Posted on 07/22/2015 7:36:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
We call the war of 1861 the Civil War. But is that right? A civil war is a struggle between two or more entities trying to take over the central government. Confederate President Jefferson Davis no more sought to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington sought to take over London in 1776. Both wars, those of 1776 and 1861, were wars of independence. Such a recognition does not require one to sanction the horrors of slavery. We might ask, How much of the war was about slavery?
Was President Abraham Lincoln really for outlawing slavery? Let's look at his words. In an 1858 letter, Lincoln said, "I have declared a thousand times, and now repeat that, in my opinion neither the General Government, nor any other power outside of the slave states, can constitutionally or rightfully interfere with slaves or slavery where it already exists." In a Springfield, Illinois, speech, he explained: "My declarations upon this subject of Negro slavery may be misrepresented but cannot be misunderstood. I have said that I do not understand the Declaration (of Independence) to mean that all men were created equal in all respects." Debating Sen. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln said, "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes nor of qualifying them to hold office nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."
What about Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation? Here are his words: "I view the matter (of slaves' emancipation) as a practical war measure, to be decided upon according to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion." He also wrote: "I will also concede that emancipation would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something more than ambition." When Lincoln first drafted the proclamation, war was going badly for the Union.
London and Paris were considering recognizing the Confederacy and assisting it in its war against the Union.
The Emancipation Proclamation was not a universal declaration. It specifically detailed where slaves were to be freed: only in those states "in rebellion against the United States." Slaves remained slaves in states not in rebellion — such as Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and Missouri. The hypocrisy of the Emancipation Proclamation came in for heavy criticism. Lincoln's own secretary of state, William Seward, sarcastically said, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."
Lincoln did articulate a view of secession that would have been heartily endorsed by the Confederacy: "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. ... Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." Lincoln expressed that view in an 1848 speech in the U.S. House of Representatives, supporting the war with Mexico and the secession of Texas.
Why didn't Lincoln share the same feelings about Southern secession? Following the money might help with an answer. Throughout most of our nation's history, the only sources of federal revenue were excise taxes and tariffs. During the 1850s, tariffs amounted to 90 percent of federal revenue. Southern ports paid 75 percent of tariffs in 1859. What "responsible" politician would let that much revenue go?
This entry in the ship's log of the USS Supply is for the night prior to the events at Fort Sumter. It documents an invasion force landing in Florida, in violation of the existing armistice, before the events in South Carolina.
USS SUPPLY SHIPS LOG - APRIL 11, 1861 pg. 210 OPERATIONS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO.
Abstract log of the U. S. sbip Supply, January 9 to June 14, 1861, Commander Henry Walke, commanding.
April 11. -- At 9 p. m. the Brooklyn got Underway and stood in toward the harbor, and during the night landed the troops and marines on board, to reenforce Fort Pickens.
210 OPERATIONS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO.
Abstract log of the U. S. ship Supply, January 9 to June 14, 1861, Commander Henry Walke, commanding.
January 9, 1861.—Off Warrington navy yard, Pensacola, Fla. From
meridian to 4 p. in.: Sent a boat to Fort Barrancas to assist the troops
in moving to Fort Pickens.
January 10. -- From 4 to 8 a. in.: Stood down for Fort Pickens. From
8 to meridian: Assisting the work at Fort Pickens. From meridian to 4
p. in.: Sent boat to assist in removing powder and different articles from
the Barrancas to Fort Pickens. From 4 to 8p. in.: Men and boats assist-
ing in getting Fort Pickens in a state of defense; also sent to Fort
McRee.
January 11. -- An officer and boat’s crew sent to cooperate with the
garrison of the fortifications. A number of men sent to assist the gar-
rison of Pickens and destroy the powder at Fort McRee.
January 12. -- From meridian to 4p.m.: The navy yard,marine bar-
racks, and hospital surrendered and hauled down the American flag to
the State troops of Florida. From 4 to 8p. in.: Stood out of the harbor
and anchored.
