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The American Civil War: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"Deep are the wounds that civil strife inflicts"''|Marcus Lucanus}}
In 1861, a group of Southern states seceded from the American Union and declared themselves independent as the Confederate States of America. From there events took on a life of their own and the situation devolved into a full-blown war. The war was the result, like so many civil wars, of the failure of internal politics. In this case, the great failure was to resolve tensions over the future of Slavery in America; the 'Slave States' feared that the central government in Washington D.C. would attempt to regulate or ban the slave trade and the practice of slavery, an unjustified fear but one understandable in the context of the liberalisation of the Northern Free States, where Anti-Slavery groups modelled after their British counterparts had begun to flourish. Abolitionists were in many respects a vocal minority, however, though the people of the North generally agreed that slavery was a violation of the principles of free labour and that the black population should be shipped back to Africa - [[Values Dissonance|removal of course being preferable to attempts at integration, for there was no escaping the possibility of miscegenation and cultural degeneracy that would come with harbouring such a large population of free negroids]].
Like the [[The American Revolution]], this was a civil war that tore families, towns and states apart. Nationalism had truly developed since then and where before people had largely been torn between ideals, people were now divided just as much if not more by State and local loyalties, for 'National' nationalism had yet to supersede these. It was for their States and for Freedom that, as in the English Civil War, about 2-5% of the total population of the United States died and far more were left impoverished, displaced, maimed and traumatised. Again as in the Revolution, the victory of the government was almost guaranteed; but no world powers aided the unsympathetic cause of these rebels, who were left to face the far superior manpower finance and industry of the central government on their own. The result was almost inevitable; the whole affair appeared a very close-run thing, especially given the rebels' early successes, but the Army learnt (however slowly) from its mistakes and made good on its material advantage, grinding the rebels down and eventually crushing them after four years of the bloodiest fighting North America has ever seen. The rebels - The Confederacy - still engender sympathy in certain states, generally those that rebelled. Such people often prefer to think that the rebels fought for Freedom from the tyranny of Central Government more than the Freedom to own and use people as they saw fit. This was the American Civil War, ''The War of the Rebellion'', the ''War Between the States'', the ''War of Southern Treason'', the ''War of Northern Aggression'', ''Lincoln's War'', the ''Slaveholders' Revolt'', and the ''Late Unpleasantness'', an era which pitted brother against brother, and where the armies of the Blue and the Gray shot cannons and Minié Balls at each other across smoke-filled battlefields.
The Southern part of the United States at this time is a world filled with romantic, tall-columned plantation houses where delicate [[Southern Belle|Southern Belles]] sashay in large skirts and [[Fainting|Corset Faint]] at every available opportunity. Where chivalrous, [[Fat Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit|cigar-chomping, white-tuxedo-wearing]] [[Southern Gentleman|Southern Gentlemen]] pistol-duel at dawn and where the phrase "Damn Yankees!" is used with a fair degree of regularity. Slaves work the fields down here, although whether a production chooses to show the more ''realistic'' aspects of slave life depends a lot on the era in which it's made. (Don't expect to see many [[Discredited Trope|whitewashed "happy" portrayals]] of slaves in any ''modern'' series.)
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This war was essentially the [[Trope Codifier]] for modern battlefield tactics: less about cavalry, more about infantry, and keep your Dakka handy, 'cuz [[Useful Notes/Swords|Swords]] aren't useful anymore. In fact, the [[Gatling Good|Gatling gun]] was invented and used during this war, the predecessor to [[More Dakka|rapid-fire automatic weaponry]]. The world even got a sneak preview of [[World War One]] in the form of the trench warfare that took place at Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and Vicksburg. Of course, like it does so often, [[Funny Aneurysm Moment|the world proceeded to completely ignore it]]. Like [[World War II]], this war was waged on battlefields but won in factories; the highly industrialized North could mass-produce muskets, cannon, and ships that the agrarian South could only import. Also, this war had the first recorded successful sinking of an enemy ship by a submarine, and they did it ''completely blind''. And the first battle between two fully-armoured ships, the CSS Virginia (an ironclad) and the USS Monitor (founder and namer of its class, first all-iron ship, first rotatable gun turret) at Hampton Roads.
