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.
"There is a critically important distinction no one is making.
Why the war started vs why an individual went to war. "How" you sell something, if you're Rhett or one of the others is very different from "why" you're giving the pitch or even "what" you're selling.
So, yes, the war started for one reason. The reasons an individual man signed up to fight are in many cases very different.
There was a book by a Lufwaffe piolt who touches on this idea, making reference to the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and even Sam Watkins makes mention of it. Their reasons for going seemed right to them at the time, but afterwards (if I read Watkins correctly) there was a sense of betrayal in the people that led them to make those decisions.
Even Shakespeare brushes up against the thought in one of the battle eve scenes in Henry V.
The expression "rich man's war, poor man's fight" touches it, but doesn't go far enough, IMO."
And then you, Larry, respond,
"Finally! Finally! Finally! Someone is paying attention and has their brain in gear! This is it in a nutshell. Neil, this is why your lecture is flawed. These men exist. There are documents to prove it. The writing of Capt. John Quincy Adams Bryant of the 10th Tennessee US Cavalry prove he thought that way. He and gg grandpa Cockerham were from Wilkes County, North Carolina and apparently of much the same mindset, They didn't give a hoot in ### about slavery, but were fond enough of the Union to stake their lives and the welfare of their families on their effort in the war. Current attempts to re-write history with blinders makes me confident that my service in the SCV is at least needed. The truth is the truth, no more no less. Baggagehandler, at least, is awake."
I did not deny that he wasn't awake, Larry, nor have I ever denied there were those who did not care about the issue of slavery one way or another when they enlisted and fought, both in the Northern and Southern armies.
Two things I have tried to bring forth with my previous and now this current "Slavery, THE Cause?" thread, was that:
1. Slavery was THE cause of the Civil War. You can't slice it, dice it, mix it up and say it was something else. Tariffs were not the cause, nor was Northern greed for profit, and in no way was a "centralizing federal government" that (at that time) consisted of a federal bureaucracy of a part-time attorney general, a handful of federal marshals, 16,000 soldiers, with two-thirds of them west of the Mississippi, with most of the average citizens contact with his/her federal government being through their local United States Post Office.
2. The majority of men who fought for the South knew that slavery, its preservation and protection, was the primary reason why they were fighting.
You keep saying the 'truth is the truth', that 'current attempts to re-write history with blinders' keeps you involved with your SCV chapter. All well and good, Larry, I have no problem with your dedication and service to honor the men who fought and died for what they believed in that long-ago war.
But the blinders can be worn by anyone if we are not careful. As one of my signature lines states, "Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes."
And the fact of the matter is, if a man enlisted into the Confederate Army he was fighting for the institution of slavery, to protect and maintain it, by use of military force with the blessing and support of his leaders and the civilian population of the South.
You comment of 'attempts to re-write history with blinders' and I reply we are simply getting more and more research that is bringing forth what people already knew in the 19th century. I refer to the books that I have read in the past concerning this very subject, The Black and the Gray, by Dunn, Confederate Emancipation, by Levine, What This Cruel War Was Over, by Manning, and others that have brought more of this history about the men in the ranks and what they fought for.
Now, another book that provides more supporting evidence that the men in the ranks of the Army of Northern Virginia knew what they were fighting for and why has appeared. General Lee's Army; From Victory To Collapse, by Joseph T. Glatthaar, has some more to say on the subject.
From Chapter 2, Secession And Mobilizing For War:
"...They acted to protect the institution of slavery. The Army of Northern Virginia fought for many reasons, but the events that led to its formation clarified the key factor of the Civil War: It was fought over slavery.
Since the Revolutionary era, and particularly in the four decades before the Civil War, tensions over slavery had heightened. Northerners, who often held the same racial prejudices as Southerners, envisioned no role for slavery in the nation's future; Southern whites could not imagine life without it. As Northerners challenged Southerners on slavery on moral, economic, and social grounds with increasing aggressiveness, Southerners clung to the institution more tenaciously. In time, the dispute ripped apart virtually every major national organization or institution and, ultimately, the United States of America...
