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One thought here, please. The civil war from a Southern perspective was essentially fought by two "waves" of soldiers. After the first couple of years many were simply dead, or had taken their furlough and tried to vanish before being called back and the conscript law being enacted by the Confederacy. (Furlough may be an innacurate term but that is not my point).
Actually, your time frame is wrong, too. The confederacy began conscripting in April of 1862, only 1 year into the war.
Quote:
Originally Posted by larry_cockerham
The less wealthy southern soldier wasn't about to lose anything except possibly and probably, his life.
That's not the way they saw it.
"Before John Williams became a soldier, he lived on his father's struggling farm and helped raise just enough corn to keep the family afloat. The family owned no slaves. Yet Corporal Williams wholeheartedly believed in the necessity of a war to separate from the Union and prevent the abolition that the Emancipation Proclamation threatened to impose. A story that he told his sister explains why. Two white Virginians, Williams claimed, were arrested by 'an armed band of negroes and carried before one whome [sic] they styled the President,' who had them 'condemned to be shot.' The murder accounted for only part of the story's horror. After the shooting, the mortification continued when the victims 'were striped [sic] of all their clothing and thrown into the river.' Racial role reversal, humiliation, powerlessness before an authority of a different race, summary and autocratic justice, and the loss of individual identity and basic dignity could all be expected under the black- and Yankee-controlled regime that emancipation was sure to introduce. The Confederate camp newspaper _The Vidette_ made this same point more concisely when it called emancipation 'Slavery for the White Man!' " [Chandra Manning, _What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War,_ p. 107]
Cash is right, just because you may not have an interest in the institution of slavery itself does not mean that you wouldn't fear abolition.
Should we be surprised that SC leads the secessionist wagon? This is of course the state with the largest percentage of slaves, in fact, a slave majority. We've even seen a similar phenomenon in modern times with apartheid in South Africa where at some point (I think its the 1980s, a fair percentage of Afrikaners actually see the inequity of apartheid, but nevertheless fear granting full political power to the blacks)
Now I will grant you that there are many soldiers who will simply side with their country (my country, right or wrong), I would even venture to say that in most wars I have read about MOST of the actual combatants are taking up arms simply because they're born into that political system.
Fear of the abolitionists was a strong factor for Confederate cooperation in Virginia. Folks in western theatre states weren't particularly affected nor impressed. My earlier attempt at making a distinction between the change of characters (soldiers) in the phases of the war from a Confederate perspective was apparently too much for some of you? The men who 'finished' weren't in most cases the guys who 'started', hence a slight difference in attitude as to why they joined or were oblidged to participate. Considerable respect should be due any man, regardless of position or attitude, in this war who survived the entire conflict. Grant, Lee, Forrest, there weren't many.
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
Fear of the abolitionists was a strong factor for Confederate cooperation in Virginia. Folks in western theatre states weren't particularly affected nor impressed.
Sorry, Larry, but that's simply wrong. Private Doyle, whom I quoted above, was in the 4th Louisiana.
"Mississippi private John Foster, for instance, wrote to his aunt that 'Frémont has done more for us than any General we have save [Sterling] Price,' because his proclamation [of emancipation] reminded all southern whites that the North wished 'to annihilate us by turning loose a servile population with arms in hand to commit the most outrageous ats of cruelty & barbarism,' Less than one year earlier, Foster had 'hated to give up the idea of the Union,' but he changed his mind because the North's true intentions toward slavery were now transparent." [Chandra Manning, _What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War,_ p. 51]
"Joseph Bruckmuller, a German immigrant saloon keeper who fought with the Seventh Texas, had almost nothing in common with the scion of the Palmetto State, yet Bruckmuller also saw the need to preserve slavery as a powerful glue binding all whites in the South. Scoffing at 'improve-the-world ideas of emancipation,' Bruckmuller urged his fellow 'adoption citizens' to stand by 'your own countrymen and race' against the 'murder and arson, hanging and stealing' that were sure to accompany the 'liberation of the half-civilized cannibal.' " [Ibid., pp. 31-32]
"One January night in 1863, Arkansas soldier James Harrison dreamed of a big dinner at his Aunt Polly's house. Suddenly, the dream turned sour when Harrison realized, 'I had too [sic] eat by the side of a negro.' Even worse, the black man 'had a plate to eat on and I had none.' Harrison had his dream just days after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, as bondmen and bondwomen continued to chip away at slavery and the Union Army enlisted black soldiers. Harrison's nightmare encapsulated much of what Confederate soldiers feared all those changes would mean. Blacks would not only 'eat at table with white folks,' but they would also enjoy new rights and benefits at the expense of ordinary whites like small farmer James Harrison, who sat helplessly without a plate while a black man used a plate that Harrison regarded as rightfully his. The Emancipation Proclamation and black enlistment in the Union Army pushed Confederate discontent into the shadows and steeled resolve in the Confederate Army by providing soldiers like James Harrison with fresh reminders of precisely why they must keep up the fight." [Ibid., p. 81]
"Texas chaplain Robert Bunting sought to horrify Confederate civilians and soldiers alike with stories of marriages between slave women and white Union soldiers taking place in the homes of the slaves' helpless white mistresses. 'It is no unusual thing,' Bunting claimed, 'for the mistress to be compelled to witness, in her own parlor, the marriage of her likely house-maids to officers and privates of the army.' After the ceremony, shameless brides helped themselves to articles from the home, and then departed from their rightful mistress 'with the taunt that now they are as free as she.'
