And if Gen. Lee hadn't surrendered at Appomattox...

[jgoodguy]

If what you are saying is correct, that they did not conduct guerrilla fighting because slavery was destroyed, do you have any evidence to back it up? Letters, diaries, speeches, etc saying lets give up, slavery is hopeless?

The CSA was based on slavery.

Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.

We can read the articles of secession to see that slavery was the reason for secession.

4. WAR IS A MERE CONTINUATION OF POLICY BY OTHER MEANS.

We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar to War relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means which it uses. That the tendencies and views of policy shall not be incompatible with these means, the Art of War in general and the Commander in each particular case may demand, and this claim is truly not a trifling one. But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them; for the political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.

War therefore is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will.

What was the purpose of the war. It was to force the political will of the South on the North. What did the South want? Independence to practice slavery. Not anything else.

Take a look at the CSA constitution and you will see that it is a near clone of the US Constitution with no additional freedoms expressed except.

Article 1 section 9 para 4. No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed

Article 4 section 1 paragraph 1. (1) The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States;and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.

The bottom line is that war is a contemplated action with a purpose. That purpose is to impose ones political will on an opponent.

So once more time what was the reason for the war, what political result did the South want, independent existence as a slave state.Would guerrilla warfare obtain this? No.


The next issue is what else would guerrilla warfare obtain for the South. No additional rights – none were in the CSA Constitution. Independence? Maybe but to what end?

Diaries and such are not available. First the decision to continue or not will be at the highest military and political level and not recorded in the average diary nor is defeat something to give speeches about.
"Planters probably understood that a guerrilla campaign could not achieve what four years of conventional warfare had not – That is the preservation of slaver" Guerrilla war promised racial conflagration and total social collapse". Retreat to Victory by Tanner p 107.

Thus the evidence is circumstantial to a great extent.

1. There was no guerrilla war.
2. The war aims of the CSA was a independent slave state.
3. An independent slave state was unlikely to be won in a guerrilla war.
4. There was no other issue to fight about. Independence without slavery was not an issue.
5. Chaos from a guerrilla war would be detrimental to Southern leadership.
6. It would be impossible to hold large number of slaves and fight a guerrilla war at the same time.

So the bottom line is that without slavery the South did not have anything to fight for except slavery and that was impossible during a guerrilla war.

 

[jgoodguy]

The war continued on for more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. Even as slaves began their exodus from masters' homes and plantations, the war labored on in spite of this. If the Confederacy had the kind of provisions, supplies and manpower that the much larger Union had, then you can bet your bottom dollar the war would have gone on indefinitely until one side ran out of steam, luck or both.

Indeed. The ACW continued until the South was unable to obtain its political objective by force.

By that time, the Union occupied the heartland of the CSA and there were no effective forces to oppose them. The union imposed its political objective on the South by force.

 

[carson_reb]

This article could have started off better. The writer rather ungraciously nudges his way into a hypothetical "what if" about Lee and Appomattox with a polarization of modern political America. I am a political Independent, but I take offense to the notion that the Grand Old (Republican) Party is more closely associated to the CSA than to the USA. I used to be an active Republican, and never once did I consider myself or my views more Confederate than Unionist.

These parts of the article disturb me:

"...a variety of Republicans have argued that the 14th Amendment, or at least a portion of it, should be rescinded."

What I have heard from people in multiple political associations (not just republican or democrat) is that there should be a law that addresses the "anchor baby" loophole, which has become such a critical part of the illegal immigration issue. What the writer has written, though, is unfortunately vague, and it implies that Republicans want to restore slavery and revoke human rights, especially when associated with the following statement written in the succeeding paragraph:

"The Confederacy...may have lost the fighting...but the social and political values of those Red States live on, nurtured and sustained in a Republican Party that often sounds more Confederate in its ideology than Jefferson Davis..."

Let's see a show of Republican and/or traditional conservative hands: Who wants to restore slavery? Who wants to suppress people of their human rights, and deprive them of essential liberty?

Anybody? Anybody? ...Bueler? Bueler?

 

[carson_reb]

Indeed. The ACW continued until the South was unable to obtain its political objective by force.

Not exactly. The war ended because the ANV (and CSA) ran out of food, supplies, munitions and men to continue the fight. An army of empty stomachs, sick bodies, shoeless feet, powderless muskets, tattered clothing and disappearing ranks is a pretty good reason to surrender.

 

[unionblue]

Not exactly. The war ended because the ANV (and CSA) ran out of food, supplies, munitions and men to continue the fight. An army of empty stomachs, sick bodies, shoeless feet, powderless muskets, tattered clothing and disappearing ranks is a pretty good reason to surrender.

carson_reb,

Isn't this what jgoodguy just said?

Sincerely,
Unionblue

 

[The Iron Duke]

It may have taken the Union an additional five or ten years but the Union would still have prevailed. The most important areas of the south were already under Union occupation during 1865. How would the south have supplied a guerrilla force? The South African Boers still lost because they couldn't maintain their logistical bases.

