Stillness at Appomattox

Stillness at Appomattox

The Civil War ended quickly after Lee's surrender at Appomattox: Why?

One reason for the swift demise of the Confederacy after Lee's surrender at Appomattox was the strategy of William Tecumseh Sherman called 'total war.' Sherman had depleted the Confederacy economically as well as military, and starvation and privation were rampant. "Sherman was a believer in total war. He said that the Northern military was 'not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.' Sherman realized that the Southern civilian population provided most of the supplies that Confederate forces needed to wage war against the North.[footnoteRef:1]" Sherman did not bring many supplies on his infamous March to the Sea, deliberately encouraging his men to use the land to sustain themselves and to wage war on the Confederate infrastructure as well as upon its military. [1: "Sherman's March to the Sea," Ohio History Central, July 1, 2005, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=551 [August 9, 2012]]

It should be noted that Sherman was by far not the first general to use 'total war,' and this was a strategy as old as warfare itself.[footnoteRef:2] And contrary to how Sherman is portrayed in history, he did not simply engage in wholesale destruction. He emphasized attacking the plantations of Southern slaveholders, versus those of poorer families. His dismantling of the South was strategic, not wanton violence. "Railroads, depots, and the like went up in flames.[footnoteRef:3]" The Confederate soldiers were described as "broken down, ragged, hungry and careworn. The streets are crowded with these desperate soldiers, made restless by their final defeat.[footnoteRef:4]" [2: Steven E. Woodworth This Great Struggle: America's Civil War, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), 315] [3: Woodworth, 317] [4: Allan Maurer & Renee Wright, "Charlotte: Last capital of the Confederacy," 2004 http://www.carolinaconnoisseur.com/Last-Capital-of-Confederacy.htm [August 9, 2012]]

By early 1865 Robert E. Lee had known "that the South had lost, and in February and March of 1865, he actually participates in meetings with Breckinridge and some other prominent members of Congress, essentially hatching a scheme to try to force President Davis to open negotiations for surrender.[footnoteRef:5]" Lee's desire to negotiate surrender indicates the lack of popular support for Davis at the time. With the political leadership divided amongst itself and the belief of the Confederacy's most respected general that the cause was futile, it is not surprising that the starving, beaten-down rebel states put up little resistance. [5: William Davis, "Historian William Davis on the last days of the Confederacy," CNN, 2001, http://www.cnn.com/chat/transcripts/2001/07/02/davis / [August 9, 2012]]

The social and economic order, even before the surrender, had also begun to unravel because of the Emancipation Proclamation and Union soldier's freeing of slaves. Slaves looked upon the advancing Union army as liberators and many were freed in the wake of Union advancement. Without slaves to fuel the plantation economies, the Confederacy could not sustain itself. The Union had access to more men (including freed slaves), in contrast to the dwindling numbers of the Confederate states, and efforts by the Confederates to conscript slaves and force them to fight would seem increasingly transparent after Lee's formal surrender.