US Civil War

Now that I've worked my way through my entire historical summary, (posts 1, 2, 3, 15, 19, and 20) I'll soon get back to a few issues left hanging over the weekend.

 

Have you ever seen the classic "Uncle Sam" WWII recruiting poster? They borrowed Grant's initials and middle name, and made the face much longer and thinner.

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Your premise would be more credible if most of the former CSA states had rushed to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.

I'm a Southern woman by birth, but don't feel any responsibility or guilt in connection with the actions of my ancestors, over which I had no control or influence. Truth is, too many Southerners are ignorant, trash, racist, etc. But not all of us. All stereotypes are seriously flawed.

When it's true, you don't need to say it.

Most military guys had little use for slave labor. Stonewall Jackson owned a small number of household slaves at the beginning of the war, and William Sherman was a steaming pile of shit.

He saw everything from a hyper-religious viewpoint. From his memoirs, I would characterize his racial position as moderately racist, for that time in history.

The people you are defending did not treat your ancestors well.

Not by 1861. Slaves were never extensively used in factories.

Lee probably didn't know how much useful material was stored there. I sometimes forget how much better military intelligence is than it used to be.

 

I have seen the poster. But I never made the connection to US Grant.
I will go back tomorrow and read through your latest posts.

 

ehhh, he got the job done.

 

Indeed, Meagain. Sherman went for the throat and made no apologies for it. I respect him for that and, honestly, I would expect no less out of any competent commander.. It has been argued that his campaign was the first true example of total war in "modern" times.

 

For years, I saw that poster and never thought about it. Then I read that some of the enlisted guys (after the Civil War) used to refer to him as Uncle Sam, and everything made sense.

Sherman, speaking in Columbus, Ohio: "There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell."

Those two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive. On the other hand, once he was on his own in the West, he never really faced top-quality competition, mostly just Hood, Bragg, and Johnston.

Early in the war, a Cincinnati newspaper called him "insane", and they weren't joking. And in a personal letter to a family member, he once admitted contemplating suicide. I didn't know about that until recently.

It was definitely time for them to join the winning team.

Yeah, I've already commented on the big difference between his written orders in Georgia and SC, and what actually took place there. Sheridan had similar orders in Virginia, and followed them more strictly. Sheridan is not hated. Sherman knew better than to put too much on paper.

His approach works a lot better in a war with another country, where you aren't permanently stuck living with your victims as fellow citizens.

 

I can see you didn't fully read that other post of mine; let alone understand it. That said, I disagree with Sherman here. It isn't all hell. Doesn't change the fact that I think he was a brilliant commander and that I am grateful he was on the side of the Union.

Hood was no slouch, Karen.

I wouldn't expect civilians of that day to understand him any more than civilians of today.

His approach was applied against another country; the CSA. I honestly don't understand the vilification of Sherman by people from the south today. Your ancestors wanted a war and they fucking got one. Obviously they got more of a war than they bargained for when it came to Sherman.

 

Like Zzap , I too am a proud southener. I'm proud of being very non-racial. Which allows one to keep an objective eye and view the situation from a "states rights" viewpoint. So many alternatives to war come to mind. Seems to me that judicial and legislative actions of the time were so ineffective that war was the only alternative. Politically , union preservation seemed priority.

 

Find me one black person who agrees with you.

We can agree on that. If Sherman had been Confederate, and torched a major Northern city... :willy_nilly: I don't even want to imagine what the long-term consequences might have been.

Well...Lee would have fired him before he got that chance.

I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to how Sherman's March shortened the war. As soon as he took Atlanta and it was burned, the city stopped producing materials for the war effort to be shipped by rail to Richmond. The next big thing Grant wanted him to do was join him in Petersburg to help make the final push into Petersburg and Richmond. That never happened. Grant had to finish the job by himself, which effectively ended the war.

The Hood/Johnston army had ceased to function as a significant force during the long drive from Chattanooga to Atlanta.

And the Petersburg situation wouldn't be the last time that Sherman was less than cooperative with his boss, choosing to follow his own agenda rather than following orders. When Johnston first tried to surrender in Durham, Sherman made him sign a document that included all kinds of political concessions on the part of the South. It was sent to Grant, who rejected it and made Sherman do it over, eight days later. Grant reminded Sherman that he was not authorized to conduct any kind of political negotiations on behalf of the US government.

