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Louisville And Nashville Railroad

Louisville and Nashville Railroad

The Louisville and Nashville Railroad was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services in the southeast United States. Chartered by the state of Kentucky in 1850, the L&N, as it was generally known, grew into one of the great success stories of American business. Operating under one name continuously for 132 years, it survived civil war and economic depression and several waves of social and technological change. It was the premier Southern railroad, but also extended its reach far outside its home area, ultimately building a network of nearly 7,000 miles of track.

Early history and Civil War

Its first line extended only barely south of Louisville, Kentucky, and in fact it took until 1859 to span the 180-odd miles to its second namesake city of Nashville. There were about 250 miles of track in the system by the outbreak of the Civil War, and its strategic location, spanning the Union/Confederate lines, made it of great interest to both governments. In the event, different parts of the network were pressed into service by both armies at various times, and considerable damage from wear, battle, and sabotage occurred. However, the company benefited from being based in the Union state of Kentucky, and the fact that Nashville fell to Union forces within the first year of the war and remained in their hands for its duration; it profited from Northern haulage contracts for troops and supplies, paid in sound Federal "greenbacks," as opposed to the rapidly-depreciating Confederate dollars. After the war, it found that its Southern competitors were devastated to the point of collapse, and the general economic depression meant that labor and materials to repair its roads could be had fairly cheaply. Buoyed by these fortunate circumstances, the firm began an expansion that never really stopped. Within thirty years the network reached from Ohio and Missouri to Louisiana and Florida. By 1884, the firm had such importance that it was included in the Dow Jones Transportation Average, the first American stock market index. It was so active a customer of the Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works, the country's second largest locomotive maker, that in 1879 the firm presented L&N with a free locomotive as a thank-you bonus.

Coal and capital in the Gilded Age

Railroads were much interested in coal, of course, as all locomotives were steam-powered, and wood-burning models had been found to be unsatisfactory. The L&N shrewdly guaranteed not only its own fuel sources but a steady revenue stream by pushing its lines into the difficult but coal-rich terrain of eastern Kentucky, and also well into northern Alabama. There the small town of Birmingham had recently been founded amidst undeveloped deposits of coal and also iron ore, the basic ingredients of steel production. The arrival of L&N transport and investment capital helped create a great industrial city, and the South's first postwar urban success story. The railroad's ready access to very high-grade coal eventually enabled it to boast the nation's longest non-stop run, nearly 500 miles from Louisville to Montgomery, Alabama without refueling. In the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, there were no such things as anti-trust or fair-competition laws and very little in the way of financial regulation. Business was a keen and mean affair, and the L&N proved a most formidable competitor. It could, and did, simply freeze out upstarts like the Tennessee Central Railway Company from critical infrastructure like urban stations. Where that wasn't possible, as with the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad (which was older than the L&N), it simply used its financial muscle—in 1880 it acquired a controlling interest in its chief competitor. A public outcry resulted from this, however, sufficient to convince the L&N directors that there were some limits even to their power. They discreetly continued the NC&StL as a separate subsidiary, but now working in complement to, instead of in competition with, the L&N. Somewhat ironically, in 1902 financial speculations by financier J.P. Morgan delivered control of the L&N to the rival Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. Curiously, however, this firm did not make any attempt to control L&N operations, and for many decades there were no consequences of this change.

The twentieth century

The World Wars brought heavy demand to the L&N. Its widespread and robust network coped well with the demands of war transport and production, and the resulting profits harked back to the boost it had received from the Civil War. In the postwar period, the line shifted gradually to diesel power, and the new streamlined engines pulled some of the most elegant passenger trains of the last great age of passenger rail, such as the Dixie Flyer, the Humming Bird, and the Pan-American. Though well past its hundredth anniversary, the line was still growing. In 1957, the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis was finally fully merged. In the 1960s, acquisitions in Illinois allowed a long-sought entry into the premier rail center of Chicago, and some of the battered remains of the old rival, the Tennessee Central, were purchased as well. In 1971, Seaboard Coast Line Railroad, the successor to Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, purchased the remainder of the L&N shares it did not already own, and the company became a subsidiary. During this period, in common with other lines, the L&N was cutting back passenger service. Amtrak, the government-formed passenger railway service, took over the few remaining L&N passenger trains in 1971. In 1979, amid great lamentations in the press, it ceased passenger service to its namesake cities, as well as Birmingham, when Amtrak discontinued The Floridian. By 1982, the rail industry was consolidating fast, and Seaboard System Railroad, successor to Seaboard Coast Line, absorbed the Louisville & Nashville entirely and withdrew its name from the market at the end of that year. Yet more consolidation was ahead, and in 1986, Seaboard System Railroad changed its name to CSX Transportation (CSX), which now owns and operates the former L&N assets. Few industries have as large and devoted a body of historians and fans as railroading does, and the long and colorful saga of the Louisville & Nashville has generated much interest. A number of historical groups and publications devoted to the line exist, and L&N equipment is well represented in the popular model railroading hobby.

External links

- [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lnrr L&N/NC&StL Email List]
- [http://rrhistorical-2.com/lnhs/history.html A short history of the line]
- [http://www.railga.com/ln.html L&N in Georgia]
- [http://www.oldalabamarails.org/history3.html L&N in Alabama]
- [http://rrhistorical-2.com/lnhs/ L&N Historical Society page]
- [http://members.tripod.com/appalachian_railroad/lnmodels.html L&N model photos]

Class I railroad

A Class I railroad in the United States, or a Class I railway (also Class I rail carrier) in Canada, is one of the largest freight railroads, as classified based on operating revenue. Smaller railroads are classified as Class II and Class III. The exact revenues required to be in each class have varied through the years, and they are now continuously adjusted for inflation.

Current criteria

As of 2004, a Class I railroad, as defined by the Surface Transportation Board, has an operating revenue exceeding $277.7 million. The exact setting of the cut-off figure has always been as much a political decision as anything else, as different rules apply to the different classes. For instance, in early 1991, Montana Rail Link and Wisconsin Central asked the Interstate Commerce Commission to raise the bar, then set at $93.5 million, to avoid being redesignated as Class I, due to extra costs and paperwork. The cutoff was raised at the end of 1992 to $250 million, dropping the Florida East Coast Railway to Class II (the Class II/III line stayed at $20 million). In Canada, a Class I railway is defined (as of 2004) as a company that has earned gross revenues exceeding $250 million for each of the previous two years. Currently seven United States railroads are classified as Class I. The two major players east of the Mississippi River are CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway (the latter called "Norfolk Southern Combined Railroad Subsidiaries" by the AAR). West of the Mississippi, the BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad cover roughly the same territory. The Kansas City Southern Railway is a smaller system, mainly forming part of the NAFTA Railway corridor from the Midwest into Mexico, and two subsidiaries of Canadian companies - the Grand Trunk Corporation, controlled by the Canadian National Railway, and the Soo Line Railroad, controlled by the Canadian Pacific Railway - are also considered Class I. The Grand Trunk Corporation includes two former Class I railroads - the Illinois Central Railroad and Grand Trunk Western Railroad - which still operate separately, but are reported as one unit. Two Canadian railways are currently Class I - the Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway. Those companies would be Class I by the U.S. definition. Two Mexican railroads would fit the definition if they were U.S. companies - Ferrocarril Mexicano and Grupo Transportación Ferroviaria Mexicana; the latter is controlled by the Kansas City Southern Railway. Amtrak and VIA Rail provide intercity passenger service in the U.S. and Canada, but as they are not typical freight carriers, they are not classified.

