150 years on, Sherman's March to Sea still vivid

Pioneer Press ^ | 11-15-14 | Christopher Sullivan

[TurboZamboni]

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — At the heart of this well-preserved antebellum city, sunbeams stream through the arched windows of a grand public meeting room that mirrors the whole Civil War — including its death throes, unfolding 150 years ago this week when Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman launched his scorching March to the Sea.

The first major objective along Sherman's route, Milledgeville was Georgia's capital at the time, and this room was the legislative chamber. Crossing its gleaming floor, Amy Wright couldn't help recalling family stories of the hated "foragers" who swept through then. "They were just called 'Sherman's men,'" she said in a hushed voice.

[DiogenesLamp]

Actually, there were two Union troops killed at Fort Sumter, Privates Hough and Galloway, when ammunition exploded during the surrender ceremony. Four others were seriously wounded.

As an accident, and by their own side. I have long wondered whether or not that accidental explosion was a Godsend for Lincoln, because I'm not certain he would have been able to rally the North to the cause were he not able to say any men had died. Bloodshed will move passions faster than damage to property.

First of all, the Brits, not our Founders, started the Revolutionary War, more than a year before our Declaration of Independence. Indeed, it was the British-started war which convinced many colonists that Independence was the only solution.

And that is in some dispute. What the British were doing was perfectly within their legal mandate at the time. Their is no legal or moral difference between the British Marching to Lexington than there was for the garrison at Ft. Sumter to maintain their posts.

The British saw those cities as falling under their legal authority, and the colonists disagreed, and there are reports that the colonists fired first.

Whether or not this is true, it cannot be denied that if the colonists hadn't assembled armed and en masse to confront the British, a war would not have started there.

As you said about the confederates, the colonists were "crusin' for a brusin' ."

In short, the Confederacy presented an existential military threat to the Unite States, which had to be defeated for the USA to survive.

If this were the criteria, then we should have attacked the Canadians long before. They and the British had came down and burned our Capital once already. I dare say they had demonstrated themselves to be as much or more of a threat than had the Confederates.

Finally, all talk about, if the "Union murdered every person in the South," is utterly, patently ridiculous. The fact is that most soldiers on both sides were good Christian men, kept under effective control by their leaders, and so the American Civil War is therefore comparable to none other in all of history. In contrast to most every other war, massacres were few and civilian deaths minimal to non-existent.

That it didn't happen is not the point. That the argument offered above would justify such a result, *IS* the point. I used that example as a way of demonstrating the falsity of such a claim, "that whatever happened, the South deserved it." No, there are limits to what a group of people deserves, and it isn't open ended.

So here's the bottom line: Lincoln waited patiently until the Confederacy had fully provoked, started and declared war on the United States before he sent any Union forces to battle any Confederates anywhere.

That is merely a reiteration of your opinion, and does not constitute objective proof.

No, in this particular case, our alleged "victim" carried a gun, began shooting at and demanding assets from the "perpetrator", and indeed, never stopped shooting for four long years.

You aren't grasping this analogy stuff. If the Union is like a Husband, and the South is like a wife, than a non bloodshed causing attack on Ft. Sumter is the equivalent of the wife throwing a plate at the husband and missing, or perhaps slapping his hand when he touched her. The "injury" to the union is inconsequential and of no real importance, but the Humiliation was grave.

The Union response would be similar to a Husband repeatedly punching and beating the wife to unconsciousness. Again, he wasn't hurt, but for his pride.

You are drawing a conclusion from an array of contrary facts. No one *was* killed. 24 hours of bombardment consisting of something like 4,000 shells, and no one was killed? How do you do that if you are trying to kill someone? A man can easily aim to the side if your intent is to scare, but you cannot miss that many times if your intent is to kill.

Ridiculous, because slavery was lawful in every colony in 1775. So, slavery was not an issue between the states in 1776, though it was already a question within some Northern States, which began moving to outlaw it. Even some Southern leaders, like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, recognized slavery as morally wrong and indefensible.

