The American Civil War -- what's widely misunderstood about it?

Reading quite a bit of Lincoln bicentennial-related stuff in the last week, I'm ashamed to say I may not have ever learned there were 4 slave states that didn't join the Confederacy. Four! DE MD MO KY.

also, the general public seems to think Lincoln entered office as an abolitionist, even that he always was one. He didn't ever favor granting (all) freed slaves full citizenship rights even at the end of the war.

i have heard ppl say that the most important campaigns (also the most insane savage behavior) occurred out west, never looked into this myself.

the good the bad and the ugly's story of civil war battles being fought all over arizona is based on fact btw

You will actually see talk from some crazy cartographer/sociologists that Delaware is part of the South.

because it's south of the mason-dixon line?

some of it is, anyway:

http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/aencmed/targets/maps/map/T013968A.gif

Delaware was a slave state. I don't know if it tried to join the Confederacy or not.

favorite Dr Morbius civil war nicknames would be a good thread

i have heard ppl say that the most important campaigns (also the most insane savage behavior) occurred out west, never looked into this myself.

I don't think the far west campaigns were really that important. The amount of troops deployed on both sides there was pretty puny, when compared to the Virginian or Tennessee theatres.

abratwat lincorn

robnerd e. lee

because it's south of the mason-dixon line?

So is Cincinnati!

Stonebutt Jackass

I probably have some from my field-nurse notebook when I was cleaning bedpans w/ Walt Whitman.

OK shut up :)

Seige of Vicksburg was U&K to winning the war. You can read about it in Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, further toward the end, after all the grebt stuff about piloting steamboats before the war.

The politics of the war were waaaaay messier than the tidy legend that was built afterward.

abe linCONNED

general george b. mcfelon

we can't have nice threads.

also, the general public seems to think Lincoln entered office as an abolitionist, even that he always was one.

this is true, but the South did kind of think he was entering office as a crypto-abolitionist, which was one reason why they seceded (the other being that they were cockfarmers).

I also think that Lincoln was careful about what political positions he adopted, taking care not to get too far ahead of public opinion while at the same time being happy to lead it. I reckon he would have ended up supporting full citizenship rights for freed sides eventually, had he lived, though this is an imponderable.

also, the general public seems to think Lincoln entered office as an abolitionist, even that he always was one.

this is true, but the South did kind of think he was entering office as a crypto-abolitionist, which was one reason why they seceded (the other being that they were cockfarmers).

I also think that Lincoln was careful about what political positions he adopted, taking care not to get too far ahead of public opinion while at the same time being happy to lead it. I reckon he would have ended up supporting full citizenship rights for freed sides eventually, had he lived, though this is an imponderable.

sorry about double post! I was suffering from fail.

> what's widely misunderstood about it?

"Recreations" of battles are not fascinating and educational.

Stonebutt Jackass

loool

Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.

I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

Yours,
A. Lincoln.

IIRC the splintering of the Democratic party led to the election of the theretofore long-shot Republican (who happened to be Lincoln), which led to SC's secession.

So it prolly wasn't Lincoln's specific views but the notion that any Republican would be elected that led to the outbreak.

And campaigns in the west were strategically pretty important despite fewer people and fewer romantic/heroic/dramatic moments. Grant's clearing the Mississippi split the Confederacy and strengthened the effectiveness of the blockade, etc. And anything happening in, e.g., Tennessee bled troops from the eastern battlefields, changing what could be done there. The situation in the east was on balance mostly stagnant; all those dramatic advances and retreats and victories and defeats happened over the space of about 75 miles.

But. That said, that ground (between Washington and Richmond) is the geography of my childhood; it makes reading about the Civil War feel strangely immediate. The towns are ones I've lived in, the rivers are ones I've canoed in, the mountains are ones I've camped on. So I have a complicated relationship with it.

What always surprises me is how long Lee & co. kept it up given the odds. Mainly that was being lucky in their enemies - Lincoln's struggle to get competent generalship in the east is one of the more exasperating parts of that story (from a Union perspective).

Only after reading Gore Vidal's (superb) Lincoln did I learn that the first three years of the war were a disaster for the Union, what with all those mediocre generals and the plodding manner of McLennan, the self-styled Little Napoleon.

McClellan, not the guy in the Go-Betweens.

haha --"Love Goes On!" was playiing!

the first general worth a shit was meade, whose legacy is mostly gettysburg, and whose actual merit is still debated. basically the only union general everyone gets behind 100% is grant, whereas the south had all kinds of brilliant leaders in the high command. it was pretty lucky that the union didn't get schooled early on despite their superior numbers.

...yes and part of the usual narrative is that what Grant brought to the table was a willingness to be totally and unrelentingly brutal. But that's not really fair to him, I don't think. I believe he would have liked to win more elegantly but it wasn't in the cards.

By that time everyone was exhausted and there was nothing to do but push. Grant's innovation was not retreating after a defeat, but wheeling a little to the left and trying again.

yeah basically the problem with the first union general was being super tentative and more defensive than offensive, and meade's big downfall in the minds of many was his failure to pursue the confederate army after gettysburg and wipe them out, which he probably could have done though after gettysburg i think both sides were thinking they might need a timeout.

by the way, Grant's autobiography is as terrific as you've heard. I don't like blow-by-blow accounts of battles, but his gift for suppressing pathos and colorful adjectives is put to good use.

high casualty rates were because of technological improvements in guns that generals did not necessarily expect, not all because of dumb ideas or bad leadership.

Grant's memoirs are very good and he comes across as clear thinking and a man who was at heart, honest. Bizarre how Grant the General and Grant the President are like two completely different individuals.

