Posted on 09/02/2019 4:35:14 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
Clearly not a hostile act of war.
Correct, usual practice for warships of various navies to challenge unidentified ships at sea.
and flying the American flag may not even have been a ‘ruse of war’..
The Nashville could have been finishing her trip to land her cargo.
When hostilities then broke out, she could have been seized and pressed into action.
She was allowed to proceed into Charleston Harbor.
I think you are mistaken in your thinking that "progressivism" and the Civil War are unconnected. I think they are very much connected, and in fact "Progressivism" was the natural consequence of these people attaining power as a consequence of the civil war.
The feminist icons were all abolitionists. The big money wealthy of New York, financed all the progresivism, and many of the "progressives" were from this same North Eastern big wealth environment.
Lincoln was the first Progressive President.
There is so much connectivity between the Civil War and Progressivism that I don't even know where to start in explaining it to you. I think you are simply unaware of it because you never thought of looking at it in this manner.
Take another look at all the "progressive" heroes, and their backgrounds and places of origin. Look at where their ideas first took root.
I have posted the orders before. Clearly you only read out of them what you wish to read out of them.
Montgomery, April 11, 1861 General Beauregard, Charleston:Do not desire needlessly to bombard Fort Sumter. If Major Anderson will state the time at which, as indicated by him, he will evacuate, and agree that in the meantime he will not use his guns against us unless ours should be employed against Fort Sumter, you are thus authorized to avoid the effusion of blood. If this or its equivalent be refused, reduce the fort as your judgment decides to be most practicable.
L. P. Walker Sec. of War. C.S.A.
Is this going to get an apology out of you? I doubt it.
But when did facts ever stop you, Diogenes?
Physician, heal thyself!
CSA started on February 4th. Provisional Constitution on February 8th. The Baltimore Plot was in late February, and the alleged perpetrators are not readily identified.
There is also some evidence that there never was any such plot, and the whole thing was made up by the Pinkertons.
So you would blame the Confederate government for a plot which may or may not have even existed, with pretty much no proof at all that any such action was taken by the Confederate government.
You would get an "act of war" out of the possible paranoid suspicions of the Pinkerton gang?
In the book you can see who the conspirators were and the power and influence they had.
Really? Because I don't see much proof beyond accusations against an Italian barber that never even resulted in an indictment.
Yeah, those Italian Barbers sure are powerful and influential.
yes and the footnoted book is very convincing.
Well thank you! I've written quite a bit on the subject, but many people simply want to believe a narrative instead of real economic evidence.
I don’t think the Mississippi route could compete with the Erie Canal, but have no other complaint.
Many newspapers voiced concern over what would happen to Northern industry if the South allowed European products to flood into the nation. They envisioned the long border with the Southern states as being impossible to regulate, and they feared all these European products would displace North Eastern manufactured products, not only through every region accessible by the Mississippi, but through every state bordering the Southern states.
"Allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten per cent., which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York; the railways would be supplied from the southern ports. Let cotton goods, let woollen fabrics, let the various manufactures of iron and steel be entered freely at Galveston, at the great port at the mouth of the Mississippi, at Mobile, at Savannah and at Charleston, and they would be immediately sent up the rivers and carried on the railways to the remotest parts of the Union. "New York Evening Post, March 12, 1861
It may not have rivaled the distribution system through the great lakes and the Erie canal, but it would have still greatly cost the existing manufacturing barons an enormous amount of money. It would have devastated their businesses, and the newspapers of the day were quite aware of this threat to northern economic interests.
You may find this interesting.
" Without the strong support from the Wall Street class and the merchants and men of commerce, especially in New York City, Lincoln could not have gone to war against the South. . . .Most of the merchants were not for provoking war, and many admitted that the government had no right to coerce a state to remain in the Union. Either the Union should be preserved peacefully or the Southern states should be permitted to go in peace. . . . War was to be avoided at all cost, or so they believed until early March 1861.
By the end of March, the whole Northern world had changed, with the businessmen and newspapers leading the way. Whenever the historian reads Northern newspapers and articles that favor secession, or just tolerate it as a constitutional right, it is important to look at the date on the article. For by late March the business circles saw clearly that slavery was a nonissue for them—the tariff was the issue. . . .
