Today is the 140th anniversary of Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox

So now, in many heated conversations with my fellow white southerners--and occasionally with Yankees who've been caught up by the Romance in Grey--I find myself insisting on an acknowledgement of the reality of the Confederacy, and its consequences for our home region.

It was an armed revolution led by a planter class that could not tolerate restrictions on the "right" to transfer its human property into the territories.

It was a "Cause" centered in the states most dependent on slavery, made possible by a secession bitterly opposed by poor white farmers in much of the region, and imposed on them by the narrowest of margins.

It was a rebellion whose success entirely relied on the calculation that the people of the North would not sacrifice for abstactions like the Union and Freedom.

Its inevitable defeat plunged the South and all of its people into a century of grinding poverty, isolation, and oligarchical government. Its heritage has been used again and again to justify racism and every other sort of reactionary policy.

I look at Appomattox and see the end of a disastrous folly that killed over 600,000 Americans, maimed far more, and made life miserable for those of my ancestors who survived the Planters' Revolt. No romance. No victory-in-defeat. Just carnage and destruction in a bad cause made no better by the good men whose lives and futures it claimed.

It is far past time for southern pride--which I share to an almost painful extent--to attach itself to everything, anything, other than those four disastrous years that ended at Appomattox Court House.

http://www.newdonkey.com/

I agree with most of what you say, but a lot of people don't agree with us. Many movies have romanticized the pre-Civil War South, but it doesn't appeal to me. I would never trade my life for that of Scarlett before the Civil War!

I think that the reason the South was so poor for so long is that we were an agragrian society where a few people owned most of the land and held most of the power.

don't have to sacrifice a cent of their future wealth.


"It was a rebellion whose success entirely relied on the calculation that the people of the North would not sacrifice for abstactions like the Union and Freedom."

the wealthy sacrificed much of their wealth. See longer post for explanation.

This country needs to have serious discussions about progress after the Civil War.

from Virginia who still can't figure out why they lost. I told them they could have beaten the Yankees but they could not have beaten the Yankees and us (the Midwest Germans and Scandinavians) both. So there are still some southron romanticists out there.

The realied on slaves for power. Morality aside, it was econnomically short sighted. On the other hand, the north strongly preferred having raw materials shipped north for processing, instead of abroad, which helped build their industrial base.

The north could turn out ammo and guns much more easily than the south could.

the south did rapidly put together an arms industry while the war went on. It was a pretty amazing accomplishment, and I think it could be safely said that no battle was lost because the Confederate armies ran out of guns or ammunition.

However, it was in food and transportation where the Confederacy fell apart. There were for sure battles effected because southern armies didn't have enough food or transportation or shoes (Antietam, not Gettysburg). The demands of the cavalry and the artillery used up so much of the draft animals, that there was almost an immediate shortage throughout the country. Wagons were needed by the government. Then the federals ripped up the few railroads, killed any livestock they found, and confiscated any horses. By 1864, the Confederate transportation system had pretty much completely broken down, and their armies couldn't ever stockpile more than a day or two of food, so any campaigns became very risky affairs.

it was the boys from Maine that turned the tide. At Gettysburg. You can look it up. 20th Maine under Hannibal Hamlin.

was more important to the turning of the war than Gettysburg was. They both happened at the same time.

I don't know how many Maine boys there were fighting with Grant in the swamps of Mississippi.

as a result of wounds inflicted at the Battle of Lone Jack near Kansas City in 1862, fighting for the Union. Missouri was probably more divided then that is now, and I can only imagine what a horrible place it was to live during those war years and for some time afterwards. I wish that all mankind had learned it's lessons from that war, but, sadly, sometimes I wonder if we are doomed to repeat it on some other pretext. I love southerners, and generally consider myself one, but I can't take the sanctimonious "preaching" that seems to be gaining in strength. Hopefully, my friends and neighbors, and in some cases, family, will soon realize that these charlatans are only promoting their own selfish agenda and care nothing for any of us.

First, we should all thank General Lee for surrendering. His other option was to turn the war into a guerrilla struggle which could have been far more ruinous to the country than the war we had already endured.

Also, most Confederate leaders did not believe it would be an armed revolution. They thought the north would let them go when they voted to go, and if it came to a fight, a brief skirmish where they showed they were serious would be all it would take.