You know what Grant had to be thinking. "Just do your fucking job!"

He was good early in the war. His judgment went downhill after Gettysburg. How do you defend an officer asking to be relieved of command?

Does today's army give people a month off to deal with emotional problems, then put them right back into positions of authority? I give the current US Army credit for being a step up from that. Back during the CW, they had a severe shortage of officers.

That statement gives the CSA the only thing they ever wanted; recognition as an independent country.

The South wanted independence. Peacefully would have been the preference of most. The hardcore war mongers seem to have been more prevalent in South Carolina.

I have no idea where most of my ancestors were during the CW, what they thought, or what they were doing. I know for sure I had some ancestors living in northern Virginia, so there could have been others on the Maryland side of the river. That wasn't unusual, since Maryland was considered a Southern state before the war.

 

So far, no surprises for me. More than 15 years ago, I completely gave up reading, writing, and talking about the Civil War because everybody I met who also had a CW interest was either a Sherman fan or someone with a contorted explanation for why the South should have won. I consider both viewpoints to be extreme. I don't fit in with either group. This is my first serious CW conversation in over 15 years, and it appears that nothing has changed. I may soon go back into retirement from this topic.

Why are there no hardcore Grant supporters in the North anymore? I don't get it. He was easily elected to two terms as President, and nothing that has been discovered by historians since then should make anyone think less of him as a military leader and strategist. Something about him doesn't appeal to modern readers, and I don't know what it is.

 

That is a good strategy: people don't agree with you, stop talking to them.

I'm a Grant supporter. At least as much as someone in 2013 can be.

 

It pays to be a winner.

We have no idea what Lee would have done.

It destroyed much of the South's east-west rail capacity, as well as crushing the morale of much of the Southern population in the region.

Sherman had, essentially, 450 miles of what was still largely enemy territory to cross, Karen. Indeed, Grant originally wanted Sherman to embark his troops on steamers to travel to VA. However, Grant gave Sherman permission to march instead and to destroy everything of military value along the way.

Not that Grant really needed Sherman's help in VA anyway. The Confederate forces facing Grant were a shell of what they once were and their defeat was never in doubt.

So?

It wasn't sent to, or rejected by, Grant. Instead it was Andrew Johnson and his cabinet in DC.

No, I don't know, and neither do you. A student of history wouldn't make assumptions like this.

That officer just saw his command shattered, with no hope of restoration, and his country being torn apart. He reached his breaking point.

Indeed they did. Luckily, for the US, Sherman got his shit together to be of use.

And for a brief few years they were independent.

Regardless of how many war mongers there were or weren't in the South, war was always going to be the outcome. You reap what you sew.

 

It's pointless to talk to extremists who aren't listening, only waiting for their next turn to speak. I can spend my time and effort on better things.

After the Killer Angels novel became a best seller, a number of CW book clubs and roundtable discussion groups sprang up. The ones I went to felt really weird. I was usually the only female in the room, but that wasn't the problem. They were so enthusiastic that it was almost like the war wasn't over yet. That was too much. Most of those groups died off a couple of years after the Gettysburg movie came and went.

I think we can all have a little more intellectual detachment from something that's been settled since 1865. There's no sense in rooting for one side or the other, since we all know who won.

You admitted in a thread post that you agree with me about something! Do you have any idea how rare that is for you? Was that a painful experience? I encourage you to try it again sometime!

To me, Grant is the ultimate stereotypical general; a little pudgy, chomping on a cigar, serious, not emotional, just focused on doing his duty and getting the job done efficiently, as per orders from the top. I like a man who is just as good at speaking with his actions as with words. When he would lose a battle and keep moving toward Richmond, the unspoken message was very clear: "Where else did you think I might go? I'm here to do a job." I think he made the men who came before him look like fools.

Other than Hood, is there anyone else who impresses you on the Southern side? What do you think about Lee and Longstreet?

Also, have you researched where the 9th Minnesota went, and what they did?

 

Can't argue with that.

