DeggestyThe Emancipation Proclamation did not free any slaves.
I understand this differently than you do, Johnny. From the beginning abolitionists urged Abe Lincoln to either sign an executive order freeing the slaves. Lincoln knew he could not for if he did so a Union slave owner would immediately file an action in the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Taney would strike down the order and that would leave slaves in a worse position. Lincoln knew that slavery was legal. He insisted that his commanders (who did try to emancipate escaped slaves) return the slaves to their owners as that is what the law required.
Ambrose Burnside wrote Abe a letter pointing out that when he and other commanders did return slaves the Confederates put them to work assisting in the war effort by digging earthworks and doing similar things. Abe started turning that over in his mind. In the Dred Scott decison Chief Justice Taney had ruled that slaves were not people but property. A light bulb (or perhaps a gas lamp) went on in his head. It was a well established rule of law that property used by one side to aid them in the conflict could legitimately be seized by the other side. If Confederates used slaves in the war effort he had the right to seize them to the extent he was able to. With the Emancipation Proclamation he did just that.
Since large numbers of slaves were escaping to Union lines those slaves were in fact freed by the Emancipation. Abe was careful to limit it to the places that were still in rebellion because they could not possibly go before Roger Taney and file a lawsuit.
John
DeggestyJohn, Longstreet did not take his corps from Charleston to Augusta to Atlanta? All of these lines were in place in 1851.
You are right, Johnny. William Walker and John Breckenridge came in from the west to support Bragg at Chickamauga. Part of their forces went by way of Mobile and part went straight east at Meridian. They met at Montgomery, went north to Atlanta where they used the same rail line as Longstreet did.
This comes from Railroads in the Civil War: The Impact of Management on Victory and Defeat by John E. Clark, Jr. He has a map of Confederate uses of the railroad for the battle of Chickamauga on page 90.
Firelock76I don't think the Battle of Antietam itself put a stop to any British intervention as much as the Emancipation Proclamation did.
I think the two issues are so tightly intertwined that it is hard to know which, if any, is more important. When Lincoln first proposed issuing the Emancipation Proclamation William Seward advised him to delay it until the Union had a victory. Otherwise people sympathetic to the Confederates could dismiss it as mere posturing. Lincoln took his advice. As it was it took a bit of time for the Emancipation Proclamation to be accepted as real. However, it was and there was never again a suggestion that Britain should broker an armistice.
I enjoyed your anecdote about Lee and Jackson. Lee has been rumored to have been suffering from the early stages of a neurological impairment that affected his cognitive ability. I wonder if that is what Jackson referred to.
schlimmCrossroads of Freedom: Antietem 2004.
You sum it all up in a nutshell, Schlimm.
While it's true the Emancipation Proclamation didn't free any slaves in the non-seceded states, nor did it free any slaves in areas not occupied by Union forces, it did setttle the question of what the US Army was to do with any runaways or slaves in areas that they conquered.
Up to that point as Union forces approched slave holding areas many slaves on hearing of the approach of Yankee soldiers ran away toward the Yankees hoping for freedom. The US Army commanders didn't know what to do with them. There's a military saying that "when in doubt, ' The Book' prevails", but "The Book" didn't cover this situation. Finally there was a policy, the policy was the liberation and removal of a vital labor force from the Southern economy.
Just how enthusiastic the Union soldiers were about fighting to liberate slaves is an open question. Historians just don't seem to be sure about this one and I'm not going to get into it, although I'm sure there were plenty of mixed opinons from the commanding generals on down.
Deggesty The Emancipation Proclamation did not free any slaves. It expressly did not apply to slaves in areas under Union control, and the slave owners in the Confederacy did not recognize Mr. Lincoln's authority, for they were under the government in Richmond, not the government in Washington. Incidentally, the war not a civil war, for a civil war occurs when two factions struggle for the control of the same government. The southern states had their own government, which was in Richmond, and they wanted to be independent of the government in Washington.