And yet both continued to own slaves for the rest of their lives. Nothing better illustrates that they had no intention of applying the principles of the Declaration of Independence universally. Their behavior demonstrates conclusively that they intended for those ideas to only apply to the communities of which they were a part, and not to slaves, though they eventually noticed their own hypocrisy in this regard, but their own moral proddings never became sufficient to provoke them to act against their own interests.

Slavery only became an issue between states many years later, when Southern slavery's enormous profitability became clear, and Southern states insisted every measure possible be taken to protect it.

It is entirely consistent with human nature to protect the source of one's income. I'm sure the Northeastern ship building industry would have objected if the manufacture of ships was seriously being considered for prohibition by law. Raising taxes on Imports and Exports would have no doubt been opposed by Boston and New York.

It would appear that many northern states were okay with slavery until it eventually became unprofitable for them, and they could then afford the morality of condemning that which no longer served their interests.

A similar thing is going on nowadays with the Jet Setting rich objecting to the use of carbon fuels by the rest of the population.

Slavery was evil, and it would have been better to have never let it get started on this continent, but having done so, it was not reasonable to object to it after you had reaped the profit from it, merely because others continued to do so, especially since they had fewer still other methods for producing an income.

Indeed, that is the Big Lie perpetrated by all Lost Causers against historical facts & reason. The truth of the matter is the opposite: the issue which caused Civil War was not slavery, was not secession, was not even the forming of a new Confederacy.

The big lie is the constant distraction from the point that by the standards of this nation's founding, the forming of a new government to suit them was well within their rights.

You and others simply want the discussion focused anywhere but on this essential point; That populations have a right to self determination, that in the words of the Declaration of Independence:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Of course you don't want to discuss this point, because you do not have a moral leg to stand on when this point is put forth.

More total b*ll sh*t. The fact is that former Confederate states were in total 100% support of such Liberal "Progressives" as Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt & Democrat candidate Adlai Stevenson (!).

You are making an ex post facto argument. This is no evidence that an alternative timeline of Southern independence would have been socialistic at all.

That Southern states would try to use the machinery created by Lincoln to benefit their own interests does not surprise me at all. That is just basic human nature. It is just a case of "When in Rome you do as the Roman's do."

And where was "Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt & Democrat candidate Adlai Stevenson" from? If you guessed New Jersey, New York, and Illinois, then you can go to the head of the class. They were all Northerners pushing Fedzilla policies which Lincoln pioneered.

Three Southern Northern "heros":

Having much of their industry and population wrecked by the civil war, it is no surprise that much of the south saw nothing wrong with getting money from any source they could. That's just human nature.

[DiogenesLamp]

So no rebellion is ever principled?

You use the word "rebellion" in a country that specifically states it is everyone's right to form a government that suits them. A country that was specifically founded on the idea that you had a right to leave a larger country of which you no longer wished to be a part.

I would say that in a country that has stated such a premise in it's founding document, any effort to stop a breakaway is unprincipled. Far from being a rebellion, it is the ultimate statement in support of the very foundation of this nation. The right of association also asserts a matching right of disassociation.

Those who deny this right are the actual rebels.

[Ditto]

Unless they had instructions from the Southern Government, I would suggest the Confederates were as responsible for them as the Union was responsible for John Brown. Also the reports would seem to indicate that these people attacking the Massachusetts troops were all Marylanders, which If I recall correctly was a Union state. Dissidents, it would appear.

If you're not a member of the Trial Lawyers Association, I think you missed your calling in life with that rationalization.

But the jury here isn't impressed. ;~))

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

So what do you think the US Constitution is talking about when it says the right of habeas can be suppressed in case of rebellion?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "If Lincoln was going to give up Ft. Sumter and let the rest of the South secede in exchange for Virginia remaining, then how does that square with the assertion that it was of absolute unquestionable principle and importance that states didn't have a right to leave the Union?
How can you fight such a bloody war on a principle which you were willing to negotiate away?"

First of all, we're not talking about "the rest of the South" here, only the Deep South, from South Carolina through Texas, seven states, about 2.5 million whites and almost as many slaves.
Militarily, economically & socially this rump-Confederacy was not viable against the economic & political might of the United States.
To become viable, the rump-Confederacy needed the rest of the slave-states to join them -- the Upper South and Border States.
And since the Upper South was committed to following Virginia's lead, Lincoln's negotiations with Virginians were in effect, negotiations over whether the Confederacy would double in size & population, making it a serious threat to the Union, or whether instead Virginia would remain in the Union, rendering the rump-Confederacy unviable and temporary?