Current historical estimates are that about 620,000 American soldiers died in the Civil War. That's more armed-forces casualties than in every other war the United States has fought, ''combined''... and does not include civilian deaths ([[It Got Worse|which came out to another 41,000]], for a total of over 660,000 out of a combined population around 34 million). Read that figure again. More Americans died in a single day at Antietam than on D-Day, or at Pearl Harbor, or in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The casualties for the three-day Battle of [[Gettysburg]] almost equal those killed in the ''entire'' [[Vietnam War]]. The destruction and loss of life were immense, even 'medieval'<ref> amateur historians can put away the tissues, we only use the word in the hollywood history sense of medieval conflict, i.e. large-scale and barbaric</ref>; it was like something out of Homer, or perhaps the [[Thirty Years' War]]. The costs of the war—not just the immediately obvious ones like having to pay for raising armies, but also vast swaths across entire states laid waste, cities burned and farms looted, interruptions in trade, factories idled and mines closed for lack of labor, two-and-a-half million maimed and crippled veterans who could not support themselves and required pensions—caused an economic depression that lasted for a generation after the war. Some regions took generations to recover; in fact, some authorities believe that areas of the South, which took the brunt of the destruction (particularly during late 1864 and early 1865, when Sherman's army group smashed its way through Georgia and the Carolinas) didn't completely recover until... [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement|quite a bit later]].
Admittedly, the Civil War took a big toll upon the Southern states of the American Union, where most of the war was fought. Not only was property destroyed, but more importantly a lot of ''wealth'' disappeared virtually overnight; wealth in the form of Confederate government bonds and currency - which became worthless when the Confederacy was dissolved in '65 - and in slaves - who were declared free by the Federal Government as a means of sabotaging the Confederate war effort. Slavery had shaped the southern economy for decades, the profitable and dependable returns from investing in cotton production discouraging investment in other forms of agriculture, raw-resource gathering, primary and secondary industries. The efficiency of slavery had discouraged investment in industry and commerce, which ultimately - as technology developed - turned out to be far more profitable than agriculture ever could or would be. The south had been prosperous, but the central-northern United States were more prosperous and growing at a far faster rate. What the war did was destroy much of the wealth of the south and force a fundamental restructuring in its economy, leaving it to lag behind the rest of the United States until the [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|New Deal]] and the advent of the 'New South' in the mid-twentieth century. The southern states were not impoverished, nor left backward (relative to most of the world) by the Civil War... but the war did leave them struggling to adapt to a more... ''normal'' state of economic affairs, something that would have been difficult even had there been a smoother and more gradual end to slavery (a virtual impossibility in any case).
Narrated by Ken Burns. And since motion film hadn't been invented yet in the Civil War, but photographic film has, here's a bunch of shots [[The Ken Burns Effect|zooming in and out and panning over some static images.]]
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* [[Badass]]: Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry. When his troops were running out of ammunition trying to hold Little Round Top, he ordered a bayonet charge.
** Nathan Bedford Forrest. Started the war as a private in the Confederate army. Ended as a Lieutenant General. And he wasn't some hide-behind-the-lines general; he was always in the front rank. He was once shot by a disgruntled subordinate, whom he immediately stabbed to death with a pen-knife. ''A pen knife.'' [[Authority Equals Asskicking|Authority does indeed equal Ass Kicking.]]
** Considering the tactics and the casualties, every single man who didn't turn and run at the first sign of battle counts. It takes a lot to stand up straight, in a line, and get shot at. Not all infantrymen had to expose themselves, mind; there were some breech-loading rifles available to the Army, courtesy of the Manufacturing hub of the North-East.
* [[Badass Bookworm]]: Chamberlain again. He started out as an English professor, and was eventually a Major General.
** For the Confederates, Stonewall Jackson, who was a physics instructor at the Virginia Military Institute prior to the war.
