Union Victory: The Midwest's Decisive Role in the Civil War

Union VictoryThe Midwest's Decisive Role in the Civil War Jack Dempsey (bio) As marble men fall to earth and military bases are rebranded, scrubbing twenty-first-century America of memorials to a society gone with the wind, insightful observers of human events inquire: could the "so-called Confederate States"1 have won the U.S. Civil War, preserving enforced servitude, and erected permanent memorials to their heroes? It was no necessary outcome that human bondage would end after four years of bloodshed. Precedent: "Britain might well have won the war" for American independence,2 and George Washington's use of a defensive strategy served as a model for wearing down a greater military power.3 Another possible grand Rebel strategy: subtract the Midwest from defenders of Union, thereby eliminating a powerful force for victory over secession and slavery.4 Such scenarios were not far-fetched and did, indeed, support a hope of the "Slavocracy," as opponents derided the repressive republic. Perhaps Kentucky would maintain neutrality, or even follow its fellow slave states into the new nation, marking the Ohio River as the upper C.S.A. border.5 Perhaps Missouri would secede, converting the southern Iowa line into the upper western boundary of the two nations. Without a buffer zone of border states, Midwesterners might have been reluctant to invite war into their region. Trade throughout the Mississippi River Valley linked the Mid-west to the South on the sunset side of the Appalachians. A war would disrupt those long-standing economic arrangements, providing incentive to strike a trade agreement with a Southern republic.6 A contemporary map portrayed four nations emerging from the Civil War, with one known as "Interior States" reaching from Ohio to the Rocky Mountains.7 The leading candidate for the 1860 presidential nomination of the party defending slavery, Stephen A. Douglas, lived (ironically) on Chicago's south side. If elected End Page 270 President, he would stand against "agitation of the slavery question"8 and let states choose their own domestic policy. Instead, another Illinoisan won the 1860 electoral college contest on a national convention platform (adopted in Chicago) rebuking "threats of disunion so often made by Democratic members" and repudiating "the new dogma that the Constitution, of its own force, carries slavery into any or all of the territories of the United States." Abraham Lincoln's election brought the first Midwesterner to the White House, representing the Old Northwest's new preeminent voice on the national stage, one that "would speak for change"—hemming in slavery's jurisdiction, promoting a northern intercontinental railway, investing in internal improvements, and bringing home the bacon to Northern constituents. Such a loss of the national controls the South could not countenance, especially halting slavery in its tracks.9 The Midwest furnished other irreplaceable leaders in the effort to defend the Constitution and maintain the United States. Imagine Pennsylvanian Simon Cameron not replaced by Ohioan Edwin Stanton. No Ohio-born and Illinois-resident Ulysses Grant, who brought the Confederacy's most vaunted army to final capitulation. No Ohioan William Sherman to take Atlanta, resurrecting Lincoln's reelection in 1864 and making Georgia howl in the March to the Sea. No Philip Sheridan aboard a Michigan steed, clearing the Shenandoah Valley of Rebel troops and burning its food stores. No George A. Custer of Michigan to head off Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Station. The list goes on: the Union's leading artillery commander hailed from Detroit,10 as did the first Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac.11 No Austin Blair of Michigan, the "War Governor" whose monument provides entry to the Capitol grounds in Lansing, representing his steadfast commitment to victory with emancipation. No Richard Yates of Illinois, Oliver P. Morton of Indiana, Samuel Kirkwood of Iowa, David Tod of Ohio, or Edward Salomon of Wisconsin. Together with other state chief executives, they met on September 24–25, 1862, to support the Proclamation of Emancipation and develop plans for further aid to the Union war effort at one of its lowest points. Their leadership and enterprise sustained the Union as much, if not more, than many figures on the national stage. Yet looking to...