| Taken from "The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Civil War": The Civil War in a Nutshell (with stats!) |
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Part One: Fire Bell in the Night Chapter One: Beginnings 1. The bloodless fall of Fort Sumter was the first battle of the Civil War, in which 620,000 Americans would eventually die. 2. The large-scale cultivation of such Southern crops as rice, indigo, tobacco, and, most of all, cotton created and perpetuated the demand for slave labor. 3. By the end of the 18th century, slavery showed signs of diminishing, but the introduction of the cotton gin in 1794 made large-scale cotton cultivation economically feasible and renewed the demand for slave labor. 4. Men would fight the Civil War for many reasons, but the root cause of the war was slavery. The North wanted ultimately to end it, and the South refused to part with it. 5. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 staved off civil war, but also showed that violent confict over the slavery issue was almost certainly inevitable. Chapter Two: Liberty and Union, Now and Forever? 1. The Nullification Crisis of 1832-33 was an early contest between the sovereignty of individual states and the authority of the federal government. It almost triggered civil war in the 1830s. 2. John C. Calhoun turned the Nullification Crisis into a battle over "states' rights," which ultimately meant a struggle to preserve and protect slavery. 3. In the years leading up to the war, slavery was under multiple attacks. While abolitionist leaders brought moral pressure to bear against slavery, the Underground Railroad smuggled a small but significant number of slaves to freedom, and slave revolt loomed in the Southern consciousness as a constant fear. 4. The opening of the Southwest dramatically upset the balance between slave states and free states, propelling the nation to its final great crisis before the war. Chapter Three: Descent into War 1. The Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act staved off civil war, even as they further polarized the nation. 2. Guerrilla warfare between proslavery and antislavery forces in Kansas was a violent prelude to the Civil War. 3. The Supreme Court's decision in the Dred Scott Case outraged even moderate Northerners and made it clear that the slavery issue had gone beyond compromise. 4. John Brown's Harpers Ferry raid failed to incite a universal slave insurrection, but it galvanized the abolitionist cause, further polarized the nation, and brought civil war closer. Chapter Four: Bleak Inaugural 1. South Carolina seceded Dec. 20, 1860; Mississippi followed on Jan. 9, 1861; Florida on Jan. 10; Alabama on Jan. 11; Georgia on Jan. 19; Louisiana on Jan. 26; and Texas on Feb. 1. 2. Even after the first seven Southern states seceded, efforts to compromise further and thus maintain peace continued. The most important of these was the Crittenden Compromise. 3. Economically and in numbers of population, the South's prospects for victory in a civil war were poor. 4. Allan J. Pinkerton and others successfully foiled an apparent plot to assassinate the President-elect Lincoln. 5. Lincoln's inaugural address made it clear that his purpose was to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery in the states where it currently existed. |
| Alpha Book by Alan Axelrod |
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