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.
I agree. I love the South. However the Albatross of the image of slavery, Jim Crow and the 60's Civil Rights Movement has been hung around the Southern white mans neck. It's just as pernicious as is the white Southern angst over the "War of Northern Aggression" that is shown on this thread. What's done is done. The restoration of Southern, antebellum culture (sans the slavery), is as likely as are reparations to blacks for that slavery. In other words, the answer to the question of when will the "South rise again" is a: "You can't get there from here". Blacks have to remove their hairshirt of historical slavery and whites remove the gray tunic of the Confederacy for both to progress. Neither is likely.
It's like Israel and the Palestinians.
I've been doing homework on this tidbit. I'm finding it to be a very very interesting topic, especially the religious affiliation of the major players. The patterns that surface are fascinating
What have you found so far?????? Please.
Been there, love it!
Think of how would it have ended if the South had an industrial base and/or was able to eliminate the Union blockade of Southern ports.
That's at least a little doubtful. Southerners didn't have any trouble fighting a guerrilla war in the 1780s during the later phases of the revolution. It was more West Point, Napoleon's reputation, and 19th century Romanticism that dictated the tactics that Civil War commanders used than anything especially Southern.
And I see you are unable to answer my other question on what 'states rights' were being violated.
trek wrote: Most import were industrial goods. At the time northern manufacturers were at a significant competitive disadvantage to British and other European manufacturers. They used the power of the Federal Government to levy onerous tarrifs on these imports.
Hmm, -- to you, "onerous tariffs" made war necessary. Weird idea.
This profited merchants and manufacturers in the north at the expense of largely poor farmers in the south (most of whom owned no slaves).
If tariffs were that bad, a black market in smuggled goods would have solved the problem. -- Nope, your idea that civil war came because of onerous taxes just does not wash.
Try again.
Bottom line is the universities and their religious affliations at their founding, and how those changed over time. Harvard I believe was the first to abandon trinitarian principles for Universalist ones.
When you enter into the problem from that direction, the biggest patterns emerge. The ones most hostile to the South were Unitarian types.
Nah, you're not.
Southern is, statements are not. A Southerner (notice the caps) need not claim he is a Southerner, nor does a virtuous woman have need to state that she is a lady. What is, is, and needs not explanation.
You do know that without the Cal and Australian Gold Rush's that there would not have been enough gold in the world to allow our trading partners to be on the same standard as us. It's considered fact by many historians (just google it if you need to) that Lincoln would not have been able to finance the Union side at least at that time, except for the extra buying power going into the treasury from the West and that the actual timing of the commencement of the Civil War was pushed up due to this factor.
ha...whatever you say...i guess being born and raised in the southern most part of the heart of dixie is not enough.
Here in North Carolina, it couldn't come a day too soon!!
English aristocrats were, of course, on the side of the Confederacy. Less a matter of class solidarity as a desire to see the USA broken up. A continuing Union was a threat to Britiain entire position in the Western Hemisphere.
That's right. Southern is a state of mind, not geography... (Said with an avuncular smile...)
The hard money laid a foundation for the expansion that took place during the war. Not enough to sustain a long expansion , however. The competing silver interest was there until the next gold strikes in Alaska and South Africa.
Agree completely with your remarks. But a greater understanding of our history might help some understand better the problems we face today. The idea of limited government is lost in the current debate. Our ancestors fought a war over it. A better understanding of history in general and the War between the States in particular might help some see better where we are, how we got here and why we might want to be in a place more attuned to the ideals of the founders.
Well, to name just a few:
Priscilla Owen (Texas)
Edith Jones (Texas)
J. Michael Luttig (Texas)
William Pryor (Alabama)
Michael McConnell (Kentucky)
He knew that it would take almost a year to build up his forces enough to challenge the Japanese in a full fleet offensive, so he adopted a hit-and-run strategy with Admiral Halsey that was absolutely brilliant. These slashing attacks with small carrier task forces kept the Japanese off balance and forced them to commit a number of stupid blunders. The only time we attempted to stop them with a show of force was the ABDA (Australian-British-Dutch-American) fleet action in the Java Sea that resulted in a crushing defeat for the Allies.
By the time the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway came around, the United States was in the midst of a massive rearmament and further risks could be taken to halt the Japanese advance. Even though the United States lost the carriers Lexington and Yorktown in these battles, they still had the Enterprise, Hornet, and Saratoga, with the Wasp and Ranger as backup, and they dealt a crippling blow to the Japanese Navy by sinking five carriers and crippling a sixth in these two engagements.
The South lost the war because they had fewer men left after four years of war.
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