After Appomattox?

[larry_cockerham]

Originally Posted by samgrant

Jeff Davis did not think (or admit) that it was over.

Jeff wasn't available for press interview. He was last seen hauling *** and what was left of the Confederate treasury through Salisbury, NC on his way to being caught down in Georgia and thrown in the slammer.

[larry_cockerham]

[quote=ole] My point was that there were enough hardcases and those buttheads at home to keep some discomfort going. For a while. And even among those who were done with it were a few that didn't mind takin' out a yankee or two if the occasion presented itself.

/QUOTE]

Those guys are still alive (or at least their descendants) in certain parts of the South. God bless'em. (just kidding?)

[ole]

Gary's Post:

Pretty hard to fight when you have to ask the Union Army for food.

Small groups would have had no trouble living off the folks in the untouched backwoods. The farmers outside army-visited areas were unaffected and there was, 'though scattered and remote, plenty of food and fodder available for stealing.
Ole

[larry_cockerham]

[QUOTE though scattered and remote, plenty of food and fodder available for stealing.
Ole[/quote]

Even the rugged high country were I grew up was hit by both armies and the bushwackers on occasion. The South was a wasteland....

[ole]

The South was a wasteland....

Disagree. Your youth was spent in an area overrun by bushwhackers. It was a wasteland. A strip from Chattangoga to Savannah and from Savannah to Bentonville was a wasteland. The Shenandoah Valley was a wasteland. Western Tennessee and Northern Mississippi were wastelands, courtesy of the Union army and NB Forrest. Northern Alabama and Georgia were wastelands. That leaves a lot of area untouched or touched briefly.
Ole

[larry_cockerham]

Ole, my area of western North Carolina wasn't overrun by much of anybody except a few blue tick hounds looking for coon. Too many mountains in the way, but not enough human population to make much difference. Now you take north and south Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia and south Alabama plus most of Georgia and Kentucky, different story. Rather than the strips you describe then literal entire countryside was occupied or at least foraged by one or both armies. The plotted route of Forrest's Division alone is almost as crowded as the current highway map. That one amazed me when I saw it. Weight Watchers would have had few clientele for several years after 1865. An army would have needed food stamps.

[samgrant]

Some suggest that the Rebels, at the outset, should have adapted those 'guerrilla' tactics used by the 'rebels' against the British in that Revolutionary War, etc.

[gary]

Ole - I don't disagree with you that small groups could have survived. Guerilla warfare depends on a population that supported them. Mosby demonstrated this in the two counties that became Mosby's Confederacy. However, how many would have persisted? A few of course, but not many.

[larry_cockerham]

Originally Posted by samgrant

Some suggest that the Rebels, at the outset, should have adapted those 'guerrilla' tactics used by the 'rebels' against the British in that Revolutionary War, etc.

Sam, you make have just described Lt. Gen. N.B. Forrest, CSA. In the south, even if the guerilla units had been created, they would have run into conflict with the remnants of the bushwacker and home guard units already in the out-of-the-way locales and depending on the same war starved families for support. It was time for the war to end, to say the least.

[whitworth]

the fight in the Southern Dog was over.