January 13. -- Was taken in tow by the Wyandotte and stood in for
the harbor under flag of truce. Received on board the family of Lieutenant Irwin.
January 14. -- Received men from the hospital and men from the yard
and baggage of the officers of the yard; also their furniture.
January 15. -- Received on board the families of the late forward offi-
cers of the navy yard [Pensacola], and their baggage.
January 16. -- At 7 a. m. got underway and stood out of the harbor
[Pensacola].
February 4. -- At 2:30 p. m. arrived at the navy yard, New York.
March 6. -- At 1 p. m. ship weiit in commission, Commander A. Gibson
in command.
March 15. -- At 10 a. in. got underway and stood down the harbor
[New York].
April 7. -- Came to anchor in the harbor of Pensacola.
April 11. -- At 9 p. m. the Brooklyn got Underway and stood in
toward the harbor, and during the night landed the troops and marines
on board, to reenforce Fort Pickens.
April 16. -- At 5 p. m. steamer Atlantic arrived with troops and munitions of war for Fort Pickens. During the night 300 troops were landed on Santa Rosa Island by the boats of the squadron.
April 17. -- Lieutenant J. R. M. Mullany took command of this vessel. Boats of the squadron employed landing troops and munitions of war.
April 18 and 19. -- Boats from squadron employed landing munitions
of war and army stores from Atlantic on Santa Rosa Island.
June 14. -- Standing into New York.
Abstract log of the U. S. S. Wyandotte, January 12 to May 16, 1861, Lieutenant O. H. Berryman, commanding.
January 12, 1861. -- At 2 p. m the American ensign and flag-officer’s flag were hauled down at the navy yard.
January 14. -- Florida forces hoisted the American flag with lone star.
January 18. -- Sent six marines to Fort Pickens.
January 20. -- At 11 a. in. six marines and ten seamen volunteered and went on shore to assist at Fort Pickens. From 8 to 12 midnight: Sent ten men to Fort Pickeus to assist in mounting guns.From our good friend nolu chan
Yes, here we are.
One person argues Robert E. Lee was an honorable gentleman.
Another person argues Robert E. Lee was a dastardly traitor.
The confusion is this: you are both people.
So, the thread has gone full circle back to “what was the cause of the war”. I do find it interesting that you start with Lincoln’s inaugural address on March 4, 1861. Interesting starting point. I wonder, did anything of note concerning the Civil War occur before this date? How about the attempted secession of South Carolina on December 20, 1860? Do you think that might have something to do with the start of the Civil War? How about the other six states that seceded before this pivotal speech?
I also find it interesting, if the primary reason for the Civil War was the collection of tariffs, the government of South Carolina never saw fit to mention tariffs in their Declaration of Causes of the Secession. Neither did any of the other states that saw fit to give their reasons for Secession. Kind of interesting that the people who actually seceded didn’t mention their primary reason for seceding, isn’t it (by the way - what reasons did they give?)?
As far as the question you stated “What was so important about the conditions in April of 1861 that induced Lincoln to be willing to risk war?”, I would say that this was the soonest he could do anything about it - remember, he didn’t become president until March 4.
So, I will turn back the question to you - What was so important about the condition in December of 1860 that induced South Carolina to be willing to risk war?
What Lincoln needed was a pretext for war. He found it with the Gulf of Tonkin incident, err, I mean the Fort Sumter incident.
To whom is this statement attributed: “You can fool some of the people all of the time . . .” ?
So, you state “If one thinks that firing a first shot constitutes blame for a war, then they are wrong. The United States government affixed the official beginning of the war with Lincoln’s call of 75,000 troops and the blockade decree.” That’s an interesting thought process. According to this logic the OFFICIAL date of the beginning of the war is when it started, and what comes before that is unimportant. By that logic, the OFFICIAL start of WW2 for the US was December 08, 1941 when Roosevelt signed the Declaration of War, and anything that came before that was unimportant. Is there anything that occurred before December 08, 1941 that might have had some import on our decision to declare War on Japan? Try hard, I know you can think of something.