The Emancipation Proclamation did not free any slaves. It expressly did not apply to slaves in areas under Union control, and the slave owners in the Confederacy did not recognize Mr. Lincoln's authority, for they were under the government in Richmond, not the government in Washington.
Incidentally, the war not a civil war, for a civil war occurs when two factions struggle for the control of the same government. The southern states had their own government, which was in Richmond, and they wanted to be independent of the government in Washington.
Two points [from the Wiki]: "It is common to encounter a claim that the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free a single slave. As a result of the Proclamation, many slaves were freed during the course of the war, beginning with the day it took effect. Eyewitness accounts at places such as Hilton Head, South Carolina,[53] and Port Royal, South Carolina,[52] record celebrations on January 1 as thousands of blacks were informed of their new legal status of freedom.
Estimates of the number of slaves freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation are uncertain. One contemporary estimate put the 'contraband' population of Union-occupied North Carolina at 10,000, and the Sea Islands of South Carolina also had a substantial population. Those 20,000 slaves were freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation."[12] This Union-occupied zone where freedom began at once included parts of eastern North Carolina, the Mississippi Valley, northern Alabama, the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, a large part of Arkansas, and the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina.[54] Although some counties of Union-occupied Virginia were exempted from the Proclamation, the lower Shenandoah Valley, and the area around Alexandria were covered.[12]"I realize some in the South still call it "The War between the States" or "The War of Northern Aggression." But most definitions of civil war refer to a war between organized groups within the same nation state. The American Civil War was a conflict based on regional differences. Secession was regarded as an invalid action (dating back to James Calhoun's Nullification Doctrine) by the majority and the original purpose of the war was to prevent dissolution of the United States.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
If the railroads of the Confederacy could not move its armies, what did the decline of its railroads contribute to the South's general economic collapse?
Johnny
John WR schlimmBut Longstreet's contrary strategy of pure defense to exact a heavy toll on Union armies while preserving less easily replaced Confederates troops and supplies also works in illuminating "what if" counterfactual discussions. In a brilliant effort James Longstreet sent his 12,000 men by train from Richmond to Chickamauga. The rail lines were almost totally worn out or destroyed. He had to go by way of Mobile and the journey was 800 miles. The rail lines were so degraded he only managed to get half of his force to Chickamauga for the battle. Still he and Bragg won and pushed the Yankees back to Chattanooga. But it was only half a victory. Had the railroads been in better shape he would have had all of his men and pushed the Yankees back to Nashville. Sherman would then have had to fight to take Chattanooga. If he had to do that maybe, just maybe, he would have been unable to continue to Atlanta. But hey, the last part of this, the important part, is as you say counterfactual.
schlimmBut Longstreet's contrary strategy of pure defense to exact a heavy toll on Union armies while preserving less easily replaced Confederates troops and supplies also works in illuminating "what if" counterfactual discussions.
In a brilliant effort James Longstreet sent his 12,000 men by train from Richmond to Chickamauga. The rail lines were almost totally worn out or destroyed. He had to go by way of Mobile and the journey was 800 miles.
The rail lines were so degraded he only managed to get half of his force to Chickamauga for the battle. Still he and Bragg won and pushed the Yankees back to Chattanooga. But it was only half a victory. Had the railroads been in better shape he would have had all of his men and pushed the Yankees back to Nashville. Sherman would then have had to fight to take Chattanooga. If he had to do that maybe, just maybe, he would have been unable to continue to Atlanta.
But hey, the last part of this, the important part, is as you say counterfactual.
I don't think the Battle of Antietam itself put a stop to any British intervention as much as the Emancipation Proclamation did. Turning the Union cause, however tentatively, into a crusade to eliminate slavery in the South made it impossible for the British government, or anyone else's government to recognize the legitamacy of the Confederacy. As long as the slavery question was left out the possibility was there. Throw slavery in and everything changed. At any rate, at the beginning of the war General Lee wasn't expecting any help from any foreign power at all. "We have to do this alone, no-one will help us" he said. He believed anyone in the south expecting foreign intervention was fooling themselves.
