Posted on 07/15/2008 1:45:31 PM PDT by GOP_Raider
This past weekend I watched Ken Burns' PBS documentary "The Civil War", and naturally I was left with far more questions than answers. (With the exception of the fact that I was unbelievably impressed with the commentary of the late Shelby Foote) So I compiled a series of them that are probably too wide in scope for one thread, but I will go ahead and ask them anyway.
(Note: I'm going to admit a general ignorance on many of the subjects I present here, so if any of you responding find a "well, no $#@$@# Sherlock" question, I apologize in advance. Thanks.)
1. Did the Southern states "have it in" for Lincoln from the beginning? In the election of 1860, Lincoln was not on the ballot in about 10 states. Was this due primarily to the Republican party being a very new political party or did many Southern states see something about Lincoln that the rest of the country didn't?
2. The eventual hanging of John Brown is seen as the spark that set off the war--at least as conventional wisdom presented by Burns is. Why is this event thought of as the catalyst for the war as opposed to the actual secession of the Confederate states?
3. When the Confederacy was formed, why didn't European nations (England, France, Spain, etc.) recognize the Confederacy diplomatically? What prevented them from doing so as the South had early success militarily?
4. (With apologies to Paleo Conservative) Why were the names of specific battles different between the Union and Confederates? e.g.: The first and second battles of Bull Run/Mannassas, the South referring to names of towns, the North to creeks, rivers and bodies of water.
5. Why wasn't the Confederacy able to march further west, towards the Pacific Coast (with the Battle of Glorieta Pass in New Mexico and Battle of Pichaco Peak in Arizona as two examples). Was the South stretched too thin to make this possible?
6. Throughout the film, the name of Frederick Douglass keeps surfacing, again keeping with the theme of the war being exclusively over slavery in the minds of many. Was Douglass anything more than a mere activist or was his impact much more significant?
7. West Virginia became a state during the war, which as we know were 63 counties of "Old" Virginia that left the Confederacy to join (or more accurately re-join) the Union. As a rank amateur historian, I would think this would have been a very significant point in the war, where one half of a southern state breaks away and forms its own state and that state joins the Union, but it isn't. Why?
8. Around this time was Lee's campaign to march north, which would lead to the eventual battle at Gettysburg. Would it have been much effective for the Rebels to take Maryland, making sure they fall to the Rebels rather than to go that far north?
9. What are we to make of George McClellan (sic)? I've seen on previous threads that Hood and Bragg weren't the most competent on the Rebel side, can that assertion also be made of McClellan?
10. Assume for a moment that Pickett's charge at Gettysburg works and the Rebels win there. Would it be entirely possible to have seen a major battle and possible bloodbath in Philadelphia or Baltimore? (Something that would have possibly dwarfed the casualties and deaths at Shiloh, Antietam, etc.?)
11. Was Lincoln in actual danger of losing the 1864 election? Could the Democrats have nominated a candidate other than McClelland that would have given them a chance to win?
12. For the Rebels, what point did the wheels come off of their campaign? (Assuming that it was a point other than Gettysburg.) Would the South had more success later on had Stonewall Jackson not died at Chancellorsville?
13. What kind of "anti-war" sentiment was going on in the North (beyond the notorious "Copperheads")? Did the South make any mistakes in not taking advantage of this?
14. The prison camp at Andersonville, GA is an intriguing and horrific story as "The Civil War" presents. Did Henry Wirz deserve to be charged, convicted and later hanged for war crimes or did this occur due to the aftermath of Lincoln's assassination?
15. John Wilkes Booth, the murderer of Lincoln, was an actor. Anyone else think this was an interesting precursor to the acting community of today to get that involved in politics?
(Sorry, that one kind of got away from me)
16. Shelby Foote mentions that "The North fought that war with one arm behind its back." He would go on to say that "if there had been more Confederate success that the North's 'other arm' would have come around and that the South had little chance to win." Is Foote accurate here in this regard or were there enough chances for the Rebels to win given the battles that they were able to win?
17. Lee had a small number of blacks fighting in his army later on in the war, but as Burns asserts, it was due to Lee running out of men. Is there anything to suggest that blacks fought on the Rebel side before this point?
18. Had the Rebels secured a victory--and in this particular context, with Washington having fallen and Lincoln being forced to recognize the Confederacy as a sovereign nation, would it have been at all possible to have had a second war, going on possibly into the 20th Century?
Thanks again to everyone who responded to my previous thread.
LOL, the line of the day!!!
Wikipedia lists about a dozen or so battles/skirmishes in the current WV. Perhaps a follow up to this would be how important a locale like Harper's Ferry was to both sides?
Lee had no line of supply. His army was living off the land, just as Sherman's would do a year later. Remaining in one place would defeat his goal of gathering food and supplies to take south with him when he returned to help tide him through the winter. By remaining in place then in a short period of time he wouldn't be able to feed his army.
It's taken me a few days, what with work and all, to get through all of the responses in depth, but I'll go through a few of yours now if you wouldn't mind.
Moreover, England was in the middle of stamping out slavery in it’s own empire.
How did the British Empire end slavery? Was it sort of a "domino effect" that, once it was abolished here it was abolished elsewhere or did England do so of its own accord?
None of these targets were in the sparsely populated west. Moreover, it would take a lot of time, energy and resources to march west. You also have to remember that Native indian tribes would probably have greeted both sides with hostility.