Goole's point is a good one; it was pretty late when people figured out how much advantage the Minié
ball gave to entrenched defensive positions. Compare Fredericksburg (where the Confederates sat for hours behind a stone wall easily shooting down wave after wave of Union dudes) to the earthworks at Petersburg. You can still walk around on them; they look like a dress rehearsal for WWI. McLellan had a tough time giving up the idea of cavalry charges.

also, the general public seems to think Lincoln entered office as an abolitionist, even that he always was one.

no one i have ever met thinks this, because it's the most commonly debunked 'fact' in u.s. history this side of "columbus thought the earth was flat."

all the worst understandings about the civil war are promoted by the south, really.

search: the book Confederates In The Attic, which addresses a wide range of historical misconceptions as well as giving some truly surreal glimpses into the ways the war still lives on today.

xp: challops?

One of the more illuminating moments in Confederates in the Attic was the dudes talking about how much the Civil War wasn't about slavery, it was about not wanting the Government coming in and telling you what to do.

And then it's some of these same dudes who decry development overtaking battlefields and they're like OMG what sacrilege, someone needs to stop this and preserve this sacred ground. You mean, someone like... the GOVERNMENT?

what's widely misunderstood about it?

that it's referred to as "the war of northern aggression" in the south, it's taught that way in the schools, and it has way more resonance in daily life than you'd think down there

(speaking as a northerner who lived there for 4 years)

yeah that always seemed so foreign

to me

speaking as a southerner who has lived in north carolina for my entire life, I have never heard somebody use the phrase "war of northern aggression" with anything even remotely approaching seriousness

might be regional

What school did you go to, ed3?

Yeh nowhere in Virginia is that anything but a joke.

I know Richmond-area peeps of my approximate age who had occasionally heard "War Between the States" from unreconstructed teachers or older relatives, but never "War of Northern Aggression."

Another joke-name is "The Late Unpleasantness," which frankly I've always kinda liked.

part of the confusion stems from the union fighting the war primarily to keep the union intact, but the confederacy fighting the war primarily to keep slavery intact.

Another joke-name is "The Late Unpleasantness," which frankly I've always kinda liked.

or The Recent Unpleasantness

part of the confusion stems from the union fighting the war primarily to keep the union intact, but the confederacy fighting the war primarily to keep slavery intact.

uh. . . .it was a lot more complicated than that

are you asking if I went to college in the south? (I didn't, though I did take some courses here and there @ MTSU while I was living in nashville)

living in the south opens yr eyes to how embattled a region it is - imagine if the way you spoke was widely associated in popular culture with mouthbreathing stupidty

xp to pp

or stupidity as it were

tho stupidty has a nice ring to it

"unreconstructed teachers"

mr. cue: no, it wasn't -- see the stated reasons for secession issued by every state in 1860/61.

post-reconstructionist

official statements do not equal extensively documented popular sentiment

xp

I was just wondering where you had been taught that "northern aggression" line, that's all.

I've never heard that said in real life either.

care to cite the 'extensively documented popular sentiment' in favor of secession prior to fort sumter?

The Frank Luntz focus groups of 1861 must have been a hoot.

i remember reading in the first volume of that Shelby Foote Civil War book where he gave at least a couple of examples where Confederate soliders gave the reasons why they were fighting, and most of them didn't give two shits about slavery, they were fighting b/c the North was telling them what to do etc etc etc

what's really interesting about the war, the more i hear about it, is just how widespread geographically it was. like the aforementioned arizona theater of the war. when i was learning about it, for all we knew it was only along the mason-dixon line, with some minor inroads made by the south into the north cf gettysburg, followed by the final union push into the south.

a couple of (liberal) virginians / tennesseans I knew recounted stories of family members and teachers referring to it that way. one guy I knew went to college in richmond and according to his family that was "going off to the big city", so maybe this is more of a rural phenomenon? also these people were in school during the 70s which could be a factor.

xp to pp again

here's some fun reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_the_American_Civil_War

War of Northern Aggression

The War of Northern Aggression is a name which suggests that the North was unjust or unconstitutional in making war against the South.[citation needed] The term is still used today, mainly by Southerners who still believe in the Lost Cause and who contend that the North unjustly and illegally invaded the South.

care to cite the 'extensively documented popular sentiment' in favor of secession prior to fort sumter?

I don't think that's what you meant to say, yeah? Or perhaps I was unclear. As Que points out there is documentation in the Shelby Foote book, and also in the Confederates In The Attic book I referenced above, that indicate there were a lot of complicated sentiments around the South's motivation for fighting, not just secession. Whether this predates Sumter, I don't know.

xp

I'm sure there are still some segregationists living under a rock somewhere who say things like "The War of Northern Aggression", but it's hardly widespread, at least in my experiences from 1980 on.

You still don't want to be called a Yankee, though, but that has more to do with carpetbaggers and Illinois retirees who complain about there not being any salt trucks when the roads get iced over.

No salt on the roads? What the hell, do you use the crushed up bones of our valiant Union soldiers?

I-40, never forget

We shut down the South and wait for the temp to go back above 32.

Learnt it from the British.

