Battle of Appomattox: Understanding General Lee's Surrender

Ammo.com ^ | 7/26/2021 | Sam Jacobs

[ammodotcom]

The Battle of Appomattox Courthouse is considered by many historians the end of the Civil War and the start of post-Civil War America. The events of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General and future President Ulysses S. Grant at a small town courthouse in Central Virginia put into effect much of what was to follow.

The surrender at Appomattox Courthouse was about reconciliation, healing, and restoring the Union. While the Radical Republicans had their mercifully brief time in the sun rubbing defeated Dixie’s nose in it, they represented the bleeding edge of Northern radicalism that wanted to punish the South, not reintegrate it into the Union as an equal partner.

The sentiment of actual Civil War veterans is far removed from the attitude of the far left in America today. Modern day “woke-Americans” clamor for the removal of Confederate statues in the South, the lion’s share of which were erected while Civil War veterans were still alive. There was little objection to these statues at the time because it was considered an important part of the national reconciliation to allow the defeated South to honor its wartime dead and because there is a longstanding tradition of memorializing defeated foes in honor cultures.

[DoodleDawg]

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Then how did the U.S. collect $102.3 million in tariff revenue in 1863 without the Southern cotton exports?

[DoodleDawg]

The shipping costs would have been massively reduced by the employment of foreign ships to carry the cargoes.

How do you know?

This was prohibited in the Union because of the "Navigation Act of 1817.".

Complete nonsense. The Navigation Act prevented foreign ships from carrying cargo from one U.S. port to another. It did not prevent them from calling at Charleston, loading with cotton, and taking it to the United Kingdom.

[DoodleDawg]

Lincoln conscripted people to fight the war. Conscription is slavery. It’s ridiculous to enslave people and claim one is fighting slavery.

So did the Confederacy. A year before the U.S. did and in much greater numbers than the U.S. got.

[SoCal Pubbie]

“If you secede from my nation I will secede your head from the rest of your body.”

- Abe Lincoln

No, wait that was Andrew Jackson, son of Tennessee.

[x]

I don’t know if the crowbar you got hit with sent you back to 1860 or to 2004, but that Bush-Kerry election was anything but typical in American electoral history. Kerry had extremely limited appeal in most of the country, but that hardly means that Ohio or Nebraska or Montana would submit to government by the planters of Richmond or Montgomery. In your own biased view westerners and midwesterners wouldn’t want African-Americans around any more than they wanted competition from slaves or haughty slaveowners so they’d tell the CSA to P.O. and FOAD.

[rustbucket]

Some years ago I had a good series of message exchanges with a man who's family was involved in the Cotton trade and Shipping industry of New York. He confirmed that the whole enterprise was set up to transfer as much money from the South as possible.

If I could remember his name, I could probably go back and find those messages where he explained how the whole system worked. Rustbucket, was it you? If not, do you remember who it was?

No, it was not I, and I don't remember seeing a post of someone whose family was involved in the cotton trade and shipping. There are a number of old posts that deal with how much was being transferred from the South to the North before the war. Here are some examples:

From PeaRidge, who might be the person you are remembering: A breakdown of Northern profits that were about to be lost due to the secession of the South

A 2002 post by 4ConservativeJustices, who later posted as 4CJ

The immediate effect of the Morrill Tariff on Northern ports

Effect of the Morrill Tariff on the value of imports to the North from 1860 to 1865 expressed in 1860 dollars by taking inflation into account

How the war was really brought about by the potential loss of revenue by the North

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp (post #361): "An Independent Southern coalition was a major financial threat to the then existing monied power structure of the North East."

In a DiogenesLamp hypothetical alternate history, where Jefferson Davis refuses to start Civil War at Fort Sumter, and peace is maintained between USA & CSA -- in that alternate history, the Union "moneyed power structure" is harmed much less than the actual historical results.

In actual history all commerce between USA and CSA stopped in early 1861 and did not fully resume until early 1865 -- 4 years.
The immediate result was to re-route Midwestern products from export South via the Mississippi River through New Orleans to more expensive train transport, East to large Eastern cities -- Baltimore, Philadelphia & New York.
Another result was near collapse of the Union's largest industry -- cotton textile manufacturing.
Yes, Southern cotton was partially replaced by Northern manufacturers with US wool and some foreign sources of cotton, but cotton textiles did not recover until the war ended.

Other Northern industries that suffered throughout the war were shoes and cast-iron products, though these were eventually repurposed to make war-materials for the Union army.

So the immediate result, in 1861, of Civil War was to reduce the Union economy (GDP) by roughly 15%.
But then the Union's economy began to grow again and by 1864 the North alone had double the GDP of the entire nation in 1860.
Federal revenues doubled by 1863 and doubled again by 1865.

