A Fire-Eater's view of the future

trice

Colonel
Joined
May 2, 2006
Note: The following is taken from "the Warrior Generals" by Thomas Buell. This book came out about 1996 or so. Buell chronicles the Civil War through the careers of six generals: Lee & Grant, Hood & Thomas, Gordon & Barlow. This excerpt is taken from one of the chapters on John B. Gordon.

Before the war, Gordon was a young, up-and-coming Fire-Eater down along the GA-AL line. During the war, he bacame a successful Confederate general, commanding the last attack of Lee's ANV at Petersburg. After the war, he was eventually elected to Congress.
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'Figures like William L. Yancey, the most prominent Democrat in Alabama and an ardent, influential advocate of secession and slavery, shaped Gordon's political thinking. On July 18, 1860, Gordon spoke as Yancey's surrogate during commencement at Ogelthorpe University near Milledgeville. His speech, entitled "Progress of Civil Liberty," was delivered before the university's literary societies. "African slavery," said Gordon, "is the mightiest engine in the universe for the civilization, elevation and refinement of mankind -- the surest guarantee of the continuance of liberty among ourselves. Then let us do our duty, protect our liberties and leave the consequences with God, who alone can control them."
'Gordon had a dream. "Do this and the day is not far distant," he said, "when the Southern flag shall be omnipotent from the Gulf of Panama to the coast of Delaware; when Cuba shall be ours; when the western breeze shall kiss our flag, as it floats in triumph from the gilded turrets of Mexico's capital; when the well clad, well fed, Southern Christian slave shall beat his tamborine and banjo amid the orange-bowered groves of Central America; and when a pro-slavery legislature shall meet in council in the Halls of Montezuma. And our foreign population, too, shall be encouraged by a successful resistance, on our part, to the aggressions of these Northern agrresssors."
This was Gordon's credo: white liberty was dependent upon black slavery in perpetuity. The Southern Recorder accorded his speech a measure of attention. "Mr. Gordon was for protection to our slave property in its broadest sense, and was for expansion and extension. ... He was an unadulterated 'filibuster' ... A distinguished friend in commenting upon it, said that it commenced with an eulogy upon liberty, but wound up with an eulogy on slavery. But, upon the whole, we liked the speech."
'During the presidential campaign Gordon went on the stump in Georgia and Alabama for John C. Breckenridge, the proslavery Democratic candidate, occassionally sharing the platform with Yancey. When Lincoln won, secession was certain. A special convention convened in Montgomery, Alabama, on January 11, 1861, and voted to secede. Crowds hurrahed, cannons roared, and church bells pealed. Orators, Yancey among them, whipped the crowds into delerium. Gordon too came before them. The act of secession was repeated eight days later in Milledgeville amid rejoicing. Gordon harangued the shrieking Georgia crowd."
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So there you have it in his own words, the vision of the future of a Southern Confederacy by one of the Fire-Eaters of Alabama and Georgia. A vision of apparent conquest and enslavement of other people for the greater glory of the South, and of secession from the United States. I note this is in July, 1860. That is four months before Lincoln's election and nine months before Ft. Sumter.

Not everyone in the South accepted that vision, although it was commonly spoken about. Jefferson Davis, not considered a Fire-Eater, also wanted Cuba and said so openly. Davis was asked to command a filibustering expedition to Cuba in the 1850s; after some thought he turned it down. He recommended the organizers contact Robert E. Lee, and Lee also turned it down. But when the expedition failed and the resulting public uproar was going on, Davis gave a speech down in Mississippi where he said "I want Cuba, and I intend to have her" (from memory; may not be exact).

Davis himself, while down in Montgomery in early 1861, newly appointed President of a hopefully new nation, actually refused to see an ambassador from Mexico. That was very strange, because the Confederacy desperately needed foreign recognition, and the ambassador was sent there to talk about it. But Davis stood on his honor. He thought it would be embarassing to treat with the Mexican government for recognition when he might be invading them shortly.

Lee, OTOH, would have found the idea of such conquest wrong. I am sure his view would have been such, because he felt the Mexican War of 15 years earlier was immoral, and said so (much like the young Abraham Lincoln thought that war wrong). But I note that he took his duty as a soldier seriously, and went off to serve in the Mexican War after writing his letter, so he probably would have done the same if he had decided to serve the Confederacy. Many other officers seem to have felt the same about that war -- such as young U. S. Grant -- and gone to fight bravely and well in accord with their duty as they saw it.

Regards,
Tim
 
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