I don't think calling it "the war of northern aggression" really has anything to do with being a segregationist, though? it's tough sometimes trying to figure out what's racism and what's people dealing with the real feeling that the south was attacked and conquered on unjust grounds.

when I was living in the south in the mid 90s the south carolina statehouse was still flying the confederate flag.

i've never seen any evidence that the majority of southerners favored secession prior to fort sumter -- for one thing, as you rightly note, most of them didn't give a shit about slavery so the only reason they would've had to care about it would've been "a northern guy got elected," which even at the tensest moment probably wasn't enough to get them to actually fight to get out of the union. despite all the revisionist talk since, the pro-secession agitation was primarily promoted by advocates of slavery expansion, not principled "states' rights" types or opponents of tariffs or whatever.

of course, once the first shots had been fired it was a lot easier to paint the situation as "the north trying to push around the south," which certainly made it easier to recruit.

OK that makes sense to me.

things were pretty wild and wooly back then, check out some of the congressinal hijinks:

Since the present Congress commenced its session, the country has been more than once shocked at the outrages and brutality which have been perpetrated by those who sustain the present slavery administration. Col. Webb in a letter to the N.Y.Courier enumerates the cases as follows:

First, William Smith , an ex-Governor of the State of Virginia, and member of the House of Representative, assailed and beat the editor of the Evening Star , in December last, in the lobby of the House.

Second, Albert Rusk , a member of the House of Representatives, from Arkansas, assailed and beat the editor of the New York Tribune in the grounds of the Capitol, immediately after leaving the House of Representatives.

Third, Philip T. Herbert, of Alabama, a member of Congress, from California, shot down and killed an Irish waiter at Willard's, and is now under bonds to appear before the Grand Jury and await his trial for such crime as they may adjudge him to have committed.

Fourth, Preston S.Brooks , a member of the House of Representative from South Carolina assaults and beats unmercifully a Senator from Massachusetts, when occupying his seat in the Senate of the United States and engaged in the transaction of business legitimately appertaining to his station.

Someone should start a poll on our best writer-presidents.

Yeah, I'd vote for Samuel Clemens too.

TS: american civil war vs english civil war vs spanish civil war vs marvel civil war vs "civil war" by guns n'roses

A few thoughts on the "about slavery/not about slavery." One COULD say that there were as many reasons for going to war as there were combatants.

The slaveholding classes were not really the same group as the rank and file soldiery; they were the social and political and economic elites. They were mostly exempt from service, by design. And they did an excellent job of selling the war cause.

So of course lots of ordinary Southern soldiers would have said they were fighting for states' rights, or for freedom from Federal intervention, or to repulse the invader. And of course plenty of Southerners were at best iffy on slavery but felt they needed to defend their homelands (Lee is usually given as a paramount example of precisely this position).

But this doesn't erase the fact that the architects of secession (and thus the war) explicitly had slavery as the "states' right" they had in mind when they talked about states' rights. So it's correct in a sense to say that the war both was and wasn't "about" slavery.

AND, some of the current discussion about the war is colored by hangovers from the Civil Rights era. In Va., a not-insignificant portion of Civil War discourse and iconography is understood to be code not for 1864 but for 1964. It's no accident that the places the war was fought were also hotbeds of massive resistance to school desegregation. And even after that, the battle flag became Culture-War code for a more generalized resistance to perceived "correct" attitudes on race and politics. (This is just as true in much of W.V. and Md., BTW.)

It will be interesting to see how the conversation changes when the voice of that demographic is no longer such a large part of the conversation.

Oh and one more thing: I like Foote fine but one should keep in mind he was a Southerner writing from a definite Southern perspective. I don't mean he was an apologist or a bigot, though. I wouldn't group him (or Faulkner or Percy or Wolfe) in with the massive resistance crowd. He was of a generation that would have encountered the war in terms of family memory - grandparents etc. - so I think that might color how he frames the question.

I've been a bit surprised that Foote's been cited so often here.

because that miniseries wasn't very popular?

This is a very interesting website that compiles newspaper editorials during the "secession era" (1850's mainly)

http://facweb.furman.edu/~benson/docs/index.htm

(Don't wanna speak for Lord Alfred but perhaps what was meant is that he was a gifted writer, fine storyteller, and genial interview subject, but not necessarily the most rigorous of historians. Plus he wrote his narrative 50 years ago; there have been some not-insignificant developments in scholarship since.)

My upbringing involved both sides of the pendulum's swing - when I was a kid, Lee and Jackson were in the same unquestioned Virginian hero-worship pantheon as Washington, Jefferson, and John Smith. By the time I hit grade school it was the Baezian 70s and I got the full flower of the Guilty American school of history, in which the main message was "wow, we suck." By the time I got to college Sally Hemings was in the headlines and no one quite knew what to make of it.

It will be interesting to see how my daughter is taught, whether the pendulum has swung back, or what.

Only after reading Gore Vidal's (superb) Lincoln did I learn that the first three years of the war were a disaster for the Union, what with all those mediocre generals and the plodding manner of McLennan, the self-styled Little Napoleon.

this is a bit exagerated though. Eastern Theatre, not that good for the North from 1861 to 1893, but not so bad the South won any decisive victories. The Tennessee-Mississippi theatre, though, was one of continuous Northern victories (with occasional reverses) all through the war, including the first years.

Shelbey Foote seems like a nice fellow, though I was struck by how early on in his book he reports approvingly that Jefferson Davis would only have any of his slaves flogged if they had been convicted by a jury of their fellows.

Again, 50 years ago, Southern perspective.

also, the general public seems to think Lincoln entered office as an abolitionist, even that he always was one.

no one i have ever met thinks this, because it's the most commonly debunked 'fact' in u.s. history this side of "columbus thought the earth was flat."

J.D., meet Henry Louis Gates:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/arts/television/11look.html

In “Looking for Lincoln,” a documentary to be shown on most PBS stations on Wednesday, historians (are) enlisted to debunk myths about the 16th president for the host, Henry Louis Gates Jr., who appears to be encountering Lincoln’s realpolitik approach to preserving the Union for the first time.

