The Civil War was an event in history where the North and the South faced each other in war. There were various actions that triggered the war based on the inability of the two states and the federal government to compromise. The reasons include Southern states wanting to assert their authority in the federal government, Abraham Lincoln winning the 1860 election, and Southern states turning to secession. The events ultimately led to a war that took the lives of nearly 620,000 men. This essay will explain in detail the events that occurred leading up to the American Civil War.
Following the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, Congress wanted to establish a policy to expand slavery into all of the western territory (need a citation). This triggered the start of the Missouri Compromise, in which Missouri became a slave state, and Maine was admitted as a free state. Thomas Jefferson felt that this was a very immoral decision. The southern states wanted to assert all of their authority over the federal government so that they could abolish laws they didn’t support. The South also wished to have slavery be adopted into the western territories, but the northern states were committed to white labor alone. Citation needed.
An event that followed was the 1860 election in which Abraham Lincoln became the President of the United States. Following that event, all southern states felt they had lost all influence in governmental decisions based on the fact that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican but was also anti-slavery. Abraham Lincoln was elected despite not being included in many of the other Southern ballots that had taken place before and during the election. This election made the southern states incredibly nervous and turned them to other options. When they found out he was elected, Southern states felt excluded from the political system altogether.
The final event that led to the Civil War was the Southern states turning to secession. This secession meant that eleven southern states withdrew from the Union by 1861. This secession showed how the southern states felt about the federal government and their desire to make their own political decisions. In an effort to make a statement, the southern states utilized federal forts in South Carolina to convey their message. The Battle of Fort Sumter was where the South was the one who triggered the first shot that began the Civil War following Abraham’s skillful strategies.
The Civil War was a war between states that couldn’t compromise, which led to the death of nearly 620,000 men. The southern states had issues with the federal government’s decision to turn towards slavery abolition and white labor only. This created tension between the northern and southern states as the southern states felt threatened that they had no authority in terms of political decisions. The southern states believed that the only option to regain their standing in the political system was to start a war. These events led to the Civil War and, ultimately, the loss of many lives.
War culture is determined by the many different outcomes that may have upon a country, along with how it developed and the many events that may unfold between its beginning and end. Most wars are started with a political motivation. Examples of such wars are the American Civil War. Some others are started for power, cultural differences, or ideas, such as the Great War. While the determining factor of how wars are started is important for understanding their development, knowing the original motivator for such war can help us understand how those choices affect warfare at a cultural level. We can see examples of this if we look at the American Civil War and The Great War, also known as World War I.
The Civil War not only established a political change for a country but also established a different view of religion and death, values, and relationships to public life. The great war also brought big political changes along with technological advances, which in turn shifted cultural warfare by creating a multitude of different approaches to the way wars were being fought. In a sense, political motivation forces countries at war to be able to administer them based on their needs and their desired outcome, but the actual outcome of such wars is what determines warfare culture and its development.
Lee explains in Chapter 4 of Warfare and Culture in World History that during the Ming Dynasty, it was difficult for Governments to find a proper balance between governing and making decisions concerning military matters. These differences often led to miscommunications that created issues for the governing parties, often costing them wars or cities. What created this failure was the mismanagement of leadership and administration between the two parties that were supposed to be working together.
When discussing disciplinary content in history for pivotal moments during wars, such as the American Civil War and the Great War, we must take into consideration both of their histories. The military history of the United States prior to the Civil War was already established during the Revolutionary War. This military history had already created a certain psychology in Americans, which was influenced by literature and sociology, establishing a war culture. Literature established personalities that showed that not only could they fight wars for their countries but were also apt at ruling and administering. Unlike the Ming Dynasty, Americans had already shown that these two systems go hand in hand, making their previous endeavors successful.
From a sociological perspective, the American Revolutionary War was about freedom, and the American Civil War was no different. The United States of America was the epitome of freedom at the time and still is to this day. The Civil War was necessary for it to occur if the sentiment of freedom was to be maintained. This cycle from the Revolutionary War kept going forward. The inspiration that many troops drew from literature from that war was now being created by soldiers during the Civil War through books, letters, and poetry. Literature not only kept the war effort moving forward but shifted the mentality of how military recognition is portrayed and its patriotism, both in the North and the South, regardless of their differences of opinion.
Historical, literary, psychological, sociological, and political perspectives regarding war and culture could not be made possible if not for written literature. While many stories can be passed down through generations by word of mouth, it would be impossible to truly grasp the concept of what happened during the Civil War and the Great War without the written word. What is known today about the wars can be attributed to the many stories written by soldiers through poems, memoirs, and letters to their family members.
Not only can we grasp what was going on during the war on a political level but also on a personal one. This allows us to get closer to the individuals fighting those wars and try to grasp what they were really feeling and why they were fighting. These things helped us understand the history of the wars, and they also allowed us to understand how war culture functioned then and how it has evolved over the years. These wars changed many things about life in general, not just war culture, for the Civil War, the Great War, and even the Second World War.
An example of this was the integration of female roles not only within the military but also within civil life. Many roles that were usually taken by males at those times were being filled by females in order to support the continuation of everyday life and also the war efforts. This created a change of perspective on culture about how things were seen and what male and female roles were. I believe this had a huge impact on the many changes we have seen based on equality and life. During the Civil War, the female role shifted from taking care of the homes and maintaining a good living environment for their families to being on the battlefields in a similar fashion. Some of their roles included those of nurses. However, they also filled roles in manufacturing clothing for soldiers, food, and entertainment in order to raise morale.
During the Great War, some of these roles stayed the same, but we began to see changes where women were actually part of the armed forces within the Royal Navy or the Royal Airforce. Other women took jobs in factories and helped with war production, manufacturing weapons or food for the soldiers on the front lines. Even more surprisingly, countries such as Russia, Bulgaria, and Romania allowed women to serve on the front lines as infantry and shock troops.
War Culture also helped develop academic knowledge, professional work, and the responsibilities of local and global citizenship. It was through a war that the notion of nationalism and pride took off. When we see the different chapters written by Lee on Warfare and Culture in World History about the Assyrians, the Romans, and the Ming Dynasty, we can see that war was mainly a way to assert power and gain territory for different nations. This, in turn, creates a pathway for local and global citizenships and borders. This is an example of the Romans and their conquests.
When many different countries or states were taken by the Romans, their populations had the opportunity to become Roman citizens. While nowadays this has changed, it did help develop the sense of nationalism through culture and the different changes in the way of life. For example, the conclusion of the Civil War created a new sense of citizenship for the United States that can still be seen today. However, I feel that, in a way, it unified the nation as a whole, regardless of the different opinions that caused the war. The unification of the United States not only helped the nation become closer but also helped the nation become a superpower and one of the first nations leading the world.
In conclusion, all the different notions of war culture are what create the different perspectives and processes for decision-making in the future of countries and wars. When we look back at history, we can learn from it and hopefully avoid making the same mistakes we did before, or we can look back at what has worked before and attempt to emulate it. Many of these are possible because of written records and accounts of history. This adds to our culture and defines what we believe war is and how to approach it. Thanks to the records from the Civil War and the Great War, we have gotten better at understanding our own culture and warfare culture alike.
