Common Misconceptions/Myths

[Quaama]

This quote jumped out at me

Thank you for sharing! This is a great example of the strategy politicians use to deliver propaganda to the appropriate audience, especially to young folks without much experience or wisdom. It is calling on their sense of religious duty in an attempt to rally common-folk to fight for their politicians cause.

Solely speaking from an objective "political strategy" context, it is interesting to see the differences (and/or similarities) between propaganda messages employed by the North and the South to accomplish the same goal: recruit as many grunts as possible! This was (and is) certainly not a new occurrence or particular to the governments of the U.S.A/C.S.A. at the time.

We still see that this strategy is alive and well today. To me, the biggest difference is that the "message" has evolved to reflect the changing values of our society (but it is not THAT different). But the goal is the same: Get these young men to the front as quickly as possible!

Nothing new in that. From where do you think Lincoln's 'house divided' allusion came?

[See Matthew 12:25 where it says - "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand."]

 

[Elliot Crumblemuffin]

Yes, there's much irony to be found in the religious situation during the war, and that's a striking passage from Stephens's Cornerstone Speech.

Just a reminder to be discreet about mentioning modern politics here, although I understand the parallel you're drawing.

R

I'll bring careful!! I just got here I dont want to rock the boat

 

[5th MSM]

1. The Confedrate soldier "fought to protect his home".
The federal government only siezed one man's property and that was Robert E. Lee's plantation at Arlington and Lee's family was compensated for the property.
2. African Americans loved being slaves and we're deliriously happy to be slaves.
3. The Confedracy had substantial amounts of African American soldiers.
4. Confederate's loved Indians and never harmed a hair on their heads.
Leftyhunter

Comment related to:
1. The Confederate soldier "fought to protect his home".

This is a 'kind of' myth. There were a number of reasons why they fought, McPherson wrote a book, 'For Cause & Comrades' (in front of me as I write) which described a number of their motivations.

The soldiers fought for what they thought was true, or what they heard to be true, not what was true. One of those things (sometimes a lie, sometimes believed by those who repeated it) was that the Yankees wanted to destroy their homes or take their property. If you hear a lie, and people around you are repeating the lie, you may believe a lie and fight for that lie.

Many of the leaders certainly fought for slavery, and politicians certainly supported slavery. But when the men were enlisting, some would have fought believing that they had to protect their homes. You read this in descriptions of speeches of leaders to their men. In the speeches, they were told they were fighting for their homes, or wives, or daughters, or whatever. Very few soldiers would say, 'I'm willing to die for slavery'. But the leaders were willing to send them to die for slavery.

So like Snopes (which I have minimal confidence in) says, this is a 'Mixture'. Some truth, some not.

 

[leftyhunter]

Comment related to:
1. The Confederate soldier "fought to protect his home".

This is a 'kind of' myth. There were a number of reasons why they fought, McPherson wrote a book, 'For Cause & Comrades' (in front of me as I write) which described a number of their motivations.

The soldiers fought for what they thought was true, or what they heard to be true, not what was true. One of those things (sometimes a lie, sometimes believed by those who repeated it) was that the Yankees wanted to destroy their homes or take their property. If you hear a lie, and people around you are repeating the lie, you may believe a lie and fight for that lie.

Many of the leaders certainly fought for slavery, and politicians certainly supported slavery. But when the men were enlisting, some would have fought believing that they had to protect their homes. You read this in descriptions of speeches of leaders to their men. In the speeches, they were told they were fighting for their homes, or wives, or daughters, or whatever. Very few soldiers would say, 'I'm willing to die for slavery'. But the leaders were willing to send them to die for slavery.

So like Snopes (which I have minimal confidence in) says, this is a 'Mixture'. Some truth, some not.

True my point was that while some Confederate troops thought they were defending their homes most knew the real reason why they were fighting which was soley to maintain slavery and ****.
Leftyhunter

 

[murphyfun]

To bust an alledged myth one needs to have citations....or its another myth : )

Indeed. Thank you for your comment.

 

[Viper21]

Comment related to:
1. The Confederate soldier "fought to protect his home".

This is a 'kind of' myth. There were a number of reasons why they fought, McPherson wrote a book, 'For Cause & Comrades' (in front of me as I write) which described a number of their motivations.
The soldiers fought for what they thought was true, or what they heard to be true, not what was true. One of those things (sometimes a lie, sometimes believed by those who repeated it) was that the Yankees wanted to destroy their homes or take their property. If you hear a lie, and people around you are repeating the lie, you may believe a lie and fight for that lie.

