Firelock76Well, the reason I've read Wilson signed on the the Versaille Treaty was it was the price for the other nations to adopt Wilson's pet project of the League of Nations, and he signed onto it in spite of his better judgement.
HUH?????
Wilson signed off on Versailles because he believed all the bullcrap that Lloyd George, Clemenceau et al. were feeding him. Can you imagine he would sign off on anything so revanchist otherwise? Or knowingly accede to precisely the kind of agreement he'd already said was the lead-in to the War already??
League of Nations was dead in the water in Congress anyway (and I knew one of the Cabot great-granddaughters who explained some of the 'inside knowledge'!) Perhaps Wilson still thought during the peace conference that the League would be approved as policy -- but there was certainly no indication I have ever seen, looking at the primary sources, that there really was.
If you can find a copy of John Maynard Keynes' "Economic Consequences of the Peace" you'll be a lot closer to understanding where and how things went off the trolley. (I find I can't really blame the Germans for dragging out that *** railroad car when the French knuckled under in 1940!)
I can't help but think if another negotiator, say Teddy Roosevelt had been in Wilson's place he would have said to France and Britain, privately of course, "Look boys, we were at war with the Kaiser's government, not the German people. The Kaiser's gone, but you're still making war on his people, and that's wrong. If you try to go through with this I'll walk out of this conference, tell the world why I'm walking out, and call in the markers on all the money you people owe us! Wise up! You're sowing the seeds of another war!"
And of course those *** European 'statesmen' would have listened carefully and done exactly what he wanted? I would suspect that such an attitude, no matter how truthfully expressed, would have led to ... well, precisely the sort of crap duplicity that the European Allied leaders actually engaged in. Be interesting, too, to have seen what the economic response of such a posture would have been.
Yes, we and the world are probably much the poorer for a strong hand not being taken by us. Another book (admittedly better as an inspiration than something actually to read) is Lippman's 'Drift and Mastery' -- Versailles was the time to assert mastery, and for whatever reason Wilson and Cabot et al. muffed the peace. (Much as Bilbo Baggins muffed the peace dividend and the end of the Cold War ... but that is a different story! ;-} )
Oh, and John, if that professor who gave the lecture said everybody knew Wilson was "gettin' jiggy" with certain citizens of Trenton, chances are the prof was the only person who knew it.
There is a curious historiographical fad over the past few years to make Wilson look as bad, evil, fascistic and what-all as possible. Some of this is good, because true. But not when conducted as a systematic revisionistic agenda. (Cf. Gar Alperovitz and 'others of that ilk' leading up to the propaganda about enhanced-radiation weapons).
Why is Wilson any different from FDR and Lucy?
RME
Well, the reason I've read Wilson signed on the the Versaille Treaty was it was the price for the other nations to adopt Wilson's pet project of the League of Nations, and he signed onto it in spite of his better judgement. I can't help but think if another negotiator, say Teddy Roosevelt had been in Wilson's place he would have said to France and Britain, privately of course, "Look boys, we were at war with the Kaiser's government, not the German people. The Kaiser's gone, but you're still making war on his people, and that's wrong. If you try to go through with this I'll walk out of this conference, tell the world why I'm walking out, and call in the markers on all the money you people owe us! Wise up! You're sowing the seeds of another war!"
Wilson could be full of himself, of course. It was British Prime Minister Lloyd-George who said sitting between Premier Clemanceau of France and President Wilson was like sitting between Napoleon and Jesus Christ.
Like you said, I'll take it for what it's worth, which probably isn't much.
And, I have read, comparatively recently, (and I do not remember jsut where) that when he proposed marriage to Edith Bolling Galt, she was so startled that she fell out of the bed they were in.
Johnny
erikemThere's some thought that Wilson contracted a bad case of the 1918 flu while in Paris - he certainly was ill for a period
That is widely reported by historians and no doubt it is true but there may be more to it.
