Georgia and South Carolina
Research for Belcher and Related Surnames
The causes of the war were a complex series of events, including slavery, that began long before the first shot was fired. Competing nationalisms, political turmoil, the definition of freedom, the preservation of the Union, the fate of slavery and the structure of our society and economy could all be listed as significant contributing factors in America's bloodiest conflict.
Not all slaves were blacks.
At Jamestown, Va. in 1611 a group of White Scottish women and children were sold as slaves, 7 years later in Jamestown the first Africans were sold in slavery. From 1611 until 1865 people from virtually every society on earth were sold into slavery in North America. Citizens in each of the thirteen colonies enslaved people, but slavery was viewed as a southern institution after the early 1800's. Along the coastal areas of the South a majority of the slaves were black. In some inland areas whites and Native Americans outnumbered black slaves.
Slavery is still legal in the United States as a criminal punishment, but is not practiced.
a simple view of the civil war causes.
Complaints of Georgians
Many of the problems Georgians saw more than one hundred fifty years ago are being reiterated today. The federal government. High taxes (tariffs before the war). A growing government unwilling to listen to law abiding citizens. Sound familiar? They were complaints levied from 1816 on in Georgia.
As industry in the North expanded it looked towards southern markets, rich with cash from the lucrative agricultural business, to buy the North's manufactured goods. However, it was often cheaper for the South to purchase the goods abroad. In order to "protect" the northern industries Jackson slapped a tariff on many of the imported goods that could be manufactured in the North. When South Carolina passed the Ordinance of Nullification in November 1832, refusing to collect the tariff and threatening to withdraw from the Union, Jackson ordered federal troops to Charleston. A secession crisis was averted when Congress revised the Tariff of Abominations in February 1833
The Panic of 1837 and the ensuing depression began to gnaw like a hungry animal on the flesh of the American system. The disparity between northern and southern economies was exacerbated. Before and after the depression the economy of the South prospered. Southern cotton sold abroad totaled 57% of all American exports before the war. The Panic of 1857 devastated the North and left the South virtually untouched. The clash of a wealthy, agricultural South and a poorer, industrial North was intensified by abolitionists who were not above using class struggle to further their cause.
By the time Buchanan was elected(1856) the country was divided on many issues, including slavery
The new Republican Party became a home to the alienated abolitionists. Although they totaled less than 3% of the population at large, they formulated the Republican platform to include the abolition of slavery as a plank. The party then nominated Abraham Lincoln for president. Few gave him any chance of success, but 3 other candidates split the popular vote and Lincoln won. Convinced that Lincoln would ruin the South economically, possibly by freeing the slaves, the heartland of the South withdrew from the Union
With the invention of the cotton gin (1793) by Eli Whitney, Georgia began to prosper as a cotton-growing state. Cotton was grown under the plantation system with labor supplied by slaves. By the 1840s a textile industry was established in the state. Although Georgia was committed to slavery before the Civil War, state leaders opposed secession. However, successive defeats on the national scene, culminating in the election of Lincoln as president, fostered separatist sentiment in the state.
On Jan. 19, 1861, Georgia seceded from the Union and shortly afterward joined the Confederacy The coast was soon blockaded by the Union navy, and in Apr., 1862, Fort Pulaski (which had been seized by the state in Jan., 1861) was recaptured by Union forces. Georgia became a major Civil War battlefield when, in 1864, Union Gen. W. T. Sherman launched his successful.
Atlanta campaign, On Nov. 15, 1864, Sherman set fire to Atlanta, and his subsequent march through Georgia to the sea, culminating in the fall (Dec.) of Savannah, left in its path a scene of great destruction.
Belchers in Georgia Civil War
O'Dells in Georgia Civil War
Ramey's in Georgia Civil War
