The irrelevance of Sumter & slavery

[bill_torrens]

Neil,

As for Texas Gov. F.W. Stockdale, I repeat, Lee's biographer said those words were completely out of character to have been said by Lee. As you may have observed on the 'Interview with General Lee' thread, I am of the opinion that the Union chaplain's version of his interview is suspect and has been called into question as not being in Lee's style or words. Maybe Bill would be willing to comment on this quote, as he provided some good expertise on the thread I just mentioned.

I'm no expert on Lee, and would hate to give the impression that I think I am. But I'll give you my opinion.

Lee followed a rigid policy after the war of restricting his public comments on politics to expressions of a desire for reconciliation. He was realistic enough to understand that the victors had the absolute power to do as they wished, and that any comment of his was eminently quotable and likely to do harm if controversial.

Privately, it was a different matter. Emory Thomas, in his biography of Lee, quotes a letter he wrote to his cousin Annette Carter in March 1868:

I grieve for posterity, for American principles & American liberty. Our boasted self Govt. is fast becoming the jeer & laughing stock of the world.

[Thomas, Robert E. Lee, p.391.]

The alleged comment to Stockdale is not completely incompatible with the above, is it? The question is: how well did he know Stockdale and how well did he trust him? The credibility of the quote depends largely on that, in my opinion.

Bill

[unionblue]

Bill,

Thanks for the clarification that you are NOT an expert on Lee. But I trust your view more than I would others on the subject.

But this quote has been around for a long time and I have heard time and time again that this is not Lee, that it does not sound like him or it should not be credited to him. It reminds me of the oft-repeated quote that Grant was supposed to have given on slavery, something like, 'if the war had been about slavery I would have given up my sword' or some such muck. It has been disproven more than once, but it keeps popping up.

I suppose it is now on me to track down this reference by the Lee biographer I keep referring to. As soon as I find it, I'll post it here.

Thanks for the input,
Unionblue
PS Any thoughts on the numbers of innocent civilians killed in Gerorgia and South Carolina?

[bill_torrens]

Neil,

I guessed that "the biographer" to whom you referred must be Freeman. And Freeman's 4-volume biography is available on-line. Here is the footnote from Vol.4 which must be the one to which you refer:

T. C. Johnson: Life and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney, 498 ff. Doctor Dabney was not present and received his account of the meeting from Governor Stockdale. The latter told Dabney that he was the last to leave the room, and that as he was saying good-bye, Lee closed the door, thanked him for what he had said and added: "Governor, if I had foreseen the use these people desired to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox, no, sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in this right hand." This, of course, is second-hand testimony. There is nothing in Lee's own writings and nothing in direct quotation by first-hand witness that accords with such an expression on his part. The nearest approach to it is the claim by H. Gerald Smythe that "Major Talcott" — presumably Colonel T. M. R. Talcott — told him Lee stated he would never have surrendered the army if he had known how the South would have been treated. Mr. Smythe stated that Colonel Talcott replied, "Well, General, you have only to blow the bugle," whereupon Lee is alleged to have answered, "It is too late now" (29 Confederate Veteran, 7). Here again the evidence is not direct. The writer of this biography, talking often with Colonel Talcott, never heard him narrate this incident or suggest in any way that Lee accepted the results of the radical policy otherwise than with indignation, yet in the belief that the extremists would not always remain in office. For these reasons the writer is unwilling to quote this doubtful testimony in the text.


Re the killing of "innocent civilians" in Georgia & South Carolina, it's outside of my area of (relative) expertise. My only question is "what is a guilty civilian"?

Bill

[unionblue]

Bill,

Thank you for your efforts on finding the article on the quote. It seems pretty clear to me the man did not want to use it or credit it to Lee and he himself calls it 'doubtful testimony.'

A gulity civilian? A politician, of course.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[cedarstripper]

Bill,

Originally Posted by bill_torrens

My only question is "what is a guilty civilian"?

Well, one type (not limited to) would be a "war rebel."

Lieber Code:
Article 85. War-rebels are persons within an occupied territory who rise in arms against the occupying or conquering army, or against the authorities established by the same. If captured, they may suffer death, whether they rise singly, in small or large bands, and whether called upon to do so by their own, but expelled, government or not. They are not prisoners of war; nor are they if discovered and secured before their conspiracy has matured to an actual rising or to armed violence.