Then of course there's that book published in 2005 attesting to Abe's gayness.

Eastern Theatre, not that good for the North from 1861 to 1893

That was one long war.

xp: yes, the PBS show touches on his collection of Stephen Foster remixes.

C/D: people questioning Shelby Foote's Civil War trilogy but bringing up the Gaybraham Lincoln book

C/D: People who don't understand the difference.

o captain i understand the difference

LOLs:

During the campaign, Barack Obama made clear that he supports the Freedom of Choice Act and would like to sign it into law as president. The pro-choice piece of legislation would essentially “repeal the Federal Abortion Ban and other federal restrictions on abortion care, as well as codify the protections of Roe nationwide.” Today on the floor of the Missouri House during debate on the legislation, state Rep. Bryan Stevenson (R) compared it to the Civil War:

“What we are dealing with today is the greatest power grab by the federal government since the war of northern aggression,” Stevenson said, R-Webb City, referring what Southern states called the North’s attempt to end slavery in the 1860s.

The remark caused a sudden gasp heard throughout the House’s chamber.

Stevenson later apologized on the floor for any “offense” his comments caused. He was urged to do so by African-American Rep. Don Calloway (D), who pointed out that the Civil War helped abolish slavery and it was “inappropriate to refer to that war as the war of northern aggression.”

how old is Stevenson, I wonder? over 70 I hope and pray.

170.

It continues:

A textbook distributed to Virginia fourth-graders says that thousands of African Americans fought for the South during the Civil War -- a claim rejected by most historians but often made by groups seeking to play down slavery's role as a cause of the conflict.

Masoff defended her work. "As controversial as it is, I stand by what I write," she said. "I am a fairly respected writer."

Masoff also wrote "Oh Yuck! The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty" and "Oh Yikes! History's Grossest Moments."

search: the book Confederates In The Attic, which addresses a wide range of historical misconceptions as well as giving some truly surreal glimpses into the ways the war still lives on today.

I found this book on the shelf at work! It was great! I don't think I finished it yet, I must have gotten distracted by something, but I look forward to the delicious last third or so.

any thoughts on Ta-Nehisi Coates's series?

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~packman/tnc.html

"I am a fairly respected writer."

I thought it was fairly incontrovertible that many blacks did serve in the CSA armed forces, though not anywhere near as many as served in the US Army. I'm pretty sure they weren't allowed to serve openly/officially until the very end in early April, '65, though.

eh... really? I picked up the idea that they had Blacks doing stuff like digging trenches and stuff like that, but not actually fighting or bearing arms or wearing military uniforms.

I think it boils down to a dispute over 'whether the Civil War was about slavery' kind of thing. History and war are never very clean and are often practically implausible but that doesn't mean that the war wasn't largely about slavery.

so i wrote a thing about this for my job and some guy emailed david blight (yale civil war historian, all around bad-ass)--and blight wrote back! heres what he had to say:

No there were no official black soldiers of any kind in the Confederate armies until the desperate act in the final month of the war when the Confederacy, after great controversy, decided to recruit some slaves into a special unit. They never saw combat. This story is a classic case of a big lie repeated enough times becomes a weed one cannot stop. Read Bruce Levine's book, Confederate Emancipation. There is nothing "inconvenient" about this. It is simply false and it serves a particular kind of present day political persuasion. No neo-Confederate advocate of this notion has ever produced any evidence of an actual black Confederate unit. In fact, they have even doctored photographs of black Union troops to make them look Confederate. Sometimes made-up history can be harmless. Not in this case. The tooth fairy and George Washington and cherry trees are harmless. This one serves the purposes of those who wish to de-couple the Confederacy from its defense of slavery and legitimize the Confederacy in our own time. Before long some Tea Party candidate will find a use for this and Fox News will energize it yet again.

(i was CCd on these emails, for some reason, not that im complaining, people should check out blights civil war lectures on open earth or whatever that website is)

oh cool!

i actually watched the first lecture this morning. the rest are on my list of things to do after i hand my thesis in

http://oyc.yale.edu/history/civil-war-and-reconstruction

yeah i immediately sent him a way too over-the-top enthusiastic email about how much i liked those lectures. he has not written me back.

*awk*

did you tell him to facebook you?

yeah TNC hipped me to those paul blight lectures, fairly amazing stuff

not like personally, i learned about them via his blog

not personally the way dr. blight personally emailed me you mean

dr. blight personally emailed your mum

xp y, that and battle cry of freedom were apparently his top tips (which is apparently the only worthwhile entry in the oxford american series, along with the revolution one)

you could say he cc'd me, on his blog

offical black soldiers actual black Confederate unit

Most of the internet dbags pushing this stuff pointedly say that the North segregated their units while blacks in the CSA fought alongside whites. There are some pretty persuasive stories about individual blacks serving in Rebel units.

I share his concern over the Tea Partiers and the general revisionist claptrap about Southern history but that's not reason enough to deny the odd occasions where there are credible accounts of service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_African_Americans_in_the_U.S._Civil_War#Confederate_States_Army

To deny it allows the swine to quibble when to acknowledge it and insist on moving on to the bigger picture is what needs to be done.

Btw, I posted this on ILB and it's not really connected to this, but I really recommend 'The Warmth of Other Suns'.

? i dont see anything in that wikipedia article that contradicts blight...?

My history professor's favorite pet theory was that many Abolitionists were from the same tradition, and had the same beliefs and logic, as extreme Pro-Lifers. It explained how they were perceived by the mainstream of the time.

