What if.... Lincoln never called for 75,000 volunteers?

Kinda hard to imagine Southerners going to war to force Yankees to stay in their Confederate Union. :wink:
Not hard at all. They were into forcing people to do things (see slavery) and also had a lust for acquiring territory to expand their ways (see events of the 1850s like Ostend Manifesto, William Walker's invasion of Nicaragua, or John Quitmans plan to invade Cuba)
 
Not hard at all. They were into forcing people to do things (see slavery) and also had a lust for acquiring territory to expand their ways (see events of the 1850s like Ostend Manifesto, William Walker's invasion of Nicaragua, or John Quitmans plan to invade Cuba)
Whatever they might have wanted Yankees weren't one of them. :rolleyes:
 
Jefferson Davis...
"there will be no war in our territory; it will be carried into the enemy's territory" - February 1861
"Had the people of this state [Virginia] been as united as those of the cotton states we should have felt less embarrassment of imperfect preparation. Perhaps we might now have been contending for the bank of the Susquehanna instead of retiring from the Potomac. Troops are daily arriving from the South and I hope before long to be able to change from the defensive to an offensive attitude." - July 1861

Not so long from Alabama when you have a working railroad. April 22, 1861, Davis ordered over a dozen regiments to move from the deep south to Virginia, using the railway up through east Tennessee; by May 1, Edmund-Kirby Smith was in Lynchburg VA with orders to organize the regiments arriving from Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas.
That’s well and fine.

However, this was post the Call Up of 75k troops and after the secession of VA. VA, TN, NC and AR soundly rejected Secession until the Call Up. The Call Up was a Declaration of War against the South. Plenty of evidence disclosed in this thread.

So, some impending threat of the Lower South invading the North is a Myth. After the War started, anything goes.
 
That’s well and fine.

However, this was post the Call Up of 75k troops and after the secession of VA. VA, TN, NC and AR soundly rejected Secession until the Call Up. The Call Up was a Declaration of War against the South. Plenty of evidence disclosed in this thread.

So, some impending threat of the Lower South invading the North is a Myth. After the War started, anything goes.
Precious little evidence been shown to support your claims other than some politicians writing decades later trying to cover their assess for their crimes

And the first quote from Davis was before any call up for 75K troops, before Lincoln even took office. He was intend on taking the war north from the get go -- two years earlier, he had said that if Republicans won the presidency, he "would be in favor of holding the City of Washington, the public archives, and the glorious star spangled banner, declaring the government at an end, and maintaining our rights and honor, even though blood should flow in torrents throughout the land".

The bombardment of Ft Sumter was an act of war against the United States of America. It was intended to provoke action, to bring VA etc into the fold (see speech by Pryor at the time)
 
Precious little evidence been shown to support your claims other than some politicians writing decades later trying to cover their assess for their crimes

And the first quote from Davis was before any call up for 75K troops, before Lincoln even took office. He was intend on taking the war north from the get go -- two years earlier, he had said that if Republicans won the presidency, he "would be in favor of holding the City of Washington, the public archives, and the glorious star spangled banner, declaring the government at an end, and maintaining our rights and honor, even though blood should flow in torrents throughout the land".

The bombardment of Ft Sumter was an act of war against the United States of America. It was intended to provoke action, to bring VA etc into the fold (see speech by Pryor at the time)

Absolutely no historical evidence to support your Myth.

Lincoln purposely enlarged the War so he could call up Troops. Thought he could shed a little blood, and be done with it.

Lower South had remained iNDEPENDENT for 5 months. They didn’t need the Yankee. The Yankee realized what the loss of the lower South would be tO their Economy. So, Lincoln kicked off his little War. He was wrong about the Impact of the War. Wrong about Union sentiment. Right about the Norths goal of Northern ****.
 
However, this was post the Call Up of 75k troops and after the secession of VA. VA, TN, NC and AR soundly rejected Secession until the Call Up. The Call Up was a Declaration of War against the South. Plenty of evidence disclosed in this thread.
Let's be clear on the reason that Lincoln did or did not authorize the call up of the 75K militia. The call up was not done because 7 southern states had seceded. Rather, it was carried out in response to the assault on Ft. Sumter, a hostile and violent act against the authority of the United States. If Virginia and other upper southern states perceived that as an "invasion" rather than as the lawful attempt by the United States to put down a rebellious act, so be it.
 
The bombardment of Ft Sumter was an act of war against the United States of America. It was intended to provoke action, to bring VA etc into the fold (see speech by Pryor at the time)

Fort Sumter is hardly your typical nation/belligerent act of war like say Pearl Harbor. Especially when SC tax dollars probably helped pay for it.

