Posted on 01/12/2021 5:56:13 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
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Free Republic University, Department of History presents U.S. History, 1855-1860: Seminar and Discussion Forum
Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott, Lincoln-Douglas, Harper’s Ferry, the election of 1860, secession – all the events leading up to the Civil War, as seen through news reports of the time and later historical accounts
First session: November 21, 2015. Last date to add: Sometime in the future.
Reading: Self-assigned. Recommendations made and welcomed.
Posting history, in reverse order
https://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:homerjsimpson/index?tab=articles
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by reply or freepmail.
Link to previous Harper’s Weekly thread
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3921609/posts
Continued from December 29, 1860 (reply #X).
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3919704/posts#4
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals
Today’s posts on https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2015/04/documents-and-speeches-1861.html for January 12.
https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2017/09/james-buchanan-to-philip-f-thomas.html
James Buchanan to Philip F. Thomas
https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/08/governor-samuel-j-kirkwood-to-senator.html
Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood to Senator James W. Grimes
https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2016/08/frederick-t-frelinghuysen-to-abraham.html
Frederick T. Frelinghuysen to Abraham Lincoln
https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/03/rutherford-b-hayes-to-sardis-birchard_10.html
Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard
I have found a new tag in today’s reading. Thank you.
That’s a good one. I pointed it out where I posted the excerpt on Twitter. I’ll let you know if there is any notable response.
Good evening Professor.
What is your take on the current political situation?
As serious as January 12, 1861? Or worse?
5.56mm
"The reasons are very simple.
On the fall in cotton which followed the first outbreak of revolution in the South the planters held back their crops.
By doing so they very gravely embarassed the factors, who failed in consequence.
Hence, the receipts at the Southern ports to date are more than 500,000 bales short of those to the same date last year.
From the tone of the letters from the South the planters do not seem disposed to send on their crop, at the present time, to Mobile, or New Orleans, or Savannah.
They must either hold it, and draw upon their resources for supplies for themselves and their negroes, or they must ship to Memphis.
They are generally adopting the latter alternative."
Harpers here reports, Southern planters responded to lower cotton prices by withholding their cotton from usual buyers in Mobile, New Orleans & Savannah and shipped instead increasingly North to Memphis for sale & transport by railroad to Northern factories.
Harpers here speculates that such shipments North could increase from about 300,000 bales in 1860 to a million bales "this year".
The US 1860 cotton crop was around 5 million bales, so one million bales shipped North through Memphis would represent 20% of the total.
And numbers we have show 1860 cotton exports as the highest ever, to date, so this 500,000 bale withholding by planters must be from the prospective 1861 export total.
What's most interesting to notice is that all this withholding of cotton and redirecting shipments through Memphis is happening long before North-South hostilities, or even before any Southern states had declared their secession.
Falling cotton prices in the late 1850s, though still quite high compared to the 1840s:
Cotton exports compared to total US exports through 1860.
If exports of "specie" (read: California gold) are included, then total 1860 US exports are about $400 million, of which cotton was 50%:
With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860-1865, edited by Michael Burlingame
Home Letters of General Sherman, edited by M.A. DeWolfe Howe, 1909 William T. Sherman to Mrs. Sherman.
Today’s posts –
Photo of Lincoln, reply #9
John G. Nicolay, #10
William Tecumseh Sherman to Mrs. Sherman, #11
And these items.
Today’s posts on https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2015/04/documents-and-speeches-1861.html for January 13.
https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2016/09/abraham-lincoln-to-simon-cameron_40.html
Abraham Lincoln to Simon Cameron
https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2016/09/william-h-seward-to-abraham-lincoln.html
William H. Seward to Abraham Lincoln
https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/10/senator-charles-sumner-to-john-m-forbes.html
Senator Charles Sumner to John M. Forbes
https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2015/09/jefferson-davis-to-governor-francis-w.html
Senator Jefferson Davis to Governor Francis W. Pickens
https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/12/william-gilmore-simms-to-william.html
William Gilmore Simms to William Porcher Miles
"We are probably soon to be involved in that fiercest of human strifes, a civil war.
The temper of the Black Republicans is not to give us our rights in the Union, or allow us to go peaceably out of it.
If we had no other cause, this would be enough to justify secession, at whatever hazard..."
This will become a key motivator in April, 1861.
US Senator Davis is soon to resign from the US Senate to pursue a new career opportunity elsewhere.
Simms & Miles were both South Carolinians, Miles the former mayor of Charleston, former US Congressman and soon to become CSA Congressman.
Simms was a poet & novelist, recognized as one of the greatest writers of the antebellum period.