It's not an entirely inapt comparison but the pro-slavery and anti-slavery arguments of the 18th and 19th century were often about whether scripture condoned or abhored slavery. Most of the arguments for choice aren't based on the Bible but on secular feminist arguments.

But when it came to one of the Civil War's most controversial themes -- the role of African Americans in the Confederacy -- she relied primarily on an Internet search.

It scares me that people are relying on google to write textbooks.

xpost:

Obviously, the pro-slavery and pro-choice people aren't coming from the same place - not referring to them at all, only the other sides.

It is an interesting argument, because I think a lot of the abolitionists were evangelical protestants. Maybe rather than saying anything noteworthy about pro-lifers, it more reminds us that religion can sometimes be a force for good in society.

I don't need your civil war

Sherman's memoirs are a fascinating read

Uncle Billy

Yeah, Sherman is a real study. He hated war, but he understood his job was to wage war with all his might and no halfway measures. His men thought the world of him.

"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country."

the trend (admittedly mainly among southerners) of referring to sherman's march as a major war atrocity kinda baffles me -- as far as i've been able to tell, there weren't major casualties at all, just massive property destruction.

Sherman developed the total war doctrine when he was fighting Seminoles in Florida, who had a habit of constantly declaring peace and then resuming fighting as soon as they could; this convinced him of the necessity of destroying their way of life via the elimination of livestock and crops.

Underrated civil war generals I have enjoyed: Sherman, Longstreet
Destroy/dud: Grant (drunk retard), Lee

Destroy/dud: Grant (drunk retard), Lee

savior of his country, genius... dud? gtfo

Grant was a jackass who just believed in throwing more bodies at everything. He and Lee always got more credit than they deserved.

you are stupid

I'd prefer to say PTT is underinformed.

it's my understanding that grant wasn't really a drunk

It's never been successfully proven. To paraphrase Lincoln: if Grant drank, then he should have given every soldier in the Union army whatever his poison was.

As we know, when someone rises to prominence and power, there is a strong tendency for his opponents to sling mud, and an equally strong tendency for his adherents to whitewash him. My reading of the evidence is that Grant was probably a binge drinker, who was able to space his binges out, with long periods between them. Therefore, he spent almost all of his time in positions of responsibility stone sober. From time to time, he indulged in a bender.

You can argue about Grant "the butcher" but there wasn't a union general in the Western theatre who could accomplish what Grant did in two years (Sherman having suffered a nervous breakdown or something at the beginning of the war).

Sorry, I didn't realize Grant was everyone's boyfriend. At least make a case (like brownie here) instead of calling me mean names!

Gee, PTT, at least make a "case" against Grant, instead of calling him mean names (drunk retard).

I did!

Grant ... just believed in throwing more bodies at everything

Wow! How could I have missed a solid argument like that?

Counter argument: Grant won the war. No other Union general was able to. So, perhaps the strategy you are disparaging here had some validity after all.

Grant took responsiblity for his wasteful frontal assualts in his Memoirs. But what he did accomplish was remarkable:

Fts. Henry and Donelson campaigns knocked Tennessee, the 2nd most important confederate state, out the war with very little loss.
Vicksburg campaign severed the CSA in two (it was the site of a wasteful frontal assualt however)
Shiloh was a near run disaster but in the end a Union victory. Grant was removed from command for a bit after this.
the Overland campaign manoeuvred Lee out impressive fieldworks and effectively ended the war (but not before the disaster at Cold Harbor)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cold_Harbor

in other words he wasn't perfect, but he was the best man for the job imo

That's kind of the thing... being the guy who won is most of what assured him a place in history. Fine, he's not a drunk retard and I'm sorry for using language like that. I just don't consider him an impressive strategist and I think the cult of personality around him and Lee always meant that (arguably) more capable generals got shortchanged by history. I can't believe this is getting people riled up. I'm sure all the military historians on here can explain why I'm wrong.

xp - didnt see brownie's post when I was typing this. Those are some solid points, thanks.

PTT, you'd have a hard time finding much cultish adoration for Grant or Lee expressed on ilx. We tend to be a rather anti-militaristic crowd, not given to gushing over war or its proponents. However, I think you'll find that the worst offenders in regard to embracing war are the chicken-hawks such as Wolfowitz or Cheney, who've never been in battle, not combat generals like Sherman, Lee or Grant, who know all too well what a pulped human body looks and smells like.

Considering how corrupt and political many of the appointments were in the military, Grant was at least willing to fight and get things done and acted like a team player. See McClellan as a counter example, a guy who could drill and maintain an army but whenever things got hairy would retreat, despite any advantage he may have had. His performance (deliberate to the point of treason) and attitude (predicting and practically overjoyed at Popes defeat) during 2nd Bull Run was pretty galling.

xpost, yeah no one here his erecting shrines to anybody. My dad was a marine in WWII so I'm not anti-military but the stories he told, including one about a guy who shot himself in the head rather than land at Okinawa because he was so scared witless, are pretty sobering. War is hell, etc.

*is erecting

the Overland campaign manoeuvred Lee out impressive fieldworks and effectively ended the war

I should've said, "sealed the fate of the Confederacy" because the war went on for many months after this.

anyway

War is hell & is erecting, etc.

It's not well known that the armies at Gettysburg were massive Kate Bush and Placebo fans:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usg_Lh0UyMc

why are people always romanticizing the civil war - seems like a muddy bloody mess.

