On this Date in 1864

[Bull Snipe]

Outside of Nashville TN. General George H. Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland delivers a devastating flank attack against Confederate General John B. Hood’s Army of Tennessee. Cheatham’s Corp on the left flank of Hood’s forces collapse in the onslaught. Within hours, Hood’s army is in full retreat. The AOT combat at Franklin and Nashville had reduced the Army’s strength to about 18,000 men. In January,1865, the remnants of the Army of Tennessee would be transferred East to South Carolina. There they would try to stop General Sherman’s Army advancing through the Carolinas.

[Midwesterner53]

The Battle of Franklin where at one point the bodies of 8 Confederate Generals were laid out on the back porch of a house. Utterly devastating but Gen Hood was incompetent and not worthy of the rank.

[Bull Snipe]

Hood was a classic example of the Peter Principle. Unequalled as a division commander, he had earned high praise for both Lee and Longstreet. As an army commander he reached his pinnacle of incompetence.

[Monterrosa-24]

Six Confederate generals were killed at Franklin and four or five of the six were laid out at the back portico of the Carnton House which still stands. Those killed included General Pat Cleburne and General States Rights Gist.

Those Freepers who patronize liberal Blacks and Yankees by saying that the Democrats have always been racists and are the same people as the Democrats of today would do well to read more about Pat Cleburne and what he said about the importance of Confederate victory. And how many Democrats of today give a flip about States Rights or individual rights.

[Bulwyf]

I wish people would stop thinking the war was about slavery.

Here’s a good article.

https://snapoutofitamerica.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/the-terrible-truth-about-abraham-lincoln-and-the-confederate-war/

[vetvetdoug]

My GGGrandfather was from Tennessee, a slave owner, and descendant of Revolutionary War Officers and was in the left flank assault upon the Confederates at Nashville by the Union Cavalry that routed them. He was wounded in the attack and left the Union army with an honorable discharge as a Corporal at Pulaski, Tennessee, in August 1865.

[DoodleDawg]

I wish people would stop thinking the war was about slavery.

Especially the people who were there at the time?

"What did we go to war for, if not to protect our [slave] property?" - CSA senator from Virgina, Robert Hunter, 1865

"I am not ashamed of having fought on the side of slavery—a soldier fights for his country—right or wrong—he is not responsible for the political merits of the course he fights in ... The South was my country." - John Singleton Mosby

'We have dissolved the Union chiefly because of the negro quarrel. Now, is there any man who wished to reproduce that strife among ourselves? And yet does not he, who wished the slave trade left for the action of Congress, see that he proposed to open a Pandora's box among us and to cause our political arena again to resound with this discussion. Had we left the question unsettled, we should, in my opinion, have sown broadcast the seeds of discord and death in our Constitution. I congratulate the country that the strife has been put to rest forever, and that American slavery is to stand before the world as it is, and on its own merits. We have now placed our domestic institution, and secured its rights unmistakably, in the Constitution; we have sought by no euphony to hide its name - we have called our negroes "slaves," and we have recognized and protected them as persons and our rights to them as property.' - Alabama Congressman Robert H. Smith

"The South had always been solid for slavery and when the quarrel about it resulted in a conflict of arms, those who had approved the policy of disunion took the pro-slavery side. It was perfectly logical to fight for slavery, if it was right to own slaves." - John S. Mosby

As the last and crowning act of insult and outrage upon the people of the South, the citizens of the Northern States, by overwhelming majorities, on the 6th day of November last, elected Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, President and Vice President of the United States. Whilst it may be admitted that the mere election of any man to the Presidency, is not, per se, a sufficient cause for a dissolution of the Union; yet, when the issues upon, and circumstances under which he was elected, are properly appreciated and understood, the question arises whether a due regard to the interest, honor, and safety of their citizens, in view of this and all the other antecedent wrongs and outrages, do not render it the imperative duty of the Southern States to resume the powers they have delegated to the Federal Government, and interpose their sovereignty for the protection of their citizens.

