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Sherman's march to the sea.....
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Message 1.Â
Posted by Tom Hreben (Ex Raybans13) (U8719631) on Tuesday, 11th March 2008
Like it says, could some one give me the brief gist of Sherman's march to the sea? I would also like it if someone could give me a biref time line from gettysburg to the end of the american civil war with a differentiation between theatres of war. I'm only asking this as i have a large history essay to work on for my A levels.
many thanks,
Raybans13 -
Message 2
Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Tuesday, 11th March 2008
I'm in a generous mood so here goes.
Get extra credit for pointing out that it wasn't Gettysburg that ended the war, it was Vicksburg.
If you have any further questions, please ask as I'm in a generous mood at the moment. Just quote Bruce Catton and his books you'll do fine.
AA. -
Message 3
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Tuesday, 11th March 2008
He captured Atlanta in time for the good news to put Lincoln over the top in the '64 election over McClellan who would have ended the invasion and let the South go.
He burned the city and then split his Army into multiple columns over a 60 mile wide path for the march to Savannah along which he destroyed essentially all food and shelter and everything which could be used to provide it. All livestock killed, fences, barns, homes, and bridges destroyed. Crops burned or trampled. It was a deliberate attempt to bring total war to the civilian population short of actual genocide (which Sherman had actually proposed in '62 in Missouri) Happening when it did in the fall made it particulary hard on a population of subsistance farmers-usually with no man of military age in the home.
Apparently the formal orders were to not burn homes where they were not oppose (opposed with what?) and to leave a little for each family to exist on but by even the Union soldier accounts, they were generally ignored.
It served the purpose of ensuring that southerners would not continue a guerilla rebellion as they saw the price and that it would only mean starvation. It ensured that the final destruction of the major Confederate Armies would indeed be the end of the war. It--and it's emulation elsewhere--also meant that the south would be more than a hundred years recovering economically and at least that long before hating Yankees was no longer the norm--even a social obligation.
It is why Louisiana State University is in the rare position of not having a single structure on it's campus named after it's first President--Sherman. Recently a (as usual) ignorant legislator brought the issue up and the Chancellor of the University shot him down reminding him that the man is a war criminal both by the standards of the time, by the US Armies own code of conduct written for the war, and by modern standards. Historians estimate that at least 100,000 civilians died of starvation and malnutrition in the South during the year after the end of the war. The number of livestock--what people needed to live, didn't reach 1860 numbers again until 1930. -
Message 4
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Wednesday, 12th March 2008
In Sherman's march to Atlanta, there was a fairly high mountain facing his armies: The Kennesaw Mountain. It is in my backyard where I live in the city of Kennesaw, and you can easily see it from my backyard. A major battle took place at this mountain between the forces of Southern General Joe E. Johnston and General Sherman's Union army.
This apparently was the reverse of Gettysburg, in that the Southerners had the high ground and were well entrenched. However, by this time their army was reduced to a rather rag tag bunch; the very young boys and the elderly men in the army in many cases did not have any shoes. They fought a valiant holding action and for quite a period and kept the Union army at bay.
However, eventually they decided to save the army and retreated leaving the road open for Sherman.
Just before the Civil War a census was taken and the population of Atlanta was about 7,000 in 1860. By 1864 the population had grown to over 20,000, a very large city by the standards of the time. Atlanta had become the industrial hub of the Confederacy. There are remarkable photographs of the Atlanta of the period in the Kennesaw Mountain Museum, as well as many Civil War artifacts gathered from the Mountain battle field.
The original Civil War cannon used during that battle are still in their originally constructed emplacements in their original position on top of the mountain.
I went to the top of the Mountain several times and you can easily see Atlanta in the distance from the top, and in the museum are some of the pictures of young boys and old men who blocked Sherman on his way to the sea.
Tas -
Message 5
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Wednesday, 12th March 2008
Get extra credit for pointing out that it wasn't Gettysburg that ended the war, it was Vicksburg.Â
Completely agree, yet Gettysburg's the one which gets all the credit. Presumably because Gettysburg was in the campaign theatre with Washington and Richmond, so the battle seemed more immediate. Vicksburg wasn't an immediate threat to politicians and journalists. But even within the Confederate cabinet, there were several who didn't seem to fully appreciate the importance of Vicksburg which could have been, and should have been better defended. -
Message 6
Posted by Whoops! (U11158894) on Wednesday, 12th March 2008
Pardon my ignorance gentlemen, Vicksburg? I'd have thought Lee taking a right hammering at Gettysburh ultimately lost the War for the South. The cream of his army wiped out, and unable to go on such a large scale offensive again...
Mind you, don't know an aweful lot about Vickburg so someone set me straight!! -
Message 7
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Wednesday, 12th March 2008
Pardon my ignorance gentlemen, Vicksburg? I'd have thought Lee taking a right hammering at Gettysburh ultimately lost the War for the South. The cream of his army wiped out, and unable to go on such a large scale offensive again...Â
Even after Gettysburg it took almost 2 years to take Richmond.
