Could be a hornet's nest I'm sticking my hand into...

[christof139]

I'm a late joiner to the thread. There are a couple of elements that I have noted in the discussion that need to be commented on. The commentary assumes a monolithic attitude of seccession by the Southern populace. This is not so. Major elements of the southern populace were disenfranchised from voting and felt little or no loyalty to The South.

There was no "one man, one vote" in the civil war. Most states defined elgibility to vote by ownership of real property. As a consequence, the poor, hard-scrabble had no say-so in the state conventions for seccession. The poor whites felt little constraint at leaving camps at the drop of a hat. Ella Long in Desertion in the Civil War and Bessie Meyers' Rich Man's War, a dissertation on desertion of Alabama troops, (both books back in print after 50 years) reference this issue as a major reason why the South was forced to fight with over 30% (average) of it's troops on the muster as "Not available for Duty"! Any Southern force waiting at Fredricksburg for 18 months would waste away due to desertion, overstayed leaves and unauthorized furloughs.

While, their was no instance of a seceeded state trying to leave the Confederacy. Georgia, Alabama and Miisissippee all requested a return of troops from the Eastern theatre to defend the states when invaded by the Union Western armies. Long in her book points out that major regions of almost every southern state turned into outlaw havens. Confederate Conscript officers would only enter these regions with substatial troop support. One Mississippee county tried to secede from the rest of the state a la West Virginia and had to be garrisoned. The northern tier of counties in Alabama and North East Texas were notorious in support of deserters.

This was less prevalent in the North; but, western Pennsylvania and the Upper Peninsula in Michigan were deserter havens. A recent book on California in the Civil War does list the desire to dodge conscription as amajor incentive for wartime movement to the West.

Forge of Fury tries to address these feelings with periods of "Unrest" in provinces and wastage between turns. All in all, this is an acceptable generalization to simplify playing the game. However, this lack of support on the home front is a major issue to consider before modifying the game to be more historical.

How true. You're very well informed. Also, most of the people in the Shenendoah Valley voted against secession, but when the war started they sided with their own State.

There is a certain clause in the Constitution or where ever, I forget, that the Union used as its legal basis to stop secession. This is easily found on the inet and in may books on the subject.

Seems a person here is making remarks such as 'there weren't any rules', 'what rules', and '*your rules*' etc., as if the pros and cons of secession had not any legal basis.

Chris

[Berkut]

ORIGINAL: Jonathan Palfrey

ORIGINAL: Berkut
Your argument is simply one of scale. You say people should not be allowed, if it isn't "sensible". Well, if they disagree with your definition of what is or is not "sensible" they may attempt to do so via force, ignoring the "rules" *you* have created.

First you thought I was in favour of letting anyone secede who wanted to, and you accused me of promoting anarchy. Then, when I conceded that there may be some circumstances in which secession is absurd and shouldn't be allowed, you don't seem happy with that either. There's no pleasing you, it seems.

Don't take things personally, it is just a discussion.

When I say "the rules you create" I don't mean that you are dictator of the world, I am just pointing out that these rules, these standards for when people should be allowed to secede, do not really solve the problems that exist under the current rules. Your contention is only different in how lax the rules are, not in the kind of rules.

My only point is that concepts like those you are espousing are rather ivory tower thinking - they sound fine and noble in theory, but the real world doesn't work on theory, it works on practical application. And the "right" of self-determination is one of those that sounds pretty good until you start looking at it in detail and in specific.

Again, back to Northern Ireland. You say if the border was further north, more people would be happy. Well, not necessarily. And more importantly, even if that is true, it is only with the benefit of hindsight. The border is where it is because *at that time* it was (roughly) the largest area that could encompass a majority of people who desired to stay with Britain. *Precisely* the metric you have claimed, I might add.

Of course, another issue that NI illustrates is that demographics change. Majorities erode, and new majorities arise. Should we allow political upheaval each time?

The South did not deserve the right to self determination for several defensible, moral reasons:

1. They had perfectly fair and adequate political representation under the existing political system.

2. The purpose for their secession was an attempt to keep a large portion of their population disenfranchised for a longer period of time, and to prop up a economically obsolete planter class,

3. *They* initiated the violence related to their illegal secession and attempted to sieze federal property.

[Mike Scholl]

Let's be honest.  What all this boils down to is "Might Makes Right!"  If you have the power to shove your opinions down other's unwilling throats, then you have the ability to declare it to be "right" as well.   Not defending or attacking any viewpoint..., just stating the obvious.

