Common Misconceptions/Myths

[Saphroneth]

Read post 167 again. I said the were high in terms of percentages to combatants involved.

In post 167 you said they were heavy as a percentage of combatants; I replied by showing that they were on par with Napoleonic battles in percentage terms. Since that's the most immediately comparable set of previous battles historically speaking, this shows the battles were not heavy as a percentage of combatants.

 

[leftyhunter]

The original post was about myths that members have come across they think are damaging, the most wrong, etc. I don't think @Sbc was stating those as facts.

I was actually responding to @Biscoitos post #190. Not @Sbc .
Not sure if the so called myths were even proprograted.
Lef

 

[leftyhunter]

Actually, the defense of home and family against the invading northern armies was one of the reasons Confederate soldiers fought in the war. See the quotes from the soldiers below.

"If I fall it will be in a good Cause in the defence of my country defending my home and fireside." – Private Andrew J. White, 30th Georgia Infantry

"Let me liberate my home from the varlet's tread, and then my country shall be freed from the fiendish vandals." – Private James W. Smith, 37th Mississippi Infantry.

"If I am killed tomorrow, it will be for Virginia, the land of my fathers, and not for the ****ed secession momvement." – Major Charles Minor Blackford, 2nd Virginia Cavalry.

"When a Southron's home is threatened, the spirit of resistance is irrepressible. [We are] fighting for our firesides and property [to defend our homes from] vandal enemies and drive them from the soil polluted by their footsteps . . .. I am determined to dispute every inch of soil with the Hessians e'er they shall invade the sunny South." - Corporal George Knox Miller, Bowie's Company, Alabama Cavalry

Again no Southern home was taken from it's owners and not all Southern whites thought the Union was invading them. General Burnside was welcomed by people in Knoxville Tennessee has a liberator.
Leftyhunter

 

[leftyhunter]

It is a myth that Lincoln was not a racist.
That was my statement.
I stand behind it.


Why do you have to compare Lincoln with the Confederates?
Are you trying to deny Lincoln's racism?

I did not say anything about Confederates.
Your comments about Confederates are irrelevant to my statement.

So what if Lincoln was a racist he changed his mind. It wasn't President Davis that freed the slaves. Lincoln wasn't perfect but we don't have perfect people . Lincoln did more for African Americans then any President before him and afterwards.
Leftyhunter

 

[weasel]

I was actually responding to @Biscoitos post #190. Not @Sbc .
Not sure if the so called myths were even advanced .
Leftyhunter

*sigh* Yeah, I apparently need reading lessons. Sorry for the false alarm, @Sbc.

 

[archieclement]

No it isn't poor example, because at first it wasn't a givin they would get a massive influx of assistance, or that once they did, that it would continue......as the South's massive influx aid in both instances didn't........because again there is no way to determine at the beginning of a war that becomes prolonged, if the nation's will can persist through it......The United States has indeed blinked and folded in some cases, even though we had the military power to continue......

Again at the beginning of a conflict, whether the stronger or weaker one.....their is no guarantee the people have the will to see it through, democracies have a decided disadvantage as the administration, promises we made, and direction can turn on a election.

It's as easy to see why in some places we are viewed with distrust or even hate.........as our promises made and national honor, often only lasts till next election historically.

 

[John Hartwell]

1. The myth that Lincoln was not a racist.

2. The myth that all Union soldiers fought to end slavery.

1. Yes, Lincoln shared many of the the general racial (and "racist") attitudes of the vast majority of his countrymen, North and South. Yet he signed the EP, and championed the passage of the 13th Ammendment. And, a majority of his fellow "racists" voted for its ratification. Go figure!

2. True, few Union soldiers went to war to end slavery. But, after the EP, they were all fighting for ending slavery within the states in rebellion... whether they liked it or not (and many did not). Just as all Confederate soldiers were fighting for the war objectives (primarily the establishment of a nation based on slavery) of the authority that raised the army they belonged to ... whether they liked it or not.

 

[archieclement]

Not different at all in the respect I am referring to.........one does not know the future outcome at the start, regardless of if one is the superpower or the upstart. The pipsqueaks who on paper have no chance........do sometimes prevail with perservence.

The United States has been both in history, the victorious upstart, and the humbled superpower.

 

[wausaubob]

The Confederacy was not going to win, ever.
In the first phase of the conflict, the political and military struggle to control the 5 border areas, the situation had totally changed by 1857. https://eh.net/encyclopedia/history-of-the-u-s-telegraph-industry/ The telegraph sped up the US response. During this initial phase, the wire was connected in Utah and California, Oregon and Nevada were added to the network.
By winning this phase, even while losing the battles tactically, the US created the 23 to 11 imbalance, and the US had possession of W. Virginia, Nebraska and Nevada, the next three states.

In the second phase, the fact that the US controlled the 4 major ship building ports, in Philadelphia, New York/Brooklyn, Boston and Portsmouth on the border between New Hampshire and Maine, as well as the naval manpower, both civilian captains and sailors, was a huge advantage that was going to allow the US to establish all the additional coastal stations they needed, and serve the stations they retained.

