Posted on 02/20/2020 9:13:10 PM PST by Pelham
Thomas Fleming talked about his book, A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War, in which he portrays the Civil War as a tragedy that American leaders foresaw and struggled to prevent.
He spoke about how public opinion and propaganda helped spark the war, and the longstanding tensions between the North and South. He also discussed events that heightened fear of a slave rebellion in the southern states. The Pritzker Military Library hosted this event.
I asked you for references, and gave you plenty of time to present them; but thus far you have provided none. Rather, you threw out a few talking points; and you mentioned Ransom's so-called "Andersonville Diary;" but that was not a diary, at all, but rather appears to be an embellished compilation created after the war -- created to sell books, rather than to edify.
May I suggest Andersonville: The Last Depot, by William Marvel (2006,) if you desire to read something from a true Lincoln scholar. This is from the Preface:
“Some 41,000 men shuffled into the prison stockade at Anderson Station, Georgia, between February of 1864 and April of 1865. Of these, perhaps 26,000 lived long enough to reach home. Theirs was undoubtedly the most unpleasant experience of the Civil War, but, almost without exception, those who wrote about Andersonville appear to have exaggerated their tribulations at that place. Some did so deliberately, for political reasons or simply because accounts of prison misery sold well in the postwar North. Others forgot personal acts of kindness, regurgitating tales of horrible cruelties that they never witnessed because, as one of them reasoned, they must have been true. In many cases they based their anecdotes on testimony from the trial of Henry Wirz, the transcript of which runs heavy with some of the most absurd hearsay that any american judge ever permitted to stand."
“Literary demands may have driven former prisoners to enliven their recollections with grisly imaginings or borrowings, if only to avoid infecting their readers with the sheer tedium of Andersonville. Memories of their helplessness at the hands of their captors and crystallized suspicions that their deprivation was an act of conscious design may also have provoked a certain license with the truth. These men did not, however, have to embellish their accounts to produce a picture of immense suffering: the prison and the circumstances provided that without any infusion of malice."
“Much effort has been expended by various partisans to prove that Southern spite against prisoners or Northern intransigence on the exchange question was responsible for this tragedy. Surviving documents seem to discredit any accusation of deliberate deprivation, unless one takes the position that the Richmond government should have devoted a greater proportion of its dwindling resources to its prisoners than to its own army, but thorough examination of the exchange question would require the better part of a book. This will not be that book. Clearly the breakdown of prisoner exchange was responsible for the lengthy imprisonments that allowed vitamin deficiency to kill and cripple so many, but the real cause of that breakdown is less certain."
“It was the Federal government that suspended the exchange cartel, first in response to disagreement over numbers and then in protest of the Confederate refusal to repatriate black soldiers. At one point it appeared that the two sides might work that out, except perhaps for those prisoners who were recognized as former slaves, but the Federal government insisted on absolute equality for all black prisoners: it could do no less without appearing to foresake them. Conversely, as hungry for manpower as it was, the Confederacy could not comply without renouncing the very reason for its existence. Northern stubbornness on that point puzzled equally resolute Southerners, leading them to suspect that this was merely an excuse for keeping the large preponderance of prisoners held in Union prisons. In the summer of 1864 Ulysses Grant let it slip that there was at least a grain of truth to that argument: as hard as it was on those in Southern prisons, he contended, it would be kinder to those still in the ranks if each side kept what prisoners it had, since that would end the war sooner."
“As important as the exchange question was to the prisoners, the finer points of the debate do not bear particularly on what actually happened at Andersonville. It may not even be possible to determine whether the issue of black soldiers was a pretense, or whether the more pragmatic motive evolved during the cartel's suspension, since intentions varied widely among those who held power. Grant's implied policy of attrition was just as legitimate as the administration's stated motive was high-minded: if it was adherence to such a policy that led to the deaths of thousands who might otherwise have lived, it probably saved even more lives that might have been lost, North and South, by prolongation of the conflict."