But Fire Eaters in Virginia had no interest -- none -- in preserving the Union, their only concern was to meet the obligations of their US Constitution ratification statement, which required some act of "oppression" for them to declare secession.
And for those Fire Eaters, a battle over Fort Sumter -- regardless of who started it -- was the perfect excuse.

So Lincoln continued to negotiate as long as he could, but in the end his hand was forced by Major Anderson's situation in Fort Sumter -- he must either be resupplied or surrender.
Lincoln chose resupply, and the rest of the story, you may know...

Second, all Unionists (then and now) acknowledged a "right of secession", with the approval of Congress, or some material breech of compact, but none recognized unilateral declarations of secession, especially for no material cause.
That was the opinion of both out-going Democrat President Buchanan and incoming Republican Lincoln.
But both presidents did not consider that secession, by itself, was cause for war, and both did what they could to preserve the Union, while avoiding war.
As Lincoln announced in his Inaugural (March 4, 1861), secessionists could not have a war, unless they themselves started it.

Of course, the Confederacy was full of hot-heads, eager to prove their manliness, and so any small excuse was enough, such as Fort Sumter.
For Jefferson Davis, Sumter was a "no brainer" -- in one stroke he captured the fort and doubled the size of the Confederacy, adding Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas.
Really, it was the most brilliant move Davis ever made, certainly in his own mind.
That he also doomed his Confederacy to war and eventual defeat was not so important in 1861, because without the Upper South, the Deep South rump-Confederacy was doomed anyway.
At least with the Upper South, the Confederacy now had a fighting chance for victory, especially if they could also win over the Border States -- Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky & Missouri.
Those would add another 50% to his population and make the Confederacy virtually unbeatable.

Lincoln's estimates were the same, and so he redoubled his efforts to keep Border States in the Union.

So, once again, here are the bottom lines:

• Slavery did not directly cause Civil War.
• Deep South declarations of secession did not directly start Civil War.
• Forming the Confederacy did not begin Civil War.

• What initiated Civil War was the Confederacy's military assault on, and the surrender of, US troops in Fort Sumter, followed by military aid to Confederates in Union states and the Confederacy's formal declaration of war, May 6, 1861.
  All this before a single Confederate soldier was killed in battle with any US force, or any US Army invaded a single Confederate state.
  By May 6, 1861 the Confederacy represented an existential military threat to the United States, a threat which Lincoln recognized had to be defeated militarily.

[Sherman Logan]

f Lincoln was going to give up Ft. Sumter and let the rest of the South secede in exchange for Virginia remaining

Lincoln made no such offer. He was ready to trade Sumter for Virginia, not Virginia for recognition of the CSA.

[BroJoeK]

Diogenes Lamp: "If Lincoln was going to give up Ft. Sumter and let the rest of the South secede in exchange for Virginia remaining"

Sherman Logan: "Lincoln made no such offer. He was ready to trade Sumter for Virginia, not Virginia for recognition of the CSA."

Thanks for that!
Honest to goodness, it's like Rush says: you have to "read the stiches on a fast-ball" with these people, otherwise you address one issue and let something else slide right on by.

The question for Lincoln was not letting the "rest of the South secede", but he was willing to abandon Fort Sumter, if Virginians promised to remain in the Union.

[central_va]

existential military threat to the United States

The Union was playing chess and the South was playing poker. Can't you see that?

[DiogenesLamp]

So what do you think the US Constitution is talking about when it says the right of habeas can be suppressed in case of rebellion?

Things such as the Whiskey Rebellion. Not conditions in which entire states or collections of states want to leave. It is contradictory and hypocritical to believe that such a clause would apply to the very thing that the founders did.

In any case, I argue that the Declaration is of higher moral and legal authority than is the Constitution. The Constitution is merely our third national charter, the Declaration is the legal device which created the nation.

