Grant Grant had nothing to do with the Union winning the war

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Without the French Washington would have lost.
No not really, the Freanch only came in at the very end when it suited them.. After years of fighting the British hadn't defeated the rebels, and the willingess to fight the war was growing short in Parliament.. The French certainly hastened the end and made Yorktown possible by blocking the British fleet but the writing was on the wall..
 
Without the French Washington would have lost.

Oh for Pete's sake. I can play this silly game, too. How about this. Without slavery the South would not have been able to afford to wage war a single day.

Woulda-coulda-shoulda arguments get old, especially after 150 years.
 
Confederate Military History, Vol. 12
THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR
BY LIEUT.-GEN. STEPHEN D. LEE

Confederate Military History, Vol. 12
THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR.
[excerpt]
"THE war between the States" came suddenly and finally to an end in the spring of 1865. The effort which the seceded States made to maintain their independence brought under demand every resource of the people, and they utterly exhausted everything they had in order to make their cause a success.

The army of Gen. Robert E. Lee, in Virginia, surrendered April 9th; that of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, in North Carolina, April 26th; that of Gen. Richard Taylor, in Mississippi, May 4th, and that of Gen. E. Kirby Smith, west of the Mississippi river, May 26, 1865. All other organized bodies of Confederate troops, as well as individual soldiers, wherever they happened to be, reported to the nearest officer in command of Union troops, surrendered and received their paroles. The surrender of the Confederate armies and soldiers was universal and sincere, so much so that there was not a Confederate soldier under arms throughout the South from Maryland to Mexico, by June 9, 1865, or two months from the date of the surrender of General Lee's army in Virginia. There was no reservation in this surrender, no desire or effort to continue the struggle as guerrillas or otherwise.

There was complete submission to the authority of the United States government by all in official and private station. President Jefferson Davis, Vice-President A. H. Stephens, Governor Brown of Georgia, Governor Clark of Mississippi, Gen. Howell Cobb, and Senator Hill of Georgia, and other distinguished citizens of various parts of the South, were immediately arrested and imprisoned. The members of the Confederate cabinet were either prisoners, fugitives or exiles. The Confederate congress was disbanded, the judiciary inoperative, the treasury empty, and the finances, resources and civil power of the Confederate States of America perished in the death struggle.

The complete and sudden collapse of the Confederate government officially was typical of the complete exhaustion and prostration of the South in the almost superhuman effort she had made to sustain herself against the great odds in men and resources which the United States government had brought to bear against her. The seceded States had put in the field more than their white arms-bearing population; when we consider how soon the border States were overrun and occupied, and remember how soon large portions of the territory of these seceded States were also guarded by the Union armies as to prevent any effort to further recruit the Southern armies, this is the more apparent. The Confederacy had enlisted an army of a little over 700,000 men and had fought over 2,200 battles. The struggle was made over nearly every foot of her territory. She had lost the flower of her youth in the death of 325,000 men from the casualties of war (about one-half her enlisted strength), and many more were disabled and ruined in health. It is a moderate estimate to say that 20 per cent of the white bread-winners of the South were killed or disabled by the war. There was scarcely a home from which one or two had not been taken. The mortality of the Southern troops was enormously greater in proportion than was that of the Union troops, which was only 359,000 men in all, while that of the Southern troops was 325,000 men, the forces of the former outnumbering the latter by over 2,000,000. The contending armies had moved to and fro over the Confederate territory, leaving many cities in ashes and tracts of country in almost every State in waste. The desolation of war had reached nearly every locality and home. The people were utterly impoverished. Nearly all business was destroyed, and the farms gone to wreck. There was no money in circulation; the banks were generally broken; there was no credit system; most of the commercial agencies were inoperative or suspended. The work stock used in making crops had been mostly destroyed or carried away. Provisions were scarce, having been taken by the one or the other of the contending armies. The paroled soldiers returned to find their homes desolate, and they were disheartened and humiliated by failure. They had nothing at hand with which to begin life anew, except their land and the brave hearts which had carried them through four years of war, which ended in the defeat of a cause they deemed just and honorable.

They found at home 4,000,000 slaves suddenly emancipated as a result of the war. They realized that the greatest problem any people had ever had to solve on sudden notice faced them. The negroes, as was natural that it should be, were greatly demoralized, and had but a faint conception of the responsibility of the freedom that was theirs, and that they knew had been brought about by the defeat of the Southern armies. Large numbers of them thought that freedom meant a cessation of labor on their part, and that the great government which had freed them by force of arms would feed, clothe and provide for them. They generally left their work in the fields and went in crowds to the cities and towns, where they were fed and cared for at the expense of the United States government. All this added greatly to the chaos and confusion of the time.

Private debts that had been incurred in a period of great prosperity, prior to 1861, and were unpaid at the beginning of the war, were still unpaid, and the property, on which most of these debts were contracted, no longer existed. The railroads and other means of transportation were almost wrecked. All factories and other industries were generally destroyed. Agriculture, the main means of support in the South, was almost demoralized by the need of work animals and on account of the dis. organized labor.

To add to the general confusion, the country was flooded with adventurers from the North, camp followers of the Union armies, and others who rushed to the South as soon as they realized that the war was over. These men, imbued with the prejudices and passions which existed at the North during the war, at once began to inflame the negroes against their recent masters, and offered themselves as their friends and advisers in their new condition of freedom. In many portions of the South, the property of private individuals was seized and claimed as abandoned property (under the Freedmen's bureau law), and taken possession of for the use of the United States, and this property assigned for use to negroes who had left their homes and work. The new advisers generally led the negroes to believe that the Southern people were going to try to put them back into slavery, and that the United States government would give to each able-bodied negro man at least forty acres of land and a mule.