Vicksburg opened up the whole of the Mississippi to the Union fleet and effectively carved the Confederacy in two (albeit a big populated part and a much less populated part). It closed the supply route for arms being imported via Mexico and effectively sealed the Confedaracy in from the outside world. It also opened up the south eastern states to attack from the Union armies including Sherman's infamous march to the sea. Whole states were isolated and occupied in the follow up operation which the South was unable to prevent (admittedly partly beacuse of the losses at Gettysburg, but also Grant's insistance that Lee needed to be continuously engaged). It meant that the massive superiority in numbers could be effectively be brought into play against the South. Vicksburg was the backdoor and the house was looted whilst the south were sitting on the front porch. -
Message 8
Posted by Erik Lindsay (U231970) on Wednesday, 12th March 2008
I agree that Vicksburg was a key victory and that its acquisition opened up the Mississippi River to the Union and closed it to the Confederacy, but all by itself it wouldn't have ended the war.
Gettysburg was, as you've noted, a defeat for Lee's army (his first as a matter of fact), but it certainly wasn't a deciding factor in the overall conduct of the war. To the northern government it was a monumental victory, and there's no doubt that there were huge armies involved. However to the southerners of the time, Lee's invasion of the north was viewed as a mere raid into Pennsylvania and while Lee's defeat was a setback, it was nothing that could not be overcome.
I think the battles for Chattanooga were probably more decisive in terms of deciding the entire war than Vickburg or Gettysburg. Had Grant lost that battle, Sherman never would have been able to invade Georgia, LIncoln would have lost the election and the war would have been over.
You have to understand the emotions of the times to realize just how important that battle was. Both the north and the south were sick of war, and any move to end it would have been welcomed. The two combatants had far different goals to achieve. The north had to win the war to end it in their favour. All the south had to do was not lose. Had Sherman not taken Atlanta and made it to Savannah, there's a very good chance Lincoln would have lost the presidency. If that had happened, McClellan would have called off the northern armies and there'd have been a new country in the family of western nations.
The taking of Atlanta wasn't what sealed the presidency for Lincoln... it was the appearance of Sherman's army, intact, at Savannah. He'd disappeared after his troops had ravaged Atlanta and no one heard anything of him for weeks afterward. There were rumours abounding -- a southern army had trapped him in Georgia and wiped him out, his men were starving, his army was collapsing all around him because his men were deserting -- all sorts of canards were circulating.
He showed up in Savannah just in time, his army intact and victorious. He was able to announce that he had cut the Confederacy in two and was preparing to invade South Carolina. It sewed up the election for Lincoln.
If the north had not won that war, we'd have had two countries south of Canada that hated each other. It's even possible that, knowing how strongly southerners felt about ''state's rights'', the Confederacy would have split into a batch of separate, smaller countries, each with its own ideas, laws, alliances, etc. One thing is for sure... there would be no super power US.
That thought may please Europeans today, but I wonder how they'd have felt about it during WW2? -
Message 9
Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Wednesday, 12th March 2008
Wow,
A lot to reply to.
In response to the original question KurtBronson has given the most complete answer, albeit with a slightly Confederate bias?
In Shermans defence I would like to point out that Joe Johnston attended his funeral and was very respectful of Sherman and Joeseph Eggleston did not consider William Tecumseh a war criminal. Perhaps we should judge more by the mores of the time than later judgements?
Kurt, not an attack on you but food for thought?
Kurt, I wholeheartedly agree that Sherman was the most brutal of the Union Generals, I will go so far as to assign him the title of the originator of Total Warfare. He did say "War is Hell" and I would add, went on to prove it.
To call him a war criminal, I have my doubts, on this we will disagree as one persons freedom fighter is another's terrorist.
And yes I fully admit that Sherman was out to teach a lesson to the South in his march to the sea. The army was more tightly controlled once it left South Carolina and marched into North Carolina. (My point being that Sherman was also thinking about "hearts and minds" although he would never have used that expression. He did see South Carolina as the source of what he saw as a rebellion?).
Erik,
I understand your points about Chattanooga, it did enforce Lincoln's view that Grant was a winner, and so led to Grant being placed in a virtually unassailable position as the supreme commander of the Union army.
As a European, may I say that I appreciate the bravery and dedication of the Confederates, but I am glad the Union won during the War of Northern Aggression.
AA. -
Message 10
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Wednesday, 12th March 2008
Erik:
The election of 1864 was Nov 8. Sherman started his march to Savannah on Nov 15 and arrived Dec 22.
It was the fall of Atlanta that was the political oxygen for Lincoln. -
Message 11
Posted by Erik Lindsay (U231970) on Thursday, 13th March 2008
My error, Kurt. YouÕre absolutely right. My memory must be failing to make such an egregious error, but I have an excuse - IÕm a Canadian(!).