Several years ago I heard a lecture by a history professor from Rutgers (which is down the road from Princeton). This was at the Princeton Adult School which is run by the Princeton Public School Board. Anyway, he told us that it was well known that when Wilson was President of Princeton he visited prostitutes in Trenton. He contracted a sexually transmitted disease -- probably syphilis -- and that was part of the medical problem he experienced in France. However, such is the prestige of Woodrow Wilson (he went on to say) that this has never been reported in a history book and he himself would not publish the story.
You can take that for what it is worth, Erik.
John
Firelock76In the end it didn't happen. History took a course we DON'T have to guess about. We took care of the problem ourselves, although it took 600,000 dead to solve it.
Like you, I learned in school that about 600,000 died in the American Civil War. Recently the New York Times reported that number has stood for over a century but recent research and uncovered a total of about 750,000 deaths. Here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/civil-war-toll-up-by-20-percent-in-new-estimate.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
The number becomes mind numbing.
Firelock76 Look, what I'm trying to say is even if the governments of Britain and France didn't give a *** about American slavery at the time a future election could change that. A "sea change" in public opinion could change that. Anything could change that. And that's all I'm trying to say.
Look, what I'm trying to say is even if the governments of Britain and France didn't give a *** about American slavery at the time a future election could change that. A "sea change" in public opinion could change that. Anything could change that. And that's all I'm trying to say.
Well, Wayne, anywhere in this life things can change. But I believe that just as there is physical inertia where things once put in motion stay in motion in the absence of other forces and things at rest stay at rest in the absence of other forces so also there is social inertia.
But you point out that in Britain and France there were other forces acting on the body politic. And those other forces were not favorable to slavery so that as time went on the CSA may well have found itself increasingly isolated in a disapproving world.
During the early part of the war in Britain questions were raised about dealing with the Confederacy because of slavery. However, those questions were answered by people who pointed out that slavery existed and was perfectly legal in the north as well as the south so the war could not possibly be about slavery. In Britain there was also a moral concern as well as a business about the fact that so many people were dying in the war and this was behind the British considerations of suggesting they broker and armistice. France was ready to go with the armistice but would not act without Britain. And Abe Lincoln was well aware of the British deliberations. He did not want an armistice and he did not want an armistice proposed because if he refused it that would give the British and French a reason to violate the blockade. That led him to issue the Emancipation Proclamation in order to make the war a war about slavery so the offer to broker an armistice would not happen. And he succeeded.
But in our hypothet there would be no blockade. And while there was a moral movement against slavery in the British working class that movement had never been so strong as to even reduce our cotton trade with Britain. And the British workers in the spinning and weaving mills in Lancashire were able to resolve the issue sufficiently to earning their living with slave grown cotton.
So it seems to me that the economic issues in France and Britain exerted a pretty robust force on the anti slavery elements of the population to get them to accept slave grown cotton even if they didn't like it.
And if we put ourselves in the shoes of the British workers in the mills who were able to maintain their homes and families provided they were working I can understand why, although they disliked slavery, were not inclined to put their jobs on the line because of that. And with not Civil War I think things would have continued as they had been before.
Why would Britain and France take the moral high ground concerning American slavery? Why did they take the moral high ground concerning their own use of slaves?
There was opposition to American slavery in the British body politic during the 1860's, from the Whigs (or Liberals, if they were calling themselves that at the time), also from the growing labor movement. I'm not sure about France, but with the literary lights of the time such as Victor Hugo I'd have to believe they were in opposition to it as well, maybe not a major voice, but a growing one.
In the end it didn't happen. History took a course we DON'T have to guess about. We took care of the problem ourselves, although it took 600,000 dead to solve it.
Wayne,
Without the American Civil War why would France and Britain suddenly take the high moral ground and refuse to import slave grown cotton when they had never done so before? Especially in Britain spinning and weaving cotton were a very important part of the economy. Also, had they declined to accept slave grown cotton their own goods would have suffered because the US would have had a lot less to pay for them.