What, then are the circumstances under which, and the issues upon which he was elected? His own declarations, and the current history of the times, but too plainly indicate he was elected by a Northern sectional vote, against the most solemn warnings and protestations of the whole South. He stands forth as the representative of the fanaticism of the North, which, for the last quarter of a century, has been making war upon the South, her property, her civilization, her institutions, and her interests; as the representative of that party which overrides all Constitutional barriers, ignores the obligations of official oaths, and acknowledges allegiance to a higher law than the Constitution, striking down the sovereignty and equality of the States, and resting its claims to popular favor upon the one dogma, the Equality of the Races, white and black." -- Letter of S.F. Hale, Commissioner of Alabama to the State of Kentucky, to Gov. Magoffin of Kentucky

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world. --Mississppi Declaration of the Causes of Secession

SIR: In obedience to your instructions I repaired to the seat of government of the State of Louisiana to confer with the Governor of that State and with the legislative department on the grave and important state of our political relations with the Federal Government, and the duty of the slave-holding States in the matter of their rights and honor, so menacingly involved in matters connected with the institution of African slavery. --Report from John Winston, Alabama's Secession Commissioner to Louisiana

This was the ground taken, gentlemen, not only by Mississippi, but by other slaveholding States, in view of the then threatened purpose, of a party founded upon the idea of unrelenting and eternal hostility to the institution of slavery, to take possession of the power of the Government and use it to our destruction. It cannot, therefore, be pretended that the Northern people did not have ample warning of the disastrous and fatal consequences that would follow the success of that party in the election, and impartial history will emblazon it to future generations, that it was their folly, their recklessness and their ambition, not ours, which shattered into pieces this great confederated Government, and destroyed this great temple of constitutional liberty which their ancestors and ours erected, in the hope that their descendants might together worship beneath its roof as long as time should last. -- Speech of Fulton Anderson to the Virginia Convention

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. -- Texas Declaration of the causes of secession

What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. -- Speech of Henry Benning to the Virginia Convention

Gentlemen, I see before me men who have observed all the records of human life, and many, perhaps, who have been chief actors in many of its gravest scenes, and I ask such men if in all their lore of human society they can offer an example like this? South Carolina has 300,000 whites, and 400,000 slaves. These 300,000 whites depend for their whole system of civilization on these 400,000 slaves. Twenty millions of people, with one of the strongest Governments on the face of the earth, decree the extermination of these 400,000 slaves, and then ask, is honor, is interest, is liberty, is right, is justice, is life, worth the struggle?

Gentlemen, I have thus very rapidly endeavored to group before you the causes which have produced the action of the people of South Carolina. -- Speech of John Preston to the Virginia Convention

This new union with Lincoln Black Republicans and free negroes, without slavery, or, slavery under our old constitutional bond of union, without Lincoln Black Republicans, or free negroes either, to molest us.

If we take the former, then submission to negro equality is our fate. if the latter, then secession is inevitable --- -- Address of William L. Harris of Mississippi

But I trust I may not be intrusive if I refer for a moment to the circumstances which prompted South Carolina in the act of her own immediate secession, in which some have charged a want of courtesy and respect for her Southern sister States. She had not been disturbed by discord or conflict in the recent canvass for president or vice-president of the United States. She had waited for the result in the calm apprehension that the Black Republican party would succeed. She had, within a year, invited her sister Southern States to a conference with her on our mutual impending danger. Her legislature was called in extra session to cast her vote for president and vice-president, through electors, of the United States and before they adjourned the telegraphic wires conveyed the intelligence that Lincoln was elected by a sectional vote, whose platform was that of the Black Republican party and whose policy was to be the abolition of slavery upon this continent and the elevation of our own slaves to equality with ourselves and our children, and coupled with all this was the act that, from our friends in our sister Southern States, we were urged in the most earnest terms to secede at once, and prepared as we were, with not a dissenting voice in the State, South Carolina struck the blow and we are now satisfied that none have struck too soon, for when we are now threatened with the sword and the bayonet by a Democratic administration for the exercise of this high and inalienable right, what might we meet under the dominion of such a party and such a president as Lincoln and his minions. -- Speech of John McQueen, the Secession Commissioner from South Carolina to Texas

History affords no example of a people who changed their government for more just or substantial reasons. Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery, and of the free institutions of the founders of the Federal Union, bequeathed to their posterity. -- Address of George Williamson, Commissioner from Louisiana to the Texas Secession Convention

[sparklite2]

tl;dr
But point made.

