US Civil War-some thoughts

[Zap_Rowsdower]

While in graduate school a friend mentioned that her then boyfriend, now husbands family consider any sort of negative comment on General Lee as “fightn’ words”. In a recent debate with some friends, who basically believe the “Gone With the Wind”, “Birth of a Nation” version of history. Basically that slaves were pretty much content, the North were brutal conquerers and the South was gentlemanly honorable. Also, I feel I must say was born and live in Texas, and if I can will stay in Texas forever, but the South lost the war, learn the history and deal with it:

1. General Lee was not the Saint he appears to be in movies, novels and history books. His offensive battle tactics plans cost the army massive and irreplaceable casualties. Also after the war he was very bitter towards the North and not magnanimous as he is portrayed to be. He did not have to join the Confederacy but willfully became a traitor to the US. He also believed in slavery.

2. Slavery was the main cause for the war. Confederate VP Stephens in his Charleston speech, in 1861 stated that slavery was the foundation and cornerstone of the confederacy. Jefferson Davis had on more than one occasion spoken to the Senate threatening sucession if the North interfered with slavery. In the Confederate Constitution, it is basically the US Constitution, with a few additions. Article 1, Section 9 and Article 4 protect the right of “property in slaves”.

3. The South was not crushed after the war. by 1877 all of the states were back in the union and in charge of their own affairs, only subject to the 14 and 15 amendments which were put in to protect freed slaves. These were basically overturned with the creation of Jim Crow laws. The North would have been justified to send the troops back in, but because they were as racist as the south, lacked the will to do so.

4. Jefferson, Lee and the rest were TRAITORS to the US, but there were no large scale arrests or punishments. Just about any other country would have lined them up against the wall and shot them.

5. James Longstreet was an able soldier, who while made mistakes does not deserve the blame for losing Gettysburg and causing the loss of the war. His biggest mistake was being critical of Lee after the war and encouraging the south to accept the terms of the surrender. This angered many in the South. The loss of the war fits more squarly on Lee because he chose to invade the North. Longstreet it appears was a convenient scapegoat for the north to put its “stabbed in the back” theory on.

6. Sherman was did not burn Atlanta. Many diaries and letters from people living in Atlanta during Shermans march comment that it is indeed the retreating Confederates who are burning everything, to prevent the North from getting food, supplies etc. Not to say the Northern army did nothing bad, but most of the damage was caused by the Southern soldiers.

This may be more of a rant because it still surprises me that so many still by into this myth, but I think it could be make a good debate. The South may have lost but the North allowed them to write the history.

[MEBuckner]

[nitpick]

Confederate VP Stephens in his Charleston speech, in 1861 stated that slavery was the foundation and cornerstone of the confederacy.

Savannah, actually. The full text of the “Cornerstone Speech” may be found here.

[/nitpick]

[Reeder]

I think you need to study your history just a bit more. Grant’s family owned slaves long after Lee freed his.

As fot the burning of Atlanta. Sherman ordered every man woman and child to leave Atlanta. How would you react to that?

[Sterra]

3. The South was not crushed after the war. by 1877 all of the states were back in the union and in charge of their own affairs, only subject to the 14 and 15 amendments which were put in to protect freed slaves. These were basically overturned with the creation of Jim Crow laws. The North would have been justified to send the troops back in, but because they were as racist as the south, lacked the will to do so.

The south went from having about 30% of the nations wealth to about 14%. They were pretty crushed.

[Alessan]

*Originally posted by Sterra *
**

3. The South was not crushed after the war. by 1877 all of the states were back in the union and in charge of their own affairs, only subject to the 14 and 15 amendments which were put in to protect freed slaves. These were basically overturned with the creation of Jim Crow laws. The North would have been justified to send the troops back in, but because they were as racist as the south, lacked the will to do so.

The south went from having about 30% of the nations wealth to about 14%. They were pretty crushed. **

Umm, I’d think that would have a bit more to do with the Industrial Revolution, with massive European immigration and with the United States’ western expansion. What we need here is hard numbers, not percentages.