History

The classification of U.S. railroads as Class I, II, or III was started by the Interstate Commerce Commission in the 1930s. Initially Class I railroads were defined as railroads with operating revenue of at least $1 million. There were 132 Class I railroads in 1939. The $1 million figure was used until 1956 (at which time there were 113 ); however, since that time, it has increased faster than inflation. In 1956 it was increased to $3 million. By 1963 the number of Class I railroads had dropped to 102. By 1965 the cut-off had increased to $5 million, to $10 million in 1976 and to $50 million in 1978, at which point only 41 railroads were still Class I. The Class III category was dropped in 1956, but reinstated in 1978. In 1979 all switching and terminal railroads, even those with Class I or Class II revenues, were redesignated as Class III. Nowadays, the Class II and Class III designations are rarely used. The Association of American Railroads instead splits non-Class I companies into three categories:
- Regional railroads operate at least 350 miles or make at least $40 million per year.
- Local railroads are non-regional railroads that engage in line-haul service.
- Switching and terminal railroads mainly switch cars between other railroads or provide service from other liens to a common terminal. The Surface Transportation Board continues to use Class II and Class III, as labor regulations are different for the two classes.

Consolidations

Over the years, many Class I railroads have merged to stave off bankruptcy or simply to increase profits. The following is a list of consolidations that have merged at least one Class I railroad into a larger one:
- July 1, 1967: Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and Seaboard Air Line Railroad into Seaboard Coast Line Railroad
- 1968: New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad merge to become Penn Central
- 1970: Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, Great Northern Railway, Northern Pacific Railway and Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway all merge into Burlington Northern Railroad
- 1976: Central Railroad of New Jersey, Erie Lackawanna Railroad, Lehigh and Hudson River Railway, Lehigh Valley Railroad, Penn Central and Reading Railroad all merge into Conrail
- 1982: Louisville and Nashville Railroad and Seaboard Coast Line Railroad into Seaboard System Railroad
- 1982: Norfolk and Western Railroad and Southern Railway merge to form Norfolk Southern
- 1985: Milwaukee Road merged into Soo Line Railroad
- 1986: Seaboard System Railroad renamed CSX Transportation
- 1987: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Chesapeake and Ohio Railway merged into CSX Transportation
- 1988: Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad and Southern Pacific Railroad merge, keeps Southern Pacific name
- 1995: Chicago and North Western Railway merges into Union Pacific Railroad
- 1995: Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and Burlington Northern Railroad merge to become Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway
- 1996: Southern Pacific Railroad merges into Union Pacific Railroad
- 1998: Conrail's main operations divided between CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern; Conrail continues as a CSX-NS joint venture for switching purposes

Table of Class I railroads by year

References

# Arrivals and Departures, Trains March 1991 # Arrivals and Departures, Trains November 1992 # Profiles of the regionals, Trains December 1991
- [http://www.aar.org/PubCommon/Documents/AboutTheIndustry/Statistics.pdf AAR - Class I Railroad Statistics] (PDF)
- [http://www.spikesys.com/Trains/fmly_tre.html The Family Tree of North American Railroads]
- [http://www.cta-otc.gc.ca/rail-ferro/finance/uca/1100_e.html Uniform Classification of Accounts and Related Railway Records (UCA)]. Retrieved April 24, 2005.
- Category:Former Class I railroads in the United States

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky became the 15th U.S. state when it was admitted to the U.S. in 1792. Kentucky and its residents are most well known for thoroughbred horses and horse racing, local whisky distilleries, and enthusiasm for basketball. particularly for the two principal basketball rivals in the state--the blue and white Wildcats of the University of Kentucky and the red and black Cardinals of the University of Louisville. Sports rivalries between the University of Kentucky and the Universities of Tennessee and North Carolina have also long existed. While Kentucky's pastimes are distinctly those of the South, Kentuckian cuisine is considered to be a synergistic blend of Midwestern cuisine and Southern US cuisine.

Origin of name

It was once believed that the name Kentucky was derived from the Native American word meaning "dark and bloody hunting ground," which is believed to be due to the fact that many Native American tribes went there to hunt in the game-rich forests and often fought each other there. However, it is now most commonly believed that the name Kentucky can be attributed to various Native American languages with several possible meanings from "land of tomorrow" to "cane and turkey lands" to "meadow lands." This last may come from the Iroquois name for the Shawnee town Eskippathiki. The name Kentucky referred originally to the Kentucky River and from that came the name of the region.

History

Kentucky is one of four states referred to as a commonwealth. Before the American War of Independence, this land was called Transylvania with its capital at Boonesborough. It was a major gateway for early migration to the west through the Cumberland Gap, and was the first major frontier developed west of the Appalachian Mountains. Guns enabled this movement westward, and even the term shotgun was first coined in Kentucky in 1776. After the war, it became Kentucky County, Virginia and ten constitutional conventions took place at the courthouse of Constitution Square in Danville between 1784 and 1792. In 1790, Kentucky delegates accepted Virginia's terms for separation and the state constitution was drafted at the final convention in April 1792. On June 1, 1792, Kentucky became the fifteenth state in the union and Isaac Shelby, a Revolutionary War hero from Virginia, was named the first Governor of the Commonwealth Of Kentucky. Revolutionary War were born in Kentucky.]] Kentucky was a border state during the American Civil War and for a time had two state governments, one supporting the Confederacy and one supporting the Union. Fittingly, the Presidents of both the United States (Abraham Lincoln) and the Confederate States (Jefferson Davis) during the Civil War were born in Kentucky. At the beginning of the war, control of Kentucky was coveted by both sides of the conflict because of its central location. So much so, in fact, that in September 1861, Lincoln wrote in a private letter, “I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game.” The Confederates made advances in the state during the "Kentucky Campaign" of Generals Braxton Bragg and Edmund Kirby Smith in 1862, but Braggs' retreat following the Battle of Perryville left the state under the control of the Union Army for the rest of the war.

Law and government

The capital of Kentucky is Frankfort and its current governor is Ernie Fletcher (Republican). Kentucky's two U.S. Senators are Jim Bunning (Republican) and Mitch McConnell (Republican). The Kentucky Constitution provides for three branches of government: the legislative, the judicial, and the executive. Kentucky's General Assembly has two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives. The executive branch is headed by the Governor. See List of Kentucky Governors. The judicial branch of Kentucky is made up of trial courts, called District and Circuit Courts, an intermediate appellate court, called the Kentucky Court of Appeals, and a court of last resort, the Kentucky Supreme Court. Historically, Kentucky has leaned towards the Democratic Party, and was included among the "Solid South." The majority of the state's voters are officially registered as Democrats, although the majority has slimmed substantially in recent election cycles. Kentucky has voted Republican in five of the last seven presidential elections, but has supported the Democratic candidates of the South. The commonwealth supported Democrats Jimmy Carter in 1976, and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, but Republican George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Bush won the state's 8 electoral votes overwhelmingly in 2004 by a margin of 20 percentage points and 59.6% of the vote. The most solidly Democratic counties are in the mountainous eastern unionized coal mining region, especially Pike, Floyd, Knott, Menifee, and Breathitt, and the city of Louisville.

