Original subtitles

When Senator Stephen Douglas proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, his mind was focused on the

building of a railway and nothing more. In fact, his supporters claimed the act had permanently

settled the slavery issue. Everything else was the political horse-trading needed to pass the bill,

in his mind. They were completely wrong. By expanding popular sovereignty, Douglas

unknowingly tipped the first domino leading to the American Civil War by opening a wound called

Bleeding Kansas. Welcome to our latest video on the American Civil War, in which we will cover

the opening salvos of the bloodiest conflict in United States history, from the border skirmishes

in Kansas to the abolitionist firebrand John Brown, the cannons fired at Fort Sumter and the

First Battle of Bull Run. Bleeding Kansas

The Compromise of 1850 created popular sovereignty, but it took the Kansas-Nebraska Act

to make it relevant. Slavery was never going to take root in the Utah or New Mexico territories.

Cotton couldn’t handle their climates, and the formerly Mexican population of those territories,

expanded by the 1853 Gadsden Purchase, was strongly anti-slavery. Similarly, Nebraska was too

far north climate-wise and too near free states for pro-slavery settlers to claim realistically.

Kansas, however, was next to slaveholding Missouri and potentially more hospitable to

plantation agriculture. Both pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups planned to send massive

expeditions to settle and claim Kansas. However, organizing them proved prohibitively difficult,

and instead, steady trickles of settlers made their way to Kansas. Pro-slavery Missourians were

the first to act, establishing the first towns and governments. However, free-soilers were arriving

in greater and greater numbers, so the pro-slavery settlers made the bold decision to cheat.

To that end, armed Missouri residents from border towns began swarming across into Kansas

to cast proslavery votes before returning home, ensuring that the first territorial

legislature and Congressional representative would favour slavery. However, the fraud was

quickly exposed , and free-soilers set up their own government in Topeka. The proslavery border

ruffians responded by aggressively intimidating free-soil voters and again fraudulently voted

on the new state constitution, sending the proslavery Lecompton Constitution to Congress,

which the equally pro-slavery President Pierce welcomed. This prompted the free-soilers to

form their own militias and create their own Constitutions. With the situation spiralling

out of control, the border ruffians moved to open violence. A series of isolated murders

were followed by the sacking of free-soil Lawrence on May 21, 1856. In retaliation,

firebrand abolitionist John Brown attacked proslavery settlers on Pottawatomie Creek,

killing 5. Violence escalated until October when a new governor managed to broker a truce. However,

clashes between anti-slavery Jayhawker militia and proslavery Bushwackers continued until 1865.

The Republicans Rise The fallout from the fighting in Kansas

caused a major political realignment. Democratic President Pierce was already isolated after his

political ineptitude alienated everyone else in the party. His unwavering support for the border

ruffians made it worse. Northern and western Democrats blamed Pierce and other pro-slavery

Democrats for the party’s hammering in the 1854 midterms. These western and northern Democrats

began advocating Douglas’ moderate position rather than Pierce’s overt pro-slavery attitude.

Meanwhile, the Whig party already teetered on collapse over supporting the Fugitive Slave

Act. When its leadership also supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the anti-slavery wing

left the party. In Michigan and Wisconsin, they quickly joined forces with existing anti-slavery

third parties and Democrats opposed to slavery’s expansion, to form the Republican Party. By 1856,

the Whigs were gone. As the Republicans gained strength across the North, southerners began

panicking. The Republican platform of defending free soilers in Kansas, preventing slavery in

every other territory, and ending Slave Power’s domination of national politics ran counter to

everything the South believed in and stood for. The South immediately framed Republicans as

literal monsters who threatened their way of life. Buchanan Makes It Worse

The temperature continued to rise during the 1856 presidential campaign. The Republicans

nominated the explorer and soldier John C. Frémont . After a lengthy convention fight,

the Democrats nominated James Buchanan. He was sold to non-Southerners as an experienced

diplomat whose conciliatory nature would heal wounds within the party and the nation. However,

these were mere obfuscations. Despite his long diplomatic career, Buchanan had never

held a decision-making position. In truth, he was a people-pleaser who hated confrontation,

shirked responsibility, and avoided decision-making. His loyalty to Southern

interests won Buchanan the nomination, not his qualities. Despite being Pennsylvanian,

Buchanan had long sought to expand US territory and influence in the Caribbean and South America

to benefit slavery and was willing to go along with any pro-slavery demand. This was everything

the Southern Democrats wanted in a candidate, to the frustration of the rest of the party.

