Slavery, secession, Civil War issues

[wavedukefan70s]

Living in the south my entire life.
I do not hold on to the thought that states rights was the only cause of the war.there are many places in the woods that old slave quarters still stand.although they are in poor shape.its obvious even in tip top shape it was a bad way
to live.not to mention the treatmant they recieved. a interesting tidbit on several plantations that still exist including the famous middleton.several generations of previous slave descendent families still live on the plantations.work and care for the grounds.
If you ever visit charleston s.c.
Several tours downtown can show you plenty of things about the civil war and revolutionary war.i actually have a few harpers weekleys news papers from that time .its a very interesting subject.

[Devilwin]

Grant's Overland Campaign was his crowning achievement. But in spite of his "genius", every time he was beaten and slipped away southward, his men seemed to always find Lee's veterans in his path, entrenched. Seems to me Lee's reactions to Grant's movements deserve praise.
At North Anna, for example, one attack was broken up by artillery only, because the federals got caught up in abatis laid by Lee's engineers, making them sitting ducks. A genius wouldn't have put their men into such a predicament.
And we talk of Grant's victories. Simon Buckner was hardly James Longstreet. His victories out west were over less impressive opponents than he would face in Virginia. I just cannot understand how the numerical advantage he had does not come into play in this discussion. It's the main, dare I say it? The Only reason he won. It wasn't because he was a better commander, but he had the power of the US behind him, a constant flow of conscripts ( in many cases, just off the boats from Ireland).
Oh. If Lee's accomplishments make you think he was subject to attacks of idiocy, then you need to read more history. Lee was certainly not an idiot.

[jimsumner]

Grant's Overland Campaign was his crowning achievement. But in spite of his "genius", every time he was beaten and slipped away southward, his men seemed to always find Lee's veterans in his path, entrenched. Seems to me Lee's reactions to Grant's movements deserve praise.
At North Anna, for example, one attack was broken up by artillery only, because the federals got caught up in abatis laid by Lee's engineers, making them sitting ducks. A genius wouldn't have put their men into such a predicament.
And we talk of Grant's victories. Simon Buckner was hardly James Longstreet. His victories out west were over less impressive opponents than he would face in Virginia. I just cannot understand how the numerical advantage he had does not come into play in this discussion. It's the main, dare I say it? The Only reason he won. It wasn't because he was a better commander, but he had the power of the US behind him, a constant flow of conscripts ( in many cases, just off the boats from Ireland).
Oh. If Lee's accomplishments make you think he was subject to attacks of idiocy, then you need to read more history. Lee was certainly not an idiot.

I must have missed the part where anyone called Lee an "idiot."

And, if you're referring to Olympic Fan, let me respectfully suggest that he knows his way around the relevant literature.

Telling Olympic Fan to read more history books is like telling Stephen Curry to shoot more 3s.

[Olympic Fan]

Grant's Overland Campaign was his crowning achievement. But in spite of his "genius", every time he was beaten and slipped away southward, his men seemed to always find Lee's veterans in his path, entrenched. Seems to me Lee's reactions to Grant's movements deserve praise.
At North Anna, for example, one attack was broken up by artillery only, because the federals got caught up in abatis laid by Lee's engineers, making them sitting ducks. A genius wouldn't have put their men into such a predicament.
And we talk of Grant's victories. Simon Buckner was hardly James Longstreet. His victories out west were over less impressive opponents than he would face in Virginia. I just cannot understand how the numerical advantage he had does not come into play in this discussion. It's the main, dare I say it? The Only reason he won. It wasn't because he was a better commander, but he had the power of the US behind him, a constant flow of conscripts ( in many cases, just off the boats from Ireland).
Oh. If Lee's accomplishments make you think he was subject to attacks of idiocy, then you need to read more history. Lee was certainly not an idiot.

Sigh, I tried in my last post to make my view of General Lee clear:

I hope I can make this clear -- saying Lee wasn't the great general his admirers like to believe he was doesn't mean that I'm arguing that he was a bad general. He wasn't -- he led his men well and displayed considerable tactical genius. But he was a strategic failure who wasted his tactical gifts, piling up victories that look good in hindsight, but never led anywhere. The contrast with Grant is striking -- Grant always knew what he was doing and what he was fighting to achieve. Yes, he made mistakes too -- he was surprised at Shiloh (but used his battlefield savvy to turn his initial defeat into a crushing victory), he got impatient outside Vicksburg and Cold Harbor, ordering charges that failed. But he won far more often than Lee and he did it while losing a smaller percentage of his men.

