CSSHEGEWISCHThe rebel states sought to preserve a primarily agricultural economy
I would only add that what the Confederate railroads did do was to open up land which could be used to raise crops, especially cotton. In order to raise commercial crops it is necessary to have a way to ship them to market. Before the railroads came only land near navigable water could be used for plantations; after the railroads arrived any land anywhere could be used for plantations.
Before the Civil War large fortunes were made by plantation owners. Railroads made many plantations possible. However, the cotton gin was even more important. In 1860 80 per cent of the cotton used in British textile mills was grown by American slaves.
CSSHEGEWISCH The rebel states sought to preserve a primarily agricultural economy based heavily on unpaid involuntary labor. In such an economy, the railroads in those states were aptly suited for their role. One should note the similarity of the rail routes in those states with the rail routes in many third-world countries, also oriented to hauling raw materials to tidewater.
The rebel states sought to preserve a primarily agricultural economy based heavily on unpaid involuntary labor. In such an economy, the railroads in those states were aptly suited for their role. One should note the similarity of the rail routes in those states with the rail routes in many third-world countries, also oriented to hauling raw materials to tidewater.
Johnny
I would hardly consider it to be pay since the labor force was considered property.
dmoore74 "...You might also want to read Dixie Betrayed: How the South Really Lost the Civil War by David Eicher. While not concentrating on railroads it does shoe a rather disfunctional Confederate leadership. Here's a brief review:...." http://www.brettschulte.net/CWBlog/2009/06/25/review-dixie-betrayed-how-the-south-really-lost-the-civil-war/
"...You might also want to read Dixie Betrayed: How the South Really Lost the Civil War by David Eicher. While not concentrating on railroads it does shoe a rather disfunctional Confederate leadership. Here's a brief review:...."
http://www.brettschulte.net/CWBlog/2009/06/25/review-dixie-betrayed-how-the-south-really-lost-the-civil-war/
The following quote from the link provided by dmoore74 pretty much sums up the problematic political situation in the South, and why the defeat of the South was more or less preordained by the political infighting, at Richmond and later in THe Capital of the Confederacy at Montgomery,Al. Souther Politics failed to utilize its physical assets to win in "The Civil War ".
FTL:"...Congress and the state governors engaged in opens a window into a world that most histories ignore. Jefferson Davis often bears this alone. The book shows how much help he had from Stephens, Wigfall, Cobb, Brown and a legion of others. Their preference for obstructing, debating and endless obsession with “State’s Rights” ended whatever small chance the South had for victory. The war plays out in the background as Richmond and the states fight it out on center stage. The “CSA government” often is the President vs. the Vice-president with congress back stabbing both. The other option is the CSA congress unable to produce anything but endless debate. The sovereign state governors, see little reason for a central government and bicker with it over everything, until a Union Army appears on their borders..."
samfp1943Jefferson Davis often bears this alone. The book shows how much help he had from Stephens, Wigfall, Cobb, Brown and a legion of others. Their preference for obstructing, debating and endless obsession with “State’s Rights” ended whatever small chance the South had for victory
Jefforson Davis himself observed that the Confederacy "died of a theory," that "theory" being state's rights. And certainly there was a lot of divisiveness in the Congress. Yet Abraham Lincoln faced similar problems. He had to contend with peace Democrats in the Congress Abolitionists could be even worse; they opposed the war because letting the Confederate states go will result in a Union that was free of slavery. And within the society there were Copperheads working for a Confederate victory. Some newspapers excoriated Lincoln for the losses of life in the war. And yet Lincoln managed all of this. James McPherson believes his ability with the spoken word enabled him to persuade some and neutralize the criticisms of other. Despite his third grade education Lincoln was far more persuasive with the Congress and the people in general that Jefferson Davis was with his West Point education.
Davis might have acted more forcefully with some of his critics. Lincoln did not hesitate to suspend habeas corpus and hold people in prison without charging them. When Chief Justice Taney sent his man to Lincoln demanding that the Army produce one such man for trial Lincoln responded that Taney could send his own military men. And when confronted with the Constitutional issue Lincoln responded "Shall every law be broken in order that this one may be enforced?"
samfp1943 dmoore74 "...You might also want to read Dixie Betrayed: How the South Really Lost the Civil War by David Eicher. While not concentrating on railroads it does shoe a rather disfunctional Confederate leadership. Here's a brief review:...." http://www.brettschulte.net/CWBlog/2009/06/25/review-dixie-betrayed-how-the-south-really-lost-the-civil-war/ The following quote from the link provided by dmoore74 pretty much sums up the problematic political situation in the South, and why the defeat of the South was more or less preordained by the political infighting, at Richmond and later in THe Capital of the Confederacy at Montgomery,Al. Souther Politics failed to utilize its physical assets to win in "The Civil War ". FTL:"...Congress and the state governors engaged in opens a window into a world that most histories ignore. Jefferson Davis often bears this alone. The book shows how much help he had from Stephens, Wigfall, Cobb, Brown and a legion of others. Their preference for obstructing, debating and endless obsession with “State’s Rights” ended whatever small chance the South had for victory. The war plays out in the background as Richmond and the states fight it out on center stage. The “CSA government” often is the President vs. the Vice-president with congress back stabbing both. The other option is the CSA congress unable to produce anything but endless debate. The sovereign state governors, see little reason for a central government and bicker with it over everything, until a Union Army appears on their borders..."
