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When Was the American Civil War a Done Deal?

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  • #31
    Originally posted by Ironduke View Post
    Maybe not immediately. What happens when the Union embargoes wheat exports? A 100% embargo is going to cause mass starvation, and probably make the potato famine look like a night's missed supper. Even an embargo of, say, 20%, could have driven up prices and caused unrest in France and Britain. Imagine if Russia, still smarting from the Crimean War, joined in. I think a simple threat alone would set alarm bells ringing in Paris and London.

    The Union had massive leverage over both France and Britain. The South thought cotton was king, but cotton doesn't fill you up.

    I don't disagree. What I should have also stated that politically Lincoln would have to hold off on issuing the EP. The Democrats won a lot of seats in the 62 elections so he would have had less political backing to issue the EP...especially when the election results were added to the debacle of Fredericksburg.....Stones River was not enough of a Union victory to hang anything on.

    While there is little doubt about the effect of a wheat embargo (and don't forget salted cod while you are at it) the Europeans could hae caused a lot more problems. Remember Napoleon III proposed a 6 month cease fire and negotiations. A loss at Antietam and no EP coupled with the trouncing at the polls could have led to a negotiated settlement.
    “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
    Mark Twain

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    • #32
      Originally posted by Shek View Post
      Okay, here's a branch question given the current batch of responses. If it was clear that a Confederate loss was inevitable at some point months before it was over, how should we view the losses that occured after that? How should history treat the decision of Davis (and Lee) to continue the fighting after the writing was on the wall? To what end did the continuation of hostilities serve?
      This a is a very good question. Here ae a couple points to think about.

      Shek, you paraphrase of Lee was spot on. He knew once he got forced into the Richmond Petersburg Line then it was a matter of time...militarily.

      There were a lot of dynamics at play. Up until the 1864 elections Davis, et al, hoped for a negotiated settlement and still believed in independence. As late as the Hampton Roads Conference in FEB 65 they still believed that Independence was attainable.

      Hampton Roads Conference - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


      Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, where he preached an easy peace, only took place a month before the end of the war.

      So why did they keep fighting? Simple, they still believed in their cause. And while they took some actions which flew in the face of those beliefs (i.e., the forming of black Confederate untis in March 1865), they were still strongly held.
      “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
      Mark Twain

      Comment


      • #33
        Originally posted by 7thsfsniper View Post
        I'm not much of an analyst or historian, but I am a fighter. And If I thought I was fighting for my own freedom, I would never give up. IMO, the confederates where fighting for thier very freedom.

        Makes sense to me not to give up.
        Originally posted by Shek View Post
        However, if Lee felt it was over if it came to a siege, then to what purpose were the 70K killed at Petersburg, plus thousands more killed in the pursuit to Appomattox and thousands killed in the other campaigns (e.g., Sherman's marches). I'm sure we could add thousands more that died of starvation.

        What did this waste gain, other than some sense of fighting for a losing cause? The increase in the rate of desertion as the siege progressed paints a picture that many saw it as a lost cause.
        But not the ones calling the shots.

        Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
        So why did they keep fighting? Simple, they still believed in their cause.
        Hey! Nice to agree ever so often.

        And while they took some actions which flew in the face of those beliefs (i.e., the forming of black Confederate untis in March 1865), they were still strongly held.
        How did this fly in the face of strongly held beliefs?

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        • #34
          7th,

          How did this fly in the face of strongly held beliefs?
          the idea of a black man as anything but a slave was considered unnatural-- let alone a soldier, as fighting spirit was seen to be the exclusive domain of the anglo-saxon.
          There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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          • #35
            Originally posted by astralis View Post
            7th,

            the idea of a black man as anything but a slave was considered unnatural-- let alone a soldier, as fighting spirit was seen to be the exclusive domain of the anglo-saxon.
            As Astralis said. The arming of slaves was anethema to the antibellum South. It was a last gasp attempt to raise manpower for the fight.

            I hope no one thought I had issue with black soldiers. If so, my bad.
            “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
            Mark Twain

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
              As Astralis said. The arming of slaves was anethema to the antibellum South. It was a last gasp attempt to raise manpower for the fight.

