Civil War 150th

[ilovestrategy]

I read that letter twice. It was almost like I was there.

[Hanny]

Bull run was fought between the Army of the Potomac (B-regaurd CSA) and the Army of Northern Virginia (McDowel US)

Wierd neh.

[ilovestrategy]

Dang Hanny, I never knew that. [X(]

[Hanny]

Your welcome, thats one reason i love all the 150th blogs, there is always something new, people have to share with their readers.

[ckammp]

ORIGINAL: Hanny

Bull run was fought between the Army of the Potomac (B-regaurd CSA) and the Army of Northern Virginia (McDowel US)

Wierd neh.

The Union force at First Bull Run was called the Army of Northeastern Virginia.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

The U.S. Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution on the aims of the war:

[font="Times New Roman"]Resolved by the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States, That in this national emergency, Congress, banishing all feelings of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to the whole country; that this war is not waged on their part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease.
[/font]

The "established institutions" meant, of course, slavery. Kentucky senator John Crittenden, the co-sponsor of the resolution, had been a third-party candidate for president in 1860 and was a force to be reckoned with. (He was also the main author of the (thankfully) failed Crittenden compromise.) The resolution helped to boost pro-Union sentiment in Missouri and Maryland, and especially in Kentucky, which was still very much in the balance.

But it weakened support for the Union internationally. Above all, Great Britain was the key to foreign intervention. The Royal Navy could easily break the Northern blockade that was still shaky at best in July 1861. Oddly, the upper classes in Britain tended to favor the South, viewing its society as more civilized, while the working classes tended to favor the North. But slavery was now seen as an evil everywhere in Britain, and intervention to uphold slavery would not have happened. Since slavery was officially not the issue, however, the upper classes pushed to at least recognize the Confederacy and so trade with it.

In the Shenandoah Valley, General Patterson was, not surprisingly, relieved of command for his failure to keep Johnston's army pinned down.

[andym]

I found this and thought you might find it interesting.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14283527

[ilovestrategy]

I love the political history of the Civil War. 

[Capt. Harlock]

[font="Times New Roman"][right]Washington, July 26, 1861[/right]
Dear Sir . . . The dreadful disaster of Sunday can scarcely be mentioned. The imbecility of this Administration culminated in that catastrophe--an irretrievable misfortune and national disgrace never to be forgotten are to be added to the ruin of all peaceful pursuits and national bankruptcy as the result of Lincoln's "running the machine" for five months . . . It is not unlikely that some change in the War and Navy Departments may take place, but none beyond those two departments until Jefferson Davis turns out the whole concern.

The capture of Washington seems now to be inevitable--during the whole of Monday and Tuesday it might have been taken without any resistance. The rout, overthrow, and utter demoralization of the whole army is complete. Even now I doubt whether any serious opposition to the entrance of the Confederate forces could be offered. While Lincoln, Scott, and the Cabinet are disputing who is to blame,the city is unguarded, and the enemy at hand. General McClellan reached here last evening. But, if he had the ability of Caesar, Alexander, or Napoleon, what can he accomplish?
[center][. . .][/center]
[center]Yours truly,

Edwin M. Stanton[/center]
His Excellency, James Buchanan[/font]

(Stanton had been Attorney General during the administration of Buchanan. He was correct about a change in the War Department; he himself would be made Secretary of War, and eventually one of Lincoln's most loyal Cabinet members.)

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

George B. McClellan received the orders appointing him commander of the Department of the Potomac, including McDowell's defeated army. (McClellan would name his main army the Army of the Potomac later on.) U. S. Grant would later call McClellan "one of the great mysteries of the war", demonstrating great raw talent as a commander, but not the ability to put that talent into a successful campaign. At this particular moment, however, the Union needed above all a man who could organize an army into an efficient fighting machine, and this task McClellan would perform remarkably well.

[Capt. Harlock]

Somewhere Around 150 Years Ago Today:

The Missouri Convention appointed Hamilton Rowan Gamble the new Governor of Missouri. (I have seen several different dates for this.) Like Virginia, Missouri now had two men claiming to be Governor. The difference was that the pro-Union forces in Missouri controlled the state capital, the biggest city, and most of the land area. Interestingly, both Governors of Missouri would die in office.

