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The Battle of Fort Sumter and First Victory of the Southern Troops, April 13th, 1861.
The American Civil War began in April 1861 when South Carolina military forces laid siege to Fort Sumter, a U.S. Army garrison positioned on an island in Charleston Harbor. Not wanting to appear to be the aggressor, President Lincoln had opted to not reinforce the fort’s military defenses and instead had sent only a resupply of provisions. Confederate President Jefferson Davis then ordered an attack. That bombardment galvanized the North’s support for fighting to preserve the Union. The Battle of Fort Sumter was the first of roughly 10,500 armed conflicts between the Union and Confederate Armies. Major battles often would be memorialized in pamphlets printed by local publishers, which became the first drafts of history.Tags lincoln-section-3 -
Prize Fight Between Abram and Jeff, in Four Rounds. Stake: The Constitution of Our Fathers.
This metamorphosis book humorously depicts the fight between the Union and Confederacy (represented by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis). The facsimile shows how the paper would have been folded so that the reader could reveal the story in four acts. Lincoln is shown coming south after Davis, who whimpers. Despite the fact that “Jeff gives Abram a stunner at Bull’s Run,” the story ends with Lincoln the victor. This ending suggests that this book was printed around 1861, when northern optimism for a quick Union victory still prevailed.Tags lincoln-section-3 -
The United States Conscription Law or National Militia Act.
Both the Union and Confederacy fielded volunteer armies, and they struggled to attract and retain soldiers. The Civil War was the first time in American history that conscription laws were passed. The Confederacy led the way, with legislation in April 1862. In March 1863, the Enrollment Act (seen here in pamphlet form) gave President Lincoln authorization to require every white male citizen and every immigrant who had applied for citizenship who was between the ages of 20 and 45 to register for the draft. Free Black men were not required to enroll in the draft because they were not considered citizens. Those wanting to avoid service could provide a substitute or pay a commutation fee (equivalent to $6,500 today). Despite these conscription laws, both the Union and Confederate armies continued to rely mostly upon volunteers.Tags lincoln-section-3 -
The Bloody Week! Riot, Murder & Arson, a Full Account of this Wholesale Outrage on Life and Property.
White pro-slavery Democrats charged that the conflict was a “rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight.” At a time when annual working-class wages were often below $500, the $300 fee to avoid the draft was well out of reach for many Union men. In addition, the Democratic Party had warned immigrants and working-class whites that they would have to compete for jobs with the Black men who would be freed by the war. Protests erupted in the North, the most violent being in New York City. On July 13, 1863, an angry mob looted businesses, burned buildings, and hunted down Black residents. New York’s 7th Regiment were called up from Gettysburg to quell the riot. The Bloody Week! is a dramatic account “accurately prepared from sources by eye witnesses.”Tags lincoln-section-3 -
The Terrible Tragedy at Washington. Assassination of President Lincoln.
President Lincoln would not live to see the end of the Civil War. Less than a week after Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender, Lincoln was shot in the back of the head while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC. He died the next day, on April 15, 1864—the first American president to be killed while in office. The above two pamphlets were printed within days of the assassination, before all the persons involved in the murder plot were identified and captured. The pamphlet to the left follows a nineteenth-century printing tradition in which a thick black border in newspapers and on stationery indicated bereavement. The pamphlet on the right was published by the popular press to provide updates on the assassination’s aftermath, sometimes sensationalistic.Tags lincoln-section-3 -
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Treaty Between the United States [and] Confederated Tribes of Sac & Fox Indians
#6 In the 1830s, Lincoln grew from farmer's son to local leader. Soon after his family's move to Illinois, he took a job as a clerk in a general store, gaining access to current events and freeing him from strenuous labor. He began reading history books and attending debate society meetings. In March of 1832, he ran in but lost an election for state legislator. A month later, at the start of the Black Hawk War, he joined the state militia to push back Sauk and Fox peoples trying to regain their lands. The above map shows the disputed area. Lincoln never saw combat, but he was elected company captain; outside of his presidency, he called this "a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since."
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General Taylor and the Wilmot Proviso.