In addition was there enough Egyptian cotton available to take the place of American cotton? And could they have gotten that cotton at a low enough price to make it worthwhile? The fact that cloth made with American cotton was very cheap was important to a lot of their customers who could not afford more expensive merchandise.
During the war the Confederates used cotton bonds to trade with Britain and France and these cotton bonds to be paid for in future delivery of cotton were very popular in both countries. The Confederates had no problem in getting whatever supplies they needed by offering cotton bonds. So any revulsion with slavery would have had to come at a much later time if it would come at all.
Finally, after the cotton gin was invented cotton plantations worked by slaves became very profitable. Before the war hugh fortunes were made planters. Slavery was so profitable that Abe Lincoln could not persuade Union slave states to accept compensated emancipation even when he pointed out that realistically slavery was going to have to end due to the "friction and abrasion of war." The cotton gin and the enormous profit it enabled plantation owners to obtain changed the whole perspective on slavery.
There's some thought that Wilson contracted a bad case of the 1918 flu while in Paris - he certainly was ill for a period. The speculation is that whatever he came down with weakened him to the point that he had no strength left to argue against the French plans for the treaty. My understanding was that a lot of the people back in the US circa 1919 didn't like the way the treaty came out and that may be related as to why the US stayed out of the League of Nations.
Then again Germany made two horrendous mistakes in 1917, one being provoking the US into war with the Zimmerman telegram and two sending Lenin to Russia in 1917.
- Erik
Erikem, I'm hanging my head in shame! HOW could I have forgotten the Treaty of Versailles? And me a student of the First World War as well!
Certainly the Versailles Treaty was an act of retribution. What makes it really incomprehensable was that Woodrow Wilson signed off on it after having lived through Reconstruction himself (as a boy in Georgia) and seeing first-hand what bad post-war planning can do. Go figure.
Firelock76 Post-war planning just never seems to have been an American strong suit, the occupations of Germany and Japan after WW2 were the exception, not the rule.
Post-war planning just never seems to have been an American strong suit, the occupations of Germany and Japan after WW2 were the exception, not the rule.
Post-war planning was nobody's strong suit - the Treaty of Versailles is a good example. While Reconstruction was horribly botched, there was at least an intent to rebuild (unfortunately with little follow through), where the Versailles Treaty was more an act of retribution.
The history of the Versailles Treaty was very fresh in the minds of the US government as Truman and most of the senior officers in the military were WW1 vets, giving them strong incentive to avoid a repeat of that disaster.
John, the reason I brought up Egyptian cotton was IF the British and the French took the moral high ground with an independent Confederacy in an effort to get them to abolish slavery there was an alternative to Southern cotton should they have chosen to boycott it. That's all.
Wayne
OK Overmod, good points, so let me answer in turn.
You're speaking of the world and midset of the year 1860. However, remember things change over time, societies look at things differently as the years go on. Slavery existed in all Thirteen Colonies at the time of the Amercan Revolution, but by the end of the War of 1812 it had been abolished in seven of them. At first there was the realization of the fact it didn't pay, then the idea it was in "bad taste" and then eventually, morally repugnant. The British didn't see anything wrong with slavery in the mid 18th Century, but had abolished their own slave trade by 1807 in spite of fierce opposition from the Liverpool shipping magnates, and then, as you said, abolished it completely by 1835.
As far as Christian justification of slavery, remember the biggest proponants of same were the Southern slaveholders, not anyone else. They were just fooling themselves of course. There's little evidence anyone else bought into that, at least by the mid 19th Century. In fact, most anti-slavery societys were Christian in basis. The Quakers were some of the most militant, providing a lot of stations on the Underground Railroad.
As far as international pressure, remember I said in the beginning I was making a guess. Just because it never needed to happen doesn't mean it would NEVER have happened. We just don't, and never will know.