To be sure, Southerners had other grievances against the North. Southern whites viewed their region as rural and dominated by agriculture; the North was more urbanized, more heavily industrialized. Southerners believed the tariff promoted Northern manufacturing at their expense, protecting Northerns products and compelling Southerners to buy higher-priced, inferior domestic goods. More generally, while Northerners advocated a stronger central government, the South stood for states' rights.
In fact, these issues were not quite so simple and clear-cut. Even though twenty-two of twenty-five of the largest cities were in the North, two of every three farms were also in Northern states. Some Southern groups, such as sugar growers, relished the tariff, because it protected them from foreign competition. Feared retaliatory tariffs that would hinder the sales of Southern agricultural products overseas never really materialized. And many Northerners, perhaps even a majority, believed in states' rights. Certainly Northerners employed states' rights concepts when it suited them, as with the Personal Liberty Laws. Differences in philosophy represented shades, not clear demarcations.
Still, slavery was the one issue that neither section could skirt. When Lincoln won the presidency without receiving a single Electoral College vote from Southern states, South Carolina passed an ordinance of secession. Within several months, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas followed suit..."
Pretty much ancient history with most of the members on this board and between us, but what about the ordinary soldier who served in the Army of Northern Virginia and their views on slavery?
To be continued...
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
So, what did the oridinary soldier think about slavery, at least the ones with the Army of Northern Virginia?
Taken from the book, General Lee's Army; From Victory To Collapse, by Joseph T. Glatthaar, Chapter 3, The Volunteers of '61:
"...For those volunteers who still lived at home, if one combines their personal wealth with their family's net worth, the picture appears very different. What emerges from an examination of that combined wealth is a huge range among these men. The ratio of soldiers and their families who had total assets under $300 was about one-third, the same as those who were worth more than $5,000, a truly substantial sum in 1860. One in every five enlistees and their families had accumulated wealth that surpassed $10,000; one in five were worth nothing, too. Rich and poor shouldered arms in equal proportions in 1861, and the middle lot of them were certainly from solid, middle-class backgrounds.
nonfamily wealth within their households, the figure for the average household rose to a staggering $11,205, while the median wealth increased dramatically to $3,500, or an upper-miiddle-class lifestyle. At the time of the secession crisis, John T. Kerfoot studied at Columbia College in Washington, D.C. His widowed mother owned one slave and was worth $1,500. Still, she resided in the home of John Smith, who may have been related to her. Smith claimed ownership of fifteen slaves and over $50,000 as his net worth, providing a quality of life that was a far cry from what John and his mother could afford on their total assets.
Even more reavealing was their attachment to slavery. Among the enlistees in 1861, slightly more that one in ten owned slaves personally. This compared favorably to the Confederacy as a whole, in which one in every twenty white persons owned slaves. Yet more than one in every four volunteers that first year lived with parents who were slaveholders. Combining those soldiers who owned slaves with those soldiers who lived with slaveholding family members, the proportion rose to 36 percent. That contrasted starkly with the 24.9 percent, or one in every four households, that owned slaves in the South, base on the 1860 census. Thus, volunteers in 1861 were 42 percent more likely to own slaves themselves or to live with family members who owned slaves than the general population.
The attachment to slavery, though, was even more powerful. One in every ten volunteers in 1861 did not own slaves themselves but lived in households headed by nonfamily members who did. This figure, combined with the 36 percent who owned or whose family members owned slaves, indicated that almost one of every two 1861 recruits lived with slaveholders. Nor did the direct exposure stop there. Untold numbers of enlistees rented land from, sold crops to, or worked for slaveholders. In the final tabulation, the vast majority of the volunteers of 1861 had a direct connection to slavery. For slaveholder and nonslaveholder alike, slavery lay at the heart of the Confederate nation. The fact that their paper notes frequently depicted scenes of slaves demonstrated the institution's central role and symbolic value to the Confederacy.