The Union victory at Antietam, however tenuous, was in the end a lost opportunity. A more aggressive Union commander than McClellan would have destroyed the Army of Northern Virginia then and there. He outnumbered Lee more than two-to-one, yet fought the battle in such a haphazard fashion Lee was able to survive and retreat back into Virginia.
My favorite Stonewall Jackson story comes out of the Battle of Antietam. Lee's army was literally fighting for survival, and as Lee was riding Jacksons part of the line he saw a soldier break and run for the rear. Lee had his staff officers arrest the man, then he turned him over to Jackson with orders ro shoot him for desertion in the face of the enemy. When Lee left Jackson turned to the man and said:
"All right, we're in a bad way and we need every man, so this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you a musket and put you pack on the firing line and let you fight for your life. If you aquit yourself well nothing more will be said."
"But sir," the man said, "What about General Lee?"
"General Lee is not himself today" said Jackson. "When this is over he won't remember and I won't remind him. Now go and do your duty!"
Happy ending time: the soldier survived the battle and the war. After the war he ran a ferry in the Lexington Virginia area and a regular customer was Robert E. Lee. The man had no animosity toward Lee either. Good story, huh?
Mr. Schlimm called this a fascinating discussion, and it is! The Civil War is a fascinating subject. If fact interest in the Civil War has been described as a "big hole in the ground that once you fall into, there's no climbing out of it again!" Well, I've never fallen into the hole, but I've sure walked around the edge and looked in!
One of the most amazing things, to me at least, is the interest in the American Civil War in other countries around the world. That's really one of the most astounding things about the Civil War there is.
Crossroads of Freedom: Antietem 2004. It restored morale in the North and kept Lincoln's party in control of Congress. It crushed Confederate hopes of British intervention. And it freed Lincoln to deliver the Emancipation Proclamation, which instantly changed the character of the war.
schlimmMcPherson also maintains that Antietam, not the one-two punch of Vicksburg and Gettysburg a year later, was the real turning point in the war.
I don't recall that from McPherson but perhaps I was asleep. It sure sounds like something he would say.
But why did he say it? Because it was (sort of) a Union victory? Or because it gave him the chance he needed to issue the Emancipation Proclamation which he believed would keep Britain from offering to broker an armistice?
John WRJames McPherson has called the Civil War the Second American Revolution.
McPherson also maintains that Antietam, not the one-two punch of Vicksburg and Gettysburg a year later, was the real turning point in the war.
BaltACDWhen the Union gained control of various areas
Your map shows how little headway the Union made in 1862. They did a little better in 1863 but not a lot. However the victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Chattanooga were important. You can also see that when Longstreet joined Bragg to defeat the Union at Chickamauga he postponed the march to Atlanta by a year. But Roscrans hung in at Chattanooga and the 11th and 12 corps came and in 1864 Sherman with his Bummers did get to Atlanta and went on to the sea. Meanwhile at Petersburg Lee's men were holding Richmond but they could not do it forever, especially with Longstreet's men gone. In 1865 what was left fell.
Firelock76The smart thing to do would have been to give up some ground in the west, re-enforce Lee heavily in Virginia, then try to manuver the Army of the Potomac into a situation where it could be wrecked and Washington isolated.
I agree completely. From the very beginning Lincoln was afraid that Washington would be cut off from the rest of the country.
"Of course, the Confederates could have "won the war" by never starting it in the first place by firing on Fort Sumter. Public opinion in the North "prior to" was it was a shame the Southern states had seceded, but no-one was willing to go to war to force them back into the Union."