Bottom line: the Union's largest industry (textiles) was severely damaged by Civil War and that fact suggests DiogenesLamp's "Northeastern moneyed power structure" would not have been so eager for war as DiogenesLamp claims.

[SoCal Pubbie]

You mean the Morrill Tariff that would have never passed Congress if the Southerners hadn't withdrawn? Not the Tariff of 1857, written by a Virginian, that lowered tariffs?

[rustbucket]

You mean the Morrill Tariff that would have never passed Congress if the Southerners hadn't withdrawn?

Not so. From a 2003 post by former poster GOPcapitalist

"The Northern Democrats had no problem whatsoever with the Morrill Act and in fact they voted for it in near unanimity in the House back in 1860. It was also signed by a Northern Democrat president. As for the Senate, a simple calculation of votes indicates without dispute that under the very best case scenario with every single southern senator voting against it, the Morrill Act would have STILL passed the Senate. Here is that calculation as it was outlined on December 12, 1860 before any state had seceded by Sen. Louis Wigfall:"

"Tell me not that we have got the legislative department of this Government, for I say we have not. As to this body, where do we stand? Why, sir, there are now eighteen non-slaveholding States. In a few weeks we shall have the nineteenth, for Kansas will be brought in. Then arithmetic which settles our position is simple and easy. Thirty-eight northern Senators you will have upon this floor. We shall have thirty to your thirty-eight. After the 4th of March, the Senator from California, the Senator from Indiana, the Senator from New Jersey, and the Senator from Minnesota will be here. That reduces the northern phalanx to thirty-four...There are four of the northern Senators upon whom we can rely, whom we know to be friends, whom we have trusted in our days of trial heretofore, and in whom, as Constitution-loving men, we will trust. Then we stand thirty-four to thirty-four, and your Black Republican Vice President to give the casting vote. Mr. Lincoln can make his own nominations with perfect security that they will be confirmed by this body, even if every slaveholding State should remain in the Union, which, thank God, they will not do."

The page in the Congressional Globe where Senator Wigfall made those comments that GOPcapitalist cited can be found in the Library of Congress ([American Memory]A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875 Congressional Globe, Senate, 36th Congress, 2nd Session Page 75 of 992)

[Bull Snipe]

I guess you and I have different views of how the military chain of command works. I don’t see a lieutenant deliberately starting a war without cover from above.

He didn’t start a war. Had Porter carried orders from the President to enter Pensacola Bay and provoke the Confederates into firing on his ship, he would have done so. If that meant having to ram the tug the Meigs on board to accomplish those orders, Porter would have done so. Porter did not do that. He stopped for the tug and Meigs showed him the order from Col. Brown to not enter Pensacola Bay. Had Porter been given a “secret order” by the President, Porter would have shown Meigs that order. Then told Meigs to get off his ship and allow him to carry out the orders of the President of the United States.
The fact that Porter did not enter Pensacola Harbor after being shown Col. Brown’s order, indicates to me that Porter was not in possession of any orders from the President other that those we already know about.

The reason for the British flag. The Confederates would not have fired on Powhatan if they thought she was British.

[DiogenesLamp]

So how old was this guy, 250? Really, he knew all about the ins and outs of the cotton trade in the 1800s because he worked in it. Oh boy!

If you just want to trade snark, I can do that too, but I will probably find it boring after awhile and just stop talking to you.

And this wasn’t the case in 1825, or 1850, or 1861? But a ruinous war was a boon to the economy!

This is how I can tell you don't actually read what I write. I've stated it at least twice in this thread.

"Navigation Act of 1817."

[SoCal Pubbie]

The Senate vote to pass the bill was on February 20, 1861. Before Southerners started dropping out, there were 66 senators total. The vote to pass the Morrill Tariff was 25-14, with 12 abstentions. That’s means 9 did not vote. These were Senators from secessionist states. Their no votes would have meant the bill would have failed 33-25.

Of course had they’d stayed the Democrats wouldn’t have lost control of the Finance Committee and the bill would have never hit the floor.

BTW only one Northern Democrat voted yes.

[SoCal Pubbie]

How did that act prohibit Southern shipbuilding?

[DiogenesLamp]

No, it was not I, and I don't remember seeing a post of someone whose family was involved in the cotton trade and shipping.

Thank you for your detailed response with the supporting information you provided. Some of that is quite good.

I now realize it wasn't you, but you were involved in the thread where this information was discussed. I actually found the thread by doing a google site search for free republic using "navigation act of 1817" as the search term. It pulled up the correct thread in some of it's listings.

