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.
Timewalker and Ole,
In reading your posts about alternatives to what played out at Fort Sumter, I remembered something from reading William Lee Miller, in "Lincoln, Duty of a Statesman." Miller said that if the SC guns had waited and fired on the supply ships, probably Anderson would have fired to protect the ships, and the CS would have than proceeded to reduce the fort, which was now shooting at them.
The Confederates could then plausibly argue they were acting defensively. Whether that would have made any real difference to Unionists, or makes any real difference at all, I don't know, but it would looked less like naked aggression.
Timewalker, you probably know this, but stationing navy and revenue ships outside of Charleston harbor was Andrew Jackson's solution to the nullification crisis.
Actually, I did not know that about Old Hickory. Thanks.
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
I feel dumber for even having read that statement.
Cedarstripper
Then just read the dispatches... their goal, if they couldn't get their 'guests' to check out of the Hotel California, was to reconfigure the fort, so that the eight or nine ships mentioned in the dispatches wouldn't be able to set up shop and plunder the country of South Carolina by an invasion of Charleston harbor!
Timewalker and Ole,
In reading your posts about alternatives to what played out at Fort Sumter, I remembered something from reading William Lee Miller, in "Lincoln, Duty of a Statesman." Miller said that if the SC guns had waited and fired on the supply ships, probably Anderson would have fired to protect the ships, and the CS would have than proceeded to reduce the fort, which was now shooting at them.
The Confederates could then plausibly argue they were acting defensively. Whether that would have made any real difference to Unionists, or makes any real difference at all, I don't know, but it would looked less like naked aggression.
Timewalker, you probably know this, but stationing navy and revenue ships outside of Charleston harbor was Andrew Jackson's solution to the nullification crisis.
The Confederates were only ever acting defensively. As Lee would say, "that is clear'.
And yeah, all the blood ran to Jackson's head, briefly, too, when he tasted raw power, and slipped THE RING on his finger for just a moment...
Myyyyyyy Prrreecciiouuussssss!!!!!!!!!! Give us the Precious! False master! Hurts us, the preciousest does!
-Gollum
Then just read the dispatches... their goal, if they couldn't get their 'guests' to check out of the Hotel California, was to reconfigure the fort, so that the eight or nine ships mentioned in the dispatches wouldn't be able to set up shop and plunder the country of South Carolina by an invasion of Charleston harbor!
You cannot say that the batteries can fire over 3000 shells at Ft Sumter without intent to kill, and an expectation of killing soldiers within the fort until a surrender is forced.
You cannot say that the batteries can fire over 3000 shells at Ft Sumter without intent to kill, and an expectation of killing soldiers within the fort until a surrender is forced.
Cedarstripper
Actually, I can, and do, make the presumption. They really didn't want to destroy the fort, at all, but 'honor' and 'duty' wouldn't allow Anderson to pack it in, and some nut in the White House was bent upon starting FOUR SEPARATE EXPEDITIONS TO REINFORCE FORTS ALL AT THE SAME TIME, according to H W Johnstone, ... and all the South wanted was for them to leave.
During the 'fight', when the fort fired back, it is said that cheers would go up from the mainland in honor of their attempts to make it 'look good for Lincoln'...
But the fort had to come down... and no one got hurt! You can't get over that, hoss!
Historical fact!
After it was over, they weren't executed, taken prisoner, nor anything else but allowed to salute their flag and do what they could have done at any moment earlier... LEAVE.
They got a great fireworks show, but little else. (In fact. earlier in the week, a shell from the Confederate mainland had gone off, and struck the fort accidentally, and a ship came immediately over under a flag of truce to explain! It's in the dispatches!).
So don't give me this bull that they were trying to kill them! They had been feeding them the best beef for a few weeks previously... 3000 shells... and NO ONE GETS HURT?
Yeah, right! They were really aiming to slaughter the whole garrison!
That's more Lincolnian spin-doctor so-gullible northern-type knee-jerk left-wing rhetorical hype!
During the 'fight', when the fort fired back, it is said that cheers would go up from the mainland in honor of their attempts to make it 'look good for Lincoln'...
"Make it 'look good for Lincoln"? Some more of your imaginative editorializing, or do you have a source for this?
Quote:
But the fort had to come down... and no one got hurt! You can't get over that, hoss!
A modern day cruise missile could not be sent through a window of Ft Sumter without an expectation that people inside would be wounded or killed.
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So don't give me this bull that they were trying to kill them! They had been feeding them the best beef for a few weeks previously... 3000 shells... and NO ONE GETS HURT?
Yeah, right! They were really aiming to slaughter the whole garrison!
They were aiming to hit the fort and/or anything in it. Your trivializing the attack on the fort as a "fireworks show" is idiotic. Pure idiotic.
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That's more Lincolnian spin-doctor so-gullible northern-type knee-jerk left-wing rhetorical hype!
That and Uncle Tom's Cabin!
More of the typical pollution you find necessary to fill your posts with.
Timewalker,
Of course the nullification crisis was tiny compared to the secession crisis of 1860. South Carolina was without allies, and Jackson could contain and defuse the crisis. He did talk tough about leading an army and hanging traitors, and might have done so if necessary, but a sole seceding SC was an absurdity.
Then just read the dispatches... their goal, if they couldn't get their 'guests' to check out of the Hotel California, was to reconfigure the fort, so that the eight or nine ships mentioned in the dispatches wouldn't be able to set up shop and plunder the country of South Carolina by an invasion of Charleston harbor!
Beowulf
So your point, then, is that the Confederates (with over 10,000 soldiers and many heavy guns) were afraid that a tiny number of ships (some of which are tugboats) with 200 soldiers aboard (mainly raw recruits at that, and from an Artillery regiment) were going to sail into the harbor through their fire, land, kick their butts, and plunder South Carolina? I think that is probably the silliest theory I've heard in a long time.
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.
were afraid that a tiny number of ships (some of which are tugboats) with 200 soldiers aboard (mainly raw recruits at that, and from an Artillery regiment) were going to sail into the harbor through their fire, land, kick their butts, and plunder South Carolina? I think that is probably the silliest theory I've heard in a long time.
Tim
True...that's why the main purpose of the expedition was provocation.
__________________ 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."
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