The Confederacy's defeat was far from certain. Many secession movements thoughout history have been successful with far fewer resources than the CSA had. It is to Lincoln's great credit that he kept the federals fighting after 350,000 deaths. That was not bound to happen. It happened because of great skill of Lincoln's. The effort could have fallen apart in five different ways.

One other interesting item is that the Civil War is one of the few wars where the wealthy class suffered along with the others. In the south, the wealthy pretty generally were made officers in the armies, and they suffered grievous casualties as Confederate officers were expected to lead in the midst of the battles. Just to give a few examples...

Jubal Early was a wealthy Virginia lawyer who voted no at the secession convention. Howveer, he was a brigadier general at First Bull Run and fought right to 1865.

Wade Hampton was maybe the most wealthy man in the south when the war started. He also fought at Bull Run with his Hampton Legion and by the end of the war was Lee's cavalry commander after JEB Stuart was killed.

Robert Toombs was a senator from Georgia when secession started. He served in Lee's army as a brigadier general and was wounded at his best effort, delaying General Burnside with a skeleton force at Burnside's Bridge at Antietam.

At Pickett's Charge, all three brigadier generals went down. One was the Speaker of the Virginia legislator. Another was the eldest son of one of the most famous families of America. Lew Armistad's dad commanded Fort McHenry the night the Star Spangled Banner was written when Armistead's flag was still there. The son died at the federal cannons with his hat on his sword leading his brigade on.

When the end was near, President Lincoln offered a deal at the Hampton Roads Conference in February 1865. Lay down your weapons and we will pay you for your slaves' freedom. If the wealthy leaders just cared about their wealth, they would have negotiated a fair exchange of their Confederate bonds and currency with Lincoln, gotten paid for their slaves, and they would have come out with their wealth intact. Instead, the deal was a non-starter, because independance was the one non-negotiable item.

Anyway, the war was certainly a waste of 600,000 men, and who knows how much treasure. Who knows how many great works of art or inventions weren't discovered by the 600,000 who died. A whole region was completely ruined by the war. One fourth of the adult male population were killed and another fourth wounded. Certainly it was a waste, and we would all have been better if secession hadn't occurred.

Still, there was much in your post I disagreed with.

The suffering they endured was miniscule compared to the magnitude of the suffering they willfully imposed upon their fellow beings.

No sympathy here.

After reading your post twice, I fail to understand what it is in the original post (which was a superb reminder of historical reality) you disagree with.

There never was and never will be for all time anything remotely "romantic" about the South or the barbaric confederacy and institutions it fought to preserve.

would be one thing I disagreed with.

Oh and on edit, I should have put Lee right at the top of the list of the wealthy who suffered with the rest. A very wealthy man from a tremendously distinguished family, he risked, and gave up everything for a cause he was only marginally interested in, other than he thought his duties were clearly prioritized.

His dad was governor of Virginia, his afflicted wife was granddaughter of Martha Washington. His lands were seized, wealth lost and he was left to start over in horrible health without money or land with a wife who was in worse shape than he was.

This was a rare war, at least in the south where the wealthy suffered terribly. Most times they skate while others bleed. Not the Civil War in the south..

Thanks for clarifying.

I was just reading the third chapter of "The Founding Brothers" today (a great book, by the way) and it would seem to me the civil war was almost historically inevitable from the very beginning.

You are more of an expert on the Civil War than I. It's a period of history I know something about, but would like to know more. Are there any books you recommend? I tend not to be interested so much in the story of the battles, but stories of the people involved and the political debates.

Is Shelby Foote's three volume history on the subject. Fair warning, it is over 3000 pages long, and does concentrate quite a lot on the battles, but it's also arguably the best historical work written by an American.

and tends to overplay Confederate achievement while downgrading Union achievement. One of the most glaring examples of this is his treatment of Gettysburg's second day. It's an exhaustive military history but gives scant attention to the war's causes or to the social and political history of the Civil War. This is not a criticism -- Foote never claimed to be writing anything more than a military history -- but the reader should be aware of this.

I'd suggest that a better choice is the one-volume "Battle Cry of Freedom" by James M. McPherson, which is probably going to go down for some time to come as the best and most comprehensive overall one-volume history of the war.

1. "A Government of Our Own" by Burke Davis is the best book on the Confederate Constitutional convention held in Montgomery, Alabama. It's interesting even aside from the Civil War because it's the only time learned men have come together to appraise and rewrite our Constitution. See what they scrapped and what they added. And no battles, but lots of political intrigue and emotion.

