Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Understanding The Civil War More Clearly

This is another great one for the reading list.

Have you ever looked at this issue in this way?

First,leave the morality of slavery aside. I do not and nobody I know will argue that it is not a blight on the soul of humanity. It has been a terrible evil since slavery was first conceived all those long millennia ago but to better understand the times of the pre- Civil War period this larger slavery question must be set aside.

It was much more an economic issue than a state's rights issue at this juncture.

At the time slavery was legal in the United States and it was a business proposition. Slaves were viewed as personal property.

Large southern slaveholders had huge amounts of their money invested in the slaves. A runaway slave represented a major business loss. As the abolition movement gained steam the large slave owners came under increasingly more pressure and their fiscal losses mounted.

Thus, they wanted a harsh enforcement of a fugitive slave law to protect their interests and dissuade abolitionist intervention.

This harshness in turn led to the jury nullification in the North.

This is the most overlooked part of the whole argument. The simple fact that slavery was legal at the time. miles

While I well understand that everyone here recognises the almost incomprehensible evil that was slavery, and no-one here would fight to defend it, there's a reason that this institution divided the whole country since our nation's very inception like no other and it is inaccurate to "set aside" the morality of it.

To suggest that the morality of slavery had no effect would be like suggesting North and South would have split in a reality where slavery did not exist (or was universal) and the South allowed only oxen whereas the North had no restriction. The nation then dividing into those defining themselves as "Oxen States" versus "Free States".

The South then becoming increasingly alarmed because only "Free States" would be formed from territories in the future, making a federally-imposed lifting of Southern "ox-only" laws across the South as inevitable.

Was an enormous amount of capital tied up in slaves? Sure, practically all of it in many areas, but if wealthy Southerners were known instead merely for their expensive draft animals and farm equipment, their would have been no issue.

To argue otherwise suggests that the collective North philosophically WELCOMED the loss of State's rights and the rise of an overbearing central government.

Birdwatcher

Yes, but not everywhere on any significant scale.

Seems the North did not have much problem with slaves, as long as they had the market for them. Once they lost that, their morals kicked in. miles

"To argue otherwise suggests that the collective North philosophically WELCOMED the loss of State's rights and the rise of an overbearing central government."

A pretty apt description of the collective North today, won't you agree?

"Large southern slaveholders had huge amounts of their money invested in the slaves. A runaway slave represented a major business loss. As the abolition movement gained steam the large slave owners came under increasingly more pressure and their fiscal losses mounted."

That would be similar to Kansas deciding that the cattle driven up from Texas were wildlife and should be set free.

..and a cautionary tale in that for all of us for sure; what evils we have the ability to rationalize.

Anyhow, glimpse of the big picture, just because its flat interesting....

For us Texian reenactors the rise of cotton production after the invention of the cotton gin presents a number of practical clothing/equipment issues, mostly cotton vs. linen.

Wool, being both durable and good insulation of course remained in use throughout, even in warm climates. For woven cloth, linen was the common up until the 19th Century, and if ya ain't gonna try to iron it, still IS far superior to cotton IMHO.

Enter the invention of the steam-driven textile mill and the worldwide demand for cotton takes off, cotton fabric produced so abundantly and cheaply in conjunction with the burgeoning scale of cotton production in the Old South such that you could load finished cotton fabric on wagons, haul it clear across the Santa Fe Trail and STILL sell it at a profit in Mexico, were they actually grew cotton.

During the Seminole War the War Department conducted trials of linen vs. cotton canvas for tents and wagon covers and concluded that, while linen was superior in every respect, by then cotton production had increased to the point that cotton was far cheaper.

IIRC where lined canvas held out the longest was on sailing ships, where they took the durability of their fabrics very seriously.


...anyhow, back to the main issue.

One group who certainly did NOT rationalize slavery were our Texas Hill Country Germans who, though in close contact with slavery, would as a group not use slaves on principle. Today THEY remember their old folks telling bitter tales of the "hangenkader" (sp?? hanging squads).

For those interested in Texas History, a fine read....

http://www.historyundressed.com/2012/04/true-to-union-civil-war-in-hill-country.html

Birdwatcher

Not in the country.

To someone like yourself who is so firmly convinced that Slavery was THE cause of the Civil War despite a mountain of evidence from a multitude of sources to the contrary makes discussion and consideration with you a moot point and a fruitless endeavor.