[morphing libertarian]

you can wish all you want but you can’t wish it away

[Bulwyf]

I’ve read these quotes before, but again instead of that, how about refute the link I sent?

It was the start of the slide. Slavery was going to die on it’s own.

[BroJoeK]

Reference: why did the Deep South declare secession?

Bulwyf: "I’ve read these quotes before, but again instead of that, how about refute the link I sent?
It was the start of the slide.
Slavery was going to die on it’s own."

Your link is the usual Lost Causer pap, easily answered for anyone interested in the truth of the matter.
But you're not, are you?
Your only interest is in indicting Lincoln for a long list of alleged crimes, and that's what your article does.

When I get time I'll go through your link and answer any items which have not already been addressed by others here.
But be forewarned, the truth is often long & boring and you most likely will refuse to read it, because that's not what you want.
Condemning Lincoln is what you want, truth be d*mned, right?

[DoodleDawg]

I’ve read these quotes before, but again instead of that, how about refute the link I sent?

Fair enough. Let's take them one by one.

Failed to call Congress into session after the South fired upon Fort Sumter, in direct violation of the Constitution.

Before I can refute the I would need to have you please point out the clause of the Constitution Lincoln is supposed to have violated. And I would point out that Lincoln did call Congress back into session. It met in July.

Called up an army of 75,000 men, bypassing the Congressional authority in direct violation of the Constitution.

Same as the first one; what clause of the Constitution did Lincoln violate?

Unilaterally suspended the writ of habeas corpus, a function of Congress, violating the Constitution. This gave him the power, as he saw it, to arrest civilians without charge and imprison them indefinitely without trial—which he did.

One can argue whether Lincoln had the power to suspend habeas corpus in cases where Congress was not in session. He may have, he may not have, the Constitution isn't clear and the Supreme Court has never ruled on it.

Ignored a Supreme Court order to restore the right of habeas corpus, thus violating the Constitution again and ignoring the Separation of Powers which the Founders put in place exactly for the purpose of preventing one man’s using tyrannical powers in the executive.

The Supreme Court never issues such an order. Chief Justice Taney did, but he was acting in his position as head of a Circuit Court. Then entire court never took the matter up.

When the Chief Justice forwarded a copy of the Supreme Court’s decision to Lincoln, he wrote out an order for the arrest of the Chief Justice and gave it to a U.S. Marshall for expedition, in violation of the Constitution.

This is a complete fabrication, and I offer as evidence the fact that not a single one of Roger Taney's biographers found enough evidence to support the claim to include it in any of their biographies of the man.

Unilaterally ordered a naval blockade of southern ports, an act of war, and a responsibility of Congress, in violation of the Constitution.

What makes that an act of war if you are blockading your own territory? War against whom?

Commandeered and closed over 300 newspapers in the North, because of editorials against his war policy and his illegal military invasion of the South. This clearly violated the First Amendment freedom of speech and press clauses.

I have heard that claim over and over and have never been able to find a list of those 300 newspapers. I haven't found a list of 100 papers or 50 or 30. Can you provide it? Once we have it then we can discuss the propriety of the closures.

Sent in Army forces to destroy the printing presses and other machinery at those newspapers, in violation of the Constitution.

See above.

Arrested the publishers, editors and owners of those newspapers, and imprisoned them without charge and without trial for the remainder of the war, all in direct violation of both the Constitution and the Supreme Court order aforementioned.

See above.

Arrested and imprisoned, without charge or trial, another 15,000-20,000 U.S. citizens who dared to speak out against the war, his policies, or were suspected of anti-war feelings. (Relative to the population at the time, this would be equivalent to President G.W. Bush arresting and imprisoning roughly 150,000-200,000 Americans without trial for “disagreeing” with the Iraq war; can you imagine?)

In his book "The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties" Mark Neely shows claims like that were completely false.

Sent the Army to arrest the entire legislature of Maryland to keep them from meeting legally, because they were debating a bill of secession; they were all imprisoned without charge or trial, in direct violation of the Constitution.