"we are now encampt along Ceder Creek where we have been campt previous to the fight and I think we will remain here probably for the winter yacht we may not but that is my idea about the thing this is a gread country for foragee we have forage partys out everry day the teams goes after hay and the soldiers goes wiht them and bring in such articles as thay can use for there own Subsistanc such as potatoes apples flower and honney and so forth I have been out onst about eight miles but I seen enough to satisfie me to see men go thrue the poor helpless womans houses and take everry thing thay own and some times abuse them if thay try to protect themselves and that is more then I want to see if thay are rebbells tahay [they] ought to be respected a little more then thay are. "

Pvt Daniel Faust
Co H 96th PA Inf / Co G 95th PA Inf
Letter to his sister Rosanah Faust
2 Nov 1864 - Camp near Middleton, VA


"I am well and hearty and can eat all the green corn I can get hold of I had corn for diner I wnt undertake to tell you how much I eat but it was a pile you will say we stole it no we didnt eather we took it we never steal eny thing but we take eny thing we can get hold of that we want and some things that we don't want I got a nice spring bead that I took out of a Rebs house I didn't steal it eather"

Pvt David Lovell
Co E 18th Maine Infantry
Letter to his sister Hattie
12 Aug 1863 - White Sulphur Springs, VA

 

[Saphroneth]

I think I've got one which could be worth considering. Been a while but seems like not too long.


I think it might actually qualify as a misconception, or a myth, that Sigel is a uniquely bad commander.

In the GCACW games he has the worst stats for his type in the entire series, more-or-less wherever he turns up. He's the worst Union commander in the Maryland Campaign by stats (by some way) and also in the Northern Virginia campaign.


The key actions in his command are:

Carthage
He's defeated, but he was outnumbered about 3:1 to 5:1 depending on how you count, and he inflicted more casualties. The main error here is probably assuming a body of men who turned out to be unarmed were flanking him, but it's not like he'd know...

Wilson's Creek
This is a battle in which the Union was outnumbered 5:2. Sigel commits errors (chiefly not posting skirmishers and sluggish marching).

Pea Ridge
Sigel errs here in his scouting and in moving slowly. He does however perform well in counter-battery fire and conduct much of the fighting that made the battle a victory.


He commands a division during the Valley campaign, specifically a division of the Dept. of the Shenandoah, but doesn't actually have any significant command or battle participation.

Under Pope during the Northern Virginia campaign, his performance seems fair to good. He certainly does well during the early fighting on the 29th.

In the 1864 Valley campaign, Sigel pulls back rather than pushing aggressively, and for that he is replaced with Hunter. Hunter (in acting differently to Sigel, and with a larger force) ends up in a situation where the preservation of his command is best served by pulling back into the mountains; it could easily be argued that Sigel was acting correctly in keeping the easiest invasion route of the North secured.



It really seems like there's nothing in Sigel's actual performance which justifies his poor reputation (relative to other commanders), which is why I think it might qualify as a myth. Certainly he doesn't shine, but he actually seems to do all right in difficult situations.

 

[wausaubob]

I think I've got one which could be worth considering. Been a while but seems like not too long.


I think it might actually qualify as a misconception, or a myth, that Sigel is a uniquely bad commander.

In the GCACW games he has the worst stats for his type in the entire series, more-or-less wherever he turns up. He's the worst Union commander in the Maryland Campaign by stats (by some way) and also in the Northern Virginia campaign.


The key actions in his command are:

Carthage
He's defeated, but he was outnumbered about 3:1 to 5:1 depending on how you count, and he inflicted more casualties. The main error here is probably assuming a body of men who turned out to be unarmed were flanking him, but it's not like he'd know...

Wilson's Creek
This is a battle in which the Union was outnumbered 5:2. Sigel commits errors (chiefly not posting skirmishers and sluggish marching).

Pea Ridge
Sigel errs here in his scouting and in moving slowly. He does however perform well in counter-battery fire and conduct much of the fighting that made the battle a victory.


He commands a division during the Valley campaign, specifically a division of the Dept. of the Shenandoah, but doesn't actually have any significant command or battle participation.

Under Pope during the Northern Virginia campaign, his performance seems fair to good. He certainly does well during the early fighting on the 29th.

