Having run from April of 1861 to May of 1865, the American civil War remains one of the longest combat force participations that the US has been involved in. Caused by many interrelated factors, mainly the difference of opinion on how to handle the issue of slavery and the right to self-determination (among the Southerners), the Civil War pitted the Union soldiers of the North who supported the creation of a unitary nation with no slavery against the Confederate soldiers of the South who held that slavery needed to be preserved as an end to maintaining agricultural production (in the labor intensive plantations of nineteenth century America). The Union or North would eventually win the war in 1865 at the Battle of Appomattox Court House. In the aftermath of the battle, several changes were realized in America; a number of such effects are listed herein.
Effects of the American Civil War
Among the bloodiest armed conflicts in the history of the United States, the civil war had major impacts on the American way of life in the nineteenth century and even beyond. Effects include among others, the loss of lives and destruction of property, the abolishing of slavery, unification of the states, improvement of agriculture and growth of the economy, and creation of the fall powerful federal government.
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Loss of Lives & Destruction of Property
By the end of the American Civil War in May of 1865, both sides of the divide had lost thousands upon thousands of soldiers. McPherson (2014) points out that as many as between 650,000 and 750,000 soldiers from both sides may have lost their lives in the various battlefronts of the Civil War. No other war or armed conclfit in the history of the United States has been able to realize such casualty numbers. Hundreds of thousands of others were also injured and maimed in the process. Civilians who were not part of the armed conflict were also affected by the war, with many lethally harmed and even maimed whenever they came into the crosshairs of the numerous battles fought as part of the four year war. Concerning the destruction of property, the South where the Confederate soldiers came from, and where many of the battles in the war were held, lost much of its infrastructure. Roads and railway lines, timber mills and cotton factories as well as other factories were destroyed in the four years of the war. Houses and farms were also greatly affected, with many coming under attack from the exchange of fire in the various battlefronts. While the exact monetary value of the damage to establishments and infrastructure during the war has yet to be ascertained, it is possible that the damage could run into billions of dollars, even by the standards of those days.
Abolishment of Slavery
One of the major causes of the Civil War, the abolishment of slavery was also a consequence of the war. In the battles that pitted the US North under the Union flags against the US South under the Confederacy flags, the main cone of contention was the freedom of slaves. Upon the surrender of General Robert Lee of the Confederacy to General Ulysses Grant of the Union, which in effect ended the four year conflict, the ideals of the Union (key among them the unconditional freeing of all slaves) carried the day. In the days and weeks after the end of the war, as Du Bois (2017) notes, as many as four million African Americans who were still enslaved in the tobacco, cotton and sugarcane plantations of the US southern states were granted their freedom. The war had had the effect of enforcing the resolution of President Lincoln to end slavery and to grant all humans, despite their race, basic human rights (such as the freedom of choice and the enjoyment of basic human rights). The American Civil War therefore had the effect of both stopping the proposed expansion of slavery as opposed by the South.
Unification of the States
Another one of the causes of the Civil War which would also be an effect of such war was the unification of the states (those in the North who supported freedom for all and those in the South that sought to expand slavery). Before the war, many southern states had been calling for secession from the loose union that formed the nation while the northern states advocated for the creation of stronger ties amongst all states. When the Union army won the war, their ideology of a unitary nation carried the day and the United States in effect became just that; a union of states under one nation called the United States of America. Tindall & Shi (2016) assert that this unification of all the states under the single flag of the nation had the effect of causing the growth of the nation, as a number of other states would later be admitted into the union, making it larger and stronger. The unification of the state as an effect of the Civil War was helped in large part by the collapse of the Confederacy which had brought together eleven southern states seeking to secede from the hitherto loose union so as to form their own nation under the name Confederate States of America. In essence, the Civil War had the effect of restoring and strengthening national unity.
