Civil War History - General DiscussionFor Discussions on Civil War Era Personalities, Politics, Issues, Campaigns, Battles, and more. Serious Civil War Discussions Only Please! All other posts will be deleted.
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?
I would not disagree w/ very much of that.
__________________ 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
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.
Don't see a letter there nor how it in any way refutes the work of Prof Manning.
New Orleans would raise how many USCT units? You don't suppose any of those 1500 names showed up on the rolls of the USCT do you? The USCT made it quite clear whose side they were on; it was not the CS.
__________________ 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.
We can add random sampling to the growing list of things you have no idea how they work.
In his book, _For Cause and Comrades,_ James M. McPherson says that while only around 20% of the confederate soldiers specifically mentioned the word "slavery" when describing why they were fighting, no confederate soldier at all disagreed with the idea of fighting for slavery. For them there was nothing controversial about the institution of slavery. They not only accepted it, they believed in it. It was natural for them to want to fight for slavery.
"The vandals of the North . . . are determined to destroy slavery . . . We must all fight, and I choose to fight for southern rights and southern liberty." [Lunsford Yandell, Jr. to Sally Yandell, April 22, 1861 in James M. McPherson, _For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War,_ p. 20]
"A stand must be made for African slavery or it is forever lost." [William Grimball to Elizabeth Grimball, Nov. 20, 1860, Ibid.]
"This country without slave labor would be completely worthless. We can only live & exist by that species of labor; and hence I am willing to fight for the last." [William Nugent to Eleanor Nugent, Sept 7, 1863, Ibid., p. 107]
"Better, far better! endure all the horrors of civil war than to see the dusky sons of Ham leading the fair daughters of the South to the altar." [William M. Thomson to Warner A. Thomson, Feb. 2, 1861, in McPherson., p. 19]
"A captain in the 8th Alabama also vowed 'to fight forever, rather than submit to freeing negroes among us. . . . [We are fighting for] rights and property bequeathed to us by our ancestors.' " [Elias Davis to Mrs. R. L. Lathan, Dec. 10, 1863 in McPherson, p. 107]
"Even though he was tired of the war, wrote a Louisiana artilleryman in 1862, ' I never want to see the day when a negro is put on an equality with a white person. There is too many free ******s. . . now to suit me, let alone having four millions.' " [George Hamill Diary, March, 1862, in McPherson, p. 109]
"A private in the 38th North Carolina, a yeoman farmer, vowed to show the Yankees ' that a white man is better than a ******.' " [Jonas Bradshaw to Nancy Bradshaw, April 29, 1862 Ibid.]
"A farmer from the Shenandoah Valley informed his fiancée that he fought to assure 'a free white man's government instead of living under a black republican government.' " [John G. Keyton to Mary Hilbert, Nov. 30, 1861, Ibid.]
"The son of another North Carolina dirt farmer said he would never stop fighting the Yankees, who were 'trying to force us to live as the colored race.' " [Samuel Walsh to Louisa Proffitt, April 11, 1864, Ibid.]
"Some of the boys asked them what they were fighting for, and they answered, 'You Yanks wat us to marry our daughters to the n*****s.' " [Chauncey Cook to parents, May 10, 1864, Ibid.]
"An Arkansas captain was enraged by the idea that if the Yankees won, his 'sister, wife, and mother are to be given up to the embraces of their present dusky male servitors.' " [Thomas Key, diary entry April 10, 1864, Ibid.]
"Another Arkansas soldier, a planter, wrote his wife that Lincoln not only wanted to free the slaves but also 'declares them entitled to all the rights and privileges as American citizens. So imagine your sweet little girls in the school room with a black wooly headed negro and have to treat them as their equal.' " [William Wakefield Garner to Henrietta Garner, Jan 2, 1864, Ibid.]
"[If Atlanta and Richmond fell] we are irrevocably lost and not only will the negroes be free but . . . we will all be on a common level. . . . The negro who now waits on you will then be as free as you are & as insolent as she is ignorant.' " [Allen D. Chandler to wife, July 7, 1864, Ibid.]