[Tamerlane]

Sterra: And to further back up Alessan’s point, I’ll note that the South suffered enormously by the collapse of the world cotton market, upon which so much of the South’s prosperity depended.

• Tamerlane

[Or_n_ry_Oscar]

First, Chimaera, I suspect it is Sherman and not Grant who your in-laws consider anathema.

I’m not quite sure what view you take of that war: the North, the South, the slave, the poor or the mid-atlantic poor white man who never owned slaves but knew that he was better off than his co-workers: he knew he didn’t have to pay an “owner” a rental fee at the end of the week because the tint of his skin was light. That notwithstanding…

I see no purpose in many of your arguments, no. 1, for instance:

“General Lee was not the Saint he appears to be in movies, novels and history books. His offensive battle tactics plans cost the army massive and irreplaceable casualties. Also after the war he was very bitter towards the North and not magnanimous as he is portrayed to be. He did not have to join the Confederacy but willfully became a traitor to the US. He also believed in slavery.”
Regarding his battle tactics: any general who fought would have lost as many if not more.

You state that Lee “willfully became a traitor to the US.” This is a horrible dilution of a great man’s thought processes. The man ran West Point, show some respect.

“He believed in slavery.” You haven’t the guts to put your principal point at the beginning of your rant so you tack it on at the end. That tells me that unlike Lee, you’re a coward.

I wonder if cowards like you are gonna castigate me 150 years from now because I advocate a sound fical policy?

No. 2: “The South was not crushed after the war.”

What do you want looking back on the Civil War from the 21st Century? Do you belive that Negroes and white people should have been frollicking together in the ruins of Savannah? Should black legislators have served in the State Houses in Baton Rouge, Montgomery and Jackson?

My understanding of history is that they were. The failure to preserve the rights of blacks in the South was the result of the desires of Republicans to maintain control after 1876, the biggest electoral travesty.

When in doubt, blame it on Republicans.

Point 3: “Jefferson, Lee and the rest were TRAITORS to the US, but there were no large scale arrests or punishments.”

Wake up! One of the reasons the United States remains a country that other nations seek to model themselves upon is that we had a Civil War and the outcome wasn’t wholesale death.

The Dec. of Ind. demands a right to life and liberty. Historians look at Lee’s and Davis’s and Jackson’s motives as manifestations of this belief.

Jefferson is a different issue. He crafted our Constitution, after all, He was long dead when the Civil War began.

Who you’re talking about is beyond me.

Point 4: “James Longstreet was an able soldier, who while made mistakes,” and “Sherman was did not burn Atlanta. Many diaries and letters…”

This exhibits an understanding of history that seems limited to Michael Shaara. It’s not that I disagree, with the former, obserevaton, but your analysis is rudimentary, in the least.

I would suggest, Chimaera, that you expand your horizons and understandings of the conflict.

[Protesilaus]

*Originally posted by Reeder *
I think you need to study your history just a bit more. Grant’s family owned slaves long after Lee freed his.

Two points:

1. Grant’s family did not own slaves. Yes, Grant’s in-laws owned slaves. Grant himself owned one slave, William Jones, for a brief period in 1858-9, and freed him even though he could have gotten $1000 (adjusted for inflation, this would be $17837.59 in 2000 dollars) by selling him and was deeply in debt at the time.
   Everything you ever wanted to know about Ulysses S. Grant and slavery.
2. Even if Grant owned a whole bunch of slaves, that would still be irrelevant to this discussion. The OP never mentioned Grant; he/she(?) mentioned Lee. Whether or not Grant was a good person has no bearing on the kind of person Lee was. That the Allies had Arthur “Butcher” Harris and Curtis LeMay (arguably the most responsible for the bombing of civilian population centers in Germany and Japan, respectively) does not mean we should alter our view Hermann Goering. (Not that Lee should be compared to Goering, nor Grant to Harris and LeMay, for that matter.)

[MEBuckner]

The Dec. of Ind. demands a right to life and liberty. Historians look at Lee’s and Davis’s and Jackson’s motives as manifestations of this belief.

