A light in the storm: the Civil War diary of Amelia Martin by Karen Hesse

Author:Karen Hesse [Hesse, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Children's Books, Juvenile Fiction, Historical, Diaries, History, General & Literary Fiction, United States, 19th Century, Historical - United States - 19th Century, Ages 9-12 Fiction, People & Places, Children: Grades 4-6, USA, Modern fiction, Civil War, Nature & the Natural World, Slavery, Juvenile Historical Fiction, Civil War Period (1850-1877), Islands, 1861-1865, United States - History - Civil War, Delaware, Lighthouses - Fiction, Delaware - History - Civil War, Islands - Fiction, Lighthouses, 1861-1865 - Juvenile fiction, 1861-1865 - Fiction, Slavery - Fiction, Diaries - Fiction
ISBN: 9780590567336
Publisher: New York : Scholastic, 1999.
Published: 1999-08-31T14:00:00+00:00

Historical Note

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The tiny state of Delaware occupied an unusual position

during the Civil War: It was officially a slave state, yet its citizens chose not to join the Confederacy. Instead, Delaware remained in the Union and fought with the North. Small as it

was, the state lay on the border between North and South, between freedom and slavery, and those who lived there found

room for disagreement and division among themselves.

The causes of the Civil War date to the founding of the

United States, when Northern and Southern delegates to

the Constitutional Convention disagreed over slavery. The

framers of the Constitution compromised by writing about

slavery without ever using the words slavery or slaves in their

famous document. As a result, the first seventy years of the

new nation were marked by continual tensions and negotiations between North and South, most notably on the question

of whether or not slavery should be permitted in new territories and in new states admitted to the Union. As the North

moved toward industrialization and wage labor, and the South

developed as an agricultural society supported by staple crops

153

and enslaved labor, the clashes between these vastly different

economic systems grew more intense.

When Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election of

1860, Northerners were ecstatic, for they felt certain that

Lincoln would prevent the Southern states from gaining more

power in Congress. The white South, however, reacted to

Lincoln’s election with alarm because Lincoln believed that

slavery should not spread beyond its present borders. Three

months after the election, the seven states of the lower South

voted to secede from the Union — to leave the United States.

These states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,

Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) formed the Confederate States

of America and elected Jefferson Davis as their own president. The Constitution of the Confederacy was similar to the

Constitution of the United States, but with two significant

differences: states’ rights were strengthened, and the institution of slavery was recognized and protected.

At his inauguration in March 1861, Lincoln assured the

white South that he would not attempt to end slavery in states

where it was already legal. Although Lincoln personally judged

slavery to be morally wrong, he did not believe it was his duty

as president to impose those views on others. Lincoln did

make clear, however, that the federal government would enforce the existing laws of the United States, which meant that

154

the South did not have the constitutional right to secede, and

the formation of the Confederacy was considered an act of

treason. At the same time, because Lincoln’s first resolve was to

preserve the Union, he would not go so far as to declare war.

In his inaugural address, he announced to white Southerners,

“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in

mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. . . . You can have no

conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors.”

Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina,

belonged to the federal government. Lincoln had refused to

surrender the fort to the Confederacy, for to do so would have

condoned secession. But by early April, the United States soldiers stationed there were running out of supplies. Sumter

would either have to be resupplied or evacuated. Lincoln made

a

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