While the Overland Campaign was Grant's war-winning campaign, I'm not sure if was his "crowning achievement" -- most military professionals that I have read (and thanks for the kind words, Jim ... I have read a bunch) would use that term to describe his Vicksburg campaign -- where his army was outnumbered by the various Confederate armies in the area, but he managed to defeat them in detail, then trap Pemberton and his army in the fortifications protecting the city. He attempted a massive assault to carry the lines, but when that failed (a mistake in hindsight), he reverted to siege warfare and starved Pemberton out (although with some fascinating tactical twists, including a sucesssful nighttime assault to capture or destroy most of the Confederate batteries.

And while Buckner did surrender Fort Donelson, he was merely left holding the bag after John Floyd (Buchanan's secretary of war) and Gordon Pillow -- the two ranking officers in the Fort -- escaped. The actual decision to reinforce and defend Donelson against Grant was made by Albert Sidney Johnston, who is regarded as a competent general ... in fact, part of the Lost Cause mythology is that Johnston was a genius and his death at Shiloh was a fatal blow to Southern hopes in the West. BTW, Nathan Bedford Forrest was also one of the commanders defending Fort Donelson ... so maybe Grant's triumph there was not so meaningless as you seem to think.

In the Overland campaign, Lee always beat Grant to the spot (sometimes, like at Spotsylvania, by a whisker), but do you think that might have been because he was operating on interior lines? Look at the battlefield ... Grant was moving along the circumference of a curve, while Lee was able to move in a direct line along the cord. Too bad for the South that Lee never recognized the value of interior lines strategically ... but he did use it tactically during the Overland Campaign. But again, Lee was forced to react to Grant, who constantly maneuvered East and South, until he forced Lee to retreat into his fortifications.

Devilwin, I enjoy the debate, but I fear we're talking at cross purposes. I know I'm not going to convince you ... but I assure you that in modern military history circles, Grant is more highly admired than Lee.

[cato]

I love this discussion

[Reilly]

Isn't there a statue of Lee around the Chapel doors? Movement to have that removed?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...1kE_story.html

edit: ... and was supposed to have "CSA" on his belt buckle: https://chapel.duke.edu/sites/defaul...ochure2014.pdf

[ramdevil]

I'd like to chime in a say thanks to all participants for a fascinating discussion.

-ramdevil

[davec]

I second the motion. This has been very interesting stuff.

[gumbomoop]

I do not hold on to the thought that states rights was the only cause of the war.

I think it unlikely that I'll convince you of the problem with this statement, but as quite a few readers have thanked the participants in this thread for an often-illuminating conversation/debate, maybe some will appreciate a further attempt at clarification.

I am the OP of this thread, having started it to discuss issues that came up as a tangent-hijack in the "What are you reading" thread. But I did not quite begin this thread with my original refutation of the "state rights" theory, and so, in responding to its use in the tag quote here, I now import the most relevant part of my post in the "Reading" thread. My interest is not the debate about generals; I focus on political, racial, constitutional issues.

So their rendering is that the South seceded to defend state rights. Here they conveniently and enthusiastically substitute a pseudo-constitutional defense of the right to secede for the straightforward reason that secessionists - over and over in 1860-61, publicly and passionately - actually gave for seceding: we must protect slavery. To repeat, carefully: slavery's protection was the reason to secede. State rights was the justification for the right to secede. Two related but distinct things. Even planters who opposed secession did so because they believed secession would lead to war and the destruction of slavery. Prescient, they were. (On this, see James Roark, Masters Without Slaves: Southern Planters in the Civil War and Reconstruction, ch. 1.)

... the seceders were perfectly frank in their proslavery and their racism - no need whatsoever to be embarrassed. But that worldview has had to be, uh, softened somewhat, hidden, written out of memory. The result, as Bonekemper and many other historians have pointed out, was mythmaking, the myth of the Lost Cause.

A myth is first and foremost a story, not necessarily nor even usually a lie (in the normal understanding of that word). Although myths are not usually deliberate lies, they do morph into "historical lies," accounts that do not match facts and reality... True enough, Southerners did believe in state rights. So did Northerners, though their understanding of state rights didn't extend to secession. But in the decades after 1865, Southerners more and more came to mis-remember what their forbears actually said, repeatedly, easily, firmly, non-controversially: we secede because Lincoln and the Republicans threaten slavery.

