Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
RE Lee considered it a surrender & the men who actually fought for the CS considered it a surrender. All that need be said regardless of what the wannabes and IwishIwas had to say on the matter.
It's evident there are something in the neighborhood of 297 pages on this thread that have been ignored.
Not a hundred yards to the North of the McLean house, there is a mound of dirt which is dated 10 April 1865.
This is where Lee and Grant met on horseback THE DAY AFTER, and Grant was so hot to get Lee to get the rest of the Confederacy to capitulate... because Lee was such a
great leader in the South...
Seems to me that on April 10, 1865 Lee lacked the authority to capitulate the remainder of the Confederate army. He certainly didn't control the will (though he doubltess had a warm spot in their hearts) of the Army of Tennessee. Like Lee in Virginia, the AOT was not ready to quit, though they indivually must have welcomed the opportunity for rest.
__________________ 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
The South has to eternally live down this event which happened at Appomattox, even though the South never surrendered there... only 8,000 of Lee's men.
Lee was told by one of his men that He was the South, He was the government. Do not deny history. Although not all the men surrendered at Appomattox, Southern armies continued to surrender until all had done so, except for the few who fled overseas.
The South, in fact, never surrendered. Neither did the Confederate government. Davis was captured, refused to ask for pardon, and was released on his own recognizance... forever.
No surrender.
This is an emotional response to a historical fact that the South did surrender, one army at a time, but it did eventually surrender.
The signs which proclaim WHERE OUR NATION REUNITED are wrong...
It was done with much pain and resentment with old wounds and bad memories, but the nation is reunited. The only people who seem to contest that cannot seem to get over a four year period in our nation's history.
But if you think any terrorist is going to take the time to sort out Southern Americans for Northern ones, go ahead and give it a try. To the world, we are all Yankees. We are all Americans.
We did not reunite there. It may well have been WWI before any such thing took place...
Again, an emotional response. As early as the end of the war, signs of reunification had taken place. It has been said that the Spainish-American War finally healed most of the rift and resentment.
There has never been a Federal ceremony to reunite the country... why not? Why not a Fifth of July event, to
honor both sides, like the reenactments do?
There was. At Appomattox. The fighting ended and the men went home.
WHO SPEAKS FOR US, NOW?
People speak all the time about the South, the Confederacy, about the history of the war. Take your pick.
This continued hammering of SLAVERY is, as Davis said, detrimental to the understanding of the issue...
It is the continual downplaying of slavery as the cause of the war that is 'detrimental to the understanding of the issue,' the continuing campaign to hide it, distort it, shove into a dark corner like it never existed. This is the true harm, ignoring or destroying a part of history that NEEDS to be remembered and learned from.
It makes the North look like the Negroes' deliverers, which they weren't. Ever.
As Lincoln said, slavery was a national sin that God had pretty much decided had to be washed away in blood and treasure. He also said if the South was a great user of slaves, than the North had to bear the sin of being great carriers of slaves. When it comes to slavery, there's enough blame to go around.
It makes the South look like racist swine, and their flag a racist swastika... which it isn't...
The nation, not just the South, but the entire nation must recognize the historical, undeniable fact, that the South left the Union over the issue of slavery thus bringing on the Civil War. It isn't right, it isn't wrong, but it is a historical fact.
Meet us halfway. We are MORE THAN THERE, ALREADY, SIR.
History cannot be met halfway. It is what it is, and no amount of compromise is going to make it anything else.
Beowulf
I have no problem discussing history. I have no problem debating it or even disagreeing over it.
I will not recreate it.
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
Seems to me that on April 10, 1865 Lee lacked the authority to capitulate the remainder of the Confederate army. He certainly didn't control the will (though he doubltess had a warm spot in their hearts) of the Army of Tennessee. Like Lee in Virginia, the AOT was not ready to quit, though they indivually must have welcomed the opportunity for rest.
Larry,
Lee may have lacked the military authority, but Lee and his army had become the Confederacy and its last hope.
