Two Union armies led by General Irvin McDowell and General Robert Patterson marched into Virginia, but both generals were afraid that their soldiers were too untrained to handle actual combat. The Confederate army was kept apprised of the movements of Union forces because of a spy network in Washington, DC led by Rose O’Neal Greenhow. At Bull Run, the site of the first real battle of the Civil War (also known as the Battle of Manassas), despite his misgivings McDowell confronted Confederate defenses led by Pierre G.T. Beauregard. Thanks in part to reinforcements brought by General Lee, the battle ended with a narrow Confederate victory and hundreds of Union soldiers being captured.

Despite the victory, the Confederate media criticized the nation’s leadership for not exploiting the chance of marching on Washington, DC. However, Confederate leaders knew that their logistics could not support such an offense. Other Southerners celebrated the victory, not knowing that the Union had nearly won: “The South’s gleeful celebration generated a cockiness heedless of the Biblical injunction that pride goeth before a fall” (347). For the public and media in the North, the mood “was not defeatism, but renewed determination” (348).

The Union formed a new army, called the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln appointed George M. McClellan as the commander. The defeat at Bull Run made McClellan reluctant to confront Confederate forces, but at the same time it made the Confederacy overconfident.

In Missouri, Lincoln gave command of the Union’s Western Department to John C. Frémont. Despite Frémont’s glowing military reputation, he was unable to handle the turmoil in Missouri and his forces suffered a major defeat that allowed the Confederacy to take the important city of Lexington, Kentucky and seemingly “half of Missouri” (352). Frémont compounded his mistakes by defying Lincoln’s suggestions to not indiscriminately execute guerilla fighters, fearing that it would provoke Southern officers into executing Union prisoners, and to not liberate Confederate enslaved persons in order to avoid alienating Kentucky.

Lincoln removed Frémont from command in the West and reversed his emancipation order, out of fear that turning the war into an anti-enslavement crusade would alienate Democrats. This decision stirred abolitionist outrage. The Lincoln administration accepted a compromise policy whereby Confederate enslaved persons would be determined “contraband of war,” confiscated as punishment for treason, although their “legal status” remained “ambiguous” (355). Confederate enslaved persons began to escape to Unionist lines and Northern soldiers would protect them, even in Unionist pro-enslavement states like Kentucky. Some Republicans embraced the concept of the war as having an anti-enslavement purpose, and in Congress they voted down a resolution “disavowing an antislavery purpose in the war” (358).

As commander, McClellan proved to be inept but arrogant, presenting himself “as God’s chosen instrument to save the republic” (361). McClellan constantly overestimated the size of Confederate forces. Even though Confederate forces had gotten close to Washington, DC, McClellan refused to act. When McClellan did send a small force to try to drive away Confederate soldiers in Leesburg, Virginia, the resulting battle was a fiasco, resulting in the death of Lincoln’s personal friend, Colonel Edward Baker.

McClellan was a Democrat and, while not an enslaver, a critic of abolitionists, which caused him to fall under scrutiny. In his private correspondence, McClellan lambasted Lincoln and his cabinet. Still, Lincoln tolerated being snubbed by McClellan as long as he had confidence in his abilities. In the South, Jefferson Davis had a falling out with General Joseph E. Johnson over issues of ranking. McPherson argues that the McClellan and Johnson situations reveal that Davis was unforgiving toward those who insulted him, while Lincoln was willing to tolerate abuse from anyone as long as they showed merit.

While the Union navy was able to impose a blockade over the South, it “was no easy task” because of “3,500 miles of coastline” with “ten major ports” (369). Even then, they managed to stop a system of supply runners off the coast of North Carolina, capture Ship Island near New Orleans, took Port Royal, South Carolina, which was “the finest natural harbor on the south Atlantic coast” (371), and secured all the ports on the coast of North Carolina.

The Confederacy built a cutting-edge fleet of ironclad warships, starting with a frigate named Merrimack (later rechristened the Virginia). The officers in charge of the Union navy were reluctant to experiment with new technologies, but reports of the Confederacy’s ironclads provoked the Union into building their own. In its first naval clash, the Virginia managed to sink two Union ships. The rest of the navy was saved by the new Union ironclad, the Monitor, which fought the Virginia to a “draw” (377).