In 1846, when Congressman Lincoln was sworn in, the United States was again expanding. The Republic of Texas had just joined the Union as the twenty-eighth state, and the U.S. had its eyes on Mexican territory, hoping to take California and the land in between. The expansionist president James Polk initiated a war with Mexico, claiming that Mexico attacked first. Lincoln fell in line with the Whig Party, condemning the rationale for the Mexican-American War and endorsing the Wilmot Proviso, which would have prohibited slavery in any territories acquired from Mexico. As the above propaganda pamphlet explains, the proviso did not pass. But the Wilmot Proviso foregrounded slavery as the central issue and increased the divide between the South and the North. Lincoln’s opposition to the war made him politically unpopular in Illinois. He did not run for reelection.Tags lincoln-section-1 -
Three Weeks at Gettysburg.
Civilians in the Union and Confederacy provided critical support for the war effort through fundraising and volunteering. The U.S. Sanitary Commission was the only civilian-run organization to be recognized by the federal government during the Civil War. It coordinated civilian assistance to the Union forces, primarily medical care, at no cost to the government, thanks to its fundraising activities. Women played an important role at the Sanitary Commission from its formation. One of the most widely-known narratives promoting the Commission and its work is shown here, written by Nurse Georgeanna Muirson Woolsey. Nurse Woolsey and her mother had arrived at Gettysburg hoping to find her brother. Frederick Law Olmsted, the Head of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, asked them to run one of the Commission’s camps near the railroad station. There they treated soldiers from both sides and provided meals to thousands.Tags lincoln-section-3 -
Reports from the Joint Select Committee to Enquire into The Condition Of The State Bank Of Illinois.
In 1834, at the age of twenty-five, Lincoln was elected to the first of four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives. The Illinois House report shown here marks the third appearance of his name in print. By 1836, Lincoln was an acknowledged leader within the Whig Party. He was a member of the younger generation of Whigs who sought to expand voting rights and who believed they could compete with Democrats for the votes of the common man. Lincoln, himself from an impoverished background, took this further than most, favoring voting rights for all property-owning white people “who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).” In doing so, he accepted the legitimacy of a racial barrier to political participation.Tags lincoln-section-1 -
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"An Oration Delivered on the Battlefield of Gettysburg."
In November 1863, four months after the battle at Gettysburg, President Lincoln spoke at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, created to provide a proper burial for the fallen. Lincoln was not the main speaker of the day. That honor went to Edward Everett, a former senator and a celebrated orator. Lincoln spoke after Everett, and in only two minutes captured the transcendent significance of the war. He once again asserted that the United States was founded on liberty, equal rights, and self-government, and he honored those who had given their lives to prove that it could endure. Significantly, Lincoln described the country not as a union, but as a nation. Still focused on securing emancipation, he did not address how fully Black people might share in America’s promise. This is the earliest publication of the Gettysburg Address in book form.Tags lincoln-section-3 -
"The President's Dedication Address at Gettysburg."
Some time passed before the enduring significance of President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was recognized. It was initially published with Edward Everett’s much longer preceding speech. This rare broadside is the first separate printing of the Address, produced by publishers Miller & Mathews for the Metropolitan Fair held in Manhattan on April 4, 1864. This fair was one of the largest charity events during the Civil War. It raised funds and supplies for the Union Army.Tags lincoln-section-3 -
The Fugitive Slave Law, and Its Victims.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 gave enslavers more power and threatened the liberty and safety of all Black persons living in free states. It denied the right to a trial by jury to those accused of being fugitives and required the U.S. government and private citizens to actively assist enslavers in capturing Black people accused of being fugitives, even on free lands. The above abolitionist pamphlet from 1856 provides a thirty-page list of those who had escaped from and then been returned to the South, along with a ten-page account of Margaret Garner, a fugitive who killed her daughter to prevent the baby from being enslaved. Lincoln consistently upheld the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave laws, but he reproached the lack of due process for the fugitives in the 1850 Act.Tags lincoln-section-1 -
The Second Battle of Manassas: with Sketches of the Recent Campaign in Northern Virginia.
The year 1862 saw high battlefield casualties for both the Union and Confederacy. Victories alternated between them, and the war was at a stalemate. President Lincoln began to talk about measures to bring the war to the Southern homefront, including emancipating those enslaved in the Confederacy and confiscating Confederate property. In August 1862, the Union’s Army of Virginia lost at Manassas/Bull Run for the second time in two years. This pamphlet written by an editor of the Richmond Examiner recounts that battle for a southern audience. The victorious General Robert E. Lee led his southern forces from Virginia into Maryland, thus invading the North.Tags lincoln-section-3
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