Geography

See also: List of Kentucky counties List of Kentucky counties Kentucky, also known as The Bluegrass State, borders the Midwest and the Deep South. It touches West Virginia, Virginia, and Tennessee, but is separated by water from Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Its northern border is the low-water mark on the north side of the Ohio River. Its western border is the Mississippi River. Other major rivers in Kentucky include the Kentucky River, Tennessee River, the Cumberland River, the Green River, and the Licking River. There are five main regions, the Cumberland Mountains and Cumberland Plateau in the southeast, the north-central Bluegrass Region, the south-central and western Pennyroyal Plateau, also sometimes termed "Pennyrile", the western coal-fields area, and the far-west Jackson Purchase. Jackson Purchase The largest cities in Kentucky in terms of geographic area are the two merged city/county governments of Lexington-Fayette and Louisville Metro, although Louisville and its metropolitan area both have a much larger population than Lexington and its metro area. Northern Kentucky, an assemblage of smaller cities across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio, also has a large metropolitan population. The Lexington MSA and the Kentucky portions of the Louisville and Cincinnati MSAs, together, only make up about 45% of the state population, suggesting how rural the state is although 83% of Kentuckians live in MSAs with populations greater than 65,000. Much of rural Kentucky has become suburban during the last decade of the twentieth century. Interestingly enough, Kentucky is the only U.S. state to have a non-contiguous part exist as an enclave of another state. Far western Kentucky includes a small part of land on the Mississippi River bordered by Missouri and accessible via Tennessee. This area is known as the Madrid Bend.

Regions

Bluegrass Region The Bluegrass region is commonly divided into two regions, the Inner Bluegrass - the encircling ninety miles around Lexington - and the Outer Bluegrass, the region that contains most of the Northern portion of the state, above the Knobs.

Significant natural attractions

- Cumberland Gap, chief passageway through the Appalachian Mountains in early American history.
- Cumberland Falls State Park, where a "moon-bow" may be seen in the mists of the falls.
- Mammoth Cave National Park, featuring tours of the world's longest cave.
- Red River Gorge Geological Area, part of the Daniel Boone National Forest.
- Land Between the Lakes, a National Recreation Area managed by the United States Forest Service.

Economy

The total gross state product for 2003 was $129 billion. Its Per Capita Personal Income was $26,575, 41st in the nation. Kentucky's agricultural outputs are horses, cattle, tobacco, dairy products, hogs, soybeans, corn, and often cotton in the west. Its industrial outputs are transportation equipment, chemical products, electric equipment, machinery, food processing, tobacco products, coal, and tourism.

Demographics

As of 2004, there were an estimated 4,145,922 people living in Kentucky. This is a increase of over 104,104 people from 2000. This includes about 95,000 foreign-born (2.3%). Racially, the population is:
- 89.3% White, non-Hispanic
- 7.3% Black
- 1.5% Hispanic
- 0.7% Asian
- 0.2% Native American
- 1.1% Mixed race The five largest ancestries in the state are: American (20.9%), German (12.7%), Irish (10.5%), English (9.7%), African American (7.3%). Blacks, who once represented a quarter of the state's population during the height of the tobacco, cotton, and hemp plantation era, are most concentrated in the southwest (notably Christian County and the city of Paducah), the Bluegrass, and the city of Louisville. "American ancestry" is the largest reported ancestry group throughout most of the state in the Census.

Religion

Religiously, Kentucky is mostly Protestant. The religious affiliations of the state are as follows:
- Christian – 86%
- Protestant – 70%
- Baptist – 35%
- Methodist – 5%
- Pentecostal – 4%
- Church of Christ – 3%
- Lutheran – 2%
- Presbyterian – 2%
- Other Protestant – 19%
- Roman Catholic – 15%
- Other Christian – 1%
- Jewish 0.01%
- Other Religions – <1%
- Non-religious – 14% Religious movements were important in the early history of Kentucky. Perhaps the most famous event was the interdenominational revival in August 1801 at the Cane Ridge Meeting house in Bourbon County. As part of what is now known as the "Western Revival" thousands began meeting around a Presbyterian communion service on August 6, 1801 and ended six days later on August 12, 1801 when both humans and horses ran out of food. The service was originally scheduled for August 8th but people began arriving two days earlier on a rainy August 6th. The meeting was hosted by Barton Stone. Presbyterians, Methodists and some Baptist were present as the services were attempted to be interdominational as possible. As the days wore on, some counted as many as seven preachers preaching at the same time from tree stumps or wagons.

Important cities and towns

Population > 1,000,000 (urbanized areas)

- Louisville

Population > 100,000 (urbanized areas)

- Lexington

Population > 10,000 (urbanized areas)

Important suburbs and small towns

Education

Colleges and universities

Private

Public

Community colleges

Professional sports teams

Kentucky is home to no major league sports team, but several minor league teams. Minor league baseball
- Louisville Bats (Triple-A International League affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds)
- Lexington Legends (Single-A South Atlantic League affiliate of the Houston Astros)
- Florence Freedom (Single-A Frontier League independent) Football
- Lexington Horsemen (United Indoor Football)
- Louisville Fire (AF2) Basketball
- Kentucky Colonels (American Basketball Association (21st century))

State symbols

American Basketball Association (21st century)
- State bird: Northern Cardinal
- State flower: Goldenrod
- State tree: Tulip Poplar (formerly the Kentucky coffeetree)
- State horse: Thoroughbred
- State fish: Kentucky Bass
- State wild animal: Grey Squirrel
- State butterfly: Viceroy Butterfly
- State gemstone: Fresh Water Pearl
- State fossil: Brachiopod
- State song: "My Old Kentucky Home" by Stephen Foster (1853)
- State bluegrass song: "Blue Moon of Kentucky" by Bill Monroe (1947)
- State drink: Milk
- State motto: "United We Stand, Divided We Fall"
- State slogan: "Unbridled Spirit"
- See also: Flag of Kentucky

Trivia

Several U.S. Navy ships have been named USS Kentucky in honor of the state. The USS Paducah and USS Louisville also served as naval vessels.

