The '5th Column'

 “The South vs.The South- How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War” by William W. Freehling, 2001 (Part 1)

This is a brilliant continuation of the argument about why the South lost the Civil War. It was not the superior industrial capacity of the North; it was not its greater population, immigration or its wealth. The South's failure was a geographic one, and that bad geography was based on the institution of slavery. It was not just in the mountain regions, in the piney woods, the seashores or in the swamps of the South that Unionism took hold, as these were areas where slavery was almost non-existent. After all, why fight or supply a rich planter's war? It was in the 5 border states of “the Upper South' and the 4 states of 'the Middle South' too. Finally, it was in the enslaved population across the whole South. It gave the North hundreds of thousands more men and deprived the Confederacy of the same. All conspired against the slave power centrally located in the Lower South, which by the middle of 1863 was starting to crumble.

The South had military advantages – interior lines, a defensive posture, a huge area the Union would have to occupy, and tight units made up of recruits from the same towns skilled with shot and shell. The rifled long gun made massed charges more and more suicidal, aiding their defense. The water 'Anaconda' line manned by the Union Navy was porous. The South, as has been noted earlier, nationalized all industry and developed some industrial war capacity quickly, especially in Atlanta and Richmond. It was the 'land' Anaconda that Freehling says eventually strangled the South. How did it happen? It happened primarily on the political terrain, but then on the military terrain too.

Lincoln was one of the main architects of the defeat of the South through his skilled and initial 'light touch' against neutrals, border states and waverers according to Freehling. At this time the Republican Party stood against any expansion of slavery, but claimed it would not attack existing slavery in the South. Lincoln here is no abolitionist, but he hoped that dozens of years in the future slavery would die a natural death as its opportunities for expansion were throttled.

The Upper, Border South

Remember the infamous incident in Baltimore in April 1861 when Copperhead Democratic Party thugs attacked a Massachusetts regiment transiting 'neutral' Maryland to defend Washington, D.C.? It was the last gasp of anti-Union sentiment in that border state. The reasons were manifold – one being free blacks outnumbered enslaved blacks in Maryland, the city was full of immigrants and most of the trade in Baltimore was with the North. It was really a northern proletarian city, not some southern outpost. This situation was replicated throughout the 'neutral' border South which still allowed slaves, but had fewer slaves and slave-holders. Some had been sold to the deep South, so the material reasons for violence and secession had lessened in these areas. Lincoln allowed the Maryland 'neutralists' to meet and yell and argue, but they eventually did not secede. Republicans then swept into office in Maryland and even the shouting stopped.

“Neutral” Kentucky followed Maryland in finally allowed Federal troops across the border after a Confederate general invaded Kentucky from the south. Here Lincoln did as he did at Fort Sumter, where he allowed the South Carolina secessionist idiots to shoot first. A rump of South Carolina's population had declared 'independence' on Dec. 20, 1860 in response to Lincoln's election, so they jumped the gun there too. Kentucky had more slaves in proportion than Maryland (20% v. 13%) but Republican Unionists swept the elections and the invasion sealed the deal, with Kentucky allowing General Grant to enter and defend the state. Twice as many white Kentuckians signed up with the Union Army than the Confederate one after that, while the majority sat out the war. Jefferson Davis had just lost another state.

As they say, divide and conquer. It's not a 'war between the states' but 'a war within the states.' Remember this strategy with our present neo-Confederacy, comrades. The main internal contradictions for the neo-Confederate capitalists are the southern working-class, including all of its black and Latino members, young women and the big cities and worksites of the South. Rural areas and exurbs are another matter.

Lincoln's slicing and dicing continued across the formally neutral upper South as neutrality became more and more untenable. All 5 border states including Delaware, Missouri and West Virginia were taken by the Union after elections, with occupations needed in Missouri and West Virginia. The boat building hub of St. Louis and the rail hub of Baltimore were lost to the Confederacy along with the large crossroads city of Louisville. Soon Nashville would be occupied.  Given the vast preponderance of 'free soil' and free labor people and the small amount of slavery in these last 3 states, the Union forces need for garrisons was smaller. This geographic coup, based on slavery's weakness, gave a strategic advantage to the North from the Atlantic to past the Mississippi.

Mapping the Geography

Guerrillas and War

Freehling notes the lack of southern 'filibustering' successes in these places too. With fewer locals to harass Union trains, transport and forts, the Confederacy could not disrupt the flow of troops and supplies to forward-moving Union armies. He contends that the Union had much more success in the South with 'filibustering' and sabotage.

Freehling calls it a myth that the war was stalemated for 2 years. Grant, Sherman, Foote and Porter's progress in the West was continuous. They seized Forts Henry, Donelson and Island #10, controlling much of the Cumberland, Tennessee and Mississippi rivers,  They occupied New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Natchez and Nashville, bloodily defeated Johnson at Shiloh, Tennessee and Beauregard and Van Dorn at Corinth, Mississippi, then encircled Vicksburg. Sieges – like those at Vicksburg, Atlanta and Petersburg - demanded an overwhelming numerical advantage and they had it. Grant and Buell had recruited white units from Missouri, Kentucky and Kansas, 'turned' every flank they could which forced Confederate units in Kentucky and then Tennessee to leave and even 'lived off the land.' During all this these upper and middle-south areas did not 'rise up' in any significant way to oppose them. It was now the Deep South in the cross-hairs, the hot-house of slavery. The Union was on the borders of Mississippi, Alabama and soon, Georgia.  

 (To be continued in a Part II...)

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 17 year archive, using these terms: “The Civil War in the United States” (Marx-Engels); "Why the South Lost the Civil War," "Lincoln," "Struggle & Progress" (Jacobin); "The Neo-Confederate States," "Blockaders, Refugees and Contrabands," "The Bloody Shirt," "Guerrillas, Unionists and Violence on the Confederate Home Front," "The Free State of Jones," "Andersonville Prison," "James-Younger Gang," "Southern Cultural Nationalism," "The Civil War in Florida," "A Blaze of Glory," "The State of Jones," “Monument,” "Drivin' Dixie Down," “A Confederacy of Dunces,” “U.S. Army Bases Named After Confederates” or the words “Civil War,” "John Brown" or “slavery."

And I got it at the Athens, GA Library!

The Cranky Yankee / February 23, 2024