Grant, I think, knew and accepted that the only way to win was to "grind it out". I think many of the Union generals before him were so afraid of loosing a battle that they avoided them like the plague, for the most part. Grant wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty and mix it up whenever an opportunity presented itself. He didn't wait for his enemy to make a move but, instead, brought the fight to his enemy.

Lee I am "meh" about. I was always impressed with Longstreet.

Indeed I have. They were raised during the summer of 1862 and, before moving to the Western Theater of the war, fought in the Dakota War here in Minnesota. After that they fought in Mississippi and Tennessee quite a bit.

 

I feel like I know, based on my knowledge of Lee's actual decisions, leadership style, written memoirs, and my personal experience with the side of Southern culture that he fit into. I don't buy into all of his shit, but I understand it.

The way he drew the line in terms of what was appropriate and moral in war is quite similar to current US policy. We don't do "total war" anymore.

What I'm saying is that the state of Georgia became almost completely irrelevant after the fall of Atlanta. Sherman could have spent the rest of the war playing poker on Peachtree Street, and the surrender at Appomattox probably would have taken place on the exact same day. What could Georgia do with east-west rail lines? Sherman had already beaten the Hood army into near irrelevance. What difference did the morale of the people make?

I can say all this because of hindsight. Lincoln didn't know for sure how well Grant would do in Petersburg. No one had ever really come through for him before. In a war that lasted into 1866, Georgia might have mattered.

Permission, not orders. It wasn't Grant's idea. Sherman really wanted to turn Columbia, SC into a giant parking lot. I can't really blame him. They had it coming. I'll give Sherman a free pass on that one.
:leaving:

That's why Lincoln was not having a fit about the slow progress. Grant simply wanted Sherman to come up there because it seemed like the most useful thing for him to be doing at the time. The extra numbers would have shortened the war just a bit. The final surrender for Lee might have been in March, in Petersburg. Johnston's surrender was a non-factor in the big picture.

There's a big difference between a history textbook and a historical novel. Writers who are students of human nature can often read between the lines and bring a story to life.

I didn't do any of that in my 6-post narrative, which was written to higher academic standards.

Some say he bore a lot of the responsibility himself, sacrificing men to attacks that had no chance of success.

Jefferson Davis accepted his resignation. I don't think Lee would have.

A short war, at least, was probably inevitable. I still don't understand how Lincoln was able to keep Northern public opinion on the side of continuing the war for such a long time, at such a high cost. It would have been so much easier for the North to start thinking at some point, "Fuck the South. They aren't worth the trouble." I'm glad they didn't feel that way, but I have yet to hear a really good explanation of how that worked.

 

One thing that this thread makes clear is that there are still divisions over the war in the US.
I am not surprised by that.

Anyway, on the topic of Grant and Lee, from an outside perspective.
Of the two, I feel that Lee had the more appealing character. But maybe thats because he has been romanticized to an extent. He does seem to me with my limited knowledge of all this to have been a very competent general, but the sheer industrial capacity of the North, shortage of men in the South, etc etc meant that probably, the South would have had to win very quickly or face inevitable defeat.

Grant was a great general too. My main criticism would be that he was prepared to accept very high casualties. But my reading of it is also that he was eager to get the job done and the war over with as soon as possible by whatever means.
When he was elected president later on I seem to recall that he tried to help the Native Anerican tribes to some extent. Since I am also interested in their history, I find that laudable.

Two things I think are certain. Even if the South had won, slavery could not have endured as an institution for many more decades.
Also, had the Union not been preserved, Americas rise as a world power would have been quite different, and maybe not have happened at all. But maybe its idle to speculate on the what ifs of history.

 

Why were they all such pussies? That's probably another question Lincoln often asked himself, but would never dare put on paper.

You would probably be creeped out by some of the fanatics that hang around Lee Chapel. I sure was. I've heard that 50 years ago, there used to be long waiting lines to get into that place on weekends. No more.

It seems like together, Lee and Longstreet made one great general. Lee was the "big picture" guy and the inspirational leader, while Longstreet was the expert on the nuts and bolts details. It's okay for those qualities to be split between two people, if they can get along.

Lee used to be widely considered to be the ultimate prototype for the perfect "Southern gentleman". I don't think anybody cares anymore. That part of the old culture is gone.

