Logistics and the Anaconda Plan

[PINCKNEYUSMCRET]

Good heavens, well done from two LT's and a Brigader General almost more than an ole 1stSgt. can take.

Pinckney

[larry_cockerham]

Gentlemen, pause for a moment as you continue your bashing of the poor undeveloped southland to reflect on where we were in history in the 1850s. Prior to 1800 the land west of the continental divide known as the Appalachian mountains was the fiercely defended domain of the Cherokee and Creek nations along with a few wandering Shawnee who laid claim to some jurisdiction.
The first permanent settlements in middle Tennessee, mostly the area around and south of Franklin didn't develop until after 1820. Franklin, a very small isolated community 20 miles from Nashville was incorporated in 1796 or so, about the time of statehood for Tennessee. This was
FRONTIER country in every sense of the word and only began developing any kind of infrastructure to brag about (a few dusty roads where the rock didn't stick out) a mere generation prior to the civil war. Alabama and Mississippi were not as advanced aside from a better path along the Tennessee river where the rock is less evident. The Confederacy wasn't anywhere near ready for war. The guys in Virginia jumped the gun, so to speak. It certainly wasn't a case of lack of ingenuity or capability. It just wasn't time!

If you think we ain't ready now, send a yank down to take a pot shot at Ft. Campbell, Benning, Bragg or Knox...... there's a mighty fine sub base over on the Georgia coast as well.

[ole]

Not bashing the south. It ain't bashing if it's true. The Northwest Territories were opened for development about the same time as those south of the Ohio. It's quite clear, to me at least, that progress in new southern states was not as rapid as in the new northern ones. The same kind of people pioneered the movements in both areas. What factor or factors retarded development in the south?

Ole

[trice]

Originally Posted by PINCKNEYUSMCRET

Unfortunately as with most things done with passion and little thought or not enough thought, the lack of a supply chain was not top on the Confederate Governments list in the beginning. However just like teenagers having babies reality sets in. they didn't think it would last as long as it did, and they just couldn't support it and there were no grand parents to help.

Originally Posted by samgrant

This sounds eerily familiar to a current conflict.

Sadly, it sounds like most wars. Very few people like to look at a war as it starts and think it will be a long one. Everyone is always looking for "a short victorious war". As a result, we see "home before the leaves fall" in 1914 and "one Rebel can whip ten Yankees" and all sorts of unrealistic bravado spread about at the beginning of conflicts.

Sometimes nations even try to bring them about on purpose. For example, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Plehve (Russian Minister of the Interior and Chief of Gendarmes -- i.e., head of the Tsar's police) reputedly said before the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05: "What this country needs is a short, victorious war to stem the tide of revolution." If he did, he never lived to see the result. The revolutionaries finally got him with a bomb in July of 1904.

As Robert Wilson Lynd (Irish writer and essayist, Sinn Fein member, 1879-1949) said: "The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions."

Regards,
Tim

[trice]

Originally Posted by larry_cockerham

Gentlemen, pause for a moment as you continue your bashing of the poor undeveloped southland to reflect on where we were in history in the 1850s. Prior to 1800 the land west of the continental divide known as the Appalachian mountains was the fiercely defended domain of the Cherokee and Creek nations along with a few wandering Shawnee who laid claim to some jurisdiction.
The first permanent settlements in middle Tennessee, mostly the area around and south of Franklin didn't develop until after 1820. Franklin, a very small isolated community 20 miles from Nashville was incorporated in 1796 or so, about the time of statehood for Tennessee.

That sounds pretty much the same as the OH-IN-IL-WI area. The last Indian war east of the Mississippi was the Black Hawk War in 1832. Among the people involved in that, one way or another, were future Presidents of the US Zachary Taylor and Abraham Lincoln, future Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and the defender of Fort Sumter, Major Robert Anderson.

Geography made it a little easier to enter the region from the northern end until the Louisiana Purchase opened up the Mississippi River route. Travel and commerce remained closely linked to water until the RR arrived.

The turning point was the construction of the Erie Canal. Baltimore and Philadelphia were also in the race to get a route built, but the Erie Canal ensured it would be New York that triumphed in the race to get access to this region. Philadelphia came in second, and the B&O out of Baltimore didn't get there until 1850 or so.

Originally Posted by larry_cockerham

This was FRONTIER country in every sense of the word and only began developing any kind of infrastructure to brag about (a few dusty roads where the rock didn't stick out) a mere generation prior to the civil war. Alabama and Mississippi were not as advanced aside from a better path along the Tennessee river where the rock is less evident.

Pretty much the same for OH-IL-IN before 1835. It was really the Erie Canal and the RR that made the difference. But note that all of those were the result of major financial investments and large engineering/construction efforts. Other than geography, it is hard to see why Southerners could not have ben making similar investments and efforts if they had chosen to develop their society in that way.

