November about 800,000 men changed from soldiers to civilians. "This change in conditions," says Rhodes, "was made as if it were the most natural transformation in the world. These soldiers were merged into the peaceful life of the communities without interruption to industry, without disturbance of social and moral disorder."

EXERCISES AND REFERENCES

1. Plans and preparations: Ropes, I, 161-257.

2. Fort Donelson and Shiloh: Ropes, II, 3-96; Davis, II, 24-36, 52-71. 3. Emancipation: Rhodes, IV, 17, 157-163; Davis, II, 7-10, 169-187. 4. Fredericksburg: Ropes, II, 434-472; Rhodes, IV, 184-200.

5. Chancellorsville: Ropes, III, 149-228; Davis, II, 357-366.

6. Vicksburg: Hitchcock, 295-305; Rhodes, IV, 299-317; Davis, II, 392-417.

7. Gettysburg: Ropes, III, 402-499; Davis, II, 440-450; Rhodes, IV, 282-293; Hitchcock, 306-328.

8. Give an account of Henry Ward Beecher's Liverpool address: Harding, 392-413.

9. The downfall of the Confederacy: Davis, II, 638-660; Hart, IV, 437-440; Rhodes, V, 111-130; Hitchcock, 329-346.

10. Dates for the chronological table: 1863, 1865.

11. Summarize very briefly the leading events of the Civil War.

12. Hints for special reading: J. K. Hosmer, Outcome of the Civil War; U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs; J. M. Callahan, Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy; John Fiske, Mississippi Valley in the Civil War.

XXXV

WAR-TIMES NORTH AND SOUTH

Having reviewed in brief outline the military operations of the Civil War, we may now take a glance at the civilian background of the struggle and learn of the social, industrial, and political conditions that prevailed while the soldiers were at the front.

KEEPING THE RANKS FILLED

The cost of the war in blood was enormous. On the Union side more than 360,000 men were killed in battle or died from wounds and diseases. The number of lives lost on the side of the Confederacy cannot be accurately stated, but it is likely that the South suffered as heavily as the North. Throughout the war a constant task of the authorities both in the North and in the South was to keep the ranks filled with good fighting men. At first, as we saw (p. 378), troops were raised in sufficient numbers by merely calling for volunteers. But as the war progressed it became more and more difficult to secure men in this way and it was found necessary to resort to the draft; that is, to draw by lot the names of a number of persons equal to the number of recruits required in a given locality or district, and to compel the persons thus drafted to enlist whether willing or unwilling.

The

Draft

North

South

The South was the first to resort to the draft. In April, Drafting 1862, the Confederate Congress passed a Conscription Act and which made all citizens between the ages of eighteen and thirtyfive liable to military duty. Later, all males between eighteen and forty-five were conscribed, and before the war closed almost the entire adult male population of the South could be legally called upon either to enlist in the army or to assist in raising supplies. After relying for two years upon the volunteer system, the North also resorted to forcible enlistment. In March, 1863, Congress passed the Conscription Act. Under this law, all able-bodied men between the ages of twenty and

Resistance

to the Draft

Bounties

The

Numbers

in the Field

forty-five were to be enrolled, and in localities where quotas could not be filled by volunteers the draft was to be brought into use. Any person drafted could purchase a substitute or be exempted by paying three hundred dollars to the Government. As a method of keeping the ranks filled, conscription in the North was disappointing: the number of soldiers drafted was insignificant when compared with the number of volunteers. The execution of the Conscription Act caused much excitement, and in some places the draft was forcibly resisted. In New York City, when officers undertook to enlist men by means of the draft, rioting began, and for four days the city was at the mercy of a mob. The unpopularity of the draft was due largely to the provision in the law which allowed a man to escape service by paying three hundred dollars into the treasury of the Government. This was regarded by many as a device by which the rich man could transfer his burden of military duty to the back of the poor man. The Confederacy also had a system of enrolment that allowed substitutes, and it was estimated that in the South at least 50,000 men who would have made good soldiers purchased substitutes and stayed at home.