External links

- [http://www.genealogybuff.com/ky/ GenealogyBuff.com - Kentucky Library of Files]
- [http://www.kentuckytourism.com Kentucky Department of Tourism]
- [http://www.kentuckyhighlands.com/kh/index.asp The Kentucky Highlands Project]
- [http://history.ky.gov/Museums/Kentucky_History_Center.htm The Kentucky History Center]
- [http://obit.obitlinkspage.com/ky.htm Kentucky Obituary Links]
- [http://www.kentuckyunbridledspirit.com/ Kentucky: Unbridled Spirit]
- [http://kentucky.gov Kentucky.gov: My New Kentucky Home]
- [http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/21000.html U.S. Census Bureau Kentucky QuickFacts]
- Category:States of the United States ko:켄터키 주 ms:Kentucky ja:ケンタッキー州 simple:Kentucky

American Civil War

The American Civil War (1861–1865) was fought in North America within the United States of America, between twenty-four mostly northern states of the Union and the Confederate States of America, a coalition of eleven southern states that declared their independence and claimed the right of secession from the Union in 1860–1861. The war produced over 970,000 casualties (3.09% of population), including approximately 560,300 deaths (1.78%), a loss of more American lives than any other conflict in history. The causes of the war, and even the name of the war itself, are still debated (see the article Naming the American Civil War).

The division of the country

Naming the American Civil War

The Deep South

Seven states seceded shortly after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 – even before he was inaugurated:
- South Carolina (December 21, 1860),
- Mississippi (January 9, 1861),
- Florida (January 10, 1861),
- Alabama (January 11, 1861),
- Georgia (January 19, 1861),
- Louisiana (January 26, 1861), and
- Texas (February 1, 1861). These States of the Deep South, where slavery and cotton plantation agriculture were most dominant, formed the Confederate States of America (February 4, 1861), with Jefferson Davis as President, and a governmental structure closely modeled on the U.S. Constitution (see also: Confederate States Constitution). After the Battle of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, Lincoln called for troops from all remaining states to recover the forts, resulting in the secession of four more states: Virginia (April 17, 1861), Arkansas (May 6, 1861), North Carolina (May 20, 1861), and Tennessee (June 8, 1861).

Border States

Main article: Border states (Civil War) Along with the northwestern counties of Virginia (whose residents did not wish to secede and eventually entered the Union in 1863 as West Virginia), four of the five northernmost "slave states," (Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and Kentucky) did not secede, and became known as the Border States. Delaware, which in the 1860 election had voted for Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, had few slaves and never considered secession. Maryland also voted for Breckinridge, and after rioting in Baltimore and other events had prompted a Federal declaration of martial law, its legislature rejected secession (April 27, 1861). Both Missouri and Kentucky remained in the Union, but factions within each state organized "secessions" that were recognized by the CSA. In Missouri, the State government under Governor Claiborne F. Jackson, a southern sympathizer, evacuated the state capital of Jefferson City and met in-exile at the town of Neosho, Missouri, adopting a secession ordinance that was recognized by the Confederacy on October 30, 1861, while the Union organized a competing State government by calling a constitutional convention that had originally been convened to vote on secession. (See also: Missouri secession). Missouri secession Although Kentucky did not secede, for a time it declared itself neutral. During a brief occupation by the Confederate Army, Southern sympathizers organized a secession convention, inaugurated a Confederate Governor, and gained recognition from the Confederacy. Residents of the northwestern counties of Virginia organized a secession from Virginia, with a plan for gradual emancipation, and entered the Union in 1863 as West Virginia. Similar secessions were supported in some other areas of the Confederacy (such as eastern Tennessee), but were suppressed by declarations of martial law by the Confederacy. Conversely, the southern half of the Federal Territory of New Mexico voted to secede, and was accepted into the Confederacy as the Territory of Arizona (see map below), with its capital in Mesilla (now part of New Mexico). Although the northern half of New Mexico never voted to secede, the Confederacy did lay claim to this territory and briefly occupied the territorial capital of Santa Fe between March 13 and April 8, 1862, but never organized a territorial government.

Origins of the conflict

:Main articles: Origins of the American Civil War, Timeline of events Timeline of events. In their agitation against the South, abolitionists cited the slave codes as an example of the barbarism of Southern society. Above, a woodcut from the abolitionist Anti-Slavery Almanac (1839) depicts the capture of a fugitive slave by a slave patrol.]] There had been a continuing contest between the states and the national government over the power of the latter, and over the loyalty of the citizenry, almost since the founding of the republic. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798, for example, had defied the Alien and Sedition Acts, and at the Hartford Convention, New England voiced its opposition to President Madison and the War of 1812. In 1828 and 1832 the Congress passed protective tariffs to benefit trade in the northern states. It was deemed a "Tariff of Abominations" and its provisions would have imposed a significant economic penalty on South Carolina and other southern states if left in force. South Carolina dealt with the tariffs by adopting the Ordinance of Nullification, which declared both the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 null and void within state borders. The legislature also passed laws to enforce the ordinance, including authorization for raising a military force and appropriations for arms. In response to South Carolina's threat, Congress passed a "Force Bill" and President Andrew Jackson sent seven small naval vessels and a man-of-war to Charleston in November 1832. On December 10, he issued a resounding proclamation against the nullifiers. On the eve of the Civil War, the United States was a nation composed of four quite distinct regions: the Northeast, with a growing industrial and commercial economy and an increasing density of population; the Northwest, now known as the Midwest, a rapidly expanding region of free farmers where slavery had been forever prohibited under the Northwest Ordinance; the Upper South, with a settled plantation system and (in some areas) declining economic fortunes; and the Southwest, a booming frontier-like region with an expanding cotton economy. With two fundamentally different labor systems at their base, the economic and social changes across the nation's geographical regions – based on wage labor in the North and on slavery in the South – underlay distinct visions of society that had emerged by the mid-nineteenth century in the North and in the South. Before the Civil War, the Constitution provided a basis for peaceful debate over the future of government, and had been able to regulate conflicts of interest and conflicting visions for the new, rapidly expanding nation. For many years, compromises had been made to balance the number of "free states" and "slave states" so that there would be a balance in the Senate. The last slave state admitted was Texas in 1845, with five free states admitted between 1846 and 1859. The admission of Kansas as a slave state had recently been blocked, and it was due to enter as a free state instead in 1861. The rise of mass democracy in the industrializing North, the breakdown of the old two-party system, and increasingly virulent and hostile sectional ideologies in the mid-nineteenth century made it highly unlikely, if not impossible, to bring about the gentlemanly compromises of the past (such as the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850) necessary to avoid crisis. Also the existence of slave labor in the South made the Northern States the preferred destination for new immigrants from Europe resulting in an increasing dominance of the North in Congress and in Presidential elections, due to population size. Sectional tensions changed in their nature and intensity rapidly during the 1850s. The United States Republican Party was established in 1854. The new party opposed the expansion of slavery in the Western territories. Although only a small share of Northerners favored measures to abolish slavery in the South, the Republicans were able to mobilize popular support among Northerners and Westerners who did not want to compete against slave labor if the system were expanded beyond the South. The Republicans won the support of many ex-Whigs and Northern ex-Democrats concerned about the South's disproportionate influence in the Senate, the Buchanan administration, and the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the profitability of cotton, or "King Cotton," as it was touted, solidified the South's dependence on the plantation system and its foundation: slave labor. A small class of slave barons, especially cotton planters, dominated the politics and society of the South. King Cotton Southern secession was triggered by the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was a moderate in his opposition to slavery. He pledged to do all he could to oppose the expansion of slavery into the territories (thus also preventing the admission of any additional slave states to the Union); but he also said the federal government did not have the power to abolish slavery in the states in which it already existed, and that he would enforce Fugitive Slave Laws. The southern states expected increasing hostility to their "peculiar institution"; not trusting Lincoln, and mindful that many other Republicans were intent on complete abolition of slavery. Lincoln had even encouraged abolitionists with his 1858 "House divided" speech[http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/house.htm], though that speech was also consistent with an eventual end of slavery achieved gradually and voluntarily with compensation to slave-owners and resettlement of former slaves. In addition to Lincoln's presidential victory, the slave states had lost the balance of power in the Senate and were facing a future as a perpetual minority after decades of nearly continuous control of the presidency and the Congress. Southerners also felt they could no longer prevent protectionist tariffs such as the Morrill Tariff. The Southern justification for a unilateral right to secede cited the doctrine of states' rights, which had been debated before with the 1798 Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, and the 1832 Nullification Crisis with regard to tariffs. Before Lincoln took office, seven states seceded from the union, and attempted to establish an independent southern government, the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861. They took control of federal forts and property within their boundaries, with little resistance from President Buchanan. Ironically, by seceding, the rebel states weakened any claim to the territories that were in dispute, canceled any obligation for the North to return fugitive slaves, and assured easy passage of many bills and amendments they had long opposed. The Civil War began when Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire upon Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina on April 12, 1861. There were no casualties from enemy fire in this battle.