I think that Jefferson Davis, had he been able to operate as he wanted to, would have done just that but he was overwhelmed by the fire eaters. He had argued that states should not secede individually but act together and he was ignored. When he authorized General Pierre Gustav Toutant Beauregard to fire on Sumpter he believed it would take about 3 months for Lincoln to get the Congress back so he could begin to raise an army. The next day Lincoln declared a national emergency and called up 75,000 men.
James McPherson has called the Civil War the Second American Revolution.
Fascinating discussion! The notion that the Confederates had to destroy some Union army, preferably in the east seems to be the heart of lee's offensive-defensive ruling strategy. But Longstreet's contrary strategy of pure defense to exact a heavy toll on Union armies while preserving less easily replaced Confederates troops and supplies also works in illuminating "what if" counterfactual discussions.
When the Union gained control of various areas
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
OK, by destroying A Union Army, not THE Union Army, we're talking about an individual unit, say the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Virginia (short-lived, it was merged with the Potomac), the Army of the James, and so on. By destroying it we're taking about reducing its capacity to fight by the amount of killed and wounded, wrecking unit cohesionand command and control, and placing it in a position where it has no option other to surrender en masse. THAT's destruction of an army. A more recent example would be the destruction of Paulus' Sixth Army by the Russians at Stalingrad in 1943. It's what happened to Lee eventually at Appomattox in 1865.
A disaster to the Union Army like that certainly would have undermined or eliminated the North's will to fight, no matter what Lincoln wanted. Once the rage over Fort Sumter subsided, and the war turned into a bloody horror, support for the Union cause was pretty tenuous, maybe only 50-50 or even 60-40. In fact, in 1864 when Grant was battering himself against Lee in Virginia, and no Union forces anywhere seemed to be making any progress, Lincoln was sure he was going to lose re-election in November. It was a series of Union victories, Sherman at Atlanta, Farragut in Mobile Bay, Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley that turned public opinon around. Bad news for the Confederacy, for in his own quiet way Lincoln was the most implacable enemy they had.
I think the Confederates could have won the war as well, but this is Monday-morning quarterbacking on my part. When Stonewall Jackson's manuverings and victories in the Shenandoah Valley revealed the Lincoln administration's sensitivity about the safety of Washington DC, someone on the Confederate side should have realized the opportunity. The smart thing to do would have been to give up some ground in the west, re-enforce Lee heavily in Virginia, then try to manuver the Army of the Potomac into a situation where it could be wrecked and Washington isolated. Capturing it would have been pointless, it was too well fortified. Humiliating the Lincoln administration would have been good enough. Like I say, it's just Monday morning quarterbacking which I really don't like. Maybe someone on the Confederate side DID see the opportunity but wasn't listened too. We'll never know.
Of course, the Confederates could have "won the war" by never starting it in the first place by firing on Fort Sumter. Public opinion in the North "prior to" was it was a shame the Southern states had seceded, but no-one was willing to go to war to force them back into the Union.
As far as the Civil War turning into a legend, well, there's a lot of "blame", if you want to call it that, to go around. The historians, the novelists, the poets, Hollywood eventually, and yes, the Civil War veterans themselves who knew they'd gone places and done things that seemed incredible to those who weren't there and rightfully never let anyone forget .
Firelock76 Therefore, Lee HAD to destroy a Union army, preferably the Army of the Potomac, and he looked for opportunities to do so. He came close,
I agree with this and the rest of your speculation. But it raises the question of how did Lee propose to destroy the Union Army as a fighting force? If wounding and killing Union solders would do that Lee certainly succeeded. Union casualties were far higher than Confederate casualties. But the wounding and killing was not sufficient because Lincoln was able to replace the men lost on the battle field. Lee had to destroy the Union's will to win and to undermine the populations willingness to support the war. If he could invade the north and devastate the civilian population that would undermine Lincoln's support in the country and that could well lead to a Confederate victory. This is the explanation I have read of Lee's thinking about Gettysburg. In my view his thinking was correct and this seems consistent with your own beliefs.