I recalled the histories I had perused regarding that campaign and jumped to an incorrect conclusion. I remember reading that LincolnÕs presidency was in serious jeopardy after the fall of Atlanta because of all the rumours (mentioned above). I mistakenly thought it was ShermanÕs appearance in Savannah that saved the election. However, In my defence, I believe itÕs true that LincolnÕs presidency was in serious trouble when Sherman disappeared after leaving Atlanta, and relief abounded, as I recall, when he appeared at the coast with an intact and very vigorous army.
Anyhow, as you correctly pointed out, ShermanÕs troops occupied the city on Sept 2, and it was that which saved the election for Lincoln.
There is one aspect of the Atlanta campaign thatÕs often distorted by southern sympathizers, and thatÕs the burning of Atlanta. When I was working at the University of Tennessee in Memphis (visiting medical professor) I recall more than one person complaining that there was no reason for Sherman to have burned the city. Hood had left, his army had gone, and for all practical purposes, it was an open city. I had to go back and re-read some history to confirm my recollection that Sherman was not responsible for burning Atlanta. He was not! Hood, the confederate general, was the man who set the fires (the really intense scenes shown in the movie Gone With the Wind). Apparently it was his intention -- and quite reasonable it was -- to destroy everything in the city that might be of military value to the occupying troops. He aspired to restrict the fires to those supplies and equipment warehouses, but his troops were rushed and fires got out of hand resulting in the conflagration that pretty well demolished the city.
I also recall that Sherman ordered, during the march, that none of the foragers were to enter occupied homes or ÔÕcommit any trespassÕÕ (not sure what that latter means). Also, he ordered, in writing, that if the army were unmolested during its march, there was to be no destruction of property. Only if some defensive action were taken was property to be damaged. He also ordered that the poor in the areas were to left alone, but the army was free to appropriate anything they needed from the wealthy landowners. Needless to say, his army commanders paid no attention to those orders, and his men tore houses apart and often indiscriminately killed occupants of all economic classes, but he really had forbidden much of that and was unaware it was occurring until later.
Sherman was a destructive, vindictive person, but apparently not quite as bad as southerners of the US seem to believe -
Message 12
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Thursday, 13th March 2008
I think the film "Gone with the Wind" is so accurate in depicting all of these events.
The early braggadocio and the Can-do spirit that started the war. And later the reality of war for this society of cultivated landowners who had little idea what they had wrought, but were coping as best as they could in the very adverse circumstances.
I went to the "Gone with the Wind" museum in Marietta and was very moved by the displays.
Tas -
Message 13
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Thursday, 13th March 2008
"My full belief is, we must colonize the country de novo, beginning with Kentucky and Tennessee, and should remove 4,000,000 of our people at once south of the Ohio River. . . We must colonize and settle as we go South, for in Missouri there is as much strife as ever.
Enemies must be killed or transported to some other country."
written by Sherman on August 13, 1862.
In the official accounts, the Union didn't burn Alexandria, LA eiither, but unfortunately for their reputation, Union soldiers recorded in their diaries and letters their burning it on orders.
Their way of interpreting orders to leave people undisturbed unless opposed meant in practice that any opposition in a region meant all was fair game. A whole string of farms on Yellow Bayou were burned in retaliation for one officer being killed by a sniper.
Sherman is also described as turning a deaf ear to complaints of rape. -
Message 14
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Friday, 14th March 2008
Described by whom?
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Message 15
Posted by tony_19680 (U5835599) on Friday, 14th March 2008
If the north had not won that war, we'd have had two countries south of Canada that hated each other. It's even possible that, knowing how strongly southerners felt about ''state's rights'', the Confederacy would have split into a batch of separate, smaller countries, each with its own ideas, laws, alliances, etc. One thing is for sure... there would be no super power USÂ
I don't understand why there would have been no super power. The Union Federal states were infinitely stronger than the confederate. If the union had backed out of the war they would still have Industrially and economically in an excellent position to colonies the remainder of the US heartland. I don’t see why the Union wouldn't have benefited from WW1 and the become the super-power the USA is today.
I don’t see how the near beaten confederate states could have contended with the Union of the land grab for the mid and west USA heart-land
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Ps I'm a UK citizen very grateful for a friendly US superpower able to interview in WWII. -
Message 16
Posted by Erik Lindsay (U231970) on Friday, 14th March 2008
I suspect Texas would have remained a separate country, altho' that's up for grabs. And I suspect some of the other southern states might have decided they'd be better off alone. Also, even if the Confederacy remained intact, there's no guarantee that another war wouldn't flair up between the two Americas. There was a massive amount of ill-will between the South and the North during and after the civil war and I suspect the two nations would have continued to hate each other intensely. Perhaps some American could throw in an opinion here.
