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Civil War

Writing about recorded

history should be a relatively easy task to accomplish.

Recorded history is based on facts. Regardless of what time

period one may write about, one will find enough information

about that time of period. The key is to put everything in a

logical and understandable manner. This paper will be about

the Civil War. I will try, to the best of my knowledge, to

discuss the North's and South's positions and Arguments for

going to war, their initial military strategies and their strength

and weaknesses. The paper will actually be a summary from

chapter 10 of the book Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil

War Era By: James McPherson, "Amateurs Go To War".

Before discussing the war itself, one must understand the

Union's and the Confederate's arguments and reasons for

going to war. Let's start at the beginning, when the South

was first showing animosity for the North, which eventually

led to sessionist ideas by the South. The Compromise of

1850 was drafted in response to the threat of a Southern

Convention, because of Zachary Taylors decision to carve

out two huge territories in the Far West and to admit them in

the union as free states. Henry Clay drafted the compromise,

which includes eight parts. "The first pair would admit

California as a State and organize the remainder of the

Mexican cession without "any restriction or condition on the

subject of slavery". The second pair of resolutions settled the

boundary dispute between Texas and New Mexico in favor

of the latter and compensated Texas by federal assumption

of debts contracted during its existence as an Independent

Republic. Clay's third pair of resolutions called for abolition

of the slave trade in the District of Columbia but a guarantee

of slavery itself in the District. As if these six proposals

yielded more to the North then to the South, Clay's final pair

of resolutions tipped the balance Southward by denying

congressional power over the interstate slave trade...