Posted on 06/28/2014 7:20:39 PM PDT by fella
ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - A letter recently donated to the libraries at the University of Georgia gives an eyewitness account of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain during the Civil War.
The letter is from Joseph Short to his wife, Nancy. It is part of the collection of William Joseph and Nancy Wallis Short family papers recently donated by Roger Rowell to UGA’s Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain began at 8 a.m. on June 27, 1864. By noon it was over, and Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman had lost the battle and 3,000 of his soldiers. But his army outflanked the Confederate Army after a five-day standoff and forced it to retreat to Smyrna. Sherman continued to head to Atlanta.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
‘If you would actually study history then you wouldn’t have to look so foolish’
History is always written by the victors. I doubt very much that the central reason was slavery. Explain why blacks took up arms for the South. Explain why the first slave owner in the U.S. was a black man.
Look around you and you can easily see that the wrong side won. Look at what the Federal government has become. We either are or will all be slaves shortly, think we should pay ourselves reparations in advance?
The Scottish part of my family I know well- they arrived in the 1650’s. The Germans arrived in the 1750’s and are well researched. The Irish- which constitutes about 3/5ths of my background is a bit of a jumble as they seem to have arrived in successive waves of immigration throughout the 19th century, some as late as the 1890’s. I’ve had some success, but some of the immigration in the late 19th century was “off the books”. Many Irish first settled in Canada, and then emigrated into the midwest through Canada. Walt Disney’s ancestors first settled in Goderich, Ontario, for an example. Some of that emigration was, ahem “undocumented”. That’s where it gets a little murky. Plus theres this “job” thing and this “mortgage” thing which seem to monopolize a lot of my time for some reason. =^) I’ve got most of it pinned down, there’s just a few ends that stubbornly remain loose.
CC
I can see that viewpoint. I also believe family is, to some degree, more important in the south than the north. Or perhaps that dedication to family in the south is expressed differently.
CC
While I was not an original secessionist and voted for Union Candidates for the convention, yet when the north determined to wage war on the South; when Lincoln called on Virginia for her quota of troops to coerce the seceding States, and when Virginia seceded, it did not take me two seconds to cast my lot with Virginia and the other Southern states ...
The people of the South had gotten tired of the sectional domineering, hectoring spirit of the North, ... and determined to sever the bonds that bound them together; Peacefully if they could, forcefully if they must
The question of Southern Slavery was not an issue at the beginning of the war, as many believe...
... Lincoln, in his inaugural address expressly declared he had no authority to interfere with slavery in the States [where it already existed] and no intention of doing so.
And not until the Emancipation Proclamation, which went into effect 1 January, 1863, made without shadow of right or law, and in direct violation of his solemn declaration and oath of office, was the issue raised as a war measure, to strenghten the Union Cause, which was then on the wane among the abolitionists at home and abroad ...
[the] rabid Abolitionists, now demanded emancipation as the price of their loyalty to the Union cause ...
And we're about to see history repeat itself when Obama uses a similar proclamation to declare all the illegals in this country citizens ... you watch ...
We did okay for the next 80 years or so.
No need to rewrite history or wish away where we are.
It’s up to US to change it.
Sure thing no reason to educate yourself.
Try reading article one section nine of the confederate constitution
Try reading article one section nine of the confederate constitution
Try reading article one section nine of the confederate constitution
By the way I didn’t claim he had a letter from Lee. There are plenty of original documents at the confederate civil war museum. Go see them
Sherman was one of the best generals in the civil war. When i was in AOAC at knox in ‘79 we would have a lot of pickup parties after dinner in the van vorhis housing area. If things got boring i would stand up and say ROBERT E LEE WAS NOT THE BEST GENERAL IN THE CIVIL WAR. Needless to say i was outnumbered but never proven wrong.
Unleash the flames.
My grandparents were from Maine and Alabama. One of my AL families lost 6 of 9 sons serving in the Confederate Army. I was in elementary school when the Centennial Commemoration of the Civil War was observed. I have toured the CW battlefields of Charleston, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, Kennesaw, Petersburg, The Crater, Savannah, Columbus, and Appomatox.
Someone on an earlier FR CW thread posted the link below -
12/24/1860 – During a state convention, delegates of South Carolina issued a proclamation which declared their state to be the 1st to announce its secession from the U.S. -
“The Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.”
… In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.
The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation. …
… The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.
This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.
On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.
The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.
Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief. …
Actually reading Article IV of the Confederate Constitution is a better illustration of your point.
Having fought and won their rebellion what could possibly have caused the South to say, "We didn't really mean it. Take us back again?"
I believe that was Lookout Mountain outside of Chattanooga the previous year.
Because his brothers had already taken Himalaya Mountain Landis and Rocky Mountain Landis?
Well, technically, this wasn't in "the US." It was in very early colonial Virginia.
Look around you and you can easily see that the wrong side won. Look at what the Federal government has become.
Don't disagree as to present conditions.
But our descent into Progressive Hell didn't start in earnest till the late 19th century, with massive acceleration during WWI, the 30 and the 60s, and the causes that drove it had little or nothing to do with those that led to the Civil War.
Because B happened after A, it is a logical fallacy to therefore conclude that is A had not happened, neither would B.
I think you can make an excellent case that a CSA victory would have led to earlier increases in central power, only in two countries instead of one.
Let's see. Two antagonistic countries glaring at each other across a border thousands of miles long. Yeah, there's a formula for peace and prosperity and decentralized government. /s
Most likely scenario would have been militarization and centralization in both USA and CSA. Certainly that's what happened in Europe between 1865 and 1914.
A misremembering of history on his part. It was universally reported - at the time - by both northern and southern papers - that VA joined the CSA in spirit on receipt of word that fighting had broken out. People danced in the street in joyous relief that the decision had finally been made.
That was on April 12. The Convention reconvened on the 13th to reconsider secession. Lincoln issued his call for troops on the 15th, which was then used as the pretext for secession. But VA made its decision on the 12th.
The people of the South had gotten tired of the sectional domineering, hectoring spirit of the North, ... and determined to sever the bonds that bound them together; Peacefully if they could, forcefully if they must
Thanks for the quote. To restate it, southerners had, quite humanly, become sick and disgusted of being told the institution on which their way of life was based was evil.
The only problem being that it WAS.
IOW, there was no horrible oppression justifying secession. They seceded because (some) northerners said mean things about them and hurt their feelings.
700k+ dead men later, I hope it was worth it.
It’s too bad the article didn’t provide any details on the contents of the letter. Hopefully they will be made public at some point.
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