More than half the officers in 1861 owned slaves, and none of them lived with family members who were slaveholders. Their substantial median combined wealth ($5,600) and average combined wealth ($8,979) mirrored that high proportion of slave ownership. By comparison, only one in twelve enlisted men owned slaves, but when those who lived with family slave owners were included, the ratio exceeded one in three. That was 40 percent above the tally for all households in the Old South. With the inclusion of those who resided in nonfamily slaveholding households, the direct exposure to bondage among enlisted personnel was four of every nine..."
It seems my continuing reading and research are leading me to conclude that the average man in the ranks of the Confederate army knew exactly what he was fighting for and that slavery was a big part of that reason.
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
1. Slavery was THE cause of the Civil War. You can't slice it, dice it, mix it up and say it was something else. Tariffs were not the cause, nor was Northern greed for profit, and in no way was a "centralizing federal government" that (at that time) consisted of a federal bureaucracy of a part-time attorney general, a handful of federal marshals, 16,000 soldiers, with two-thirds of them west of the Mississippi, with most of the average citizens contact with his/her federal government being through their local United States Post Office.
I agree with all the above (essentially: no slavery means no secession means no war). One minor correction:
It wasn't "16,000 soldiers, with two-thirds of them west of the Mississippi". On January 1, 1861 it was seven-eighths of them that were stationed west of the Mississippi River, many on the West Coast or in Utah. More than 2100 were stationed in Texas -- and Texas claimed the Federal government wasn't doing enough to protect them from bandits and Indians. There is no discernable movement to the East by those troops before the attack on Ft. Sumter -- with the single exception of the troops being forced to withdraw from Texas by the secessionists there.
That leaves only about 2,000 US Army troops to garrison every post and hold every position East of the Mississippi River, scattered among the citizens of 23 states (24 if you want to count LA), probably something close to 30,000,000 people. Most US citizens never saw a Regular Army soldier in the course of their lives before the Civil War.
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.
...Tariffs were not the cause, nor was Northern greed for profit...
?
There has to be a Northern self-interest factor...otherwise there is 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."
There has to be a Northern self-interest factor...otherwise there is no war.
Try self-defense after being assaulted: it satisfies all your "self-interest" need.
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.
Try self-defense after being assaulted: it satisfies all your "self-interest" need.
Tim
Yes, this is the route the North used to start the war- the "innocent resupplying of forts" (done with warships)...but you have to identify the motivation behind it as the North had no need for forts in Southern harbors.
__________________ 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."
...but you have to identify the motivation behind it as the North had no need for forts in Southern harbors.
How do you know that? Even today, the United States maintains forts and military bases for its national protection. Why would that not be true in 1860? Fort Sumter wasn't built to attack Charleston, it was constructed as part of a chain of fortifications against potential foreign enemies. Suggesting the United States had no need for Fort Sumter is like suggesting there is no need for Fort Bragg, or Pearl Harbor, or any other bases today.
How do you know that? Even today, the United States maintains forts and military bases for its national protection. Why would that not be true in 1860? Fort Sumter wasn't built to attack Charleston [true], it was constructed as part of a chain of fortifications against potential foreign enemies [true]. Suggesting the United States had no need for Fort Sumter is like suggesting there is no need for Fort Bragg, or Pearl Harbor, or any other bases today.
"Why would that not be true in 1860?"
Yes, 1860...but not 1861...
"Fort Sumter wasn't built to attack Charleston"
...but they turned a gun on Charleston (the City, not a fort) in 1861
__________________ 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."
...but they turned a gun on Charleston (the City, not a fort) in 1861
We can talk about this "gun" if you want, but this conversation should be in a different thread. I am personally of the opinion that any such discussion will only reveal how you are taking the point and giving it undue importance. If you are serious about discussing it, please post all such to a new thread.
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.
Yes, this is the route the North used to start the war- the "innocent resupplying of forts" (done with warships)...but you have to identify the motivation behind it as the North had no need for forts in Southern harbors.
IMHO, this is merely an attempt to hijack the thread away from a discussion of slavery. If you seriously wish to discuss the issue of "innocent resupplying of forts", it belongs in another thread, so please start one (or revive one of the older threads where it has already been discussed.)
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.
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Slavery, THE Cause, Part II 
Linear Mode
