US Civil War

Looks like I will have to check out Burns series. Again, many thanks for the recommendation.
And yes, I think you get a different thing from a film of this type and from reading about it. As I said before, it brings it to life with an immediacy which is very compelling.

Yes, it hadnt escaped my attention that to some extent I am playing the role of Freemantle.
And as in the movie Freemantle says he is honoured to be on that field, I share that feeling to some extent. It clicked straight away when I was watching.He seems in the film to have great respect for those men who fought for what they believed to be right. I too share that sentiment.
In the film one thing that struck me about Freemantle is that he was the only one there who was, lets say, a neutral observer, even though maybe his sympathies were more with the South.
Co. F. was in the Coldstream Guards. I myself have some slight connection to another regiment of that Division, the Grenadiers.
However, I am defintely not an imperialsit, and hopefully, I am a bit less stuffy than Freemantle would very likely have been.

For me its a real pleasure to be able to discuss the civil war and other historical topics in an intelligent way. This thread has certainly helped expand my knowledge and overview of this critical event in history. And I would agrue, not only the history of the USA. As I indicated before, I think the war had major ramifications for a lot of subsequent history on a global scale, given Americas role during the last century.

As I said before, despite the hat, I thought his performance was superb.

And on the film in general, a couple of other scenes that I found memorable were at the beginning where Chamberlaine adresses the guys from Maine who dont want to soldier on, and near the end when Armistead is trying to spur the men on and throws his hat on his sword. In fact he was a character I liked all through the movie.

Agree with all the above points.

Now theres a thought.

Mary Lincoln would, I think, fit into that kind of category.

In the campaign of the Red Army to destroy the Nazi invaders, many women fought. There were women in command of some Russian tanks who became heros of the Soviet Union.
In Britain of course we didnt go that far, but one of my aunts served in WWII,doing support duties in the Womens Royal Naval Service.

But the plight of the South after the civil war seems to me to have been quite grave, with the economy and much of the infra structure destroyed.

Thanks BTW for the post about Appamatox Courthouse.

 

What do you re enact from WWII? Id be interested to know.

The English civil war re enactments are on a relatively small scale. But of course it was a long time ago, and its highly likely that there are many in this country who know virtually zero about it.
Also Britain has a long history of military stuff to look back on, and maybe the civil war isnt the most interesting. Not to me anyway.

 

I don the feldgrau of Deutschland. When I loved in California I was a member of a group that portrayed the 12.SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend". When I lived on the east coast I was a member of a group that portrayed the 2.SS Panzer Division "Das Reich". I haven't been to an event in years though. When I moved back to my home state I tried to find local units to join up with, but never really clicked with any of them. Trying to branch into other timer periods now.

I know the UK has a relatively large WW1 and WW2 reenactment scene. I also know Napoleonic Wars reenacting is also quite large.

 

Few years back I read a book about "Das Reich".. Max Hastings was it.. I think so.
I would have guessed from your other posts you would play the role of a German. And theres no doubt the Wermacht was a fine army. But deviating from topic here.
Just briefly, never seen any WWI or WWII re enactments, or Napoleonic. Myself Im more of an armchair history buff.

 

It's more of a true documentary; not nearly as dramatic or emotionally intense as Gettysburg. But there is a lot of information there.

I wasn't sure about the spelling, and I didn't have his book handy. Wikipedia made the other spelling seem more common in the UK, so...

Damn you, Wikipedia!

Many in the US Army shared that deep feeling of respect. On the formal surrender day at Appomattox, Chamberlain (now a general) had his men stand at attention as the Confederate Army carefully stacked up their guns. He saw something special in the way that his adversaries had carried out their duties and endured unbelievable trials. Also, Grant did not ask Lee to surrender his sword, which was the old tradition. Grant was polite and professional throughout the negotiations.

Like the USA, the CSA kept with the American tradition of a professional army doing the bidding of civilian government, rather than a philosophy more like today's Egyptian military, where the views of unelected and unaccountable military people constantly have to be taken into consideration by elected leaders. As servants of civilian government, many men on both sides of the Civil War felt that they were all doing the same thing.

That had a lot to do with why officers on both sides were quicker to let go of the past, which many Southern officers found easier to do in New Orleans, more of an international city than a Southern city, then and now. The local culture was more accepting of change, having already been through French, Spanish, French (again), American, and Confederate ownership, finally back to American again.