$ 5 on Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0029077354/qid=1113119021/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-3364381-3997419

2. "Jefferson Davis: American" by William J Cooper is the most recent, and in my opinion the best biography of the Confederacy's only president. Long but a fascinating and easy read. Davis was able to go to college at age 13 because he could read Greek and Latin. He loved being an American and a senator. He stayed in Washington working on a compromise to keep the union together long after most had given up. Then he went home, not to Montgomery where the government was forming. He got elected president though he didn't run for it, and then did his best in the job until imprisoned. A fascinating life story. He took his second wife to his first wife's grave for their honeymoon. First wife was Zachary Taylor's daughter.

3. "The Guns of the South" is a light and farsical time travel book by Harry Turtledove. It's silly but a fun story and paints a very good description of what life was like in the Confederate Army. It's a fun read.

Hope that helps. -- and oh, I should have added that the Confederate wealthy besides giving up their wealth, also risked the hangman's noose as potential defendants for treason. It was a very possible end for Lee when he surrendered as he was indeed indicted for treason.

"Battle Cry of Freedom", by James McPherson, is probably the best one-volume history of the war available. It covers all aspects of the war, not just the battles.

If you are particularly interested in political viewpoints, there is a rather unusual treatment of the subject that might be just what you want: "The Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm, 1820-1861" and "The Whirlwind of War: Voices of the Storm, 1861-1865" by Stephen B. Oates. The author takes the movers-and-shakers of the day and writes in the first person as those people, so you get to hear Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, John Brown, and so forth telling you in their own words (literally, whenever possible) what they believed and why they were following the course they did.

"Also, most Confederate leaders did not believe it would be an armed revolution. They thought the north would let them go when they voted to go, and if it came to a fight, a brief skirmish where they showed they were serious would be all it would take."

I remember hearing this as a kid: afterall, Virginians showed up to the battle of Bull Run with picnic baskets.

But I wonder why the South thought there wouldn't be much of a fight. Why did they think the North would let them go so easily?

The first is that they thought they had a legal right to peaceful separation. The states joined the union by votes of their state legislatures, so why wouldn't they be able to leave the same way? That was the thinking. The Constitution is silent on the matter. There would be negotiations over assets and property, and borders, but why fight a war? If one part doesn't want to stay, then depart as friends. Seemed reasonable at the time.

Also, the Confederate army and government was organized quickly enough (Davis was actually inaugurated before Lincoln was) that the pro-union forces in the north (and Lincoln only got 40 % of the vote) would be shown right away that the new CSA was perfectly capable of defending itself.

But the second and most important reason was the history that the Confederate leaders had to look back at. The most recent war in which many of the leaders including Davis fought was the Mexicam War which was not too bloody. A few smaller armies didn't do too much damage to anything, fought a couple of pitched battles and the war was quickly negotiated to an end.

Maybe the better example to them was the Texas Revolution though, the most recent war of secession. Texas seceeded. The Mexicans marched an army into Texas, there were a few battles, but in one battle at San Jacinto the war was won with less than 100 Texas casualties. When the people like Davis thought of war, these were the examples they had in their memories.


So look at it from the Confederate point of view and they'll see the Texas Revolution, only they were much stronger than the Texans were. We'll beat back their attack. They'll see it's not worth it and we'll make peace.

Who knew there would be a new kind of Total War where livestock would be killed off, railroads torn up, cities and whole valleys burned and 1/4 of the whole white male population killed off.

It's easy to see from now that it wasn't worth it, but looking at it from their point in history, they expected more of a Texas Revolution or a War of 1812 than a World War II.

Hope that makes sense. I taught history for a long time and enjoy the Civil War period the most.

Many of the ordinary Southerners who fought did so not out of any abstract determination to defend slavery or states rights, but rather because their country was being invaded by hordes of Yankees. As one captured Virginia private said when questioned on the matter: because y'all are down here.

Also the North bares a great deal of responsibility for the carnage-- the federal government could have chosen to let the South leave peaceably, but it decided to forcibly reconquer it at a terrible cost. (Of course if the South had been allowed to leave, slavery would have continued--however ending slavery was always a secondary consideration for Northerners, as was evidenced by the North's eventual abandonment of the black population of the South to a century of penury and second class citizenship.)

Oh, and for the record I'm a Californian (though I do come from a long line of Georgians...)