In this letter Simms gives military advice to Miles, on how to prepare fortifications around & bombardment of Fort Sumter.
I don’t know. It is unprecedented, in out time. I might say the country is more divided than it was in 1968, but not as much as in 1861. But every day the division becomes deeper and more intense. Like in 1861 the Democrats pretend to honor the Constitution but in practice undermine it at every opportunity. So, who knows where it will lead?
Jefferson Davis was exactly right. Subsequently, the Governor had food delivered to Fort Sumter with promises to continue the delivery. Major Robert Anderson who refused the food and had it sent back. From the Official Records, Series 1, Volume 1, pages 144-145 [paragraph breaks are mine for readability]:
Executive Office, Department of War,
Charleston, January 19, 1861.Maj. Robert Anderson:
Sir: I am instructed by his excellency the governor to inform you that he has directed an officer of the State to procure and carry over with your mails each day to Fort Sumter such supplies of fresh meat and vegetables as you may indicate.I am, sir, respectfully yours,
D. F. JAMISON.
Fort Sumter, S. C, January 19, 1861.Hon. D. F. Jamison,
Executive Office, Department of War:
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of this date, stating that you are authorized by his excellency the governor to inform me that he has directed an officer of the State to procure and carry over with my mails each day to Fort Sumter such supplies of fresh meat and vegetables as I may indicate. I confess that I am at a loss to understand the latter part of this message, as I have not represented in any quarter that we were in need of such supplies. As commandant of a military post, I can only have my troops furnished with fresh beef in the manner prescribed by law, and I am compelled, therefore, with due thanks to his excellency, respectfully to decline his offer.If his suggestion is based upon a right, then I must procure the meat as we have been in the habit of doing for years, under an unexpired contract with Mr. McSweeney, a Charleston butcher, who would, I presume, if permitted, deliver the meat, &c., at this fort or at Fort Johnson, at the usual periods for such delivery, four times in ten days.
If the permission is founded on courtesy and civility, I am compelled respectfully to decline accepting it, with a reiteration of my thanks for having made it.
In connection with this subject, I deem it not improper respectfully to suggest that his excellency may do an act of humanity and great kindness if he will permit one of the New York steamers to stop with a lighter and take the women and children of this garrison to that city. The confinement within the walls of this work, and the impossibility of my having it in my power to have them furnished with the proper and usual articles of food, will, I fear, soon produce sickness among them. The compliance with this request will confer a favor upon a class of persons to whom similar indulgences are always granted, even during a siege in time of actual war, and will be duly appreciated by me.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
ROBERT ANDERSON,
Major, First Artillery, Commanding Fort Sumter.
Anderson put himself in the predicament of being starved out of Fort Sumter.
Yes, Simms was one of the greatest writers of the antebellum period. His 1865 "A City Laid Waste, The Capture, Sack, and Destruction of the City of Columbia" is a classic. Here is a link to the 1865 book with all of its text and content: Link
You can also buy an excellent modern day version of Simm's "A City Laid Waste," edited by David Aiken and published in 2005 by The University of South Carolina.
Simm's book is based on his personal observations and those of many other residents of Columbia, South Carolina. If you feel what he published was not true, you be aware that the State of South Carolina collected 60 affidavits of SC citizens after the war that basically confirm what Simms wrote.
Rubbish!
You didn't even read your own post, did you?
If you had, you'd see that Anderson clearly expects to continue his contract for meat with a certain Mr. McSweeney of Charleston.
He rightly doesn't want to be supplied by South Carolina authorities, and he also requests Northern ships be allowed to remove the women & children for return to New York.
So 100% of the blame, every little piece of it, belongs on the South Carolina authorities who made illegal demands of both Maj. Anderson and the US Federal government.
Now some posters have insisted that despite Maj. Anderson's refusal of supplies, in fact South Carolinians did continue to send him fresh food until notified by President Lincoln of the approaching "war fleet".
But Anderson's letters to Washington in early March make clear that his food supplies were limited and shrinking rapidly.
That is what forced Lincoln's hand, making Lincoln send Anderson a resupply mission that Jefferson Davis used as his pretext to start the civil war he'd mentioned to Gov. Pickens in his letter of January 13, 1861.
A couple of slight corrections.
On my Post 16, “Major Robert Anderson who refused the food and had it sent back.” should not have included the word “who”.
On my Post 17, “you be aware” should be, “you should be aware”.
Antebellum -- Simms was one of several Southern authors who wrote in response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Simms' novel was called The Sword and the Distaff.
It featured kindly & virtuous masters with child-like slaves.
During & after the civil war Simms wrote little or no fiction.
His literary reputation has since suffered for his support of slavery, secession & Confederacy:
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