[DiogenesLamp]

First of all, we're not talking about "the rest of the South" here, only the Deep South, from South Carolina through Texas, seven states, about 2.5 million whites and almost as many slaves. Militarily, economically & socially this rump-Confederacy was not viable against the economic & political might of the United States.

Do you grasp the meaning of my point which is put forth in the previously mentioned joke?

"We've already determined what kind of girl you are, now we are just negotiating over price."

That the "rump" isn't economically viable is of no interest to the concept of an inviolable principle. If "Preserving the Union" is the cause for which it was appropriate to force 600,000 men to die, than any tolerance for leaving the Union paints that assertion as a bald faced lie.

It's like negotiating rape. If it is negotiable, then it has no moral compulsion.

I have to say I was not aware that Lincoln was willing to negotiate away part of the Union in exchange for an important state like Virginia. The one redeeming factor in his conduct was the belief that he really stood for a principle that the Union *MUST* be preserved, but which I can respect as a valid moral position though I disagree with it

Now you have informed me that he was like the girl who would have sex for money, but needed to negotiate a sufficient price. He was indeed the Bill Clinton of the 1860s. Clever unprincipled lawyer who had no solid moral foundation.

He was willing to break the principle of "the Union must be preserved" if the price was not too steep. This must be comforting news to all who were killed. They were just casualties of not being able to make a better deal.

Second, all Unionists (then and now) acknowledged a "right of secession", with the approval of Congress, or some material breech of compact, but none recognized unilateral declarations of secession, especially for no material cause.

I have addressed this point before, though you may not have seen it. Do you think anyone in congress was unaware of the South's intention to secede? Do you really think not going through the formal pomp and circumstance is sufficient reason to deny the right of self determination to a populace? I will once again point you to the founding principle as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

I knew Lincoln was willing to negotiate away slavery. I did not know that he was willing to negotiate away part of the Union. That this was pragmatism over principle I do not doubt, but that is not what I had been led to believe about Lincoln. I have been led to believe that Lincoln saw it as his duty to preserve the Union, and the notion that he was willing to allow a secession if he could just get a big enough piece of the pie puts the lie to that claim.

It has further changed my opinion of Lincoln for the worse. As a result of what you told me, I no longer think he had a claim to any moral high ground, and was in fact just the sort of tyrant warned about in the anti-Federalist papers.

Now the question remains, how can *YOU* see him as a saintly man? Continue to allow slavery? Check. Allow partial secession? Check. Fighting for economic and military supremacy? Check.

Where are the moral justifications in support of that horrible war?

[DiogenesLamp]

Lincoln made no such offer. He was ready to trade Sumter for Virginia, not Virginia for recognition of the CSA.

If he is not recognizing the CSA then to whom is he trading Ft. Sumter?

Your response is nonsensical.

[DiogenesLamp]

The question for Lincoln was not letting the "rest of the South secede", but he was willing to abandon Fort Sumter, if Virginians promised to remain in the Union.

As I pointed out in my previous reply, do you have any idea how nonsensical that sounds? How can he "abandon Fort Sumter" if there is no one to abandon it to? Was he to pull out of it and let nature take it? Let it be overgrown with trees and bushes or something?

Stop spouting nonsense and come to terms with the fact that the war was not even fought to "preserve the Union." Based on what you have told me, It appears now that it was fought to "preserve the hegemony."

Yes, there is a cause worth dying for. To preserve the wealth and power of our North Eastern ruling class, a condition which has seemingly persisted till today, and is even now creating the same sort of resentment to the Washington corridor power brokers that likely existed back then.

My eyes are opened even wider now. Thank you for that.

[Sherman Logan]

Wasn't trading anything with the CSA. He attempted to negotiate a deal with the Union state of Virginia whereby the state would give up its threat of secession if Lincoln agreed to pull troops out of Sumter.

Nowhere, then or later, did Lincoln agree that secession was legitimate, lawful or constitutional.

[Sherman Logan]

I have to say I was not aware that Lincoln was willing to negotiate away part of the Union in exchange for an important state like Virginia.

The Union had many forts and installation in the South. By April all had been taken over by the CSA except Sumter and a couple in FL.

Lincoln offered the state of Virginia that he would pull troops out of Sumter if VA would drop the idea of secession.