Plus, we need to remember that the heroic ideal of a Southern man was someone who fought out in front where everyone could see them. Hit and run tactics, like Brooks sneaking up behind Sumner, don't really fit in with this ideal.

 

[jgoodguy]

Not exactly. The war ended because the ANV (and CSA) ran out of food, supplies, munitions and men to continue the fight. An army of empty stomachs, sick bodies, shoeless feet, powderless muskets, tattered clothing and disappearing ranks is a pretty good reason to surrender.

I used a technical term from a Clausewitz view point which means pretty much the same thing except it is more final.
I am strictly a lay person studying Clausewitz or military-political strategy, but if there was an objective to a guerrilla war:
One takes what material is possible, say small arms and hide them in caches or simply melt though the Union lines. 100% will not make it but enough will.
Organize in small groups that can subsist off local resources.
Obtain food, shelter hiding places, rest, recuperate, plan and strike using the hidden/smuggled arms to obtain more arms. Recruit and inspire the locals.
Surrender would be simply the first step to free the most important resource needed in a war, men.

What kills a war of any type is the lack of an objective, not any of the items you mentioned. One can overcome any of those difficulties, except a lack of purpose.

 

[carson_reb]

carson_reb,

Isn't this what jgoodguy just said?

Sincerely,
Unionblue

That's not what I gathered. JGG's premise is that the war ended because the Confederacy was unable to achieve its political objective of maintaining its slave culture. I disagree. The war ended because the Confederacy ran out of the means to continue fighting it. Lee appeared to be the first leader to accept this, and so he surrendered. Of course, getting cut-off by Grant on his way west didn't help matters, either.

Had the Confederacy not run out of supplies and provisions to maintain its armies, I believe the war would have gone on. That the Confederacy was unable to achieve its political objective appears to be a result of the surrender rather than the reason for it.

 

[carson_reb]

I used a technical term from a Clausewitz view point which means pretty much the same thing except it is more final.
I am strictly a lay person studying Clausewitz or military-political strategy, but if there was an objective to a guerrilla war:
One takes what material is possible, say small arms and hide them in caches or simply melt though the Union lines. 100% will not make it but enough will.
Organize in small groups that can subsist off local resources.
Obtain food, shelter hiding places, rest, recuperate, plan and strike using the hidden/smuggled arms to obtain more arms. Recruit and inspire the locals.
Surrender would be simply the first step to free the most important resource needed in a war, men.

What kills a war of any type is the lack of an objective, not any of the items you mentioned. One can overcome any of those difficulties, except a lack of purpose.

And the trouble for the Confederate armies is that they were rapidly becoming resource thin. Material was severely depleted. It wasn't too long after all the fighting started in Virginia that its local resources were cut to the bone. Eventually, there wasn't enough to even forage for. And men were disappearing from Confederate ranks at a steady rate: Either captured, killed, lost to camp diseases or complications from wounds, MIA, and desertion. It got to the point to where those ranks could not be filled anymore, because there weren't the men or boys to fill it. In short, the Confederate armies were dying: Starving, thinning and weakening. I'm not clear as to how the Southern armies could have overcome these shortages. They had become chronic and irreplaceable. I wonder, after Petersburg, if the objective of Lee's army had turned perhaps to survival? Seems to me that's all it had left.

 

[OpnCoronet]

The war labored on, but not a guerilla war of national liberation. Without slaves what would southern society have gained that they did not already possess under the Old Flag?

 

[jgoodguy]

And the trouble for the Confederate armies is that they were rapidly becoming resource thin. Material was severely depleted. It wasn't too long after all the fighting started in Virginia that its local resources were cut to the bone. Eventually, there wasn't enough to even forage for. And men were disappearing from Confederate ranks at a steady rate: Either captured, killed, lost to camp diseases or complications from wounds, MIA, and desertion. It got to the point to where those ranks could not be filled anymore, because there weren't the men or boys to fill it. In short, the Confederate armies were dying: Starving, thinning and weakening. I'm not clear as to how the Southern armies could have overcome these shortages. They had become chronic and irreplaceable. I wonder, after Petersburg, if the objective of Lee's army had turned perhaps to survival? Seems to me that's all it had left.

That is true. That is not an issue for irregular forces, however.

One of Lee's big problem with Grant is that Grant did not leave the battlefields for Lee's troops to resupply from by plundering Union dead, wounded and abandoned supplies. Much of Lee's supplies came from captured arms and material. The incursion into Pennsylvania can be judged a success in that it obtained several months of supplies. Some historians think those supplies help Lee hold out for for a considerable addition time. Brown's Retreat From Gettysburg notes Lee got 30,000 head of cattle, 25,000 sheep and thousands of hogs plus tons of grain and flour plus pencils, paper, leather harnesses, saddles, bits , wagons and wagons parts, tar, iron, steel, cloth, hats and medicine. p 388. Amazon.com: General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse describes how the ANV obtained supplies from battlefields, plus making their own items such as shoes.