To add to the general gloom, great apprehension was felt regarding the future. The war had been waged cruelly toward the close, as was evidenced by the track of desolation and devastation (without a parallel in modern warfare for its pitiless barbarity), averaging 50 miles in breadth, from the Tennessee line through Georgia to Savannah, and through South Carolina by Columbia to North Carolina, by the Union army under Gen. W. T. Sherman; and the desolation in the valley of Virginia by General Sheridan, surpassing if anything that caused by Sherman's march to the sea. Every thing the South fought for was lost and surrendered. The general feeling which was mingled with apprehension and fear found expression (by Lamar) as follows: "We have given up the right of a people to secede from the Union; we have given up the right of each State tojudge for itself of the infraction of the Constitution and the mode of redress; we have given up the right to frame our own domestic institutions. We fought for all these and we lost in that controversy."

It is difficult to estimate the pecuniary loss of the South in the war, but it may be partially estimated by comparing her conditions in 1860 and 1870 according to the United States census. In 1860 the total assessed value of property in the United States was $12,000,000,000. The assessed value in the South was $5,200,000,000 (44 per cent), and at that time the South was increasing in wealth faster than any other portion of the United States. The census of 1870 showed the assessed valuation in the South to be $3,000,000,000 only, a decline of $2,200,000,000 since the census of 1860, and the property of the South decreasing in value instead of increasing. This, too, in face of the fact that the total assessed value in the whole country was $14,170,000,000, an increase of $4,370,000,000 in the North, showing that the North had gotten rich during the war while the South was impoverished.

Though the valuation of property by census is used to estimate the values officially, it is always considerably less than the real value. The loss of the South is only partially shown by the census. If we consider what was spent by the South to carry on the war, the destruction of property during the war, and the other losses incident to so great and complete a failure, it is estimated that the total loss of the South will not fall below $5,000,000,-000. Alexander H. Stephens, in his history of the United States, says the war cost both sides $8,000,000,-000, three-fourths of the assessed value of property in the whole United States at the beginning of the war. When we consider that the war debt incurred by the United States government alone was $3,000,000,000, the estimate given is less than a reasonable one, for the cost to the North in actual loss and expense in prosecuting the war was far beyond the war debt--the cost being estimated by some writers at $8,000,000,000.

Such was the condition of the South at the time (1865); exhausted, prostrated, disarmed, and in the presence of the victorious North, which then had an army, perhaps the best the world ever saw, of over 1,000,000 soldiers under arms. "Thus ended the war between the States," says Mr. Stephens. "It was waged by the Federals with the sole object, as they declared, of 'maintaining the Union under the Constitution,' while by the South it was waged with the great object of maintaining the inestimable sovereign right of local self-government on the part of the Southern States." The war had lasted four years, and the battles fought were among the greatest of modern times, great patriotism and generalship being displayed on both sides. The successes and defeats during most of the time were nearly equally divided, until finally the South fell from exhaustion before overwhelming numbers and resources. Over 2,000,000 soldiers had been brought against her, over and above her total forces, with a navy numbering 700 vessels of war, manned by 105,000 sailors, not including chartered vessel s numbering near 3,000. This great fleet was used in occupying and holding the numerous rivers in Confederate territory, in blockading the coast from Maryland to the Rio Grande, and in transporting armies and supplies around territory which could hot be crossed or occupied directly.


continued
 
Confederate Military History, Vol. 12
THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR.
continued....

POLITICAL CONDITIONS BEFORE THE WAR, AND AT ITS CLOSE.
To understand thoroughly the events which followed the close of the war, it is necessary to allude briefly to the political conditions of the North and South previous to the war, and the theories which each side acknowledged and adhered to to its close. For the first time in its history the great republic, which in its progress had grown in power, prosperity, resources and wealth so as to astonish the world, met the shock of revolution. Intricate questions difficult to solve and existing from the very formation of the government itself, had grown in intricacy with increase in power, population and prosperity, until the great political parties had divided on sectional lines, and the solution of the questions culminated in the war between the States, the greatest war of modern times. Slavery, State rights and acquisition of territory were the irritating causes. The two sections fought against each other, though neither of them departed, except as the exigencies of the war temporarily demanded, from the great American principle of government as they had construed it, namely, the sovereignty of the States composing the respective confederations. The Congress of the United States, in July, 1861, while controlled by the Republican party (the great war party), solemnly declared that the war was waged "to defend the Constitution and all laws in pursuance thereof, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired; that as soon as these objects were accomplished the war ought to cease." This was the accepted theory to the close of the war.

The seceded States, in their sovereign capacity and through constitutional conventions (the accepted method), severed their connection with the United States, formed a confederated government for common defense and adopted a constitution virtually the same as that of the United States, from which they had separated. They maintained for four years a government which was recognized as belligerent and de facto by other powerful nations, and at the close of that period, in theory, these States were still in the Confederacy, although it was de facto dead. In the theory of the Confederate government, and also of the United States government, the States composing each had been regarded as free and sovereign. They were as capable of maintaining self-government as they had been from the earliest days of the United States government. They as States had seceded from the United States in their sovereign capacity, and were capable of legally reconsidering their former action and again uniting with the other States of the Union. The people in the seceded States, as they understood it, had fought to perpetuate the Constitution of their fathers. They believed in State sovereignty in its broadest sense. This question had been an unsettled one always. They believed in the reserved rights of the States. They believed in the decisions of the Supreme court as finally settling all constitutional questions. They had looked to the Constitution to protect their property in slaves. They did not know what to expect next when fourteen of the States of the Union practically nullified the acts of Congress and the decisions of the highest court of the land in the matter of the fugitive slave laws. They had fought to maintain the constitution of 1789 as framed by a common ancestry. They felt and believed that they were actuated by as pure and lofty a spirit of liberty as had ever actuated and governed any people, and their devotion and sacrifices in the war were the evidence of this belief. The North entertained different views as to these questions. They wanted their views to prevail in the construction of the Constitution, and they wanted the Union to remain as it was. They had a majority of votes. The war came and the two irritating causes of difference, slavery and secession, were finally and forever settled against the South. They were eliminated as causes of dissension and difference, and that, too, by the highest appeal known to man--that of arms.