This or that Confederate general may have been motivated by his personal concerns about honor and patriotism, but the leadership of the seceding states as a whole was motivated by a desire to protect slavery. That hardly strikes me as a manifestation of the idea that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. Rather, as the people of Texas proclaimed, the Confederacy was founded on the idea that

all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.

[Tamerlane]

Or’n’ry Oscar: Jeez, ornery much .

That post seemed kind of excessively vitriolic and defensive. And you should be careful of slinging around terms like “coward” in this particular forum, as it may generate unfriendly attention from the moderators.

I can’t speak very accurately on the OP’s motivations or thought processes, but than neither can you ( unless perhaps you’re old debate chums ). You seem to be assuming when you throw out a line like:

You haven’t the guts to put your principal point at the beginning of your rant…

And we all know what happens when we assume . It’s by no means clear to me, at least, that that was the OP’s main point.

I don’t disagree with all your points - For example the end of Reconstruction was the result of a shameful political maneouvre and I agree it was a good thing that the losing generals weren’t executed ( and I’m not sure that Chimaera disagrees with you actually, taking his words in context ). But I’ll just mention a point where I do disagree ( mildly and with no malice, mind you - This argument has no particular modern resonance for me ) :

Regarding his battle tactics: Any general who fought would have lost as many if not more.

Disagree. Lee always thought in terms of destroying the enemy army. I submit this was not the proper tack to take for the outgunned opponent in this case. A better general in my book and more sparing of lost life, was Stonewall Jackson.

Note that I’ll happily level the same criticism at Grant ( and have in other threads ).

• Tamerlane

[Reeder]

Protesilaus

Grants wife is hardly an in-law…

Did Grant’s Wife Own Slaves?

 Yes, for periods in her life, Julia Dent Grant owned four slaves, Eliza, Dan, Julia
 and John. Whether she held title to them or her father retained ownership is still
 unclear. As a teenager, her personal slave was "black Julia." When she married
 Grant, she went north to various army posts, and had to do without her "servants,"
 as she euphemistically called her slaves. For the first 4 years of her marriage, her
 slaves remained in Missouri. From 1853-1863, Julia continued to use four slaves,
 whom she mentions specifically in her Memoirs. They were all house "servants,"
 and took turns attending to Grant's children, cooking and cleaning. 

http://www.mscomm.com/~ulysses/page160.html

As to your second point…we view them as heroes simply because we won.

[Reeder]

MEBuckner…

That hardly strikes
me as a manifestation of the idea that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

You do realize those words were written by men who owned slaves don’t you?

[MEBuckner]

Not all of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence were slave owners, you know. At any rate, they didn’t found their government on slavery. Rather, they proclaimed principles which, even if they didn’t follow them perfectly (or at all) themselves, wound up undermining slavery.

Many of the American founding fathers were slave owners who rebelled for liberty. The Confederate founding fathers were slave owners who rebelled for slavery. I suppose you could argue that the American founding fathers were hypocrites, and profess to admire the Confederate founding fathers on the grounds that they were at least consistently evil.

[kniz]

A debate about the Civil War. I bet that hasn’t been done since Lincoln and Douglas (oops) well maybe at little later. And what original ideas, if the OP would just leave Texas I’m sure Princeton would give him a chair in the History Dept.

[Odesio]

*Originally posted by Chimaera *
**

1. General Lee was not the Saint he appears to be in movies, novels and history books. His offensive battle tactics plans cost the army massive and irreplaceable casualties. Also after the war he was very bitter towards the North and not magnanimous as he is portrayed to be. He did not have to join the Confederacy but willfully became a traitor to the US. He also believed in slavery.

**

Very few historical figures were the saints they are potrayed to be. Not Jefferson, not Washington, and not even Martin Luther King, Jr. There are plenty of good military commanders who made a few blunders that cost their armies dearly. General Washington attempted to defend Manhattan against the British even though they had a superior navy and more troops.

