MIDTERM EXAM ESSAY QUESTIONS
The Civil War

You may use a single 4" x 8" index card, to jot down important events, names, dates, places, etc., to use while typing your essay. You must turn this card in to your instructor after you have submitted your typed exam.

You will write/type a total of 2 essays.

The following questions are actual exam questions. Of the three questions in Section A, two will be on the exam. You will choose one of the two questions to write your essay. (If you prepare for at least two of the questions, you will be assured that one of the two you've prepared for will be on the exam.) Of the two questions in Section B, both will be on the exam. You will choose one of the two questions to write your essay.

Your discussion should be detailed and well organized. Be sure to answer the question and back your position with facts. You should take a moment to draft a brief outline of your answer. Do NOT write your essays in the first person. (except Section A Question 2)

  1. When Frederick Douglass, having described the physical beauty of America, says, "I am filled with utter loathing," he is driven by his hatred of the experiences of slavery that he personally had known. How, if he felt that way, could Douglass have been so ardent a supporter of a war to save that America?
  2. If you had been President of the United States in the winter of 1861, what strategy would you have followed to isolate the seven Deep South states that had seceded so as to insure the failure of the rebellion?
  3. Why was disease the major killer of soldiers in the Civil War? Do you think this could have been controlled or avoided?
  4. Ulysses S. Grant regarded the Battle of Shiloh as a pivotal moment in his awareness of what the Civil War truly was. What was his conclusion? What caused him to see the war in this new way?

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    Section B

  5. Barbara Fields says in the television program, "The slaves understood that war was about slavery before it was a war ...They made a nuisance for the army and they also made an issue that the army had to deal with. And if the army had to deal with it, the War Department had to deal with it. If the War Department had to deal with it, Congress had to deal with it. That means that every fugitive slave who made a nuisance of himself to the local commander eventually made a figure of himself to the Congress of the United States." Ponder what she means and write an essay about it.
  6. When President Jefferson Davis called for more troops, the governor of Georgia simply refused. Vice President Alexander Stephens spent only a fraction of his time away from his native state of Georgia and in Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. Do you think the South had created a nation in the Confederate States of America, or was the doctrine of states' rights, which Southerners had so long championed, dominant?
  7. Abraham Lincoln said, "Vicksburg is the key. The war can never be brought to a close until the key is in our pocket." Jefferson Davis said, "Vicksburg is the nailhead that held the South's two halves together." Explain why both North and South saw Vicksburg as crucial.
  8. President Lincoln, using his war powers, took strong measures to deal with dissent during the war. Do you think he was justified in abrogating civil rights? Defend your position, referring to specific actions of the president.