In early March, even before Lincoln took office, Congress passed the Morrill Tariff. . . . It was not a revenue tariff but a prohibition tariff, according to the British and foreign newspapers. On March 11, the Confederate Congress was adopted and a low tariff was instituted immediately, essentially creating a free trade zone in the South. . . . Prior to the two tariffs, most Northern newspapers had called for peace through conciliation, but many now called for war.
On 18 March 1861, the Philadelphia Press demanded war: “Blockade Southern Ports,” said the Press. If not, “a series of custom houses will be required on the vast inland border from the Atlantic to West Texas. Worse still, with no protective tariff, European goods will under-price Northern goods in Southern markets. . . .”
The economic editor of the New York Times changed his tune in late March. For months he had written that secession would not injure Northern commerce and prosperity. . . . But on 22-23 March 1861, he reversed himself with a vengeance: “At once shut down every Southern port, destroy its commerce and bring utter ruin on the Confederate States”. . . .
Perhaps the most intriguing development occurred in late March when the two tariffs stood side by side. Over a hundred leading commercial importers in New York, as well as a similar group in Boston, informed the collector of customs they would not pay duties on imported goods unless those same duties were also collected at Southern ports. This threat forced the Lincoln administration, and certainly Lincoln himself, to abandon his initial plan to turn over Fort Sumter to the Confederates. Only a month before, these merchants had favored giving up the forts [federal forts in the South], especially Sumter, but by early April they were all for reinforcing both Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens. . . .
At the very end of March, at the very time Lincoln told his cabinet he was going to reinforce Fort Sumter, a committee of these New York merchants visited Lincoln. We have no record of what was said, but a Washington newspaperman learned that at the meeting the merchants had placed great emphasis on the tariff issue. . . .
(Charles Adams, When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000, pp. 61, 63-66, original emphasis)
Only interested in asking them if the Northern States were interested in asking them that question before the war.
Tired of the lying and the hypocrisy. Almost nobody in the North gave a sh*t about the freedom of slaves, but people want to apply a double standard for the South.
There were no plans to attack that fort until those warships materialized at the entrance to Charleston harbor.
Clearly, there were plans to attack the fort before the ships appeared.
There may not have been a definitive order, but there were plans.
Even what you posted allows for and authorizes an attack on the fort before the ships arrived.
Read it closely. There's nothing about ships in there.
On April 9th, Jefferson Davis issued an order to destroy the fort if it did not surrender.
On April 11th, the ultimatum was issued.
On the night of April 12th to April 13th the first ships began to turn up in Charleston waters.
The bombardment began that night.
But the plans and authorization had come down days before that.
Which still meant that they were going to fire. Everyone in Washington DC knew that they were going to be resisted.
They were going to battle, and they knew it. One does not send warships unless one anticipates a fight.
The effort to characterize it as "resupply" is propaganda. It was a belligerent "reinforcement" fleet that fully intended to use those guns to shoot down Confederate soldiers who attempted to disrupt Washington DC's control over South Carolina's harbor entrance.
Since Sumter was under attack when they arrived, the resupply effort was not launched.
That, and the fact that their command ship was sent off under secret orders without any of the captains of those other ships being informed of it. Fox was furious, and asked Lincoln why he had knowingly put Fox in that position.
The did not have orders to attack. Had they, they would have fired on the SC batteries at Moultrie.
That is exactly what would have happened had Mercer (Powhatan) showed up while the Fortress was still at peace.
The other ships were ordered to wait for Mercer to take command, and that is exactly why nothing further happened.
The whole fleet served merely to frighten the Confederates into acting on the intelligence reports they had received, but the fleet posed no actual threat to them because it was (deliberately?) hamstrung by conflicting orders.
But tell that to military officers who had been informed a fleet of warships was coming, and they would have to battle them. They wouldn't believe it. No rational person would believe a collection of warships would show up in a threatening manner, and then do nothing.
Harriet Lane fired first.
But while we're at it, an salient fact of this sort continues to be ignored.
When Porter arrived in Pensacola, he set out to attack the Confederates immediately, and was only prevented from doing so by the actions of Captain Meigs who interposed his own ship in front of the Powhatan.
Even so, in the subsequent days, Porter deliberately fired at Confederate ships, and at the time believing (Because he had no knowledge of events in Charleston) *HE* fired the first shots of the Civil War.
So why would a Lieutenant, who had been handed command of a front line warship while a seasoned captain was relieved of command for no apparent reason, think he had authorization to fire cannons at Confederates when there had in fact been no official hostilities or declarations of war?