[christof139]

How about Bee's Nests or Hives, right around Gettysburg:
 
[font="times new roman"]In one case, some members of the 3rd Michigan found that the most threatening enemy was not the Confederates they were pursuing.  The Wolverines, hungry for some honey, raided some beehives in a nearby garden, initially driving off the bees. However, as the men reached the hives, the bees counterattacked en masse, repeatedly stinging the men as they struggled to get away from the prolonged assault. An amused onlooker, Color Sgt. Daniel Crotty, later wrote that the slashing and darting bees made some men “turn such somersaulting on the ground as to put to shame a lot of Japanese acrobat performers  in a circus ring.”  The soldiers made an inglorious retreat, their swollen heads and faces now resembling huge mortar shells.[/font]
Borrowed from S. Mingus etc.
Chris
 

[Jonathan Palfrey]

ORIGINAL: Berkut
Don't take things personally, it is just a discussion.

True. I was slightly exasperated, but you haven't been offensive, and I wasn't offended. Sorry if I gave that impression.

ORIGINAL: Berkut
My only point is that concepts like those you are espousing are rather ivory tower thinking - they sound fine and noble in theory, but the real world doesn't work on theory, it works on practical application. And the "right" of self-determination is one of those that sounds pretty good until you start looking at it in detail and in specific.

This is true in a couple of different senses:

1. I got sucked into this discussion without having thought through my position in advance, so I've been improvising the argument as I went along, and I haven't done a very good job.

2. The right to self-determination should properly be a part of international law, but we don't have any effective international law in the world. Without it, self-determination depends on the goodwill of individual governments, which are predisposed to oppose it because it's not in their own selfish interests. (Nevertheless, some governments seem to be getting somewhat tolerant of the idea these days.)

ORIGINAL: Berkut
Of course, another issue that NI illustrates is that demographics change. Majorities erode, and new majorities arise. Should we allow political upheaval each time?

In principle, yes. Of course, no-one wants political rearrangements every fortnight, but neither is it sensible for political boundaries to last for centuries when they've become out of date. To avoid too-frequent changes, it may be expedient to require a vote of somewhat more than 50% in favour of change.

ORIGINAL: Berkut
The South did not deserve the right to self determination for several defensible, moral reasons:

1. They had perfectly fair and adequate political representation under the existing political system.

2. The purpose for their secession was an attempt to keep a large portion of their population disenfranchised for a longer period of time, and to prop up a economically obsolete planter class,

3. *They* initiated the violence related to their illegal secession and attempted to seize federal property.

1. This is true, but irrelevant. I think people should have the right to self-determination unconditionally, not merely if they're suffering some particular injustice.

2. This is true, and somewhat relevant. The USA could reasonably have prevented secession for the sake of the slaves. But that wasn't the reason given: Lincoln said himself that he went to war to "preserve the Union", not to free the slaves. A full-scale war to free the slaves wouldn't have been sellable to the electorate.

3. True that the Confederates started the shooting (which was very foolish of them). "Illegal secession" is a moot point. "Attempted to seize federal property": as the property in question was on their own territory and paid for with their own taxes, I don't really blame them for that.

[Jonathan Palfrey]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl
Let's be honest. What all this boils down to is "Might Makes Right!" If you have the power to shove your opinions down other's unwilling throats, then you have the ability to declare it to be "right" as well. Not defending or attacking any viewpoint..., just stating the obvious.

This is always true in the absence of effective law, and the world has yet to achieve any effective international law. However, governments sometimes attempt to enforce international law as they think it should be.

Hence the fact that Kosovo seems likely to achieve independence from Serbia.

[Jonathan Palfrey]

ORIGINAL: Whit
There was no "one man, one vote" in the civil war. Most states defined eligibility to vote by ownership of real property.

This was standard 19th century democracy; the same in Britain. And no votes for women, of course.

ORIGINAL: Whit
As a consequence, the poor, hard-scrabble had no say-so in the state conventions for secession. The poor whites felt little constraint at leaving camps at the drop of a hat. Ella Long in Desertion in the Civil War and Bessie Meyers' Rich Man's War, a dissertation on desertion of Alabama troops, (both books back in print after 50 years) reference this issue as a major reason why the South was forced to fight with over 30% (average) of its troops on the muster as "Not available for Duty"! Any Southern force waiting at Fredericksburg for 18 months would waste away due to desertion, overstayed leaves and unauthorized furloughs.

