The Union is a term used to refer to the federal government and loyal states of the United States during the American Civil War. Its military forces and civilian population resisted the secession of the Southern slave states that formed the Confederate States of America following the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States. Lincoln's administration asserted the permanency of the federal government and the continuity of the United States Constitution, and it refused to recognize the Confederate government.
Many Americans in the 19th century commonly used the term "the Union" to mean either the federal government of the United States or the unity of the states within the federal constitutional framework. The Union can also refer to the people or territory of the states that remained loyal to the national government during the war. The loyal states located mostly north of the Mason–Dixon line were also known as the "North", although four southern border states and West Virginia, when it became a state during the war, remained loyal to the Union, and many Black Southerners (both free and enslaved) and Southern Unionists opposed secession and supported the Union war effort.
The Northeast and Midwest provided the industrial resources for a mechanized war, producing large quantities of munitions and supplies and financing the war. They also provided a vast majority of the Union Army soldiers, food, horses, financial support, and training camps. Army hospitals and prison camps were also set up across the Union. Most Northern states had Republican governors who supported the war effort and suppressed anti-war subversion. The Democratic Party supported the war at the beginning in 1861, but by 1862 it split into the War Democrats and the anti-war element known as Peace Democrats, led by the "Copperheads". The Democrats made major electoral gains in 1862 in state elections, most notably in New York. They lost ground in 1863, especially in Ohio. In 1864, the Republicans and War Democrats joined to campaign under the National Union Party banner, which also attracted most soldiers, and scored a landslide victory for Lincoln and his entire ticket against Democratic candidate George B. McClellan.
The war years were quite prosperous except where serious fighting and guerrilla warfare ravaged the countryside. Almost all military actions took place in the Confederacy. Prosperity was stimulated by heavy government spending and the creation of an entirely new national banking system. The Union states invested a great deal of money and effort in organizing psychological and social support for soldiers' wives, widows, and orphans, and for the soldiers themselves. Most soldiers were volunteers, although after 1862 many volunteered in order to escape the draft and to take advantage of generous cash bounties offered by states and localities. Draft resistance was notable in some larger cities, especially in parts of New York City, with its massive anti-draft riots of July 1862 and in some remote districts such as the Coal Region of Northeastern Pennsylvania.
In the context of the American Civil War, the Union, or the United States, is sometimes referred to as "the North", both then and now, while the Confederacy was often called "the South".
The term "Union" occurs in the first governing document of the United States, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. The subsequent Constitution of 1787 was issued and ratified in the name not of the states, but of "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union ..." Union, for the United States of America, is then repeated in such clauses as the Admission to the Union clause in Article IV, Section 3. Even before the Civil War began the phrase "preserve the Union" was commonplace, and a "union of states" had been used to refer to the entire United States of America. Using the term "Union" to apply to the non-secessionist side carried a connotation of legitimacy as the continuation of the pre-existing political entity. Before the American Civil War, the United States was known as the "United States' federal union", a union of states controlled by the federal government in Washington, D.C. This was opposite to the CSA's first government, a confederation of independent states, functioning similarly to the European Union. Confederates generally saw the Union as being opposed to slavery, occasionally referring to them as abolitionists, in reference to the U.S. Navy as the "abolition fleet" and the U.S. Army as "abolition forces".
In 2015, historian Michael Landis called for an end to the use of the term "Union", writing, "The employment of 'Union' instead of 'United States,' implicitly supports the Confederate view of secession wherein the nation of the United States collapsed.... In reality, however, the United States never ceased to exist.... The dichotomy of 'Union v. Confederacy' lends credibility to the Confederate experiment and undermines the legitimacy of the United States as a political entity." In 2021, the Army University Press noted that it was replacing "Union" with "Federal Government" or "U.S. Government", because this was "more historically accurate", as "the term 'Union' always referred to all the states together."
Compared to the Confederacy, the loyal states were more industrialized and urbanized and possessed more advanced commercial, transportation, and financial systems. Additionally, the Union states had a manpower advantage of five to two at the start of the war.
Year by year, the Confederacy shrank and lost control of increasing quantities of resources and population. Meanwhile, the United States turned its growing advantage into a much stronger military force. However, much of the US strength had to be used to garrison former Confederate areas and to protect railroads and other vital points. The loyal states' great advantages in population and industry would prove to be vital long-term factors in its victory over the Confederacy, but it took time for the Union to fully mobilize these resources.
The attack on Fort Sumter rallied the free states to the defense of American nationalism. In 1959, Columbia University historian Allan Nevins wrote:
The thunderclap of Sumter produced a startling crystallization of Northern sentiment.... Anger swept the land. From every side came news of mass meetings, speeches, resolutions, tenders of business support, the muster of companies and regiments, the determined action of governors and legislatures. Russell McClintock states:
At the time, Northerners were right to wonder at the near unanimity that so quickly followed long months of bitterness and discord. It would not last throughout the protracted war to come—or even through the year—but in that moment of unity was laid bare the common Northern nationalism usually hidden by the fierce battles more typical of the political arena."
Historian Michael Smith argues that, as the war ground on year after year, the spirit of American republicanism grew stronger and generated fears of corruption in high places. Voters became afraid of power being centralized in Washington, extravagant spending, and war profiteering. Democratic candidates emphasized these fears. The candidates added that rapid modernization was putting too much political power in the hands of Eastern financiers and industrialists. They warned that the abolition of slavery would bring a flood of freed black people into the labor market of the free states.
Republicans responded with charges of defeatism. They indicted Copperheads for criminal conspiracies to free Confederate prisoners of war and played on the spirit of nationalism and the growing hatred of the slave owners, as the guilty party in the war.
Historians have overwhelmingly praised the "political genius" of Abraham Lincoln's performance as president. His first priority was military victory. This required that he master entirely new skills as a strategist and diplomat. He oversaw supplies, finances, manpower, the selection of generals, and the course of overall strategy. Working closely with state and local politicians, he rallied public opinion and (at Gettysburg) articulated a national mission that has defined America ever since. Lincoln's charm and willingness to cooperate with political and personal enemies made Washington work much more smoothly than Richmond, the Confederate capital, and his wit smoothed many rough edges. Lincoln's cabinet proved much stronger and more efficient than Davis's, as Lincoln channeled personal rivalries into a competition for excellence rather than mutual destruction. With William Seward at State, Salmon P. Chase at the Treasury, and (from 1862) Edwin Stanton at the War Department, Lincoln had a powerful cabinet of determined men. Except for monitoring major appointments and decisions, Lincoln gave them free rein to end the Confederate rebellion.