Then, you continue to state that who fired first was unimportant (you say “silly”) by pointing out that you could just as well point to John Brown’s Raid, or the border skirmishing in Kansas and Missouri as causes. By that logic you could well point to the US ban of sales of aviation gas to Japan in July 1940 as a cause of World War 2. While these are important precursors to the War, who shot first was still important. Would there have been such an enthusiastic response from the American public to war with Japan if they hadn’t attacked Pearl Harbor first? Just as there wouldn’t have been such an enthusiastic response by the Northern public if the Confederacy had not attacked first.
As far as the January 8 incident at Fort Barrancas, my understanding was that the Florida militia showed up and demanded the surrender of the fort, at which time the US Army troops there fired warning shots, after which they spiked their guns and retreated to Fort Pickens. So, although the US troops fired the first shots, I would think the aggressor would clearly be the Florida militia who showed up and demanded their surrender. In any case, this was very much a skirmish (only 50 US troops present), and not the major battle that Fort Sumter was. It also didn’t make the papers and inflame public opinion (in the North or the South) the way Fort Sumter did.
So, basically you are saying. Some people think Lee was an honorable gentlemen, some think he was a traitor, so basically it’s just an opinion.
Let’s get out of opinions. Let’s stick to facts
• Was Robert E Lee in the Confederate Army?
• Did the Confederate Army wage war against the United States?
If the answer to both of these questions is yes, we will then go to a third.
• Does being a member of an Army actively fighting the US Army (and invading the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania) meet the definition of treason in Article III, Section of the US Constitution?
So, I am waiting for your answers to these questions. As I consider the answers to be obvious (yes to all) I would appreciate it if you could give me any reasons for any no answers.
Very interesting time line.
Interesting that this abstract has no mention of the shots fired by US Troops defending themselves from the Florida militia on January 8
Jeez, is this war still going on?
It is unfortunate that you are now asking numerous questions that are circular and meant to obfuscate.
Maybe we should communicate another time.
Both of those are your opinions! You do know you have advocated both positions don't you? These two opinions are in conflict; they are not compatible. That is why I'm pointing these things out to you.
I'm starting to think there may be a problem here that I'm ill-equipped to address.
If you research the term “total war” it doesn't take long for the name of Sherman to pop up.
From Wikipedia: “One can trace back the phrase to the publication in 1935 of World War I memoir of German Genral Erich Ludendorff, Der Totale Krieg (”The Total War”). Some authors extend the concept back as far as classic work of Carl von Clausewitz, On War, as “absoluter Krieg”; however, different authors interpret the relevant passages in diverging ways.[3] Total war also describes the French “guerre à outrance” during the Franco-Prussian War.[4][5][6]
“During the American Civil War, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman stated that to win and end the war with fewest possible casualties, he must wage “hard war” (a synonym for total war) against not only enemy combatants but also enemy civilians on the home front who engaged in arms and food production for the war effort of the Confederacy. By destroying infrastructure vital to the Confederate war effort and striking a serious blow at civilian morale, he thought that it would seriously impair the ability of the Confederacy to continue resistance and thus would turn its populace against their leadership.[7] In his letter to his Chief of Staff, Union General Henry Halleck on 24 December 1864 described that the Union was “not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies,” defending Sherman's March to the Sea, the operation that inflicted widespread destruction of infrastructure in Georgia.[8]
The very next paragraph states: “United States Air Force General Curtis LeMay updated the concept for the nuclear age. In 1949, he first proposed that a total war in the nuclear age would consist of delivering the entire nuclear arsenal in a single overwhelming blow, going as far as “killing a nation”.[9]
Sherman never considered using nuclear weapons. He didn't have them. If you read Sherman's homicidal musings, however, it hard to image him being more restrained than President Truman - and Truman (by his own account) didn't hesitate to use nuclear weapons.