While there was no instance of a seceded state trying to leave the Confederacy. Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi all requested a return of troops from the Eastern theatre to defend the states when invaded by the Union Western armies. Long in her book points out that major regions of almost every southern state turned into outlaw havens. Confederate Conscript officers would only enter these regions with substantial troop support. One Mississippi county tried to secede from the rest of the state a la West Virginia and had to be garrisoned. The northern tier of counties in Alabama and North East Texas were notorious in support of deserters.

This was less prevalent in the North; but, western Pennsylvania and the Upper Peninsula in Michigan were deserter havens. A recent book on California in the Civil War does list the desire to dodge conscription as a major incentive for wartime movement to the West.

Thanks for the interesting historical notes. The more we learn about the war, the more remarkable it becomes that the Confederacy prolonged the war for four years, won battles, and worried Lincoln to the extent that it did.

[Rabbitman]

Thanks for the interesting historical notes. The more we learn about the war, the more remarkable it becomes that the Confederacy prolonged the war for four years, won battles, and worried Lincoln to the extent that it did.

 
Totally agreed, the Confederacy seems to be looking to be more of a mess as more comes to light and it really does boggle the mind that they were able to achieve so much.
 

[General Quarters]

ORIGINAL: Rabbitman

Thanks for the interesting historical notes. The more we learn about the war, the more remarkable it becomes that the Confederacy prolonged the war for four years, won battles, and worried Lincoln to the extent that it did.

Totally agreed, the Confederacy seems to be looking to be more of a mess as more comes to light and it really does boggle the mind that they were able to achieve so much.

That's what makes it difficult to model the war in a game. If you set up a game in which the human player has all the economic, population, transportation, naval, etc., advantages of the North, it won't be much of a challenge. But the fact is that the North was unable to bring all that strength to bear, in part for political reasons and in part because of some of the inefficiencies of having too much. The South had the tremendous home-field, short supply line advantage, and they were fighting for their homes, and they fought without shoes and without much food sometimes, and even without much in the way of weapons occasionally. But they were often able to keep the North off balance and, as late as 1864, another Chickamauga would probably have brought the defeat of Lincoln and the election of a pro-peace Congress.

Some of these factors which provided balance to the war, and would provide balance to the game, are difficult to model. I think that, in its basic design, FOF does a good job of that. In FOF, a hard-pressed Lee and Bragg could invade the north and force a Union army to leave Virginia and Tennessee. This is the first strategic ACW game I have seen in which that is possible. From all we've seen, the coming upgrade is going to do it even better.

[Bombsight]

Appreciate the kind remarks, they justify my civil war library (over 100 volumes).

One piggy-back comment concerning the question on how the South prolonged the war for four years is to refer people to William T. Sherman's (noted theoretician?) observation that "one man in a firing pit (i.e. trench) is worth three advancing over clear terrain". The tactics of the age had only started to adapt to the killing technology available. These tactics were still developing 50 yeatrs later in WW I.

[christof139]

Regardless, strike not the first blow lest the favor be returned ten-fold.  Chris
 
 

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: General Quarters
That's what makes it difficult to model the war in a game. If you set up a game in which the human player has all the economic, population, transportation, naval, etc., advantages of the North, it won't be much of a challenge. But the fact is that the North was unable to bring all that strength to bear, in part for political reasons and in part because of some of the inefficiencies of having too much. The South had the tremendous home-field, short supply line advantage, and they were fighting for their homes, and they fought without shoes and without much food sometimes, and even without much in the way of weapons occasionally. But they were often able to keep the North off balance and, as late as 1864, another Chickamauga would probably have brought the defeat of Lincoln and the election of a pro-peace Congress.

Chickamauga was one of the extremely rare battles in which the South was numerically superior...., and it 1864 that simply wasn't in the cards. The North simply had too many troops in too many places under to many competent leaders for the South to inflict an "offensive defeat" on them. Defensively they could resist in strong positions, but Robert E. Lee's days of "pulling rabbits out of hats" in the manner of Chancellorsville or Second Manassas were over.

[christof139]

Chickamauga was one of the extremely rare battles in which the South was numerically superior...., and it 1864 that simply wasn't in the cards. The North simply had too many troops in too many places under to many competent leaders for the South to inflict an "offensive defeat" on them. Defensively they could resist in strong positions, but Robert E. Lee's days of "pulling rabbits out of hats" in the manner of Chancellorsville or Second Manassas were over.

If the befuddled Bragg had listened to Forrest and Wheeler and most of his higher ranking subordinates and sent the ~10,000 CSA Cav,. and some Infantry in pursuit of the Yanks, could be that Chattnooga and etc. would have been captured with the Union forces sustaining many more casualties. An 'almost happened' and a big 'if'.

Chris