Again a complete falsehood. Some members of the Maryland legislature were arrested in September 1861 when the tried to take Maryland into rebellion with the other Southern states but it was a minority, and a small minority at that. Considering they were advocating rebellion what reaction should the government have had?

Unilaterally created the state of West Virginia in direct violation of the Constitution.

Another complete falsehood. If you read the Constitution you would see the President plays no part in the admission of a state. Congress admitted West Virginia, and the followed the Constitution while doing it.

Sent 350,000 Northern men to their deaths to kill 350,000 Southern men in order to force the free and sovereign states of the South to remain in the Union they, the people, legally voted to peacefully withdraw from, all in order to continue the South’s revenue flow into the North.

Lincoln fought the rebellion the South forced on him. Sorry if that bothered you.

[Bulwyf]

I’m not American by the way, but I’ve read a lot on the subject, and while I know we can all agree both sides did wrong, the underlying premise was not what people thought it was. There was a huge loss of American life over really not much at all. The war was about centralizing power in DC. It doesn’t take an IQ over 35 to see that. Also, I’m not implying your IQ is low, I’m sure it’s not, I’m just saying that even a person not gifted with above average intelligence can see what the war was about.

Look around today, besides Trump, it’s been one big slide ever since. It’s by design. I know this is long ago history, but look what it led to today.

[BroJoeK]

DoodleDawg: "Lincoln fought the rebellion the South forced on him.
Sorry if that bothered you."

Nice work.
Let me suggest that it matters if our Lost Causers consider Confederates to have been strictly constitutional & lawful or just a bunch of lawless rebels.
The reason is, if Confederates were strictly constitutional & lawful, then it's fair to compare their behavior to the Union's.
For example:

"The Confederacy actively used the army to arrest people suspected of loyalty to the United States.
Historian Mark Neely found 4,108 names of men arrested and estimated a much larger total.[264]
The Confederacy arrested pro-Union civilians in the South at about the same rate as the Union arrested pro-Confederate civilians in the North.[265]
Neely argues:
The Confederate citizen was not any freer than the Union citizen – and perhaps no less likely to be arrested by military authorities.
In fact, the Confederate citizen may have been in some ways less free than his Northern counterpart.
For example, freedom to travel within the Confederate states was severely limited by a domestic passport system.[266]"

Of course if our Lost Causers confess that Confederates were nothing but lawless rebels, equivalent to, say, pirates, then it might not be appropriate to compare their behavior to the Union's, but then too, there'd be no need to argue the justice of the Civil War.

[DoodleDawg]

I’m not American by the way, but I’ve read a lot on the subject, and while I know we can all agree both sides did wrong, the underlying premise was not what people thought it was.

Sometimes things are the way they seem.

The war was about centralizing power in DC. It doesn’t take an IQ over 35 to see that.

I would hope my IQ is over 35 and I don't see it that way at all. The South seceded to protect slavery. They launched their war to further that aim. Then the lost it. It isn't all that complex.

[BroJoeK]

Bulwyf: "I’m not American by the way..."

We have any number of alleged American posters who seem to hate their own country even more than you do.

Bulwyf: "...but I’ve read a lot on the subject, and while I know we can all agree both sides did wrong, the underlying premise was not what people thought it was."

The "underlying premise" is absolutely not what our Lost Cause mythologizers claim it was.
If you buy into their nonsense it only means you never read any real history of the period.

Bulwyf: "There was a huge loss of American life over really not much at all. "

Well... of course, as a non-American you'd have no appreciation for the value of preserving the Union intact and freeing its four million slaves.
Most of us consider those to have been a pretty big deal.

Bulwyf: "The war was about centralizing power in DC.
It doesn’t take an IQ over 35 to see that."

I'd say it takes an IQ of 35 to claim such a thing, nobody said that at the time.

Bulwyf: "Also, I’m not implying your IQ is low, I’m sure it’s not, I’m just saying that even a person not gifted with above average intelligence can see what the war was about."

I'd say your IQ is in the same category as our notorious ("Impeach 45") Congresswoman Maxine Waters.

Bulwyf: "I know this is long ago history, but look what it led to today."