"No evidence suggests that marriages between white Union soldiers and slaves occurred at all, let alone became commonplace, but Bunting's stories were powerful despite their falsehood. In fact, the stories helped explain why the defense of slavery continued to rally nonslaveholding soldiers whose families needed them at home, especially when measures like the twenty-slave law made plain exactly how little direct material interest nonslaveholders had in an institution that so clearly privileged the wealthy, but tales like the ones Bunting spun revealed that for nonslaveholders, slavery's importance had little to do with its pecuniary benefits." [Ibid., pp. 109-110]
Quote:
Originally Posted by larry_cockerham
My earlier attempt at making a distinction between the change of characters (soldiers) in the phases of the war from a Confederate perspective was apparently too much for some of you? The men who 'finished' weren't in most cases the guys who 'started', hence a slight difference in attitude as to why they joined or were oblidged to participate. Considerable respect should be due any man, regardless of position or attitude, in this war who survived the entire conflict. Grant, Lee, Forrest, there weren't many.
It wasn't too much. It was just inaccurate. The men at the beginning were defending slavery, and the men at the end were defending slavery.
He's trying to make a subtle point. Assuming arguendo, that you are capable of rendering service in 1861, but did not actually enter the South's military until 1864 or 1865, he's trying to make the point that the soldier entering in 1864-1865 is either responding to a conscription order or is concerned that Federal armies are at the doorstep because if fear of abolition were his primary motivation he would've volunteered in 1861. And to extend the point further, the thought process postulated is that even though the soldier entering service later in the war is not a member of the slaveholding class, he's going to suffer anyway.
Sorry, Larry, but that's simply wrong. Private Doyle, whom I quoted above, was in the 4th Louisiana.
"Mississippi private John Foster, for instance, wrote to his aunt that 'Frémont has done more for us than any General we have save [Sterling] Price,' because his proclamation [of emancipation] reminded all southern whites that the North wished 'to annihilate us by turning loose a servile population with arms in hand to commit the most outrageous ats of cruelty & barbarism,' Less than one year earlier, Foster had 'hated to give up the idea of the Union,' but he changed his mind because the North's true intentions toward slavery were now transparent." [Chandra Manning, _What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War,_ p. 51]
"Joseph Bruckmuller, a German immigrant saloon keeper who fought with the Seventh Texas, had almost nothing in common with the scion of the Palmetto State, yet Bruckmuller also saw the need to preserve slavery as a powerful glue binding all whites in the South. Scoffing at 'improve-the-world ideas of emancipation,' Bruckmuller urged his fellow 'adoption citizens' to stand by 'your own countrymen and race' against the 'murder and arson, hanging and stealing' that were sure to accompany the 'liberation of the half-civilized cannibal.' " [Ibid., pp. 31-32]
"One January night in 1863, Arkansas soldier James Harrison dreamed of a big dinner at his Aunt Polly's house. Suddenly, the dream turned sour when Harrison realized, 'I had too [sic] eat by the side of a negro.' Even worse, the black man 'had a plate to eat on and I had none.' Harrison had his dream just days after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, as bondmen and bondwomen continued to chip away at slavery and the Union Army enlisted black soldiers. Harrison's nightmare encapsulated much of what Confederate soldiers feared all those changes would mean. Blacks would not only 'eat at table with white folks,' but they would also enjoy new rights and benefits at the expense of ordinary whites like small farmer James Harrison, who sat helplessly without a plate while a black man used a plate that Harrison regarded as rightfully his. The Emancipation Proclamation and black enlistment in the Union Army pushed Confederate discontent into the shadows and steeled resolve in the Confederate Army by providing soldiers like James Harrison with fresh reminders of precisely why they must keep up the fight." [Ibid., p. 81]
"Texas chaplain Robert Bunting sought to horrify Confederate civilians and soldiers alike with stories of marriages between slave women and white Union soldiers taking place in the homes of the slaves' helpless white mistresses. 'It is no unusual thing,' Bunting claimed, 'for the mistress to be compelled to witness, in her own parlor, the marriage of her likely house-maids to officers and privates of the army.' After the ceremony, shameless brides helped themselves to articles from the home, and then departed from their rightful mistress 'with the taunt that now they are as free as she.'
