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.
Your Dad has it right, in the end it is your sense of duty, your loyalty to your men. It is like women and child birth, unless you have experienced it, you can't explain it or lunderstand it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by larry_cockerham
Beautiful post, Tim. That one slowed me for a moment as I thought of my own Dad and Uncle. Dad was Army Air Corps in Africa and Italy while Uncle Charles drove a tank into the battle of the Bulge. Charles still won't talk about it today. Both survived and have great grandchildren.
Pickney & Larry,
Thanks.
There are a lot of people from WWII (not to mention our other wars) who will have had the same experiences and knowledge.
I have a friend I met online years ago, 3rd generation USMA on both sides. One grandfather was at Kasserine Pass. The other was a cavalry officer in the Phillipines when the war started, survived the Death March, and was killed when the Japanese shipped them back to Japan and the ship was torpedoed. My friend's father was in Viet Nam.
I knew a guy in college who had been a pharmacist's mate on an aircraft carrier off Viet Nam. He figured he was doing his duty and riding this war out pretty good at the same time: movies, good food, nobody shooting at him. One day the word came down: the Marines were short of medics, and the Marines do not have their own corpsmen -- they are Navy. An hour or so later, he was getting in a helicopter on deck.
My nephew Robert is back from two tours in Iraq with the 101st.
My father-in-law, who went into Italy through Anzio, was aboard ship, approaching the East end of the Panama Canal and headed for the Far East, when the Japanese surrendered.
My Aunt Rusty, an Army nurse, went into Europe through the invasion in southern France. She was in mid-Atlantic when the surrender news came, also headed for the Pacific. My wife and I hope to visit her this week in Virginia, where we are taking a tour out to Appomattox with Ed Bearss -- who ran into some Japanese machine fire in New Guinea, IIRR.
My Dad was on some island in the Phillipines when the war ended, getting ready for his third assault landing, the one scheduled for 1946 outside Tokyo.
Average people, who would gladly have avoided the experience of war, but who would see it through when they had to do so.
That is all any of us were, just ordinary folks who did their duty. We have some more ordinary folks now who are doing their duty. I pray they are well led, know victory and find peace.
I pray they are well led, know victory and find peace.
That SO says it all. And I fervently hope they will not be hobbled with interference.
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 issue of whether or not the 'ordinary' Confederate soldier (esp. non-slaveholders) has popped up repeatedly over numerous threads throughout this forum.
In a new book What This Cruel War Was Over by Chandra Manning, the author makes a case (using soldiers own words from letters, diaries, and regimental newspapers) that both Union and confederate soldiers identified slavery as the root of the Civil War. In this well documented work (over 100 pages of notes and sources vs. approx. 220 pages of text), Manning, although acknowledging that many Union soldiers enlisted to preserve the Union rather than to fight slavery, she asserts that both slavery and emancipation were constant topics of discussion as early as 1861. She disputes that non-slaveholding Confederate soldiers (who were the overwhelming majority) fought primarily to defend hearth and home from Yankee invaders. Rather, she maintains that the defense of slavery was intimately tied to their sense of manhood, honor, and their place in the Southern social structures.
"Black slavery enabled white liberty and equality because it allowed all whites to pursue property ownership (including slaves) without outside interference, and because it made whites equal in not being slaves.' .... "To take one example, an Alabama soldier wrote "Run, Yank, or Die," a song that soldiers from other states exchanged and sent home to give loved ones a taste of camp life, and to help explain the war from an enlisted point of view."
On the above, Manning cites the Henry Baines Papers, Confederate Military Manuscripts Ser. B, Reel 5, in which is noted that one "T. W. Crowson of the Alabama Hickories composed "Run, Yank, or Die," Pvt. Edward Baines, a Louisiana soldier from West Feliciana Parish, so enjoyed sharing the song with his comrades in camp that he wrote a letter home from Columbus , Ky. on November 4, 1861, on the back of a printed copy of the song so he could share it with his family."
I found this interesting, so did a bit of research of my own to find the song itself and more about it's author, and if there was any other documentation as the the song being "exchanged" with other soldiers.