The same people who brought us nullification, secession & Civil War -- Democrats! -- today give us liberalism, progressivism, socialism & whatever-it-takesism to defeat the US Constitution and the Free Republic based on it.

[BroJoeK]

From Bulwyf's article:

"President Lincoln has been all but deified in America, with a god-like giant statue at a Parthenon-like memorial in Washington.
Generations of school children have been indoctrinated with the story that 'Honest Abe' Lincoln is a national hero who saved the Union and fought a noble war to end slavery, and that the “evil” Southern states seceded from the Union to protect slavery."

Well... let's start here:

1. The Lincoln memorial occupies about half an acre, Jefferson's about two acres, FDR's seven acres and the Washington monument over 100 acres.

2. Lincoln's statue is 19 feet high, sitting, Jefferson's is 19 feet high standing, FDR's memorial is life size, Boston has a 22 foot Washington and this one is 11 feet high, sitting:
   

3. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln & Teddy Roosevelt all have 60 foot high busts on Mount Rushmore.
   

As for " 'evil' Southern states seceded from the Union to protect slavery." -- "evil" or not, that is exactly what they did and proudly said so at the time.
Only decades later did Lost Causers begin to attempt rewriting history to take slavery out of it.

So far they've not succeeded, though it seems they keep-on keeping-on trying.

[BroJoeK]

from Bulwyf's article: "This is the Yankee myth of history, written and promulgated by Northerners, and it is a complete falsity.
It was produced and entrenched in the culture in large part to gloss over the terrible war crimes committed by Union soldiers in the War Between the States, as well as Lincoln’s violations of the law, his shredding of the Constitution, and other reprehensible acts.
It has been very effective in keeping the average American ignorant of the real causes of the war, and the real nature, character and record of Lincoln.
Let us look at some unpleasant facts."

And that is a dump-truck load of cr*p big enough to bury a "godlike" statue of Lincoln.
In fact Northern & Southern historians are largely agreed on the causes & course of the Civil War, have been from the beginning.
So Lost Cause mythology is a political rewriting, originally intended to bring the Southern & Northern Democrats back together in united opposition to those evil, dastardly, tyrannical Republicans!
The myths consist entirely of carefully selected or invented "facts", totally unsupported speculations and conveniently "forgotten" aspects such as the role of slavery.

As for alleged Union "illegal" actions, the fact is Confederates were just as guilty of all of them, and of some much more so.

[Bull Snipe]

My GG Grand Father served with the 5th Tennessee Infantry. He enlisted in the regiment when it was raised in Henry County Tennessee in 1861. He participated in all the major battles, in the West,with the regiment. He was wounded in a leg, at Chickamauga, it had to be amputated. He was medically discharged from the Confederate Army in Dec 1863.
Returned to his 40 acre farm and lived there until he died in 1913.

[BroJoeK]

from Bulwyf's article: "In his first inaugural address, Lincoln stated clearly that

• (1) he had no legal authority to interfere with slavery where it existed,
  
• "(2) that he had no inclination or intention to do so even if he had the legal authority,"

True according to law at that time.

• "(3) that he would enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, returning runaway slaves escaping to the North to their masters in the South,

According to law, but he also wanted to insure that freedmen were not returned in error.

• "and (4) that he fully supported the Thirteenth Amendment then being debated in Congress which would protect slavery in perpetuity and was irrevocable.
  He later famously stated, 'Do not paint me with the Abolitionist brush.' "

No, the proposed 1861 13th was already passed by Democrats in Congress and signed by Democrat President Buchanan.
Lincoln neither proposed, supported it in Congress, nor signed it.
Lincoln did not object, he said, because he didn't believe the proposed new amendment changed anything then understood, only made the words more explicit.

Lincoln may well have hoped the proposed new amendment would help voters in Upper South and Border States to vote against secession, and it did that.
But it was ratified by only four states and soon enough forgotten.

By sharp contrast, the 1865 13th Amendment abolishing slavery was indeed "fully supported" by Lincoln so passed Congress and was quickly ratified by enough states to become part of the US Constitution.

As for Lincoln's alleged "famous" quote about an "abolitionist brush", the "quote" is not famous enough to be found with an ordinary google search.