who should have won the american civil war

[Colin1]

Huh, six! Weird, maybe I missed those.

My bad - 7 books
Mercifully, it misses out the last book

Amazon.com: "Worldwar Series by Harry Turtledove"

don't remember any of that cover art...

 

[Messy1]

I have a purely Southern view point, having grown up in the deep South and having at least one ancestor who fought for the Rebel side. I remember clearly "white" and "colored" drinking fountains. I remember thinking how stupid it was when my mother chided me for trying to drink out of a "colored" fountain. My high school was Escambia High, and we were the "Rebels". I had a little Rebel flag on the antenna of my '54 Ford four door, not a cool car! I only did that because my high school mascot was the "Rebels". There was much animosity when integration came and the name had to be changed. That animosity, however, changed in a flash when a young football player named Emmett Smith put on an Escambia uniform.

With unlimited, relatively speaking, industry, manpower, weaponry, materiel, technology, and Navy, the North should have, and did, win. It should have done it much quicker.

The South did have some going-in advantages.

The South was mainly rural and agricultural with little manufacturing capability. It was also a very patriarchal. As a result, it had a high percentage of men who were used to using guns and horses, and was quite adaptable to rigid military discipline (just another family).

The war was mostly fought on home ground. Terrain was familiar and logistics was short.

Up to 1863, Army of Northern Virginia was most likely the best army in the world at that time (as opined by Sir Winston Churchill in his "A History of English-Speaking Peoples"). It had:
Leadership that was aggressive, flexible, imaginative, and loyal. They certainly won the officer draft.
Excellent cavalry
Very good artillery
Disciplined, brave, highly motivated (they were fighting on their home ground), and intensely loyal soldiers.

The North, in the East, had weak leadership that could not even win a battle with the enemy battle plan in hand (Battle of Antietam).

Idiots ran the Northern weapons development program. More aggressive and universal acceptance of the Spenser, Henry, and Gatlin weapons could have easily ended the war much quicker.

Had the North tired and opted out, the results would have been catastropic. Slavery would have ended in the South anyway. It was a barbaric institution and I am imbarrassed as a Southerner that it existed. How could basically good people endure such evil? I think the Confederacy would have evolved into a aparthied system like South Africa. There probably would have been massive emigration into the North of African Americans.

As for the Stars and Bars (Confederate Battle Flag), I am at a puzzlement. As a person who has a history in the Old South, I understand the rememberance of the emotions of the people who fought and died for it, not to perserve slavery, but to defend their homes and their freedoms. On the other hand, I understand the symbology of the horror of slavery, similar to the swastika's symbol for the holocaust. My current opinion, the Stars and Bars has no business flying over a government facility.

Good post davparlr. The last paragraph makes very good sense to me. I agree with you that the Confederate flag should not be flown in today's world.

Also Bill had some good points in his response before this one. Slavery only became a serious point when Lincoln realized that he could no longer ignore the issue totally.

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

My bad - 7 books
Mercifully, it misses out the last book

Amazon.com: "Worldwar Series by Harry Turtledove"

don't remember any of that cover art...

Wait, do you mean the books written by Harry Turtledove, or Newt Gengrich; because I was referring to Newt Gengrich.

 

[Colin1]

Wait, do you mean the books written by Harry Turtledove, or Newt Gengrich; because I was referring to Newt Gengrich.

lol sorry
I mis-read you, I thought that you meant the World War series

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

lol sorry
I mis-read you, I thought that you meant the World War series

Heh, that's okay. I was just confused, thinking I missed more of Gengrich's books. I kind of have a small liking to historical fiction. Ever read Peter Tsoura's "Diaster at D-day"?

 

[Colin1]

I kind of have a small liking to historical fiction.
Ever read Peter Tsoura's "Disaster at D-day"?

It can be clever, entertaining and stimulating if it's done right.

Not read it, if it showed up it would be at the back of a long queue; I have books dotted around the house, all waiting their turn.

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

It can be clever, entertaining and stimulating if it's done right.

Not read it, if it showed up it would be at the back of a long queue; I have books dotted around the house, all waiting their turn.

That's cool. I have a bunch of books that I haven't read, but should.

 

[renrich]

I still believe the War Between the States could have been avoided. Lincoln made a mistake by trying to resupply Fort Sumter. When he tried that, and the guns opened up to prevent it ,the fat was in the fire. Lincoln then called up 75000 troops and Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Arkansas refused to furnish the troops and they finally seceded. If Fort Sumter had not happened and no armed conflict had taken place, without the above mentioned states being in secession, over a period of time reconciliation could have taken place and with some of the bones of contention about states rights settled, the union could have been preserved. There had already been mentioned the federal government buying the slaves and relocating them back to Africa and that could have been implemented for a lot less money than the war cost.