The poor man was encouraged to enlist by a pecuniary inducement in the form of a bounty. For example, at one time (February, 1864) in New York County in the State of New York the county offered a bounty in cash of $300 and the State a bounty of $75. The United States at the same time offered a bounty of $302. This amounted in all to a bounty of $677, which was paid to the recruit at the beginning of his service. Besides the bounty a soldier in the ranks received sixteen dollars a month with clothing and rations. The bounty system brought into existence the crime known as bounty-jumping. Dishonest men would enlist for the sake of the bounty, then desert, change their names, and go to another place, where they would enlist again and receive another bounty. One man was reported as having jumped his bounty thirty-two times, thereby securing for himself a small fortune.

Yet despite draft evasions, bounty-jumping, and desertions, the ranks were not only kept full but the armies of the North,

and those of the South as well, continued to grow until they reached immense proportions. On January 1, 1863, the Union army contained over 900,000 men and the Confederate army nearly 700,000 men. The total enlistments on the Union side for the whole period of the war numbered about 2,500,000, a proportion of the military population much greater than that which was brought into service in our war with Germany.

MEETING THE EXPENSES OF THE WAR

The

Cost

The armies of the Civil War required vast sums for their support. The cost of the war in money has been estimated by Edward Atkinson at the tremendous sum of $8,000,000,000, of the the cost to the Union according to this estimate being $5,000,000,000 and the cost to the South being $3,000,000,000.1

War

War Finances of the

The South was unable to raise the funds required to meet the expenses of the war. It had relied upon its cotton to bring the necessary money, but after the blockade became South effective the cotton was a valueless thing, for it could be neither manufactured nor sold. So the South had to get along as best it could without the cotton. It levied a general tax on all property in the Confederacy, but the total Confederate revenue raised by taxation during the four years of warfare was probably equivalent to not more than $100,000,000. The South also attempted borrowing. Bonds of the Confederate Government were sold at home and in Europe, but the money raised by borrowing was insignificant. The chief reliance of the South was upon issues of paper money. By 1863, $200,000,000 of paper currency was in circulation in the Confederacy, and before the war closed a billion dollars or more of this kind of money was afloat. For a short time this paper money circulated at its face-value, but it soon began to depreciate. In July, 1863, a gold dollar would exchange for nine dollars in Confederate money; in July, 1864, it would exchange for twenty dollars; and in March, 1865, it would exchange for sixty-one dollars. In the very last days of the

This includes the loss to the masters caused by the emancipation of the slaves, who were valued at something like $2,000,000,000.

War Finances of the Federal Government

The Morrill Tariff

war the Confederate paper money was worthless, and the Confederate treasury was bankrupt.

In meeting the expenses of the Union armies the Federal Government adopted virtually the same means that were resorted to by the Confederacy: it levied unusual taxes, it borrowed by issuing bonds, and it put into circulation large amounts of paper money. In the four years of the war Congress raised by taxation $667,000,000; it borrowed more than $2,000,000,000 and issued more than $450,000,000 in paper money (greenbacks). In July, 1862, Congress passed an internal revenue act which imposed a tax upon virtually "every article which enters into the mouth or covers the back or is placed under the foot; upon everything which is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste; upon warmth, light, and locomotion; upon the sauces which pamper man's appetite and the drug that restores him to health; upon the poor man's salt and the rich man's spice." At the same time a tax of three per cent on incomes less than $10,000 and of five per cent on incomes over $10,000 was imposed. The duties on imports were raised higher than they had ever been in our history. In the closing days of Buchanan's administration Congress passed the Morrill Tariff Bill increasing the duties on certain imports. In 1862 the Morrill Bill was amended so that the rates averaged thirty-seven per cent. Two years later the law was again amended, and the rates went up to an average of forty-seven per cent. The increases were made, the lawmakers said, for the purpose of giving back to the manufacturers a portion of the taxes imposed on their goods by the Internal Revenue Act. It was generally understood that the war tariffs were to be temporary measures.

But taxation had to be supplemented by issuing bonds-that is, by borrowing. In 1861 Chase, the secretary of the treasury, sold bonds to the amount of nearly $200,000,000. The sale of these bonds was managed by the banks of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, but the people were given an opportunity to purchase the bonds, and large numbers of patriotic citizens lent a helping hand to the Government by purchasing them.