Posted on 10/15/2005 8:38:50 AM PDT by teldon30
SOON AFTER THE end of the Civil War, as the Confederates streamed home after four bitter years of fighting, a Virginia soldier was heard to say, "They never whipped us, Sir, unless they were four to one. If we had anything like a fair chance, or less disparity of numbers, we should have won our Cause and established our independence."
That defiance, along with the question of why they "whipped us," have continued to this day. Two points stand out: The first is that the war lasted as long as it did, and the second is that the South lost.
That long-ago Virginia veteran expressed the feelings of the entire South: With as many assets as the Confederacy possessed, how could the South possibly have lost?
Its advantages were enormous, starting with a gigantic and contiguous land mass that stretched east to west from the Atlantic to the far reaches of Texas; and south to north from the Gulf of Mexico up to the Ohio River. It was all Confederate, the whole 750,000 square miles of it, a land brimming with natural resources.
The South controlled mile after mile of seacoast, perfect as a source of food; as well as dozens of harbors and coves and inlets and bays and riverbanks, ideal for smuggling and evading the Union blockade they knew was coming. The South also had a dedicated and devoted population that believed passionately in the righteousness of their Cause.
They knew they were facing huge odds--but they looked to their own ancestors, their own fathers and grandfathers, who had fought the British, the mightiest power in the world at the time, and had won their freedom. Why not a second time against a similar oppressor? They even thought they could fight the same war--they could fight defensively, as had the Colonists, knowing that the Union, as the British, would have to invade and occupy, and then destroy their will to resist in order to claim victory.
It didn't work out that way--and over the next several columns, we are going to talk about the reasons the South lost the Civil War. Of course, there is a corollary: If we try to find out why the South lost, we can also learn why the North won.
Truth be told, experts seldom agree on a single reason; they generally list about six overall concepts.
1. The fundamental economic superiority of the North.
2. A basic lack of strategy in the way the South fought the war.
3. The inept Southern performance in foreign affairs.
4. The South did not have a dominating civilian leader.
5. The Confederate Constitution put too much emphasis on individual and states rights and did not stress the responsibilities of the individual or the state to the federal government.
6. Abraham Lincoln.
I'll discuss each of these reasons in upcoming columns, but I am interested in what you think. If you have thoughts about why the South did not win its independence, please mail or e-mail your own reasons about why the South lost--or the North won. I'll print as many opinions as I can.
Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee should have known how to fight a winning war of independence. Both were West Point graduates, and had studied how Gen. George Washington had won the Revolutionary War simply by not losing it. It was the best example of the strategy a weaker enemy is forced to use when he fights a larger, better-armed enemy with incomparably better resources, better finances and an ability to prolong a war indefinitely.
Gen. Washington's Rule No. 1: Husband your resources and avoid losing the war.
No. 2: Avoid head-to-head battles that use up your manpower, your most precious asset.
No. 3. Prolong the war.
No. 4. Hope that the enemy would grow heartily sick of the casualties in a war that never seems to end.
There were some other Gen. Washington rules:
No. 5. The Revolution would continue as long as he had the Continental Army, which was the only real power he had.
No. 6. Thus, do not risk the army except in the most dire emergency or when the odds are heavily in your favor.
No. 7. Do not risk the army to defend territory because it is the army that the British have to subdue, not geography.
No. 8. Remember that most of the fighting will be in your territory in geography you know best. Frustrate the British by raids, continual skirmishing, and capturing their supplies, always staying just beyond their ability to defeat you.
These were the rules for victory, and yet neither Davis nor Gen. Lee adopted this "fight-the-war-not-to-win-it-but-to-avoid-losing-it" strategy, even though they knew it was a tried and true road to independence.
Why? Their own ancestors had shown that it worked. In modern times, we have seen it work, too: In World War II, the Russians traded space for time until they could build up their own war-making capability and then go on the offensive.
In the Vietnam War, Ho Chi Minh used it all too well. That war lasted from 1954 to 1975. Ho understood that in order to win a war against more powerful enemies (France, the United States), you have to follow certain rules to lead more powerful enemies into giving up the struggle.
The Vietnam War was a conflict that for us seemed to have no end. Ho's delaying tactics eventually worked: America got sick of a never-ending war that appeared to produce nothing but casualties, and so we made peace with an enemy that had but a fraction of our power. We were the more powerful combatant, yet we gave up the struggle.