The South could do nothing but accept the result of the war. This they were anxious to do, and desirous to claim the protection of the Constitution of their fathers, framed by common ancestry, North and South. They were ready to accept the results with the same honesty and sincerity with which they had been ready to sacrifice their lives and their property, and with which they had endured privations, hardships, and other trials not surpassed by any people in history. But while this was the case, they felt that they had borne themselves honorably and as a brave people, believing that they were right in the great struggle through which they had passed. All that they had left after that struggle were their integrity, their honor, and their deep-seated love for the American form of government. They were incapable of doing anything which would throw dishonor on their record, or of taking any action by which they would stultify themselves as to that record. They were in the frame of mind to patiently await the action of the United States government in restoring them to the places they had formerly occupied among the States of the Union before the war. They hoped that they would be treated generously, and they determined to submit to any reasonable demand made on them by the victorious North. They knew that they would have to accept what was meted out to them, whether it was good or bad, whether it was generous or ungenerous, as they were utterly incapable of resorting to arms again.
 
Confederate Military History, Vol. 12
THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR
BY LIEUT.-GEN. STEPHEN D. LEE

Confederate Military History, Vol. 12
THE SOUTH SINCE THE WAR.
[excerpt]
"THE war between the States" came suddenly and finally to an end in the spring of 1865. The effort which the seceded States made to maintain their independence brought under demand every resource of the people, and they utterly exhausted everything they had in order to make their cause a success.

The army of Gen. Robert E. Lee, in Virginia, surrendered April 9th; that of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, in North Carolina, April 26th; that of Gen. Richard Taylor, in Mississippi, May 4th, and that of Gen. E. Kirby Smith, west of the Mississippi river, May 26, 1865. All other organized bodies of Confederate troops, as well as individual soldiers, wherever they happened to be, reported to the nearest officer in command of Union troops, surrendered and received their paroles. The surrender of the Confederate armies and soldiers was universal and sincere, so much so that there was not a Confederate soldier under arms throughout the South from Maryland to Mexico, by June 9, 1865, or two months from the date of the surrender of General Lee's army in Virginia. There was no reservation in this surrender, no desire or effort to continue the struggle as guerrillas or otherwise.

There was complete submission to the authority of the United States government by all in official and private station. President Jefferson Davis, Vice-President A. H. Stephens, Governor Brown of Georgia, Governor Clark of Mississippi, Gen. Howell Cobb, and Senator Hill of Georgia, and other distinguished citizens of various parts of the South, were immediately arrested and imprisoned. The members of the Confederate cabinet were either prisoners, fugitives or exiles. The Confederate congress was disbanded, the judiciary inoperative, the treasury empty, and the finances, resources and civil power of the Confederate States of America perished in the death struggle.

The complete and sudden collapse of the Confederate government officially was typical of the complete exhaustion and prostration of the South in the almost superhuman effort she had made to sustain herself against the great odds in men and resources which the United States government had brought to bear against her. The seceded States had put in the field more than their white arms-bearing population; when we consider how soon the border States were overrun and occupied, and remember how soon large portions of the territory of these seceded States were also guarded by the Union armies as to prevent any effort to further recruit the Southern armies, this is the more apparent. The Confederacy had enlisted an army of a little over 700,000 men and had fought over 2,200 battles. The struggle was made over nearly every foot of her territory. She had lost the flower of her youth in the death of 325,000 men from the casualties of war (about one-half her enlisted strength), and many more were disabled and ruined in health. It is a moderate estimate to say that 20 per cent of the white bread-winners of the South were killed or disabled by the war. There was scarcely a home from which one or two had not been taken. The mortality of the Southern troops was enormously greater in proportion than was that of the Union troops, which was only 359,000 men in all, while that of the Southern troops was 325,000 men, the forces of the former outnumbering the latter by over 2,000,000. The contending armies had moved to and fro over the Confederate territory, leaving many cities in ashes and tracts of country in almost every State in waste. The desolation of war had reached nearly every locality and home. The people were utterly impoverished. Nearly all business was destroyed, and the farms gone to wreck. There was no money in circulation; the banks were generally broken; there was no credit system; most of the commercial agencies were inoperative or suspended. The work stock used in making crops had been mostly destroyed or carried away. Provisions were scarce, having been taken by the one or the other of the contending armies. The paroled soldiers returned to find their homes desolate, and they were disheartened and humiliated by failure. They had nothing at hand with which to begin life anew, except their land and the brave hearts which had carried them through four years of war, which ended in the defeat of a cause they deemed just and honorable.

They found at home 4,000,000 slaves suddenly emancipated as a result of the war. They realized that the greatest problem any people had ever had to solve on sudden notice faced them. The negroes, as was natural that it should be, were greatly demoralized, and had but a faint conception of the responsibility of the freedom that was theirs, and that they knew had been brought about by the defeat of the Southern armies. Large numbers of them thought that freedom meant a cessation of labor on their part, and that the great government which had freed them by force of arms would feed, clothe and provide for them. They generally left their work in the fields and went in crowds to the cities and towns, where they were fed and cared for at the expense of the United States government. All this added greatly to the chaos and confusion of the time.