Narrative summary

1861 Lincoln's victory in the presidential election of 1860 triggered South Carolina's secession from the Union. Lincoln was not even on the ballot in nine states in the South. Leaders in South Carolina had long been waiting for an event that might unite the South against the anti-slavery forces. Once the election returns were certain, a special South Carolina convention declared "that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states under the name of the 'United States of America' is hereby dissolved." By February 1, 1861, six more Southern states had seceded. On February 7, the seven states adopted a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America and established their capital at Montgomery, Alabama. The pre-war peace conference of 1861 met at Washington, D.C. The remaining southern states as yet remained in the Union. Several seceding states seized federal forts within their boundaries; President Buchanan made no military response. Less than a month later, on March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as President of the United States. In his inaugural address, he argued that the Constitution was a more perfect union than the earlier Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, that it was a binding contract, and called the secession "legally void". He stated he had no intent to invade southern states, but would use force to maintain possession of federal property. His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union. The South did send delegations to Washington and offered to pay for the federal properties, but they were turned down. On April 12, the South fired upon the federal troops stationed at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina until the troops surrendered. Lincoln called for all of the states in the Union to send troops to recapture the forts and preserve the Union. Most Northerners hoped that a quick victory for the Union would crush the nascent rebellion, and so Lincoln only called for volunteers for 90 days. This resulted in four more states voting to secede. Once Virginia seceded, the Confederate capital was moved to Richmond, Virginia. Even though the Southern states had seceded, there was considerable anti-secessionist sentiment within several of the seceding states. Eastern Tennessee, in particular, was a hotbed for pro-Unionism. Winston County, Alabama issued a resolution of secession from the state of Alabama. The Red Strings were a prominent Southern anti-secession group. Winfield Scott created the Anaconda Plan as the Union's main plan of attack during the war.

Eastern Theater 1861–1863

Because of the fierce resistance of a few initial Confederate forces at Manassas, Virginia, in July 1861, a march by Union troops under the command of Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell on the Confederate forces there was halted in the First Battle of Bull Run, or First Manassas, whereupon they were forced back to Washington, D.C., by Confederate troops under the command of Generals Joseph E. Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard. It was in this battle that Confederate General Thomas Jackson received the name of "Stonewall" because he stood like a stone wall against Union troops. Alarmed at the loss, and in an attempt to prevent more slave states from leaving the Union, the U.S. Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution on July 25 of that year, which stated that the war was being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery. Major General George B. McClellan took command of the Union Army of the Potomac on July 26 (he was briefly general-in-chief of all the Union armies, but was subsequently relieved of that post in favor of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck), and the war began in earnest in 1862. Upon the strong urging of President Lincoln to begin offensive operations, McClellan invaded Virginia in the spring of 1862 by way of the peninsula between the York River and James River, southeast of Richmond. Although McClellan's army reached the gates of Richmond in the Peninsula Campaign, Joseph E. Johnston halted his advance at the Battle of Seven Pines, then Robert E. Lee defeated him in the Seven Days Battles and forced his retreat. McClellan was stripped of many of his troops to reinforce John Pope's Union Army of Virginia. Pope was beaten spectacularly by Lee in the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Second Battle of Bull Run in August. Second Battle of Bull Run Emboldened by Second Bull Run, the Confederacy made its first invasion of the North, when General Lee led 55,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River into Maryland on September 5. Lincoln then restored Pope's troops to McClellan. McClellan and Lee fought at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, the bloodiest single day in American history. Lee's army, checked at last, returned to Virginia before McClellan could destroy it. Antietam is considered a Union victory because it halted Lee's invasion of the North and provided justification for Lincoln to announce his Emancipation Proclamation. When the cautious McClellan failed to follow up on Antietam, he was replaced by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. Burnside suffered near-immediate defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, when over ten thousand Union soldiers were killed or wounded. After the battle, Burnside was replaced by Maj. Gen. Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker. Hooker, too, proved unable to defeat Lee's army; despite outnumbering the Confederates by more than two to one, he was humiliated in the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. He was replaced by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade during Lee's second invasion of the North, in June. Meade defeated Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), the largest battle in North American history, which is sometimes considered the war's turning point. Lee's army suffered 28,000 casualties (versus Meade's 23,000), again forcing it to retreat to Virginia, never to launch a full-scale invasion of the North again.

Western Theater 1861–1863

While the Confederate forces had numerous successes in the Eastern theater, they crucially failed in the West. They were driven from Missouri early in the war as result of the Battle of Pea Ridge. Leonidas Polk's invasion of Kentucky enraged the citizens who previously had declared neutrality in the war, turning that state against the Confederacy. Nashville, Tennessee, fell to the Union early in 1862. Most of the Mississippi was opened with the taking of Island No. 10 and New Madrid, Missouri, and then Memphis, Tennessee. New Orleans, Louisiana, was captured in May 1862, allowing the Union forces to begin moving up the Mississippi as well. Only the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, prevented unchallenged Union control of the entire river. Braxton Bragg's second Confederate invasion of Kentucky was repulsed by Don Carlos Buell at the confused and bloody Battle of Perryville and he was narrowly defeated by William S. Rosecrans at the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee. The one clear Confederate victory in the West was the Battle of Chickamauga in Georgia, near the Tennessee border, where Bragg, reinforced by the corps of James Longstreet (from Lee's army in the east), defeated Rosecrans, despite the heroic defensive stand of George Henry Thomas, and forced him to retreat to Chattanooga, which Bragg then besieged. The Union's key strategist and tactician in the west was Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who won victories at Forts Henry and Donelson, which seized control of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers; Shiloh; Vicksburg, Mississippi, cementing Union control of the Mississippi and considered one of the turning points of the war; and Chattanooga, Tennessee, driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee and opening an invasion route to Atlanta and the heart of the Confederacy.

