4 - The American Civil War and Its Aftermath

Summary

The ultimate cause of the American Civil War was White supremacy, not simply slavery. That prejudice brought on war and also affected the treatment of prisoners of war and the consequences of Southern surrender. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the incorporation of Blacks into the Union army infuriated the Confederates and doomed the traditional practices of the cartels. When Black troops were recruited, Confederates refused to exchange captured Black soldiers, deeming them to be escaped slaves. The North responded by ending exchange and parole altogether. Now prisoners on both sides endured long-term confinement in prisoner of war camps, a practice that became the rule in Western warfare. The surrender of the Confederacy came through the surrender of its individual armies because the state was inoperative. But, although the conventional war ended in 1865, the fighting did not cease. Surrender transformed the conventional conflict into White supremacist terrorism and insurgency during Reconstruction, 1865–77. Ultimately, the will of the federal government and the Northern population tired of trying to establish racial equality in the South, and the occupation of the South ended. In an important sense, the South ultimately won by preserving White supremacy in its government, society, and culture.