The Confederacy never even tried to follow Washington's precepts. Part of the reason is the nature of Southern men. It went counter to the Southern psyche, which was the "attack" strategy for winning any battle. The Confederacy's high command followed their West Point training of "charge" to defeat their enemy. They were convinced that "aggressive attack" was the best and really the only way to win a war.
Could the Washington precepts have worked in the Civil War? We will never know how it would have worked out, but it could not have turned out any worse for the Southern Cause.
BTW, I included Sandra Day O'Connor as one of the four Southerners in the last 50 years because she was born in El Paso, Texas. However, she lived in Arizona a long time before her SCOTUS nomination.
One outta two ain't bad.....LOL.
How can you preach about the evils of slavery by using the bible? I am curious....not a baited question at all.
Neither side was particularly creative in battlefield tactics. The North won the war because it employed a successful grand strategy, secondarily because of material. One cannot ignore the moral question raised about slavery, either.
I'm leaving for Dixie next weekend.
Dixie, Utah (aka Saint George)
By the winter of 1862 the casualties suffered by the North and the strings of defeats in the Eastern Theater was starting to undermind the civilian moral of the North. The US never experienced such a war where soldiers were butchered by out of date tactics employed against the firepower of the rifled infantry. Ironicly while the North did badly in the East, the critical battles to victory was at sea and in the West. If the South did not throw their army away in the Battle for Atlanta and Lee forced the North to attack at Gettysburg by putting his army between the Army of the Potomac and Washington DC as suggested by Longstreet, the war would have lasted longer and there would have been a good chance that the Northern support for the war would have given up, and today the US would be two distinct nations.
Paul Johnson, in A History of the American People", affirms the fact that slavery was always a contentious issue from the time of the original colonies. He also asserts that the south would have won the War of NOrthern Aggression had the gin and harvester been deveoped just a decade or two earlier, thus enabling the South to develope its economy to a greater extent. With mechanization, the proslavery proponents would have not held tightly to he notion of 'chatel' slavery as it was the singular blot on American idealism. Had the South had 20 years to developes its infrastructure and economy, there is little doubt that the south would have prevailed, according to Paul Johnson.
"Hallucinating discrimination, and maligning the motives of others, is not a pretty thing."
And you are comparing me to Farrakhan, just about the most openly antisemitic dude in the USA today. And both of these items are in one post with no hint of irony on your part.
My, my ... this Southern White Protestant SCOTUS thing has really really touched a nerve I see.
Thanks for the clarification ... and the eye opener too... for El Paso is notoriously a democrat stronghold.
The first known example of the southron myth machine at work.
All good and accurate reasons why the south lost the war of Yankee Aggression.
Civil War: War between geographical sections or political factions of the same nation. {emphasis mine}
To call the conflict a civil war is to presuppose the outcome. The right of the southern States to secede and form the Confederacy was the central question being contended between the parties. Calling the War Between the States a "civil war" is done to hide the true causes of the war. Its just one of many ways modern elites poke southerners in the eye.
But I will admit that it is wisely, if unfortunately, written that the victors write the history.
Isn't her hearing scheduled to begin on Novemeber 7, 2005?
The democrats would like nothing more than to delay it in the hope that they win a senate majority. IF that happens, say hello to Alberto Gonzales because he'd be the best we could do.
Thanks for all of your information. An eye opener and like you said "sheesh, this was so obvious all along."
Care to quote Lincoln? And can you tell me just which 'states rights' were being violated?
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause."
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume V, "Letter to Horace Greeley" (August 22, 1862), p. 388.
emphasis mine.
So? Emphasis or not, Lincolns words above do not support your theory that "Slavery was not the cause of the war." It merely says that, to Lincoln, preserving the union was paramount. He does not address the cause.
And I see you are unable to answer my other question.
You must be the product of a government school.
Thank you for that link and for your brilliant posts. I will pour over it while I eat my lunch.
If the south had freed their slaves before the war then there wouldn't have been a rebellion to begin with.
You're welcome. :-)
"Karl Marx was an enthusiastic supporter of Lincoln, he even had spies serving in the Northern Army."
Please. Source?
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