As for the super power the US enjoys today, you have to remember that a great deal of America's GDP comes, and came from, today's southern states. Furthermore, during the country's expansion west, the Mississippi drainage system was responsible for carrying both people and cargo into and out of the heartland of the country. With half of it under control of the Confederacy, and the other half dominated by the Union, travel up and down those riverways would have been enormously restricted. And which of the prairie states would have joined the Union (or the confederacy for that matter?). Oklahoma might, or might not, have remained separate. Same with Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico. the Dakotas-- there's no guarantee any of them would link up with the union or the confederacy. If all, or some of them, decided to remain separate, there'd be no single great nation occupying the territory between Canada and Mexico. Instead, you'd have, as Europe had and still has, a cluster of smaller countries each striving to be better than its neighbour and occasionally getting a little pushy about it.
With the entire nation intact the US had a strong industrial output plus enormous farmlands producing all the foodstuffs, timber, iron, etc that it needed to be self-sufficient and produce all kinds of materials for export.
Unhappily, that all seems to be changing now. The US appears to be slowly but inexorably shifting from a superpowerful industrial nation to one that leans toward service.
The next few decades should be enormously interesting..... -
Message 17
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Friday, 14th March 2008
Erik Lindsay,
If the north had not won that war, we'd have had two countries south of Canada that hated each other. Â
Assuming a recently dismembered and vengeful US didn't annex Canada in compensation.
It's even possible that, knowing how strongly southerners felt about ''state's rights'', the Confederacy would have split into a batch of separate, smaller countries, each with its own ideas, laws, alliances, etc. One thing is for sure... there would be no super power US.Â
CS President Jefferson Davis had his difficulties with state governors, especially Zebulon Vance of NC. In his memoirs he wrote the Confederacy's best epitaph - "Died of a Theory."
Cue KurtBronson ... -
Message 18
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Friday, 14th March 2008
Erik:
If you do further research you will find that Sherman captured Atlanta on Sept 1. The city was intact. He issued orders for the city to be evacuated and forced all the citizens to leave the city. Drove them out.
One of his most famous letters is the response to the plea by the citizens to remand that order because of the sick, cripples and elderly in the city. It was a central refuge. The entire letter is interesting as it gives about as good a moral support for the Union's actions in the war as can be made. Basically that if the Confederacy was successful, North American would always be fracturing and in perpetual warfare as was the case in Mexico for a hundred years and that the only viable rule for a nation was once you are in, you can't get out.
It is too long but I excerted a few lines to show his refusal to remand the evacuation order:
Gentleman: I have your letter of the (September) 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of hte cause . . our military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away. . . War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it . . . Now you must go and take with you your old and feeble.
He then struck out for Savannah on November 15th and gave orders for all public buildings, industrial shops, manufactoring facilities, warehourses, etc to be burned. Hood was long gone of course. There is no evidence that his intent was to burn the whole city, but as there was no one to put out the fire, it was the logical outcome.
So--Sherman burned Atlanta, not Hood. I don't know how these myths get started. It was a common occurance for the evacuating army to torch things--but not this time.
I cannot give a reference to the rape comment, whether it was a report by the mother involved or a witnessing union soldier. Clearly Sherman would not be a reporter and I do not remember where I read it. Feel free to discount it if you wish. I recall report of a mother comming to complain of the rape of her daughter by soldiers and Sherman dismissing her with a caustic remark to the effect of it was war and she ought to keep her daughter hidden. -
Message 19
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Friday, 14th March 2008
BTW, Oklahoma was already a part of the Confederacy. The Indian Nations went against the Union and that probably is why it was opened to white settlement later. Read about Stand Watie.
The midwestern states were already more dependent on rail for commerce to the east than the Mississippi to the South. New Mexico might have gone with the Confederacy out of necessity -
Message 20
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Friday, 14th March 2008
I suspect the Confederacy of the Southern States would have been as difficult to sustain as the Confederacy of the Thirteen original States that rebelled against Britian.
it is very difficult to hold lose Confederacies together. At present we have Federalism in America and in many areas the States are strong. for example the State of Georgia has its own laws on licensing the Drivers of Motor Vehicles.
They must pass a driving test whether they hold a Canadian License or even an Ohio or New York license.
In Canada, the provinces are extremely strong and even the extent of their taxes is a significant amount compared to Canadian Federal Taxes.
So probably there would not have been a single America but many small countries, the biggest being about the size of today's Canada.
Tas -
Message 21
Posted by Triceratops (U3420301) on Friday, 14th March 2008
Any possibilty of a separate union west of the Rockies, California, Oregon and Washington?
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Message 22
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Saturday, 15th March 2008
And maybe Sherman was right that they would have always been pushing and shoving, forming and dissolving alliances.