And what happened after Reconstruction? Well, it happened because Reconstruction was a total foul-up from start to finish. Post-war planning just never seems to have been an American strong suit, the occupations of Germany and Japan after WW2 were the exception, not the rule. There were no plans for what was to be done with over four million former slaves who were for the most part uneducated and without skills. The alienation and disenfranchisement of the surviving Southern upper classes in spite of what Lincoln wanted was a mistake, it left a legacy of bitterness even worse than the war did. In fact, Reconstruction was such an embarrasment it was only a "blip" in most history books until fairly recently, you had to dig to find anything about it at all.
Just to reiterate: Things change, people change, philosophies change. What one nation's government finds acceptable in one decade it may not find acceptable two or three decades later. What a society finds acceptable in one decade it may not find acceptable two or three decades later, or vice versa. Who knows what some future society looking back on ours might think of what we accepted as the norm in day to day living?
By the way, what happened to Apartheid in South Africa anyway?
Firelock76as the Southern cotton began to run out in Europe due to the American war, the British and French found a very good substitute in Egyptian cotton, and it came from a closer source as well.
Without looking up a lot of references, my own information is that Egyptian cotton was always valued by the British and French. It is long staple cotton similar to the Sea Island cotton grown on the coast of Georgia and the Carolinas. It is strong and has a smooth silky finish. Even today you won't find any better cotton goods than those made from Egyptian cotton.
But the short staple southern cotton was cheap. It grew so easily in the American south that it was a noxious weed before the cotton gin. It was more difficult to weave as the threads were prone to breaking. However, over the years plantation owners used selective breeding to improve their short stable cotton and by 1860 there were much improved varieties. Because it was so cheap the British sold a lot of it in India where many people were very poor.
I've also read that the British tried cotton grown in India but they could never get the quality they could get from the US.
Finally, we are talking about trading relations had the war never occurred. That means there would have been no blockade and no barrier to trade.
John, I'm pretty sure "pariah nation" status would have happened. Reason being, as the Southern cotton began to run out in Europe due to the American war, the British and French found a very good substitute in Egyptian cotton, and it came from a closer source as well. So, a "clean up your act or we'll do business elswhere" situation might very well have developed as the 20th Century approached. Again, just a guess, but I could see it happening.
Firelock76Certainly there would have been a continuance of the "staus quo" trade situation between the South and Europe, but that would have changed after a while.
I agree, Wayne. Had there been no American Civil War there is no reason to believe trading relations between the Confederate States of American and Britain and Europe would have changed. As it happened in 1861 there was a cotton glut in Britain so prices were very low. However, over the long run as the market picked up trading would no doubt have resumed.
In 1860 Britain obtained about 80 per cent of its raw cotton from the US. The trade had been very profitable to both sides. With reduction or elimination of the tariff the true price of cotton to the British would have fallen.
Personally I would not venture a guess on the "pariah nation" issue. However, there is no reason to believe that there would be any change in the mutually beneficial long term trading relations.
Firelock76Certainly there would have been a continuance of the "status quo" trade situation between the South and Europe, but that would have changed after a while.
Be interesting to see whether the British push to plant cotton in Empire possessions would have proceeded with the same 'despatch' it did when the urge to geld King Cotton became so significant in the early days of the blockade. Several sources have noted that British textile demand was essentially satisfied, from India and perhaps other sources, by 1864.
As the 19th Century wore on, and IF the South had kept the institution of slavery, it would have eventually aquired the status of a "pariah nation" , much the same way we view North Korea or Iran today.
You may recall that one of the reasons for the 'brilliance' of the Emancipation Proclamation was that Britain had only abolished slavery in 1835. I am by no means of the opinion that 'enlightened British opinion, etc.' would have acted as a push to abolish slavery in the CSA -- remember it was written in as a constitutional right. We certainly have a more recent example of British 'attitude' in the run-up to the apartheid regime in South Africa, don't you think?