Private debts that had been incurred in a period of great prosperity, prior to 1861, and were unpaid at the beginning of the war, were still unpaid, and the property, on which most of these debts were contracted, no longer existed. The railroads and other means of transportation were almost wrecked. All factories and other industries were generally destroyed. Agriculture, the main means of support in the South, was almost demoralized by the need of work animals and on account of the dis. organized labor.

To add to the general confusion, the country was flooded with adventurers from the North, camp followers of the Union armies, and others who rushed to the South as soon as they realized that the war was over. These men, imbued with the prejudices and passions which existed at the North during the war, at once began to inflame the negroes against their recent masters, and offered themselves as their friends and advisers in their new condition of freedom. In many portions of the South, the property of private individuals was seized and claimed as abandoned property (under the Freedmen's bureau law), and taken possession of for the use of the United States, and this property assigned for use to negroes who had left their homes and work. The new advisers generally led the negroes to believe that the Southern people were going to try to put them back into slavery, and that the United States government would give to each able-bodied negro man at least forty acres of land and a mule.

To add to the general gloom, great apprehension was felt regarding the future. The war had been waged cruelly toward the close, as was evidenced by the track of desolation and devastation (without a parallel in modern warfare for its pitiless barbarity), averaging 50 miles in breadth, from the Tennessee line through Georgia to Savannah, and through South Carolina by Columbia to North Carolina, by the Union army under Gen. W. T. Sherman; and the desolation in the valley of Virginia by General Sheridan, surpassing if anything that caused by Sherman's march to the sea. Every thing the South fought for was lost and surrendered. The general feeling which was mingled with apprehension and fear found expression (by Lamar) as follows: "We have given up the right of a people to secede from the Union; we have given up the right of each State tojudge for itself of the infraction of the Constitution and the mode of redress; we have given up the right to frame our own domestic institutions. We fought for all these and we lost in that controversy."

It is difficult to estimate the pecuniary loss of the South in the war, but it may be partially estimated by comparing her conditions in 1860 and 1870 according to the United States census. In 1860 the total assessed value of property in the United States was $12,000,000,000. The assessed value in the South was $5,200,000,000 (44 per cent), and at that time the South was increasing in wealth faster than any other portion of the United States. The census of 1870 showed the assessed valuation in the South to be $3,000,000,000 only, a decline of $2,200,000,000 since the census of 1860, and the property of the South decreasing in value instead of increasing. This, too, in face of the fact that the total assessed value in the whole country was $14,170,000,000, an increase of $4,370,000,000 in the North, showing that the North had gotten rich during the war while the South was impoverished.

Though the valuation of property by census is used to estimate the values officially, it is always considerably less than the real value. The loss of the South is only partially shown by the census. If we consider what was spent by the South to carry on the war, the destruction of property during the war, and the other losses incident to so great and complete a failure, it is estimated that the total loss of the South will not fall below $5,000,000,-000. Alexander H. Stephens, in his history of the United States, says the war cost both sides $8,000,000,-000, three-fourths of the assessed value of property in the whole United States at the beginning of the war. When we consider that the war debt incurred by the United States government alone was $3,000,000,000, the estimate given is less than a reasonable one, for the cost to the North in actual loss and expense in prosecuting the war was far beyond the war debt--the cost being estimated by some writers at $8,000,000,000.

Such was the condition of the South at the time (1865); exhausted, prostrated, disarmed, and in the presence of the victorious North, which then had an army, perhaps the best the world ever saw, of over 1,000,000 soldiers under arms. "Thus ended the war between the States," says Mr. Stephens. "It was waged by the Federals with the sole object, as they declared, of 'maintaining the Union under the Constitution,' while by the South it was waged with the great object of maintaining the inestimable sovereign right of local self-government on the part of the Southern States." The war had lasted four years, and the battles fought were among the greatest of modern times, great patriotism and generalship being displayed on both sides. The successes and defeats during most of the time were nearly equally divided, until finally the South fell from exhaustion before overwhelming numbers and resources. Over 2,000,000 soldiers had been brought against her, over and above her total forces, with a navy numbering 700 vessels of war, manned by 105,000 sailors, not including chartered vessel s numbering near 3,000. This great fleet was used in occupying and holding the numerous rivers in Confederate territory, in blockading the coast from Maryland to the Rio Grande, and in transporting armies and supplies around territory which could hot be crossed or occupied directly.


continued

Interesting read, though I detect a strong southern bias in some parts, with words like "cruel" and "pitiless barbarity" being laid on the Union, followed by the predictable pity plea "Everything the South fought for was lost and surrendered..." They fought for and lost their slaves and an economy based on slave labor. They should have thought that through before starting a war, but they didn't, and devastation was the result. It's all on them. Nobody else is to blame.

"The south having brought revolution and war upon the country, and having elected and consented to play at their fearful game, has no right to complain if calamity results from her own act and deed." - Frederick Douglass
 
