Interpret the Evidence and Put It in Context

1. How does John Beauchamp Jones describe the participants in the Richmond bread protest (Document 13.1)? What did Beauchamp report that the protesters took? How did Jefferson Davis attempt to stop the riot?

2. How did Mrs. Statts (Document 13.2) describe the New York City draft riots? How does she depict the rioters and the police? What could Statts and other victims do to protect themselves from the rioters? Why did the white protesters target African Americans?

3. Why did Clement L. Vallandigham disagree with the U.S. government’s decision to continue the war (Document 13.3)? How did he characterize the war’s progress?

4. Why did the North Carolina peace advocates argue against continuing the war (Document 13.4)? What did they hope to gain in a settlement? Do you think their demands were realistic? Why or why not?

5. How had the realities of the war changed Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas’s (Document 13.5) outlook on the Confederate effort? Had she come to sympathize with the Union? Why did she view the idea of arming slaves as problematic?

1. How did the Americans represented in this set of documents express their opposition to the war and its consequences? What did the protesters and dissenters have in common? How did their causes and beliefs differ? What were the ramifications of opposition to the war or protest against the war?

2. How did the individuals portrayed in these documents balance personal interests and wartime goals? How might personal goals—of protesters and politicians, of citizens in the North and in the South—have influenced the trajectory of the war?