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.

[DiogenesLamp]

True. But your editorial was talking about goods entering at New Orleans and spreading througout the country, supposedly without tariffs being paid. My point is that goods going up the Mississippi would have entered the U.S. at one point, the Tennessee border. It would not have been hard for the U.S. to apply their tariffs there, or at whatever U.S. city they were landed at.

You keep trying to put forth that argument , and I keep pointing out we can't even control the Southern border we have now. Massive amounts of illegal goods flow across it, and we have better means of controlling it now than they would have then.

[SoCal Pubbie]

You have proven no such thing. You haven’t even addressed the fact that I have SHOWN that foreign ships DID carry cotton and other crops from Southern ports before, and right up to, secession, yet you ignore that evidence.

[DiogenesLamp]

It was one of the reasons cited in several of the Secession documents. Yes it became moot, only because none of the territories belonged to the Confederate states.

Over time they all would have gone over to the Confederate side simply because of economic benefit.

If the right of states to leave the Union was recognized by default, then territories would have become new CSA states too.

[DiogenesLamp]

Yes, tariffs would apply above the City of St Louis, MO. DL’s theory is that the riverboats carrying the cargo would stop short of the U.S. border, discharge their cargos to hundreds of waiting wagons. These would then smuggle the goods into MO, KY and other points North. Thus avoiding the tariffs. There would be not legal way to bring those goods into the United States from the Confederacy unless the U.S. tariff was paid.

That is one possibility and not the most likely one. Several Northern newspapers had pointed out that it makes no sense to have a high tariff when this will simply cause traffic to go south. They articulated the position that if the South would allow low tariff goods, they must also do, and some communities even said that if the Southern tariffs were allowed to stand, they would refuse to collect any more at their own ports.

[DoodleDawg]

The point here is that you don't get to just declare something "true" simply because someone printed it.

Nor can you declare something to be untrue without evidence supporting it.

I think you once listed names of Taney biographers, and my recollection is that it was the typical class of Northern residents and graduates of Northern Universities which even today is going through another set of politically correct convulsions.

And my recollection is that you dismissed the whole body of their work merely because they found nothing to support the claim of the Taney arrest warrant. In other words, they don't fit your agenda. No other reason.

There is corroborating evidence for Lamon's claim. I read something the other day indicating there were three or four examples of corroboration for Lamon's claim.

Then by all means provide it. Hopefully it's something more than people accounting that Taney thought he'd be arrested.

You do not want to believe historical facts that undermine your world view of Lincoln, and so you chose not to believe them, even when there is corroborating evidence.

I don't believe the BS Taney arrest story because professional historians, people who spent considerable time researching Taney for their biographies of the man, and who stake their professional reputations on the accuracy of their work, have not found enough evidence of the arrest warrant to include it in their books. We're not talking one biographer who did include it and one who didn't. If that were the case then you're half-baked claims of bias might actually hold water. But none of them did. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

[DoodleDawg]

You keep trying to put forth that argument , and I keep pointing out we can't even control the Southern border we have now.

And as I have pointed out to you there is a great deal of difference between the transportation of today and the transportation of 160 years ago. What alternative was available to move thousands of tons of imports through the U.S./Confederate border in 1860. By all means enlighten us.

[DoodleDawg]

Apparently you were the one claiming that foreign ships would have to come with empty holds, or was it the other guy?

Other guy I think.

The figures on imports and exports would show that for the most part ships arrived at southern ports empty and loaded up for the voyage home. That would be true regardless of whether they are U.S. or foreign flagged vessels. For the foreign ships the only explanation is that for the most part they unloaded in the north and then went south to load up for the voyage home.

[rockrr]

It took you that long to conjure up a reply and that's the best you can do?

Pathetic.

So who was more stupid - the ones who were desperate and foolish enough to try to make a deal with the devil in order to keep the peace? Or the ones who threw away everything because they had a hissy fit over a lost election?