Here is a discussion question to think about.


Why was the War Between The States so particularly bloody and the casualty rates so epizootic in proportion?

We all agree that a slave represented an enormously valuable commodity, and big bucks could equally well be had capturing runaways and selling them South.

Yet, this does not seem to have been common practice in the North, even adjacent to slave holding States. And Northern juries, as mentioned, simply ignored the law when it came to returning runaways.

On this general topic, one of the proudest incidents in that whole war, when the residents of Greencastle, Pa., south and west of Gettysburg, collectively flipped the bird at the Army of Northern Virginia, risking their lives over the issue of the local Free Blacks.

The ANV comes down through history largely un-tainted, and rightfully so. But when they went into Pennsylvania elements of their cavalry acted as slave-catchers, free-born and runaway alike....

It weren't everyone that was motivated by money.

http://civilwardailygazette.com/confederate-cavalry-rounds-up-pennsylvania-blacks-free-and-slave/


For now, all that Jenkins was concerned with was removing the fifty or so black women and children out of Chambersburg. Before being transported south, they kept them in Greencastle.

When they were brought into the town, they were lightly guarded. Only a chaplain and four soldiers oversaw the wagons. A number of conscientious residents, perhaps even the Lincoln-man who was called an “abolitionist” by Jenkins the previous day, make a charge at the guards. They quickly disarmed them and took them to the jail. All of the black prisoners were freed.

It didn’t take long for Jenkins to catch wind of this bit of direct action (though it might have been the following day). He demanded $50,000 to compensate him for the people he was trying to kidnap, claiming they were his own property. The town council of Greencastle refused to pay him, and he threatened to burn down the town in retaliation.

Fourteen of the freed blacks approached the town council and offered to give themselves up to Jenkins to spare the town, but the council refused. Jenkins’ mind, however, was quickly brought to other fronts on the following day and never came back to Greencastle.

When passing though going north, I often stop in at Greencastle when I can....

Birdwatcher

Aside from the fact that family quarrels seem to be the most horrific, I've always felt that in most conflicts, technology always trumps tactics. Seems the military always goes into a conflict prepared ( more or less) to fight the last conflict they were in.

Just rambling this morning.

Also neither side had any real process in place to deal with the amount of casualties. Nothing really new. Neither did European armies.

Sir, given the magnitude of cotton production by 1860, the enormous acreage devoted to it, and the iron grip the wealthy Planter minority had long had on almost all public policy decisions in the South, one cannot "disregard the morality of slavery" for a moment and "focus on the economic forces".

In the Antebellum South, slavery, mostly through cotton production, WAS the economy.

Did your average small-town guy, North and South, like Miles said, happen to join the side most of the people where they lived joined?

Of course.

But that wasn't how the war got started, nor the cause.

Nowhere have I said slavery was the only cause, indeed one only has read the links I previously provided where Southerners carefully described the causes in their own words.

But... my opinion.... absent slavery, that whole war weren't happening....

Birdwatcher

Because both sides were American, and Americans don't quit.


Oh, the technology part is easy to explore, and the fact that everyone except a few guy like Forrest had learned from Napoleon's playbook.

Re: the standard "rifles behind cover firing on lines of guys in the open" argument, in his The Rifle Musket in Civil War Combat: Reality and Myth Hess argues that the new rifle-musket technology itself, because of the way it was actually deployed and used, had but little effect on the death toll....

Another fine read.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Rifle-Musket-Civil-Combat/dp/0700616071

Birdwatcher

Thanks for that book suggestion. Got a lightly used one cheap off Amazon....

First they burn flags...then books. My wife is a teacher and the common core material does little to build confidence that history won't be changed for the sake of agenda...

Was at Gettyburg at Christmas time and I realized how light I was in the history of it, particularly dealing with some of the areas my kids (grown) were discussing.

My Ma's side had independence & civil war vets--the data sitting in a box somewhere in our basement--time to dig it out...:)

Bingo! The technology far outstripped the tactics and new weapons systems (i.e. gatling gun, railroad borne artillery) foreshadowed things to come on later battlefields.

Here is a question that often stumped my students on tests.

What was Robert E. Lee's connection to the American Revolution?