Despite the supremacy of the Union navy, blockade runners remained a problem. They were often based in the Caribbean ports of Havana, Nassau, and Bermuda and ran supplies to the major Southern port cities not yet captured by the Union, such as Mobile, Wilmington, or Charleston. Many were motivated by Southern patriotism, but many were also driven by just the profit motive. Despite the success of many blockade runners, the blockade succeeded in weakening the South, starving it of ammunition and inflicting the South’s economy with “ruinous inflation that reduced the Confederate dollar to one percent of its original value by the end of the war” (382).

The Confederacy tried to leverage the importance of its cotton exports, something called “King Cotton diplomacy” (384). The Confederate public blocked their own cotton trade to try to get Britain and France to recognize the Confederacy. Still, the government “could not admit the existence of a cotton embargo” (385). The cotton embargo failed, however. European factories had cotton supplies large enough to leave them largely unaffected, and when supplies started to run out, the South was forced to lift the cotton embargo to pay for imports. Europe could also easily turn to cotton supplies from India and Egypt, and, as for Britain, cotton and textiles had become less important to the British economy.

Under international law, the Union’s formal declaration of a blockade against the Confederacy and the recognition of the blockade by Britain and other European nations meant that these countries inadvertently recognized the Confederacy as a “belligerent power” (387-388). This was enough to give the Confederacy the right to purchase weapons from, and negotiate loans with, neutral powers.

Britain giving full diplomatic recognition to the Confederacy remained a threat, especially when the Confederacy sent envoys to France and Britain. Exploiting a loophole in international law, a Union captain named Charles Wilkes managed to capture and arrest the envoys before they reached Europe. When news of this reached Britain, the British government and media were outraged and even spoke of joining the war on the Confederacy’s side. Lincoln had the envoys released and acknowledged that Wilkes had acted without any orders and in violation of international law. The incident proved to be the closest the Confederacy ever got to “winning foreign intervention” (391).

Lincoln urged his commanders to follow a strategy of “using […] superior numbers” (395) to put pressure at different points simultaneously. Lincoln’s commanders were reluctant to put such a strategy into practice. Nonetheless, Brigadier-General Ulysses S. Grant, a veteran of the Mexican-American War, managed to prove himself in Missouri. Under his command, forces managed to capture Fort Henry, a strategic point on the Tennessee River, providing “a Union highway into the Deep South” (397).

When a Confederate force launched a surprise attack against Grant, Grant was able to turn the tables and demanded an “‘unconditional and immediate surrender’” (402) from the Confederates. This victory convinced Lincoln to promote Grant to a major general, making him second in command to Henry Halleck over the Western forces. It was the “most important” (402) victory for the Union yet. It led to the capture of Nashville, Tennessee, “the first Confederate state capital and important industrial center to fall” (403), as well as the Union’s occupation of most of Tennessee and all of Kentucky.

The Confederate generals Beauregard and Johnston hoped to reverse the Union’s victories by recapturing Tennessee. Johnston launched a surprise attack on Grant near a church named Shiloh and a river called Pittsburgh Landing in Tennessee. The Battle of Shiloh was exceptionally brutal and “the first battle on a scale that became commonplace during the next three years,” with 20,000 killed and wounded (413), more than the casualties at other major battles combined. It marked the end of the “romantic innocence” (413) that both sides possessed at the beginning of the war.

After the battle, Beauregard’s army retreated to Corinth, Mississippi. While Grant tended to push for total war tactics designed to wipe out enemy forces, Halleck preferred to avoid confrontations when possible. Halleck sought to “maneuver Beauregard out of Corinth without a fight” (416) by occupying key points and starving the town of supplies. Halleck’s tactics succeeded in giving the Union control of Corinth. Davis replaced Beauregard with a new general, Braxton Bragg.

The Union navy secured further strategic victories, seizing Memphis, Tennessee and New Orleans. A further naval assault on Vicksburg, Mississippi failed, leaving the Confederacy in control of “two hundred river miles of the Mississippi” (422). In just a few months, “Union forces conquered 50,000 square miles of territory, gained control of 1,000 miles of navigable rivers, captured two state capitals and the South’s largest city, and put 30,000 enemy soldiers out of action” (422).

Back east, Lincoln was growing impatient with McClellan not leading his forces to try to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond. While McClellan dithered, it was learned that Confederate forces had withdrawn from Manassas to a stronger, more fortified location. McClellan then decided on a strategy of moving his army down the Rappahannock River toward Richmond. However, Lincoln lost confidence in McClellan and demoted him while also redirecting some of his intended forces to instead contribute toward Washington, DC’s defense.