When I think of Appamattox, I'm always struck by just how magnanimous Grant was to Lee's army. He allowed the officers to keep their sabres and he paroled the soldiers to return home for planting. These weren't things he had to do. In fact, these actions were very much in opposition to Congressional sentiment.

For me, the lesson of Grant at Appamattox is that decency is possible in the most exigent of situations. Grant could have laid down harsh terms and would likely have been applauded for it. He chose a different tack. Having some slight knowledge of Grant's life, I suspect that he saw a great measure of himself in those beaten soldiers and refused to do anything to make their lives worse. I think that lesson is worth taking away. No struggle should ever be so bitter that common decency is out of our reach at the end of it.

for his generalship (Mississippi more than Virginia) and his far-thinking in victory.

While it's undoubtedly true that he saw his brothers in Lee's defeated army (Lee's # 2 man General Longstreet was in fact a best friend and best man at Grant's wedding), and was not a hard-hearted man, it's probably more true that he also saw Confederate General Johnston with the Army of Tennessee in North Carolina and another army around Mobile and another in the Trans-Mississippi that would also have to be defeated.

President Davis was in North Carolina with Johnston's army. Harsh treatment of Lee's men would not encourage the other Confederate armies in the field to surrender. In fact the worst case scenario was for the other Confederate forces to scatter and turn the war into a guerrilla war which could have gone on for a generation and turned into an all-out race war.

The north had the ability to traverse the south, but could not occupy it. In fact, after Atlanta fell, it was back in Confederate hands within a few months and President Davis even visited it to show the government was still in controll.

So, while I have nothing against Grant, and much respect for him, it was also very much in his interest to treat Lee's troops well.

For me, that just adds to the goodness of the man. He saw that nobility (the gesture) and opportunity (the remaining forces) were converging, so he took advantage of the fact. There's nothing I respect more than someone who takes advantage of such an occasion.

I think the Virginia campaigns were a result of Grant and Lee both having met their match. I kind of wonder if Grant didn't resort to the methods used in Virginia mostly to deny Lee a chance to display his usual brilliance.

in the Wilderness, Lee caught Grant on the move, and ripped into his flank with is usual brilliance and thrashed Grant thoroughly causing 18,000 casualties against his own 9,000.

However, by then the divergence of forces was so great that even a defeat like that could be absorbed by the AOP.

Grant's genius was in understanding this and not recrossing the river to reorganize like Burnside, McClellan, Pope and Hooker had done. Grant took the loss, and kept moving knowing that eventually Lee would be ground to dust.

But when the two first met, the result was as big a federal defeat as any of the other fedearl commanders suffered.

eom.

I did just recently read Longstreet's memoirs "From Manassas to Appomattox". It was a fun read.

Longstreet became a Republican after the war and went to work for his old friend Grant. He was therefore criticized severely by other ex-Confederate generals and blamed for the loss of the war.

Well, Longstreet lived well into his eighties, and after his critics died, boy did he ever get even with them. It's funny to read him get the last word against his critics who had died off long before.

An interesting "wow" from the book. On page 20 he thanks his small staff which served with him through the whole war. Number two man on his staff was a Colonel Payton Manning. I figure it's got to be the same family. How many Payton Mannings could there be? At Chikamagua he tells a funny story about a cannon ball exploding just above where he and his staff were having lunch. Colonel Manning was writhing in his death throes, but no, he was just choking on a chicken bone. That military humor...

I have it around here somewhere bu haven't gotten to it. I read "Lee's Tarnished Lieutentant" by William Garrett Piston a couple of years ago. I have a soft spot for underdogs and always felt like Longstreet got a lot of blame for Gettysburg mostly because of his post war political affiliations.

..guilty of treason.

for treason. But they were never tried.

Lee didn't want a trial. He just wanted to be left alone to do whatever good he could in the few years he had left.

Davis however demanded his trial. He had a high powered and high priced group of northern lawyers funded by of all people Horace Greeley and Cornelius Vanderbilt. His defense was that secession was legal and therefore the invasion and conquest of the CSA was unconstitutional.

The government never tested the theory and never gave him his day in court.

Eventually the government allowed bail which was paid by Greeley and Vanderbilt, and Davis was free until his trial, which was postponed, postponed, postponed and eventually just tabled.

That's why on principal I will argue against treason for the two. If the government accuses you of a crime and then refuses to give you your day in court to attempt to clear yourself, then I sure don't think anyone should assume you guilty without trial. I sure wouldn't want that happening to me.

