We are to remember that, though the war was caused by slavery, it was not at first about slavery, but about secession. "Our States are sovereign, and have a right to secede when they think they have reason," was the Southern view of the matter. "You are a part of the Union, which forms but one nation, and to break up the Union is rebellion," was the Northern view. But the passions excited by the bitter debate over questions relating to slavery lay at the bottom of the struggle. Neither side dreamed of the long and bloody conflict that was to follow. Each expected to settle the matter in two or three battles. Both of them found out what stubborn work it was to fight against Americans.

The Southerners were naturally more military than the Northern people; they were generally accustomed to the saddle and the use of firearms. Many of the Northern soldiers, especially those of the Eastern States, had to learn to load and fire a gun after they went into the army. For a long war the North had several advantages. Money, trade, and the mechanical facilities for producing arms, ships, clothing, and other military necessities, belonged in a superior degree to the North. The North had also the advantage of numbers; the South the advantage of fighting in defense of its own ground.

The divided sympathies of the people in the border States, and the quick sending forward of volunteers from the North by many railroads, prevented Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri from seceding. In the western part of Virginia, where the slaves were few, the Union sentiment was strong, and this region, after a while, separated itself from Virginia and formed a new State, which took the name of West Virginia. The failure to secure the border region was a serious loss to the Confederacy, for this was a land of American Indian corn, most valuable for the feeding of armies. The South thus lost also the Ohio and Potomac rivers—the best line of defense.

The war opened with several small actions, such as the seizure of ports and navy yards by the Confederates, the attack on Union troops by a mob in Baltimore, several skirmishes in different parts of the country, and battles in the mountains of Virginia. The Confederates had moved their capital from Montgomery, Ala., to Richmond, Va., and the first important battleground would lie between the two capitals. So sure were the people of a short war, that most of the Northern volunteers had been called out for only three months, and it was thought necessary to fight a battle before their time should expire. The people and newspapers at the North were clamoring for a forward movement.

Union General Irvin McDowell moved toward Richmond, and on the 21st of July, 1861, the Battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, was fought, chiefly by raw troops on both sides. Generals Joseph E. Johnston and P.G.T. Beauregard commanded the Confederates. The battle was a severe one and the losses were heavy, but the Confederates were reinforced at the right moment, and the Union army was at length entirely routed, and fled back to Washington in confusion.

The first important movement after Bull Run was the campaign which broke the Confederate line at the West, and gave the Mississippi River above Vicksburg to the control of the Federal government. Union General Ulysses S. Grant, who had already begun to show good military abilities, moved against Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River, in co-operation with the gunboat fleet under Union Commodore Andrew Hull Foote. Grant and Foote captured Fort Henry February 6, 1862. The Tennessee River here runs near to the Cumberland River. On the Cumberland River, only about twelve miles from Fort Henry, was the Confederate Fort Donelson. After a stubborn battle, in which the Union loss was twenty-three hundred soldiers, this fort was also surrendered, and with it fifteen thousand Confederate troops. This broke the center of the Confederate line of defense in the West, and forced them to fall back from Nashville and other points.

Union General John Pope, supported by gunboats, now moved against the Confederates who blocked the Mississippi at New Madrid and Island No. lo. New Madrid was evacuated, but, in order to capture Island No. lo, Pope, who was on the west side of the river, must cross below the island and cut off its supplies. As the batteries on the island blocked the river, he had to dig a canal across a bend in the river in order to get transport boats below the island, so as to ferry across the Mississippi. It took nineteen days to cut this canal. Gunboats could not get through it, and the transports could not cross without their protection. Two gunboats were run past the batteries of the island at night. Cut off on all sides, the island was compelled to surrender, with nearly seven thousand soldiers.

The object of the Union troops in attacking Island No. 10 had been to take a step toward getting possession of the Mississippi River, so as to get the use of this great highway, and thus separate the Confederacy into two parts. For the same purpose the forces under General Grant, after taking Fort Donelson, pushed southward up the Tennessee River, and a movement was planned to take Corinth, in the northern part of Mississippi. Many railroads centered at this place. The Union army, under General Grant, was gathered near Corinth, at Pittsburg Landing, in Tennessee, on the banks of the Tennessee River. Grant had from thirty to forty thousand soldiers, and had no thought of a powerful enemy near at hand. The Confederate general, Albert Sidney Johnston, rapidly collected a strong army and determined to crush the force at the Landing before Grant could be reinforced by the arrival of another army under Union General Don Carlos Buell.

The Battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, began on Sunday morning, April 6, 1862. Johnston undertook to attack in such a way as to surprise and drive Grant's army back between the river and a creek. The loss on that dreadful Sunday was great on both sides. The Confederates, with desperate energy, drove Grant's soldiers back until Pittsburg Landing was almost in their possession. But their general, Albert Sidney Johnston, was killed. Buell's army began to arrive, and the Union troops were re-formed in the night. The second day's fighting was also extremely severe. The exhausted Confederates under Beauregard at length retired from the field. This was the first great battle of the war.

The Union army, when it had a little recovered from the terrible shock and had been recruited, moved forward against Corinth, which, after a siege, was evacuated by Beauregard on the 30th of May. The consequence of this success was, that the whole Mississippi River, as far down as Vicksburg, came into possession of the Federal authorities.