Trans-Mississippi Theater 1861–1865

Though geographically isolated from the battles to the east, a number of military actions took place in the Trans-Mississippi theater, a region encompassing states and territories to the west of the Mississippi River. In 1861 Confederates launched a successful campaign into the territory of present day Arizona and New Mexico. Residents in the southern portions of this territory adopted a secession ordinance of their own and requested that Confederate forces stationed in nearby Texas assist them in removing Union forces still stationed there. The Confederate territory of Arizona was proclaimed by Col. John Baylor after victories at Mesilla, New Mexico, and the capture of several Union forces. Confederate troops were unsuccessful in attempts to press northward in the territory and withdrew from Arizona completely in 1862 as Union reinforcements arrived from California. :The Battle of Glorieta Pass was a small skirmish in terms of both numbers involved and losses (140 Federal, 190 Confederate). Yet the issues were large, and the battle decisive in resolving them. The Confederates might well have taken Fort Union and Denver had they not been stopped at Glorieta. As one Texan put it, "if it had not been for those devils from Pike's Peak, this country would have been ours". :This small battle smashed any possibility of the Confederacy taking New Mexico and the far west territories. In April, Union volunteers from California pushed the remaining Confederates out of present-day Arizona at the Battle of Picacho Pass. In the eastern part of the United States, the fighting dragged on for three more years, but in the Southwest the war was over. [http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/117glorietaraton/117facts3.htm] The Union mounted several attempts to capture the trans-Mississippi regions of Texas and Louisiana from 1862 until the war's end. With ports to the east under blockade or capture, Texas in particular became a blockade-running haven. Referred to as the "back door" of the Confederacy, Texas and western Louisiana continued to provide cotton crops that were transferred overland to Matamoros, Mexico, and shipped to Europe in exchange for supplies. Determined to close this trade, the Union mounted several invasion attempts of Texas, each of them unsuccessful. Confederate victories at Galveston, Texas, and the Battle of Sabine Pass repulsed invasion forces. The Union's disastrous Red River Campaign in western Louisiana, including a defeat at the Battle of Mansfield, effectively ended the Union's final invasion attempt of the region until the final fall of the Confederacy. Isolated from events in the east, the Civil War continued in the Trans-Mississippi theater for several months after Robert E. Lee's surrender. The last battle of the war occurred at Palmito Ranch in southern Texas—ironically a Confederate victory.

The End of the War 1864–1865

Palmito Ranch At the beginning of 1864, Grant was promoted to lieutenant general and given command of all Union armies. He chose to make his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, although Meade remained the actual commander of that army. He left Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in command of most of the western armies. Grant understood the concept of total war and believed, along with Lincoln and Sherman, that only the utter defeat of Confederate forces and their economic base would bring an end to the war. Therefore, scorched earth tactics would be required in some important theaters. He devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the heart of Confederacy from multiple directions: Grant, Meade, and Benjamin Butler would move against Lee near Richmond; Franz Sigel would invade the Shenandoah Valley; Sherman would invade Georgia, defeat Joseph E. Johnston, and capture Atlanta; George Crook and William W. Averell would operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia; and Nathaniel Banks would capture Mobile, Alabama. Union forces in the East attempted to maneuver past Lee and fought several battles during that phase ("Grant's Overland Campaign") of the Eastern campaign. An attempt to outflank Lee from the south failed under Butler, who was trapped inside the Bermuda Hundred river bend. Grant was tenacious and, despite astonishing losses (over 66,000 casualties in six weeks), kept pressing Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. He pinned down the Confederate army in the Siege of Petersburg, where the two armies engaged in trench warfare for over nine months. After two failed attempts (under Sigel and David Hunter) to seize key points in the Shenandoah Valley, Grant finally found a commander, Philip Sheridan, aggressive enough to prevail in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Sheridan was sent in response to a raid by the aggressive Jubal Early, whose corps reached the outer defenses of Washington before withdrawing back to the Valley. Sheridan proved to be more than a match for Early, and defeated him in a series of battles, including a final decisive defeat at Cedar Creek, Sheridan then proceeded to destroy the agricultural and industrial base of the Valley, a strategy similar to the scorched-earth tactics Sherman would later employ in Georgia. Meanwhile, Sherman marched from Chattanooga to Atlanta, Georgia, defeating Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John B. Hood. The fall of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, was a significant factor in the re-election of Abraham Lincoln. Leaving Atlanta, and his base of supplies, Sherman's army marched with an unclear destination, laying waste to much of the rest of Georgia in his celebrated "March to the Sea", and reaching the Atlantic Ocean at Savannah, Georgia in December 1864. Burning towns and plantations as they went, Sherman's armies hauled off crops and killed livestock to retaliate and to deny use of these economic assets to the Confederacy, a consequence of Grant's scorched earth doctrine. When Sherman turned north through South Carolina and North Carolina to approach the Virginia lines from the south, it was the end for Lee and his men, and for the Confederacy. Lee attempted to escape from the besieged Petersburg and link up with Johnston in North Carolina, but he was overtaken by Grant. He surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House. Johnston surrendered his troops to Sherman shortly thereafter at a local family's farmhouse in Durham, North Carolina. The Battle of Palmito Ranch, fought on May 13, 1865, in the far south of Texas, was the last land battle of the war and ended, ironically, with a Confederate victory. All Confederate land forces surrendered by June 1865. Confederate naval units surrendered as late as November 1865, with the last actions being attacks on private New England whaling ships by the CSS Shenandoah in the Bering Strait through June 28, 1865.

Analysis of the War

Why the Union prevailed (or why the Confederacy was defeated) in the Civil War has been a subject of extensive analysis and debate. Advantages widely believed to have contributed to the Union's success include:
- The more industrialized economy of the North, which aided in the production of arms and munitions.
- The Union significantly outnumbered the Confederacy, both in civilian and military population partly due to African Americans and Immigrants.
- Strong compatible railroad links between Union cities, which allowed for the relatively quick movement of troops. (It should be noted, however, that the Confederacy had more railroads per capita than any other country at the time.)
- The Union's possession of the U.S. merchant marine fleet and naval ships, which led to its successful blockade of Confederate ports.
- The Union's more established government, which may have resulted in less infighting and a more streamlined conduct of the war.
- The Confederacy's possible squandering of resources on early audacious conventional offensives and its [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HZY/is_1_14/ai_78397581 failure] to fully use its advantages in guerrilla warfare against Union communication and transportation infrastructure.
- The Confederacy's failure to win military support from any foreign powers, mostly due to the Battle of Antietam, and the well-timed release of the Emancipation Proclamation.
- Despite the Union's many tactical blunders like the Seven Days Battle, those commited by Confederate generals, such as the Lee's miscalculations at the Battle of Gettysburg and allowing the battle plans to fall into Union hands before the Battle of Antietam, were far more serious — if for no other reason than that the Confederates could so little afford the losses.
- The Confederacy vastly overestimated the dependence of Great Britain and France on Southern cotton and an early decision by the Confederate government to cut production may have only weakened their hand as it forced the British to seek new supplies in Egypt, ultimately making an alliance less attractive.

