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Y216: The USA in the 19th Century: Westward Expansion and Civil War 1803–c.1890

The Civil War: Lincoln and the Union, Davis and Confederacy

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 2

Overview

Recall questions on Lincoln and the Union, Davis and Confederacy, character, appointments, relations with ministers, states, organisation of war effort.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Evaluation

What made Lincoln an effective war leader, and how did he manage his appointments?

Who and when

Why did the election of 1864 matter?

Who and when

How did states' rights hamper the Confederacy?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What made Lincoln an effective war leader, and how did he manage his appointments?

    Model answer

    He learned strategy quickly, judged public opinion shrewdly and gave the war moral purpose in language people remembered; he mastered a cabinet of rivals such as Seward and Chase, replaced the corrupt Cameron with Stanton, appointed political generals to bind constituencies to the war and removed commanders who would not fight.

  2. 2

    How did the Union organise and pay for its war effort, and how did it deal with opposition at home?

    Model answer

    It raised money through tariffs, the first federal income tax and bond drives, issued greenbacks and created a national banking system, and introduced conscription in 1863; Lincoln also suspended habeas corpus to allow military arrests, and troops had to put down the New York draft riots.

  3. 3

    State what the Emancipation Proclamation actually did.

    Model answer

    Issued in preliminary form after Antietam and in force from January 1863, it declared free the enslaved people in areas still in rebellion, but left slavery untouched in the loyal border states and in Union-occupied districts.

  4. 4

    Why was emancipation important to the Union war effort?

    Model answer

    It turned the war into a war against slavery, which made European recognition of the Confederacy politically impossible, and it opened the army to Black soldiers, of whom about a hundred and eighty thousand served.

  5. 5

    Why did the election of 1864 matter?

    Model answer

    Lincoln faced McClellan on a platform for a negotiated peace and expected to lose, but the fall of Atlanta transformed northern opinion and he was re-elected comfortably, guaranteeing that the war would be fought to unconditional victory.

  6. 6

    What kind of leader was Jefferson Davis?

    Model answer

    He was experienced, industrious and personally brave, but proud, thin-skinned and unable to delegate; he quarrelled with generals and politicians, changed his war secretaries repeatedly, and never matched Lincoln's gift for explaining the cause.

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