The 1856 election was bitter, as the Deep South threatened to secede if Frémont won.

The Democrats campaigned on Frémont being the physical manifestation of Southern fears and the

secession threat. Frémont ran on preventing slavery’s spread and Pierce’s acceptance of

the fraudulent pro-slavery government in Kansas. Fear of conflict allowed Buchanan to win handily,

but he quickly caused a wildfire. The Dred Scott Decision

During this time, the United States Supreme Court was dominated by southerners, most with

slaveholding families. A few days before his inauguration, one Justice told Buchanan about

the upcoming ruling in Dred Scott vs Sandford . As the southern majority hoped, Buchanan immediately

pushed Justice Robert Grier, a fellow Pennsylvanian, to join the majority and

allow Chief Justice Robert Taney to issue the sweeping ruling he wanted without appearing

sectarian. On March 6, 1857, two days after Buchanan mentioned it in his Inaugural Address,

Taney released the worst ruling in American legal history. The original, pre-Buchanan opinion ruled

that Scott had no standing to sue as a slave, and so the Court voided the suit. However, Taney added

the sweeping conclusion that only whites were or could be citizens, the Missouri Compromise was

unconstitutional, and slavery had to be allowed in the territories. Taney intended this to be the

end of the slavery issue, making it a matter of settled law, not a political question. Instead,

it was the Civil War’s point of no return. The ruling was lauded by the slaveholding states and

condemned by everyone else. Northerners seized on Justice Benjamin Curtis’ 87-page dissent,

which detailed all the case law and American history clearly showing that black people were and

had always been American citizens, evidence Taney deliberately ignored. Furthermore, overturning the

Missouri Compromise was so far outside the bounds of Dred Scott’s case that the only reason to even

consider it was Taney’s personal opinion. This was the final straw for northerners,

including a previously obscure one-term Congressman named Abraham Lincoln. Republicans

and northern Democrats pointed to Buchanan’s improper involvement in the case as proof that

Slave Power would stop at nothing to impose slavery nationwide. They were already using

violence to force slavery on Kansas, and now the pro-slavery president had conspired with southern

judicial activists to enshrine it nationally. The North rejected the Dred Scott Decision, and

support for the Republicans increased, especially as Buchanan did nothing to ease tensions or dispel

accusations against himself. The confrontation was now inevitable. The North would not compromise on

slavery in the territories. John Brown’s Raid

One man wanted that confrontation to be bloody and soon, and that man was none other than John Brown.

The firebrand abolitionist had been fighting the Bushwackers in Kansas while leading raids

into Missouri to liberate slaves and was now looking to liberate every slave in America. He

planned to seize the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia and use it to arm escaped slaves

for a righteous slave rebellion, purging slavery with blood and fire. While he received financial

support from prominent abolitionists, there’s little evidence his backers knew the full extent

of his plan. On October 16, 1859, Brown and 21 followers successfully seized Harpers Ferry.

However, no slaves arrived to reinforce him. Brown had dispatched messengers to nearby plantations,

but it’s not clear if they actually told anyone to join Brown. Isolated,

Brown was quickly surrounded by armed citizens and was captured by Marines commanded by a

certain Colonel Robert E. Lee on October 18. After that, he was subsequently hanged.

As Dred Scott had set the North’s will to fight, Harper’s Ferry ignited the South’s. Brown’s plan

was the sum of all Southern fears, and the fact that many northerners called Brown a martyr only

confirmed that narrative. Southern minds were now set: If the Republicans ever came to power,

it would mean the death of the South. They’d have to fight for slavery and, by extension,

their own survival. The 1860 Election

It was under this cloud that the 1860 Presidential campaign began. Lincoln had shown himself to be a

moderate during the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas Debates and subsequent speeches and secured the Republican

nomination after three ballots. It was hoped that his nomination would show Southerners that

the Republicans weren’t crazed fanatics while appealing to the average Northerner. Meanwhile,

the Democratic Convention was in chaos. Douglas was nominated after 59 ballots and a venue

change , but only after all the Southern delegates stormed out after the convention

rejected their plank of extending slavery to all territories, whether they’d voted for it

or not. These Southern Democrats formed their own convention and nominated their own candidate, Vice

