The Civil War: Military Leaders of the North and South

A distinguishing feature of the American Civil War that occurred between 1861 and 1865 is the number of legendary military figures that were involved in the prosecution of the war on both sides. One of the most historically recognized of any of the American presidents, Abraham Lincoln, served as the commander-in-chief of the Union forces. The Lincoln administration saw two separate Secretaries of War during the conflict. These were Simon Cameron and Edward Stanton. At the time the war began, the Union army maintained approximately fifteen thousand troops and over a thousand officers. Nearly all of the prominent Union generals during the war had significant military experience.

The Union army was supplemented by state militias from those states that remained loyal to Lincoln’s federal government. Initially, the Union was able to raise more than seventy-five thousand troops from these militias, who were led by appointed commanders. While militia commanders were sometimes given the rank of general in the Union army, their position was normally one of subordination to the army’s regular generals. Some Union army leaders were drawn from foreign armies, and some high ranking officers originated from European countries or Native American tribes. “The size of the navy of the United States also grew dramatically during the Civil War, and the navy had its own system of rank and leadership.”

Jefferson Davis became the president of the secessionist Confederate States of America and assumed the role of commander-in-chief for the Southern forces. Davis would be the Confederacy’s only president during its four years of existence, and five secretaries of war would serve underneath him. The most famous of these was Judah Benjamin. Over three hundred Union officers resigned their commission in order to join the Confederate army after secession had occurred and the war had begun. “Many officers on both sides of the conflict had previously served with one another, and many had attended the military college at West Point.” As was the case with the Union forces, state militias and their commanders also played an important role in the war effort at times. Representatives of European countries and Native American tribes also fought for the Confederate cause, and five separate Native American nations, most notably the Cherokee, formed a formal alliance with the Confederacy. The Confederate navy was much weaker than that of the Union and relied primarily on vessels captured from the Union immediately following secession along with warships provided by England.

Ulysses S. Grant was the most prominent Union military leader during the war and would command the Union troops during the final year of the war effort, after succeeding General Winfield Scott. It was Grant to whom the Confederate General Robert E. Lee famously surrendered at Appomattox in April of 1865. However, the ranks of the Union army would also include many other figures whose names are now legendary. Among these officers was Ambrose Burnside, Abner Doubleday, the future president James A. Garfield, Joseph Hooker, George McClellan, George Meade, Philip Sheridan, and William T. Sherman.

A number of military figures from outside the regular Union army also achieved fame as a result of their efforts on behalf of the Union cause. Among them were John C. Fremont, Benjamin Franklin Butler, and Joseph Lawrence Chamberlain. Each of these was prominent commanders of state militias or volunteer forces from outside the regular army. Non-Americans who were significant to the Union struggle were the Frenchmen Regis de Trobiand and Comte Paris de Philippe, the Irish immigrant Michael Corcoran, Włodzimierz Krzyżanowski and Albin Schoepf of Poland, the Irish nationalist and former political prisoner Thomas Meagher, Ely Parker of the Seneca American Indian nation, the German revolutionaries Carl Schurz and Franz Sigel, and the Russian Ivan Turchin. The Union cause attracted a great deal of international support, particularly from radicals who sympathized with the ideals of American republicanism, liberty, democracy, and the anti-slavery cause.

Many of the Confederate political and military leaders were veterans of the United States military forces, and the Confederate forces were organized in a very similar manner to the Union forces, just as the Confederate Constitution was very similar to the United States federal Constitution. Among the significant figures who had previously served in the Union army and who later joined the Confederate forces was Pierre Beauregard, Braxton Bragg, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, James Longstreet, George Pickett, Joseph Wheeler, J. E. B. Wheeler, Ambrose Powell Hill, Joseph Johnston, John Bell Hood, and, of course, Robert E. Lee. Additionally, leaders of various state militias also became well-known historical figures because of their service on the Confederate side. These included Nathan Bedford Forrest, Leonidas Polk, Richard Taylor, Sterling Price, John Breckenridge, and Benjamin Cheatham.

Among the non-Americans who fought for the Confederate cause in a leading military capacity was Stand Watie of the Cherokee nation, Patrick Cleburne of Ireland, Collette Leventhorpe of England, Raleigh Colston and Camille Armand Jules Marie of France. Multiple Confederate naval leaders also distinguished themselves during the war. These included James Waddell, Matthew Fontaine Maury, Franklin Buchanan, Josiah Tattnall, Catesby Jones, and Isaac Newton Brown.

While members of the North’s Union army were more likely to be fighting for the sake of ideals such as preserving the Union or abolishing slavery, fighters on the Confederate side tended to be motivated more by a sense of place. “In that particular period of American history, one’s individual state was regarded as one’s country, and so Confederate soldiers saw themselves as fighting for Virginia, North Carolina, Mississippi, etc.”

Ultimately, the war took over one million lives, including the lives of over six hundred and twenty thousand soldiers. “Approximately the same numbers of Americans were killed in the Civil War as the number killed in all other wars fought by Americans in total.” The tactics pursued by military leaders on both sides resulted in particularly high numbers of casualties. Military leaders in the Civil War emulated the style of the French military figure Napoleon, who perfected the use of aggressive charges on enemy outposts as a combat technique. Such tactics normally generated a high number of casualties. Newer and more powerful types of firearms and more accurate ammunition were also used in the Civil War, while older forms of combat organization, such as the open assembly of soldiers in line formation guaranteed a high number of casualties when combined with the newer weaponry. Nearly two-thirds as many civilians were killed in the war as actual soldiers. The numbers of civilian deaths were heightened by the “total war” tactics developed by Northern military leaders such as William T. Sherman, including the burning of towns previously used as enemy headquarters. In this respect, the American Civil War became a prototype for the “total wars” of the twentieth century.

Bibliography

Gugliotta, Guy. “New Estimate Raises Civil War Death Toll.” The New York Times April 3, 2012, p. D1.

Jackman, John S. and William C. Davis. Diary of a Confederate Soldier: John S. Jackman of the Orphan Brigade. University of South Carolina Press, 1997.

Keegan, John. The American Civil War: A Military History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009

Waugh, John C. The Class of 1846, From West Point to Appomattox: Stonewall Jackson, George McClellan and their Brothers. New York: Warner, 1994.