US History

U.S. History Study Guide

The Confederacy’s Advantages: • Home Field Advantage: The Confederacy was fighting for independence at home, while the Union was entering enemy territory. The North would have to ship men and supplies long distances and occupy the conquered territory, the South could maintain a defense by moving its men around very little. • Military Experience/Better Generals: The South had a stronger military tradition and more experienced military leaders. Many of the best generals would side with the Confederacy, not for the cause, but for the love of their state. 13.3 Reasons the North and South Fought North The North fought the war to preserve the Union and that was the only objective at the beginning of the war. President Lincoln said, on many occasions in the first year and a half of the war, that it was not a war to abolish slavery. Lincoln was very much concerned about not losing the Border States who were slave holding but backed the Union: Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware and soon West Virginia. He was also still trying to win back some of the secessionists in the South who were on the fence about the issue. Initially, the Civil War was fought to preserve the Union as it had existed before 1861, with slavery included. By the second year of the war, it became clear that Southerners were not going to openly come back into the Union. It also became clear that slavery was an asset to the Confederacy in the form of slave labor, which grew the food crops and the cotton, but also provided much of the manual labor for the Confederate armies. As Abolitionism grew in the North, Lincoln knew he must adopt the fight against slavery as well, for military reasons and political reasons, as well as the general good of their cause. Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, the goals of preserving the Union, and striking against slavery became merged into one. This made it difficult for a European power to join the South if the issue had become slavery, politically as well. By the time of his Gettysburg Address in November 1863 Lincoln explained that the war was not only to preserve the nation conceived and born in 1776 but to give their nation a new birth of freedom by purging it of slavery. South The Confederacy was fighting to control their own economy, to protect state sovereignty, and their right to expand slavery within the United States and the western hemisphere. The South had the idea once they won their independence they would move southward conquering parts of Mexico to Central America moving slavery along with it. Although the average Confederate soldier didn't own slaves and could care less about the economy, but these men fought because armed Northerners were in their back yards.

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