 

[BombTaxi]

I think it would have come to war sooner or later. There would have been an eventual attempt to emancipate the slaves across the nation. This would threaten the entire Southern way of life, as well as bringing issues of state's rights to the fore. Given that there were armed militias available to both sides in Kentucky before the War actually began, and you have a powder keg waiting to be lit.

Also, I believe Lincoln had no choice but to relieve Sumpter. He was being openly defied by a number of states. If he hadn't answered the challenge, I believe he would have been removed and replaced by someone who would. There were two diametrically opposed political and social systems operating in the US by 1861, it seems that they would have to have come to blows sooner rather than later. A similar situation prevailed in England before our Civil Wars 200 years earlier - war was a matter of when, not if.

 

[Amsel]

There were two diametrically opposed political and social systems operating in the US by 1861, it seems that they would have to have come to blows sooner rather than later. A similar situation prevailed in England before our Civil Wars 200 years earlier - war was a matter of when, not if.

Seems like we are heading down the same path again in 2009.

 

[Clay_Allison]

I think it would have come to war sooner or later. There would have been an eventual attempt to emancipate the slaves across the nation. This would threaten the entire Southern way of life, as well as bringing issues of state's rights to the fore. Given that there were armed militias available to both sides in Kentucky before the War actually began, and you have a powder keg waiting to be lit.

Also, I believe Lincoln had no choice but to relieve Sumpter. He was being openly defied by a number of states. If he hadn't answered the challenge, I believe he would have been removed and replaced by someone who would. There were two diametrically opposed political and social systems operating in the US by 1861, it seems that they would have to have come to blows sooner rather than later. A similar situation prevailed in England before our Civil Wars 200 years earlier - war was a matter of when, not if.

A grandfather clause could have emancipated the slaves bloodlessly. "All slaves born after this date are hereby free."

 

[GrauGeist]

The issue of Slavery was a definate hot-point, but the problems that were causing numerous fist-fights in the senate was over States rights and the disproportionate taxes and representation. The North had more representation in Washington than the South because of the higher population in the northern states thus the Southern politicians were outnumbered and this did not help the tensions any.

A high percentage of slaves owners were from the North, and they stood a lot to lose if the slaves were freed, so that was a hotly contested item at the time.

An interesting thing to read, would be the Confederate Constitution and accompanying bills. It's fairly modern in many respects, one thing of note, was the termination of slave importation, either by overseas dealers, or by exchange from the North. Another item of interest was the prohitition of thier elected representatives and heads of state from accepting "gifts and gratuities" over a specific amount, from foreign delegates, heads of state, etc.

 

[BombTaxi]

Clay - there still would have been fighting. The South would not have given up it's slaves, and therefore it's entire socio-economic structure, without a fight. Nor would the individual states surrendered their citizens right to hold slaves to federal authority without a struggle. After all, wasn't State's right to self-government a large part of what the war was about?

Amsel - I hope for all of our sakes that you are wrong. The internecine political strife in the US is bad enough as it is, IMHO, and any worsening of it will simply leave the US open to attack from all of threats it fears the most, as well as removing the country's ability to respond to the current economic situation.

 

[Amsel]

Bomb Taxi, the political strife in the U.S. is bad and will get worse. The very tenents that have caused Americas greatness are under attack. The very peculararities that set us apart from other nations are being attacked and dismantled by a very small minority and their radical judges. It is inevitable as well as it is imperitive that liberty loving Americans stand up for free markets and less taxes. We must fight the growing federal goverments tendancy to want to control every bit of our lives and tax as much money out of us that they can get. Many of our citizens understand that the feds are squandering our hard earned money on unpopular wars, inept social programs, and you name it.

Secession is as real today as it was in the 1850's. The civil war was not about the slaves. It was about the individual states rights to decide what is best for it's own citizens. We are beginning to see movements in states for secession. The most recent being the State of Montana and the State of Vermont with growing secessionist movements. The root cause of the Civil War was the same as the motivation for the American Revolution. If a union with a governing entity is not in the best interest of the people then the union should be dissolved.

"When in the Course of human Events it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another…"

That was not a careless choice of chance words thrown together in a hap hazard manner, those were precise words to describe the exact condition that exists between one party of a political alliance and another.
What our Founding Fathers said, and it was true, is that we are not "bound" in a Political Arrangement, but only "banded" together with the other in a limited agreement. There are certainly limits to such an agreement.

