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.
I was inspired by the quotes on other threads to try to find out how others view us. Hat tip to Union Blue for the suggestion.
Charles Dickens on Slavery, from American Notes:
"...All those owners, breeders, users, buyers and sellers of slavery, who will until the bloody chapter has a bloody end, own, breed, use and sell them at all hazards: who doggedly deny the horrors of the system in the teeth of such a mass of evidence as never was brought to bear on any other subject...who would at this or any other moment, gladly involve America in a war, civil or foreign, provided that it had for its sole end object the assertion of their right to perpetuate slavery...
when knives are drawn...in conflict, let it be said we owe this change to Republican Slavery. These are the weapons of Freedom. With sharp points and edges...Liberty hews and hacks her slaves, or failing that pursuit, her sons devote them to better uses, and turn them on each other..."
Anthony Trollope visited Canada and the United States in 1861-62, in the midst of the Trent Affair.
"Any attempt at invasion of Canada by the Americans...I do not believe that any sane minded citizen of the States believes in..."
Speaking of the vast armies the North and South had raised
"I have much doubt whether any other nation made such an effort in so short a time."
Trollope thinks the war was inevitable once secession began:
"both people(North and South) may be right....the South rebelled against the North and such being the case, was it possible that the North shold yield without a war?"
Trollope is pro-North
"Surely it will not be argued that any political party elected to power by the majority should follow the policy of a minority lest that minority should rebel..."
Trollope wrote lots of stuff in his book "North America." I'm not really catching the flavor. Its pretty interesting, considering when he was here.
Charles Darwin, in letter to Asa Gray, June 5, 1861
"I have not seen or heard of a soul(in England) who is not with the North. Some few and I am one, even and wish to God, though at the loss of millions of lives, that the North would proclaim a crusade against Slavery....Great God, how I should like to see the greatest curse on Earth-Slavery, abolished."
Darwin had been repulsed by the practice of slavery he had observed on the HMS Beagle in South America.
A fine start of a thread worthy of comment and contribution. I will do so shortly.
Keep up the good work.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Anybody have a quicker attachment than I do to Cobden's speech? I saved it on a CD but will have to play computer musical chairs to retrieve it (current computer RW to DVD). Have to retrieve it on Mrs. ole's computer and print out the relevant ..... no. I can retrieve it on the stick. Better still, someone knows the link and can beat me to it.
Let's also try to find some foreign opinions favoring the south. (Yes. Even Dickens.)
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
..."two armed mobs chasing each other around the country, from which nothing could be learned.”
Helmuth von Moltke - Chief of the German General Staff. Of course, von Moltke wrote this after those three quick successive wars that created the German Empire.
Personally, I think Jackson's Valley Campaign and Grant's Campaign that resulted in Jackson, Champion's Hill were two of the most brilliant actions of the war.
Helmuth von Moltke - Chief of the German General Staff. Of course, von Moltke wrote this after those three quick successive wars that created the German Empire.
I know Moltke is credited with saying this, but it is not quite in accord with what he did while the Civil War was on.
In 1863, the Prussians sent an official observer to the South. This officer was given his instructions by von Moltke before he left Berlin. He went to see the siege at Charleston, was with Lee's Army for Chancellorsville, Brandy Station and Gettysburg (really spending much of that time with Stuart and fellow Prussian Heros von Borcke) before returning home. He also attempted to get out to Vicksburg, but turned back when he heard he could not get through Grant's siege lines.
In his report, he stated that Confederate ANV infantry was about equal to regular Prussian infantry, and found Prussian Cavalry superior in 6 of 7 categories (he recommended the adoption of Stuart's courier system).
He was back in Prussia for the 3rd Danish War of 1864 (also called the "Potato War"). Von Moltke assigned him to lead an important assault on the Danish fortifications because of his experience at Charleston. When it succeeded, he assigned the officer to escort the King on a tour of the fortifications as a reward.
There were some other Prussians sent. Generally they -- as well as most other foreign observers -- were interested in the technical aspects of the war. In particular, the new rifled artillery, its effect on masonry fortifications, and railroads.
The Prussians, with their emphasis on rapid mobilization and deployment, discovered in those three wars (1864 3rd Danish, 1866 Austro-Prussian, 1870 Franco-Prussian) that they had a RR problem. In 1870 it was so bad that von Moltke refused a request from von Bismarck to bombard Paris because he could not get the shells forward, needing the RR to move food instead. So the Prussian/German Army ended up adopting wholesale the organization and methods of the USMRR when they improved their own service.
On wider matters, the Prussians/Germans had a not-invented-here attitude. Flush with victory, they studied their own campaigns. The Prussian/German Great General Staff has never done a study of the American Civil War -- although they did do studies of the Boer war and the Russo-Japanese War. Not surprising; most European militaries ignored the Civil War, with 2 exceptions: Britain and Russia. Even Britain largely went ga-ga for things Prussian from 1870-1890, until the rise of G. F. R. Henderson, with his emphasis on Jackson and Lee.
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.
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