1862: Civil War Furies

Not everyone sensed it right away, but after McClellan was dethroned in the fall of 1862, the focus of the war had shifted ever so subtly. Before that, the war was about reconciliation and bringing the two sides back together-with or without slavery. After Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation, there was no going back. The purpose of the war had changed. It was no longer about reuniting the two sides but about total victory, crushing the South, and eliminating slavery.

Some said, and still say, that the Emancipation Proclamation was just so much useless paper because it didn't free any slaves right away, but the people who said that missed the point. Lincoln used the Emancipation Proclamation to shift the focus of the war and eliminate objections to administration policy. No longer could the combatants shake hands and go back to things as they were. And the misguided fools who suggested we should give the South what she wanted and split the country into two separate nations were forever quieted.

After 1862 such talk disappeared. Abraham Lincoln was reinventing America.