Lincoln's election led to Southern panic; protection of slavery led to secession; secession led to war.

Thus, to concede that state rights wasn't "the only cause of the war" is no admission or correction at all. For state rights was no cause of war, period. Period. Full stop. The "cause of war" cannot be ahistorically divorced from the "cause of/reason for secession."

We have voluminous evidence, what historians engaged in original research commonly designate "primary sources," sources from historical actors/participants at the time, that say -- over and over and over and over -- that Southern states seceded to protect slavery.

That a majority of Southern whites did not own slaves is accurate, but irrelevant to the specific question: why did the South secede?

That both [repeat and note: both] Southern and Northern states "believed" in state rights at the time of the election of 1860 is true, but irrelevant to the question: why did the South secede?

That racism was common in the North is accurate, but irrelevant to the specific question: why did the South secede?

To investigate the question -- why did the South secede? -- leads, as in this thread, to many related, but distinct, other questions of fascinating historical complexity and significance. Here are just a few (non-military) issues that have either explicitly or implicitly arisen in this thread:

• Why did so much of the political passion of the 1850s focus on western territories -- where there were few slaves -- rather than on the South -- where there were millions of slaves?
• How did Lincoln's and more generally the Republican Party's antislavery views differ from abolitionism?
• Why did Lincoln's/Republicans' differences with, and criticisms of, abolitionists receive virtually no attention in the South?
• Why did President-elect Lincoln have no objections to a constitutional amendment protecting slavery in the South?
• Why did a substantial number of Southern slaveowners vociferously oppose secession?
• Of the 15 slave states, why did only 7 of them secede in the aftermath of Lincoln's election?
• If Lincoln's "sole object" was to save the Union, when and how did a war to save the Union become a war to destroy slavery?
• How, in what several ways, did emancipation actually come about?
• Was Lincoln a racist? Or a Great Emancipator? Both? Neither?

So many complex issues that it's crucial to specify exactly what issue we're considering at any point in time. I end by refocusing specifically on the secession winter of 1860-61. In roughly chronological order:

(1) In a very unusual, unstraightforward election, Lincoln was legitimately, straightforwardly elected President.
(2) Seven slave states, thinking Lincoln effectively an abolitionist, panicked, and seceded.
(3) The secessionists made no secret whatsoever that they were seceding to protect a "way of life" based broadly and deeply on the racial subjugation and labor control of black slaves.
(4) Although some secessionists preferred to justify secession on the right of revolution, the vast majority of secession leaders saw great dangers in this justification, and so based their "legal" defense of the right to secede on the doctrine of state rights.
(5) State rights was not a reason for/cause of secession. The reason for/cause of was protection of slavery.
(6) Having seceded, but also having nervously rejected the right of revolution as the theoretical basis of the right to secede, secessionists claimed instead the doctrine of state rights as a "legal/constitutional" justification.
(7) Secession led to a constitutional "crisis of union," to Sumter, and to war.

[Devilwin]

I must have missed the part where anyone called Lee an "idiot."

And, if you're referring to Olympic Fan, let me respectfully suggest that he knows his way around the relevant literature.

Telling Olympic Fan to read more history books is like telling Stephen Curry to shoot more 3s.

The quote was, "Lee's idiocy", and it has seemed to have disappeared. I have read much on this subject as well. Maybe we read different books.

[Bob Green]

Let's keep it civil folks. This is a great thread with much discussion ongoing so please do not ruin it.

Thanks!

[Devilwin]