Finally, I think the Confederates could have won the war. The Americans won the Revolution when there were far greater forces against them than the Confederates faced. For the Union to win it had to occupy and subdue a hugh hostile territory; for the Confederates to win all they had to do was to avoid losing. I believe they failed to organize themselves to win, failed at what military people call logistics. They became unable to get adequate food to their soldiers. They never set up the civilian bureaucracy they needed to win and their failure to maintain their railroads was a big part of that.
"A British historian writing about the American Civil War said it lasted as long as it needed to. The side that had to lose did lose, but lasted long enough to cover itself with glory and created a military legend, and the side that had to win did win in the end, creating another military legend and winning the same amount of glory. Quite profound, don't you think?"
I have to agree with you that this statement is profound. But in focusing on the military legends it distracts us from what Sherman called "The hard hand of war." The war dead on both sides were a bitter cup. And the south had to live with economic devastation that would not be over for many, many years.
As you point out Lee never wrote his memoirs and never shared his own personal thoughts. But his actions during the war were clear. His job was to win battles and he did that over and over and over. He certainly wanted to win battles and he wanted the Confederacy to prevail. That is what he worked for.
Were British weapons better than the American made ones? Well, yes and no. The British Enfield rifle was finished better than the American Springfield and had a better rear sight, but it wasn't THAT much better, and wasn't any more accurate. A soldier armed with either one was pretty well equipped. The British didn't have any revolvers as good as the Colts, however. Most British revolvers of the period are clumsy things compared to the Colt products.
And the British didn't have anything to compare to the Spencer repeating rifle. If the Confederates captured some Spencers they didn't do them much good as they couldn't make the metallic cartridges for them. No-one else in the world could either.
Was Lee's decision to bring the war North a mistake? In retrospect it was. As Lee never said what the purpose was we have to guess why he did what he did, so allow me to speculate...
To be a good soldier you have to know history. Lee was a good soldier, so we can assume he knew his history. As such, he would have known that what made American independence possible was the destruction of two British field armies, Burgoynes at Saratoga in 1777, which brought the French into the war, and Washingtons destruction of Cornwallis' army at Yorktown in 1781, which caused a corresponding loss of will to fight by the British government and effectively ended the war. Therefore, Lee HAD to destroy a Union army, preferably the Army of the Potomac, and he looked for opportunities to do so. He came close, VERY close several times, but something always seemed to go wrong at the last minute or something was lacking. I should say that when military men talk of detstroying an army they don't mean actual physical destruction, as in killing everyone on the opposite side, they mean destroying it as a fighting force.
In the Seven Days battles around Richmond in early 1862 Lee came close to destroying McClellan, but was prevented from doing so by lack of knowledge of the area (the Yankees had better maps of that part of Virginia than the Rebs did!) and the exhaustion of Stonewall Jackson and his corps. He came close to destroying Pope at Second Manassas, but lack of a sizable reserve thwarted him. He might have destroyed Burnside at Frederickburg the evening ot the battle where Burnside got his army shot to pieces had he taken Stonewall's suggestion of a night attack to drive the Yankees into the Rapahannock, but as night attacks were very difficult and dangerous things to pull off in those days he was probably right to say no and play it safe.
At Chancellorsville he almost destroyed Hooker, but the failure of a Confederate division to take and hold a vital bridge permitted Hooker to escape, and this is one of the few times Lee lost his temper, roaring at General Dorsey Pender "This is what you young men always do! You let those people get away! I tell you what to do but you won't do it!" Ever the gentleman though, he saw he'd hurt Pender's feelings and said, "All right, never mind, it'll all come right in the end. Go after them and damage them as much as you can."
Then Gettysburg. What can we say? Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and afterwards Lee's army had to fight a defensive war for the duration, but it was still formidable and not to be underestimated, as General Grant found out when he came east.
