I'm sure there are others which make the same points.
Fromkin's book should be read together -- side by side -- with Barbara Tuchman's "Guns of August".
They compliment, they don't contradict each other.
Posted on 07/12/2013 7:27:07 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
Like I said - it would be idiotic to attempt to defend the indefensible and sure enough - you come in true to form.
BTW: what’s with the haiku format? Are you auditioning to be FReeRepublic’s FReaky poet? The incoherent, disjointed stream~of~unconsciousness is groovy baby ;-)
Former Vice President (and Presidential candidate) John Breckinridge, a US Senator, escaped out his back door as the authorities came in the front. Fleeing south, he offered his services to the Confederacy, becoming one of their more effective field commanders, rising to the rank of Lieutenant General before accepting the position of Secretary of War.
In December 1862 the freshly-formed 119th Illinois Volunteer Infantry was a pathetic unit against Forrest's dashing cavalry -- the 119th hardly more dangerous than boy-scouts at a campfire.
By April 1865, having marched 2,000 miles through Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and ending -- after Lee's surrender -- at Fort Blakely, near Mobile (where my ancestor was wounded and disabled); the 119th became a highly effective, combat hardened military force.
In my opinion, they both defeated Forrest (at Tupelo, 1864) and returned his favor to them.
The lack of resources is not much of an excuse for maltreating prisoners. The Confederates captured prisoners knowing full well they couldn't feed them.
In all fairness to the Confederates, much of the suffering at Andersonville was inflicted by prisoners on each other. It was truly a "survival of the fittest" scenario, with gangs preying on weaker gangs or unaffiliated prisoners ... about what you would expect when life is reduced to its basest elements.
Which is not to minimize the sadism and brutality of some of the Rebel guards, who would entice starving men across the "dead line" and then shoot them for sport.
Dude!!!! You stayed up too late and drank or snorted waaaay too much party substance. You must have one hellavu headache this morning.
The beauty (to me at least) of these WBTS threads is that it inspires us to look into our history and seek the truth. We can evaluate the facts and still come to differing conclusions. Or we can make up "facts" whole-cloth and disrespect the truth.
What I found is at variance with your assertion about "internment camps" for Freedmen. Here is a narrative which describes the events (yea, I know - opinions vary) and here is the preliminary report of the Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, along with a brief final report here.
There was no deliberate and malevolent "lock up the darkies" internment camps. There was a certain amount of disorder and "seat of the pants" scrambling which took place as the union attempted to care for the newly freed slaves. I suppose that a dark heart can find darkness in the events but reasonable people see it for what it was.
On vacation at seaside area
Sir up late when I can wirh kids
Never liked drinking
Haven’t snorted anything but air since 1978
Am addicted to one thing....hence 5 kids
Tks have a good day
If you must bloviate incessantly with opinion not fact
Learn to spell Right
Forrest...not Forest
Neat trick of rationalizing war brutality when it suits ya bur first to howl when it doesn’t
Yankee hypocrisy....steady giving pleasure since the 1830s and still going strong
You try posting on a droid razr at nite kid
I’ve made it quite clear I think Lincolns terms where decent and thoughtful and practical
And it was to the South’s detriment
And that while I don’t love Abe I don’t see him as a radical or ardent abolitionist
He got lucky with 39.5 percent of the vote and ran with it
Like I said I’m ambivalent about him
The Confederate soldiers themselves were eating a concoction of cornmeal moistened and wrapped around the end of their rifles, then put in the fire to cook and harden. This, and a handful of parched peas. They were starving themselves. The Union boycott didn’t help matters. Southern civilians were in even worse straits, eating grits three times a day. They made regular grits in the morning, the fried the solidified grits in large pieces to eat as a type of “pie”, then the same for dinner, if they had any dinner. They stewed “greens” which in other times would have been considered weeds. Read the memoirs of Mary Chestnutt and other Southerners who lived through the war, they were first first hand witnesses-participants. As bad as the Confederate soldiers had it, the civilians fared even worse, because for one thing, the soldiers were considered to need the “best” such as it was, because they had to do the fighting. Second, because the soldiers-both Confederate and Union-comandeered what little food the civilians had. Most of the war ws fought on Southern soil, so Southern civilians fared the worse.
In other words, the Union prisoners weren’t being starved because of Southern cruelty, the Confederates simply didn’t have enough food to even feed themselves.
And I don’t blame the South for not wanting to trade prisoners for blacks who fought for the Union-there was a real fear that these blacks would not hesitate to put a knife in the backs of Confederate men, not excluding civilians.
Consider this-when Lee’s forces fought in Pennsylvania, he threatened to shoot any soldiers who looted crops there. Sherman, during his march through Georgia, didn’t scruple to burn the homes and crops of civilians the entire way to the sea, and allowed his soldiers to eat whatever little livestock they came across. What they couldn’t eat right then and there, they took with them. These days, that would be considered a war crime.
The Confederates had the transportation to get those troops to Andersonville. They had the ability to get food to them. If they wanted to, but they didn't.
In other words, the Union prisoners weren’t being starved because of Southern cruelty, the Confederates simply didn’t have enough food to even feed themselves.
I know of no evidence supporting the idea that there was widespread hunger anywhere in the South.
And I don’t blame the South for not wanting to trade prisoners for blacks who fought for the Union-there was a real fear that these blacks would not hesitate to put a knife in the backs of Confederate men, not excluding civilians.
And I see nothing wrong with refusing to negotiate prisoner exchanges when your opponent refused to treat a conservable number of your prisoners as soldiers.
Consider this-when Lee’s forces fought in Pennsylvania, he threatened to shoot any soldiers who looted crops there.
LOL. No he didn't.
Thanks for that, FRiend.
The rest of your post I didn't understand.
Don’t know what your nutty rant at me was all about. Hope you got it out of your system. I am having a good day Zimmerman got off. :=)
Depends how you define “win”. Some sort of outcome that would have simply pushed out the aggressors France and Britain?
An outcome that would not have impoverished Germany.
Again, your words reflect German propaganda, not historical facts.
In recent decades German scholars have carefully examined archived records from 1914, and it’s just not debatable that the German high command, with the Kaiser’s approval, pushed the very reluctant Austrians into declaring war on Serbia.
After years of preparations, trials and delays by 1914 the Kaiser was ready to make his big move, especially after the murder of his friend, the Austrian Archduke.
Of course, no German civilian wanted war, and very few ever suspected their own government was guilty of starting it.
But the documents are clear, and if you want a single name most responsible, that would be, iirc, a von Molke the younger.
But he certainly did not act on his own, they were all in on it, including the kaiser.
Will provide references when more time...
Fromkin's book should be read together -- side by side -- with Barbara Tuchman's "Guns of August".
They compliment, they don't contradict each other.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.