But that was not all. The controlled steamboat building on the Ohio and middle Mississippi River, and as could have been predicted, gunboats and transports played a decisive role in further expanding US controlled territory.

Beyond that, the rate at which the Midwest was growing, the pace at which it economy was recovering by 1861, and the fact that domestic and international immigration resumed, while the war continued, meant that there was an expanding transportation and agricultural sector in the Midwestern states. There was nothing the Confederates could do about that. Since they never made any strategic gains, their opponent was getting stronger.

In the far west, there was an enormous imbalance in forces. Without much fighting, western unionist battalions took control of both Arizona and New Mexico. Life, and financial support of the US, went on as normal in most of the far west. Again, the US was growing while fighting the war. People on the east coast did not know about it, or particularly care about it.

 

[wausaubob]

Prof. Gallagher's theory was that the Confederacy did not win enough battles to win the war. No, they won enough land battles. In fact they won most of the land battles. But as they won battles, the strategic situation of the Confederacy worsened. That was because they were losing naval battles and combined arms battles. They were fighting from a shrinking territory. They had neither the livestock, the locomotives, nor the steamships to keep a logistical network running.

 

[archieclement]

The Confederacy was not going to win, ever.
In the first phase of the conflict, the political and military struggle to control the 5 border areas, the situation had totally changed by 1857. https://eh.net/encyclopedia/history-of-the-u-s-telegraph-industry/ The telegraph sped up the US response. During this initial phase, the wire was connected in Utah and California, Oregon and Nevada were added to the network.
By winning this phase, even while losing the battles tactically, the US created the 23 to 11 imbalance, and the US had possession of W. Virginia, Nebraska and Nevada, the next three states.

In the second phase, the fact that the US controlled the 4 major ship building ports, in Philadelphia, New York/Brooklyn, Boston and Portsmouth on the border between New Hampshire and Maine, as well as the naval manpower, both civilian captains and sailors, was a huge advantage that was going to allow the US to establish all the additional coastal stations they needed, and serve the stations they retained.

But that was not all. The controlled steamboat building on the Ohio and middle Mississippi River, and as could have been predicted, gunboats and transports played a decisive role in further expanding US controlled territory.

Beyond that, the rate at which the Midwest was growing, the pace at which it economy was recovering by 1861, and the fact that domestic and international immigration resumed, while the war continued, meant that there was an expanding transportation and agricultural sector in the Midwestern states. There was nothing the Confederates could do about that. Since they never made any strategic gains, their opponent was getting stronger.

In the far west, there was an enormous imbalance in forces. Without much fighting, western unionist battalions took control of both Arizona and New Mexico. Life, and financial support of the US, went on as normal in most of the far west. Again, the US was growing while fighting the war. People on the east coast did not know about it, or particularly care about it.

And again none of which would have offset foreign intervention of nation's who had navies the United States could not rival in true ships of the line......nor would have offset a failed election to a party favoring negotiated settlement.

Hindsight is 20/20 of historical events, but to say nothing could have altered the events if changed, is rather folly IMO, because history has shown nation's at even greater disadvantages have indeed prevailed with different events.

Both from outside intervention, and peace movements within a nation, causing the nation to lose the will to see wars through.

 

[wausaubob]

As @Saphroneth writes, the British could have intervened in the first two years of the war and forced an armistice and a separation.
Much as Lincoln and Seward wanted to hide it, the US administration was going to have to conform to British expectations. But that process was well under way in both US political parties by the time of the Buchanan administration. There was virtually no chance that a politician from Illinois or Wisconsin, in that era, would risk offending the British government and British and American investors working out of London.

 

[wausaubob]

The Confederacy still had men willing to fight for the cause at the conclusion of the war, and even after the war concluded. What did it did not have was the industrial manpower, the railroad manpower, and agricultural manpower, as war continued beyond 23 months, to match up with the US, which was expanding in all three areas.

 

[wausaubob]

Furthermore the census data on which most of historical tabulation of the strength of both sections was based, was fundamentally flawed. Census procedures could not measure small business, the building trades, the fast growing areas in the Midwest states, nor new industries like ice harvesting. The US economy was growing so fast the census could not keep track of it. Measuring a static comparison of the two sections was not the main point. Growth had accelerated in the northern states. That was one of the main motivations behind secession. The people in the southern states could no longer control the US government.

 

[Saphroneth]

The Confederacy still had men willing to fight for the cause at the conclusion of the war, and even after the war concluded. What did not have was the industrial manpower, the railroad manpower, and agricultural manpower, as war beyond 23 months, to match up with the US, which was expanding in all three areas.

I think the problem here is that you're going from advantage to inevitable, and it's not really justified.

 

[wausaubob]

I think the problem here is that you're going from advantage to inevitable, and it's not really justified.

I think my view is that the so called great leaders do not create the victory, nor is the killing particularly decisive. There were historic forces working among the common men and women, that made the US dominant as it grew. The Confederacy won many tactical battles, but it did not change those technical and demographic forces.