Major land battles

The ten costliest land battles, measured by casualties (killed, wounded, captured, and missing) were: Battle of Antietam Other major land battles included First Bull Run, The Seven Days, Perryville, Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, the Siege of Petersburg, and the battles of Franklin and Nashville. There was also Jackson's Valley Campaign, the Atlanta Campaign, Red River Campaign, Missouri Campaign, Valley Campaigns of 1864, and many coastal and river battles.

Major naval battles

Major naval battles included Battle of Island Number Ten, Battle of Hampton Roads, Battle of Memphis, Battle of Drewry's Bluff, Battle of Fort Hindman, and Battle of Mobile Bay. In addition to this, a Union blockade of Confederate ports throughout the war managed to deny supplies to the CSA.

Civil War leaders and soldiers

Union blockade at Vicksburg National Military Park.]] One of the reasons that the US Civil War wore on as long as it did and the battles were so fierce was that most important generals on both sides had formerly served in the United States Army — some including Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, during the Mexican-American War between 1846 and 1848. Most were graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point, where Lee had been commandant for 3 years in the 1850s. Significant Southern leaders included Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, James Longstreet, P.G.T. Beauregard, John Mosby, Braxton Bragg, John Bell Hood, James Ewell Brown (JEB) Stuart, William Mahone, Judah P. Benjamin, Jubal Early, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Northern leaders included Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Edwin M. Stanton, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, George H. Thomas, George B. McClellan, Henry W. Halleck, Joseph Hooker, Ambrose Burnside, Irvin McDowell, Philip Sheridan, George Crook, George Armstrong Custer, Christopher "Kit" Carson, John E. Wool, George G. Meade, Winfield Hancock, Elihu Washburne, Abner Read, and Robert Gould Shaw. Five men who served as Union officers eventually became presidents of the United States: Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley. After the war, the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization open to Union war veterans, was founded in 1866. Confederate veterans formed the United Confederate Veterans in 1889. In 1905, a campaign medal was authorized for all Civil War veterans, known as the Civil War Campaign Medal. According to data from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the last surviving Union veteran of the conflict, Albert Woolson, died on August 2, 1956 at the age of 109, and the last Confederate veteran, John Salling, died on March 16, 1958, at the age of 112. However, William Marvel investigated the claims of both for a 1991 piece in the Civil War history magazine Blue & Gray. Using census information, he found that Salling was born in 1858, far too late to have served in the Civil War. In fact, he concluded, "Every one of the last dozen recognized Confederates was bogus." He found Woolson to be the last true veteran of the Civil War on either side; he had served as a drummer boy late in the war. Women were not allowed to fight — though some did fight in disguise. Clara Barton became a leader of the Union Nurses and was widely known as the "Angel of the Battlefield." She experienced the horror of 16 battles, helping behind the lines to heal the injured soldiers. Barton organized a relief program that helped to better distribute supplies to wounded soldiers of both the North and South. After 1980 scholarly attention turned to ordinary soldiers, and to women and African Americans.

The question of slavery

As slavery and constitutional questions concerning states' rights were widely viewed as the major causes of the war, the victorious Union government sought to end slavery and to guarantee a perpetual union that could never be broken. During the early part of the war, Lincoln, to hold together his war coalition of Republicans and War Democrats, emphasized preservation of the Union as the sole Union objective of the war, but with the Emancipation Proclamation, announced in September 1862 and put into effect four months later, Lincoln adopted the abolition of slavery as a second mission. The Emancipation Proclamation declared all slaves held in territory then under Confederate control to be "then, thenceforth, and forever free", but did not affect slaves in areas under Union control. It had little initial effect but served to commit the United States to the goal of ending slavery. The proclamation would be put into practical effect in Confederate territory captured over the remainder of the war.

Foreign diplomacy

Because of the Confederacy's attempt to create a new state, recognition and support from the European powers were critical to its prospects. The Union, under Secretary of State William Henry Seward attempted to block the Confederacy's efforts in this sphere. The Confederates hoped that the importance of the cotton trade to Europe (the idea of cotton diplomacy) and shortages caused by the war, along with early military victories, would enable them to gather increasing European support and force a turn away from neutrality. Lincoln's decision to announce a blockade of the Confederacy, a clear act of war, enabled Britain, followed by other European powers, to announce their neutrality in the dispute. This enabled the Confederacy to begin to attempt to gain support and funds in Europe. Jefferson Davis had picked Robert Toombs of Georgia as his first Secretary of State. Toombs, having little knowledge in foreign affairs, was replaced several months later by Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia, another choice with little suitability. Ultimately, on March 17, 1862, Jefferson selected Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana as Secretary of State, who although having more international knowledge and legal experience with international slavery disputes still failed in the end to create a dynamic foreign policy for the Confederacy. The first attempts to achieve European recognition of the Confederacy were dispatched on February 25, 1861 and led by William Lowndes Yancey, Pierre A. Rost, and Ambrose Dudley Mann. The British foreign minister Lord John Russell met with them, and the French foreign minister Edouard Thouvenel received the group unofficially. However, at this point the two countries had agreed to coordinate and cooperate and would not make any rash moves. Charles Francis Adams proved particularly adept as ambassador to Britain for the Union, and Britain was reluctant to boldly challenge the Union's blockade. The Confederacy also attempted to initiate propaganda in Europe through journalists Henry Hotze and Edwin De Leon in Paris and London. However, public opinion against slavery created a political liability for European politicians, especially in Britain. A significant challenge in Anglo-Union relations was also created by the Trent Affair, involving the Union boarding of a British mail steamer to seize James M. Mason and John Slidell, Confederate diplomats sent to Europe. However, the Union was able to smooth over the problem to some degree. As the war continued, in late 1862, the British considered initiating an attempt to mediate the conflict. However, the Union victory in the Battle of Antietam caused them to delay this decision. Additionally, the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation further reinforced the political liability of supporting the Confederacy. As the war continued, the Confederacy's chances with Britain grew more hopeless, and they focused increasingly on France. Napoléon III proposed to offer mediation in January 1863, but this was dismissed by Seward. Despite some sympathy for the Confederacy, ultimately, France's own concerns in Mexico deterred them from substantially antagonizing the Union. As the Confederacy's situation grew more and more tenuous and their pleas increasingly ignored, in November 1864 Davis sent Duncan F. Kenner to Europe to test whether a promised emancipation could lead to possible recognition. The proposal was strictly rejected by both Britain and France.

