- Joined
- Apr 4, 2017
- Location
- Denver, CO
This is from The Imperiled Union, Essay's on the Background of the Civil War. Oxford University Press 1980.
In his final chapter, The Southern Road to Appomattox starting at p. 246, he theorizes that neither the defense of slavery nor the idea of Confederate nationalism had sufficient emotional impact on the imagination of the people in the southern states to convince them to the quick, total and unwavering commitment to secession that would have been necessary to overcome a committed opponent.
If this thesis is joined to a military analysis of how Generals McClellan and Rosecrans pealed off the strategically valuable counties of Western Virginia, and how Lincoln waited out the secessionist impulse in Kentucky, which gave Foote and Grant access to a weak spot in the Confederate defensive system, then it could be re-emphasized.
Early in the conflict the rush towards secession did not produce a wave of mobilization sufficient to capture Washington, DC. Failing that the Confederates were in for a longer war, and the ambivalence of the populace in places like East Tennessee and northwestern Arkansas created strategic problems for the Confederates.
In a situation in which the Confederacy was fighting while perched on a four million person revolutionary force, any ambivalence towards those two props of the Confederacy, slavery and separate nationalism, was likely to be strategically and psychologically decisive.
In his final chapter, The Southern Road to Appomattox starting at p. 246, he theorizes that neither the defense of slavery nor the idea of Confederate nationalism had sufficient emotional impact on the imagination of the people in the southern states to convince them to the quick, total and unwavering commitment to secession that would have been necessary to overcome a committed opponent.
If this thesis is joined to a military analysis of how Generals McClellan and Rosecrans pealed off the strategically valuable counties of Western Virginia, and how Lincoln waited out the secessionist impulse in Kentucky, which gave Foote and Grant access to a weak spot in the Confederate defensive system, then it could be re-emphasized.
Early in the conflict the rush towards secession did not produce a wave of mobilization sufficient to capture Washington, DC. Failing that the Confederates were in for a longer war, and the ambivalence of the populace in places like East Tennessee and northwestern Arkansas created strategic problems for the Confederates.
In a situation in which the Confederacy was fighting while perched on a four million person revolutionary force, any ambivalence towards those two props of the Confederacy, slavery and separate nationalism, was likely to be strategically and psychologically decisive.
Bringing the