Cedar

[bill_torrens]

Matthew,

Thanks for your post 211, and apologies for the delay in replying.

Since we last spoke I’ve stumbled across an article in a back copy of C.W.T.I. which sheds some interesting light on this subject.

It relates to informal peace discussions held on 17th July 1864 between Jefferson Davis & Judah P. Benjamin on the one hand and two amateur Northern diplomats named James R. Gilmore & James F. Jaquess on the other.

Lincoln knew of the meeting in advance; while he did not empower Gilmore & Jaquess to speak for him or transmit formal proposals, he did advise them on the Federal Government’s minimum requirements for the restoration of peace.

The talks ran aground pretty quickly. Asked how peace could be obtained, Davis replied:

Withdraw your armies from our territory, and peace will come of itself. We do not seek to subjugate you. We are not waging an offensive war, except so far as it is offensive-defensive – that is, so far as we are forced to invade you to prevent your invading us. Let us alone, and peace will come at once.

This was unacceptable, and so that was that. But Davis said some other things which strike me as interesting. He went on to say:

I tried all in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, and for twelve years I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves; and so the war came, and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize his musket and fight his battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self-government.

He then added:

We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for independence – and that, or extermination, we will have.

Gilmore responded “And slavery you say is no longer an element in the contest.” Davis answered:

No it is not, it never was an essential element…It was only a means of bringing other conflicting elements to an earlier culmination…It fired the musket which was already capped and loaded. There are essential differences between the North and South that will, however this war may end, make them two nations.

[Nelson, Independence Or Fight, Civil War Times Illustrated, June 1976, pp. 10-14]

On the subject of slavery, as discussed by Davis, it seems to me that there are three possibilities:

1. He was telling the truth.

2. He was lying.

3. He was subconsciously deluding himself.

I think most reasonable people would discount the second option. The third is certainly possible, and there is no way of definitively refuting it. But I am inclined to think that he simply told the truth: whatever the significance of slavery as a motive behind secession (and this is a subject on which controversy will continue to rage for all time) there is no doubt in my mind that the experience of waging war elevated Confederate nationalism in loyal Southern minds to a point where it became more important than preserving slavery. This happened very late…too late, but it did happen. This does not change the fact that disaffection with the Confederate cause infected a significant part of the population, but it does mean that, for those who remained true, the goalposts had moved significantly over four years. In the concluding paragraph of “The Creation Of Confederate Nationalism” the author states that

Confederate nationalism was at once critique and defense of the South…just as the war so many southerners expected to end within a few weeks became a conflagration unlike anything mankind had known before, so too their efforts at constructing a public ideology yielded unimagined consequences. The creation of Confederate nationalism represented an apotheosis of the Old South at the same time it introduced glimmerings of the New; it caught the South within the paradoxes of that very change the Confederate nation had been founded to avert.

[Faust, The Creation Of Confederate Nationalism, pp.84-85.]

What Faust touches on above is part of the reason why I don’t believe slavery would have long survived Confederate independence. Even with a Southern victory, 1865 would have seemed as far removed from 1861 as 1918 was from 1914 or 1945 was from 1939. A different, quite different world.

Bill

[hawglips]

Originally Posted by unionblue

Per your post#216, of course it did and of course firing on Ft. Sumter had something to do with 'forced Union.' If neither had taken place, there would have been no war.

Unionblue

Sumter was a convenient excuse. A sledgehammer swatting a fly.

Lincoln had already declared that his military invasion was coming, unless the seceders reversed their decisions and submitted to US revenue collectors and occupying forces within their borders.

Hal

[Alabaman]

Slavery was used as a 'noble' battlecry, utilized to veil the real reason for coercion, invasion and subsequent total war.

Rob Adams

[ole]

Bill:

Yesterday I started writing you a note literally bursting with warm fuzzies and marshmallows. The second I punched "Post Quick Reply," the site went down.

Could it be that CWT cannot survive my saying something nice to you? As I am not willing to take that chance, I thought that you should at least know that I tried.
Ole

[cedarstripper]

Originally Posted by Alabaman

Slavery was used as a 'noble' battlecry, utilized to veil the real reason for coercion, invasion and subsequent total war.

What was the REAL reason, again, Rob?