The guy who made the comments I remembered is "WarIsHellAintItYall" and he does not appear to have any further commentary since 2016. But here is one of his comments.

For many weeks I have seen interesting comments here that are truly misleading. My direct and indirect family ties date to the mid 1700s. They were engaged in ship building and finance. Some here would recognize names.
For decades following the use of the gin, the planters controlled their own cotton industry. Southern cotton was shipped directly from southern ports by its owners or brokers to the textile mills of England or Lowell. During the three decade period before 1860, with our politicians action, our shippers forced the cotton trade to into our ships. First, the Navigation Acts authored by Congress at the turn of the century had established protectionist laws favoring our shipping over foreign interests.
Southrons were required by law to either use our ships for their shipping, or pay to the Treasury compensation for their use of foreign ships. Foreign ships were prohibited by law from engaging in coastal trade between US harbors. Federal law cut them out.
The laws highly discouraged southern boat builders from becoming involved in the shipping business by prohibiting their purchase of finished ships from overseas. To our benefit and profit and with the aid of Federal laws, we came to dominate the carrying trade of the South. As our trade in cotton increased, our financial people saw opportunity and began sending agents south to purchase all the cotton they could, and ship it on our packet ships to England and Europe. Direct purchase of cotton by the “factors” enabled the Southern growers to quickly turn a profit instead of waiting months for the cotton to be sold, and the money to return to them. But this benefit also cut their profits.
Business was business and our men in Washington ensured that we would have most of it.

https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/3443027/posts?page=948#948

[SoCal Pubbie]

I read your post. Let me be clear. No snark.

You maintain that the Southern states were unfairly prohibited from using foreign ships. So they seceded in 1860. I’m asking why Southerners, instead of choosing rebellion and the potential of subjecting their products to additional tariffs should they succeed in that, they simply didn’t build or buy their own ships. You agreed that would have created economic benefits for the region. They had nearly half a century to do something about it.

How did the Navigation Act of 1817 affect Southern shipbuilding and infrastructure investments?

[DiogenesLamp]

Because the federal government wanted to maintain the Union!

You say that like its some magic words or something. The United Kingdom also wanted to preserve the Union! We articulated a right for people to leave a Union which they felt did not represent their interests, and so the Southern states did this, just as the founders had done it "four score and seven years" earlier.

There is no moral authority to "preserve" the Union any more than there is to preserve another form of coerced servitude known as slavery.

If people are free, then they are free to leave the Union if they wish. If they are not free to leave, they are subjects.

But here is the weird twisted logic you employ. "The slave states must be compelled to stay in the union, and to encourage them to do so, we will give them permanent protection for slavery, but when they reject this, we will fight a war to destroy slavery"?

Nonsense. Lies.

It's about money. It never was about slaves.

[DiogenesLamp]

Where was the tariff applied, on the outbound ship or the inbound one?

Did you ever see a movie called "Kidco"? It was about some kids that started a business selling horse manure. The state bureaucrats got involved and tried to shut the kids business down. It went to court.

The kids called their father as a witness. (It was his horse farm where the kids got the manure.) The Kid, acting as his own attorney, asked his father if he paid taxes on the feed he gave the horses. His father said yes, and presented receipts showing the payment of taxes on the horse feed.

The Kid then informed the court that taxes had already been paid on the product when it entered the horse, and the state was trying to tax what was expelled from the horse.

"Your Honor! The State is trying to tax both ends of the horse!"

So I think you get the idea of how trade works. They don't send us goods unless we send them goods. A tax on imports is a tax on exports. It's the same products going into one end of the horse as is coming out.

[DiogenesLamp]

I don't care. I have no interest in what happened after the war started. My interest lays in pointing out the accurate causes of the war, and sweeping away the propaganda nonsense we've all been brainwashed with our entire lives.

1863 is long after my area of interest.

[DiogenesLamp]

Not going to try to explain it to you. Suggest you simply read this thread.

https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/3443027/posts?q=1&;page=1

[SoCal Pubbie]

“ Southrons were required by law to either use our ships for their shipping, or pay to the Treasury compensation for their use of foreign ships.”

Did the law also prohibit Southern shipbuilding, or the purchase of ships built in Northern states?

“ Foreign ships were prohibited by law from engaging in coastal trade between US harbors. Federal law cut them out.”

Were they also prohibited from transporting goods to and from their home ports and Southern destinations?

“Direct purchase of cotton by the “factors” enabled the Southern growers to quickly turn a profit instead of waiting months for the cotton to be sold, and the money to return to them. But this benefit also cut their profits.”

All sorts of things cut profit margins. Otherwise there would be no volume discounts. And factoring still goes on. I considered it for a recent government contract. So is capitalism now evil?