Edward Porter Alexander on "Providence" - and Stonewall

[samgrant]

E. P. Alexander was a no-nonsense soldier who had little regard for those who believed that "God is on our Side".

Here is something on this from his book "Fighting for the Confederacy":

"It is customary to say that "Providence did not intend that we should win," but I do not subscribe in the least to that doctrine. Providence did not care a row of pins about it. If it did it was a very unintelligent Providence not to bring the business to a close - the close it wanted - in less than four years of most terrible & bloody war.
And while on that subject I will say here that I think it was a serious incubus upon us that during the whole war our president & many of our generals really & actually believed that there was this mysterious Providence always hovering over the field & ready to interfere on one side or the other, & that prayers & piety might win its favor from day to day. .... But it was a weakness to imagine that victory could ever come in even the slightest degree from anything except our own exertions."

"I may have to refer to this subject once more in telling of the "Seven Days" fighting beginning on June 26th, 1862, in which our great & glorious Gen. Jackson for once seemed to put all of his reliance on providence & very decidedly slackened his own exertions, with the result that Gen. Lee's victory was shorn of the capture of McClellan's entire army."

and later:

"I have already written that, by all the rules of state craft, the Confederate government (the executive & the Senate) should have opened negotiations for peace some months before." [Referring to approximately the time around the Crater incident] ... " I can only account for it in the generally religious character of our people. They believed in a God who overruled all human affairs, & who in the end brought the right to prevail. They knew they were right, & there we were. It was only waiting on God, a little more or less."


More of Alexander on Gen. Jackson, later.

[whitworth]

There were far too many Confederates who expected "Divine Providence" to shield them from defeat.
Some like Jubal Early, on the opposite end, felt no Yankee army or general could ever defeat the Confederacy.

Militarily the Southern Founding fathers had blinders on when assessing their ability to wage war, over the short-term or long term. They also created the myth that Great Britain would save them. One of the great lies coming out of the Civil War.
Great Britain had no intention of going to war against the United States. It had no intention in 1862, 1863 or 1864. They made an early assessment that the Confederacy was too weak to defend its own territory. Great Britain had industrial assessments of what the Confederacy could do or not do. They knew products and military production the Confederacy could not do. This was due to the fact, that Great Britain knew the imports the Southern states made from Great Britain.

How can a "country" win a war, that has to import horseshoes through a blockade. Import them from Great Britain.