I was thinking a few hours after I posted this that I left out a few questions and specifically if the Confederacy had indeed been recognized as a soveriegn nation and a second Civil War had begun later on (say around 1875), what kind of impact this could have had on an expansion westward? Would the Confederate states wanted to have followed suit? And could there have been a possible triangular conflict with the Indian tribes, the Union, and the Confederates?
Also, I failed to mention Morgan's and St. Albans Raid along with Sherman's March to the Sea and the differences (and possibie similarities) between them, but that should teach me to not write vanity posts before I have to go to work. :)
Thank you again for the responses.
I'll have to see what I can find specifically on it that's not Wikipedia--as I can only trust that site to a certain point.
Go rent "Gangs of New York". Part of the backdrop is the NYC draft riots during which immigrants lynched freed black men. After mid-1863 the Union came to rely on the Draft to replace manpower (also Black Volunteers).
Back in the reign of terror that was my publick skool edumuhcation, we watched the movie "Glory" which as you know features black soldiers for the Union side in the War (I remember watching this a few times, at first in the 8th grade and I think I was truant for some of it later on in high school). I also noticed that Leonardo DiCaprio stars in "Gangs of New York" so I'll check it out in spite of that error in casting. ;)
Thanks for responding, I appreciate it.
I'm simply assuming here that coal mining, which is traditionally a major industry in WV, was either a non-factor, or simply non-existant during the War?
Not much of one. No transportation and no real local demand.
That would have been suicide.
The longer he stayed, the more time the Union forces had to regroup and surround him, cutting off his supply lines and preventing him from defending Richmond. The Army Of Northern Virginia were all the effective forces the Confederacy had in the Eastern theater. Lee's job was to fight the Federal army, protect Richmond and threaten Washington DC simultaneously. He could not afford to sit on his ass 100 miles from his closest lines of supply and 200 miles from Richmond.
After the Battle Of Gettysburg - had he been victorious on July 3 - he would have had 45,000-50,000 effectives.
Due to the excellent railroad links near Gettysburg, the Union would have been able to eventually surround him with 150,000-250,000 men depending on how long he decided to sit around.
Had the Union brought up a couple of hundred mortars to target Cemetery Ridge, Lee's command would have been cut to pieces after they inevitably ran out of ammunition and then food.
Lee needed to smash the Union army hard enough to keep it from invading Virginia again for the rest of the season, he needed to stock up on whatever his troops could get their hands on - including horses, mules and beef on the hoof - and then get the heck out of Dodge.
To where and when do your refer? Gettysburg only, during the entire course of the war or ??
During the Gettysburg campaign.
True. At Gettysburg he had extended himself beyond where his previously used supply lines could reach. In the context that I was using the term "strengthen his supply lines" a better choice of word would have been "reestablish his supply lines by extending them to Gettysburg."
However, as others have pointed out staying in Gettysburg after a victory was not an option that would be given serious consideration.
An evaluation of the Unions strength (would they have withdrawn to lick their wounds, or surrendered) after a defeat of Meade, would be critical to the decision making process before a next step was to be seriously considered.
They were headed to Baltimore, a new port, and would have created general havoc there. A major battle? Not necessarily, if they burned everything and left.
Then they were taking the scenic route. Gettysburg and central Pennsylvania are nowhere near Baltimore, and Lee wasn't even heading in the general direction.
With that said, would it be more of a possibility that Philadelphia would have been the city in question instead of Baltimore? As you posted earlier Non-Sequitur (at least I think it was you), this would have been assuming that a lot of things happen before and even during Gettysburg and your comment that the South was simply delaying the inevitable anyway.
As you study the Civil War don't get fixated on the east. Sure that's where the best known battles were and where Lee was and where the outcome wasn't clear until the end. But if you look to the west, you'll see a theater where the confederates almost never won a battle. Where they lost territory litereally from day one, and where the rebellion was basically decided. I've got a book from Kendall Gott titled "Where The South Lost The War" and his premise is that the deciding battle was Fort Henry/Fort Donelson in February 1862. Taking the forts opened the Tennessee River. The Tennessee gave the Union transportation into the heart of the state and points south, and aided in taking Nashville and Memphis. This led to the fall of the entire river, cutting the confederacy in half. And on, and on. Regardless of whether you accept his premise or not, it is clear that the South began losing in the west from the very beginning and that doomed the confederacy to defeat from the start.
I just found the hardcover edition on Amazon, but I'm going to see if I can find it in paperback, primarily because I'm getting cheaper as I get older. :) Do you think there's too much focus on Vicksburg and the campaign there on the Western front?
No, if anything I think there has historically been too much focus on the eastern theater. The war was lost in the west.
I am just finishing Harry Turtledove’s “Settling Accounts: In at the Death”, which is the 11th and (presumably) final book in his “Timeline-191” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline-191 ) series. The series starts with the fictional “Second Spanish War”, which is a second war between the states over the Confederate States’ aqcuisition of Mexican states Chihuahua and Sonora. The series then goes through World War I (the Great War series), the intra-war period (the American Empire series), and World War II (the Settling Accounts series).
It is, of course, a work of fiction, but the historical nuances thrown in make it absolutely fascinating. It can be a bit slow at times, but I highly recommend it to anyone that has even a slight curiosity about the Civil War and interested in what-might-have-beens.
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