O.R.--SERIES IV--VOLUME I [S# 127]
CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, REPORTS, AND RETURNS OF THE CONFEDERATE AUTHORITIES, DECEMBER 20, 1860-JUNE 30, 1862.(*)--#8
Address to the people of Texas.
AUSTIN, March 30, 1861.
FELLOW-CITIZENS:
The undersigned are a committee of the convention to prepare a brief exposition of its proceedings, with reasons therefor, as an address to the people for general information. The political crisis arose from an irreconcilable diversity of opinion between the Northern and Southern portions of the United States of America as to relative rights. Separation of Southern from Northern States was the leading object of the popular movement with a view to a consequent confederacy of seceded States as the best means, if not the only mode, of securing essential and inalienable rights. In this State the public mind was exercised by the question of our final separation from all other States, but the idea of such a result had no favor and the apprehension of it was used as an argument against secession, while the objection was met by the assured policy of a seceded confederacy. Hence, with rare exceptions the advocates and opponents of immediate and separate secession of this State commenced and prosecuted the canvass, differing on the leading proposition of secession, but uniting in opinion that consummated secession should result in confederation as an incident. So the decision was on secession. Early in the canvass public sentiment was entitled to prompt facility for its authoritative expression, and a call of the Legislature was earnestly claimed as the ordinary means. It is needless to recite any of the known particulars of executive opposition to the secession movement, but the substance of that opposition must always be in mind in order to understand the popular action of this State. As a remedy against executive dictation in our State government and against a ruinous administration of the Federal Government the people had but one mode of action that was prescribed by and for themselves in the declaration of rights in our State constitution, as follows:

SECTION 1. All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit, and they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of government in such manner as they may think expedient.

To attain the objects, and under the necessity before stated, the people rose in their sovereignty and constituted a convention to be the representation and instrumentality of their will. At the election of delegates, although held, under utmost disadvantages, the aggregate of votes for secession candidates, according to best information, was over 32,000. The proceeding was extraordinary and returns were irregular and incomplete of necessity from such an election, but reliable information showed for secession over 32,000---more than half of the largest poll ever given at an election in this State. In opposition there were comparatively few votes. And many other circumstances concurred in establishing the certainty that the secession sentiment was far in the ascendency. Thus elected and for such purposes the delegates assembled in convention at Austin the 28th of January. Although at the time of the election South Carolina was the only State that had completed secession, and many persons were deterred from voting by apprehension that she might not be sufficiently imitated, yet the secession voters expected co-operation. Before the meeting of the convention Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana had seceded, and Texas was the only exception among all the Gulf States. Encouraged by such examples, Texas felt sustained in her convictions of the propriety of secession before the commencement of the abolition administration of the General Government. Admonished by the same circumstances of her peculiar dangers to arise out of even delay in co-operation with those States, Texas had just fears as well as natural sympathies to prompt the earliest practicable association with the seceded States. They had appointed delegates to meet at Montgomery, Ala., on the 4th of February to form a provisional government as a first necessity, and afterward to prepare and submit a constitution for the government of a permanent confederacy.

It would be out of place and time in this address to recite the causes justifying secession. They have been heretofore published by the convention; but they must ever be most prominent in considering the current of causes and effects. Under such circumstances the convention was not recreant to its mission. On the 1st day of February, the fourth after its meeting, the convention by a vote of 166 affirmatives to 8 negatives adopted an ordinance for withdrawing this State from the Union, to take effect on the 2d day of March, unless rejected by the people at an election to be held on the 23d of February. The Legislature and the Executive had previously recognized the convention as a representation of the people and were in a formal attendance, on invitation, at the adoption of the ordinance. Such recognition was gratifying to the public in general and relieved some persons from doubts of the legality of the convention, but it always claimed by express avowals to have its authority and instructions directly from the people. The ordinance of separation might have been made immediately final if necessity had required it, but there was time before the 4th of March to obtain a more formal and unquestionable expression of public sentiment, and the anniversary of Texan independence, the 2d of March, was selected as the day of final separation, subject to express rejection at a general election, for which provision was made. While that election was to be decisive on the question of separation, it was in its nature to be conclusive on the question of confederation, unless some unexpected event should occur to require another direct and formal expression of the public will. If the convention could have trifled with itself, it had too much respect for the intelligence of its constituents to suppose that they intended to have such an agency constituted simply to prepare and propose a secession ordinance for their ratification or rejection and then to retire, although the public necessities which caused the convention demanded its continuance for immediate and essential action. Even willing legislative and executive functionaries could not do what was necessary in many respects for want of authority, and another convention could not be constituted in time for emergencies which did not admit of delay. The convention, as the authorized agency of intelligent public will, proceeded to do whatever the occasion required, but no more. The ordinance of secession involved the public safety, which could not be secured by means of the ordinary government, and' a committee of safety was constituted with adequate powers to provide means and to control the U.S. military force with its incidents within this State, and to substitute indispensable temporary protection. Further, to secure the public safety and to obtain other inestimable advantages from immediate connection with the States which had finally seceded and were then in convention at Montgomery, Ala., delegates to that convention were elected, to be advisory as to interests of this State until the consummation of its separation, and then to participate on terms of equality in administration of a provisional government and in preparation of a constitution for a permanent confederacy. Moreover, to promote security and other manifest benefits from the contemplated confederacy, commissioners were delegated to Arizona and New Mexico to procure their co-operation, and other commissioners were sent to the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Cherokee Nations to aid in preparing them for alliance with such confederacy. Also other corresponding measures of minor importance were adopted.

continued (where immigration is approved)
 