Originally Posted by larry_cockerham

The Confederacy wasn't anywhere near ready for war. The guys in Virginia jumped the gun, so to speak. It certainly wasn't a case of lack of ingenuity or capability. It just wasn't time!

I actually think the idea of a Southern Confederacy had a better chance of success before 1850 than after it. Industrial development and immigration play a big part in that. Changing social/economic ties in the Ohio Valley and Missouri play another part of it.

Regards,
Tim

[trice]

Originally Posted by ole

Not bashing the south. It ain't bashing if it's true. The Northwest Territories were opened for development about the same time as those south of the Ohio. It's quite clear, to me at least, that progress in new southern states was not as rapid as in the new northern ones. The same kind of people pioneered the movements in both areas. What factor or factors retarded development in the south?

Ole

It was:

1) the Erie Canal (completed in 1825) and
2) the RRs built after that to connect New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore to the OH-IL-IN territory. The last of them, the B&O from Baltimore, reached the Ohio at Wheeling in 1853.

By 1860, it has been said, there was no point in Ohio more than 25 miles from a RR. In contrast, Nashville, TN had no RR connection to the outside world until 1858.

The Erie Canal and the RR also had a major impact on trade. Before them, virtually all trade in the region went downstream to New Orleans. By 1860, trade from the Ohio Valley tended to go north and east to New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore, and the great waves of immigrants coming out of Europe were coming west by RR to settle Missouri-Iowa-MN-WI and points further west. Even KY was changing, since once you hauled your goods to the Ohio, the cheapest/fastest route to market was via the railheads on the north bank of the Ohio. KY in 1850 was much more a "southern" state than KY in 1860.

Regards,
Tim

[larry_cockerham]

In Nashville's particular case, it continues to sit on what is known locally as Tennessee gold, one helluva nice hung of solid gray limestone, not much of a place to grade except on ridge tops or in the floodplain. Railroad extension was a slow go thanks to the plateau between here and Kentucky and the highland rim to the south. Hence tunnels at Ridgetop just north of Nashville and at Cowan to the south. The Cowan tunnel was completed, I believe, in 1855 though the railroad took a bit longer. I think the link to Alabama opened around 1859, just in time for the Union army to put it to work. As for the flat sandly parts of the south such as from Memphis, the rivers continued to be utilized for marketing and supply. That was the death sentence on the Confederacy when that option was occupied by Union forces. No argument there. Why the southeastern states took so long to develop was the agrarian economy and a general lack of population worried about manufacturing and a lack of need for distribution for goods that hadn't been manufactured!

[larry_cockerham]

Someone seemed interested or amused at my reference to southern bashing. That's how we tell the yanks from the locals who didn't use to be yanks. Probably the greatest fuel to rebel pride is northern attitude. Dixie, anyone?

[Texas2nd]

L Cockerham,
I'm singing along.

Look, ya'll. I can't see fairness in blaming a farming society for being farmers!

Even if they (planter) did intice railroad magnets and canal builders to build what big industries would have taken advantage of it? Who would have worked the industries?

The reason that the industries of the South were the scale they were is becasue that is all the South could support.

It has nothing to do with the planters and choices they made. It has to do with the poor South. The underpopulated South. Might could be hanged on the Politicians.

Lastly, As far as readiness for the war was concerned - readiness to execute the anaconda plan - the North wasn't ready either. If they were ready, they'd have moved on it!

But I'm not blaming that on the industrialists - Just the Federal Army, oh and the Presidents leading up the the ACW. Oh, and the politicians.

Texas2nd

[ole]

First mistake: Assuming a search for background, causes, reactions, results, etc., is assigning blame. It ain't. It's a search for background, causes, reactions, results, etc.

Even if they (planter) did intice railroad magnets and canal builders to build what big industries would have taken advantage of it? Who would have worked the industries?

The north managed to do it with no more wealth than the south had. The south was the source of cotton, for goodness sakes. They spent an enormous amount of money getting it to northern mills. There were southern mills, so it could be done. Why weren't there more?

The reason that the industries of the South were the scale they were is becasue that is all the South could support.

Beg pardon, Texas, but that is nonsense. The south had labor and capital, and plenty of both. A simplistic overview would generally hold that labor was for blacks, and capital was for more blacks. The same immigrants who swarmed to northern factories could gave as easily swarmed to southern factories. The most telling statistic I've ever read is that the south had 50,000 factory workers -- the north had that many factories.

It has nothing to do with the planters and choices they made. It has to do with the poor South. The underpopulated South. Might could be hanged on the Politicians.

The south was not poor in 1800. The south was not underpopulated in 1800. I think you're right in that it "Might could be hanged on the Politicians." If you meant the slaveholding Politicians, I'll sing Dixie with you -- slowly, as a dirge.

Ole