What I found:
Thomas W. Crowson enlisted on September 25, 1861 at Mooresville, Alabama (Morgan County) he served in the Alabama Hickories (later Co. "E", 40th Tn Infantry, then Co. "I" 54th Alabama Infantry). Apparently he wrote other songs, one titled "The Times and Fashions".
Other examples of the song's dissemination among seemingly 'ordinary' soldiers:
"February 27: [1862] ... "About 12 o'clock we arrived at the city of Pittsburg (now Blanco), as we were informed by one citizen that lived there. In honor of our arrival, the boys sang "Run, Yank or Die." It was here that we got a gilmpse of the first Confederate flag since we started.""
- Recollections of D. P. Hopkins of the Henry T. Davis Ranger Company, from the San Marcos Record, some years after the war. (Part or the Texas Frontier regiment / 1st Texas partisan Rangers)
Pat King letter, 1862 March 21 Written from Marine Hospital, Vicksburg, Mississippi to his brother. Requests money for tobacco and other necessities. One page is written on back of printed song “Run , Yank, or Die, composed by T.W. Crowson of the Alabama Hickories.”
Civil War Collection, 1860-1972 Confederate soldier's song, "Run Yank or Die." Found among papers of J. E. Harling of Belton, Texas, who was a Confederate soldier, ca. 1864. Original, transcription,
The song, well it has no references to fighting for states rights, nor family and home, nor tariffs, nor conscription (this was written before the Confederate Conscription Act of April 16, 1862), nor 'honor'.
Its' predominant theme is most certainly slavery as its' references to "John Brown" and Andy Johnson joining Lincoln "to set the negroes free" would indicate, but the repetition of the chorus would indicate what they believe they are fighting for, or at least singing about:
Run Yank or Die
Now if you will listen, while I relate
About the case of freedom you're here to calculate
Old Abe tried to enslave us, but soon it was the cry;
"O liberty for Southern boys; run Yank or die."
Chorus
Hurrah for slavery, for Southerners are the boys
For singing and fighting, and stopping Yankee noise.
The young Confederacy is getting on quite spry,
So big Yank, little Yank, run Yank or die.
Charles, the finest looking mortal that ever I did see;
He tied John Brown's body to a white oak tree.
To see him tie the rope you ought to stand by.
'Twas done with Carolina cotton; run Yank or die.
Chorus
Hurrah for slavery, for Southerners are the boys
For singing and fighting, and stopping Yankee noise.
The young Confederacy is getting on quite spry,
So big Yank, little Yank, run Yank or die
There's old Andy Johnson of East Tennessee, He's gone and joined Lincoln to set the negroes free.
But when he undertakes it, he's shore for to sigh
He'll back from the Southern boys; run Yank or die.
Chorus
Hurrah for slavery, for Southerners are the boys
For singing and fighting, and stopping Yankee noise.
The young Confederacy is getting on quite spry,
So big Yank, little Yank, run Yank or die
The little Southern Yankees are getting very sick.
They don't like medicine, because it is so thick;
And when they go to take it, it is sure to hurt their eye.
They don't like Southern pills; run Yank or die
Chorus
Hurrah for slavery, for Southerners are the boys
For singing and fighting, and stopping Yankee noise.
The young Confederacy is getting on quite spry,
So big Yank, little Yank, run Yank or die
We're going out to Richmond to get all the news,
We're coming back by Washington to get old Lincoln's shoes.
And as we walk the streets, the Yankees they will fly.
They'll hollow out, "It's Southern boys"; run Yank or die.
Chorus
Hurrah for slavery, for Southerners are the boys
For singing and fighting, and stopping Yankee noise.
The young Confederacy is getting on quite spry,
So big Yank, little Yank, run Yank or die
Old General Scott is a might great sinner,
Who never comes to fight us, but he's sure to bring his dinner.
Chorus
Hurrah for slavery, for Southerners are the boys
For singing and fighting, and stopping Yankee noise.
The young Confederacy is getting on quite spry,
So big Yank, little Yank, run Yank or die
The little northern Yankees are getting very grand.
They brought down their dinner and set it on our land.