Having made such arrangements for parts of the great popular enterprise, the convention adjourned on the 5th of February to meet again on the 2d of March, as a continued agency to execute the public will. On the day for ratification or rejection of the ordinance for separation the whole subject was before the voters--the state of the general crisis; what the convention itself had done; what its committee of safety was doing during the recess; what commissioners were to do, and what was the incipient relation and prospect of permanent connection of this State with the confederacy. The convention acted and proposed to act as the authorized agent of the people, and they had an opportunity to affirm or disaffirm such agency by ratifying or rejecting its principal act. The result of the election on the secession ordinance shows more than three in favor of it to one against it, and an aggregate of over 60,000 votes--some additions to the regular announcements being made by subsequent official returns--and the returns of 120 counties being included, while only three small counties are not included of all that have been organized. The convention reassembled on the 2d of March, and soon found that the election had reindorsed it as the public agency for the political reformation which was in progress. During the recess the committee of safety by its agents, with the spontaneous and patriotic co-operation of citizen soldiery, had made arrangements for removing from Texas by the safe coast route the whole military force within Texas pertaining to the Union and for the surrender of all property and possessions (with small honorary exceptions) held in Texas by the Federal Government. The execution of such arrangements has progressed nearly to completion and so as to leave no doubt of full accomplishment at an early date without any violent collision, although the just apprehension of it caused indispensable preparation. The troops thus called into the field and some others have supplied the place of those sent away, as well as circumstances would allow, and will continue to do so until superseded by regular forces. Details of the proceedings of the Committee of Public Safety cannot be here admitted, but they are otherwise published, and they do honor to the committee and their agents, while sustaining the convention for constituting such power a temporary necessity. The convention found that the Constitution for the Provisional Government of the Confederacy was well adapted to the emergency without departing from any essential principle of the Union Constitution, and the measures of the Provisional Government appeared to be well adapted to circumstances. The selection of persons for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency seemed to be entirely appropriate. The convention had no hesitation in expressing a formal approval of the Constitution and administration of the Provisional Government, which was not to continue longer than one year, and was to be superseded within that time by a permanent government. It would be out of place here to state what the Provisional Government has done, unless in connection with some action of the convention. But it is proper to say that the measures of that Government have superseded the action of this State on postal affairs and on revenue by customs. Under that temporary Government also the judicial jurisdiction is similar to that of the Federal Government, but with one judge to each State. As to military and naval affairs the Provisional Government has provided so that the convention did not deem its action necessary, except as before stated, and to raise one regiment of mounted volunteers to serve twelve months, unless sooner discharged. That Government is raising in Texas another similar regiment and will doubtless accept the former.

A law of the last session of the present Legislature provided another mode of defense by small companies of citizens as minutemen along the whole line of frontier from the Rio Grande to Red River. All these forces are considered more available for protection against Indians and other marauders than any previous forces in Texas since its annexation to the Union Government. But there is a deficiency in artillery, infantry, and engineering forces for which the Provisional Government is making provision. So there is a better prospect and assurance of protection than has heretofore been given with reference to the interior frontier, and the change of circumstances must superinduce better preparations for defense along the coast. Moreover, the Legislature is in session and has power to provide further against insurrection or invasion if occasion should require. Secession from the Union and connection with the Confederacy caused a necessity for a change in the State constitution, so that the oath of office should have the "Confederate States of America" substituted for the "United States of America." One ordinance made this change and another prescribed the times and modes for taking the oath by all present and future officers of the State, declaring a vacancy in case of any failure to take the oath as required. The manner of requirement followed the examples of other States where willing officials were not captious. The lieutenant-governor, commissioner of the general land office (who was opposed to secession), comptroller, State treasurer, attorney-general, all of the supreme and district judges who were in Austin, every member of the State Senate, every member of the House of Representatives except one, and many county officers who were in Austin, promptly took the oath prescribed by the amended constitution. Of those who thus took the oath a considerable proportion had opposed secession, but the Governor and secretary of state declined to take the oath when notified according to the ordinance therefor. Thereupon the convention, by another ordinance, declared as consequences that each office was vacant and that the executive powers devolved on the lieutenant-governor. The original State constitution provided that the lieutenant-governor should so act in case of any vacancy in the office of Governor. And so the lieutenant-governor is performing the executive duties without consent but without resistance by the late Governor, who still claims to be legally in office. In this and other instances he has "sought out many inventions" to array the functionaries of the State government against the convention, which has been obliged to control such official opposition in pursuing the even tenor of the way to render effectual the known public desire for thorough work, to give early security, peace, and quietude. The will of the late Governor has been against that of the people as to their political destiny and the one or the other had to yield. The people could not.

At length the "Constitution of the Confederate States of America" for the permanent Government was received. The convention had previously declared in its ordinance directing the delegates from this State to participate in forming such a constitution that it should "not become obligatory on this State till approved by the people in such way as should be determined upon." That the people might approve by the existing convention, or that it might provide for another popular election, remained for determination on the arrival of the Constitution. Had it contained any unexpected principle so as to make a new case in substance on which the public mind had not been ascertained, the importance of prompt ratification could have yielded to the paramount necessity for another election. But no such necessity appeared in any part of the Constitution, which did not depart from the general expectation unless it did so in the excellence of its conformity with the best hope of the people. Former elections, with attending circumstances, left no doubt of the public wish and the corresponding authority of the convention for immediate and final ratification of the Constitution. If the power existed the expediency of such a course was commanding for various reasons. The people could not desire to be troubled by another general election without necessity and they felt the importance of early relief from strife within this State as to its political position. Prompt certainty, of course, would justify the Confederate Government in adopting more expensive, effective, and permanent measures for the defense of this State, especially its desolated frontier, than could be expected before a finality. In connection with the defense of Texas, the appearance of uncertainty as to its political position would embarrass the pending arrangements for an alliance between the Confederacy as one party and the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Cherokee Nations in concert as the other party. Such hesitation on the part of Texas would tend to produce similar hesitation in Arizona and New Mexico as to their connection with the Confederacy. Such procrastination would operate unfavorably on the neighboring Government and people of Mexico as to desirable negotiations and intercourse. Any appearance of doubt that Texas was to be sustained by connection with the Confederacy would stimulate marauding and incendiary efforts, while it would be fuel for faction. During such suspense the postal arrangements for Texas would be embarrassed and retarded, and so as to the judiciary and the revenue. Delay would prostrate trade and commerce. A final connection of this State with the Confederacy without delay would give to it additional strength and promote early success in its negotiations as to peace with the old Government, as to the procurement of money, as to recognition by other nations, and as to commercial relations. Moreover, the prompt and permanent connection of Texas with the Confederacy could not fail to have a favorable influence on the Border States as inducement for them to abandon their equivocal positions and connect themselves with their more Southern sisters and natural associations. A like influence would materially affect immigration from those States, conducing to the advantage of the immigrants and to the growth of this State. In view of such considerations the convention promptly and finally on the 23d of March ratified, accepted, and adopted the Constitution by a vote of 128 affirmatives to 2 negatives. A copy of this guaranty for our future liberty is annexed to this address as a part of it, so that the public may have a connected view of the progress and result of the recent wonderful political enterprise of the people of this State. The people will see that the Constitution of the Confederate States of America is copied almost entirely from the Constitution of the United States. The few changes made are admitted by all to be improvements. Let every man compare the new with the old and see for himself that we still cling to the old Constitution made by our fathers.