In the 1864 Valley campaign, Sigel pulls back rather than pushing aggressively, and for that he is replaced with Hunter. Hunter (in acting differently to Sigel, and with a larger force) ends up in a situation where the preservation of his command is best served by pulling back into the mountains; it could easily be argued that Sigel was acting correctly in keeping the easiest invasion route of the North secured.



It really seems like there's nothing in Sigel's actual performance which justifies his poor reputation (relative to other commanders), which is why I think it might qualify as a myth. Certainly he doesn't shine, but he actually seems to do all right in difficult situations.

Agreed. As Butler later demonstrated on Bermuda Hundred, its one thing to have the army defeated, or even to get pinned down. Its another thing to leave the operational zone. Grant was willing to put up with Butler when he was stationary in Virginia. But when he landed his force at Fort Fisher and then withdrew, Grant became intolerant.
A large part of Sigel's problem seems to have been Halleck's contempt for all things German.

 

[Saphroneth]

Agreed. As Butler later demonstrated on Bermuda Hundred, its one thing to have the army defeated, or even to get pinned down. Its another thing to leave the operational zone. Grant was willing to put up with Butler when he was stationary in Virginia. But when he landed his force at Fort Fisher and then withdrew, Grant became intolerant.

Though Butler was actually doing pretty well to have the distracting effect he was, up until Grant removed most of his force.

As for Fort Fisher (where it's described as Grant having an excuse to relieve Butler; i.e. he'd already wanted to do so but had no justifiable grounds before), I've had occasion in the past to wonder whether Butler would have been perfectly successful if the bombardment from the second attempt (which silenced the fort) had happened during Butler's attempt, though the storm probably didn't help either.


A lot of what we consider to be a commander's success or failure is tied up with circumstance, though by no means all.

 

[wausaubob]

Though Butler was actually doing pretty well to have the distracting effect he was, up until Grant removed most of his force.

As for Fort Fisher (where it's described as Grant having an excuse to relieve Butler; i.e. he'd already wanted to do so but had no justifiable grounds before), I've had occasion in the past to wonder whether Butler would have been perfectly successful if the bombardment from the second attempt (which silenced the fort) had happened during Butler's attempt, though the storm probably didn't help either.


A lot of what we consider to be a commander's success or failure is tied up with circumstance, though by no means all.

The second attempt at Fort Fisher seems to have been mainly a naval effort. Grant's instructions to General Terry are similar to: you are under Porter's command. The second attempt was much better directed. Grant and Butler seemed to have later patched things up as in All's Well That Ends Well.

 

[wausaubob]

I think I've got one which could be worth considering. Been a while but seems like not too long.


I think it might actually qualify as a misconception, or a myth, that Sigel is a uniquely bad commander.

In the GCACW games he has the worst stats for his type in the entire series, more-or-less wherever he turns up. He's the worst Union commander in the Maryland Campaign by stats (by some way) and also in the Northern Virginia campaign.


The key actions in his command are:

Carthage
He's defeated, but he was outnumbered about 3:1 to 5:1 depending on how you count, and he inflicted more casualties. The main error here is probably assuming a body of men who turned out to be unarmed were flanking him, but it's not like he'd know...

Wilson's Creek
This is a battle in which the Union was outnumbered 5:2. Sigel commits errors (chiefly not posting skirmishers and sluggish marching).

Pea Ridge
Sigel errs here in his scouting and in moving slowly. He does however perform well in counter-battery fire and conduct much of the fighting that made the battle a victory.


He commands a division during the Valley campaign, specifically a division of the Dept. of the Shenandoah, but doesn't actually have any significant command or battle participation.

Under Pope during the Northern Virginia campaign, his performance seems fair to good. He certainly does well during the early fighting on the 29th.

In the 1864 Valley campaign, Sigel pulls back rather than pushing aggressively, and for that he is replaced with Hunter. Hunter (in acting differently to Sigel, and with a larger force) ends up in a situation where the preservation of his command is best served by pulling back into the mountains; it could easily be argued that Sigel was acting correctly in keeping the easiest invasion route of the North secured.



It really seems like there's nothing in Sigel's actual performance which justifies his poor reputation (relative to other commanders), which is why I think it might qualify as a myth. Certainly he doesn't shine, but he actually seems to do all right in difficult situations.

Sigel was a good artillery officer. He was probably over promoted. But Lincoln needed someone from the German immigrant community that could show the immigrants they were considered part of the war effort.