It's one way to try to overcome the grief...

good thread!

abratwat lincorn

― John Hyman (misspelled intentionally) (omar little)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUYwX4QsDhw

what is so erotic about eating an orange at your desk!

an interesting piece from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths-about-why-the-south-seceded/2011/01/03/ABHr6jD_story.html

I hear Lincoln used the "N"word too

Eric Foner's new book on Lincoln is excellent.

anyone seen The Conspirator? the story of the lincoln conspirators is fascinating, but it doesnt sound like they went for the most interesting angle on it...

that post article by james loewer is v. good indeed -- his chapters on the civil war in 'lies my teacher told me' were what first got me interested in history as a teenager, and his discussion of reconstruction is still a masterful introduction. he's really an excellent writer who deserves to be more widely read.

alexander cockburn (who i have no idea why i still read, it's sort of like poking a sore tooth i guess) had this ludicrous column a few weeks back on how the lincoln republicans were actually the forefathers of the modern-day GOP, which he backed up by citing some article at counterpunch.

just got 'battle cry of freedom' from the library.

read bcof earlier this year. a ripping yarn.

although as someone who didn't learn any pre-civil war us history in school (can't imagine why), it did sometimes assume knowledge about the early years of the US i didn't have.

does anyone have any recommendations for books covering the build-up/war of independence and subsequent pre-civil war US?

I think the other books in ye olde Oxford series of which BCOF is a member are pretty solid.

Last year I read a terrific scholarly biography of Henry Clay, the most famous senator of the century and the author of the Compromise of 1850.

http://www.amazon.com/Henry-Clay-Essential-David-Heidler/dp/0812978951/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306959701&sr=8-1

So is Robert Remini's brief overview of the Congressional battle to pass it.

http://www.amazon.com/At-Edge-Precipice-Henry-Compromise/dp/B004HEXSWC/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306959746&sr=1-1

i enjoyed robert middlekauff's 'the glorious cause' a lot when i read it for a class. it's part of the same series as BCOF and spends a lot of time covering the pre-revolution conflicts between parliament and the colonies.

Yeah, my dad's a fan of The Glorious Cause, had it since it was released IIRC. Need to finally read it myself!

The Jacksonian period (roughly 1828-1850) is the period of American history with which I'm least familiar, although reading that Clay biography and Schlesinger, Jr's marvelous Age of Jackson are terrific primers. The real eye opener was learning how powerful the forgotten Martin Van Buren was: as responsible as Jackson if not more for creating the Democratic Party and the master tactician and kingmaker of the age (not a very good president though).

Jumping ahead a bit, you've read Dark Horse, about Garfield and his death? Crucial contextual read for the reasons you mention in re Van Buren and his larger role, though for a different generation.

Yup. Loved that book.

Ezra Pound eulogized Van Buren in The Cantos!

Have ilxors been reading the Disunion stuff on the NY Times website? It varies quite a bit but it's covered a lot that I didn't know anything about, like Union soldiers getting attacked in Baltimore while trying to get to Washington and the burning of railroad bridges to prevent more Union troop movement through the city. They're doing it in "real time" so it's basically been about the lead-up to the war so far.

thanks for the heads up, that looks fascinating.

"read Dark Horse, about Garfield and his death?" first off thats a about Batman and second Garfield still lives

anyone seen The Conspirator?

Transparently preachy, I thought.

yeah thats what i was afraid of..

So, I was in Baltimore at a wedding last weekend, and was out enjoying some post-reception shenanigans with some good folks when all of a sudden, this giant of an Atlantan decides to lay into us about how pissed off he is that "we" burned Atlanta and ruined it as the transportation hub of the South East.

I had just spent about five hours watching Ken Burns' documentary that morning (hungover, had to do some mindless work, no desire to leave the air conditioning), so I had some good fun engaging in a back and forth with this buffoon, and my kill shot ended up with "Look, I think you lack perspective on the whole thing. I had grandfathers on both sides of the war, and you are in Baltimore, my hometown and a city which actively tried to prevent Union troops from getting to Washington DC. You really should take my word on this: Atlanta had positioned itself to be destroyed, and got what was coming to it, and a few Sherman's Neckties and some burning and looting should be forgotten amongst brothers in our current, stronger Union."

He basically had a Chris Farley style aneurysm spaz, told me I have no idea what I'm talking about, and left without finishing his beer. Mission accomplished.

it's a shame Atlanta never recovered, what might have been...

and ruined it as the transportation hub of the South East.

LOL

and ruined it as the transportation hub of the South East.

I'll remember this next time I fly to Vegas from Little Rock via Hartsfield.

ever hear of Delta Airlines?

Okay, you got me Latham Green. I've never flown to Vegas from Little Rock via Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. However, when I pretend to book flights on Travelocity or Priceline from my hometown to far-flung places, Hartsfield is a frequent layover point, whether my pretend plans are taking me east and south of me or not.

I have flown to Los Angeles via Minneapolis and from Florida via Chicago. My quirky little point had more to do with how Atlanta is in fact the dominant transportation hub of the Southeastern United States, despite having been burned to the ground by General Sherman, and not so much the realistic flight paths for booking available to me here in Arkansas.

Yes, i have heard of Delta Airlines. Funny enough, they don't have any stops in Brinkley, Helena, or Greenville.

my post was directed towards the angry argumentative southerner in Baltimore

Atlanta's got the busiest airport in the world. How the hell is this not a transportation hub.

arguing with a confederate, now there's a "lost cause" amirite

"My quirky little point had more to do with how Atlanta is in fact the dominant transportation hub of the Southeastern United States...."

