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Essay about why the union and confederacy
Why was the civil war fought
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Essay about why the union and confederacy
Why was the civil war fought
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In chapter one of What They Fought For, I learned about the letters and diaries of the Confederate soldiers. The themes of the letters were home-sickness, lack of peace, and the defense of home against their invading enemy. The thought of soldiers fighting for their homes and being threatened by invaders, made them stronger when facing adversity. Many men expressed that they would rather die fighting for a cause, than dying without trying and this commitment showed patriotism. Throughout the letters, soldiers claimed their reason for fighting, was for the principles of Constitutional liberty and self-government.
The Battle of Fort Wagner of 1863 The Civil War was triggered by the disagreement between the Southerners and the Northerners over the rights and roles of slaves. The majority of the Southerners believed slaves should have been used for the provision of free labor, while the majority of the Northerners believed that slavery was inhuman and immoral. The Confederate States of America was a Southern country formed by the Southern states’ leaders to break off from the United States. The president of the Confederacy was Jefferson Davis, former senator of Mississippi, while the president of the United States was Abraham Lincoln.
Southern soldiers viewed the confederacy as their country and were compelled to fight for the safety of it. Confederate soldiers enlisted to protecting their native lands from what they understood as invaders. The Confederacy sentiments of the Union was they were imposing upon the southern way of life. For instance, a young soldier from Kentucky wrote “sink or swim, survive or perish” (McPherson 11). The average Confederate soldier felt that they the Union was trying to destroy the legacy of the founder fathers by enslaving them and reversing the actions of the American Revolution.
Both the Union and the Confederates believed that they were right in the beliefs that they had fought for. The South thought they were fighting for states rights while the North believed they were fighting to free the slaves. Jim Kemper states“You must tell them, and make it plain, that what we are fighting for is our freedom from the rule of what is to us a foreign government. That's all we want and that's what this war is all about. We established this country in the first place with strong state governments just for that reason, to avoid a central tyranny” (Shaara 61).
From the North's perspective they couldn't understand why the South would fight for such a ignoble cause. A cause that treated other human beings so inhumanely and unethically. From the South's point of view, they just wanted freedom to govern and live by their own rules and standards. They believed that the Union didn't have a place for them and that they were going to establish themselves as their own entity. Neither the Union or Confederate understood the other's perspective and this power struggle along with the confusion led to America's bloodiest war.
1. When President Lincoln was elected there were only two significant forts in the South that flew the Union flag. Explain in paragraph form Lincoln’s middle-of-the road solution to bring needed supplies to Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. When President Lincoln was elected, only two significant forts in the South still flew the Union flag. Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston (South Carolina), needed supples in order to support its men.
Nationalism was a big factor, both Union like Confederate soldiers believed in making their fellow founding fathers proud of what they had become. The book portrays the Confederate soldiers as proud of being “rebels”, quoting names like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as examples of “rebellious” men in their time period. The Unionists stuck to their idealism of preserving the union, making nationalism more prominent in their area. Both sides also appealed to what the United States was founded on, freedom and liberty. The Unionists believed that they should conserve the government which granted everyone liberty.
Confederate Army had trouble arming all their troops .Confederate Army didnt have many uniforms, men usually just fought in what they brought with them .Confereate Army was better trained .Union had a bigger army .Union had a more powerful Navy .The
The Civil War is known as one of the most destructive wars of the time with a total casualty rate of about 625,000 soldiers.1 The non-slave owning states, the Union, and the slave owning states, the Confederates, fought each other for power over the national government which would be the deciding factor in whether the upcoming states would or would not be slave states. Each side had its own prominent general, Robert E. Lee of the Confederacy and Ulysses S. Grant of the Union. Many people in America today often have their opinions on who they think was the better of the two so, I’m going to ask you. Who do you think was the greatest general of the American Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant, or Robert E. Lee?
Throughout the course of the Civil War, Southerner’s felt as if the North was impending upon state’s rights and their way of life, which was based on slavery, was put at risk by the Union . At different points in the war, Southerners felt that the Union posed a bigger threat than before, especially after Abraham Lincoln gave the Emancipation Proclamation speech. The Civil War was not only fought by free Americans, but as times changed, enslaved people also took up arms alongside the Union and fought the Confederacy. The inevitable Civil War resulted in the South’s demise and them rejoining the Union. When the Southern States began to secede, they felt as if the Union and Northern Democratic party we’re threatening the lifestyle they had grown so used to.
Though the reason for the South secession was claimed not to be about slavery, but rather “states rights”, it was ultimately over the right to keep African Americans enslaved. For the North, though there was an abolitionist's motive, Lincoln initially fought just to keep the United States together. When Union Major General Butler came across many slaves who came to Fort Monroe for refuge from rebel states owners, he asked questions regarding their stance (Document A). He raised the unavoidable question, “is their condition that of men, women, and children, or of property, or is it a mixed relation?”, and didn’t fail to note how they were “able bodied” for the war, though initially during the beginnings of the Civil War people were hesitant to let African Americans participate. However, after a long delay even Lincoln supported Africans fighting for the Union in the Civil War, as noted in a letter where he refutes critics against the fact (Document C).
During the time of the Civil War, the North was beginning to believe that slavery was not necessary and it was unjust. However, the South was holding strong to their roots, and supporting slavery to the fullest. It demonstrated differences by showing the growing rift between the two sides on the problem of slavery. The North believed in getting rid of slavery while the South supported it.
The winner has always written the history books. So, it came as no surprise that after the North’s victory in the American Civil War, the South was seen as the villain during the Reconstruction Era, all while the North was innocent and spot-free. The truth, however, said differently. The North was not nearly as innocent in Reconstruction, to the point where the Northern states, as a whole, could have killed reconstruction altogether. Reconstruction, in simple terms, was the effort to bring the Southern states back into the nation and mend the Union as one after the Southern states seceded and caused the Civil War.
Imagine that you are in Virginia, in the year 1861, all around you, you hear screams, cannons, guns firing. Your husband is the one taking part in this battle and you are scared for his life. Your children ask you over and over again, “What’s going on?” and “Why is it so loud?” Except you have no idea what to say because you, yourself does not know what is going on.
North and south civil war While both sides fought the civil war over the issue of slavery, the North had fought for more moral reasons, while the South fought to preserve its own institutions. I will be writing about this as my topic and explain how it started, who were involved and what were the reasons,etc. The civil war was the most historical event in all of the world and at a site I found and used it says “While the Revolution of 1776-1783 created the United States, the Civil War of 1861-1865 determined what kind of nation it would be.” Meaning that the civil war was the changing point in the country in this era. It was the north and the south fighting over slavery and institutional reasons too.