I love post like yours. They show me just how much history I DON'T know!

I was actually reading that the reason the trial was indefinitely postponed was because the issue of "legal secession" was never really clear in the constitution, and thus, they didn't want to open that can of worms after the civil war. During the ratification of the constitution, Virginia, New York and RI added clauses to their ratification resolution that permitted them to withdraw from the union if the new government should become oppressive. Virginia even cited this when they seceded in 1861. If one state has this right, and all states have equal right, then all states would have this right. When the first 7 states seceded, Buchanan allowed them to leave. Although he didn't believe that they had possessed the right to do it, he also didn't believe the government had the right to coerce a seceding state.

the USA versus Jefferson Davis case goes to the Supreme Court which rules the states had a legal right to secede.

Then what? Withdraw the armies, and apologize?

Better to just never put him on trial.

Then 150 years later people will call him a traitor.

Look at Richmond, Capitol of the Confederacy. If you travel over that city with knowledge of it's history, you realize that prior to the war, it was one of the most vibrant cities in the United States. It had industry, culture, and a civic pride that was significant. Virginia, at that time, had a growing population as well and a commitment to education for more than just a few. What did the war bring to Virginia? A decimated population, the youth of the state sacrificed in the bloody battles where a tactical victory might be accompanied by the loss of 2,000 to 5,000 Virginians in a battle. Stunted growth for years due to the lost population and the sad allegiance to the cause that never was one of the majority of Virginians. I'm tired of seeing Lee lionized as this great leader. He was a fine man in many ways, to be sure, and a genius on the battlefield. However, he made a huge mistake in his most important decision -- siding with the Confederacy. He could have chosen otherwise and changed history for the better. What a shame.

Today Northern Virginia has realized the potential Richmond once had and Richmond is still stalled, fine city that it is, in the shadow of the great crime against the Southern states, particularly Virginia whose population was greatly diminished in numbers, wealth, and resources.

Well Virginia submitted secession to the will of the voters and the vote went 80-20 in favor of secession.

The link shows the vote by county, and assuming Bush didn't rig the voting, it passed pretty overwhelmingly.

http://www.ls.net/~newriver/va/vasecesh.htm

In fact, the only counties that voted no are now in West Virginia, and about half the counties that were taken away to form West Virginia (under very questionable constitutional grounds I'd add) also voted for secession, some by pretty large majorities.

On edit, the final vote was 125,000 to 20,000 in favor of secession.

This was after Lincoln stupidly demanded Virginia provide 8,000 troops to invade the seven Confederate states. He forced them off the fence to choose sides. They did to his regret.

My reference to elites was the planter class that relied on slave labor and the economy that was based on slave labor. My reference to the "crazy" was to the secessionist fervor (similar to the present day neocons) that made no sense or that came from people of doubtful reality testing like Sen. John C. Calhoun. Had Lee stood up and said that the was was totally unacceptable, that would have been a major chink in the plans of the war proponents. I'm not familiar enough with Lincoln's policy to make a judgment as to the stupidity of the move. Yes, Lincoln did regret it since Virginians did most of the fighting and dying. But Virginians both lived and died to regret it given the outcome. You can't imagine what this state would be today without the ravages of losing the population, resources, and time cost by the Civil War. It's a great place, don't get me wrong, but there was so much it could have contributed to a real union.

With regard to the vote, thanks for the chart. Keep in mind no Virginia blacks, male or female voted, and no women voted. Put that in the mix and you'd have a tighter race. I'm sure Bush would have fixed it if he'd been around but I have no reason to doubt these numbers. It's just a shame. Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Mason and other eminent Virginians knew and talked about the moral and practical perils of slavery. They just couldn't stand up and say it was a crime against the spirit of the revolution and any known faith. Shame isn't it.

On edit: A great Democrat, Andrew Jackson, had the right approach. When President, he and Sen. John Calhoun were at a dinner and Calhoun was already rabble rousing about "states rights" and disolving the union. Jackson stood up on stage, looked at Cslhoun and said something like "I toast to the Union, long may it live, and I'd be glad to shoot anyone who disagrees." The is approximate since I can't remember if he said he'd shoot them or beat them senseless. Anyway, that's the kind of leader we needed before the war. My kind of Democrat, Jackson (with a few exceptions).

not too long ago. Admittedly, not the best of sources, but anyway, it listed the dead by states, and it was to me a shock that they listed North Carolina as the state, north or south which lost the most men in the war. Like you, I would have assumed Virginia, and I'd still want to see North Carolina in another source before I'd write it in stone.