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.
The problem is that the premise is faulty. It assumes anyone who saw slavery as the reason for fighting necessarily volunteered at the first opportunity. That ignores folks who looked at their economic situation and decided they couldn't afford to leave their farms, for example. It ignores folks who thought the war would be over quickly and thus they weren't needed. It ignores a host of other reasons why an individual would acknowledge slavery as the reason for fighting and yet not volunteer at the first opportunity and instead wait to be conscripted.
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.
Someone finally read one of my posts rather than jumping to the offensive defense. Thank you, Sir. That was my intent.
__________________ 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
It's a communication addressed to the Governor of the State. That's a letter...signed by 1500.
Quote:
Originally Posted by js
nor how it in any way refutes the work of Prof Manning.
See last sentence of post.
Quote:
Originally Posted by js
You don't suppose any of those 1500 names showed up on the rolls of the USCT do you?
About 250...joining different regiments over the course of the remainder of the war. There were two units that did post duty at New Orleans serving 28 days and 40 days, respectively, and were then mustered out. Some units were only allowed to dig ditches.
*
Wonder if Ben Butler threatened to confiscate their property?
Quote:
Originally Posted by js
The USCT made it quite clear whose side they were on; it was not the CS.
How many officers of the USCT resigned due to prejudice?
How many enlisted men deserted?
__________________ 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."
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
For the entire war, draftees made up only about 6% of all soldiers serving in the US Army.
Quote:
Originally Posted by matthew mckeon
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.
In the Spring of 1862, the Confederate government conscripted everyone (i.e., the first wave of Volunteers)already serving in the army. This was after Ft. Donelson and Shiloh, which shocked the people with their long casualty lists. They did this precisely because they could not get enough re-enlistments and new enlistments to keep the strength of the force up -- even though they were trying all the carrot-and-stick methods being tried in the North. This is before the real bloodbaths of 1862 in the East -- before Seven Pines, Seven Days, 2nd Manassas, Antietam, Fredericksburg.
As a result, we know that many of those initial enlistees were getting ready to leave the Confederate Army in 1862, and were forced to remain.
Quote:
Originally Posted by matthew mckeon
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.
To the extent it was actually done in practice, that is true. Just about every military historian/analyst would agree with it. But if you take a look at real practice, it wasn't 100% true. Some of it was dictated by politics, for instance the "Old Army Game" played out between D. H. Hill in NC and Lee in VA in 1863, where Lee could not get his original units loaned to NC back for Gettysburg, and where he got stuck again with Beverly Robertson to get 2 regiments of raw NC cavalry.
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
The southern leadership (the aristocrats) and Billy Yank certainly understood that without slavery there was no confederacy (technically, the aristocrat, leadership, wanted nothing to do with a confederacy that did not include slaverly). Now it is 'Possible' I suppose, that johnny reb was oblicious of that fact....but I do not think so.
Larry,
after I posted, I thought: Larry's talking about the Army of tennessee--which I know even less about than the ANV and AoP! It's the old eastern bias showing itself again! Did the AoT experience waves of recruitment/conscription?
Tim,
In the North, anecdotes compare the bounty jumping, criminal, immigrant concripts with the patriotic volunteers are common enough--gosh, could they be exaggerating? That 6 %percent of concripts: did they all go into the AoP as riflemen?
As far the "old army game" there were plenty of politics in the CSA, but I think the Union had it worse, with politics playing even a greater role in officer selection, especially. The South benefited from two excellent military colleges, VMI and the Citadel, and their officer corps had a degree of professionalism, the North had to painfully acquire.
We seem to be stigmatizing the conscripts a little ourselves, but really the bulk of CS conscripts were really volunteers, and wide spread conscription if yet another example of the "modern" nature of the CW. After all the American army in World War I and II was mostly conscripts, but the men were serving willingly enough.
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Linear Mode