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Message 23
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Saturday, 15th March 2008
Sherman had a melancholic and angry temperament. He also had a preexisting antipathy towards the planter class of the South which he had stongly expressed, and may have evolved from, his frustations in dealing with the spoiled and fractious plantation boys at the Louisiana College where he was superintendent when the war started. These were strongly expressed in some of his letters. He was entirely outdone with the lot of them.
We still have what we refer to as "plantation boy syndrome"--the spoiled scion of the rich and powerful rural families who can do no wrong.
Two things that one can say about Sherman that even his enemies must give him credit for (other than his effectiveness in crushing his enemies). He could have seized power in '65 after the assasination of Lincoln, and some wanted him to do so rather than leave Johnson with the executive power. He rejected the notion with the vehemence it deserved. I don't think that it was just his loyalty to the constitution, but that he found the whole business of politics distasteful. He welded power and used it but was not enamoured of it.
The other was that he helped to rebuild his old school and get it back on it's feet, recruiting to it's faculty many of the better engineers among the Confederate officer corp. It was for that reason that the proposal to honor him got a little traction until his war record was brought into it. The thing is, Sherman was the kind of man who wouldn't give a flying damn whether they honor him or not, whether there are any statues or namesake buildings or not. I don't think he would care a fig for adulation any more than it bothered him to be hated. -
Message 24
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Saturday, 15th March 2008
Hi Kurt,
Thank you for filling us in on General Sherman from the "inside" so to speak. It is often that one makes quick judgements on historical figures, without really taking the time to know them. Now we understand the man "Warts and All".
Tas -
Message 25
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Saturday, 15th March 2008
Sherman was prone to melancholic fits and in fact had an emotional breakdown in 1861. His family had a long history of insanity. He attitude and temperament during upon regaining his command susggest that his mood problems may have affected his conduct of the war. That is of course pure speculation.
It was he who implemented the policy after the civil war of bringing the plains indians into subjugation by exterminating the bison and staving them into submission. He wasn't trying to commit genocide--he tried to root out the corruption that interfered with proper supply of the Indians who came into the reservations as a result of his successful policy--but it was essentially the same policy of total war that he applied in the civil war. -
Message 26
Posted by Erik Lindsay (U231970) on Saturday, 15th March 2008
Hi Kurt:
Corrected again, but this time I have some excuses. Several historical accounts I have read (including the current Wikepedia -- --) make the claim that it was Hood who burned Atlanta.
Subsequent reading has convinced me that these notes are incorrect and that it was Sherman who started the fires.
Strangely enough, I wasn't aware that there had been a civil war in the US until I was in the 6th or 7th grade in Canada. We were studying history, and the text we were using noted that the British had eliminated slavery in the Empire by paying all slave-owners the value of their slaves. The author of the text admitted that it was a very expensive process, but noted that compared with the cost of a war, such as the American Civil War, it was actually quite economical.
I've often wondered just how large a role slavery played in initiating that war. -
Message 27
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Sunday, 16th March 2008
Big, but not the whole reason. You can't discuss the reasons for the war and leave out slavery. But if that is all one discusses, then one has misunderstoon the broader context. It was, in a sense, a clash of civilizations, or rather a clash of two different visions of western civilization.
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Message 28
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Sunday, 16th March 2008
Kurt
Absolutely.
One vision of Western society which said enslaving other human beings was acceptable.
And, the other one which said it wasn't. (Mercifully, the the one that prevailed.)
Fundamentaley, the War for State's Rights was the right to keep slaves.
For all the statistics that say the majority of Confederate soldiers were not slave owners, or that many Northerners were not abolitionists, the war came down to a battle for a free economy or one underpinned by the enslavement of other human beings. -
Message 29
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Monday, 17th March 2008
I think Ted Turner's film 'Gettysburg' makes the point for the Southern side quite well. In a discussion between General Pickett, and his brigadier generals who are explaining their ideas about the War to an English Guard's officer assigned to liaise with them, they say, "We thought we had joined a club, when we joined into a Union. One should have the freedom to leave the club if it is not fulfilling our needs. That is all we are trying to do. Leave this club."
Someone says, "We should have abolished slavery and then started the War."
Tas -
Message 30
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Monday, 17th March 2008
Fundamentally, the war for states rights was the right to keep slaves. . . . arguably true. Irrefutable if you replace "fundamentally" with "primarily". Slavery was the tap root--but a tree doesn't stand on it's tap root alone.
But to have a full understanding--not that such is popular in our age when all issues are considered distillable to a sound bite--requires a broader understading. Perhaps none would be necessary if Lincoln had issued the emancipation proclamation immediately upon the start of the war, if slavery had been immediately ended in the states and territory still under union control, if Lincoln's slave-owning vice president had either immediately freed his slaves or tried to overthrow Lincoln and himself been put in chains, if the Army of the Potomac had not been long commanded by a pro-slavery and slave owning McClelland while pitted against the Army of Northern Virginia led by non slave owner who supported emancipation, if all the states of the Confederacy left union upon the abolition proclomations of 1861 (that didn't happen) instead of many leaving only after Lincoln called for an army to invade.