I looked at Lee's order of battle at Gettysburg, and out of approx 165 infantry regiments, there were approx 41 from Virginia and 33 from North Carolina which again bolsters my suspician of the North Carolina listing. Interestingly, when Lee was at Gettysburg, he had at least one regiment from each of the 11 Confederate states (1 from Arkansas, 3 from Texas) plus one regiment from Maryland. He had with him on the field about one of every eleven white male southerners capable of carrying a weapon. An awesome responsibility.

Even if the North Carolina number was true though, your point would still stand well for leadership alone. How much different would the war have gone if Virginians Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Joe Johnston, AP Hill, Richard Ewell, Jubal Early, JEB Stuart and so many others fought for the union rather than for the Confederacy. I don't think the Confederacy could have put up an effective resistance without Virginia.

And Lee certainly could have changed the course of the war by accepting the chief of armies position that the union offered him. Even if his state left, Lee would have been a sledgehammer with the powerful Army of the Potomac to wield. I think he would have ended the war much quicker than the handful of generals Lincoln went through before settling on Grant.

"On March 7 and 8, Sherman's army began to cross over into North Carolina at the Pee Dee River near Cheraw. Sherman had his Generals issue orders for gentler treatment of North Carolinians. General Slocum's orders read: "All officers and soldiers of this command are reminded that the State of North Carolina was one of the last States that passed the ordinance of secession. And from the commencement of the war there has been in this State a strong union party...it should not be assumed that the inhabitants are enemies of our government, and it is to be hoped that every effort will be made to prevent any wanton destruction of property, or any unkind treatment of citizens.""

In general the hill and mountain areas with few slaves were pro-union and the cities, coasts and plains where there were many slaves were pro-Confederate.

In places like North Carolina there was a running battle between the Johnny Rebs of the valleys and the Billy Yanks of the hills. The Confederates started calling them hillbillies and the name stuck.

I have great respect for Grant, but not much for Sherman. Imagine the defense lawyers and prosecuting lawyers looking at your quote as evidence at a possible Sherman court martial or war crimes trial. It would be evidence that both sides would argue favored them. Interesting.

He had to gut the south as best he could to show the utter futility of continued resistance. And no one yet has mentioned General Sheridan who swept clean the Shenandoah Valley. Again, he had to do it to stop it from being " the Breadbasket of the Confederacy." The war went in stages as Allan Nevins points out. It began with the hope of coercing the rebelling states to come back into the Union (and to recover federal property such as the occupied forts and naval yards etc.). It turned into total war and revolution (when the slaves were armed and fought against the social order of their former masters). And in so doing, it became much more brutal. This is why of course so many of the wealthy suffered. To bring them down is very often the CAUSE of a civil war and revolution. One could simply have a civil war as in ancient Rome with two groups of aristocrats pitted against each other but here the entire society badly needed to be reordered. And so it consequently was. In a Marxist viewpoint, this was only inevitable when a vibrant bourgeoisie took on an agrarian aristocracy. No contest really.

Maybe if he could just cut off Iraq's food supply then we could starve them into submission too. Where's General Sherman when we need him.

we need a Generalissimo Kucinich to get us the hell out of there!

Back then there was a well known Democratic House member from Ohio with a name some people had trouble pronouncing too.

His name was Clement Vallandigham. He travelled the country making speeches saying we need to get our armies out of the south, bring the boys home and make peace with the Confederate States.

Back then making speeches against the war was considered sedition, and he was arrested, found guilty and thrown in prison.

President Lincoln changed his sentence to banishment from the USA. He was sent across the lines to the Confederacy. From there he made his way to Canada and then eventually back to the USA where he helped write the Democratic Party 's 1864 platform.

The book "A Man Without a Country" was written about his life.

Again, let's not give Bush any ideas.

But what makes you think Bush is going to accept any ideas from us? Or any ideas?

I think the book you mentioned was later made into a movie. We're still waiting for the musical!

Sherman' story (and couldn't find it) about the surrender of Savannah, GA. Sherman was greeted at some point by the leaders of Savannah who said he would be welcomed to the city with a party and that they wished to rejoin the Union. Apparently, Sherman was quite taken by this (see below) and things went quite well. I love this story because it shows how smart people can be. Savannah's citizens new the city would be razed were there major resistance. So what did they do, they not only ceased resisting, the offered a party! How smart can you get...this is American pragmatism at its best.