“That would have been a tough bill of goods to sell in 1865, had Grant's reasoning been public knowledge. Even the principle of equal treatment for black prisoners held little sway with many in the North: Lincoln's own secretary of the navy privately denounced the obstinacy over former slaves. The inhabitants of Andersonville felt particularly bitter on that account. Prison officials played the card for all it was worth, prompting great numbers of prisoners to express contempt for the Lincoln administration, which they felt had abandoned them for the "confiscated contrabands."
“Back home, many of the prisoners' families shared that sentiment. It therefore behooved the victors to establish that enemy malevolence had caused it all rather than a matter of lofty principle or a conscious practical policy of the victims' own government. That aim proved consistent with the politics of the bloody shirt, and military justice provided the requisite scapegoat. With that pronouncement one frail Swiss immigrant went to the gallows and Andersonville came to signify all that was evil in the hated Confederacy."
[William Marvel, "Andersonville: The Last Depot." [William Marvel, "Andersonville: The Last Depot." University of North Carolina Press, 1994, pp.7-8]
Mr. Kalamata
Thanks.
Am aware of the prisoner exchange program break down in June 1863 and the reasons for that breakdown. It led to the whole prisoner of war camp disaster. Neither the North or the South can claim an moral superiority in the manner they treated the prisoners of war. The people that ran Camp Douglas, Elmira, or Sandusky are every bit as culpable as Wirz or any of the other Southern camp commanders. Both Governments were indifferent to the plight of their prisoners and both Governments expended the absolute minimum resources to provide for them.
‘’Bloody Bill Anderson, ‘’Bloody William Quantrill come to mind.
These men were really just bandits. To refer to them as soldiers in the Confederate Army is a mistake. There were just ordinary criminals. Had they actually served in the Confederate army, most likely they would have been shot for any number of offenses.
Associating these men with the Confederate Army is an insult to the men that served in the Confederate Army.
“I have never denied that the prisoners were mistreated; but it was not my fault. If I am the last one that is to suffer death for the Southern Confederacy I am satisfied’’. Henry Wirz, in a comment to a journalist shortly before his execution. Well, certainly Wirz and his guards did better than the inmates.
The entire Confederate Army was an insult. They served an entity that rent the nation in two and caused the deaths of 600,000 Americans.
No, the Confederate Army were men who saw the duty that was required of them, and did their duty. We can argue whether that duty was misguided, but that is what these men believed in. I cannot find fault in those men in the Confederate Army that tore cartridge and drew ram rods for 13 dollars a month and rations. The men that put them in that situation are the men that we should despise.
Men can and do fight courageously for an evil cause. It doesn’t change the fact they are fighting for an evil cause. And by the way I have an ancestor who served with The Army of The Potomac.
I had relatives that served in the Army of Tennessee (5th Tenn.) and the Army of the Tennessee (7th Iowa). By the records of these men’s service, they did the duty that was expected of them.
They didn’t see it as an evil cause. At the time they thought the cause they served was justified. It is from a vantage point of 150 years later that we can make the determination that the cause was less then worth of their dedication.
Bookmark
agree
I read all my books on first a Kindle, and now an iPad.
I can make the text as large as I need.
Watch this exchange between Jefferson and Hamilton as portrayed on the HBO Adams miniseries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy7IFSS-F0I&list=PLx9UM6XN4PQ0q5r91bWRYL47IYX2Jois4&index=4
>>jmacusa wrote: “I have never denied that the prisoners were mistreated; but it was not my fault. If I am the last one that is to suffer death for the Southern Confederacy I am satisfied’’. Henry Wirz, in a comment to a journalist shortly before his execution.”
Do you have a reference?
Mr. Kalamata
>>Bull Snipe wrote: “No, the Confederate Army were men who saw the duty that was required of them, and did their duty. We can argue whether that duty was misguided, but that is what these men believed in. I cannot find fault in those men in the Confederate Army that tore cartridge and drew ram rods for 13 dollars a month and rations. The men that put them in that situation are the men that we should despise.”
The men who put them in that position would be the crony-capitalist sectionalists promoting the Hamiltonian mercantilist agenda, such as Clay, and then Lincoln. Remember, it was Lincoln who instigated the war, and then invaded the South after instigation. The South simply wanted to be left alone.
Mr. Kalamata
Don’t forget the greedy slaveocracy that ruled from Richmond. It take two to have a war.
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.