He liked the Southern army, though he disliked slavery.

That was already my guess.

I think we can give him a free pass on the hat. Hollywood has to change something. He did well enough to get Longstreet a statue at Gettysburg, his first ever, anywhere.

And having known several older, educated, religious gentlemen from Virginia and North Carolina over the years, I can assure you that Martin Sheen's Lee is dramatic perfection. Some critics pointed out that others have portrayed Lee somewhat stronger and more confident, but failed to consider that Lee was not in good health that week. His symptoms sound like what we would today call a mild to moderate heart attack, surely brought on by extreme stress.

You may have heard people comment on how rapidly US presidents age while in office, but none in my lifetime have aged faster than Robert E. Lee. He had very little gray hair in 1860, but developed the look of an elderly man by 1865. The age difference between Lee and Grant was only 15 years. By appearances, I would guess 25.

Everything Chamberlain did that week was amazing. If there hadn't been so many witnesses, it would be hard to believe.

Poor Armistead! He strongly felt that Gettysburg was his time and place to die. Many witnesses reported hearing him talk about it.

I love all the campfire scenes in the movie.

Martha Washington set a precedent of remaining in the background as much as possible, but soon Dolley Madison (4th First Lady) would set an opposite example. Mary Todd Lincoln took Martha Washington's approach, for the most part. Her emotional problems got worse after her husband's death, unfortunately.

To this day, most of the areas where the Southern economy has done well in modern times are not the same areas where prosperity was concentrated before the war. Atlanta is one of the few significant exceptions. I've never heard of a destroyed or heavily damaged CW plantation house being rebuilt, because they aren't where the money is. Some of those areas may not rebound in another 150 years.

 

So I understand from my reading on the subject. I read that when the two, Lee and Grant, first met, Grant made small talk, and Lee had to remind him to get on with the business in hand. One can hardly imagine the feelings those two must have felt on that day.

Its quite often the case in wars that those on opposing sides have great respect for one another. Yet they still fight.

Lee and Grant seem to me to have been very different in many ways, but I think both were great men.

Its not good when the military have too much power, as in Egypt. But that opens up a whole other can of worms, and I dont want to wander too far off topic.

And like him, I obviously would not have wanted slavery to continue.

Its interesting. When I saw the "Lincoln" movie, I was at a freinds house. Afterwards we got talking about the civil war, of which he only knows the rough outline. After a while he said words to the effect that my sympathies seemed to be with the South. I understood that for him, it was simply an issue of being anti slavery, and therefore siding with the North.
My protestations about, for example, the notable character of Robert E. Lee, or the tenacity of Southern troops, fell on deaf ears.

But I dont in the end favour either side. I can see the nobility of the men on both sides. On a personal, emotive kind of level, I do like the Confederates, but I know that ultimately, slavery was a terrible abuse and had to go. Its more something to do with the spirit of the South as I percieve it. Which may be a woolly or romantic notion. Not a wholly rational thing.

On the other hand, I think Lincoln was definitely one of Americas greatest. The incredible pressure he was under, his tenacity and poitical mastery are just phenomenal. Like so many, he gave everything, and paid the ultimate price.

Im sure the statue is well deserved.

Martin Sheens Lee was brilliant. I found him very convincing. He managed to portray the enourmous emotions which Lee must have been feeling, and also his sheer proffessionalism as a General, as in the scene you mentioned before.
After the final charge too, when Lee says to the men "its all my fault". He played it just right. Incidentally, I had read about that incident before, and it served to increase my respect for Lee.

Both were extrordinarily brave men. Thats how I read it.

A lot is conveyed in them. But I like campfires in general.

I just dont think Mary was cut out to handle the stress etc. Lincolns death would have been devastating for her.

 

That’s all I can find to do around here.

Lee was embarrassed to be meeting him under those circumstances. The night before surrender, Lee said that he would “rather die a thousand deaths than go see General Grant.” Grant was surely intrigued to finally meet in person the individual that he had heard more about and thought more about than any other living person on the planet, during the previous year and a half.

One time, the normally stoic Grant lost his patience with his inner circle of senior officers' endless talk of Lee's seemingly superhuman abilities, and hit them with this outburst:

"Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what are we going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do."