“Sherman's handling of captured Savannah further compounded Southern woes. The officials and citizenry of this port city expressed their desire to re-enter the Union, and so Sherman's treatment of the city was quite lenient. He restarted commerce, awarded each freed slave 40 acres of land on which to farm, ensured the population was fed, and for good measure, kicked out the British merchants who were trying to peddle cotton on the wharves. In fact, Sherman threatened to sink the entire island of Nassau, where the British merchants were plying Georgia cotton for British arms!”

http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/sherman.htm

PS. I love the way he treated the British. Imagine their shock when he threatened to "sink the entire island of Nassau."

In my area of Virginia (Falls Church) pro-Union voters were kept away from the polls by death threats and some actual violence. That's not to say the anti-Union forces would not have won the election anyway, but the margin reflects voter intimidation.

It was kind of shaky there for awhile. It's just a damn good thing we had Lincoln as President. Can you imagine a dunce like Shrub in charge during a time of real crisis? Well, I guess you can.

Although I have many friends from down South, I consider anybody flying the Confederate flag LOSERS.

There were many ways the CSA could have held its independance starting with Lincoln being defeated in 1864 for his reelection.

Also, my family didn't come to the USA until 1872, so we weren't involved on either side, but a friend of mine who was just killed in a car accident was the head of the Sons of Confederate Veterans Organization in this region.

He was a fine man from a fine family. His son came back from Iraq a few months ago. He fought as did his father and grandfather.

What the Confederate flag meant to him is far different from what it means to some ignorant Klansman, and when the Klan show up for a rally, the SCV organization is usually there to protest against them.

And, we have no long civil war tradition. The civil war has replayed over and over every year in the south, mostly because it lost. However, there are some who continue to believe that they never lost. My daughter was told this while she lived in NC during the past few years. The lore and mythology of the civil war vastly outweighs the reality of what happened. This is what keeps the romance alive.

The south lacked resources for most of the years that followed the civil war -- it could not have survived as a country in its own right. FDR was the first to really help the rural south with the TVA project, the Rural Electrification Act, etc.

One of the strangest twists of fates is that the South was Democratic for so long -- Dixiecrats as they were called. A uniquely homegrown version of the Democratic Party -- old time hardliners on States Rights, etc. Yet, the revival of the south has made it Republican, the party of Lincoln (which is carefully avoided).

killed and another 1/4 wounded.

You have a poster above us lauding Sherman for killing the livestock, burning a path through the country and destroying the transportation system. The same poster lauds Sheridan for burning up the country's food supply, and now you're saying they didn't have the resources to survive?

Well, give them a little bit of a break.

That's like Tonya Harding saying she would have beaten Nancy Kerrigan anyway because she had a broken leg.

If the separation would have been peaceful, I have no doubt that the Confederate States would have had more than enough resources to be a sustainable country.

Not that there wouldn't have been serious questions to be resolved, not the least of which would have been slavery.

However, few new countries have ever started out with the advantages that the CSA had. One thing they had were great natural resources, fertile land in abundance, wonderful harbors like New Orleans, a tremendously well trained leadership group, and a history of democratic government and institutions.

Would they have later rejoined the union? When and how would slavery have ended? Would they have been an imperial power in Latin America? All interesting questions for what if books.

to brevity.

The South was wealthy at the beginning of the civil war -- or at least its aristocracy was. But, it also had a huge population of poor farmers -- people with "40 acres and a mule." The region we call Appalachia has been poor since first colonized.

However, King Cotton, while incredibly wealth-making at the time also was fighting a losing battle with depleted soil. But, it was far from being a dying industry.

Part of the cause of the civil war was the tension between north and south over industrialized versus rural. It's possible that if the south had had to survive on its own that it would have industrialized to its benefit; however, as with all speculation, it's not a given.

The slave issue remains a primary problem the Confederacy would have had to face. Since England had outlawed slavery, it likely would have refushed recognition of the Confederate States in the long term.

But, you are right -- revisionist history is counterproductive. While the north hasn't kept reliving the civil war, we've had some strong feelings about the south. I wonder if it'll be "water under the bridge" by 2100?

the Civil War was but a battle and the confederacy seems poised today to win the war (the nuclear option).