President John Breckinridge. Those disaffected with the Republicans and Democrats nominated a

fourth candidate, John Bell. Consequently, Lincoln won the Electoral College handily, though not the

popular vote, despite more secession threats. Secession Crisis

Throughout the campaign, Lincoln had unambiguously stated that the president didn’t have the power

to end slavery unilaterally, and he would not touch slavery where it already existed. However,

paranoid Southerners refused to believe it. To them, the incoming Republican-controlled Congress

was a dagger to slavery’s throat. Consequently, frantic slaveowners prepared to carry out their

secession threat. On December 10, Buchanan made his final State of the Union address to

Congress. He stated that while secession was not Constitutional, the Federal government lacked the

power to prevent it. The South was outraged that he denied secession’s legality, and the

North was outraged that he intended to do nothing. Meanwhile, Buchanan ignored his Southern-staffed

cabinet supplying secessionists with weapons and money. Ten days later, South Carolina declared

secession through an Ordinance adopted at a special convention. By February, six other states

had adopted similar measures despite internal resistance . On February 8, southern leaders

drafted a constitution in Montgomery, Alabama and declared the formation of the Confederate

States of America under President Jefferson Davis . Texas governor Sam Houston, already

strongly anti-secession, refused to swear loyalty to the Confederacy and was removed from office.

Federal Property and Ft. Sumter Across the South, forts, arsenals,

and other property owned by the Federal government were located on federally owned land. However,

most were only maintained by a few caretakers. The US Army only totalled 15,000 personnel,

most of whom were stationed to protect Western settlers. Taking advantage,

secessionist militia seized Federal property. Northerners demanded a response, but yet again,

Buchanan did nothing. As such, individual officers began taking their own initiative. On January 8,

1861, a secessionist mob attempted to seize Ft. Barrancas in Pensacola. The officer-on-duty,

Lt. Adam Slemmer, ordered them to disperse and then fired on them. Two days later, following

Florida’s secession, his superiors surrendered the naval yard and joined the secessionists.

Realizing that Barrancas and Fort McRee were indefensible, Slemmer destroyed all the weapons

and supplies that couldn’t be moved and retreated to nearby Ft. Pickens , whose position was more

defensible. Further south, the Navy reinforced its bases in the Florida Keys while evacuating ships

from southern ports. Pickens would be resupplied from there in April, and these forts remained in

federal positions throughout the war. However, it would be Charleston Harbor

that decided the issue. Charleston was defended by a federal arsenal,

and a number of fortifications were commanded by Major Robert Anderson in Fort Moultrie . The War

Department had ordered all garrisons to hold position and defend themselves if attacked,

but Moultrie wasn’t designed to defend against a landward assault. On December 26th, Anderson

abandoned Moultrie for the more defensible Ft. Sumter in the middle of the harbour. The next day,

South Carolina militias seized Castle Pinckney. Moultrie and other fortifications were captured

alongside the arsenal on the 28th, placing Anderson in an undeclared siege. Buchanan

refused to cede or to overtly support Sumter. Instead, he dispatched the civilian steamer Star

of the West to reinforce and resupply Anderson on January 9th. Anderson didn't know about Star’s

mission until rebel batteries fired on it. By the time he was ready to provide covering fire,

Star had fled. Having made a halfhearted attempt, Buchanan decided Sumter was Lincoln’s problem.

War! Following rumoured assassination

plots in Baltimore, Lincoln snuck into DC for his March 4th inauguration. In his inaugural address,

Lincoln pledged to defend Federal property, reiterated that he would not interfere with

slavery in the South, and promised not to fire the first shot. Davis had created a

Provisional Confederate Army on February 28 and dispatched PGT Beauregard to take command

in Charleston. On March 6th, he called for 100,000 volunteers to defend the Confederacy.

