Posted on 10/06/2002 9:15:34 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
Edited on 05/07/2004 9:00:23 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
As commander of the Confederate Cavalry, Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart was a larger-than-life figure best known today for his daring raids and reconnaissance missions -- at times in Union territory.
Despite his reputation for flamboyance and derring-do, James Ewell Brown Stuart was also an intelligent, well-educated, faithful husband and father who spent only a small part of his time as the Army of Northern Virginia's chief of cavalry raiding Northern territory, according to historians and students of his life.
(Excerpt) Read more at publicopiniononline.com ...
I definitely had the best sign.
Walt
I am not perilously close to any such thing.
Can you show me a major CSA success more than 100 miles from Richmond, less Chickamauga?
Walt
In the absence of an actual answer, I shall have to extrapolate from the piece of rotten fish you threw out about Lee, Stuart, Jackson, et al. and the fact that their side lost the war.
< waiting >
Walt
No more so than the United States at the time. It was incidental, not central, to the basis of either. Your evaluations are based on applying late 20th century values to early 19th century culture through a filter which seems not only highly simplistic but also remarkably reminiscent of a gradeschool text's sidebar.
No more so than the United States at the time.
Well, that is wrong.
The United States was not -based- on racial superiority. The CSA was:
"It cannot be believed that our ancestors would have assented to any union whatever with the people of the North if the feelings and opinions now existing among them had existed when the Constitution was framed.
The Union of the Constitution was a Union of slaveholding States. It rests on Slavery, by prescribing a representation in Congress for three-fifths of our slaves. There is nothing in the proceedings of the Convention which framed the Constitution to show that the Southern States would have formed any other union; and still less that they would have formed a union with more powerful non-slaveholding States, having a majority in both branches of the Legislature of the Government. They were guilty of no such folly."
--Robert Barnwell Rhett
The problem for the south was that the north was not friendly -enough- to slavery. That is why they tried to bolt.
Walt
That is simply false. The basis, the cornerstone of the so-called CSA -was- slavery.
Walt
Indeed, to look at 19th Century American through the eyes of the secessionist fire eaters gives the opposite conclusion to that which 21st century observers reach. To the militant secessionists, the United States were headed rapidly towards racial equality and "amalgamation." They condemned the union for that reason. Though one can and should reject their value judgement, their assessment of what Republican victory meant ought not to be forgotten. It makes 19th century America look far better in terms of 21st century ideas than many people today would give it credit for.
In other words, the Confederate judgement of how bad the Union and the Republicans were would be taken as a very positive assessement by current egalitarian standards. The present day assessment of how bad North and South both were in terms of race doesn't account for the passionate fear and loathing for the Union, the abolitionists, and the "Black Republicans" on the part of many who supported the Confederacy and the Democrats, largely on racial grounds.
Also, if we want to understand the questions at issue in the 1850s and 1860s, racial equality has to be pretty far down the list compared to slavery and its expansion. That era was talking primarily about slavery. Recasting the debate in terms of racial equality and giving both sides a failing grade is a pretty late 20th century view in itself.
I think we can respect military skill and courage even if exercised in behalf of a cause we reject. One sidebar: Stonewall had a lot of the traits that are condemned in Grant and Sherman. Arguably, he was less of a cavalier than any major commander on either side. His puritanism gives him a lot of the traits in Yankee character that neo-confederates attack. Indeed, contrary to the caricature of noble Southerners and brutish Northerners, successful and distinctive commanders on both sides had much in common. Why should they not, as they came out of the same culture? Discuss.
Wait a minute there, Walt...so now Lincoln not only "saved" the "union," he also "saved" the "future of all mankind"???
Care if I ask exactly how he did that, Walt?
...with approximately two-thirds of it provided single handedly by yourself, Walt.
Yes. Your commentary about Stuart, as with most confederate heroes, ammounts to little more than calling them names and throwing out insults. While some of the same does get directed at Lincoln, and reasonable majority of the criticism of him entails detailed factual discussions of his actions in office.
No. Prosecution for the war crimes committed under his command would have been far more preferable.
Though you will no doubt attempt to marginalize the heavy union activity in the far western theater, Mansfield comes to mind. And Sabine Pass was probably the most one-sided victory of the entire war, not to mention against the odds.
You are making my points for me.
Walt
Care if I ask exactly how he did that, Walt?
"And this issue embraces more than the fact of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man, the question, whether a constitutional republic, or a democracy--a government of the people, by the same people--can or cannot, maintain its territorial integtrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question, whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration, accroding to organic law, in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily, without any pretense, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: "Is there in all republics, this inherent, and fatal weakness?" "Must a government, of neccessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existance?"
A. Lincoln, 7/4/61
Walt
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