Civil War historians have always thought it a pity Lee never wrote his memoirs as a lot of Civil War generals did. His great biographer Douglas Southall Freeman once said he could tell you what Lee was doing at any given moment from 1861 to 1865, but he could never tell you what was on Lee's mind. But the poet and author Steven Vincent Benet said that if Lee had written such a book, everyone in the South would have bought a copy, even if they had to starve to do so. And that Lee couldn't countenance. He knew the people of the devastated and destitute South had other things to worry about.
You know, sometimes someone on the outside looking in can see things others can't. A British historian writing about the American Civil War said it lasted as long as it needed to. The side that had to lose did lose, but lasted long enough to cover itself with glory and created a military legend, and the side that had to win did win in the end, creating another military legend and winning the same amount of glory. Quite profound, don't you think?
Firelock76Interesting, there were just as many Enfields carried by Yankees as there were by Rebs, the Brits didn't care, one man's money was as good as anothers.
I know this is true. The British were traders and business men looking to make a profit. Ultimately they filled their orders from Mason and Slidell and did not hesitate to sell to the Union.
A question. I understand British made weapons (and just about everything else) were better than American made weapons at that time. Is this true?
Beyond the issue of weapons, the British genuinely believed the Confederates would win. They believed that if a colony wished to be independent it was, as a practical matter, impossible to force the people to remain a colony. They had the experience of the American Revolution and also understood the Haitian Revolution. And they believed Jomini who, after all, wrote the state of the art book. There was simply no prior experience of a war conducted with railroads available; based on the knowledge they had they were correct. The Confederates did have interior lines with their advantages. And based on the same knowledge Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee were correct too.
I think you were the guy who questioned my argument that railroads were the sole reason the Union won the war. And I have to agree. Railroads were important but there were other reasons too. One was Abe Lincoln; I think Jefferson Davis expected him to respond as William Seward did and agree to accept Confederate independence. Lincoln was a total unknown both to the Confederates and to the British and even to many of his own fellow Republicans. And I think Lee's decision to bring the war to the Yankees and march into the north which ended at Gettysburg was also a real mistake, not just a fog of war miscalculation but a misunderstanding of the mind of the Union. A lot of Union Generals were at heart Peace Democrats whose heart was not into invading the Confederacy. But when it came to defending the Union they were far more willing to be aggressive.
As far as rifles in the Civil War: when the war started only the US Regulars and some of the better equipped state troops had them. Most soldiers, North and South, started the war with .69 caliber smoothbores, aside from the ignition system (percussion cap) not too different from the smoothbore muskets the Revolution was fought with.
When the war began there was a mad scramble to arm the troops with ANYTHING that would shoot. As one military man put it "all the refuse of Europe found it's way here." Certainly there were times when Union soldiers were facing Confederates that were better armed, but that was the exception, not the rule. The Confederates lost a battle in West Virginia early in the war, they were armed with flintlocks (!) and a heavy rain came up soaking the pans.
On the other hand, the 12th New Jersey was carrying smoothbore muskets as late as the battle of Gettysburg. Their monument is there today, a column topped with one big ball and three little balls, the "buck and ball" load their muskets shot. They stopped Picketts Charge with those muskets, though. With a little help from the rest of the Army of the Potomac.
The best of the rifles were the Springfield .58 cals, the Enfield .577 cals, the Sharps breechloading rifles and carbines, and of course the Spencer repeating rifles and carbines. Interesting, there were just as many Enfields carried by Yankees as there were by Rebs, the Brits didn't care, one man's money was as good as anothers.
I'll tell you, Civil War weaponry is a fascinating study, you could follow it the rest of your life and never be bored. Shooting them is fun too, especially when there's no-one shooting back!
Yes, as the war went on the Union got much better weapons and that led to Union soldiers doing better on the battle field. President Lincoln was personally involved in searching for better weapons for his soldiers.
The Union also had most of the Spencer, Lorenz and Henry rifles and Burnside carbine. The Spencer and Henry were part of the reason for the annihilation of Hood's troops at Nashville.
