Use of the Term "Civil War"

[Dreamer42]

I am in the middle of reading U.S. Grant's memoirs and noticed how often he refers to the civil war as the late rebellion; war of rebellion, or simply, rebellion when mentioning officers in the Mexican War who later became famous in the Civil War. My question is what was the dominant word usage by that generation when refering to the war, and about when was "Civil War" begun to be used (almost) exclusively? Almost everyone today uses "Civil War", and president Lincoln used it in his Gettysburg Address, but it is not capitalized.
I intend on going back to my collection of other memoirs and checking what terms are used. I was wondering if anyone else has done the same?

- Jay Reid
Dreamer42
9th Texas

[David Fox]

Re: Use of the Term "Civil War"

I've made a years' long informal study of the use of "Civil War" to describe the, uh, Civil War. I've collected scores of references anticipating the struggle, made during the war, and after the war using the term, expecting someday to write an article. Jefferson Davis, years before 1861 but describing an oncoming sectional war called it a civil war. In January, 1861 Robert E. Lee wrote of the impending "strife and civil war". Southern newspaperman Edward Pollard writing a history of the war, a book published in Richmond, Virginia, in 1862, called it a civil war. Numerous southerners as well as northerners during and after the war called it the Civil War. In the dedication of Robert E. Lee's mausoleum 28 June, 1883, ex-Confederate major John W. Daniel gave the primary address before an assemblage of Confederate veterans, including two lieutenant generals. He called it the "civil war". a South Carolina reenactment unit to which I belonged once charged a penalty of 25 cents each time a member used the term "civil war", prefering, of course, "War Between the States". If General Lee or President Davis had belonged, they'd have had to tote a pocketful of quarters to each event. In spite of the trendy use of War Between the States here in the South, I personally have never seen reference to that awkward title to the war attached to it before or during the war by the participants. It may have been used, but I've not seen it documented. I've never much cared for "WBTS" as it is so awkward and inadequate. For which State did my Great Grandaddy Fox fight when he became the first casualty of the 7th Virginia (Union) Infantry in October, 1861, long before there was a West Virginia? For which State did Kentucky, Missouri, Indiana, or Maryland Confederates fight? Or Union North Carolinians, or Colorado Territory Volunteers or Washington DC cavalrymen?

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Use of the Term "Civil War"

There was a resolution by Congress in the 1920's declaring WBTS as the official term. 1928-41

Chris Rideout

edited: maybe not...it doesnt show up in Heins CRR...hmmm

edited second time: Found it.....not on point. So much for CW Book of Lists.

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: Use of the Term "Civil War"

Like Mr. Fox, I have found the phraseology to lean more to "civil war." For example, my primary planter research centers on Richard Eppes. He said late in 1860 that businessmen in Petersburg were " very gloomy at the present position of political affairs every one seems to anticipate a dissolution of the Union & perhaps civil war God protect us from such a calamity." (Friday Dec: 28th 1860, Richard Eppes, Diary, Mss1Ep734d296, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia). A fellow James River planter, John A. Selden said at the beginning of May 1861 "An awful civil war seems inevitable." (John A. Selden, Diary, Mss1Se487a1, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia). Another James River planter, James M. Willcox wrote to an unidentified "dear, dear friend" on the 24th of April 1861 about "civil war." (James M. Willcox, Papers 1831-1871 Box 1, Duke University, Special Collections, Durham, North Carolina).

Dolly Lunt Burge, a widowed slaveholder in Georgia noted at the close of 1861 "Our once united and prosperous country is in the midst of civil war." (The Diary of Dolly Lunt Burge, 1848-1879, University of Georgia Press, 2006, page 122). Mary Chesnut frequently uses "civil war" in her diary.

Ok that's just a sampling.

I typed in "war between the states" in Google Books limiting my search to 1860-1866. Unfortunately while there are oer 4700 hits, some are related to British stuff and others I see are Peloponnesian War. So you may have to do some sifting.

[Andy Ackeret]

Re: Use of the Term "Civil War"

deleted by poster

[Dale Beasley]

Re: Use of the Term "Civil War"

I read an article on the subject several years ago, and really the only thing that I remembered was that "there is nothing civil about war".

[David Fox]

Re: Use of the Term "Civil War"

Well, as civil wars go, ours was extraordinarily civil. For the most part, I submit we may be proud of our ancestors' deportment.

[Silas]

Re: Use of the Term "Civil War"

There is a legal perspective which has not been addressed. For it to be a "war," there needed to be two independent nations. For it to be a "rebellion," there needed to be one nation where a portion or more was not in conformity with the primary nation. To say which is which depends upon one's perspective.

A good example is Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. He lacked power over persons in the supposedly independent Southern nation, but he sure had executive authority held in places where rebellion was then existing to free slaves. He lacked such authority to free slaves in slave states and portions thereof which were not in rebellion when the proclamation took effect.

Another is Lincoln's rebuke to Meade when the ANV escaped to Virginia after the debackle at Gettysburg. Meade reported something to the effect that the rebel army had returned to its own country. Lincoln replied something to his secretary like, "doesn't he understand? It's all our country."