              I hope no one thought I had issue with black soldiers. If so, my bad.
              Never crossed my mind you had issue with Black soldiers. However,


              Originally posted by astralis View Post
              the idea of a black man as anything but a slave was considered unnatural-- let alone a soldier, as fighting spirit was seen to be the exclusive domain of the anglo-saxon.
              That attitude was probably more true of the Union. Its is wholly untrue, as posted in the civil war really over? thread. I won't cover this subject anymore here because we would just have the same convo going and i already derailed this once.

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              • #37
                Originally posted by Shek View Post
                All correct -
                Break out the champagne...an A from the prof.
                To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
                  As Astralis said. The arming of slaves was anethema to the antibellum South. It was a last gasp attempt to raise manpower for the fight.
                  It was also a huge contradiction in what southern whites and soldiers had been told they were fighting for. SC, for example was clear that it was fighting to keep slavery alive. Entwined with this objective was the strongly held belief that the negro was inherently inferior to whites. I've read that after the Confederate congress voted ( in 1865) to form slave battalions and promised slaves who fought freedom for their service, white southerners were shocked and conflicted. Here was their own "country" about to turn the notion of negro ineptitude on its head. "What have we been fighting for..." was a question on lots of southern minds.
                  To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Many southerners, who were generally conservative and realistic, were not convinced that the end of slavery would allow their society to remain prosperous. Some wished to, in time, remedy the situation themselves and thus feared and resented northerners who condemned and insulted southerners but provided no real solution for the slavery dilemma.

                    Southerners knew that the British, whom they admired in many respects, had ended slavery through a progressive, compensatory strategy and saw nothing in the Republican Party that resembled that approach. Thus, the southern soldier felt that he went to war as a patriot, defending his community, and as a man on the high ground, one who could, with a clear conscience, defend slavery on the grounds that no northerner could plan a correct form of emancipation. Their belief was that northerners only wished to harm the southern people, both white and black.

                    Ironically, southern fighting men believed that they protected slaves from something worse than slavery.

                    http://www.civilwarhistorian.com/pdf...very%202-3.pdf

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      At the risk of sounding racist... ^^;

                      Originally posted by Julie View Post
                      Many southerners, who were generally conservative and realistic, were not convinced that the end of slavery would allow their society to remain prosperous. Some wished to, in time, remedy the situation themselves and thus feared and resented northerners who condemned and insulted southerners but provided no real solution for the slavery dilemma.

                      Southerners knew that the British, whom they admired in many respects, had ended slavery through a progressive, compensatory strategy and saw nothing in the Republican Party that resembled that approach. Thus, the southern soldier felt that he went to war as a patriot, defending his community, and as a man on the high ground, one who could, with a clear conscience, defend slavery on the grounds that no northerner could plan a correct form of emancipation. Their belief was that northerners only wished to harm the southern people, both white and black.

                      Ironically, southern fighting men believed that they protected slaves from something worse than slavery.

                      http://www.civilwarhistorian.com/pdf...very%202-3.pdf
                      I have to agree with the above - although the North probably did not like having an independent state just to its south. Which leads me to ask, had the Southern States remained independent after the US Civil War, how would Manifest Destiny have played out as a result?

                      As for something "worse than slavery", there is a grain of truth to that. For centuries Black people in the South were regarded by Whites as a class of servants and anything else was considered unnatural. As a result most Blacks in the South considered themselves to be members of their master's household - albeit as "property" - and there was no large organized movement to free all the Black slaves and give them an identity as an independent race of people. In fact, once the slaves were emancipated, the protection of their masters was lost and they became the target of persecution by the KKK and other Whites who did not like the new state of affairs.

                      Emancipation was the perfect pretext for the Union to go to war with the South. I doubt that President Lincoln was intent on freeing Black slaves in the South on moral grounds - even though this is the version of history taught as historical fact in all US public schools.

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                      • #41
                        FRANKLIN.

                        Before that, there were alternatives to Confederate defeat.

                        After, there were NOT.