I have said before that I would think 'wage slavery' and general yellow-doggedness would have supplanted slavery extensively, as (a bit like sharecropping) it removes any particular obligation on the part of the 'master' to care for or even provide living conditions for the 'workers' -- and reduce effective out-of-pocket costs while so doing (if experience in New England mills was any guide!) You'd neatly address any particular fear of 'servile insurrection' (one of the great Unspoken Terrors Of The South, if you know where to look to find it expressed) by putting any 'difference of opinion' squarely into that delicious 'Socialist' middle-ground that led to typical strike-breaking use of State power... completely 'legitimately' instead of being racially based.
Slavery would have been seen as morally inconsistant with a nation that considered itself part of Christian civilization.
You seem to have forgotten (unsurprisingly, because it's been well-covered-up by apologists!) the very well-honed "Christian" theology justifying the peculiar institution. Fully Biblical in both old and new testaments. Rationalization via the children of Ham and all that. It's interesting, if a bit frightening, to watch how this evolved during the period from 1808 to the late 1840s when the 'peculiar' form of chattel slavery was developing in the South.
There would have been growing international pressure to get rid of it.
From whom that would have mattered to the Confederate Government? France? Germany? the remaining United States? The phrase 'full of sound and fury...' comes to mind. Do you honestly think that in the period after the 1860s there was a nation or consortium of nations that would have effectively boycotted Southern trade in order to secure abolition? (Individual voices, yes. Individual politicians, yes. Effective directed action 'for the continuation of speechifying by other means' -- far less so.
The South would have had to change or wind up as an outcast, no matter how valuable its agricultural commodities were.
Would they have cared any more than the South Africans did?
I really don't see Southern attitudes changing much -- after all, there's a well-established history of racial discrimination AFTER Radical Reconstruction and effective demolition of the industrial and transportation base in the South. You're talking a 'ruling' or 'influential' class that in large part honestly had convinced themselves that they were racially superior to everyone else. Fix THAT with 'enlightened world opinion' or whatever...
What if there had never been a Civil War, and the South had gone it's way in peace? Well, it's a guessing game, so I'll keep this brief.
Certainly there would have been a continuance of the "staus quo" trade situation between the South and Europe, but that would have changed after a while. As the 19th Century wore on, and IF the South had kept the institution of slavery, it would have eventually aquired the status of a "pariah nation" , much the same way we view North Korea or Iran today. Slavery would have been seen as morally inconsistant with a nation that considered itself part of Christian civilization. There would have been growing international pressure to get rid of it. The South would have had to change or wind up as an outcast, no matter how valuable its agricultural commodities were.
Just a guess on my part as I said. The Marines didn't issue me a crystal ball, and if they did they'd have wanted it back when I left, just like my .45!
tree68 This begs the question, "What if there had never been a Civil War?" A book was written pondering what would have happened if the South had won the war, but what if the south quietly went their way?
This begs the question, "What if there had never been a Civil War?"
A book was written pondering what would have happened if the South had won the war, but what if the south quietly went their way?
Your question isn't all that hypothetical. William Seward was the front runner for the Republican nomination in 1860. He wanted to come to an agreement with the Confederacy to avoid war and had begun that process before the inauguration. He continued to hold the option open to the Confederates after the nomination until it became clear to him that Abe Lincoln would never accept it. But had he been elected President or even been more influential with Abe Lincoln the Confederacy could have just walked away without a fight. Of course there would have been issues but those might have been negotiated.
Victrola1Did the South use coastal shipping more for internal trade than the North. Port to port and then rail to the interior. If so, the North's naval blockade would have been doubly crippling.
You are certainly right about the tariff as an issue. In the 1830's John Calhoun argued the tariff was an attack on the southern way of life and should be abolished. Ultimately that produced the nullification crisis.