Lincoln could not refer to the Southern states as a country because it would have been to recognize or give full standing to a new Southern nation in the eyes in the international community and allow full diplomatic relations with powers such as the U.K., France and Spain.

It would not surprise me to learn that recollections from the blue participants would more likely refer to the conflict as a rebellion while gray participants as a war. As time and the veterans passed, the legal significance of rebellion verses war is going to blur. The brief sample noted in prior thread conforms to this theory.

[Justin Runyon]

Re: Use of the Term "Civil War"

To entirely convolute Silas' post re: war vs. rebellion. According the the congressional commision charged with compiling the records of the conflict after the fact, the term is "War of the Rebellion" This remains the official Govt. terminology for the conflict, though the University of Chicago style guide (the acceped style guide for the field of History) says that "American Civil War" is the current accepted nomenclature. The above two terms are the only ones that I have ever used, or have ever been acceptable, with regards to current academic standards.

[Auld Pelty]

Re: Use of the Term "Civil War"

The question refers to the "usage by that generation" when referring to the War. Obviously, Confederates and former Confederates would not be calling the war a "rebellion". In the South, diplomacy is common place and often misunderstood or not appreciated by Northerners. I am searching for some quotes, some documentation, like the one for Grant mentioned in the original post. Many Confederates wrote about the War also.

[hiplainsyank]

Re: Use of the Term "Civil War"

I was surprised when in c. 1990 on a college choir tour in which we had a stop in Charleston when one of the women of the church at which we were singing at that evening, while she was on our bus giving us a guided tour of the city, referred to the war as the "Recent Unpleasantness" a mere 130 years after the last shots were fired! I had read of the term before but did not know until then it was still a living term. I have always wondered if any of my fellow choir members understood what in the world she was talking about.

My point to this discussion being, does anyone know when did this more "exotic" term came into usage? It sounds like post-war to me, perhaps emanating from the Lost Cause mythology...

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: Use of the Term "Civil War"

Well, I guess I had not immediately thought about my own interest in Southern construction of the war as to how they referred to it. However, from the Union perspective, perhaps it is useful to think about as Justin suggests the terminology may be interchangeable. Example: On February 18, 1862, Maria Daly of New York (a Northern Democrat) wrote that with the fall of Fort Donelson she belived that "[t]he rebellion is at last beginning to sucuumb." After griping about Abraham and Mary Lincoln and noting the death of Prince Albert a couple months before she said that the "civil war" was raging (page 106, Maria Lydig Daly, Diary of a Union Lady, 1861-1865, University of Nebraska Press, 2000).

Federal combatant Charles Harvey Brewster in a spring 1862 letter used the term "civil war." However, in other letters he also used "rebellion." (See When This Cruel War is Over: The Civil War Letters of Charles Harvey Brewster edited by David W. Blight, University of Massachusetts Press, 1992).

Just more food for thought.

[David Fox]

Re: Use of the Term "Civil War"

Besidecalling it a "civil war', Southrons tended, especially early-on,to call their struggle "the second war for independence", "Second American Revolution", or variations thereof. As to Northern use of "War of the Rebellion", recall the contemporary Confederate doggeral: "Then call us rebels if you will / we glory in the name / for bending under unjust laws / and swearing faith to an unjust cause / could bring no greater shame". Being rebels fighting a rebellion was a sometime source of Southron pride.

As to whether it was actually a war, well sure it was; no less than the Korean War, the Viet Nam War, or the current Afghan War. None of these latter conflicts were declared or otherwise meet or met the arcane usages of international law or diplomatic niceties, but if you were getting shot at in any one of them, you'd not be confused on the nomenclature.

[Auld Pelty]

Re: Use of the Term "Civil War"

I can understand why Southerners would take pride in being called rebels. The Brits called their grandparents rebels. I believe the term, The War for Southern Indpendence, was commonly used by Confederates, but citing sources is important. The Late (recent) Unpleasantness points to my earlier post about Southern views. They lost the War, Reconstruction was harsh, and most former Confederates and their children did not want to talk about it. One of my grandmothers knew her Confederate grandparents well, but when I asked her if either of her grandfathers served in the War, she told me that she did not know. That was because she did not want to discuss the subject and I am certain she did not care what yankees called it.

[Dreamer42]

Re: Use of the Term "Civil War"

Still wanting to contuinue with my initial post regarding (the Civil War) generation's usage of civil war vs. war or rebellion. Thanks for the replies.

But Silas just reminded me of a question I often wondered. Unlike the French Revolution, the American Civil War gives an example of how the southern states wanted to leave the U.S., not overthrow it. I suppose the same could be said of our Revolution in the 18th century. But I guess I digress.
Others mentioned that the south would abstain from using the "rebellion" term, although there was strong comparrison by the Confederacy as "...our second revolution," which was obviously an action of rebellion against the British.

- Jay Reid
Dreamer42
9th Texas