As I recollect they fired on it because they wanted Federal troops gone, SC/CSA claimed to be a separate nation, and they believed Lincoln was going to fill it with troops to make it an impregnable fortress at the mouth of Charleston Bay, something in the South's eyes and point of view was an overtly hostile act. Regardless of what Lincoln told them. I don't know what speech your referencing, but I see no Virginia Secession conspiracy, nor do I see how one person's speech would make it so.

Speaking of Fort Sumter, another "What if" thread idea just came to mind, but given how hot the temperature is from this thread I'm not sure it wise.:hot:
 
The state of South Carolina demanded that Ft. Sumter be surrendered since they had declared their secession from the Union. The presence of the fort was considered a violation of their sovereignty. However, the Union refused to surrender it and when Lincoln announced plans to resupply the fort, military action took place to seize the fort.
 
Fort Sumter is hardly your typical nation/belligerent act of war like say Pearl Harbor. Especially when SC tax dollars probably helped pay for it.
Not sure what tax dollars have to do with it.
Are you saying that I can set fire to my local police station because my tax dollars helped pay for it?

I do agree it isn’t like Pearl Harbor. Japan was a foreign country. The rebels were fellow Americans attacking their own country.
 
What if a United States president allowed federal forts to be attacked and/or turned over by rebel officers in the forts to other rebels, federal arsenals and armories to be seized, federal troops to be imprisoned, federal troops to be fired upon...

He'd likely be jobless toot sweet. And he would have deserved to be.
 
The rebels were fellow Americans attacking their own country.

Not according to them! Your applying modern standards to a time period 160 years past. Different time, different rules. Even Constitutionally speaking according to one Constitutional scholar the news at one time plastered all over their programs.
 
The state of South Carolina demanded that Ft. Sumter be surrendered since they had declared their secession from the Union. The presence of the fort was considered a violation of their sovereignty. However, the Union refused to surrender it and when Lincoln announced plans to resupply the fort, military action took place to seize the fort.
Why should they surrender it? It was a US fort on US soil.
The SC state house had transferred the area to the federal government back in 1835... and refused to take in back then Jefferson Davis tried returning it when he was Secretary of war.

By every legal standard that fort was territory of the USA.
 
Such a shame, I started this thread to discuss an interesting idea that occurred to me with possibilities, and like a dang political or slavery thread its turned into North &South at each others throats like its 1861.

I'm out from this thread, I don't care to argue with closed doors.
 
Then the Traitor shouldn't have started shooting.
Lower South didn’t try to overthrow the Federal Government. Another Yankee Myth.

Tennessee didn’t participate in the Ft Sumpter affair. Federal Government didn’t have Constitutional Power to coerce a State to stay in the Union. Seem some are still but hurt after All this time. Bitter Clingers to Yankee Myths.


The North and South were equal Partners in a National Crime Wave. Stealing land from Native Americans. Enslaving Blacks for a Profit. The South was just trying to Leave the Mob. The Mob, Federal Government said, no you can’t go. Not with Our Economy. Who was going to pay the Protective Tariffs. Not, I said the Northern Merchants, unless the South does. Who would buy Yankee inflated price products. The South was a Captive Market.

No Honor amount Thieves. Yankees have gotten away with these Myths for Centuries. People are starting to Woke Up.
 
Nothing modern about what I said.
I’m applying 1861 standards

Alrighty then one final word.

No you are applying modern standards, with a fair bit of your typical prejudice I might add. Read an article by Jonathan Turley in the November 2010 America's Civil War issue. I mainly brought him up before he appears in the press a lot and your the one who loves to quote the press as gospel.

Y'all can have fun with this echo chamber of a thread this has been turned into, Rusk is out.
 
Why should they surrender it? It was a US fort on US soil.
The SC state house had transferred the area to the federal government back in 1835... and refused to take in back then Jefferson Davis tried returning it when he was Secretary of war.

By every legal standard that fort was territory of the USA.
The conflict that you mentioned is what caused the war. The U.S. government refused to recognize the southern states right to secede from the Union. However, the Confederacy asserted that right by seizing the federal fort within the borders of South Carolina.
 
Alrighty then one final word.

No you are applying modern standards, with a fair bit of your typical prejudice I might add. Read an article by Jonathan Turley in the November 2010 America's Civil War issue. I mainly brought him up before he appears in the press a lot and your the one who loves to quote the press as gospel.

Y'all can have fun with this echo chamber of a thread this has been turned into, Rusk is out.
I am not. The views I express were also widely expressed in 1861.

Nice jab claiming that I quote the press as gospel. Not true. But a well, its a way to make an exit.
 
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