My understanding is that the north and south did not have a lot of trade. Mostly, the south traded with Britain and preferred British goods to American ones as the American ones were often inferior. One purpose of southern railroads was to connect plantations with ocean and river ports.
tree68 Firelock76 Well John, at the beginning a lot of people up North were more than willing to "let the errant sisters go in peace." The average Yankee thought secession was a shame, but wasn't willing to go to war to force the seceded states back in the Union. Some Abolitionists were furious the slave states were out of their "power", fo lack of a better term, but more Abolitionists felt "good riddance!" This begs the question, "What if there had never been a Civil War?" A book was written pondering what would have happened if the South had won the war, but what if the south quietly went their way? One might assume some initial animosity, but might the two countries have eventually forged a working relationship, a la US & Canada? Extending the expansion of the country, would the Mason-Dixon Line have been essentially extended on westward? Or might Texas have become it's own country (again). The book surmises that our west coast might have even come under the control of Russia, although I suspect Mexico would have been the more likely candidate. Keeping the railroad involved, one could also ponder whether the transcon would have been built, or if it would have been done differently.
Firelock76 Well John, at the beginning a lot of people up North were more than willing to "let the errant sisters go in peace." The average Yankee thought secession was a shame, but wasn't willing to go to war to force the seceded states back in the Union. Some Abolitionists were furious the slave states were out of their "power", fo lack of a better term, but more Abolitionists felt "good riddance!"
Well John, at the beginning a lot of people up North were more than willing to "let the errant sisters go in peace." The average Yankee thought secession was a shame, but wasn't willing to go to war to force the seceded states back in the Union. Some Abolitionists were furious the slave states were out of their "power", fo lack of a better term, but more Abolitionists felt "good riddance!"
One might assume some initial animosity, but might the two countries have eventually forged a working relationship, a la US & Canada?
Extending the expansion of the country, would the Mason-Dixon Line have been essentially extended on westward? Or might Texas have become it's own country (again). The book surmises that our west coast might have even come under the control of Russia, although I suspect Mexico would have been the more likely candidate.
Keeping the railroad involved, one could also ponder whether the transcon would have been built, or if it would have been done differently.
Overmod - great analysis. I was just throwing a few thoughts out there. Thanks for the insight. I'm not a history major by any stretch of the imagination.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
.
I have some things to say on these subjects.
I don't think it's really appropriate to speak of the South 'winning' the war. What they understood, rightly I think, is that a diplomatic recognition of the CSA as a nation, by enough legitimate governments, would lead to a negotiated settlement... perhaps even the sort of doublethink and 'containment' that typified our relations with "Nationalist China" all those years before Nixon. Yes, there would have been trade between the two nations, perhaps even on a preferred basis; it would be in both countries' interest to do so. Fair to assume your continuation of the Mason-Dixon line, and I'd also expect a hard partition of Kansas and perhaps of the Territories west to... well, Utah. Westward from there might have been interesting! (I suspect guarantee of local option would have worked out better than in Bloody Kansas, if for no other reason than knee-jerk return of slaves would no longer be Northern policy...)
Meanwhile, the 'elephant in the room' is that all that would have been required to preclude the 'Civil War' would be a continuance of Southern influence over the institutions of the United States. People tend to forget WHY the Dred Scott decision doesn't represent some weird anomaly in an otherwise-freedom-loving nation...
As previously noted, anything by the Democrats to pull together would have forestalled Lincoln's election -- which was almost certainly the trigger that led South Carolina to take the steps it did.
Also pays to remember that it was some *Northern* states rumbling about secession in the early 1850s -- remember Boston and the resistance to enforcing the (again, legal U.S. law at the time) Fugitive Slave law? Be interesting to see how THAT would bounce -- the North leaving the 'United States' to Southern interests, and seeking its own path -- including westward to the Pacific as Connecticut declared its right to do (a cause of the Yankee-Pennamite war - but I digress...)
A question associated with this involves "what if the Whigs hadn't been destroyed as a party" in the 1840s. Think for a bit about what would have changed, and how.
I would think much closer than that, particularly if there hadn't been as much bloodshed or cost -- say, via British intervention by 1862. One thing the South would bridle at, sooner rather than later, would be its being used as a pawn or tool of British hegemony, and I would suspect mutual trade agreements and cooperative ventures, including 'multinational corporations' devoid of carpetbagging, would have become the 'norm' for internal trade.