But the connection of Texas with the Confederacy involved a necessity for modifications of our State constitution so that it should be in conformity with our new relation, and another consequent necessity requires that the Legislature should have some extension of power to raise funds within bounds and on terms that would be safe and beneficial for the State. Such modifications were made. The convention realized that other changes of the State constitution were desirable, but its amendments were confined to particulars which were considered to be necessary parts of the great political change. Many other interesting incidents might be stated, but they would cause this address to be tedious, and the foregoing outline may enable the people to take a connected and orderly view of the substance of proceedings by which there has been accomplished a political reformation which has no parallel, considering the opposing circumstances and the triumphant successes. The people of Texas have asserted their sovereignty. They have dissolved their connection with a Government whose administrative power had been augmented and directed so that it would procure their ruin. They have connected themselves with another Government whose foundations give the most hopeful assurance of permanent constitutional liberty. By two general elections and two meetings of the convention in a State of vast area within seventy-eight days the whole change of government has been completed. The popular demonstrations have overcome thousands of the Regular Army of the old Government and an opposing minority of citizens without bloodshed. Every citizen, if he will, may look with patriotic pride on the consummated reformation whose progress caused no vital interruption in public or private business and whose result is an assurance of the best security and enjoyment which human government can afford. When permanently successful such a remodeling of government, embracing our complicated system of reserved State rights and delegated confederate authority, may give a better guaranty than all history that our people at least are capable of instituting and maintaining free government. The convention having finished its work in harmony with the Legislature, confides in that body and the present Executive and the judiciary to conduct the State government according to the will and interests of their constituents. The convention congratulates the people on the prompt and thorough accomplishment of their wishes. But some citizens are not satisfied. A large proportion of those who did not favor secession have subsequently acquiesced and many of them have become identified with it by candid co-operation. But in various parts of the State there are some persons who continue pertinacious in their opposition. It is not the province of this address to comment on their conduct. Their rights as citizens are not questioned, but their duties are equally unquestionable, and it is proper merely to state their position. Their platform denounces the convention as a usurpation and tolerates it only as a partial instrument of the Legislature in submitting the ordinance for secession to a popular election, and declares all its other acts to be without authority and void, notwithstanding 46,000 voters indorsed it. Their platform assumes the superiority of the ordinary government over the sovereignty of the people as represented by the convention, and repudiates its acts with singular inconsistency, inasmuch as the Legislature itself in various modes has recognized and approved the convention and co-operated with it as a lawful representation of the people, even asking and obtaining from it for the public good a certain extension of legislative power. Their platform claims a pretended right to use force against the convention and its acts, but for the present defers the exercise of such monstrous power. Time must show whether it is to be asserted by violent action under other circumstances. Their platform appeals to the people against the alleged usurpations by encouraging reaction and disorganization, thereby encouraging discord and strife, to which ends, among other means, it stimulates jealousies and hostilities among various classes of the community. In any practical view of the great crisis there are but two positions for citizens to take---either with the combined policy of separation from the old Union and connection with the Confederate States, or with the contrary. The former is an existing reality; the latter is in opposition to the constituted authority and the public will of Texas. Minor considerations of form must yield to substance. The sovereign will of the people must be sustained. The convention would fain hope for speedy and universal harmony in devoted patriotism. The coming elections of this year for both State and Confederate officers will deserve peculiar attention by the people, so that they may have the best possible guaranties for accomplishing the great objects of our political reformation. It has not been deemed necessary to speak particularly of the question of peace or war. The convention acted with a view to either alternative. The people will be gratified to know that the members of the convention have acted with such mutual courtesy that there has not been a single instance of personality in its deliberations.

Having finished its business about noon of the 25th of March, the convention, in an orderly manner, adjourned sine die. Its proceedings affecting military movements were necessarily secret for the moment, but the injunction of secrecy was removed almost immediately and the world knows now every transaction. The convention will be tried by its works and it feels no apprehension of the freemen of Texas. Invoking the blessings of Heaven on whatever has been properly done by the convention, its members, except the few who have been called to public stations in the Confederacy, return to their ordinary pursuits in society to share for weal or woe what has been done in common with their fellow-citizens.
For the convention, by its committee:
PRYOR LEA,
of Goliad.
JOHN HENRY BROWN,
of Bell.
JOHN D. STELL,
of Leon.
 
Interesting read, though I detect a strong southern bias in some parts, with words like "cruel" and "pitiless barbarity" being laid on the Union, followed by the predictable pity plea "Everything the South fought for was lost and surrendered..." They lost their slaves and an economy based on slave labor. They should have thought that through before starting a war.

"The south having brought revolution and war upon the country, and having elected and consented to play at their fearful game, has no right to complain if calamity results from her own act and deed." - Frederick Douglass

Well, it is Lt. General S. D. Lee... who served in the CSA.