Apparently the dominant transportation hub of the fucking globe.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/16/worlds-busiest-airports-a_n_836220.html#s254206&title=1_Atlanta_89331622

x act lee!
http://greyfeather.net/animgif/plane-avian-flu.gif

plus all those stripclubs!

http://black-history.blackvoices.com/2011/01/31/new-great-migration-south-moving-to-atlanta-questions/

I bet the confederates would not be pleased about this

I can just imagine airlines, railroads and trucking companies considering where to locate a new facility and someone at the meeting pipes up, "Say, what about that time Sherman sacked Atlanta! We can't go there. Too risky." And all the other power brokers at the meeting nod sagely and murmur, "He's right. Too risky."

First off, Atlanta was a newish town in 1864. It's 1860 population was under 10,000. Secondly, the capital was moved to Atlanta in '68 due to its superior "due to the city's superior rail transportation network." (wiki). Third, if you don't want the US Army to burn your city down, engaging in armed rebellion is kind of a bad idea.

i always kind of wondered about the naming of the Sherman tank in the 40s. was that a problem for some people? where were the factories? idk. maybe there was enough concrete racism at the time to satisfy anyone who, nowadays, would get pissed of at symbolism like that

"pissed off" jeez i can't type today.

a minute's wiki-ing shows that earlier US tank designs were called Lee and then Grant so i guess it was probably no big deal. hmm.

soon we can boast of a Petraeus bunker buster.

they don't really name these things like that anymore do they? all the drones have video-gamey sounding names which is prob appropriate

At Annapolis, Midshipman [Jimmy] Carter was paddled and hazed for refusing to sing General Sherman's battle hymn, "Marching Through Georgia."

by Reagan?

You win, you get to choose the name of your tanks.

Why the heck would a squid sing an army song?

The Medium Tank M3 was an American tank used during World War II. In Britain the tank was called "General Lee", named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and the modified version built with a new turret was called the "General Grant", named after U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant.

Not everything is about Reagan, Soto.

God, you're so obsessed.

I call your Sherman Tank and see you a tank haunted by the ghost of JEB Stuart

http://comicsmedia.ign.com/comics/image/object/081/081730/g-i-combat-v2-1_final-cover-artboxart_160w.jpg

favorite Russian nickname for the lend lease Sherman tank - "coffin for five brothers"

Not everything is about Reagan, Soto.

God, you're so obsessed.

well it certainly worked, didn't it.

excellent article on the enduring, somewhat inexplicable hero-worship of r.e. lee: http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2011-07/RobertELee.html

via that washington post myths link upthread just wanted to say 'the civil war wasnt really abt slavery because most people didnt even own slaves' is the stupidest just not understanding how humans do misunderstanding

3. Most white Southerners didn’t own slaves, so they wouldn’t secede for slavery.

Indeed, most white Southern families had no slaves. Less than half of white Mississippi households owned one or more slaves, for example, and that proportion was smaller still in whiter states such as Virginia and Tennessee. It is also true that, in areas with few slaves, most white Southerners did not support secession. West Virginia seceded from Virginia to stay with the Union, and Confederate troops had to occupy parts of eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama to hold them in line.

However, two ideological factors caused most Southern whites, including those who were not slave-owners, to defend slavery. First, Americans are wondrous optimists, looking to the upper class and expecting to join it someday. In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners. So poor white Southerners supported slavery then, just as many low-income people support the extension of George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy now.

Second and more important, belief in white supremacy provided a rationale for slavery. As the French political theorist Montesquieu observed wryly in 1748: “It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures [enslaved Africans] to be men; because allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians.” Given this belief, most white Southerners — and many Northerners, too — could not envision life in black-majority states such as South Carolina and Mississippi unless blacks were in chains. Georgia Supreme Court Justice Henry Benning, trying to persuade the Virginia Legislature to leave the Union, predicted race war if slavery was not protected. “The consequence will be that our men will be all exterminated or expelled to wander as vagabonds over a hostile earth, and as for our women, their fate will be too horrible to contemplate even in fancy.” Thus, secession would maintain not only slavery but the prevailing ideology of white supremacy as well.

salon's michael lind on the relationship between then and now:

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/10/slave_states_vs_free_states_2012/

I made a similar comment years ago on one of the politics threads - that the country's respective economic interests are the same as they were then, they've just switched parties.

I'm reading Team of Rivals and can't believe I've got 80 more pages til Lincoln fires this idiot McClellan.

ken burns' the civil war drinking game: take a shot every time you hear some variant of "but mcclellan elected to remain in washington"

too bad the whole Kearns Goodwin book won't be an 8-hr miniseries... Salmon Chase running to topple Lincoln in 1864 from inside the Cabinet is prime comedy material.

lol. started reading Team of Rivals then took a break to re-watch Ken Burns. McClellan so useless. Also love the little digs at Custer that pop up every now and again.

also wish I could find that clip from the Simpsons of Moe reading Team of Rivals.

in 'battle cry of freedom,' james mcpherson includes a bunch of hilarious quotes from mcclellan's letters to his wife. there's one that goes something like 'i'm so popular, i could be a dictator! good thing i don't want to be a dictator!'

150th anniversary of gettysburg today!

gettysburg was a pretty fascinating battle beyond even its status as the 'high water mark of the confederacy.'

DE MD MO KY - The Mid-Atlantic and Lower Midwest Will Rise Again!

i read the killer angels a month or so ago, the little round top section is one of the most effective into the midst of things battlefield scenes i've read in fiction i think. and i have no idea how historically accurate it is, but the pathos of the union soldiers not wanting to use their bayonets during the charge, basically just running and yelling at these other guys who at close quarters quickly surrendered... all war is horrible, but rifles and the mechanization of war just make it horrible for more and otherwise decent people.

the opening scenes with the confederate spy were also good, just the image of 100,000+ man armies with wagon trains etc moving on either side of a piddling mountain range without each having any idea of the other's whereabouts is pretty crazy.

i like the 1993 film, for the most part. i mean the facial hair is notoriously bad but many of the performances are incredible and it's fairly intense for a PG film.

