Rebellion will ever be fresh in my memory. I had four brothers in the army. Anxiety was no name for our suspense and doubt and fears. News of battle came every week, and often every day for a week at a time until the dead were past counting. Both sides claiming the victory, and neither side knew the truth of the matter till after the war was over and impartial history set us right. It was during this war period, in February 1864, that I was stricken down with diphtheria. This terrible disease raged through the land like pharaoh’s plague until there was mourning in every house. I barely escaped with my life and didn’t do a stroke of work until harvest. That fall was the last call for soldiers and I wanted to go with the Eleventh Minnesota Volunteers but had not sufficiently recovered from my tussle with disease to bear inspection. Thus ends my war record. But when the soldiers returned–those who lived–with their tales of suffering in battle, on the march, the tent life, the rebel prison pen, and the abusive treatment of their own officers, I was content to be only a boy doing chores for the women.

    -Frederick C. Cummings, c. 1868

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    Sandra Wilcoxon
    10/28/2012 at 8:03 pm

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