Research paper on article references and author ideas

¶ … Vicissitudes of War

The principle topic of the article entitled No Peace Without Victory, 1861-1865, is the various attempts made at constructing a peace between the Union and Confederacy armies during the final two years of the Civil War. Intrinsically linked to this concept of peace and the number of overtures made for securing this purpose between both sides was the effect of the war on the morale for Americans in both the north and the southern portion of the country. By 1864, both sides were beginning to lament the wanton bloodshed that left several young men -- some of whom may have been related to one another -- dead. Adding to the drama and the increasing cry for peace that was heralded on both sides of the Mason-Dixie line was the fact that the upcoming presidential election would largely be decided on Lincoln's success with the war -- which, during the final summer prior to the November election of 1864, appeared largely unsuccessful.

The author of this article poses the fact that the attempts at peace between the Confederacy and the Union were little more than political maneuvers to boost the morale of their respective partisans. Furthermore, with the fate of the presidential election largely hinging upon the issue of a quick end to the war, the attempts at peace were also moves to assuage the voices that cried for a reconciliation to end the violence and death tolls that the war was increasingly escalating. In fact, the author provides a number of examples in which the terms of peace were specifically denoted by representatives from both sides as not being truly indicative of an armistice, but rather as a means of demonstrating that the leader of the opposing side was against such a truce in order to rally the support of various partisan political partisans.

The author indicates that both Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were able to denounce one another as the impediment to a cease-fire by a number of decidedly clever manipulations. During the initial peace talks between the two, Lincoln was roundly chastised (by members of his political party, the Republicans, as well as by Republicans and by Union supporters in general) for stipulating that the only way an armistice could be achieved between the two sides was if the Confederacy surrendered and the Union was preserved. Lincoln would also incur further criticism when the wording of the terms of the truce he offered were manipulated to make it seem as though the President cared more about liberating -- and preserving the liberty of -- former slaves.

Yet the political ramifications of these notions which were widely propagated by the media and projected to have a significant impact on the polls come election time were largely abolished by the sudden northern success against the Confederacy. The capturing of Atlanta spurred this success during the fall of 1864, and virtually guaranteed Lincoln's reelection and vilified both the Democrats and the Confederacy as opposing the only inevitable peace solution -- through the latter's defeat.