Often, we tend to treat the U.S. Civil War as if it were inevitable. It is after all, one of - if not the - central conflict in American history. I've sometimes heard it said that U.S. History can be divided in three broad categories: (1) Causes of the Civil War, (2) the Civil War, and (3) Consequences of the Civil War. But, of course, the war was not inevitable. Nothing is truly inevitable until it happens, and once it does happen it can become hard to imagine any other outcome. In the months immediately preceding the U.S. Civil War, both sides knew that war was a possibility, but both sides seemed to believe that armed conflict could still be avoided (if only the other side would see things their way).

By the time the U.S. Civil War began, armed conflict between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces had already been happening in Kansas for several years (referred to as "Bleeding Kansas"), and it was clear that the same tensions that led to fighting there could cause a large-scale conflict across the country. As states began to declare secession from the Union in late 1860/early 1861, it seemed as if those tensions were finally coming to a boil. In January 1861, then U.S. Senator Jefferson Davis (soon to be President of the Confederacy) gave his Farewell Address to the Senate in which he argued that those states which declared secession had peaceful intentions and that the decision to go to war lay with the United States federal government. Davis said:

I therefore feel that I but express their desire when I say I hope, and they hope, for peaceful relations with you, though we must part. They may be mutually beneficial to us in the future, as they have been in the past, if you so will it. The reverse may bring disaster on every portion of the country; and if you will have it thus, we will invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them from the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear; and thus, putting our trust in God and in our own firm hearts and strong arms, we will vindicate the right as best we may. [1]

Just a few weeks later, in March 1861, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln detailed his perspective on the escalating situation. He argued that the decision to go to war rested solely with the seceding states, saying:

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it." [2]

Both Davis and Lincoln seemed to believe that a peaceful solution was possible, even mere weeks before the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter. As late as the end of March 1861, Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens boasted (in his infamous "Cornerstone Speech") that the Confederate revolution had been bloodless:

We are passing through one of the greatest revolutions in the annals of the world. Seven States have within the last three months thrown off an old government and formed a new. This revolution has been signally marked, up to this time, by the fact of its having been accomplished without the loss of a single drop of blood. [3]

Only a few weeks later, Southern forces fired on federal troops at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, an event which escalated the conflict into open warfare. Once the war began, it seemed neither side was truly prepared for the scale or severity of the war. A few days after the attack on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 troops to suppress the rebellion, but by the end of the war, over 2.1 million troops would enlist with the Union Army (with an estimated 750,000 to 1 million fighting for the Confederacy).

Early in the war, both sides seemed to believe that the war could be brought to a swift end (with each side believing that they, of course, would be victorious). At the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, residents from nearby Washington, DC brought picnic lunches out to the battlefield to watch the fighting, not yet realizing how bloody and horrific the war would be. After the Confederate victory at Bull Run, both sides began making preparations for a protracted fight, with both President Lincoln and President Davis calling for hundreds of thousands of additional volunteers to enlist in their respective armies. [4]

One additional note - I would argue that the Confederacy had better odds of "winning" the war than they are often given credit for. The important thing to remember is that the South didn't exactly have to "win" the war in the traditional sense - they just had to "not lose" long enough for the North to decide to give up the fight. While the North definitely had the advantage of numbers and material, the South was fighting a purely defensive war on their home turf. By contrast, the North had to muster an invading army, transport men and material, and take and hold territory. There were several stretches throughout the war, where the Northern will to fight was very nearly broken. For several months in 1864, even Abraham Lincoln believed that his reelection was unlikely, and that his loss in the election could mean a permanent end to the Union. It was entirely possible for the Northern war effort to collapse at some point during the four years of the war, and if it had the South would have successfully won their independence from the United States. It's tempting to think the outcome was inevitable just because we know how the story ends, but remember - nothing is inevitable until it happens.

__________

[1] Jefferson Davis, "Farewell Address", January 21, 1861: https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/archives/documents/jefferson-davis-farewell-address

[2] Abraham Lincoln, "First Inaugural Address," March 4, 1861: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp

[3] Alexander Stephens, "Cornerstone Speech," March 21, 1861: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/USHistory/Building/docs/Cornerstone.htm

[4] Ernest Furgurson, "The Battle of Bull Run: The End of Illusions", Smithsonian Magazine, August 2011: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-battle-of-bull-run-the-end-of-illusions-17525927/