Just as the Colonies were banded to the English Government and Crown, all the States (Independent Nations) that had joined the American Union were banded together, and not bonded together.

Our Colonial Ancestors were banded in a Political Union which could only last for as long as it was mutually agreeable to all parties concerned, and the same is true for the States banded to one another in the American Union which was Legally Formed, and Legally Dissolved.

 

[renrich]

No, he did not have to resupply Sumter. There were already a number of federal installations that had been taken over by the South without any fireworks. It was a very provocative move by Lincoln. Some of the southern states that had not seceded were the most powerful and influential states in the South and there was a lot of sentiment against seccession in the states already seceded. The slave owners in the South were a minority and the non slave owners were only against emancipation because they were afraid of what a bunch of freed slaves might do from a lawlessness point of view. Slavery was already a dying institution in civilised countries and the South was definitely civilised. Cooler heads could have prevailed possibly if Lincoln had kept his cool.

 

[tpikdave]

Arkansas

 

[Amsel]

Arkansas

Sorry, you cut out.

 

[renrich]

Am reading an interesting book, a biography of JEB Stuart. An anecdote in the book caught my eye. Stuart and others had a Christmas Eve dinner in December, 1862, that included turkey, chicken and ham. The dinner almost did not include turkey because some troops, it was suspected to be the Texas Brigade, pilfered some of the turkeys. An armed guard was placed on the turkeys to prevent further pilferage. I had always heard the Texans were famous for foraging. In fact Lee was quoted as saying."When the Texans are out foraging, the chickens have to roost mighty high." Another interesting point in the book. The CSA cavalry soldiers had to furnish their own mounts and were paid 40 cents a day for rent of their horses. The policy was that if a soldier ran out of horses, he was given a furlough to return home to replenish their mounts. Sometimes soldiers were suspected of mistreating their horses so they could take off for home and often, especially in the winter the cavalry units were practically skeleton forces due to the men gone to get horses. Explains why there were not cavalry units in the Army of Northern Virginia from Texas. Another point made was at the beginning of the war, Virginia, Tennessee and Texas had the greatest population of horses in the Confederacy.

 

[Arsenal VG-33]

Another interesting point in the book. The CSA cavalry soldiers had to furnish their own mounts and were paid 40 cents a day for rent of their horses. The policy was that if a soldier ran out of horses, he was given a furlough to return home to replenish their mounts. Sometimes soldiers were suspected of mistreating their horses so they could take off for home and often, especially in the winter the cavalry units were practically skeleton forces due to the men gone to get horses. Explains why there were not cavalry units in the Army of Northern Virginia from Texas. Another point made was at the beginning of the war, Virginia, Tennessee and Texas had the greatest population of horses in the Confederacy.

Very interesting you should mention this. On my father's side (that is, my American half of the family), we have a grandfather (3 or 4 "great", can't remember) who was the regimental Chaplain of the 101st Ohio Volunteers. We have only one original letter written by him in our posession which was written immediately after the Battle of Chickamgua, where he gave Last-rites to the dead and dying of both sides. In his letter, he mentions that they had captured a good deal of Rebel cavalry troops, all without their horses, but they all looked healthy. I believe he was implying that the Confederates had eaten their horses.

Unrelated, but horse steak is popular in France, and I can remember during some of my childhood years spent there I had eaten it myself many times. It's actually really delicious!

 

[renrich]

Very interesting Arsenal. The Texas cavalry units were involved in that part of the war where Chickamauga was fought. Terry's Texas Rangers(8th Texas Cavalry) were in the Army of Tennessee, but Longstreet's Corps had come over from Virginia to help out and were present also. The Texas Brigade was in Longstreet's Corps and played a prominent part in the battle but they were infantry. If the cavalry ate their horses they must have done so when the horse was of no further use alive. Bet they were tough steaks. It seems that the real difficulty came about when it was winter and no green grass was available and forage and oats and corn had to brought in from far away. Even in the winter, though, when the infantry was mostly in winter quarters, the cavalry was still involved in picket duty, scouting and raiding. We, who are intersted in war during that time tend to think mostly about the men involved but feeding, doctoring and taking care of the huge amount of animals needed to transport cavalry, pull supply wagons and artillery must have played a major role in the outcome of the war. The infantry is supposed to have had a low regard for cavalry, who they supposed just rode around and rarely got into action and who took lighter casualties than the infantry. One jeer that was supposed to have been uttered by CSA infantry when cavalry rode by was, "Come down out of that hat, I know you are in there, I can see your legs hanging out."