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                        • #42
                          Originally posted by Shek View Post
                          I'd date it to the re-election of Lincoln.
                          Yeah, purty much. The ONLY hope the South EVER had was a political 'win', a collapse of will in the North. And once the People had spoken by re-electing Lincoln, that hope went bye-bye.

                          Once he was secure in office with a veto proof GOP majority, there was nothing that was going to stop Grant and Sherman. Your thoughts?
                          Absolutely correct.

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Originally posted by Stitch View Post
                            I don't know nearly as much as you guys do about the American Civil War, but I would have to say the turning point came with the Battle Of Gettysburg in 1863; after that, the result of the War was inevitable, with the change of momentum from the South to the North, and the Union's continually increasing output of mean & materiel. It was just a matter of time from then on for the North to defeat the South. I believe the pivotal moment was the Battle Of Gettysburg; if the North had been defeated, I think a negotiated peace would have been possible for the South after that, with a possible partition of the country resulting from the negotiations.
                            Could've still happened, and almost DID. Until Lincoln was re-elected, the Peace Party (the Democrats, in their by-now time-honored fashion) were hot to quit, and Grant's ruinous casualties in the summer of '64 campaign ALMOST broke the national will.

                            And then came the Confederate calamities in the West, culminating in the Battle of Franklin, 22 days after Lincoln's re-election, made possible by the fall of Atlanta.

                            The Confederacy had long odds to win, but it was still possible before Nov '64. But not aFTER.

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                            • #44
                              Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
                              I would say on 1 SEP 1864. Atlanta fell in the West on that day. It was the Fall of Atlanta which provided the key to Lincoln's election success. Mobile fell to Farragut's forces as part of the battles of Mobile Bay.

                              In the East Grant had Lee pinned into the Petersburg-Richmond line. Lee was decisively engaged and had no ability to maneuver on higher than the tactical level. 2 of the 4 routes into Petersburg were cut and the Army of the Potomoac had weathered the near crippling loss of units having their enlistments run out. After August it only grew stronger with fresh units.

                              In the Shenandoah Valley Jubal Early is about to be run to ground by Phil Sheridan. In 7 weeks his Early's army would cease to exist.

                              In the Trans Mississippi Sterling Price's Missouri Raid is coming to its ignominious conclusion.


                              Oh, the Democrats nominate McClellan...just about assuring Lincoln reelection!!
                              Actually, he dam' near made it. I'm not talking about the actual vote count (wasn't close). BUT...

                              If circumstances had been different in the war's course vis-a-vis Grant and Sherman, Lincoln would've lost that election in a landslide.

                              Consider:
                              Grant gets crushed at North Anna, losing massive numbers to an enemy army that he outnumbers two-to-one. Sherman fails to take Atlanta. Both generals are championed by one Abe Lincoln against MASSIVE opposition (Grant is a drunk butcherer; Sherman is mad). If they are failures, their patron is a goner at the polls.

                              Grant avoids calamity, and keeps the offensive campaign going deeper into the South's vitals, showing more fight and success than all the other generals before him, INCLUDING, by the way, the man now running against Lincoln. Sherman takes Atlanta, AND is advancing virtually unopposed through the ripped guts of the Southern states.

                              That's what ACTUALLY happened, but that was not fore-ordained. If it had NOT happened...Lincoln would almost certainly have lost, and the Confederacy is an established fact.

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by Tarek Morgen View Post
                                Despite being a civil war, i think it can be said that it was a "clausewitzian war" and if I remember him right a war is one won archiving one of the following three things (or a mix of them)

                                Destroying the enemy completly
                                Destroying his ability to fight
                                Destroying his will to fight

                                I believe it is safe to say that the South could not have destroyed the North, and I see it as rather unlikely that they would have been able to take away the Norths abilty to continue fighting due its larger manpower and economy. So the only hope left for them would have been to take away the North will to keep fighting.
                                That was ALWAYS the entire game. All the South wanted was to be left alone by the North. They didn't want or need to take Washington, or New York, or ANYthing.

                                All they had to do was to keep existing longer than the North was willing to keep paying the price to make 'em come to heel. Almost happened, too.

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