But that is not how things happened so understanding requires broadening the etiological hypothesis.
One might consider the writings extant in the South before the war, and long after, that expressed visceral cultural loathing of industrial civilization and the rootlessness that it engendered. Within the world of the study of southern culture, that agrarian romanticism is an essential common thread (along with race) in every aspect of the "Old South" culture.
One might consider that the cultures of the regions were so distinct as to have evolved fundamentally different patterns of speech, social relationships, and economic relationships outside of slavery,
One might note the implications of "Marse Robert" as an affectionate common label Bobby Lee by the white yeomen who followed him and what that implies for a fundamentally different attitude about society and relationships. (A reciprical one I might point out illustrated by Lee meeting his men head down with apologies as they returned from the failed attack at Gettysburg.)
One might examine the complaints that the southern states had long made about unequal taxation. They paid 2/3 of federal taxes while 1/3 of the population. Had Americans ever fought a rebellion over taxes before? Of course--the American Revolution, the Whiskey Rebellion, Shay's Rebellion.
One might note that southern seccession arose as an issue before the abolition movement had any traction over the tariff issue. Jackson threatened to have his vice-president shot over it 30 years before the civil war.
One might note that the North was essentially Anglo-German while the south was more Celtic in it's culture. Have the English and the Scots/Irish never fought.
Any explanation is incomplete if it doesn't explain these things. -
Message 31
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Monday, 17th March 2008
Kurt, would you say another aspect was also the slight contempt that the well-to-do, land-owing Southerners, who were probably the nearest thing to an aristocratic class then in the U.S., had for the newly-rich industrialists, the parvenu, (later called carpetbaggers) and the new immigrants making up the Northern States.
I suspect Southern life was more laid back and perhaps more cultured, to an extent, like aristocrats in other countries. The men were more like 'gentlemen' than 'players', if one uses the vocabulary of Cricket of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Tas -
Message 32
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Monday, 17th March 2008
Erik Lindsay,
Strangely enough, I wasn't aware that there had been a civil war in the US until I was in the 6th or 7th grade in Canada. We were studying history, and the text we were using noted that the British had eliminated slavery in the Empire by paying all slave-owners the value of their slaves. The author of the text admitted that it was a very expensive process, but noted that compared with the cost of a war, such as the American Civil War, it was actually quite economical.Â
DocTas,
Someone says, "We should have abolished slavery and then started the War."Â
Which raises the question, why didn't the slaveowners - or any one of them for that matter - say "you Northerners want to end slavery? Make us an offer." -
Message 33
Posted by Triceratops (U3420301) on Monday, 17th March 2008
Was the demand for secession not stronger in the tidewater counties of the South and more pro- Union in the Appallachian counties?
West Virginia seceded from Virginia and became a Union state in it's own right in 1863.I'm sure this was reflected further south in the Carolinas as well, though none of them actually broke away. There was also pro-Confederate counties in nominally Unionist states like Missouri and Maryland. There was not always a clear defining border.
Trike. -
Message 34
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Monday, 17th March 2008
"Which raises the question, why didn't the slaveowners - or any one of them for that matter - say "you Northerners want to end slavery? Make us an offer."
Yet another reason too suspect the all too simplistic explanations. Reluctance to give up property out of self-interest is easily remedied by compensation, and the cost of hanging onto it must be counted against it's value. But when one thinks much more is at stake . . .
Was the sentiment against slavery wide-spread enough or deep enough to support the financial sacrifice of a compensation program? I doubt it. But if it was strong enough to support a war that cost 15 or 20 times as much, how could slavery suffice as a sole explanation for the war?
The unfolding events support a great current of issues of which slavery was the largest, but in itself insufficient. We have Lincoln taking a purely pragmatic attitude to liberating the slaves--not supporting it until the middle of the war, and then only as a promise to those areas not yet conquered as a measure to encourage rebellion, taking up the cause of general emancipation only as the even further escalating bloodshed demanded a "Holy Cause" to justify it. We have the Confederacy offering emancipation in it's final desparate efforts to stay alive. Obviously more was at stake. -
Message 35
Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Tuesday, 18th March 2008
Triceratops
Yes and no. It is a little more complex than that as the other posters have shown by their correct, yet sometimes vehement? posts.
I;ll try to moderate and as long as both end up hating me or liking me I'll have done my job.
AA. -
Message 36
Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Tuesday, 18th March 2008
LostWeekend,
No, the war wasn't about "slavery" and "Black Oppression" it was about who in the "White" supremacy was to have control over the country.
(Amongst the WASP's of the time).