The short answer to the question of supply is that the South never really lacked supplies to fight an engagement until the very last. However there was no margin for error. The transportation system was inadequate so soldiers often faced starving or plundering civilians in Virginia. So that while there was plenty of food outside of Virginia, getting it to the ANV was difficult. One of the motives for Lee's surrender was that the quartermaster fouled up and prepositioned ammunition instead of food at Amelia Courthouse so the ANV was starving.

Petersburg was a rail junction and the last supply line into Richmond.

 

[B Peach]

Leaving aside that secession was over the right of the States to have or have not the institution of slavery, and have that property in man protected by the Constitution,and therfore require Congress not to legislate on its extent, but require the States to pass that in any amendment to effect any change in the Constitution of the extent that slavery was permitted in the Union.

And focus on the use of CLWTZ dictum of war is the extrension of poltics/policy by other means.

Indeed. The ACW continued until the South was unable to obtain its political objective by force.

Not exactly. The war ended because the ANV (and CSA) ran out of food, supplies, munitions and men to continue the fight. An army of empty stomachs, sick bodies, shoeless feet, powderless muskets, tattered clothing and disappearing ranks is a pretty good reason to surrender.

I used a technical term from a Clausewitz view point which means pretty much the same thing except it is more final.

The full quote from Book VIII of On War is much more powerful:


"The only source of war is politics—the intercourse of governments and peoples; but it is apt to be assumed that war suspends that intercourse and replaces it by a wholly different condition, ruled by no law but its own. We maintain, on the contrary, that war is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means.…War in itself does not suspend political intercourse or change it into something entrely different. In essentials, that intercourse continues irrespective of the means it employs."—Carl von Clausewitz, Book VIII, On War, 1832

The mil phase of oposistion to the federal Governemnt ceased with the surrender of its Armies in the field, and mil ocupation of those States, the polital oposistion did not cease with those events, but continued untill the ocupation of the state ended, which is what Reconstruction was all about.

 

[jgoodguy]

Leaving aside that secession was over the right of the States to have or have not the institution of slavery, and have that property in man protected by the Constitution,and therfore require Congress not to legislate on its extent, but require the States to pass that in any amendment to effect any change in the Constitution of the extent that slavery was permitted in the Union.

And focus on the use of CLWTZ dictum of war is the extrension of poltics/policy by other means.








The full quote from Book VIII of On War is much more powerful:


"The only source of war is politics—the intercourse of governments and peoples; but it is apt to be assumed that war suspends that intercourse and replaces it by a wholly different condition, ruled by no law but its own. We maintain, on the contrary, that war is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means.…War in itself does not suspend political intercourse or change it into something entrely different. In essentials, that intercourse continues irrespective of the means it employs."—Carl von Clausewitz, Book VIII, On War, 1832

The mil phase of oposistion to the federal Governemnt ceased with the surrender of its Armies in the field, and mil ocupation of those States, the polital oposistion did not cease with those events, but continued untill the ocupation of the state ended, which is what Reconstruction was all about.

The South changed its political objective from independent slave nation to mere exploitation of the blacks and won that political battle for the next 100+ years. Of course they could have had that without a Civil War and its costs.

 

[OpnCoronet]

The war was over the politics of slavery; after the war it was the politics of Race.

 

[B Peach]

The South changed its political objective from independent slave nation to mere exploitation of the blacks and won that political battle for the next 100+ years. Of course they could have had that without a Civil War and its costs.

Er, the CS slave States exploited former slaves post war for 100+ years, while pre WBTS they expoited them as slaves, so the secession has nothing to do with exploiting negros then right?

 

[jgoodguy]

Er, the CS slave States exploited former slaves post war for 100+ years, while pre WBTS they expoited them as slaves, so the secession has nothing to do with exploiting negros then right?

If I rob a bank and fail, but then commit fraud and succeed, the taking of money has nothing to do with motive, then right?

 

[B Peach]

If I rob a bank and fail, but then commit fraud and succeed, the taking of money has nothing to do with motive, then right?

You mean the motive for theft and fraud, being the same, is the want of money.

US Constitution contained slavery, because owners wanted to exploit them, without slavery, that same Union allowed the exploitation of free negros for 100+ years. Motive being exploitation in both instances.

 

[jgoodguy]

You mean the motive for theft and fraud, being the same, is the want of money.

US Constitution contained slavery, because owners wanted to exploit them, without slavery, that same Union allowed the exploitation of free negros for 100+ years. Motive being exploitation in both instances.

Please quote where the US Constitution has the word slave or slavery in it.

 

[B Peach]

Please quote where the US Constitution has the word slave or slavery in it.

Article IV
Section 2
No Person held to Service or Labor in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labor, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or labor may be due.

Entered to the Constition In 1793 Congress effectuated this clause by "An Act Respecting Fugitives from Justice and Persons Escaping from the Service of Their Masters."

 

[jgoodguy]

jgoodguy said: ↑

Please quote where the US Constitution has the word slave or slavery in it.​

Article IV
Section 2
No Person held to Service or Labor in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labor, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or labor may be due.

Entered to the Constition In 1793 Congress effectuated this clause by "An Act Respecting Fugitives from Justice and Persons Escaping from the Service of Their Masters."

I don't see the word slave there, do you?