Civil War weekend to include author (Book: Burning Rails As We Pleased)

obsentinel ^ | February 3, 2004

[stainlessbanner]

[cyborg]

very interesting

[stainlessbanner]

sounds like a tear-jerker - family letters always are.

[cyborg]

Well now I know what to get when I go to Borders today. I like books with letters. Letters are personal. There's too much scholarly babble about the civil war but not how the war affected people personally.

[stainlessbanner]

One thing is for sure it's not Poe or Hemingway!

[cyborg]

LOL...this would be the first book I've ever purchased in this category 'civil war history'. I am ashamed that I don't know as much about it as I should.

[PeaRidge]

Thanks for the post

[PeaRidge]

Did you know that the mayor of New York City was advocating secession from the Union early in 1861?

[cyborg]

no I didn't... but I do know there were a lot of supporters of the confederate government. I think they're called 'copperheads'

[Maigret]

LOL...this would be the first book I've ever purchased in this category 'civil war history'. I am ashamed that I don't know as much about it as I should.

If you only read one book on the subject, and I hope it will be many more, I'd recommend Gen. Porter Alexander's Fighting for the Confederacy. Lee's artillery commander, Alexander was at most all the major battles in the eastern theater, and he wrote the book for his family with no intention of publishing it. His heirs published it and many of us are so glad they did!

A finely written account with the 'I was there' viewpoint and authority.

[cyborg]

thanks for the suggestion... I find it all very fascinating

[PeaRidge]

That nickname came later, and was concerned with political opposition. The story about New York is much more interesting, and about money.

Shortly before the formation of the Confederacy, the birthday is tomorrow, in 1861, many bankers and industrialists knew something that had not hit the newspapers widely.

That fact was that the Confederacy would now be free to trade with the world without having to use Northeastern
shipping and warehousing.

But much more importantly, it meant that the very low tariff system compared to that of the North that was being put in place in the South would now draw shipping out of the ports of Boston, Phila. and New York to Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans.

It was the equivalent of opening several Wal-Mart superstores next door to old, inefficient businesses.

New York City Mayor Fernando Wood and a number of businessmen, whose wealth was based on trade, decided it would be better for them if the city of New York, and several adjoining cities would secede from the Union also. This would mean that they could free trade like the South.

Knowing this, other power brokers in the North and Mid-West soon went to visit Lincoln. They wanted Lincoln to use the country's military to stop the South from free trade with Europe.

Lincoln then devised a naval mission to be sent to Ft. Sumter, while dis-regarding six or seven attempts by the South to keep the peace.

Everyone warned him that this action would bring war, which it did.

And 640,000 young American men died.

[cyborg]

very interesting...money is at the root of a lot of crises in history I notice

[4CJ]

sounds like a tear-jerker - family letters always are.

623,000 innocent warriors - some old, some just children - died - the vast majority left behind nothing but memories.

Kudos to Barbara Smith for honouring her ancestor.

[PeaRidge]

Yes, money was the underlying prime factor until the battles became so messy in late '62, and early '63.
After the terror in Northern Virginia Lincoln had to shift public opinion away from Union failures and carnage. That is when he began to use the slave issue to turn the invasion into a crusade.

[hillyes]

Some good letters here: http://www.vmi.edu/archives/cwsource.html

[WhiskeyPapa]

That fact was that the Confederacy would now be free to trade with the world without having to use Northeastern shipping and warehousing.

Manure.

"I travelled in the United States in 1859, the year before the fatal shot was fired at Fort Sumter, which has made such terrible reverberations since. I travelled in the United States—I visited Washington during the session of the Congress, and wherever I go, and whenever I travel abroad, whether it be in France, America, Austria, or Russia, I at once become the centre of all those who form and who avow strong convictions and purposes in reference to Free-trade principles. Well, I confess to you what I confessed to my friends when I returned, that I felt disappointed, when I was at Washington in the spring of 1859, that there was so little interest felt on the Free-trade question. There was no party formed, no public agitation; there was no discussion whatever upon the subject of Free Trade and protection. The political field was wholly occupied by one question, and that question was Slavery."

...The members from the Southern States, the representatives of the Slave States, were invited by the representatives of the Free States to state candidly and frankly what were the terms they required, in order that they might continue peaceable in the Union; but in every page you see their propositions brought forward, and from beginning to end there is not one syllable said about tariff or taxation. From the beginning to end there is not a grievance alleged but that which was connected with the maintenance of slavery. There were propositions calling on the North to give increased security for the maintenance of that institution; they are invited to extend the area of slavery; to make laws, by which fugitive slaves might be given up; they are pressed to make treaties with foreign Powers, by which foreign Powers might give up fugitive slaves; but, from beginning to end, no grievance is mentioned except connected with slavery,—it is slavery, slavery, slavery, from the beginning to the end. Is it not astonishing, in the face of facts like these, that any one should have the temerity, so little regard to decency and self-respect, as to get up in the House of Commons, and say that secession has been upon a question of Free Trade and Protection?"

-- Cobden, Richard Title: Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by Richard Cobden, M.P.

Publisher: T. Fisher Unwin

Location: London

Edition: 3rd edition, 1908

First published: 1870

Walt

[Non-Sequitur]

That fact was that the Confederacy would now be free to trade with the world without having to use Northeastern shipping and warehousing.

If the confederacy was free to trade with the world without having to use Northeastern shipping and warehousing after the rebellion then why didn't they trade with the world without using Northeastern shipping and warehousing before the rebellion?

But much more importantly, it meant that the very low tariff system compared to that of the North that was being put in place in the South would now draw shipping out of the ports of Boston, Phila. and New York to Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans.

And? The goods bound for northern consumers would still go to New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Only that small percentage bound for southern consumers would have headed south.

Lincoln then devised a naval mission to be sent to Ft. Sumter, while dis-regarding six or seven attempts by the South to keep the peace.

He ignored six or seven demands from the leaders of the rebellion to recognize the legitimacy of their acts.

[WhiskeyPapa]

If the confederacy was free to trade with the world without having to use Northeastern shipping and warehousing after the rebellion then why didn't they trade with the world without using Northeastern shipping and warehousing before the rebellion?

That would ean using free labor and the powers that be in the South were against free labor.

Walt

[Non-Sequitur]

A couple of more good ones:

"From the Fields of Fire and Glory: Letters of the Civil War" by Rod Gragg. Interesting because it includes reproductions of the actual letters.

"All for the Union: Civil War Diary and Letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes" by Robert Hunt Rhodes. Union soldier prominently quoted in Burns' documentary.

"For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War" by Dr. James McPherson.

"Mother May You Never See The Sights I Have Seen: The 57th Massachusetts Veteran Volunteers in the Last Year of the Civil War" by Warren Wilkinson.