Dig hard and you will find some historian that will say Sherman's tactics “didn't quite reach” the technical definition of total war. I would hate to live on the difference.
Dig hard? You find it in that very same article:
Scholars taking issue with the notion that Sherman was employing "total war" include Noah Andre Trudeau. Trudeau believes that Sherman's goals and methods do not meet the definition of total war and to suggest as much is to "misread Sherman's intentions and to misunderstand the results of what happened."
So who to trust?
A recognized expert who wrote a dozen books on the Civil War, or some random guy anonymously spouting intemperate opinions on the Internet?
You, I guess. After all, his name is French, and the same as Canada's longtime quasi-socialist prime minister.
Why not trust General Sherman himself. Here's what he said about total war, or near-total war if you prefer.
“The government of the U.S. has any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war - to take their lives, their homes, their land, their everything...war is simply unrestrained by the Constitution...to the persistent secessionist, why, death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better...”
“Look to the South and you who went with us through that land can best say if they have not been fearfully punished. Mourning is in every household, desolation written in broad characters across the whole face of their country, cities in ashes and fields laid waste, their commerce gone, their system of labor annihilated and destroyed. Ruin and poverty and distress everywhere, and now pestilence adding to the very cap sheaf of their stack of misery...”
“There is a class of people men, women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order.”
Sherman estimated that the March to the Sea campaign had inflicted $100 million in destruction, about one fifth of which “inured to our advantage” while the “remainder is simple waste and destruction.”
After practicing on the South, Sherman turned west.
“The more Indians we can kill this year the fewer we will need to kill the next, because the more I see of the Indians the more convinced I become that they must either all be killed or be maintained as a species of pauper. Their attempts at civilization is ridiculous...”
I'm not sure why you would want to deny General Sherman, with Lincoln's approval, conducted total warfare against civilians. General Sherman reveled in it . . . perhaps given your view, you should too.
The atrocity stories were largely exaggeration.
In October of 1864 he ordered a subordinate, General Louis Watkins, to go to Fairmount, Georgia, “burn ten or twelve houses” and “kill a few at random,” and “let them know that it will be repeated every time a train is fired upon.”
General Sherman believed and practiced total war. Had the South won he would have been tried for war crimes, if the South could have reached him. His activities would be considered war crimes today.
There were plenty of atrocities on both sides.
All that was deplorable.
Still, historians dispute the wilder charges against Sherman.
“There were plenty of atrocities on both sides. All that was deplorable.”
On this I agree with you.
So, when Quantrill’s bushwhackers invaded, looted, and burned Lawrence, KS, shooting, mangling, and burning the body of every single man and teenaged boy they could find, civilians all, was that “total war”? I’m just curious.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/hnS/Kansas/fisher3.html
Entering the town from the Southeast they marched in regular order until the center of the residence portion had been reached. Here they broke into a main body and squads of four, six and eight, the larger body galloping furiously down Massaschusetts street to the business section, the smaller squads riding as fast as their horses could carry them to the various parts of the town assigned them for individual action. Some flew to the extreme Western limit, the residence of General Lane and other prominent citizens. Others gallopecl swiftly to the Southwest, skirting Mount Oread and the Southern edge of town. The river front needed but little guarding, yet here, too, pickets were quickly stationed. As the affrighted people flew for safety, no matter what the direction, they were confronted by squads of guerrillas so stationed as to cut off escape. A cordon of death had been thrown around us while we slept.
Fairly within the city the work of death and destruction was begun. With demoniac yells the scoundrels flew hither and yon, wherever a man was to be seen, shooting him down like a dog. Men were called from their beds and murdered before the eyes of wives and children on their doorsteps. Tears, entreaties, prayers availed nothing. The fiends of hell were among us and under the demands of their revengeful black leader they satiated their thirst for blood with fiendish delight.