"No evidence suggests that marriages between white Union soldiers and slaves occurred at all, let alone became commonplace, but Bunting's stories were powerful despite their falsehood. In fact, the stories helped explain why the defense of slavery continued to rally nonslaveholding soldiers whose families needed them at home, especially when measures like the twenty-slave law made plain exactly how little direct material interest nonslaveholders had in an institution that so clearly privileged the wealthy, but tales like the ones Bunting spun revealed that for nonslaveholders, slavery's importance had little to do with its pecuniary benefits." [Ibid., pp. 109-110]
It wasn't too much. It was just inaccurate. The men at the beginning were defending slavery, and the men at the end were defending slavery.
Regards,
Cash
Bunk.
There are 100 (or more) letters that say nothing of slavery for each of these cherry-picked ones from your now favorite book.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
Fear of the abolitionists was a strong factor for Confederate cooperation in Virginia. Folks in western theatre states weren't particularly affected nor impressed. My earlier attempt at making a distinction between the change of characters (soldiers) in the phases of the war from a Confederate perspective was apparently too much for some of you? The men who 'finished' weren't in most cases the guys who 'started', hence a slight difference in attitude as to why they joined or were oblidged to participate. Considerable respect should be due any man, regardless of position or attitude, in this war who survived the entire conflict. Grant, Lee, Forrest, there weren't many.
Larry, I'm tempted to agree w/ you here. The men who started in 61 were almost certainly not the same men who ended the scrap. By the end of 63 it is quite telling to me how much the CS was relying on conscription and "for the duration" enlistments to put men in the field. That the CS got as many men intothe field is evidence of the herculean efforts made.
I have often wondered just how many men in the CS army at the end were backing slavery or even the CS. The desertion rates show the men were willing to vote w/ their feet. I do wonder by that time how many men were there not because of any grand belief in the cause (any cause) but because of their buddy down the line.
To me there is a difference between the men on the sharp end and those in the rear echelon ranks who were able to pull strings or fanagle their way out of harms way. The men safely out of the fight seemed a far different men than those sharing the mud & thunder w/ Cleburne or Mahone.
The more letters and diaries I read the more I know this. That said everything that is said about the work by Chandra Manning tells me I HAVE to read it... and the library tells me I won't see it until sometime in September. grrr.
I do believe the men at both the beginning and the end were defending slavery (willingly or not) simply because they were fighting for the CS whose cornerstone of Secession, its very reason for existance, was the preservation of slavery.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
There are 100 (or more) letters that say nothing of slavery for each of these cherry-picked ones from your now favorite book.
Post them.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
In Union forces there were in the AoP anyway, two "waves" of the volunteer, then after 1863 the conscripts, who were seen as less motivated and effective. That's an overly neat distinction to be sure with a zillion exceptions
Was there a similar "wave" effect in the CS armies? I'm thinking its a little more muted because:
1) The CS government used conscription earlier, so a lot of these "conscripts" became part of the ANV during its glory year and persumably were as effective soldiers as the South fielded during the war.
2) The CS used manpower more efficiently(IMO) by building up existing regiments with replacements, rather than raising new regiments, or haphazard recruiting by existing regiments, as was common in the AoP. This had the effect of equalizing the efficiency of the ANV units by mixing novices and veterans.
So, were there distinct "epochs" in the ANV, as there were in the AoP?
Resolutions passed (22 April 1862) to form military companies to defend the homeland.
Made in response to Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops to invade the South.
Signed by 1500 free blacks of New Orleans and vicinity.
Slavery not mentioned.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
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