The South's cotton harvest began to come in, but little of it would reach the mills. Senator James Hammond had delivered his "Cotton is King" speech on March 4, 1858, where he declared:

[font="Courier New"]"Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should they make war on us we could bring the whole world to our feet. The South is perfectly competent to go on, one, two, or three years without planting a seed of cotton. I believe that if she was to plant but half her cotton, for three years to come, it would be an immense advantage to her. I am not so sure but that after three total years' abstinence she would come out stronger than ever she was before, and better prepared to enter afresh upon her great career of enterprise. What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? I will not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain: England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king."[/font]

Now it was decided to put it to the test. From what I have been able to find out, Jefferson Davis never formally declared a cotton embargo; it was essentially a popular movement which he did not oppose. But most historians believe it was one of the Confederacy's greatest mistakes. The Union Navy was not yet capable of effectively blockading the thousands of miles of Confederate coast -- but the Southerners were doing the job for it.

[Anonymous]

[Deleted by Admins]

[ilovestrategy]

Capt. Harlock, I just wanted to thank you for all these posts. I've learned a lot, a whole lot. [&o]

[Capt. Harlock]

But then again I got my picture of this era from movies like 'Gone with the Wind'.

"Gone With the Wind" is a bit dangerous: for one thing, the portrayal of slavery completely fails to show how much the vast majority of slaves resented being slaves. But it also has some fairly accurate parts, at least for the time dealing with the Civil War. The death of Scarlett's first husband from disease is an entirely realistic development. For all the battlefield slaughters during the war, disease killed twice as many soldiers as did combat. The book and movie also correctly show that it was Southerners who first set a fair amount of Atlanta on fire. (Sherman's troops did a more extensive job later on.)

[wz0036@hotmail.com]

Good stuff, thanks Capt.Harlock. I would love to be in Charleston tomorrow, to celebrate "independence" day?I

[nicwb]

Well one good thing about "Gone with the Wind" - I got a school excursion to go see it at the movies on the excuse that it was relevant to my Modern History course when we did the US Civil War !

One thing that surprised me though is how few movies there really are about the War -for such an interesting subject it seems very uncovered.

[Capt. Harlock]

[font="Times New Roman"]HEAD-QUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF VIRGINIA FORTRESS MONROE, July 30, 1861.

Hon. Simon Cameron, Secretary of War:

SIR: By an order received on the morning of the 26th of July, from Major-Gen. DIX, by a telegraphic order from Lieut.-Gen. SCOTT, I was commanded to forward, of the troops of this Department, four regiments and a half, including Col. BAKER's California Regiment, to Washington, via Baltimore. . . Up to and at the time of the order I had been preparing for an advance movement, by which I hoped to cripple the resources of the enemy at Yorktown, and especially by seizing a large quantity of negroes, who were being pressed into their service in building the intrenchments there. I had five days previously been enabled to mount, for the first time, the first company of Light Artillery, which I had been empowered to raise, and they had but a single rifled cannon, an iron 6-pounder. Of course, everything must, and did yield to the supposed exigency and the orders. This ordering away the troops from this department, while it weakened the posts at Newport's News, necessitated the withdrawal of the troops from Hampton, where I was then throwing up intrenched works, to enable me to hold the town with a small force, while I advanced up the York or James River. In the village of Hampton there were a large number of negroes, composed, in a great measure, of women and children of the men who had fled thither within my lines for protection, who had escaped from maurauding parties of rebels who had been gathering up able-bodied blacks to aid them in constructing their batteries on the James and York Rivers. I had employed the men in Hampton in tin owing up intrenchments, and they were working zealously and efficiently at that duty, saving our soldiers from that labor, under the gleam of the mid-day sun. The women were earning substantially their own subsistance in washing, marketing, and taking care of the clothes of the soldiers, and rations were being served out to the men who worked for the support of the children. But by the evacuation of Hampton, rendered necessary by the withdrawal of troops, leaving me scarcely 5,000 men outside the Fort, including the force at Newport's News, all these black people were obliged to break up their homes at Hampton, fleeing across the creek within my lines for protection and support. Indeed it was a most distressing sight to see these poor creatures, who had trusted to the protection of the arms of the United States, and who aided the troops of the United States in their enterprise, to be thus obliged to flee from their homes, and the homes of their masters, who had deserted them, and become not fugitives from fear of the return of the rebel soldiery, who had threatened to shoot the men who had wrought for us, and to carry off the women who had served us to a worse than Egyptian bondage. I have therefore now within the Peninsula, this side of Hampton Creek, 900 negroes, 300 of whom are able-bodied men, 30 of whom are men substantially past hard labor, 175 women, 225 children under the age of 10 years, and 170 between 10 and 18 years, and many more coming in. The questions which this state of facts present are very embarrassing.