Longstreet considered Hancock to be the best of the best, on the other side. I wonder why he never got his shot at the top job. Any thoughts? I don't know if he ever commented on John Reynolds, considered to be next in line for top command on the day he died in Gettysburg (1st day). If that sniper had been off by a couple inches, I wonder if he could have changed history. That day, he and Buford were very much on the same page, and Meade was already thinking about retreat.

 

I don't know why so many Southerners can't accept the idea that their ancestors might have been wrong about something important. Also, being from the South doesn't mean that all your ancestors were in favor of the war. Plenty of CSA soldiers went reluctantly when drafted, and Asheboro, NC was a haven for draft dodgers. Slavery primarily benefited plantation owners, who were a tiny percentage of the region's population.

By the way, you mentioned textile mills in England earlier. What was the economic impact from the loss of Southern cotton?

Lee was more verbal, while Grant was more of a quiet man of action. Grant couldn't be President in a television age. (Neither could Thomas Jefferson.) Lee obviously spent a lot of time in church when he was younger, and knew all the manipulative words games that Southern preachers use. Those tricks wouldn't have worked so well in the North, where the culture was different. Wherever a culture is nearly homogeneous, group manipulation is easier.

For three years, he ran West Point Military Academy, the primary educational facility for army officers; one of the toughest jobs to get. He knew his stuff, even though he was probably too obsessed with Napoleon, whose time had come and gone.

Lee was a sharp guy, on many levels. More than 100 years before medical science figured it out, he advised Longstreet to give up tobacco, for health reasons. He had observed that people who used tobacco products tended to have significantly worse health than those who didn't.

They just didn't believe the North would be interested in a long war.

Shortening the war also saved lives. He was looking at the big picture.

Another history thread! :svengo: I may go to Petersburg and sit out in the woods until next spring.

When Grant was President, Sherman asked him for permission to wipe out the entire Sioux Indian nation, down to the last man, woman, and child. They communicated in writing, but it would have been more fun for historical novelists if they had spoken about it privately, in person:

"Bill, how long have you known me?"
"A long time, Sam. Back before Vicksburg."
"Have I ever said or done anything to make you think I might ever approve such a goddamn stupid-ass plan?"
"No sir."
"Good. My answer is hell no. We can't do shit like that anymore."

I often wonder how that might have changed WWII. Based on their common interest in Fascism, could there have been an alliance between the CSA and Germany?

 

Your last point there, that only a minority stood to benefit from the war, was also true I think for the average British soldier during WWI. Most ordinary Brits didnt get that much benefit from the Empire. The wealth genrated was in the hands of a small ruling class at the top. (still a bit like that actually].

But also I beleive the dranft was not exactly popular in the North.

We had a big empire to draw on. I am not exactly sure of the facts and figures, but I think we made it up with cotton from India, where production costs were also very low.

Just as an aside, I wonder how many old time presidents would have made it in the TV age.

At that time, although Napoleon was long gone, he was still the most recent military genius in history. But of course, I would agree that napoleonic tactics had by then become outmoded.
Its interesting you mention Lees insight about the harmful effects of tobacco. Naoleon had both himself and his army inoculated against smallpox with a primitive type of cowpox vaccination, long before the discovery of bacteria as a cause of disease.

Well thats a hard one because of Americas involvement in WWI. It is possible that without that, Germany would have won. Once Russia collapsed they were able to shift all their men to the western front. In 1918, the Germans were able to mount their biggest offensive of the war. I think it was only fresh American troops in large numbers, along with conditions drawn up by the US (Wilsons 14 points] that caused them to agree an armistice.
And without the defeat in WWI, it seems unlikely that Hitler would ever have come to power in Germany. That is, if historians are correct in their analysis of the causes of the rise of the Nazis.
Would the CSA have entered WWI? Hard to say. I think it might have been dependent on their ongoing relations with Britain. I doubt we would have gone as far as imposing an embargo on slave produced cotton, but it is possible, given the nature and influence of some late victorian philanthropists, who might well have begun to agitate against slavery in the South.

Had slavery endured, I think the CSA would have come under a lot of moral pressure as the nineteenth century drew towards its close.

Anyway, I think the racism of the Old South and that of Hitler were constructed very differently. I certainly doubt Southerners would ever have killed masses of slaves just because they thought them inferior.