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* [[Book Ends]]: [[The American Civil War]]'s first major battle was The First Battle of Bull Run (July 18, 1861), and the Confederates used [[wikipedia:Wilmer McLean|Wilmer McLean's]] house as a headquarters. During the war, Wilmer eventually moved to the quiet(er) community (one that wasn't right on the front lines), of Appomattox Courthouse Virginia. On April 8, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee finally decided to surrender his forces, and he sent out a messenger to find a house to handle the surrender in. The house the messenger found was Wilmer McLean's. The war started in his yard, and ended in his parlor.
** Also, the war began with the Union Loss of Fort Sumter. Shortly after the war, on April 14, 1865, Fort Sumter had a flag-raising ceremony where the same commander who took the flag down when the Union lost the fort raised the same flag up. While this is nice bookends for the fort itself, this ceremony of raising the flag at Sumter was on the very same day Abraham Lincoln was assassinated - the last major loss of the Civil War Era.
* [[Boring but Practical]]: Grant. A reserved, unassuming man a fellow officer once described as "plain as an old stove" and wore a simple (and often mud-spattered) field uniform instead of the flamboyant, personalized uniforms many generals on both sides preferred. He was also widely considered the best Union generals and Confederate commanders who faced him quickly learned not to underestimate him.
** Likewise with his Confederate counterpart, Robert E. Lee.
* [[Broken Base|Broken Country]]: You'd be amazed at how frequently and vehemently folks in the States still disagree about the cause of the war, the men who fought in it, the legitimacy of secession, and just about any other topic you can think of.
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** On the one hand, [[We Have Reserves|his main strategy]] was [[Redshirt Army|rather cold-hearted]]. On the other hand, it worked.
*** And in any case, he definitely felt the carnage deeply: after the first day of the Wilderness, he broke down and wept. Then he pulled himself together and rammed the army through thirty-eight more consecutive days of equally horrendous carnage.
** Not to mention Jubal Early, who needlessly razed Union towns he conquered, on the grounds that they "[[Psycho for Hire|burn so beautifully]]."
** General Sherman, likewise, razed the towns his troops passed through on his March to the Sea, particularly in South Carolina; unlike Jobal Early, though, this was done with Grant's implicit approval.
*** Except Sherman didn't take explicit PLEASURE in what he did. Sherman was more [[I Did What I Had to Do]] than [[The Butcher]].
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** NOT to be confused with Union General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who was a [[Badass Bookworm]] and didn't pass anything off to anyone.
* [[Color Coded for Your Convenience]]: The Blue and the Grey. Oh, wait, the rebels couldn't actually produce or afford grey... 'twas more like 'The Blue and the whatever-they-happened-to-be-wearing-at-the-time-but-probably-mostly-brown', really.
** The Blue and The Butternut doesn't [[Rule of Cool|quite have the same ring to it]], though. And even then, it was really more the Blue and The Guys in Motley Rags, a Few Butternut Uniforms, and Maybe One or Two Grey Ones.
*** It's also far too easy, in these sad, sad, times, to make [[Double Entendre|jokes about the word "butternut"]].
* [[Combat Pragmatist]]: Union general William Tecumseh Sherman. His only goal was victory and he didn't care ''what'' he had to do to accomplish it. Destroying infrastructure, confiscating property, burning cities - there's a very good reason he's almost universally hated in Georgia even to this day. Doesn't quite qualify as a [[Blood Knight]], as he did the things he did out of a single-minded desire to accomplish his mission rather than a love of battle. Furthering his pragmatism in peacetime, Sherman (following the example of his friend U.S. Grant) granted defeated Confederates terms of surrender so lenient that Grant had to reject them. "Hard war, easy peace," indeed.
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** Don't forge Dr. Richard Gatling's invention, which has a [[Gatling Good|trope all its own.]]
* [[Cool Hat]]: The Iron Brigade of the Union Army of the Potomac was also known as the Black Hat Brigade because the [[wikipedia:Hardee hat|Hardee hats]] they wore became iconic for them, even though such hats were also issued to other units of regulars.
* [[Crippling Overspecialization]]: The USA's slaving states and by extension , the Confederacy. In their defence, it was only in the last few decades before the war that investments in industry started to have greater returns than those put into (slave) agriculture. As a result the South had good infrastructure but very little industry, especially in sophisticated products (a single factory supplied every cannon they had).
