It Was Fought America has always approached its conflicts as if they were extending the idea of the uniquely American way of life—that is, as if it were allowing each man to make his own choices and leave him free to make or break his own way into life as he has been endowed with it by his creator. Public safeguard, up until the coming of WWII was something for a little public armed force to take care of. The American Civil War was fought not by professional armies but by armies full of patriotic individuals who answered the call of their respective sides and put aside any personal desire or gain for the greater call of defending their nation. Instead, the armies were fought by professional armies. As a student of history and essayist, I've gathered a portion of my insight and examination into this article to help individual journalists in their longings to compose brief tales and books set in the Nationwide conflict.researching civil war ancestors
The reasons why we fought are as diverse as the individuals who fought. However, they can be categorized into one of several groups that can be thought of as typical for the majority of soldiers on both sides of the conflict.
At the beginning of the war, hundreds of thousands of people gathered at town meetings, churches, courthouses, and post offices to hear speeches, pleas for patriotism, and opportunities for adventure. Patriotism was the primary motivation. Volunteers on both sides of the Mason Dixon line saw each other through the lens of five decades of sectional tension and propaganda. For the commonplace northerner, the southern states that individually casted a ballot to withdraw from the Association were backstabbers, defying the legal and real government in Washington. The typical volunteer regarded slavery as "that peculiar institution," a political source of tension, and a minor concern in relation to the larger issue of the nation's sectional division. More often than not, volunteers were needed to restore the country than to end slavery. The fervor for restoration versus the abolitionist call for the end of slavery was proportional to the state or region in which one resided.
Abolitionist sentiment was more prevalent in the New England states, which had a long history and were the first to abolish slavery after colonization. The wealthy also played a role, supporting abolitionism and the restoration of the Union over merely restoring it. Western soldiers were less concerned about slavery as an institution and more focused on restoration. Letters home and biographical information reveal that the majority of soldiers volunteered to restore the Union, with only a small number having any philosophical reservations about the south and its slaves, regardless of the state in which they lived. A rise in Federal army desertions following the Emancipation Proclamation can be attributed to the shift in the war's direction, which many viewed as unacceptable. Clearly, the people who left were a minority; the majority did not care enough about the change or accepted it as a normal result of the goal of victory and the restoration of the Union to complete the task.