[DiogenesLamp]

You could use practice in keeping your arse out of other people’s business.

It's stuff like this which informs the rest of us that you are not to be taken seriously. Lighten up Francis.

[DiogenesLamp]

As he has stated time and time again. Apparently the idea of what smuggling the goods across the border in small batches would do to the price of the goods, compared with just paying the tariff, hasn't occurred to him.

Again, Fentanyl and other opiods are currently streaming across the border and we have more wherewithal to stop it than they did.

Also, if you bothered to read the newspaper accounts of the time you would understand that many did not think it possible to stop trade across the borders, and additionally, some Northern ports were going to refuse to collect the tariffs if the Southern ports did not have to do so. They correctly recognized that to collect high tariffs would have put them at a severe trade disadvantage.

[DiogenesLamp]

You have not made your point easy to grasp here. I'm not sure your claimed evidence supports your claimed assertion, and it looks like more trouble to read through it and analyze the numbers in light of trade numbers for that era than it would be worth.

To be compelling you have to keep your information simple and easy to grasp.

[DoodleDawg]

Again, Fentanyl and other opiods are currently streaming across the border and we have more wherewithal to stop it than they did.

Yeah, all border patrol needs to do is watch the three border crossings and stop every covered wagon coming across and they'd dry that traffic right up.

Also, if you bothered to read the newspaper accounts of the time you would understand that many did not think it possible to stop trade across the borders, and additionally, some Northern ports were going to refuse to collect the tariffs if the Southern ports did not have to do so.

You mean the newspaper editorials?

[DiogenesLamp]

The fact of the matter is that there wouldn't have been any reason to send goods destined for Northern consumers to New Orleans,

There wouldn't have been nearly so many "Northern consumers" but for the 60% vigorish siphoned off of the Southern export trade. Secession severs that money stream to "northern consumers."

You can only buy so much in exchange for 28% of the export value.

[DiogenesLamp]

Goods destined for Northern consumers would continue to go to Boston or New York or Philadelphia.

Well, they would get 28% of the imports based on their 28% exports.

[DiogenesLamp]

Relatively sure the U.S. Government would make a strong attempt of collect tariffs where the Mississippi, Cumberland, Tennessee, and Arkansas rivers cross into the United States. Whether they could completely control the flow of goods out of the Confederacy to the Northern states is also speculation.

That might just precipitate those surrounding states (excepting Illinois) into joining the CSA, which would also be a disaster for the North.

[DiogenesLamp]

This problem prompted numerous politicians and businessmen to rush to Lincoln to advise him to invade the South.

Yup. A war to cover up their impending loss of money.

[DoodleDawg]

Well, they would get 28% of the imports based on their 28% exports.

According to your convoluted math.

[DiogenesLamp]

But the fears expressed in the editorial makes no sense. Leaving aside for the moment the question of how goods bought in New Orleans would reach the Northwest, if they did buy their goods from New Orleans in the now independent Confederacy then wouldn't the U.S. tariff still be applied the moment they were landed in a U.S. port? And if the Confederacy levied their tariff first then U.S. consumers would be paying more for goods delivered that way.

If secession became seen as legitimate, those states could simply secede and become part of the Confederacy, which is what I predicted would likely happen over time anyway.

Yes, the empire of the Northeast would have crumbled by people voting with their feet and their pocketbook.

Instead, they are still running Washington DC deep state/crony capitalism now.

[DoodleDawg]

There wouldn't have been nearly so many "Northern consumers" but for the 60% vigorish siphoned off of the Southern export trade. Secession severs that money stream to "northern consumers."

And yet for some reason during the rebellion and in the years afterwards U.S. imports and tariff revenue increased without all those southern exports. Go figure.

[DoodleDawg]

If secession became seen as legitimate, those states could simply secede and become part of the Confederacy, which is what I predicted would likely happen over time anyway.

Because you predicted? LOL!