** The South's leadership was convinced that Great Britain (the chief buyer of North American cotton) would help them, somehow, even if it was just to broker a ceasefire. However, the huge cotton harvests of 1865-60 effectively meant that British textile manufacturers had at least a year's supply of the material hoarded away come 1861.
** In fact, the Confederate economy was so focused on cotton that they didn't have enough free cropland left to grow ''food'', at least not in sufficient quantities to feed their entire population; as a result, bread riots were a common occurrence, food confiscation laws were passed permitting the Confederate government to seize food from private farms for the war effort, and even with these measures in place Confederate soldiers were frequently severely underfed and malnourished.
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** Phil Sheridan's ride at Cedar Creek.
** Lee's successive victories at the Peninsula, 2nd Bull Run, Fredericksburg and Chancelorsville.
** The 54th Massachusetts Voluntary Regiment's assault on Battery Wagner. Although this all Black unit was not able to take the fort, their valiant fighting pushed the North to accept the worth of Black soldiers and inspired thousands more of Black recruits to help defeat the Confederacy.
* [[Crowning Moment of Funny]]: The bloodiest war in American soil had its moments.
** Union Gen. George McClellan was hesitant to let his army cross a river because he was unsure how deep it was, so Captain George Custer (yes, that one) got on his horse, waded into the center of the riverbed and told him "It's this deep, sir".
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* [[Famous Last Words]]: "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." - John Sedgwick, shortly before getting a headshot from a Confederate sharpshooter.
* [[A Father to His Men]]: Robert E. Lee, probably the most famous single Confederate.
** General McClellan was this, to the point of inefficiency; his caution was admirable and the men loved him for it, but it prolonged the war and lead to his replacement as a front-line commander.
** William Tecumseh Sherman, a.k.a. "Uncle Billy", was this too - but he was more willing to sacrifice his men.
** In fact, many officers were like this, on both sides, as it was a good way to inspire loyalty.
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** [[World War One|Trench warfare]] makes an appearance.
* [[Gatling Good]]: Arguably the [[Trope Maker]], as this war featured the first combat fielding of the [[Trope Namer|Trope Namesake]] Gatling gun.
* [[Gauls With Grenades]]: The French army had a high reputation in the 1860s, and both North and South copied French military fashions when designing their uniforms.
* [[General Ripper]]: How many in the South view Grant and Sherman. Also how many in the North (perhaps with greater justification) view General Nathan Bedford Forrest.
** General Hugh J. Kilpatrick, nicknamed "Kill Cavalry" because he often sent his men into suicidal cavalry charges.
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** Grant also received quite a character assassination after his death, due largely to opponents who already tried to get rid of him by accusing him of being a raging drunk during the war and many bitter ex-Confederates (Jubal Early among others) dismissing his military successes as nothing but the use of [[We Have Reserves]]. This was so prevalent that even [[Winston Churchill]] (admittedly something of a Confederate fanboy) and many historians would repeat that "fact" and give Grant contempt for it, overlooking or refusing to acknowledge Grant's use of innovative combat engineering and stratagem. Grant's scandal-hounded presidency didn't help his image much either. Only recently has image begun to be rehabilitated.
** The Klan was originally found as an organization to protect the rights of Southern whites by legal means. When it used violence, Forrest quit, and took up a full-page newspaper ad to announce the fact and urge all other members to do so too.
*** It was actually founded as a social group for Confederate veterans.
* [[Hot-Blooded]]: JEB Stuart, George Custer, George Pickett (before all his men got killed at Gettysburg; cue the [[Character Development]]), Dan Sickles, P.G.T. Beauregard.
* [[Ignored Expert]]: Confederate General James Longstreet played this role to Lee on many, many occasions, most notably at Gettysburg. Many Southerners would still rather blame him than Lee for their defeat there.