Even the bias known, recognized --there are some truths in troop numbers as to the close of the war and makes a good summary. The 'state' of the Confederacy in the General's opinion based on his knowledge. Regardless of side ...General S. D. Lee states what was and not wishful thinking.

Just some thoughts and opinions.

M. E. Wolf
 
Interesting read, though I detect a strong southern bias in some parts, with words like "cruel" and "pitiless barbarity" being laid on the Union, followed by the predictable pity plea "Everything the South fought for was lost and surrendered..." They lost their slaves and an economy based on slave labor. They should have thought that through before starting a war.

"The south having brought revolution and war upon the country, and having elected and consented to play at their fearful game, has no right to complain if calamity results from her own act and deed." - Frederick Douglass

From wiki: Stephen Dill Lee (September 22, 1833 – May 28, 1908) was an American soldier, planter, legislator, and author. He was the youngest Confederate lieutenant general during the American Civil War, and later served as the first president of Mississippi A&M College. Late in life, Lee was the commander-in-chief of the United Confederate Veterans.
 
This is just more of that Lost Cause drivel about the south lost because the north had the greater numbers. This is to suggest that it wasn't a fair fight, and the poor trod-upon South woulda-coulda-shoulda won if it wasn't for the big, bad, Federal government picking on the lil-ol genteel South..

The successes and defeats during most of the time were nearly equally divided, until finally the South fell from exhaustion before overwhelming numbers and resources. Over 2,000,000 soldiers had been brought against her, over and above her total forces, with a navy numbering 700 vessels of war, manned by 105,000 sailors, not including chartered vessel s numbering near 3,000. This great fleet was used in occupying and holding the numerous rivers in Confederate territory, in blockading the coast from Maryland to the Rio Grande, and in transporting armies and supplies around territory which could hot be crossed or occupied directly.

I love the little prose flourishes -- "... the South fell from exhaustion before overwhelming numbers and resources."

Fell from exhaustion! :rolleyes:

It was a story foretold...

You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it… Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail. - William Tecumseh Sherman
"Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear to Tread"
 
This is just more of that Lost Cause drivel about the south lost because the north had the greater numbers. This is to suggest that it wasn't a fair fight, and the poor trod-upon South woulda-coulda-shoulda have won if it weren't for that.



I love the little prose flourishes -- "... the South fell from exhaustion before overwhelming numbers and resources."

Fell from exhaustion! :rolleyes:

It was a story foretold...

You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it… Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail. - William Tecumseh Sherman
"Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear to Tread"

The South was a young nation and in the nature of youth figured each Southerner could beat 10 Yankees with one hand tied behind their back.
 
The South was a young nation and in the nature of youth figured each Southerner could beat 10 Yankees with one hand tied behind their back.

"A young nation" as in the CSA? Or "young" as in immature? They certainly weren't chronologically younger than the other 13 colonies.

Take South Carolina for example:

South Carolina is one of the 13 original colonies of the United States.

The colony was founded in 1663. The English colony of the Province of Carolina was started in Charleston in 1670, with wealthy planters and their slaves, coming from the British Caribbean colony of Barbados. Colonists overthrew the proprietors after the Yamasee War, pushing back the American Indians in 1715-1717. In 1719 the colony was officially made a crown colony, and North Carolina was split off and made into a separate colony in 1729. South Carolina banded together with the other colonies to oppose British taxation in the Stamp Act Crisis of 1765, and played a major role in resisting Britain. It became independent in March 1776 and joined the United States of America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Carolina
 
"A young nation" as in the CSA? Or "young" as in immature? They certainly weren't chronologically younger than the other 13 colonies.

Take South Carolina for example:

South Carolina is one of the 13 original colonies of the United States.

The colony was founded in 1663. The English colony of the Province of Carolina was started in Charleston in 1670, with wealthy planters and their slaves, coming from the British Caribbean colony of Barbados. Colonists overthrew the proprietors after the Yamasee War, pushing back the American Indians in 1715-1717. In 1719 the colony was officially made a crown colony, and North Carolina was split off and made into a separate colony in 1729. South Carolina banded together with the other colonies to oppose British taxation in the Stamp Act Crisis of 1765, and played a major role in resisting Britain. It became independent in March 1776 and joined the United States of America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Carolina

You going around to a batch of young men listening to the local Fire Eater, half drunk and full of themselves with a history lesson.
 
This is just more of that Lost Cause drivel about the south lost because the north had the greater numbers. This is to suggest that it wasn't a fair fight, and the poor trod-upon South woulda-coulda-shoulda've won if it wasn't for the big, bad, Federal government picking on the lil-ol genteel South..

This isn't the worst lost cause prose I've seen. In the text, he says, "the war came and the two irritating causes of difference, slavery and secession, were finally and forever settled against the South. They were eliminated as causes of dissension and difference, and that, too, by the highest appeal known to man--that of arms."

Obviously, he didn't get the memo to blame tariffs or some other such stuff.

- Alan
 
This isn't the worst lost cause prose I've seen. In the text, he says, "the war came and the two irritating causes of difference, slavery and secession, were finally and forever settled against the South. They were eliminated as causes of dissension and difference, and that, too, by the highest appeal known to man--that of arms."

Obviously, he didn't get the memo to blame tariffs or some other such stuff.

- Alan

Obviously lol
 
You going around to a batch of young men listening to the local Fire Eater, half drunk and full of themselves with a history lesson.

The batch of young men aren't the ones who led the boys into war. How old was Jefferson Davis? How old was Robert E. Lee and all the other Southern gentlemen in officer's uniforms?

But we're veering way off the point...

err I forgot. what was the point?
 
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