Posted on 08/20/2004 5:43:21 AM PDT by TexConfederate1861
"Factual" information, unsubstantiated, amounts to nothing more than personal opinion. You obviously have the educational background to make a reasoned, referenced, and substantiated argument. So why not take that course, rather than hurl invective-laden broadsides? It simply cheapens the discussion. (I know, as I fall into that trap as much as anyone on these threads.)
I believe your timetable is incorrect. Twiggs had been advised that he had been replaced as commander (i.e., his request to resign had been granted) before Texas troops took him prisoner. He was still in command because his replacement was about 60 miles away.
Take a look at the following eye-witness account from the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. Twigg's capture
Texas forces under Ben McCulloch started surrounding the Federal institutions in San Antonio starting as early as 4 AM on the day of Twigg's capture and the surrender of Federal equipment and installations.
The Memphis Daily Appeal of February 28, 1861, had a reported written while the negotiations with the captured Twiggs were underway. It pointed out that Federal troops were still holding out, despite being surrounded by a much larger force:
At present, three o'clock P.M., two companies of infantry are still besieged, one in the commissary, about 125 men, and the other in the arsenal and their unconditional surrender demanded.
In other things I've read, the words got quite heated between Twiggs and the Texas commissioners negotiating the turn over. Twiggs eventually prevailed enough that his troops were allowed to take their horses and arms and provisions to the coast. The various federal forts were to be surrendered to Texas troops. In fact, some of the forts had already been surrendered by local Federal commanders who did not believe the Federal government would wish bloodshed over a constitutional issue.
San Antonio was not like Fort Sumter, where Federal troops were in a somewhat defensible place and rescue by sea was potentially possible. They were hundreds of miles from succor and greatly outnumbered. General Twiggs could have done a Davy Crockett and perished in heroism, but instead he spared the lives of his troops and negotiated their path back to the United States. Texas later reneged on the bargain and took the Federal troops prisoner, as I remember.
Twiggs did not have the authority to transfer federal facilities to state hands. Only Congress can.
Yep, sounds like Twiggs put up a real fight.
I don't believe I've ever asserted otherwise - only that Twigg's action was supported by Houston, who is often incorrectly portrayed as some great defender of the union. It's also amusing how you become a stickler for the rules of congressional procedure when the person exerting a power of Congress is somebody other than Saint Abe.
You wrote:
If there is a problem in dating the case from 1818, you can blame Carl Swisher, Taney's most literate biographer. The footnote for that citation reads: "FN19 ... On Taney's manumissions and defense of the abolitionist minister, see Swisher, [Roger B.] Taney, 94-98; Lewis, Without Fear or Favor, 44, 76-79."So again, your contention is that Fehrenbacher did not research the case, that he simply used the research of others, without any attempt at validating the information?
Bwahahahaha! It's not the justices opinion until they are thru with it, and the final copy is published. Justices routinely revise and direct comments regarding differing opinions on a case. That is how their opinion can cite from the other opinions for the same case.
Currently an opinion may be revised and presented at least three times before the "final" printing. A "bench opinion", a "slip opinion", "preliminary prints", and the final US Reports version.
like today's DIMocRATS, the anti-slavery societies were LONG on MOUTH & short on action.<P.free dixie,sw
that is UTTER HOGWASH.
we could have held the Ozarks & most of the rest of the TMW with 10,000 troops forver. even US Grant admitted that.
free dixie,sw
and they sold them to the slavers from the north.
free dixie,sw
though neither was by any means a traitor. FRANKLY, i'm surprised (considering the TENS of THOUSANDS of other atrocities that the bluebelly horde did commit) that they didn't decide to hang every Confederate.
damnyankee are nothing if not hateful/vengeful.
free dixie,sw
that makes him DANGEROUS to LIBERTY.
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that's why.
free dixie,sw
So why was the south so afraid of them, citing them over and over as a threat in the secession documents? You can't argue both that they were small and ineffectual and that the south saw them as enough of a threat that they cited them as a reason for secession.
Because of their terrorist offshoots, specifically John Brown and the Wide Awake clubs.
for the 90+% of NON-slaveowners, they generally neither knew nor cared what the societies said/thought/did.
as i've said numerous times, the slaveOWNERS were a SMALL, rich minority in the south AND they frequently collaborated with the enemy, thus i'm no fan of the plantation aristocracy.
free dixie,sw
nice comment.
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Mr Shepard was a "free person of colour", who was serving as a sworn VA State Police Officer, at the time of his untimely death.
free dixie,sw.
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On the other hand he could have been better prepared than he was and put his troops on alert and in better defensive positions. The San Antonio newspaper a day or two before the Texas troops arrived warned that thousands of Texas troops were coming. It turned out to be only 800, but they far outnumbered the 160 Federal troops in town.
Twiggs could have refused to surrender Federal facilities in Texas. In he had done that, the facilities would be taken by force anyway with heavy casualties in his troops. He was in a hopeless position.
I don't think Robert E. Lee thought very highly of Twiggs action.
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