Lee, and his audacity, which gives us an insight into the man.
He scored outrageous victories against larger Union forces up until Gettysburg in the summer of 1863, fighting against superior numbers and better supplied forces.
His victory at Chancellorsville stands out, because he divided his army three times in the face of an enemy that outnumbered him three to one. Using speed and maneuver as a force multiplier.
He knew he had to take the fight to the north, to allow southern farmers to gather in crops, and achieve that elusive signal victory that would hopefully make the north sue for peace. Both attempts, however failed. He was poorly served by his underlings at Gettysburg, especially Stuart, who had ridden completely around the northern army. Problem was, unlike when he accomplished the same feat earlier in the war, the federals were more spread out this time, and he didn't arrive until late on the second day. Ewell didn't take the hills at Culp's as ordered (maybe the orders were vague, Lee said take the hill "if practicable") and Longstreet, who correctly had asked for a movement to the right (Lee turned it down, mainly because of lack of intelligence from his absent cavalry) became sullen and balky.
Even after ordering the ill fated charge by Picket and Pettigrew, which ended in disaster, he coolly prepared for a federal advance, which never came.
The retreat was handled masterfully, as he beat back several Union probes.
Lee as a general had one fault, reckless combativeness. When in the presence of the enemy, he had to get at them, grapple in the death grip. All else paled in his mind, just to get to the enemy, spill his blood.
At Spotsylvania, Lee attempted to rally breaking troops, threatening to lead the charge in person if they didn't rally. Rally they did, and drove the attackers back.
Lee was hard to figure. He was a pious, God fearing man, yet could order his men into a maelstrom of shot and shell. He loved children, would play with them for hours, but demanded the utmost from his officers and men.
He held every soldier to his task, saying duty was the most sublime word in the English language.
A very complex man indeed..

[Olympic Fan]

The quote was, "Lee's idiocy", and it has seemed to have disappeared. I have read much on this subject as well. Maybe we read different books.

I have enjoyed our exchanges, even if neither of us have convinced the other.

I'd be curious to know which books you have read. I would assume Freeman and Foote -- two great story-tellers who have uncritically bought into many of the Early/Pemberton fabrications. Catton is traditional too, but he is much more admiring of Grant than you seem to be. I would say the same for James McPherson.

What else?

I would hope you'd check out JFC Fuller -- a British historian with no personal or regional axe to grind (but, I admit, a strong preference for Grant).

[77devil]

I think it unlikely that I'll convince you of the problem with this statement, but as quite a few readers have thanked the participants in this thread for an often-illuminating conversation/debate, maybe some will appreciate a further attempt at clarification.

I am the OP of this thread, having started it to discuss issues that came up as a tangent-hijack in the "What are you reading" thread. But I did not quite begin this thread with my original refutation of the "state rights" theory, and so, in responding to its use in the tag quote here, I now import the most relevant part of my post in the "Reading" thread. My interest is not the debate about generals; I focus on political, racial, constitutional issues.



Thus, to concede that state rights wasn't "the only cause of the war" is no admission or correction at all. For state rights was no cause of war, period. Period. Full stop. The "cause of war" cannot be ahistorically divorced from the "cause of/reason for secession."

We have voluminous evidence, what historians engaged in original research commonly designate "primary sources," sources from historical actors/participants at the time, that say -- over and over and over and over -- that Southern states seceded to protect slavery.

That a majority of Southern whites did not own slaves is accurate, but irrelevant to the specific question: why did the South secede?

That both [repeat and note: both] Southern and Northern states "believed" in state rights at the time of the election of 1860 is true, but irrelevant to the question: why did the South secede?

That racism was common in the North is accurate, but irrelevant to the specific question: why did the South secede?

To investigate the question -- why did the South secede? -- leads, as in this thread, to many related, but distinct, other questions of fascinating historical complexity and significance. Here are just a few (non-military) issues that have either explicitly or implicitly arisen in this thread:

• Why did so much of the political passion of the 1850s focus on western territories -- where there were few slaves -- rather than on the South -- where there were millions of slaves?
• How did Lincoln's and more generally the Republican Party's antislavery views differ from abolitionism?
• Why did Lincoln's/Republicans' differences with, and criticisms of, abolitionists receive virtually no attention in the South?
• Why did President-elect Lincoln have no objections to a constitutional amendment protecting slavery in the South?
• Why did a substantial number of Southern slaveowners vociferously oppose secession?
• Of the 15 slave states, why did only 7 of them secede in the aftermath of Lincoln's election?
• If Lincoln's "sole object" was to save the Union, when and how did a war to save the Union become a war to destroy slavery?
• How, in what several ways, did emancipation actually come about?
• Was Lincoln a racist? Or a Great Emancipator? Both? Neither?

So many complex issues that it's crucial to specify exactly what issue we're considering at any point in time. I end by refocusing specifically on the secession winter of 1860-61. In roughly chronological order:

(1) In a very unusual, unstraightforward election, Lincoln was legitimately, straightforwardly elected President.
(2) Seven slave states, thinking Lincoln effectively an abolitionist, panicked, and seceded.
(3) The secessionists made no secret whatsoever that they were seceding to protect a "way of life" based broadly and deeply on the racial subjugation and labor control of black slaves.
(4) Although some secessionists preferred to justify secession on the right of revolution, the vast majority of secession leaders saw great dangers in this justification, and so based their "legal" defense of the right to secede on the doctrine of state rights.
(5) State rights was not a reason for/cause of secession. The reason for/cause of was protection of slavery.
(6) Having seceded, but also having nervously rejected the right of revolution as the theoretical basis of the right to secede, secessionists claimed instead the doctrine of state rights as a "legal/constitutional" justification.
(7) Secession led to a constitutional "crisis of union," to Sumter, and to war.