The two sides attempted to negotiate, but their positions were irreconcilable. Lincoln would not

recognize the Confederacy, they would not back off on Ft. Sumter. Consequently, Lincoln began

arraigning for another, more secretive resupply mission. Confederate spies reported this to Davis,

who authorized Beauregard to reduce Sumter if Anderson wouldn’t surrender. The ultimatum was

refused on April 11, and at 04:30 on April 12, the bombardment began. The two sides exchanged

ineffective fire until 14:00 on April 14, when Anderson ran out of ammunition and surrendered.

Opening Moves This heroic defense

stirred the patriotism of the North. The Union was under threat by rebels who’d fired the first

shot. The next day, Lincoln declared the South to be in open rebellion and called for 75,000

volunteers to serve for 90 days to put it down. Upper South secessionists used this as an excuse

to reopen secession, and four more states joined the Confederacy. Virginia’s secession doubled

Confederate industrial capacity and significantly increased its manpower, but its secession wasn’t

wholehearted. Its Appalachian counties were strongly Unionist and detested the tidewater

slaveholders. Consequently, the Unionists established a rival government in Wheeling.

To solidify Confederate control, the capital was moved from Montgomery to Richmond on May 29.

Meanwhile, many existing Federal and State regiments were marching toward Washington while

volunteers rushed to recruiting stations. This caused Maryland secessionists to panic, and on

April 19 a Baltimore mob attacked regiments moving through the city. In response, Lincoln ordered

Baltimore occupied, habeas corpus suspended, and anyone with proven or suspected secessionist ties

arrested. Maryland wouldn’t be given the chance to secede. Simultaneously, George McClellan led

Ohio volunteers to support the Wheeling government and successfully retake Western Virginia. Lincoln

believed that the rest of the South was like the western Virginians, and once Federal troops

appeared and defeated the rebels, they’d return to the Union. Davis likewise assumed that the North

would give up once the actual fighting started. First Battle of Bull Run

By July, about 35,000 soldiers were camped around Washington, the largest army ever assembled in

North America. However, its training, equipment, and discipline were so poor its commander,

Brigadier General Irvin McDowell, considered it more mob than army. However, he had no time to

fix these problems before their 90-day enlistments started expiring. Besides, everyone knew that the

war would be over with one decisive battle. Pushed by Lincoln and expiring enlistments,

McDowell moved to attack Beauregard’s 21,000 men camped near Manassas Junction on July 16.

His plan called for three columns to distract, pin, and finally flank the rebels, crushing them

before driving on Richmond, ending the war. A separate column of 18,000 was to pin Joseph

Johnston’s 10,000 men in the Shenandoah Valley. McDowell’s march was so disorganized that it took

five days to march the 37 miles to Centerville, where Beauregard had prepared defensive positions

behind Bull Run. Meanwhile, Johnston had slipped past the fixing troops and was transporting his

men by railway to support Beauregard. Finding Beauregard’s center and right too fortified to

assault directly, McDowell instead flanked the unfortified left. The march started at 02:30,

but the inexperienced soldiers got tangled up and didn’t make the ford until 09:30. Meanwhile,

Beauregard’s headquarters in Wilmer McClean’s house were hit by artillery fire at 05:15. He

ordered a pinning attack on the Union left in response, but his commanders thought they were

orders only to prepare an attack, and most never engaged. By 10:00, 20,000 Union troops

were moving up the Confederate left flank. 3800 Confederates delayed them until 11:30 when the

line broke. McDowell then halted to organize his mob, which proved disastrous. Delaying allowed

Thomas Jackson’s brigade to move into position and repel the attack until reinforcements arrived,

earning Thomas the nickname Stonewall Jackson. Fighting raged across Henry

Hill for the next four hours until Johnston finished arriving at 16:00 and attacked the

Union’s right flank, forcing their retreat. McDowell’s army retreated in good order until

a wagon overturned and blocked Cub Creek Run Bridge. Panic spread through the army, probably

started by the numerous civilians picnicking while watching the battle, and didn’t stop routing until

it reached Washington. The rebels didn’t pursue it as they didn’t realize they’d won the battle.

Of the 70000 soldiers in the area, only 36000 had engaged, suffering 4700 total casualties.

Both sides finally realized this war would be far harder and costlier than anticipated.

In our next episode, the Union will miss its best chance for an early end to the war. To

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