This did not constitute a recognition of secession in any way. He continued to claim that all Union property in the CSA still belonged to the Union. He merely recognized that efforts to reoccupy it would at the moment be unwise.

He also never recognized the legitimacy, legality or constitutionality of secession.

To Lincoln the seceded states never left the Union de jure, however de facto that separation was.

[Sherman Logan]

Let me make a hypothetical argument.

Let’s say the state of California was taken over by a radical La Raza party and voted to secede. They then began oppression of the Anglo and black minorities in the state.

Would the United States have the moral and constitional right to enforce the US Constitution, by force if necessary? Or does a temporary majority in a single state have the right to remove the protections promised by “the people of the United State” to all individuals within each state?

BTW, we may be headed towards something very like this in the state of Hawaii.

[rockrr]

Our lost causer FRiend is convicted of the notion that the Declaration of Independence and all of the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the formation of our nation had a secret clause that offered the encouragement that anyone could abandon their agreements and go back on their word at any time and for any reason (even though no founding father ever said any such thing.

I doubt that you can reason him out of a notion he wasn't reasoned into.

[Sherman Logan]

To my mind, the Founders were very clear in the Declaration about the causes that would justify rebellion.

Only ones that were intended to expand liberty.

Which to my mind excludes revolts with the primary goal of preventing the expansion of liberty.

Many though not all of the Confederates were honest enough to openly proclaim that they were by their revolt rejecting the foundational principle of the Declaration, that “all men are created equal.”

They were instead founding their new nation on quite the opposite principle, that all men are NOT created equal, that God and Science had proclaimed that some men must be forever enslaved to others.

I’ve always wondered how that would have played out had they won their independence. At the time, the idea was that they would hang onto the idea, in restricted form, as being “all white men are created equal.” Would they have been able to stick to that somewhat less than logical caveat, or would claims for superiority/inferiority within the white race soon have arisen?

[Sherman Logan]

Second, all Unionists (then and now) acknowledged a "right of secession", with the approval of Congress

I'm not sure where you get the idea that Congress has the constitutional authority to allow a state to leave the Union. It has the power to admit states, and (with agreement by the state's legislature) to split up a state.

But I don't know of any power to allow a state to leave, unless you extrapolate that from the power to admit new states, which I guess is not completely illogical.

[central_va]

The USC is silent on the issue of secession, neither for or against.

[DiogenesLamp]

Wasn't trading anything with the CSA. He attempted to negotiate a deal with the Union state of Virginia whereby the state would give up its threat of secession if Lincoln agreed to pull troops out of Sumter.

Why are you doing logical backflips to avoid stating the obvious? You are now trying to lie to yourself, and I can assure you you aren't being successful at foisting this nonsense off on me.

By what logical contortion can you argue that pulling troops out of Sumter is not a capitulation to the claim of sovereignty of the CSA? You are now in the ridiculous position of trying to argue that Lincoln was willing to give up control to an authority he refuses to recognize?

What you are doing is arguing a variation of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. By saying that No man of principle would recognize the secession of South Carolina by giving up Ft. Sumter to them, so therefore what he was contemplating was not that, because Lincoln was a man of solid principle.

No, what he was contemplating was trading the principle for which he claimed to have been fighting that war, for the state of Virginia. A valuable prize no doubt, but not worth the abandonment of the asserted principle for which 600,000 people were made to die.

Stop trying to walk back what you revealed. The cat is out of the bag, the genie has left the bottle, Pandora's box has been opened, and you cannot now put the toothpaste back into the tube.

Lincoln was not against secession per se, he was against a secession that cost him sufficient power and influence.

Another thought occurs to me just now. If Lincoln was indeed an opportunist of little scruples, then what's to say he was willing to temporarily gave up Ft. Sumter just to keep Virginia in the Union, so that later when he decided to attack that "rump" confederacy, he had all the more power and forces to do so?

If one postulates that he is a man of little scruples, this scenario becomes all the more plausible.

I think I may be beginning to see the larger outline here. Promise them whatever you have to, (his willingness to cede slavery to them is but another example) but secure a strong position from which you can better impose your will later.

Machiavelli would be proud.