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** Likewise, at Gettysburg, George Custer charged his cavalry brigade headlong into the much larger cavalry ''division'' of J.E.B. Stuart. Custer's 1st Michigan Cavalry suffered the heaviest losses of any Union cavalry brigade, but [[Crazy Enough to Work|they turned back Stuart's charge]]. This was one of the key moments in the battle, as a successful charge by Stuart would have made a Union victory much more difficult. Of course, after the war, Custer's [[Leeroy Jenkins]] tendencies [[Last Stand|famously didn't end well]].
* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]: See any decently-sized history book.
* [[Meaningful Name]]: Union general Joseph Hooker liked to pay women for their company so much that his name entered the lexicon as a synonym for prostitute. While the term predates the Civil War by about 20 years, but was popularized by Hookers "convivial and informal" headquarters.
** In an era of flamboyant facial hair, Ambrose Burnside managed to stand out so much that — to this day — they're called sideburns.
* [[Modern Major-General]]: Ambrose Burnside, by his own admission.
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** Union General Ben Franklin "Beast" Butler (If you're a [[Southern Belle]]).
** Union General Hugh Judson "Kill Cavalry" Kilpatrick (If you're under his command).
* [[No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup]]: The CSS Arkansas. One of the largest and certainly the scariest thing afloat on the Mississippi in 1862, its ordered-to-spec driveshaft didn't arrive from the Tredegar Works in Richmond before it had to go out and face essentially the entire brown-water US Navy. It successfully fought them off, too, but its homemade engine parts gave out and the crew was forced to burn her to prevent capture. The Confederate Navy never again managed a presence on the Mississippi.
* [[Not So Different]]: It's often misunderstood that the Nothern states were not racist simply because they fought against slavery. In actuality, many people in the North were just as racist as the South. Being against slavery did not always mean they were for the rights of African Americans. An example of this can be found in the Draft Riots of New York, as well as such Union heroes as William Sherman, who refused to allow black Union soldiers into his army because, as he wrote to his step-brother, "I won't trust niggers to fight."
* [[Occupiers Out of Our Country!]]: This is largely the motive of [[wikipedia:Neo-Confederate|Neo-Confederates]].
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* [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here]]: Desertion was a serious problem in the South; by 1863 men were deserting faster than new recruits could be conscripted to replace them, and by war's end over three-quarters of the Confederate army was AWOL. Entire Confederate divisions existed solely on paper, their men and command structure having walked out en masse, stealing as much equipment as they could carry. The most notable incidence of desertion was probably Confederate general Pemberton's army, paroled after the surrender at Vicksburg. Mustered with 30,000 men, a month later fewer than 1,500 of them were left to report for duty, the rest having simply changed back into civilian clothes and gone home.
** This is basically what happened with the entire Confederate States of America after their candidate (John C. Breckinridge) did not win the presidential election of 1860.
* [[The Scourge of God]]: From Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address:
{{quote|"...if God wills that [the war] continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'"}}
** "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord/He is trampling out the vintage where [[The Grapes of Wrath]] are stored..."
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* [[Tear Jerker]]: This letter written by a soldier to his wife shortly [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSprdaGol34 before going off to battle.]
** A.M. Lea capturing a Union flotilla in Galvaston, Texas only to find his Union Navy son dying on the deck.
* [[Token Minority]]: Blacks fought for the North and their exploits are detailed in movies like ''[[Glory]]''.
** Blacks were allowed to serve the Confederate military in a support capacity but were forbidden to enlist as soldiers. However, there were state militias that employed free blacks. While these militias were not officially part of the Confederate military, they did see some action. While the enlistment of slaves was eventually legalized, it was too late in the war to have any effect on the outcome.
** A lot of people don't realize that both sides had a small number of Chinese soldiers [http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Surprise-Asians-Fought-In-The-US-Civil-War-120282254.html\]. Though most of them fought for the North, the most well-known ones fought for the South. They are Christopher and Stephen Bunker, the sons of conjoined twins [[wikipedia:Chang and eng bunker|Chang and Eng Bunker]], respectively.
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* [[To the Tune Of]]: "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was adapted from "John Brown's Body." Another example would be the Union and Confederate versions of "Battle Cry of Freedom."