With help from Robert E. Lee, the Confederate army managed to delay Union forces long enough to escape Union forces at Yorktown, Virginia. At the same time, Confederate forces were able to foil a Union river assault on Richmond, but the Confederates lost their naval base at Norfolk, Virginia and McClellan’s army got within “six miles” of Richmond, causing “a sense of impending doom” that “pervaded the South” (427).

As the South suffered severe defeats, the popularity of Jefferson Davis plummeted. In response to mounting criticism, the negative aspects of his personality came to the fore. He had “excessive pride and willfulness” and was “[a]ustere and humorless” (429), which made it difficult for him to accept criticism. By contrast, Lincoln could work well even with those who strongly disagreed with him.

By the end of 1861, the Southern public’s enthusiasm for the war had faded. Facing this problem and a lack of men, the Confederate Congress passed “the first conscription law in American history” (430). While the law succeeded in getting men to volunteer for the army before they could be drafted, it also faced resistance in the form of deserters and draft-dodgers. The law was also seen as government overreach and a contradiction to the Confederacy’s claim that it was resisting the tyranny of the Lincoln administration.

In parts of the South like regions of Mississippi and Louisiana, martial law was declared, which “provoked sharp protests” (435) for the same reasons conscription was resented. Nevertheless, Davis resorted to suspending habeas corpus less often than Lincoln. This was due to the North having to deal with occupying captured areas or border regions with rebellious populations. With their recent victories, by contrast the Lincoln administration relaxed on civil liberties issues. All political prisoners were released on condition of taking a loyalty oath to the Union and “all recruiting offices” were “closed” (437). However, the closing of recruitment offices was partially because of a need to “reorganize and rationalize them” (437).

At the start of the war, the South was at a disadvantage when it came to paying for the war. Most of the South’s wealth was in enslaved persons and land, and the South had few banks and currency compared to the North. Using taxes would have done minimal damage to the economy through inflation, but Southerners had been “one of the most lightly taxed peoples on earth” (438) since, as a rural, enslavement-based economy, there was little incentive to collect taxes to fund social services. By August 1861, a direct tax was introduced, but it was left to the states to collect it. “Only South Carolina actually did so” (438) and other states paid for their tax quotas through loans or printing more paper money.

Instead, the Confederacy paid for the war through loans and government bonds. The Confederacy depended on overprinting treasury notes, which was “‘the most dangerous of all methods of raising money’” (439) since the notes soon became depreciated in value. Most of the Confederacy’s revenue came from printing treasury notes, “nearly a quarter from bonds […] and less than 2 percent from taxes” (439).

Local governments and even businesses in the South issued their own paper currency. The quality of these notes was poor, making them easy to counterfeit. All of this caused prices to rise, constituting “a form of confiscatory taxation whose burden fell most heavily on the poor” (440). Small farms suffered because the price of salt, which was needed to preserve meat, sharply rose. The Southern public and politicians blamed “‘speculators’” (441) for exploiting the market for their own profit. Antisemitism also rose as people sought scapegoats to blame for the economic crisis. While legislators tried to lower prices or prevent merchants from monopolizing supplies, “[b]y 1862 the Confederate economy had become unmanageable” (442).

The Union’s economy was “more adaptable” (442) to war. Its advantages were revenues from tariffs and “an established Treasury” (442). The Union government was able to raise more money through bank loans and taxation than the Confederacy, with the Northern government utilizing “the first federal income tax in American history” (443). While the Union did also issue treasury notes, these were, unlike the ones issued by the Confederacy, also “legal tender” (445) under the Legal Tender Act, which created a stable national currency and kept inflation low.

In response to war experiences, the US Congress also passed the Internal Revenue Act. It established a Bureau of Internal Revenue as part of the federal government and imposed taxes that were “progressive” (448), which means that they were designed to be based on one’s income and not put a burden on the poor.

There was still economic unrest in the North, caused by stagnant wages and inflation. Skilled workers and men especially were in many cases able to improve their situation through labor strikes. However, women and unskilled workers were disadvantaged, even after the war was over. The Civil War “caused an increase of worker militancy and organization” (450).

Without the opposition of Southern Democrats, Republicans passed a number of important reforms. These included the Homestead Act (which granted public lands to Western settlers), the Morrill Act (which gave every state public lands for the creation of colleges and universities), and the Pacific Railroad Act (which provided lands and government loans for private businesses to create a railroad from Nebraska to California). McPherson argues that Congress’ reforms, along with its steps toward ending enslavement, constituted a “‘Second American Revolution’” which did more than any other Congress “in history to change the course of national life” (452). While there were clear benefits, in the long term some of the reforms would also cause problems by increasing the power of businesses and banks.