First -- What shall be done with them? and, Second, What is their state and condition?

Upon these questions I desire the instructions of the Department. . .

. . .I should have no doubt on this question, had I not seen it stated that an order had been issued by Gen. MCDOWELL, in his department, substantially forbidding all fugitive slaves from coming within his lines or being harbored there. Is that order to be enforced in all Military Departments? If so, who are to be considered fugitive slaves? Is a slave to be considered fugitive whose master runs away and leaves him? Is it forbidden to the troops to aid or harbor within their lines the negro children who are found therein, or is the soldier, when his march has destroyed their means of subsistence, to allow them to starve because he has driven off the rebel master? Now, shall the commander of regiment or battalion sit in judgment upon the question, whether any given black man has fled from his master, or his master fled from him? Indeed, how are the free born to be distinguished? Is one any more or less a fugitive slave because he has labored on the rebel intrenchments? If he has so labored, if I understand it, he is to be harbored. . .

I have very decided opinions upon the subject of this order. It does not become me to criticise it, and I write in no spirit of criticism, but simply to explain the full difficulties that surround the enforcing it. If the enforcement of that order becomes the policy of the Government, I, as a soldier, shall be bound to enforce it steadfastly, if not cheerfully. But if left to my own discretion, as you may have gathered from my reasoning, I should take a widely different course from that which it indicates.

In a loyal State I would put down a servile insurrection. In a state of rebellion I would confiscate that which was used to oppose my arms, and take all that property, which constituted the wealth of that State, and furnished the means by which the war is prosecuted, beside being the cause of the war; and if, in so doing, it should be objected that human beings were brought to the free enjoyment of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, such objections might not require much consideration.

Pardon me for addressing the Secretary of War directly upon this question, as it involves some political considerations, as well as propriety of military action. I am Sir, your obedient servant,

BENJ. F. BUTLER.[/font]


The full text of Butler's letter is available at:
http://www.nytimes.com/1861/08/06/news/ ... gewanted=1

[ilovestrategy]

That just illustrates how the politics and morality of the Civil War was not clear cut black and white as most people think. A lot of the politics and issues were pretty murky.

[parusski]

ORIGINAL: ilovestrategy

That just illustrates how the politics and morality of the Civil War was not clear cut black and white as most people think. A lot of the politics and issues were pretty murky.

So true, so true. Many issues were not much clearer after that horrific war ended. Look how long it took for black Americans to even start getting real "rights". I wonder how different things might have been if Lincoln had not been assassinated and his "let'em up easy" policy had been instituted.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

In Missouri, Nathaniel Lyon had marched out of the city of Springfield in an attempt to surprise the Southern forces. The armies' vanguards skirmished at a place called Dug Springs -- which was not surprising, since it was a blisteringly hot day and both sides wanted water.

The general rule for the first half of the war in the Eastern states was that the Union cavalry was far outclassed by the Confederates, since the city-dwelling Northerners were less familiar with horses. This was less true in the Western states, where both North and South had depended on horses to cover the long distances between their spread-apart towns. This time, thanks to a determined charge by Union cavalry and poor coordination amongst the Southerners, the Federals won the day.

But that evening, Lyon learned from scouts and local Union sympathizers that the opposing State Guard had been reinforced by units under Confederate Brigadier General Benjamin McCulloch and Arkansas state militia Brigadier General N. Bart Pearce, making the mixed Missouri/Arkansas/Confederate force over twice the size of Lyon's 6,000-man force. A retreat back to Springfield was in order.

In Washington, D.C., an enterprising individual named Thaddeus Lowe received funds and authorization to build a balloon for military observation. Some attempts had already been made using privately owned balloons, but Lowe would pave the way to the establishment of the U. S. Army Balloon Corps, under the authority of the Bureau of Topographical Engineers.