The lurid glare of burning houses joined with the oncoming sun to shed more light upon the awful scene. The torch was applied to every house that had been marked on the traitoress’ map. Everything that could not be carried away as booty was doomed to destruction. Every business house on Massachusetts street save one was burned to the ground. No home that was picked out as the home of a soldier’s family or that of a Union man was left if it could be burned.
Not only was the torch applied for the destruction of stores and homes, but in many instances the bullet-pierced bodies of their owners were consigned to the flames, in individual instances before life was extinct. Such scenes of barbarity have never been witnessed, even in the days of war, in recent centuries, except among the most degraded tribes of earth.
Particularly atrocious were the murders of Senator Thorp, Dr. Griswold and Editor Trask. Together with Mr. Baker they, with their families, were boarding in the Northern part of the town. The guerrillas called them to the doorway, and assuring them and their wives that they were only to be taken down town to a rendezvous at which the citizens had been gathered, that the danger to the raiders might be lessened as they did their work of robbery and arson, they were marched to the front side-walk and as their wives bade them adieu were commanded to front face, and before the eyes of the women and children on the porch but thirty feet away they were shot in their tracks. The entreaties of wives and mothers and children went for naught. Shot after shot was fired into their prostrate forms until life was extinguished in all but Mr. Paker. Though pierced by seventeen bullets his splendid constitution saved him and he lives to-day.
Equally atrocious was the murder of Judge Carpenter. In delicate health he had not joined the army of the frontier, but he sympathized earnestly with the Union cause and served us nobly in many ways. His judicial utterances were always on the side of the right, and thus he became an object of hatred to the ruffian element. Called from his home in early morn he saw the danger and attempted to escape by running around his house, hoping to get out by a side gate and away to some place of safety. They chased him, and when his wife saw he was certain to be caught she flew to his side and threw her arms around him, enfolding him in her skirts. The murderous guerrillas tried to wrest him away from her, failing in which they forcibly held her to one side and shot him down in her arms. She fell with him and again they tore her partially from him and finished their crime by repeatedly turning their revolvers upon him while still she clung to him and begged for mercy and his life.
Most terrible was the fate of a Mr. D. D. Palmer, an inoffensive man who happened to be in his gunshop when the murderous band came upon him. Having become satiated with ordinary blood-shed they shot him and an assistant, then fired the shop, tied the hands of the men and threw them into the burning building which, being of wood, burned fast and furiously. The wounded men arose and struggled to the door to be kicked back into the flames! When the fire had at last burned the cords from their wrists they again fought their way to the door and begged for mercy. Demoniac yells of revengeful delight came from their tormentors for an answer, and death, slow but awfully sure, was their release!
One hundred and fifty-four of the best business houses and dwellings of Lawrence were burned to the ground. The value of the property destroyed was estimated at one and one-half million dollars. Two-thirds of the people were homeless. Many of them had not a suit of clothing left and but few had a dollar in money. That night nearly an hundred widows and two hundred fatherless children sat wailing in the streets. One hundred and eighty-five men had been killed. Shorn of her pride and beauty and sons the city wept in sack-cloth and sat in ashes— a Phoenix who should one day rise again. Desolation like a pall hung over every home. There was nought doing but burial. The hearse was the only trafficker.
Many a good name and fair is on the list of the lamented dead who were left bleeding on the streets of Lawrence on that terrible day of the raid. A partial list of them is appended. These men and the others slain deserve to have their names inscribed upon the pages of the history of Kansas and the Union. They fell martyrs to a noble cause. Upon the sacred soil of Lawrence, whose individual history is more intimately interwoven with the history of the struggle for the emancipation of the Negro race than that of any other city in the Union, there should be erected a monument to these men, commemorative of the destruction of their town, the burning of their homes, and their murder, which shall tell the history of this awful crime to generations to come. Lawrence stands as the Thermopylae of Kansas and freedom.
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