Slavery as a Primary Cause of Widespread Confederate Support for the American Civil War

The South’s reaction to the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 was characterized by a remarkable display of popular support. Across the newly emerged Confederate nation, war enthusiasm skyrocketed and anti-Unionist rhetoric abounded. According to William Baylor of the 5th Regiment at Harper’s Ferry, “Great enthusiasm animates all, and should the vicegerent of the arch-fiend dare send his minions to Old Virginia, we will repel them, or leave the memory of brave men for our friends to revere.” A minority of dissenters – people with “union sentiments” – was scorned and sidelined. In perhaps the most potent expression of patriotism, volunteer rates for military service soared. In early August, 1861, a Virginian living in Augusta County reported in his diary a phenomenon Americans throughout the South had been witnessing for the past few months: recruiters “have arranged to furnish their quota of volunteers, and the remainder will return home.”

Historians often cite testimony such as this to argue that the supply of would-be soldiers in the South greatly outweighed demand when war broke out. Indeed, the phenomenon of popular support is undisputed in discussions of the war’s opening phase. Historian Frank Owsley’s 1925 criticism of the Confederacy’s failure to survive the Civil War generalizes upon reports such as these, and refuses to blame the volunteer spirit of young Southerners for the war’s outcome. Their enthusiasm in 1861 was, he writes, “almost without a parallel in history,” and would have enabled a more logistically prepared government to mobilize an army of 600,000 within a few months.

Historian David Donald concurs, asserting in his 1959 study of Confederate soldiers that Southern men “rushed to enlist, fearing the fighting would be over before they could get to the front.” Recent studies support this conclusion, such as Irwin Unger’s 2006 account of American history, These United States. He indicates that the system of relying upon volunteers for military service in the South worked well for the first year of the war. Though the Confederacy was plagued with problems in 1861, its own citizens’ support was not one of them.

The impressive phenomenon of popular support served to sustain the Confederacy as it went to war with the Union, imbuing the fledgling government with the power to resist the North’s challenge to its authority over the seceded states. It provided the regiments that successfully resisted the first serious Northern attempt to restore the Union at the First Battle of Bull Run in July of 1861, and continued to augment the ranks of Confederate grey well into the following year. As such, popular support for war in the South was instrumental in shaping the course of the war. Historian Charles Wesley, having just lived through the First World War, commented on the value of mass support to the Confederacy during the Civil War: “Clearly more important than numbers and resources – as weighty as they may be in the final result – are the morale of the people and their attitude toward war. … A nation like an individual is not beaten until its spirit is broken.”