Two Societies at War: Mobilization, Resources, and Internal Dissent

MOBILIZATION: • Even before Ft. Sumter, the Confederate Congress called for a 100,000-man army to serve for 12 months. After the Sumter bombardment, Lincoln called up 75,000 troops to serve 90 days, adding to the existing 15,000 man army. (Free African-Americans were turned away at first.) • By March 1863 a draft was necessary; $300 could buy a replacement or “substitute”—frequently recent immigrants, the fee fueled class resentment and social tension • By the end of the war the Union had mobilized more than 2 million soldiers; the Confederacy could muster some 800,000

RESOURCES: • The North had produced 97% of the country’s firearms, had 71% of its railroads, spun 94% of its cloth, 90% of its shoes … it had a massive industrial advantage • The North had 22 million people. The South had 9 million—but approximately 4 million of them were slaves. • The South had cotton that would be hard to export because of a Union blockade; the North exported corn and wheat to Europe. • The North sold $400 million in war bonds, and eventually borrowed $2.6 billion for the war effort; the U.S. also raised money with the Morrill Tariff Act beginning in 1861

INTERNAL DISSENT: a. North: • Northern Democrats separated into “War Democrats,” those like Stephen Douglas who pledged support, and the “Peace Democrats,” also known as Copperheads from the Republican perspective • Former Congressman Clement Vallandigham (Ohio) advocated a (racist) peace and suggested that Western Dems might unite with the South. His resistance efforts gained him exile to the Confederacy after his arrest • Democrats did maintain political opposition, even running Lincoln’s former general-in-chief against him in the 1864 election • Those opposed to fighting a war to end slavery (after the Emancipation Proclamation) were, most notably, working-class New Yorkers—many Irish laborers b. South: • Mountain whites • “Rich man’s war; poor man’s fight” * Food riots broke out in various places in 1863