Were Confederate Generals Traitors?

[CMWinkler]

Were Confederate Generals Traitors?

By Walter E. Williams | June 27, 2017 | 8:37 AM EDT



Expired Image Removed
At the 150th anniversary of the Civil War's Battle of Chancellorsville, a Confederate re-enactor issues orders to troops to get them into position during the re-enactment of Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson's flank attack against the Union XI Corps. (DOD Photo/Sgt. 1st Class Raymond J. Piper, Soldiers Live)
My "Rewriting American History" column of a fortnight ago, about the dismantling of Confederate monuments, generated considerable mail.

Some argued there should not be statues honoring traitors such as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis, who fought against the Union. Victors of wars get to write the history, and the history they write often does not reflect the facts. Let's look at some of the facts and ask: Did the South have a right to secede from the Union? If it did, we can't label Confederate generals as traitors.

More: http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/walter-e-williams/were-confederate-generals-traitors#disqus_thread

 

[jgoodguy]

The claim that I call people liars simply for disagreeing is a deliberate mischaracterization as anyone who checks the archives can see.

As moderator.
If you don't stop using the term 'liar', your time on CWT will be limited.
Use the term deliberate mischaracterization if you wish or other more polite terms.

 

[jgoodguy]

Source: myself, in the thread "There can be no peaceable secession" -- northern impetus for war before Sumter"

Links to individual resolutions:

Michigan

New York

Massachusetts

Pennsylvani

Minnesota

Wisconsin

Bonus round:

Ohio

Maine

Thanks for the links

 

[Sid J.]

Walter Williams...I was trying to think of why his connection to the Civil War was familiar to me: He was the subject of a very long thread here on CWT:

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/bl...s-walter-williams-latest.120894/#post-1262464

I wonder if he writes his articles knowingly of the controversy that they will stir? Otherwise, he is a great "contributor" here at CWT

Williams was still peddling this whopper "Southern ports paid 75 percent of tariffs in 1859" recently. Most of what he says in the OP article is no more true than that.

 

[cash]

Williams was still peddling this whopper "Southern ports paid 75 percent of tariffs in 1859" recently. Most of what he says in the OP article is no more true than that.

Williams knows what he's peddling isn't true, but he doesn't care. He's advancing a political agenda and trying to fool as many people as he can.

 

[War Horse]

I always enjoy reading Walter Williams, and once again he's made a good case, within what one assumes are the word/space limits of his columns. There's a lot that could be said about all of his examples.

Does it really matter? The in office electee's chose not to prosecute them at the time. Lincoln was dead and
Johnston did not excercise his privilege to do so.

 

[Sid J.]

Williams knows what he's peddling isn't true, but he doesn't care. He's advancing a political agenda and trying to fool as many people as he can.

Mostly folks who "have little idea what the Lost Cause" is, and claim "if there was any indoctrination, it wasn't on the "Lost Cause" side of things"

 

[gem]

I had said in a different thread that the Confederacy and the Founding Fathers were similar. The author has the same view.

 

[shermans_march]

So anyone who doesn't agree with you is a liar?

Could we use the word "misinformed" instead of liar? It is a little less provocative.

 

[Bee]

Could we use the word "misinformed" instead of liar? It is a little less provocative.

How about a fabulist?

 

[huskerblitz]

I have two thoughts that comes to mind when I read the thread title:

1. If they were traitors, how does that change history?
2. If they weren't traitors, how does that change history?

Answers pretty much the same. It doesn't.

 

[CSA Today]

Could we use the word "misinformed" instead of liar? It is a little less provocative.

I agree, but why didn't you direct your reply to the guilty, I haven't called anyone a liar?

 

[DaveGberg]

I have two thoughts that comes to mind when I read the thread title:

1. If they were traitors, how does that change history?
2. If they weren't traitors, how does that change history?

Answers pretty much the same. It doesn't.

Besides being a prominent footnote to the civil war, it's important for us to understand where that red line exists.

 

[thomas aagaard]

Walter E. Williams is a mythmaker and you can't trust him if he tell you that water is wet.
And yes I use the word Liar deliberate. No one get to become an economist without knowing how to use sources correctly. So his may "mistakes" must be deliberate.
-----


I think it is a complex question.
From a union legal perspective. Absolutely. Secession was not legal and they waged war on the union.

But that makes for a short debate.

Another way of looking at it, is making as scale of how bad it was.

At the top I would put a Guy like General Twiggs.
He actively used his position in the Regular army, to support the rebellion.
Another one is Floyd who misused his position as Secretary of war, to move arms to arsenals in the south.
And then he became a CSA general.