* [[Ultimate Job Security]]: Ben Butler. [[General Failure|Never that great a soldier]], he was made a general to convince War Democrats that this wasn't just a Republican war. After Lincoln won his 1864 re-election campaign, he had no more use for Butler. Grant then [[Reassigned to Antarctica|put him in charge]] of the amphibious assault on Wilmington, North Carolina, the Confederacy's last open port. The first step in taking Wilmington would be taking Fort Fisher, which Butler signally failed to do, calling off his first and only assault after one man was killed and fifteen wounded out of a 6500-man force. He was promptly hauled in front of the [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War]] to account for his failure; he rested his defence on the claim that Fort Fisher was impregnable anyhow. ''Midway through his defence speech'', news arrived that his successor had taken Fort Fisher. So what happened then? Well, the Joint Committee unanimously exonerated him on all charges, then voted him a commendation for his calm decision-making in calling off the assault in the face of a superior enemy position. Yeah.
* [[Unmotivated Close Up]]: Every history of the war makes a point of mentioning that the man in charge of repressing John Brown in 1859 was one Colonel Robert E Lee.
* [[Values Dissonance]]: The Men of the North fought for the Negro, that he might be shipped back to Africa. Only the abolitionists were remotely interested in emancipation until doing so was framed in terms of undermining the rebel war effort, and even then Lincoln's government sat on the idea for a couple of years until they could claim to be winning (post-Antietam) before they actually went ahead with emancipation. There's also the whole slavery thing, which doesn't fly among most people these days.
* [[Victory Pose]]: The fact that after the Confederate Capitol of Richmond fell, Abraham Lincoln visited the city and sat at Confederate President Jefferson Davis's desk in the Confederate White House.
* [[Vindicated by History]]: The Gettysburg Address.
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* [[J. T. Edson]]'s ''Civil War'' series is (unsurprisingly) set during the American Civil War.
* ''Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War'' by [[Newt Gingrich]] and [[William R. Forstchen]], the first book of an [[Alternate History]] trilogy also composed of ''Grant Comes East'' and ''[[Colon Cancer|Never Call Retreat: Lee and Grant: The Final Victory]]''. The trilogy starts with a Confederate victory at Gettysburg but does '''not''' result in an overall Confederate victory. Basically, Lee's victory causes things to be [[It Got Worse|worse]] than they were in real life, with the butcher's bill even more staggering for both sides. There's also a memorable scene where Lee's assault on Washington D.C. is bloodily repulsed, with the black troops of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry regiment playing a decisive role.
* ''Lee and Grant at Appomattox'', an historical fiction children’s novel by [[Mac Kinlay]] Kantor, unapologetically portrays Grant as a silent, shabby, and stubborn man who liked animals more than people as well as an unimaginative idiot who loves [[We Have Reserves]]. Naturally, Lee is almost fawningly described and compared to heroic, martial Biblical figures.
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
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* The Activision game ''Gun'' takes place after the Civil war, and features a Confederate General named after [[wikipedia:John B. Magruder|John Magruder]] as the villain. The game, while itself fun, however, has numerous instances of [[Did Not Do the Research|wildly inaccurate dates]], such as the game taking place in 1880, but claiming that the Civil War ended ten years prior, when it actually ended 15 years prior. That's not even getting into the other [[Writers Cannot Do Math|rather stupid errors]] regarding date inconsistency in the game.
* ''The History Channel: Civil War - A Nation Divided'' is an Activision first person shooter set in the Civil War, where players can choose to play on either side in many major battles. Being a first person shooter, [[Rare Guns]] had to be invoked to make the more rapid-fire guns of the era more common than they actually were in real life. Reloading sequences were also abbreviated<ref>the revolvers skip adding precussion caps, for one, which would make them unable to fire in real life</ref> to speed them up a bit. Reviews were mostly mixed.
** Its sequel ''Civil War - Secret Missions'' is pretty much more of the same, except with more types of guns, somewhat better graphics, and focusing on covert missions related to major battles rather than the major battles themselves.
* The ''[[Civil War Generals]]'' series is a [[Turn-Based Strategy]] game allowing the player to command either side in some of the war's most famous battles.
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