And you’re right that he didn’t have to join the Confederacy. But because he did does not make him a traitor. His loyalty was to Virginia first not the United States. It might be hard to imagine but a lot of people back then thought of themselves as citizens of their state first. He openly declared he alligence he didn’t lie to the US government.

**
2. Slavery was the main cause for the war. Confederate VP Stephens in his Charleston speech, in 1861 stated that slavery was the foundation and cornerstone of the confederacy.

**

Certainly it was one of the biggest factors. I guess we can thank all those people who agreed to the 3/5ths Compromise for making the war enevitable.

**
3. The South was not crushed after the war. by 1877 all of the states were back in the union and in charge of their own affairs, only subject to the 14 and 15 amendments which were put in to protect freed slaves. These were basically overturned with the creation of Jim Crow laws. The North would have been justified to send the troops back in, but because they were as racist as the south, lacked the will to do so.

**

Economically the south was devestated by the war and came out a lot worse then the north. If you don’t know this then I think you need to learn history.

**
5. James Longstreet was an able soldier, who while made mistakes does not deserve the blame for losing Gettysburg and causing the loss of the war. His biggest mistake was being critical of Lee after the war and encouraging the south to accept the terms of the surrender. This angered many in the South. The loss of the war fits more squarly on Lee because he chose to invade the North. Longstreet it appears was a convenient scapegoat for the north to put its “stabbed in the back” theory on.

**

Let’s see. Lee knew he had fewer resources and fewer men so he should just sit around and wait for the North to invade? He did the best he could with what he had and apparantly he did a pretty decent job. I’ve never met any historian who doubted that Lee was an excellent general. He managed to stay in charge of the Confederate Army through the end of the war. No Union general can say the same.

**
6. Sherman was did not burn Atlanta. Many diaries and letters from people living in Atlanta during Shermans march comment that it is indeed the retreating Confederates who are burning everything, to prevent the North from getting food, supplies etc. Not to say the Northern army did nothing bad, but most of the damage was caused by the Southern soldiers.

**

You are aware that Sherman had a policy of burning and destroying everything he came across? That was the whole point of his march.

Marc

[Reeder]

MEBuckner…

The only people the founding fathers were referring to were white male land owners. No Women, no Blacks, no Red Man. They knew exactly what they were saying. Nothing at all hypocritical about it.

All the leaders of the south were doing was what was carried on before. If you see that as evil you have to view the founding fathers as evil. Slavery still existed in the north well into the war. If you notice the “Emancipation Proclamation” did not mention the states in the north. Just the states in rebellion and the border states.

[Captain_Amazing]

*Originally posted by Or’n’ry Oscar *
**

You state that Lee “willfully became a traitor to the US.” This is a horrible dilution of a great man’s thought processes. The man ran West Point, show some respect.
**

Whether his motivation was good or not, by taking up arms against the government of the United States, he became a traitor. We can argue whether his treason was a good or bad thing, and whether he did it for good or bad motives, but he did lead an argument against the United States government.

Also, it was Gen. Hood’s army who burnt Atlanta. When they retreated, they set fire to the ammunition warehouses on the outskirts of Atlanta to prevent Sherman’s army from taking them, and the fire spread out of control, and engulfed the rest of the city.

Also, when the OP said “Jefferson”, I assume he meant “Jefferson Davis”

Reeder,
How is the fact that Julia Grant, or her father, owned slaves relevant?

“Treason doth never prosper: what ’s the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”- Sir John Harrington (1561-1612)

[Sterra]

Umm, I’d think that would have a bit more to do with the Industrial Revolution, with massive European immigration and with the United States’ western expansion. What we need here is hard numbers, not percentages.

Yeah, too bad they don’t exist. Its hard to get reliable numbers from 20 years ago.

But I think you misunderstood me. I was talking about the 4 years during the war. Do you think that things like the industrial revolution or westward expansion really had as much effect as a war that was badly lost? Especially considering the last year of the war the North was focused mainly on destroying the south’s infastructure.

