Posted on 11/21/2006 5:23:06 AM PST by SJackson
nonetheless, the MAJORITY of southerners, by 1861, believed that the ONLY honorable solution to the continuing struggle for self-determination & being out from "under the boot-heel of the DAMNyankees" was LIBERTY, by whatever means necessary.
free dixie,sw
Bump! Obviously the concept of sovereignty is lost upon them. Having the cannons in the fort directed at the town is not providing for the constitutional use of said arms, i.e. for it's defense.
I'm not pinning slavery interest upon your cattleman relative or on the other 59,999 Texans in CSA service. I do think they were working against their best interest. A regrettable quality in many southerners was that they resented interference from the north more than they feared the tyranny and exploitation from Richmond. I guess it was better to be a 3rd class person in a southern confederacy than to be a free American is union with the despised Yankee.
If Cuba is stupid enough to allow it, then that is THEIR problem. The Confederacy wasn't. One other point: I was stationed at Charleston Naval Base in 1979, and let me clue you in on a fact, which is that NO SHIPPING can get into that harbor without passing Ft. Sumter. I used to look at the fort regularly, as my boat passed by going out to sea.
The fort COULD have threatened shipping at anytime.
All Lincoln had to do was order them to leave. Simple.
being out from under the boot of the DAMNyankee social/financial/industrial/academic elites, even at the great social/human/financial cost of a "long bloody war of attrition" with the north AND perhaps WINNING that war & living in "a small, poor, 3d world country" (as one former member of the "DAMNyankee coven of lunatics, etc" once called the CSA) is better than PERMANENT servitude to those DYs.
free dixie,sw
A peaceful way to "persuade" the enemy to leave.
HA! I might remind you that the Confederate Army could have destroyed Anderson and his men. They were simply gentleman, and chose to be gallant.
Yes, that is about the size of it. And among many of us, the sentiment hasn't changed :)
That concept is beyond their understanding entirely. :)
But...I TRY, Lord knows, I try! :)
absent lincoln resupplying/reinforcing the fort, it would have become a "large, self-supporting, prison camp", sitting in the harbor under the heavy guns of the new dixie nation.
would you care for a "do over"????
free dixie,sw
And what leads you to believe that they're two different things? After land, slaves were the single largest capital item in the south. Their total value, in today's dollars, would have been around $65 billion dollars. So any perceived threat to slavery (like stopping the expansion into the territories) WAS about money, and a lot more money than tariffs represented.
No, the confederacy bombarded the fort, won that particular battle, but then lost their war. Not overly bright of them, was it?
The fort COULD have threatened shipping at anytime.
But it never did. All the time Anderson and his men were in the fort and not once did they halt shipping, not once did they threaten the town, not once did they take any hostile action whatsoever.
But it belonged to the United States. Why allow the rebels to steal that property, too?
They bombarded the fort for over 24 hours. If Anderson and his men weren't destroyed it's due more to the strength of the fortifications and the miserable quality of the confederate artillery than southern gallantry.
The fact that they didn't fire upon shipping, given Lincoln's behavior, doesn't mean a thing. They were a threat.
I disagree. As of Secession, all former Federal Property became the property of the C.S.A.
LOL. After 36 hours of shelling, that they didn't kill any was pure luck and nothing else.
Yes, and if you read the account, the fort was in flames, and at one point in danger of it's magazine exploding. Sounds like that Southern Artillery was pretty good. Also, P.G.T. Beaureguard taught artillery at West Point, and was a former pupil of Robert Anderson. Even HE knew how good Southern Artillery was! Don't kid yourself. They could have pounded that fort out of existence.
Not Luck....very strong casemates, (bunkers) which by the way is about the only thing left of the original fort.
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