AA. -
Message 37
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Friday, 21st March 2008
AA
If you had read Kurt and my remarks, you would have seen we were talking about the competing economic models, and I agree these were dominated by white elites. Nonetheless, one of them was underpinned by slavery, so the war was fundementally (spelt right this time)about slavery.
Quite apart from the economics, it is clear from contemporary accounts that slavery was recognised as a key issue by influential people on both sides at the time.
Trying to deny the importance of slavery as a causus belli is pointless, and I am not quite sure why anyone would want to.
LW -
Message 38
Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Friday, 21st March 2008
LostWeekend,
The Economic thrust of History is a well trod path?
Whilst I agree that it was inevitable that the "South" would have lost The War of Northern Aggression, can you not agree that slavery was not the "causus belli"*
AA.
*I didn't study Latin so what the jimminy does "causus belli"* mean?
As always AA. -
Message 39
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Friday, 21st March 2008
Arnaud, my dear Albigensians' prosecutor,
"casus belli". I thought it was easy to explain, but after looking at it (and I studied Latin) I thought first about "cause of a war" but it is more a "case" that provoked, caused war.
Warm regards from you old friend,
Paul.
PS: Nordmann is even not sure that "Paul" was historical and as good could have been a "resumé" of different writers. If I recall it well?
. Nearing in some months the 65 mark... -
Message 40
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Saturday, 22nd March 2008
AA
As you will have seen from other posts, my use of "causus belli" is sloppy Latin but well understood in English as "cause of war".
In support of my argument, as an easily referenced source, I would recommend Chapter 4 "Slavery, Rum and Romanism" of James M. McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom".
Later on in the book, in a section pointing out that slavery was not immediately officially recognised as the issue by the combattant leaderships in 1861, for various tactical political reasons, he makes the point that "But without slavery there would have been no Black Republicans to threaten the South's way of life, no special southern civilisation to defend against Yankee invasion."
He also notes that slavery was a major drawback for the CSA in dealing with Britain:
"The public mind here is entirely opposed to the Government of the Confederate States of America on the question of slavery..."
As to States' Rights, MacPherson also notes, it had been said by Dr Johnson some 80 years before "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"
In 1783 they got away with it. In 1865, at the cost of half a million dead, they failed. -
Message 41
Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Monday, 24th March 2008
LostW,
I apologise for my cheap scoring of a point.
Sincerely, it was unworthy of me and a cheap shot.
I have read McPherson, indeed a very good book and history.
I have recommended? it as a book well worth reading, in previous posts, as the best single volume written about the ACW.
LostW,
I'm here to challenge and understand "History".
Nice to know there is a worthy debater.
AA. (That is a compliment BTW). -
Message 42
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Monday, 24th March 2008
AA
Didn't take it personally, don't worry. My school Latin masters would never had let me get away with it, only the historians.
Cheers
LW -
Message 43
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Saturday, 6th September 2008
Sherman was a destructive, vindictive person, but apparently not quite as bad as southerners of the US seem to believeÂ
He was certainly destructive, but only as long as the country concerned was in arms against the Union. He wasn't vindictive to former enemies once they became former and not current ones.
At the end of the war, the surrender terms agreed between him and Joseph E Johnston were rejected by President Johnson as being too lenient. -
Message 44
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Saturday, 29th November 2008
Erik Lindsay
I think the battles for Chattanooga were probably more decisive in terms of deciding the entire war than Vickburg or Gettysburg. Had Grant lost that battle, Sherman never would have been able to invade Georgia, LIncoln would have lost the election and the war would have been over.Â
Any thoughts on what the terms of such a peace might have been?
By Dec 1863, let alone 1864, the Union held West Virginia, all of Tennessee, and about half each of Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The South, by contrast, held no ground in any northern state, nor any Territory except the Indian Terr (later Oklahoma).
Is it credible that the Union would simply hand back all these gains, receiving nothing in return? After all, many of the places concerned, eg West Virginia, East Tennessee and the Ozarks, were strongly Unionist in sentiment and would have objected fiercely to any such return. Conversely, is it credible that the Confederacy would accept a peace which left huge chunks of "its" soil in Union hands? Or would the attempt at a peace have been abortive and President McClellan resigned himself to continuing the war? -
Message 45
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Saturday, 29th November 2008
If McClellan would have won, that would have been a mandate to withdraw from the states that seceded and let them be. As the South was nearly defeated, it would not have been able to contest the continuance of West Virginia in the US. The occupied areas of the core of the South would undoubtedly have been vacated by McClellan. You are right that it still leaves some questions. What if Eastern Tennessee tried to leave the state and join the Union? Not likely but possible. Not a reasonable consideration for the trans-Mississippi or delta regions however.
