Steven Harrell

Why They Fought

Apr 29, 2011 Updates

Much has been said in newspaper editorials of late as to why the different sides and the soldiers fought in the Civil War.  A much more accurate term other than Civil War is War Between the States, as individual states raised regiments to fight one another, and even different regions located inside states sent troops to fight one another.

A review of the political papers and speeches of the politicians of the time will tell you the reasons different states recruited and sent troops to fight in the conflict.  After Fort Sumter was shelled, an outpouring of patriotism set up in the Union states, with President Lincoln’s call for volunteer soldiers.  Governors of many Union states sent volunteer regiments to Washington.  They did so by giving a colonel’s commission to prominent community leaders, experienced soldiers, or politicians in their state.  The newly commissioned colonels would then raise a volunteer regiment for service in the U.S. Army, and these regiments would receive clothing and equipment, and then would be shipped by train down to Washington, D.C.

The reasons for their enlistment at that time was a fear that if the rebellion was not controlled, that the Union would break up into many different republics.  Preservation of the Union was the primary reason that men in the North enlisted to fight the war.  Soldiers from states in the old Northwest Territory held somewhat different views.  They fought for the main reason of opening up the Mississippi River to commerce.  They did not want New Orleans, Louisiana to remain a foreign port city.  For this reason, they fought in the war to open up the Mississippi River to Union navigation and commerce.

Troops from the Northeastern U.S. primarily fell under the influence of abolitionist groups, and they fought mainly to free the slaves.  Their prime motivation in serving in the Union Army was to free the slaves in the South.

Down South, most of the regiments on the Confederate muster books the first two years of the war were volunteer regiments.  The men at that point in the war volunteered because of their patriotism at the time the Southern states seceded.  Demands on army manpower soon required the Confederacy to enact a conscription law.   In 1862, the Confederacy began conscription, and conscription continued in the South throughout the duration of the war.  If you were male and able bodied, and if you were not a local sheriff, or were not in the local militia, you were required to serve in the Confederate army, or you would be thrown into prison.

One of the most significant reasons that southern men fought in the army or the militia was because their state had been invaded by Union forces.  After invasions were made in various states, militia units were called up, and Confederate forces were deployed to meet the invasion threats posed.  Even those men that enlisted in local militia units down South to avoid military service in the Confederacy often ended up on the front lines, fighting Union troops in Georgia and in Virginia.  A significant reason for Confederate troops and militia to fight was because the Union Army had invaded Confederate held territory.  McClelland’s invasion of the Peninsula in 1862 prompted the enactment of the Confederate conscription law.  Many soldiers that would probably have stayed out of conflict altogether ended up fighting, because the Union Army had invaded their home state.  This was especially true in Tennessee and in Georgia during Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign.

Different sections of states even had different allegiances during the war.  In upstate Alabama, where corn was raised instead of cotton, there was a strong pro-union element.  Winston County even went so far as to secede from the state of Alabama, and to call itself “the Free State of Winston.”  Tennessee sent over 55 regiments to fight in the Union Army, despite the fact that it was a Confederate state.  West Virginia broke away from Virginia in 1861, and later was admitted into the Union as West Virginia in 1863.

Eastern Maryland raised several regiments to fight in the Confederate service.  Western Maryland remained loyal to the Union.  Maryland did not secede from the Union because President Lincoln sent troops into Annapolis to prevent the Maryland Assembly from voting in an ordinance of secession.  Kentucky remained loyal to the Union, but furnished many regiments that fought on both sides during the war.

In 1863, the Union enacted a conscription law, because of the horrific losses suffered by the Army of the Potomac on the battlefield.  A male subject to the draft in 1863 could avoid the draft by paying the sum of $300.00, or by recruiting a substitute to take his place.  This lead to the draft riots in New York City in July of 1863, and the complaint that it was a rich man’s war, but a poor man’s fight.

Steven Harrell has practiced law in Perry, Georgia since 1989.

He is the author of The Unionist,  A Novel of the Civil War and The Rifle Captain, A Novel of World War I. Both are available at  Amazon.com, and Barnes&Noble.com. You may email him at sharrell@comsouth.net.