There is no denying that when Lee surrendered, people throughout the South knew it was the end.
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
The nation, not just the South, but the entire nation must recognize the historical, undeniable fact, that the South left the Union over the issue of slavery thus bringing on the Civil War. It isn't right, it isn't wrong, but it is a historical fact.
Here's another fact that needs to be recognized-
If secession (an independent South) had not cost the North money...there would have been no war.
__________________ 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."
Here's another fact that needs to be recognized-
If secession (an independent South) had not cost the North money...there would have been no war.
The economy of slavery. If the "South" had not felt it threatened there would have been no war. No matter how you try, how you cloud the issue w/ smoke and mirrors slavery is that 800 pound pig wallowing in the mud behind you.
It isn't, wasn't the south but the Confederacy. Southern doesn't mean Confederate and Confederate doesn't mean southern. Too many non slaveowners and no slaveowning areas remained loyal to the US over the CS. Whole areas of states.
__________________ 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
Beowulf, Lee could not do so. He was no politician, thank God for that, he had too much integrity. Saying the CS still exists is a joke, men who were actually there knew it was over; a few stay behinders and wannabes thought otherwise and still do.
Sherman ripped the guts out of the CS, then Appomatox and Johnston and a little later the last surrenders with Stand Watie. The war was over and the CS was well and truly dead. Those who wish to resurrect it simply speak treason today. But to my constant amusement US authorities look at them as nothing more than an effette joke, less dangerous than illiterate goat herders. To me that is fitting. One is all talk, the other is actually dangerous and would just as easily kill the League of the Souther as me.
I'm reminded of a post war incident, a Southerner was preaching to the four winds about how the CS had not lost, never been beaten. A former CS General walked up to him and asked if he had served. He replied in the negative; "I did; and we were beaten." Wannabe vs a man who was there; the man who was there said all that need be said on the matter.
Men like Forrest and Lee knew it was over. Both are men who would have known that salient fact quite well.
The CS govt failed the "south" not the CS soldier. It was the CS soldier who was beaten in the field. The CS govt fell apart under the weight of its own incompetance. And with it slavery in the US died an ignoble death.
__________________ 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
And we still have not been presented Any of those 'other' (non-slave) issues that singly or all together was potent enough to justify a great Civil War, of which most contemporary southern people and especially their leaders were apparently unaware.
Seems to me that on April 10, 1865 Lee lacked the authority to capitulate the remainder of the Confederate army. He certainly didn't control the will (though he doubltess had a warm spot in their hearts) of the Army of Tennessee. Like Lee in Virginia, the AOT was not ready to quit, though they indivually must have welcomed the opportunity for rest.
It is my understanding that he relinquished his command over the entire army, and kept only his own command, so that he could not order everyone's surrender...
Purposely.
My theory is so he would not have to collaborate with the enemy should he be captured, which he was...
And like Davis, he was treated like the enemy until the day he died under the rule of a foreign government...
The economy of slavery. If the "South" had not felt it threatened there would have been no war. No matter how you try, how you cloud the issue w/ smoke and mirrors slavery is that 800 pound pig wallowing in the mud behind you.
It isn't, wasn't the south but the Confederacy. Southern doesn't mean Confederate and Confederate doesn't mean southern. Too many non slaveowners and no slaveowning areas remained loyal to the US over the CS. Whole areas of states.
An economy brought to the South by the North. All of our dealings with 'your people' have ended in treachery from your end...
Independence. Slavery. The Constitution. Reconstruction.
Hollywood.
Your 'people' have dealt treacherously with us, every time.
And now, you personally wish to see the modern South
denied any honor in what their (and my) forebears did to stand up for their homeland and their state's call to honor. We tell it the way Davis said it happened, and for some reason, you cannot go with that, even though he uses your 'Weapon of Mass Destruction' WMD word, SLAVERY to good effect...
I once heard a reenactor say that the North held duty before honor, and the South held honor before duty...
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Linear Mode