[MEBuckner]

The only people the founding fathers were referring to were white male land owners. No Women, no Blacks, no Red Man. They knew exactly what they were saying. Nothing at all hypocritical about it.

What the Declaration of Independence said was that “all men are created equal” and “all men” are endowed with the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. If what the Declaration of Independence meant was that “all white male land owners” were endowed with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then that’s not what it says. Saying one thing, while really meaning another thing, generally makes one a hypocrite. Which the American founding fathers were. Some of them–including the slave-owning Jefferson–realized this. Jefferson knew that slavery was evil and he hoped that slavery would somehow “fade away”. He certainly didn’t believe slavery to be a good thing. In believing this, and stating it (at least in private), while doing nothing personally to bring about an end to slavery (or at least doing nothing personally when he was older–he did try when he was younger), Jefferson was of course being a hypocrite.

All the leaders of the south were doing was what was carried on before. If you see that as evil you have to view the founding fathers as evil.

That’s not how the leaders of the Confederacy saw it. Alexander Stephens knew the Confederacy wasn’t just “doing what was carried on before”, and, while he didn’t view the founding fathers as evil, he did think they were misguided. From the “Cornerstone Speech”:

The prevailing ideas entertained by [Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away…Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

[Spavined_Gelding]

Hot dog, a Civil War debate. Let’s get some rules straight at the outset. First, last and in the middle: Do not impose the morals, ethics, politics or sensibilities of today on historical figures. That said, let’s rumble.

Following the war, and after Lee’s death, a major pissing match broke out between Jubel Early and James Longstreet. Early set himself up as the principal champion of the rightness of the Southern cause and the sacred memory of Bobby Lee. Longstreet had the presumptuousness to suggest that Lee some times acted rashly and was not given to long range thinking when the pressure was on. More importantly, Longstreet threw in with the Republicans after the war, which made him anathema to the unreconstructed Rebels of the Early faction. It was the Early faction that promoted the idea that Longstreet had dawdled at Gettysburg, out of personal anger with Lee for rejecting his plan to fight that battle, and had thereby lost the battle and by extension the war.

There is plain evidence that the attack on Longstreet is balderdash. Lee kept him as a corps commander and second in command of the Army of Northern Virginia. When the end came in April 1865, it was Longstreet who was still at Lee’s side and to whom Lee turned for support and advice. Longstreet certainly had deficiencies as an independent commander, but as a corps commander under Lee’s supervision he was the best Lee had and Jackson’s equal. If this were not the case Lee would have found some reason to get rid of him.

The idea of an allegiance to the nation ahead of the State was a notion foreign to many Americans in the mid 19th Century. It was an idea that became prevalent in the North as a result of the war and arguably was not wholly accepted in the South until the present generation, certainly not before WW II. Lee, and many others saw their first duty to be to their home state, much as we might regard our first duty to be to our nation above any duty to, for instance the UN or NATO.

While the actions of Lee, Jefferson Davis and any number of Confederate officers and officials met the Constitutional definition of treason, and there were any number of otherwise responsible people baying for a hanging, it was a political master stroke to forego the sort of blood bath and show trials that decorated the end of other unsuccessful rebellions. It was the refusal of the North to seek personal criminal retribution against Southern leaders that allowed the reunification of the country with a minimum of real hostility. While we may deplore it today, the decision to end Reconstruction and consent to the political, economic and social abuse of Southern Blacks under color of State law was just one more aspect of greasing the skids for unification. In the long run those decisions have caused the country untold difficulties and have made the lives of thousands individuals a horror, but pragmatically it was a sensible decision.

Uncle Billy Sherman, in whose army my people served, deliberately set out to “Make Georgia howl.” He did burn Atlanta. He burnt Columbia, too, and a fair amount of what lay in between. You can argue that retreating Rebels started the fires all you want, but the fact remains that it was Sherman’s policy to destroy the economic resources of as much of the South as he could get his hands on. Sheridan did the same thing in the Valley of Virginia, and for the same reason, to deprive the South of the will and the resources to fight.

That slavery was the root cause of the war is beyond debate.