 

[Saphroneth]

I think my view is that the so called great leaders do not create the victory, nor is the killing particularly decisive. There were historic forces working among the common men and women, that made the US dominant as it grew. The Confederacy won many tactical battles, but it did not change those technical and demographic forces.

The problem with this view is that while historic forces bias the outcome, they don't preordain it. In certain situations you could argue that something is effectively impossible, but in the case of the Civil War (where the relative skill levels and decisions of the leaders and generals on both sides absolutely do shape how things go in a big way) you can't really argue that.

If both sides raised troops to the limits of their capacity, the Union would have about 250,000 more troops in June 1862 than it historically did; under those circumstances it crushes the CSA easily. But it's the decisions of the leaders on the Union side of things which are why they don't, and it's the specific decisions of Union leaders which cause several significant reverses in 1862 - and it's also the specific decisions of Confederate leaders as well as Union which avoid those situations being even worse for the Union (though they could also have been better).

AS Johnston has his forces at Shiloh deploy in line-of-columns instead of column-of-lines and right wheels to crush Grant's army against the swamp on the 6th; nothing about that is prevented by the fundamental forces of history and it removes a Union army from the board. Lee gathers three extra brigades before Richmond in June and posts them south of White Oak Bridge to cut off McClellan's line of retreat on June 27-29 1862, forcing the surrender of the Army of the Potomac; the South had those brigades to use and it deletes about a quarter of the Union army from the ORBAT in one go.
These have massive influences on the course of the Civil War; they're not the most likely outcomes, but they're also not implausible.

 

[weasel]

As @Saphroneth writes, the British could have intervened in the first two years of the war and forced an armistice and a separation.
Much as Lincoln and Seward wanted to hide it, the US administration was going to have to conform to British expectations. But that process was well under way in both US political parties by the time of the Buchanan administration. There was virtually no chance that a politician from Illinois or Wisconsin, in that era, would risk offending the British government and British and American investors working out of London.

There's a book I just heard about today, "Our Man in Charleston" that (from what I heard) says that the Confederacy torpedoed its own efforts with Britain by bragging to the consular officer about keeping slavery intact. Mentioning it in case anyone's interested.

 

[Biscoitos]

1. Yes, Lincoln shared many of the the general racial (and "racist") attitudes of the vast majority of his countrymen, North and South. Yet he signed the EP, and championed the passage of the 13th Ammendment. And, a majority of his fellow "racists" voted for its ratification. Go figure!

2. True, few Union soldiers went to war to end slavery. But, after the EP, they were all fighting for ending slavery within the states in rebellion... whether they liked it or not (and many did not). Just as all Confederate soldiers were fighting for the war objectives (primarily the establishment of a nation based on slavery) of the authority that raised the army they belonged to ... whether they liked it or not.

Are you confusing being against slavery and being racist?
Do you think that every person who was an abolitionist was not racist?
Maybe that myth is one of those that should go away
Racism was rampant within the abolition movement.

 

[wausaubob]

The problem with this view is that while historic forces bias the outcome, they don't preordain it. In certain situations you could argue that something is effectively impossible, but in the case of the Civil War (where the relative skill levels and decisions of the leaders and generals on both sides absolutely do shape how things go in a big way) you can't really argue that.

If both sides raised troops to the limits of their capacity, the Union would have about 250,000 more troops in June 1862 than it historically did; under those circumstances it crushes the CSA easily. But it's the decisions of the leaders on the Union side of things which are why they don't, and it's the specific decisions of Union leaders which cause several significant reverses in 1862 - and it's also the specific decisions of Confederate leaders as well as Union which avoid those situations being even worse for the Union (though they could also have been better).

AS Johnston has his forces at Shiloh deploy in line-of-columns instead of column-of-lines and right wheels to crush Grant's army against the swamp on the 6th; nothing about that is prevented by the fundamental forces of history and it removes a Union army from the board. Lee gathers three extra brigades before Richmond in June and posts them south of White Oak Bridge to cut off McClellan's line of retreat on June 27-29 1862, forcing the surrender of the Army of the Potomac; the South had those brigades to use and it deletes about a quarter of the Union army from the ORBAT in one go.
These have massive influences on the course of the Civil War; they're not the most likely outcomes, but they're also not implausible.

Good comments. However the Confederacy would have been caught between the economic power of the No. 1 anti-slave trade power in the world, and the Confederacy's neighbor, the fastest growing industrial power in the world. Britain happened to be the south's biggest cotton buyer and US economy was the south's main trade partner for everything else.
We cannot say exactly how Britain would have created a cotton surplus and threatened a cotton buying embargo, but if they could threaten and bribe Portugal and Brazil, the Confederacy would have been pressured in the same way.
Despite the difficulties, the US won the Civil War with overwhelming production. The US did not lose many wars between 1860 and 1945. As long as the US industrial base remained undamaged, the US was going to get plenty of excuses to renew the war due to provocations in the western US.
Western slavery was doomed after 1852.