 

[Saphroneth]

Sigel was a good artillery officer. He was probably over promoted. But Lincoln someone from the German immigrant community that could show the immigrants were considered part of the war effort.

That's the oddity of it, the idea that he was "over promoted". Where does that actually show up, at least to a greater extent than the average Union general in the war? (After all, none of them had the appropriate seasoning time at all ranks...)

 

[Cavalier]

@Saphroneth Do you think part of Sigel's's poor reputation was due to his foreign birth? Just wondering.

John

 

[Saphroneth]

@Saphroneth Do you think part of Sigel's's poor reputation was due to his foreign birth? Just wondering.

John

It's possible... and I think that what might be going on there is second-order prejudice, not first-order.

See, Sigel was used as a major recruiting tool for German-Americans, and so I suspect that people thought he'd been elevated mainly for that reason - and thus they'd pay more attention to his missteps than those of a comparable "interchangeable American" who obviously couldn't have been elevated purely to curry favour with a group like that.

 

[Cavalier]

@Saphroneth Thank you. I hadn't thought of second order prejudice, in fact, and was not even familiar with the term.

John

 

[Saphroneth]

It's not a formal term to my knowledge, but it's a way of expressing how it's not simple "bias" but people thinking about things in a more complex way that's just as likely. It's one of the ways people self-justify snap judgements.

 

[FPT]

@Saphroneth Do you think part of Sigel's's poor reputation was due to his foreign birth? Just wondering.

John

Yes.

 

[FPT]

I think I've got one which could be worth considering. Been a while but seems like not too long.


I think it might actually qualify as a misconception, or a myth, that Sigel is a uniquely bad commander.

In the GCACW games he has the worst stats for his type in the entire series, more-or-less wherever he turns up. He's the worst Union commander in the Maryland Campaign by stats (by some way) and also in the Northern Virginia campaign.


The key actions in his command are:

Carthage
He's defeated, but he was outnumbered about 3:1 to 5:1 depending on how you count, and he inflicted more casualties. The main error here is probably assuming a body of men who turned out to be unarmed were flanking him, but it's not like he'd know...

Wilson's Creek
This is a battle in which the Union was outnumbered 5:2. Sigel commits errors (chiefly not posting skirmishers and sluggish marching).

Pea Ridge
Sigel errs here in his scouting and in moving slowly. He does however perform well in counter-battery fire and conduct much of the fighting that made the battle a victory.


He commands a division during the Valley campaign, specifically a division of the Dept. of the Shenandoah, but doesn't actually have any significant command or battle participation.

Under Pope during the Northern Virginia campaign, his performance seems fair to good. He certainly does well during the early fighting on the 29th.

In the 1864 Valley campaign, Sigel pulls back rather than pushing aggressively, and for that he is replaced with Hunter. Hunter (in acting differently to Sigel, and with a larger force) ends up in a situation where the preservation of his command is best served by pulling back into the mountains; it could easily be argued that Sigel was acting correctly in keeping the easiest invasion route of the North secured.



It really seems like there's nothing in Sigel's actual performance which justifies his poor reputation (relative to other commanders), which is why I think it might qualify as a myth. Certainly he doesn't shine, but he actually seems to do all right in difficult situations.

His most difficult situation was the one that he could not avoid. He was German and used solely for political purposes.

 

[Saphroneth]

His most difficult situation was the one that he could not avoid. He was German and used solely for political purposes.

Though when analyzing his command skills we shouldn't let ourselves be influenced by that. Hennessey's book on Second Bull Run for example gives Sigel as a generally poor commander who does well during Second Bull Run, but looking over Sigel's career as a whole you can't really see where the "generally poor" thing comes in - both the defeats in Missouri come when he's significantly outnumbered and he helps win Pea Ridge despite the enemy still being stronger. It really seems like he's if anything above average, if erratic personally.

 

[Stone in the wall]

In the 1864 Valley campaign, Sigel pulls back rather than pushing aggressively, and for that he is replaced with Hunter. Hunter (in acting differently to Sigel, and with a larger force) ends up in a situation where the preservation of his command is best served by pulling back into the mountains; it could easily be argued that Sigel was acting correctly in keeping the easiest invasion route of the North secured.

Soundly beaten by Breckinridge's hastily put togather of independant combined forces including the kids from VMI at New Market. Although his replacement Hunter was far from any improvement.