They had all kinds of sweets, mixed up in a pie,
But the Southern boys ate it up; run Yank or die
Chorus
Hurrah for slavery, for Southerners are the boys
For singing and fighting, and stopping Yankee noise.
The young Confederacy is getting on quite spry,
So big Yank, little Yank, run Yank or die
There were the northern ladies, no doubt they look fine,
Standing round the table with demijohns of wine.
but when they saw us coming, they made their hoops fly.
'Twas no place for women folks; run Yank or die.
Chorus
Hurrah for slavery, for Southerners are the boys
For singing and fighting, and stopping Yankee noise.
The young Confederacy is getting on quite spry,
So big Yank, little Yank, run Yank or die
Old Abe's head is now getting gray.
He asked General Davis for ninety days' stay.
He had to have money; he wanted time to try.
But Jeff would not grant it to him; run Yank or die.
Chorus
Hurrah for slavery, for Southerners are the boys
For singing and fighting, and stopping Yankee noise.
The young Confederacy is getting on quite spry,
So big Yank, little Yank, run Yank or die
I'll have some words of the soldiers of both sides concerning slavery in future posts.
__________________ -
"It was a very peculiar time." - Franklin D. Cossitt
Ancestors in USA Army: 6th IA Inf, 11th IL Cav, 1st AL Cav; 122nd NY Inf; 6th MI Cav; 35th MA Inf; 100th IL Inf; 1st CO Inf/Cav; 22nd IN Inf
From the Savannah Morning News, March 6, 1907. (Excerpt from Gen. Floyd King's Address to the March meeting of the Confederate Veterans Association on Jubal Early and the Valley Campaign):
"You fought comrades, and you suffered Confederates, in the cause of the white man--for the upholding and the maintenance of the dignity and supremacy of the white man; for the preservation and the purity of the white race. That cause still lives, and will live forever. As long as there is a white man on earth; as long as the eternal God rules the universe and dwells in the heavens, that cause, your cause, will live. 'Tis true the federal government is saved, and I pray it may ever remain. But under the government, and those of the states by the decree of God, the cause of the white man must and shall be fought to a final and eternal triumph."
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
I think taking so many young soldiers into Pennsylvania was a terrible mistake by Lee.
The reality of seeing first hand, an effective economy not operating with slaves, must have made a serious impression with a young private.
After the Battle of Gettysburg, young Confederate soldiers started the trek to desertion. With such logistical superiority, how could slavery last more than a few years.
I think by 1863, it became less of the fight of the non-slave owning enlisted soldier. He was fighting for a "country" unable to properly supply its soldiers, against a force with a seemingly deep well of arms, food and supplies.
I think by 1863, the "states rights" speeches of the old secessionists grew a little hollow to quite a number of soldiers in their butternut uniforms. Over the next two winters, as things became harder on the homefront, many soldiers have more reasons to leave the army, than stay. Long before Appomattox, the Confederate army had lost the war on the logistical battlefield and more severely, on the homefront.
I think taking so many young soldiers into Pennsylvania was a terrible mistake by Lee.
The reality of seeing first hand, an effective economy not operating with slaves, must have made a serious impression with a young private.
After the Battle of Gettysburg, young Confederate soldiers started the trek to desertion. With such logistical superiority, how could slavery last more than a few years.
I think by 1863, it became less of the fight of the non-slave owning enlisted soldier. He was fighting for a "country" unable to properly supply its soldiers, against a force with a seemingly deep well of arms, food and supplies.
I think by 1863, the "states rights" speeches of the old secessionists grew a little hollow to quite a number of soldiers in their butternut uniforms. Over the next two winters, as things became harder on the homefront, many soldiers have more reasons to leave the army, than stay. Long before Appomattox, the Confederate army had lost the war on the logistical battlefield and more severely, on the homefront.
I don't know whether this applied to Lee's ANV in 1863. I do remember reading how it affected Morgan's men when they were raiding across Ohio in June and July of 1863.
They were used to war in Tennessee and Kentucky, where young men had generally vanished from the towns and only the young, the women, and the elderly seemed to remain. If you read their story, they were astonished at the number of young men that remained in the farms, villages, and towns of the North two years into the war, and at the prosperity of the country.
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