Aftermath

Duncan F. Kenner depicts a Union and Confederate soldier shaking hands.]] The border States of Missouri and Maryland moved during the course of the war to end slavery, and in December 1864, the Congress proposed the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, barring slavery throughout the United States; the 13th Amendment was fully ratified by the end of 1865. The 14th Amendment, defining citizenship and giving the Federal government broad power to require the States to provide equal protection of the laws was adopted in 1868. The 15th Amendment guaranteeing black men (but not women) the right to vote was ratified in 1870. The 14th and 15th Amendments reversed the effects of the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision of 1857, but the 14th Amendment, in particular, had unanticipated and far-reaching effects. From the election of 1876 until the election of 1964, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas gave no electoral votes to the Republican Party, with South Carolina and Louisiana making an exception only once each. Most other states that had seceded voted overwhelmingly against Republican presidential nominees also, with the same trend predominantly applying in state elections too. This phenomenon was known as the

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a massive global economic recession (or "depression") that ran from 1929 to approximately 1939. Its primary impact was in the United States of America, the British Empire and Europe and led therein to numerous bank failures, high unemployment, as well as dramatic drops in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), industrial production, stock market share prices and virtually every other measure of economic growth. It is generally considered to have bottomed out in 1933, but it was well after the end of World War II before such indicators as industrial production, share prices and global GDP surpassed their 1929 levels. Cities around the world were hard hit, especially those based on heavy industry. What gave this downturn the name the "Great Depression" was that it was by far the largest sustained decline in industrial production and productivity in the century and a half for which economic records have been regularly kept, and the fact that its impact was felt throughout the entire industrialized world and their trading partners in less developed nations. The term Great Depression can refer to the economic event, but it can also refer to the cultural period, often called simply "The Depression", and to the political response to the economic events. Cities around the world were hard hit, especially those based on heavy industry., a mother of seven children, age thirty-two, in Nipomo, California, March 1936.]]

Causes of the Great Depression

Main Article: Causes of the Great Depression Theories from mainstream capitalist economics focus on the relationship between production, consumption and credit, as embodied in macro-economics and on personal incentives and purchasing decisions as embodied in micro-economics. In these theories attempts are made to order the sequence of events which imploded the industrialized world's monetary system and its trade relationships. Theories from Marxist economics focus on the relationships of the control of production and the concentration of wealth. One possible theory is that the Depression was caused because there was a gap between production and consumption in the US. After World War I, the United States was producing at a very high rate and ambitious Americans were spending and purchasing things they haven’t been able to afford prior to World War I. It finally came to a point where people slowed down purchasing but factories were still producing at high rates. This created a gap, a gap that led to the stop of production to lay-offs and dismals of thousands of employees. People were left without jobs and no purchasing power, so companies were left without production and fear to produce more products that would not be bought. More recently, it has been the prevailing belief among economists that the stock market crash of 1929 was not the primary cause of the Great Depression, pointing to telltale signs of an imminent economic disaster in various statistics leading up to the Depression as well as the downturn in Europe which was already in progress. Today the most widely accepted theory is the one advanced by Peter Temin: the Great Depression was caused by catastrophically poor monetary policy pursued by the United States Federal Reserve during the years leading up to the Great Depression. The policy of contracting the money supply was an attempt to restrain inflation, which exacerbated the actual problem in the economy, which was deflation.

Responses

deflation, Los Angeles, California, United States in 1930 because of the Great Depression.]] The Wall Street crash of 1929 is widely considered to be the foremost event which marked the start of the world-wide financial crisis. In fact, in the United States unemployment soared from approximately 3% to over 25%, while manufacturing output declined by one-third. Governments worldwide sought economic recovery by adopting restrictive autarkic policies such as high tariffs, import quotas and barter agreements and by experimenting with new plans for their internal economies. Economic crises due to the depression created great problems throughout the United States and much of the world. Consumers reduced their purchases of luxury products and many businesses cut production. Big businesses, such as General Motors, saw their sales drop by 50% in the late 1920s and the early 1930s. This caused businesses to cut back on the numbers they employed, with thousands of workers losing their jobs. When farm prices fell, small farmers went bankrupt and in the USA many lost their land due to bank foreclosure. By June of 1932 the American economy had shed about 55% of the work force. On July 8,1932, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged to 41.22. The United States government responded by instituting the New Deal policy which was an attempt to restore prosperity by spending on welfare and public works. After the stock market collapse, the New York based banks became concerned over the security of overseas loans and called in their loans to Germany and Austria. However, without the American money, Germany was unable to continue making World War One reparations payments to France and Britain. This chain reaction meant they in turn could not repay their war loans to America. Therefore, the depression had spread to Europe. All governments were forced to cease paying both reparations and war loan repayments. The United States government tried to protect domestic industries from foreign competition by imposing the highest import duty in American history. In retaliation, other countries raised their tariffs on imports of American goods. As a result, global industrial production declined by 36% between 1929 and 1932, while world trade dropped by 62%. In Germany unemployment increased drastically fueling widespread disillusionment and anger. The institutions of the Weimar Republic, which had already been unable to maintain order in Germany, further deteriorated in the years from 1930 to 1932, while the Chancellor and finance expert Heinrich Brüning attempted to fix the economy by drastically cutting state spending. At the time the NSDAP, or Nazi party, gained much popularity, winning the two general elections in 1932. This eventually led to the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor on January 30, 1933 (See Weimar Republic for details). In Nazi Germany, economic recovery was pursued through rearmament, conscription, and public works programs. In Benito Mussolini's Italy, the economic controls of his corporate state were tightened. In the United Kingdom, the Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald, and later the Conservative-dominated coalition "National Government", responded to the depression by imposing tariffs on all imports from outside the British Empire (arguably worsening the global situation), by cutting public spending, and by abandoning the Gold Standard which reduced the cost of British exports (see Great Depression in the United Kingdom). In the Netherlands some projects were started to give people employment and boost the economy, such as the Amsterdamse Bos, a reforestation project near Amsterdam. In Heerlen, fabric merchant Schunck commissioned a new building in 1934 for his business, the hypermodern Glaspaleis (crystal palace) the tallest building in the city at the time. In the United States, President Herbert Hoover made efforts to control the situation. However he gravely underestimated the severity of the crisis, even announcing to U.S. Congress on December 3, 1929, that the worst effects of the recent stock market crash were behind them, and that the U.S. public had regained faith in the economy. Over the following months it became apparent this was not the case, and Hoover went before Congress again on December 2, 1930 to ask for a $150 million public works program to help generate jobs. However, one of the major problems was that with deflation, the currency that you kept in your pocket could buy more goods as prices went down. Another was that there had been no federal oversight of the stock market or other investment markets, and with the collapse many stock and investment schemes were found to be either insolvent or outright frauds. Unfortunately, many banks had invested in these schemes. By the end of 1930, there had been over 1300 bank failures; in 1931 nearly 2300 more banks failed. 1932 saw the collapse of the banking system; Milton Friedman's monetary theories suggest that the inexperience of the newly-created Federal Reserve in managing the money supply exacerbated the problem. With the banking system in shambles, and people holding on to whatever currency that they had, there was minimal cash available for any activities that would cause positive change. The response of the Hoover administration helped little; instead of increasing the money supply, the Hoover administration did the exact opposite and raised interest rates, falsely believing that inflation was the real danger. Many in the Hoover administration believed that as wages fell, the cost of production would drop and, as a result, production would pick up again--the depression would be self-correcting. Nobody at that time foresaw the effects of a calamitous drop in the money supply. For this reason, they saw no need for the government to intervene in the economy, a policy which proved disastrous. Like their counterparts abroad, many Americans were disillusioned with their system of government, believing that Hoover's policies had driven the country to ruin.