Had they been captured I do think it would have been perfectly fair if they had been hung as a traitors.
---
Then we have a large group of serving Federal officers, who resigned to join the rebellion. But who did not actively misuse their position. This include Lee and Longstreet.
They still resign to join an enemy of the Union. I Think resigning when their state seceded was more Honorable then waiting until the war had started, but both was way better than what Twiggs did.
But we need to understand that this was a civil war and men often followed their home.
So I think it is bad and a clear violation of the oath as officers, (if not in word then in sprite) but I can sort of understand why.
----
Then we got men who had served, but left the army before the war. Like Jackson.
In this case I think it is much harder to blame them for what they did, since they where no longer serving officers.
---
Everyone else who decided to go with their state.
No way they should be considered traitors. (no matter what rank they attain) After the conscription was started, they would have been punished by the state government if they had not fought.

 

[CSA Today]

Walter E. Williams is a mythmaker and you can't trust him if he tell you that water is wet.
And yes I use the word Liar deliberate. No one get to become an economist without knowing how to use sources correctly. So his may "mistakes" must be deliberate.
-----


I think it is a complex question.
From a union legal perspective. Absolutely. Secession was not legal and they waged war on the union.

But that makes for a short debate.

Another way of looking at it, is making as scale of how bad it was.

At the top I would put a Guy like General Twiggs.
He actively used his position in the Regular army, to support the rebellion.
Another one is Floyd who misused his position as Secretary of war, to move arms to arsenals in the south.
And then he became a CSA general.

Had they been captured I do think it would have been perfectly fair if they had been hung as a traitors.
---
Then we have a large group of serving Federal officers, who resigned to join the rebellion. But who did not actively misuse their position. This include Lee and Longstreet.
They still resign to join an enemy of the Union. I Think resigning when their state seceded was more Honorable then waiting until the war had started, but both was way better than what Twiggs did.
But we need to understand that this was a civil war and men often followed their home.
So I think it is bad and a clear violation of the oath as officers, (if not in word then in sprite) but I can sort of understand why.
----
Then we got men who had served, but left the army before the war. Like Jackson.
In this case I think it is much harder to blame them for what they did, since they where no longer serving officers.
---
Everyone else who decided to go with their state.
No way they should be considered traitors. (no matter what rank they attain) After the conscription was started, they would have been punished by the state government if they had not fought.

Walter E. Williams is "a mythmaker" and doesn't use sources correctly according to who other than you?

 

[thomas aagaard]

Others have already posted evidence of this earlier in this topic.
Like his claim that "Southern ports paid 75 percent of tariffs in 1859"

When about $4 million was collected in the south compared to about $48 million in the north.
(page p. 205, in Financial Failure and Confederate Defeat, by Douglas B. Ball -)
ok that is for 1860, but things don't change to an extent that it undermine my point.


And really anyone who know anything about the topic should realize that something is off.
Considering that Tariffs is something you pay on Imports. (And not exports)
Just the difference in population size should tell you that the north would be importing more stuff that the south.
The distance from Liverpool to New York is about 3450 NM, its about 5450 to New Orleans, the port in the south that handles most imports. So shipping to northern ports makes sense.

This is not something you can misunderstand or make a mistake about. Especially not if you are an economist. That is why Iam calling him a liar and a myth maker.

The idea that the south paid 75% of the Tariffs can be found one one many websites, including SCVs... and it is often used as one reason for secession... when it is simply not correct.

 

[Rebforever]

Source: myself, in the thread "There can be no peaceable secession" -- northern impetus for war before Sumter"

Links to individual resolutions:

Michigan

New York

Massachusetts

Pennsylvani

Minnesota

Wisconsin

Thank for this.

 

[Jamieva]

This thread is really going nowhere.

Side note he didn't even get Stonewall's rank correct

 

[CSA Today]

Williams knows what he's peddling isn't true, but he doesn't care. He's advancing a political agenda and trying to fool as many people as he can.

Imagine a black man peddling a pro-Southern political agenda, who would have thought it especially those among the virtuous contingent.

 

[wausaubob]

Were they traitors? Our opinion does not matter very much.
In 1865 the United States was a militarized country. The United States Army controlled the immediate future of the country.
Ulysses S. Grant controlled the terms of surrender, and William Sherman, George Meade, George Thomas, and all the rest of them, were willing to follow Grant.
Grant made a deliberate bargain with Robert E. Lee, that bargain was that if Lee and his army would surrender, in exchange for the lives and money that would be saved, Grant would protect them. So Grant's answer was, I don't care about that question.
In his conversations with John Russell Young, he made it a point of emphasis, that he was personally committed to that bargain and he was going to resign if that bargain was not sustained.

 

[Rebforever]

But just because a state proclaims its secession doesn't mean the Union has to honor it. The nation has the right to put down rebellions... when is a secession a secession and when is it a rebellion? And who decides?

You are right about the rebellion but as far as secession there are no laws against it.