We'll leave out the "S-word" in deference to our hosts, but as I've said I would expect it to die away comparatively peacefully, for a number of reasons. Might also have avoided the bitter-backlash racism that the 'defeated South' nurtured and clung to for so long...
... might Texas have become it's own country (again).
Why? It would have been a powerful state in the CSA, and would have 'defense' issues with Maximilien III and the French puppets. Whether the CSA would establish a joint task force from other States to aid in Texas defense is another question, of course.
The book surmises that our west coast might have even come under the control of Russia, although I suspect Mexico would have been the more likely candidate.
Well, Russia WAS on the west coast of the continent, and had settlements south into "British Columbia" -- I suspect very strongly that in the event of Confederate 'prevailment' any further Russian colonization would have been nipped in the bud, diplomatically or otherwise. (Remember this is only a decade after British adventure in the Crimea, and with the Mutiny still very clear in Palmie's mind...)
Mexico? Mexico?? Under a French puppet government, with gold discovered in California and the Gadsden Purchase showing clearly where things would go? Far more likely that some of Mexico, perhaps most of its northern territory, would have wound up in the (Confederate) States --- another justification for Texas to remain a State, but we can leave that argument running.
Two names: Gadsden and John Henry. The easiest way to build a Pacific railroad was, and is, via what is now the Sunset Route. No particular need to import Chinese when you have a more available source of inexpensive labor. Expect to see it built QUICKLY, probably with European capital participation, commencing soon after armistice or whatever. Expect to see it built up the California coast as far as the mountains PDQ, just as much of an Octopus as the SP turned out to be, but under nominally Confederate corporation control. Profits and prestige from this anchor the strength and legitimacy of the CSA. (Look at all the fun the Union would have with a Pacific Railroad to compete with it!)
To anyone mentioning bad blood between North and South -- ask any Tory you happen to see how THAT affected US-Canada relations. (OK, OK, Torontonians still nurture massive anti-American prejudice, and I can't blame them, but much of this is Canadian nationalism rather than a revanchist spirit...)
Northern manufacturers' demands for import duties were another source of friction. It reflected different economic systems. The Confederate economy was export agricultural commodities to Europe and import manufactured goods.
The Northern rail network reflected a wide distribution by rail. It has been mentioned the South's rail system reflected run to the nearest port.
Did the South use coastal shipping more for internal trade than the North. Port to port and then rail to the interior. If so, the North's naval blockade would have been doubly crippling.
Firelock76 Deggesty, there's a story about those rock-throwin' Louisianians, probably apocryphal. The Yanks on the recieving end were furious and started yelling "HEY REBS! QUIT IT! SOMEBODY'S GOING TO GET HURT AROUND HERE!" Combat soldiers can put up with a lot of things, but throwing rocks? Oooh, that's playing dirty!
Deggesty, there's a story about those rock-throwin' Louisianians, probably apocryphal. The Yanks on the recieving end were furious and started yelling "HEY REBS! QUIT IT! SOMEBODY'S GOING TO GET HURT AROUND HERE!"
Combat soldiers can put up with a lot of things, but throwing rocks? Oooh, that's playing dirty!
DeggestyConfederate troops who ran out of lead ammunition during the Second Battle of Manassas and had to resort to using local ammunition they found lying on the ground,
At Gettysburg Joshua Chamberlain's 20th Maine Infantry were on the left flank of the Union line on LIttle Roundtop. It was a difficult position to hold. The Confederates knew it and made repeated assaults. Finally the 20th out of ammunition. Chamberlain ordered his men to fix bayonets and repel the Confederate charge. They did. Without it left flank protected the Union Army would have suffered large losses.
To continue in the vein of non-railroad posts on this thread, some time back there was mention made of Confederate troops who ran out of lead ammunition during the Second Battle of Manassas and had to resort to using local ammunition they found lying on the ground, until they were succored by fresh troops--I learned yesterday that it was men in a Louisiana regiment who were so resourceful.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.