Except for the President vs. Vice President - that pretty much describes what we are seeing in Congress nowadays.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
erikem [snipped - PDN] . . . Sherman apparently hated the telegraph as well, one of tehe points of his March to the Sea was being unreachable by telegraph. - Erik
- Erik
- Paul North.
Paul_D_North_JrSherman was just about 150 years ahead of his time - I know some construction people who don't mind being in places where cell phone reception is nil - they're pretty self-sufficient types, and claim they can get a lot more done without constantly being interrupted, harassed, second-guessed, etc.
But today cellphones and e-mail are not going to go away. We really have become more productive because of them although they can be a pain at times.
I bet Joe Boardman gets a lot more e mailed complaints that passenger rail presidents got mailed to them in the past.
Getting back to Confederate Railroads, actually a lot of Confederate generals used them. The below web site has a long list of generals who did. Copy and pasted the link and then scroll down to "Confederate Uses of the Railroad:"
http://www.csa-railroads.com/Essays/Essays_and_Documents.htm
On the above site 26 different Confederate troop movements by various generals are listed. Other military uses of the railroads are also indicated. The troop movements begin in 1861 and do not end until 1865. This list indicates that Confederate field commanders used the railroads despite their increasingly run down condition and despite other disputes about them. The commanders themselves must have believed the railroads were important to the war effort despite the fact that the Confederate government did not maintain them provide for the railroad companies to maintain them.
Firelock76Oh, and those warehouses in Wilmington, North Carolina? Those were supplies for North Carolina troops! NC refused to share them with the other Confederate states and there was nothing the Confederate central government could do about it, so lack of rail transport didn't have much to do with those supplies staying in Wilmington.
I have different information Firelock. Thomas Boaz in Guns for Cotton writes that the Confederate Government issued cotton bonds payable in the future with cotton at very favorable prices. The bonds were quite popular in Britain. The Port of Wilmington, North Carolina was not closed until 1865 and was used by the Confederate Government.
The bonds were issued by Emile Erlanger & Company, a Paris bank. They were called Erlangers. Although their value did tend to fall the Confederates were able to buy a lot of war supplies with them even after Gettysburg fell in July of 1863. There was a rumor (and many British and Europeans seem to have believed it) that the bonds would be honored no matter who won the war. Bond holders must have been disappointed.
So that is what I have learned for what it is worth.
Just briefly, it's been a long day, the info I got on the Wilmington warehouses came from a book I read years ago called "Embattled Confederates." Certainly, it was one of the nails in the Confederate coffin when the US Navy and Marines captured and closed the port of Wilmington in 1865, it was the last port open to the blockade runners.
The sailors and Marines in the landing force were sent ashore with the command "Board the fort in a seamanlike manner!" OOH-RAH!!! Gotta love it!
With a little net surfing I found Embattled Confederates: An Illustrated History of Southerners at War by Bell Irvin Wiley published in 1964. Wiley is the first or one the the first social historians. He died in 1980. At the time of his retirement he taught at Emory University. His book is on Amazon and other selling sites but I cannot find a review of it.
Firelock,
Harpers Weekly reports that Wilmington NC was captured by the Union on February 22, 1865 and that when captured it was held by Confederate troops. There were also a number of Yankee prisoners released in the capture. If that is correct it would seem that the port was controlled by the CSA prior to being captured.
I assume you are at work as I write and I hope you had had a chance to get some rest.
John
Absolutely, John. Wilmington NC was the last seaport the Confederates had open to the blockade runners. The fort the landing force "boarded" was Fort Fisher. When Fort Fisher fell Wilmington fell with it, and the last "door" to the outside world was closed.
Firelock76When Fort Fisher fell Wilmington fell with it, and the last "door" to the outside world was closed.
Yes, you are right. But I think by that time (February, 1865) it didn't much matter. The Confederate railroads were so run down nothing much could have left Wilmington anyway.
The previous November Union forces had a Thanksgiving feast shipped to them by rail from Washington, DC. The Confederates were starving. There was plenty of food in Richmond but Richmond was 30 miles away and the railroads were too deteriorated to get any food to the troops.
The southern troops must have been hungry for well over a year at least.
There's a story of a captured Johnny Reb talking to one of the Yankees that grabbed him. Looking at Billy Yank he said:
"Dang! Your horse is so healthy, your uniforms' new, your boots are fine, and you look like your bowels is so regular!"
I'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?
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
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.
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!
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.
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?
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.
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 .
When the Union gained control of various areas
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.
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