Lincoln immediately countermanded the order. On 30 August he issued an order which placed Missouri under martial law, promised field executions for captured guerrillas, and freed slaves owned by Confederate sympathizers. Fremont would lose nearly half of Missouri unless he acted quickly, and in desperation he turned to drastic measures. On 10 August 1861 ten thousand Southern troops met six thousand Northern soldiers at Wilson ’s Creek and quickly overpowered their positions, exposing southern and western Missouri to Confederate control. Guerrilla warfare weakened his control over the area and impeded reinforcements from resupplying Union forces on the state ’s southern border.
Fremont, former explorer of the Rocky Mountains and the first Republican presidential candidate, confronted an unwinnable situation in Missouri. If Southerners were convinced that Northerners would soon sue for peace, the war in Missouri reaffirmed this conviction. However, McClellan ’s penchant for moving at a slow, careful pace drew criticism from Northern observers and politicians as he continually missed good opportunities to strike vulnerable Confederate forces. A perfectionist by nature, McClellan molded the new army into a strong, fully equipped, and well-disciplined fighting force. Lincoln called on McClellan to organize his new troops into the Army of the Potomac.
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Prior to this new assignment, Union forces under “Little Mac ” had swept Confederate troops from the pro-Union western counties of Virginia, an area later admitted to the Union as West Virginia. More important to the Union cause at this time, President Lincoln replaced Irvin McDowell with Maj. The policy of confiscation allowed Union commanders to seize slaves within reach of Northern forces, but did not specifically emancipate them.
Confederate commanders used slaves instead of white soldiers to perform rear-echelon details, saving every available white soldier for battle. In addition, the Republicans in Congress sought to weaken Southern labor reserves by issuing the First Confiscation Act on 6 August 1861. Congress promptly authorized a new army to include up to a million volunteers signed to three-year enlistments. Instead of giving up, however, young white males in the North flooded recruiting stations. Southerners basked in the first major victory of the war and many felt that the disheartened Northerners would quit after one defeat. On the other hand, Northerners took the Confederate threat more seriously than before and quickly woke up to the fact that most civil wars are not won or lost in the first ninety days.įirst Confiscation Act. On the one hand, Southerners quickly grew overconfident of their fighting ability and proclaimed that one Rebel soldier was equal to ten Northern bluecoats. Although casualties on both sides were light compared to later Civil War battles, the Battle of Bull Run made a strong impression on both home fronts. The Southerners then counterattacked and forced the frightened Union troops to drop their rifles and retreat wildly to Washington. Jackson and his men reinforced the Confederate line and, standing “like a stone wall, ” repulsed multiple Federal frontal assaults. Jackson unexpectedly arrived from the Shenandoah Valley by train. The Northern soldiers appeared to be close to victory when a Virginia brigade under the command of Gen. The armies clashed twenty-five miles southwest of Washington at a creek named Bull Run, near the important rail junction of Manassas, Virginia. On 21 July 1861 McDowell, who did not believe his raw recruits were ready for battle, confronted twenty thousand screaming Confederates (the famous “rebel yell ” was first heard here) under the command of the hero of Fort Sumter, P. Many civilians anticipated that the ensuing battle would be the war ’s only one, and as a result they followed McDowell ’s army. Irvin McDowell and thirty-five thousand troops to advance toward Richmond. Moved by pressures from Northern civilians and President Abraham Lincoln, Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott ordered Gen. Many joined the Union army under ninety-day enlistments which would soon expire, and they feared going home without heroic tales of battlefield glory. Union recruits stationed in Washington embraced the war hysteria and also clamored for a battle. Northern newspapers advocated a quick strike against the Southern capital city and printed inflammatory slogans like “Forward to Richmond ” at the top of each daily edition. Located a hundred miles from Washington, D.C., Richmond now became the focal point of the war.
” After the fall of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on 13 April 1861, the Confederate government transferred its capital from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia.
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