Creation of the Federal Government
At the end of the civil war in 1865, the United States of America became even bigger and stronger than it had ever been. With the unification of the states under the single union flag came the creation of the federal government, an all-powerful establishment that was tasked with the responsibility of running the affairs of the nation. Even though all states had their own forms of government that were autonomous to a large extent and which were run by governors elected through universal suffrage, the federal government was headed by an executive president elected both by the popular vote and by a collegiate of representatives from each of the states. According to Dew (2017), the civil war, having defeated the separationist ideals that had emerged in the south through the victory of the Union forces at the battle, had the effect of quashing any such ideas that might have emerged in future by bringing all states under the control of the federal government that was mandated to run the affairs of the republic. By causing the collapse of the confederacy (of the southern states), the civil war in effect led to the strengthening of the national government in the sense that it inclusion and seeking of the mandate of the southern states in the operations of the new republic.
Creation of a more Democratic & Just Society
America as it is today, the beacon of democracy and justice, was in effect created after the end of the civil war. The four year conflict had the effect of creating a society that was more just and which observed many of the ideals of democracy. Brinkley (2015) advances that by precipitating the formation of a unitary nation composed of states (each of which enjoyed considerable autonomy from each other) would enhance the ideal of creating a government for the people, of the people and by the people as well as the concept of majority having their way while the minority have their say. The civil war, in abolishing slavery and creating the federal government offered all Americans the chance to have a say in the affairs of their nation. Later on, the expansion of civil rights would further these ideals of democracy. Additionally, the abolishing of slavery which resulted from the outcome of the civil war also created a society that was considerably more just than it had been before as demonstrated by the freeing of all slaves and the prescription that all humans (their race notwithstanding) must be free to lead their lives as they deem fit and without being coerced into servitude.
Mechanization of Agriculture
Before the civil war, many of the southern states which were predominantly occupied by large scale plantation farmers had exploited slave labor to produce their crops. At the end of the civil war however, with the freeing of all slaves, the free labor was gone. This would necessitate the search for, and introduction of more efficient ways of producing crops across the plantations hence the emergence and spread of mechanization of agriculture. Brinkley (2015) makes note of the fact that farms across the American south would start to mechanize agriculture in earnest after the end of the civil war and the exodus of the slaves from the plantations, Ploughing tools, planting implements and many other tools, machines and implements were developed to help keep the costs of production low as they had been with the free labor from enslaved African Americans. Industrialization of the US
With much of the southern US cities and states having been devastated by the civil war, there was the need to rebuild them. According to Randall & Donald (2016), the reconstruction of the nation, which was necessitated by the war itself, did spur the establishment of industries across the United States and the emergence of the US as an industrial powerhouse on the global scene. Further, being that many freed slaves moved to the Northern cities in order to start lives anew, many industries sprang up to cater for the needs of the new towns and settlements that emerged; factories grew as they continued to take in more of the new migrants while many industries expanded as many other southerners moved up north to seek employment and to settle (given that agriculture back home had now been largely mechanized) in the Northern towns. Investors looking to take advantage of the new nation, with more states and a bigger population which would translate into a larger market, invested in many industries including the textile and food industries as well as the services sector such as banks, hospitals and insurance agencies hence catalyzing the industrialization and development of the US economy that had been dependent on agriculture for decades.
Conclusion
One of the most trying periods for America as a nation and by far the most defining, the civil war which lasted four years had many effects, many of which have made the United States of America what it is today. Some of the effects of the civil war include the freeing of the over four million African Americans who were still confined to servitude in plantation farms in the Southern US states, the loss of nearly three quarter million lives on both sides of the battle line, the unification of the states under the union flag and strengthening of the nation. The establishment of a powerful federal government and the establishment of a more just and democratic society also came about as a result of the civil war as did the mechanization of agriculture, the expansion of the US economy and rapid industrialization of the new nation.
References
Brinkley, A. (2015). The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People, Volume I (Vol. 11, p. 7271). McGraw-Hill.
Dew, C. B. (2017). Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War . University of Virginia Press.
Du Bois, W. E. B. (Ed.). (2017). Black Reconstruction in America: Toward a history of the part which black folk played in the attempt to reconstruct democracy in America, 1860-1880 . Routledge Revivals.
McPherson, J. (2014). A Brief Overview of the American Civil War. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall
Randall, J. G., & Donald, D. (2016). The Civil War and Reconstruction . Pickle Partners Publishing.
Tindall, G. B., & Shi, D. E. (2016). America: A Narrative History . WW Norton & Company.