Especially after he had been told *NOT* to do any such thing by Captain Meigs, who was his superior, and commander of the scene?
Why did Porter think it was okay to start a war in Pensacola?
Yes, let us quibble over the meaning of the word "plans."
They had no intentions of attacking, but yes, they had contingency plans to do so if it became necessary.
Their preference was to resolve the matter with no one getting hurt.
Read it closely. There's nothing about ships in there.
Because they need to be reminded that the ships are coming in every message? They knew the ships were coming back in March. Seriously. I found March telegraph messages from Washington (Confederate spies) to the Confederate government informing them that a flotilla of ships would be coming to force them to accept Washington's terms.
You need to read more of the message traffic and other sources from that event to make it clear that the Ships were what upset all the apple carts.
On the night of April 12th to April 13th the first ships began to turn up in Charleston waters.
The bombardment began that night.
General Beauregard had discretion to initiate an attack whenever he saw fit. He also had discretion to refrain from attacking as he saw fit.
You point out that the bombardment began the same night the Ships were sighted in the channel, and you seemingly do not grasp how these two things are connected to each other.
Clearly, Davis did have the intention of taking the fort, by force if that was what was required.
That is a plan, not a "contingency plan."
Somebody or other issued an ultimatum about this time eighty years ago.
Whether or not that person ordered an invasion was contingent on whether a neighboring country gave him what he wanted, but it was not a "contingency plan."
Seriously. I found March telegraph messages from Washington (Confederate spies) to the Confederate government informing them that a flotilla of ships would be coming to force them to accept Washington's terms.
Seriously. So they had plans and intentions of attacking over a month in advance? Interesting.
And how could a few ships with supplies "force them to accept Washington's terms?"
And what were "Washington's terms"? The government only wanted to hold on to its property.
They weren't the ones making demands and issuing ultimatums.
And this differs greatly from using Warships "if resisted."
And how could a few ships with supplies "force them to accept Washington's terms?"
Here is one of the "supply" ships. (Pawnee)
Here's another of the "supply" ships. (Pocahontas.)
And another.
There are two more cannon armed "supply" ships that were involved, but I am unable to find pictures of their armament.
You put a question mark in that reference to “race or ethnic group.” And you were right to do so. The seed of US society and government was British. But of whatever race who are born or naturalize here are now American - I can’t go to China - or any other country, pretty much - and declare myself to be, voluntarily, a member of the society and polity. It would not be accepted. But the reverse is not true.From my reading consensus among blacks were over 90% of blacks wanted out of America. They did not do it.
No, but I’m confident they were pretty unanimous back then in their desire for “forty acres and a mule.” But by the time they were freedmen, they were - as the Fourteenth Amendment put it,"born . . . in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof"and wanted to be"citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."They wanted the “reparations” of opportunity to prosper by dint of their own industry, in the type of occupation with which they were familiar.The saying is that it is useless to close the barn door after the horse has escaped the barn. Well, the idea of “returning” the slaves to Africa occurred to many, early in the history of the Republic - but it was never accepted. Early in the history of the country, the North would have compensated slaveowners to release the slaves back to Africa. But the cotton plantation business model, which wasn’t entrenched in 1788, became entrenched pretty early in the Nineteenth Century, and the South wasn’t interested.
As time went on, the economic model which supported slavery got stronger just as fast as abolition support grew in the North.
Obviously some of the Northern States cared. They made the practice of slavery illegal in their states. Something that most of the Southern States never considered.
But this is very misleading. Modern people think the northern states abolished slavery because they thought it was immoral and because it was unfair to black people.
A very tiny minority of the Northern public was against slavery because they thought it was immoral. The vast majority of them hated slavery because they saw it as an economic threat to their own wages and income, and also because they hated the idea of associating with black people.
The Northern peoples didn't actually like black people. The "Land of Lincoln" passed all sorts of laws making it illegal for black people to live in Illinois, as well as various other horrible laws regarding how they were treated in that state. Other Northern states did likewise.
To assert that Northern people cared about black people is one of the biggest lies of the Civil War. The vast majority hated them and wanted them kept out of the nation. In fact, much opposition to slavery was based solely on the desire to not have black people in their communities.
So when you say they "cared", don't mislead people as to what it was they actually cared about. What they didn't care about was the misery and suffering of black people. That is a later day fabrication used to justify what the Northern people did to the Southern people.
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