Firelock76Would slavery have lasted had the South won the war? That's hard to say. Certainly it would have survived the immediate post-war years, but as the 20th Century approached AND the farm mechanization it would bring with it I think it's hard to see just how slavery would have lasted.
I agree that it is hard to say how long slavery would have lasted had the Confederates won the war. Growing cotton was enormously profitable and hugh fortunes were made dong it under plantation slavery. The mechanical cotton picker was invented in the 1930's but was not used widely until the 1940's.
Firelock76I'll say one thing: Whether you like, dislike, or flat-out hate the cause he fought for, in my opinion Johnny Reb was a real American hero. He did so much with so little, and in the end he had to be pounded into the ground to be defeated. Now who can't admire that?
I think there were heros on both sides, Firelock. Yankees had a lot that Confederate troops lacked. But one thing the Confederates did have: Rifles.
At the beginning of the war James Mason and John Slidell went to England and brought at least a year's production of rifles. They were shipped home to arm Confederate soldiers. Union men got smooth bore muskets that were wildly inaccurate. Ultimately the Union started manufacturing its own rifles.
In July, 1863 Vicksburgh fell to Ulysses Grant. Among other things Grant captured 60,000 English made Enfield rifles. They were state of the art and superior to anything the Union had. Yes, the Union soldiers had the best of everything with one exception. Weapons to fight with.
efftenxrfeAm I wrong to suspect a lot of writings in this posting seem to say that if the CSA hadn't made miss-apprehensions miss-calculations, strategic logistic and manufacturing mistakes
Speaking for myself:
1. The Confederacy had an agricultural economy and mostly relied on cotton. It could not suddenly change itself into a manufacturing economy no matter how desirable that would have been. However, British merchants were willing to supply it with all of the manufactured goods it needed on credit in the form of cotton bonds.
2. I do think the Confederacy made a mistake that can be called logistic. Top policy makers (Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee) failed to see the importance of railroads and they failed to maintain their railroad system. Had they done so they could have continued the war using materials imported from Britain. The could also have distributed food to their fighting men.
3. At West Point both Lee and Davis learned that what was important in war was interior lines. They had interior lines and they relied on that. They were never able to comprehend that the railroads changed classical theory and to a large extent nullified much of the importance of interior lines.
4. Many other Confederate Generals recognized the importance of railroads and used them. But they could not maintain the railroad system.
Oh, I think we shouldn't be too surprised at the level of knowledge of the Civil War with some railfans. If you're into railroads, it follows you'll get interested in railroad history, And when you get into it enough the Civil War comes looming into view.
Would slavery have lasted had the South won the war? That's hard to say. Certainly it would have survived the immediate post-war years, but as the 20th Century approached AND the farm mechanization it would bring with it I think it's hard to see just how slavery would have lasted. It would have been a lot cheaper for the plantation owner to mechanize in the long run than it would have been to keep slaves.
It's just a helluva shame it took 600,000 dead to resolve the slavery (and other) questions. Lord have mercy, there HAD to have been a better way.
Oh, and I don't have any family connection with the Civil War either. My familys story in this country doesn't start until 1920. Hey, some people have Gettysburg in their background, I've got Ellis Island!
Little does it take to amaze me that there is the level of expertise of this thing's Civil War among railfans. History, since the 1830's, can't ignore railroads.
Half my parents got here from Germany in the 1850's; the other half from Ireland in the 1880's, thus there's no heritage to influence my prejudicioused thoughts from family history.
Am I wrong to suspect a lot of writings in this posting seem to say that if the CSA hadn't made miss-apprehensions miss-calculations, strategic logistic and manufacturing mistakes and grossely selfish thoughts that continuing slavery was endowed?
Consider the flip-flop that occurred when LBJ pushed civil rights. Southern Democrats became republicans. LBJ said that we've lost them. So Right was he.
Pls recall who are and were Demo's and Repubs at what time they, the partissns are/were players.
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