What is the real question is Missouri and Kentucky. If left free to decide for itself which side to join, Missouri would have continued to tear itself apart. I would imagine that a peace regieme in Washington would have readily accepted Missouri as a Confederate state as it was considered a slave state and came as near to successfully leaving the Union as any of the border states and sent far more men to fight for the Confederacy than the others. Kentucky I think would remain Union as would Maryland--but their were enough Confederates in each state to make a row about it.
One must not underestimate the extent to which pro-union sentiment in the upland areas of the Ozarks and Appalachia had shifted by '64--not to pro-confederate but to anti everybody. -
Message 46
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Saturday, 29th November 2008
If McClellan would have won, that would have been a mandate to withdraw from the states that seceded and let them be. Â
How so? The party platform advocated peace only "on the basis of the federal union of the states", and McClellan regarded even that as inadequate, since it left open the possibility of a truce before the South had explicitly acepted reunion.
What if Eastern Tennessee tried to leave the state and join the Union? Not likely but possible. Â
Why unlikely? After all, since the end of 1863 East Tennessee has been entirely back in the Union. It's not a question of "joining" it but only of whether to leave it all over again - which few East Tennesseans would have the slightest desire to do.
I would imagine that a peace regieme in Washington would have readily accepted Missouri as a Confederate stateÂ
Come again.
By 1864, Missouri was far behind the Union lines, and the Confederates hadn't the remotest chance of reconquering it. Also, its surrender would leave Kansas harder to defend, and impair Federal communications with New Mexico and other parts of the Southwest. Nor would a Democratic administration, with a very precarious hold on power, be willing to give up a normally Democratic State.
Incidentally, any thoughts on how such a treaty (or indeed any treaty recognising southern independence) is going to be ratified? The Senate was Republican by more than three to one, and a Democratic majority there was mathematically impossible, no matter how well the Democrats performed in 1864. -
Message 47
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Sunday, 30th November 2008
Erik Lindsay
And which of the prairie states would have joined the Union (or the confederacy for that matter?). Oklahoma might, or might not, have remained separate. Same with Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico. the Dakotas-- there's no guarantee any of them would link up with the union or the confederacy. If all, or some of them, decided to remain separate, there'd be no single great nation occupying the territory between Canada and Mexico.Â
I don't think the Territories (which were very thinly populated) would really get a choice about whom they joined. Both Union and Confederacy are likely to maintain larger standing armies in this postwar world than the US needed to do after 1865, which would make it impossible for western territories to change allegiance at will, any more than they could do so between the US and Canada.
Also, assuming the Transcontinental Railroad still followed much the same path, territories like Colorado, Utah and places further north would have railway communication with the Union, but not with the Confederacy.
The only possible question mark would be over New Mexico. However, I suspect the Union would have cemented its loyalty by using it as a place of settlement for freed Blacks. By 1865, about a quarter of the Union Army consisted of "Coloured" troops, and these would be supplemented by a flood of black refugees from the Mississippi valley, if this region seemed likely to be returned to the Confederacy. These Blacks could never go home to the south if the Confederates won, and the north would have to find somewhere to put them - preferably somewhere not too many white settlers wanted to go. New Mexico and Arizona sound like strong possibilities, and maybe Cuba and/or Panama should the US acquire them. -
Message 48
Posted by philsheridan (U10029160) on Thursday, 4th December 2008
I've just discovered this thread. I was very pleased to find a thread on the American Civil War which is a particular interest of mine. I thought I would just comment on the early exchanges about whether it was Gettysburg or Vicksburg that ended the war.
I agree that Gettysburg's importance tends to be exaggerated because it was such a big and spectacular battle and that Vicksburg was much more strategically important - eg cutting the Confederacy in half. However neither battle ended the war - which went on for another 2 years - or even made in inevitable that the North would win.
Personally I think that the defeat of the confederacy only became inevitable in December 1864 just 4 motnhs before the end of the war. By that time Sherman had marched across Georgia and was starting up the Carolinas and obviously would be able to go all the way to Lee's rear. Sheridan had destroyed Early's army in the Shenandoah Valley and Thomas had destroyed Hood at Nashville. With Lee pinned down at Petersburg there really was no chance for the Confederacy any more and the rest of the war really was fighting for a lost cause. -
Message 49
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Thursday, 4th December 2008
I agree that Gettysburg's importance tends to be exaggerated because it was such a big and spectacular battle and that Vicksburg was much more strategically important - eg cutting the Confederacy in half. Â
I think I read in Don't Tread On Me by H W Crocker, III, that the importance of Gettysburg was also in timing. Lincoln was up for election and the war was far from being popular (is it ever?) up North. So, Lee counted on a spectacular victory to diminish Lincoln's reelection chances and on subsequent disengagement by the Union. Any comments? -
Message 50
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Thursday, 4th December 2008
One comment. The Presidential election was still 16 months away when Gettysburg was fought.
There were some significant state elections in Nov 1863, but I doubt if they were the principal factor in Lee's mind.
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