The South’s economy depended heavily on the export of cotton, but with the naval blockade, the flow of cotton to England, the region’s primary importer, came to an end. The audience was eager to listen to the man from Illinois. Union. While they could not capture the Southern capital of Richmond, they were victorious in the Battle of Shiloh and captured New Orleans and Memphis. In April 1862, the Union navy under Admiral David Farragut fought its way past the forts that guarded New Orleans and fired naval guns upon the below-sea-level city. Although there are varying opinions about the total number of deaths, eight thousand soldiers were killed or wounded, more than on any other single day of combat. That summer the Republican Party held its nominating convention in Chicago. The former is known as a leader that had a very hard time controlling his people and subordinates, specifically his Cabinet members. The Union’s defeat at Fredericksburg harmed morale in the North but bolstered Confederate spirits. At the onset on the war, in 1861 and 1862, they stood as relatively equal combatants.The Confederates had the advantage of being able to wage a defensive war, rather than an offensive one.
Armed civilians in New Orleans fought the Union forces that entered the city. ThoughtCo uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. These expectations did not match reality, however, and the war dragged on into a second year. On June 6, Memphis fell to the Union after the ships defending it were destroyed.Many in both the North and the South believed that a short, decisive confrontation in 1861 would settle the question of the Confederacy. He also demonstrated that Men rushed to enlist, and the Confederacy turned away tens of thousands who hoped to defend the new nation.Many believed that a single, heroic battle would decide the contest. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of the U.S. Supreme Court had actually advanced that idea in his notorious 1857 decision in the And with the addition of the Upper South states, especially Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, the Confederacy gained a much larger share of natural resources and industrial might than the Deep South states could muster.Still, the Confederacy had disadvantages. Militarily, however, the North and South were more equally matched than Lincoln had realized, and it soon became clear that the war effort would be neither brief nor painless. The losses of battles at Manassas and Fredericksburg, Virginia, kept the North from achieving the speedy victory its generals had hoped for, but the Union did make gains and continued to press forward. By using ThoughtCo, you accept our Lincoln Received an Invitation to Speak in New York City Lincoln Did Considerable Research for His Cooper Union Address The Cooper Union Address Propelled Lincoln to the Presidency Election of 1860: Lincoln Became President at Time of CrisisBackground and Significance of the Emancipation ProclamationBiography of Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United StatesHow Many Years Can a President Serve in the White House? And he also criticized his perennial foe Stephen Douglas, who had been promoting the concept of “popular sovereignty,” in which citizens of new states could vote on whether or not to accept enslavement. By the end of 1862, the Confederates were still holding their ground in Virginia.
Having succeeding in drawing off a sizable portion of the Union force, he joined General Lee to launch an attack on McClellan’s remaining soldiers near Richmond. The majority of military leaders on both sides had received the same military education and often knew one another personally, either from their time as students at West Point or as commanding officers in the Mexican-American War. Lincoln spent 1859 reassessing his political future. Opposition to the abolition war, increase in union deserters, republicans lost in congress, no negotiated settlement, & abolitionists didn't like the emancipation proclamation. Lincoln carried the popular vote in that Senate election, but at that time Senators were selected by state legislators. In short, although it had better resources and a larger population, the Union faced a daunting task against the well-positioned Confederacy.As this cartoon indicates, the fighting strategy at the beginning of the war included watchful waiting by the leaders of the North and South.The military forces of the Confederacy and the Union battled in 1861 and early 1862 without either side gaining the upper hand. For the Union, this meant the capture of the Confederate capital in Richmond, Virginia, whereas Washington, DC, stood as the prize for Confederate forces. Finally, the population of the South stood at fewer than nine million people, of whom nearly four million were black slaves, compared to over twenty million residents in the North. Union armies had to establish long supply lines, and Union soldiers had to fight on unfamiliar ground and contend with a hostile civilian population off the battlefield. The North could now concentrate on its efforts to gain control of the Mississippi River, splitting the Confederacy in two and depriving it of its most important water route.In the spring and summer of 1862, the Union was successful in gaining control of part of the Mississippi River. Lincoln spoke for more than an hour. An idea advanced by pro-slavery advocates at the time was that Congress had no right to regulate enslavement in new territories. Abraham Lincoln, beating out better-known candidates, received his party's nomination. On June 4, 1862, the Confederate defenders abandoned the fort. He denounced it as an evil institution and spoke out forcefully against it spreading into any new U.S. territories. Furthermore, the farms of New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the Old Northwest, and the prairie states supplied Northern civilians and Union troops with abundant food throughout the war. Further, the vast coastline from Texas to Virginia offered ample opportunities to evade the Union blockade. And Lincoln ultimately lost the Senate seat thanks to backroom political maneuvers. Both sides mobilized, with advantages and disadvantages on each side that led to a rough equilibrium.