The War of Secession, also less commonly called the War of Southern Independence ,
was a major conflict in North America waged from 1861 to 1863 between the United States of America and the newly formed Confederate States of America. Great Britain later entered the war on the Confederacy's side.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The victory of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 US election provoked the secession of the Southern states, who formed the CSA. The Fort Sumter incident became the Lincoln administration's causus belli to invade the South and reunite the nation. Despite its massive advantages in industry, population, and technology, the North was ultimately defeated because of inferior leadership, highlighted by the brilliant generalship of Robert E. Lee, who was supreme commander of the CS Army from October 1862 onwards. Defeated in major battles, most notably Franklin and Chancellorsville, the Northern war effort collapsed by February 1863, leading to the surrender of Washington D.C. and the entry of Great Britain in that month. A ceasefire was called, and the war officially ended on July 4, 1863, with the signing of the Treaty of Washington. The CSA became independent, and annexed significant areas of US territory, along with the British. This led to the rise of the South as a leading nation in the world, and Northern embarrassment and revanchism over their defeat and the subsequent peace, leading to major competition and hostilities between the two American nations for decades to come.
POD[]
On October 10, 1862, Jefferson Davis suddenly falls down a flight of stairs in his residence in Richmond, incapacitating him for the next few months. Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens temporarily fills in, and appoints Gen. Robert E. Lee as commander in chief of the Confederate armed forces.
Progress of the war, 1862-1863[]
With Southern forces in retreat from Kentucky after the Battle of Perryville (Oct. 8), Lee went to Tennessee to review the state of the South's armies there. Finding the commander of the Army of the Tennesee's command incompetent, Lee went on to remove several key leaders from command and replaced them with more able leaders. John C. Breckinridge was appointed as the new commander of the Army of the Tennessee, with Patrick R. Cleburne as top corps commander and Nathan Bedford Forrest as commander of the cavalry corps.
News spread rapidly about Lee's appointment in the North, as the South made no attempt to hide it in a calculation that it would demoralize Union forces. President Lincoln removed General McClellan from command of the Army of the Potomac shortly after it, both because he had failed to crush Lee's army at Antietam and because of J.E.B. Stuart's second ride around the Union army added more humiliation within Federal ranks. Lincoln then accepted Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside's request to take command of the Trans-Mississippi Department rather than the Army of the Potomac, whose new commander became Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker. Lincoln also signed an executive order to approve of a draft to pour as many troops into the war effort.
As Hooker marched his now reinvigorated army to the vicinity of Fredricksburg, where Lee formed up defensive positions, in early December, Breckinridge got on the move in the West. Instead of marching straight for Rosecrans' defensive positions at Nashville, however, Breckinridge marched laterally northwest, giving the impression that he was going to bypass the Union troops for Kentucky. This brilliant maneuver forced Rosecrans to abandon his positions and march south. This was just as Breckinridge wheeled his army east, and forced Rosecrans into a battle for which he was not prepared a tad north of Franklin on Dec. 19. Breckinridge and his 43,000 men charged and defeated Rosecrans' numerically equal but unprepared forces in detail. As the Federals retreated, Forrest rapidly took his cavalry around them and headed straight for Nashville, following his axiom of war to 'get there first with the mostest'. He forced Nashville into surrender a few hours before Rosecrans could arrive. Thus, Breckinridge caught his foe in a pincer. Rosecrans' attempt to break out was blunted at Cedar Grove (Dec. 23), where his right-hand man George H. Thomas was killed by a cannonball. With no way out, Rosecrans surrendered his army the next day, Christmas Eve, 1862.
In the Trans-Mississippi Department, Ulysses S. Grant attacked the defenses of Vicksburg at Chickasaw Bluff (Dec. 29) and was repulsed at the loss of 2,500 men. Ambrose Burnside, taking command of troops in Louisiana, made an even more disastorous assault against the defenses of Port Hudson in early February, 1863.
However, the defining battle of the war took place east at Chancellorsville (Jan 7-9, 1863). Instead of atracking Lee's defenses directly, Hooker sent his cavalry to cut Lee's communications, and marched two-thirds of his infantry around Lee's positions, aiming to catch the Army of Northern Virginia in a pincer. Hooker boasted, "My plans are perfect. May God have mercy on General Lee, for I shall have none". Hooker had 120,000 men to Lee's 56,000, and believed he would catch Lee completely by surprise. Instead, J.E.B. Stuart and his cavalry corps discovered Hooker's movement, because the Federal commander did not have any cavalry screening it. Reporting the info back to Lee, the Army of Northern Virginia then immediately took action.
Lee left 9,000 men under Lt. Gen. James Longstreet to distract the 35,000 Federals under John Sedgwick in front of them, while the rest of the Army of Northern Virginia attacked Hooker's main body, forcing it back to a thick forest appropriately called the Wilderness. Lee then divided his army yet again, sending Stonewall Jackson's corps and Stuart's cavalry around the Federal right. Jackson ambushed the Federal right at dusk on Jan. 8, and by the morning of Jan. 9, Lee had caught Hooker in a pincer. Hooker's main body flooded from the Confederate charge across the Rapidan, as Confederate artillery pounded them with astonishing accuracy. Lee then sent a brigade of a cavalry in pursuit as he marched back to Fredricksburg, which was finally being attacked by Sedgwick. Lee withdrew Longstreet's small but elite forces from the town, and then enveloped Sedgwick as he brought Stonewall's men onto the flanks of Sedgwick's forces. The Federals withdrew in complete retreat. Thus, Lee had made the largest and bloodiest battle of the war his most brilliant victory, and ,as news of defeats in the West arrived to the Army of the Potomac, the one that spelled the collapse of the Union war effort.
The Army of the Potomac ceased to exist as a competent fighting force as Lee united his battle-hardened veterans with fresh troops from Richmond and began marching north. Meanwhile, Breckinridge occupied an undefended Kentucky. Massive draft riots broke out in Chicago, New York City and Washington, and when Lee crossed the Potomac into Maryland on Feb. 2, that state broke out into rebellion. Lincoln resigned from office and fled the capital as its defenses were decimated by rioters, and on Feb. 9, Lee occupied Washington, putting down the rioters. Within days of Washington's fall, the British Empire recognized the Confederacy and declared war on the United States. Hannibal Hamlin had already signed a ceasefire with the Confederates on Feb. 10, and he signed one just a few days after British entry into the war with British troops invading Maine (Hamlin's home state) from New Brunswick.
Results[]
The peace treaty that concluded the war was signed in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 1863. By its terms, the Confederate States of America were recognized as an independent nation by the United States of America. Kentucky and Maryland were admitted as the 12th and 13th states of the Confederacy, and by necessity, the USA was forced to cede the District of Coloumbia to the CSA,as the national capital obviously could not be in the middle of an enemy nation. The District was promptly renamed to the District of Dixie, and the Federals were given six months to transport all government papers and objects north. Confederate control of the Indian Territory was also recognized, and the CSA annexed the New Mexico Territory. The British took advantage of their participation in the war to annex half of Maine. This, as well as the cession of Washington, was the most bitter pill the North had to swallow in order to achieve peace, and these humiliating concessions fueled revanchism and embarrassment over what was a very unpopular war in the North. The CSA's victory, which had been achieved seemingly against all odds, flowed a ton of prestige into the South, and helped stimulate the unmatched prosperity of the Confederacy between its independence and World War I.