The myth of states rights as the basis for secession remains a strong narrative in southern culture. I have many college educated relatives in the south who cling unrepentantly to this belief. I know why, we all know why, but it's an impermissible discussion.

[Jeffrey]

My recall of Robert E. Lee:

1. Graduated second in his class at the United States Military Academy. Lee was tied for the head of his class in Artillery, Tactics, and Conduct.

2. Not by his desire, Lee was Superintendent of the United States Military Academy in the early 1850's.

3. In the spring of 1862, while Jefferson Davis' military advisor, the Richmond press made fun of Lee's strategic decision to dig many trenches around Richmond.

4. Within 90 days of taking command (June, 1862) of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee won the 7 Days Battle and 2nd Battle of Bull Run. General Lee moved the battle lines from 5 miles outside Richmond to less than 20 miles outside D.C.

IMO, none of the Army of the Potomac Generals (McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, or even Grant) defeated Lee. IMO, Lincoln defeated Lee with the Emancipation Proclamation. Barring it, Lee's northern invasion strategy may have gotten the European sympathy and/or northern voter peace demands Lee desired.

[Bob Green]

3. In the spring of 1862, while Jefferson Davis military advisor, the Richmond press made fun of Lee's strategic decision to dig many trenches around Richmond.

To elaborate on this point, Lee's decision to dig trenches allowed Richmond to be defended with less troops freeing up manpower to serve on the front lines.

[-jk]

Should England (GB/UK) be allowed to secede from the EU?

It's a hot button issue over there, and seems to have parallels to the run up to the civil war...

-jk

[Olympic Fan]

My recall of Robert E. Lee:

1. Graduated second in his class at the United States Military Academy. Lee was tied for the head of his class in Artillery, Tactics, and Conduct.

2. Not by his desire, Lee was Superintendent of the United States Military Academy in the early 1850's.

3. In the spring of 1862, while Jefferson Davis' military advisor, the Richmond press made fun of Lee's strategic decision to dig many trenches around Richmond.

4. Within 90 days of taking command (June, 1862) of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee won the 7 Days Battle and 2nd Battle of Bull Run. General Lee moved the battle lines from 5 miles outside Richmond to less than 20 miles outside D.C.

IMO, none of the Army of the Potomac Generals (McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, or even Grant) defeated Lee. IMO, Lincoln defeated Lee with the Emancipation Proclamation. Barring it, Lee's northern invasion strategy may have gotten the European sympathy and/or northern voter peace demands Lee desired.

I'm constantly amazed by this double standard -- yes, Lee drove McClellan from the gates of Richmond in the Seven Days -- while suffering substantially more casualties than the union suffered.

I would agree that the Seven Days counts as a successful Southern campaign.

Then why can't the Lee-admirers on this board admit that Grant's Overland campaign in 1864 was the same thing -- Grant suffered more casualties in the series of battles, but he drive Lee back to the gates of Richmond. The two campaigns are almost mirror images of each other. If Seven Days is a Lee victory (and I think it was), then why wasn't the Overland Campaign a Grant victory?

And your statement that none of the Army of Potomac generals defeated Lee conveniently leaves out Meade, who fought Lee once in a major battle -- and crushed him at Gettysburg.

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did eliminate any chances of European intervention in the war, but you forget that came only after Lee's first invasion of the North failed.

[cato]

Should England (GB/UK) be allowed to secede from the EU?

It's a hot button issue over there, and seems to have parallels to the run up to the civil war...

-jk

Consider this: as a NATO member, who would we obliged to assist if war broker out between the UK and, say, France?

[Jeffrey]

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did eliminate any chances of European intervention in the war, but you forget that came only after Lee's first invasion of the North failed.

IMO, Lee's first Northern invasion (which was tactically inconclusive) created serious concern for Lincoln. His two responses were replacing McClellan with Burnside and issuing the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation just five days after Antietam.