It wasn't a very civil war now was it

grim lol

I was Ken Burnsing it up on 4th of July watching Dust Bowl & Mr Veg reminded me if i'm gonna watch anything I should be watching Gettysburg stuff, so I put on the Gettysburg ep of KB's Civil War.

aaaaand now I'm hooked. I don't think I've watched it all the way through before (which is kinda weird but oh well).

can I get some new reading recommendations? i've got Grant's memoirs, Battle Cry of Freedom, The Glorious Cause on my list...I think we have Killer Angels somewhere, I need to give that a go... any other recommendations welcome!!

i know TNC likes Drew Faust Gilpin a lot, but i've never read her.

Is there a good book on Andersonville? I know there's the memoirs of the one guy who survived (name escapes me)

I think a lot of folks would enjoy - 'The Story of My Campaign: The Civil War Memoir of Captain Francis T. Moore, Second Illinois Cavalry' (full disclosure, the historian who put this together is my brother-in-law). It's an actual field journal of a Union Captain that serves as a memoir of a journey into Confederate territory as war rages all around. The style sticks with the language of the time, and that's entertaining and sometimes challenging. Just to read about terrain and communications challenges will satisfy any armchair historian or civil war buff.

good article on "what should we call it?"

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/the-name-of-war/?_r=2

the pennsylvania patriot-news retracts its original bad review of the gettysburg address:

http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/11/a_patriot-news_editorial_retraction_the_gettysburg_address.html

whew what a relief

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/us/150-years-later-wrestling-with-a-revised-view-of-shermans-march.html

happy to have quoted sherman in a toast for a wedding in atlanta

The American Civil War -- what's widely misunderstood about it?

That it was actually about ethics in games journalism.

john c calhoun was a scary motherfucker

https://31.media.tumblr.com/965276cffe9067f85cce4c986490f797/tumblr_inline_miwzrdXok01qz4rgp.jpg

http://www.nndb.com/people/902/000043773/calhoun55.jpg

that is one smooshed looking head

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121108014856/christmasspecials/images/7/78/Sam_the_Eagle.jpg

irl lol

150th anniversary of lincoln's second inaugural today -- always worth a reread:

http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/inaug2.htm

walt whitman covered the inauguration for the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/1865/03/12/news/washington-last-hours-congress-washington-crowds-president-incident-capitol.html

Where can I read a account of this that does thorough justice to every flavour of villain involved in the Compromise of 1877

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromise_of_1877

^^^ seconding this request

You might start with this book I read a few years ago. Prefatory though. Ignore the title.

Also: Gore Vidal's 1876.

the novel builds to that election

i'm always amazed how well-preserved many of the battlefields are. take the bodies, do some repairs, preserve everything.

https://www.battlefields.org/sites/default/files/styles/scale_crop_1280x450/public/thumbnails/image/Antietam%20Battle%20Page%20Hero_0.jpg?itok=NG6j4-zV
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Antietam_National_Battlefield_Memorial_-_Dunker_Church_02.JPG

it's interesting what goole noted upthread about the advances in battlefield weapons vs the lack of preparedness generals had in dealing w/those advances when deploying their own troops. assuming there was that disconnect it does explain a lot about the bloodiness of certain battles but it doesn't explain how it wasn't forecast more accurately.

sherman saw it

The weapons the Union and Confederates faced were pretty much the same as those for the Crimean War of the prior decade. In both cases the wars bogged down into entrenched siege, with trenches snaking from the Potomac inland. Much the same could be said for the land portion of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5. That didn't stop generals from both sides marching battalions in column into machine gun and breech-loaded artillery fire in 1914, as if it was still 1814.

Most generals are slow on the uptake, in any era. Not just fighting the last war, but fighting the wars that produced their curriculum as cadets.

Sherman saw that in fully industrialized warfare, the goal should be destroying the economy of the adversary. But his men still fixed their bayonets and charged.

the battlefields are preserved cos everything else got destroyed, often on the way to the battlefields

at least in GA where there were a lot of scorched earth & pillaging tactics in use all around

But his men still fixed their bayonets and charged.

he didn't know another way to fight, but iirc he was closer than his classmates to understanding the sheer volume of death required by the way they did know? maybe just by dint of tending to misery anyway. immediately after fort sumter he was predicting a v long and terrible war. i guess such pessimism (or resignation) prob became less unusual after bull run 1?
but sherman's still enough of an outlier to get relieved for suicidal depression, and back home "convalescing" he's talking+writing outright apocalyptically, which was prob the sane frame of mind. of course by then the war was going on, for anyone to see.

Buy this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D6QQT77/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

(not a part of this current discussion)

Recommended -- I read a couple of outstanding Civil War books by Stephen Sears: "Gettysburg", and "Landscape Turned Red" (which is about Antietam.) This is very much blow-by-blow, field level stuff, blood and violence and fools and cowards and incompetent leaders and natural-born genius strategists.

On the strategy side, Sears takes a fairly harsh view of McClellan, views Meade very strongly, gives Lee solid marks but not as strong as others might. He saves a lot of his sympathy for the soldiers who were thrown into what seems like the most hellish battles anyone had ever seen up to that point. The guy is a very very good writer imo.