In later years, Lee would not tolerate hearing any negative comments about Grant's tactical abilities, pointing out that it is an indirect insult to say that someone has been defeated by an inferior person.

And both had Presidential potential. If the South had won the war, Grant would have stood no chance of getting elected to any office at all, but Lee would have been the obvious choice to follow Jefferson Davis, if Lee had any interest in doing so. No other candidate would have stood a chance against him.

And now, Lee has become the last Southern hero, as the fame of Stonewall and Stewart has faded from pop culture. Everybody still knows who Robert E. Lee is.

No, I don’t want to get deeper into Egypt’s problems, but it is an obvious and familiar example of the direct opposite of a professional army. Most volunteers for the North and South believed in their side’s cause, but not all draftees felt that way, and many of them did their duty quite well.

Longstreet was not a big fan of slavery. He was another example of a true professional soldier. He had a controversial quote in the movie, “We should have freed the slaves, THEN fired on Fort Sumter.” That line actually came from his memoirs. We don’t know the first time he said it to anyone, but it was a minority opinion. It’s an interesting thought; little more.

I think the ideal resolution would have been a negotiated settlement that came before the war’s death toll became so enormous and one army was utterly defeated; a settlement that put a time limit on slavery. A transition period could have allowed time for slaves to get some amount of education, at least basic literacy.

We’re not known so much for being rational anyway. In 1860, our largest city (by far) was New Orleans, a place that was poorly understood by the average Southerner. Natchez became what it was mostly out of fear of diversity. Rich planters didn’t want their children exposed to the European-style multiculturalism and tolerance of New Orleans. How rational is that?

The Southeast is still a place where you can find all kinds of things that most people would never expect to encounter in America. We have a lot of eccentric backwaters left, though not as many as there used to be.

I can’t imagine myself doing anything that they did there. Every time I watch them in action, I’m speechless.

Similar things have been said about Lee's wife.

 

One of my favorite Civil War movies is Glory. In fact, it is one of the top 10 movies I've seen I think. Have you guys seen it?

 

I havent seen it myself. Whats it about? Is it about the war in general, or certain incidents?

 

It is about an all black regiment that fought in the Civil War for the Union, and the prejudices they faced even among their own troops. It is an excellent movie, highy recommended!

 

Cheers. I may well check it out.

 

It has a pretty star studded cast too; Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Matthew Broderick.

 

The National Park Service lists 384 CW battles, most of them small and relatively unknown to the masses. I like all the old battlefields. They are always quiet places where time seems to almost stand still.

No, I haven’t been posting online about the CW until recently. I meant that I live in an area that doesn’t have much to offer to those who have an interest in history. Within 100 miles of my house, there is only a small Revolutionary War battlefield and a small Colonial Era village that was founded by a religious group. It’s a little over two hours to Appomattox. We don’t have any local history-oriented book clubs or anything like that at the moment.

Jackson has the benefit of a cool-sounding nickname making him easier to remember, and Sherman will always be remembered because he was so controversial. Among those who have a broad interest in military history, George McClellan stands out as the ultimate example of the general who is never quite ready to do anything, always needing more time and resources. During the first Gulf War, before the ground invasion, a reporter at a press conference with Norman Schwarzkopf made a snarky reference to McClellan. Schwarzkopf angrily shouted, “I’m no goddamned McClellan!”

The African nation of Liberia was set up for this purpose. The project was always unrealistic due to cost and logistics. A lot of Northerners were making theoretical ramblings on the subject at that time because most of them had extremely limited experience dealing with free blacks. Also, nearly all black Americans at that time were illiterate and uneducated, making them appear considerably less intelligent. Today, we have the advantage of having heard individuals like Colon Powel speak, so we know their potential is unlimited.

A few plantation operations tried relocating to the Bahamas. Some of the structures are still there, abandoned. Mexico was also considered for various options that never saw the light of day.

I’m sure many white Southerners signed up for the army out of fear of what life might be like living around so many angry and impoverished free blacks. That fear of the unknown seems quite legitimate to me, and disconnected from one’s moral opinion of the institution of legal slavery. Everyone in that generation, including its leaders, had inherited a terrible situation with no easy solutions.

Absolutely. New Orleans was quite a melting pot; English ancestry, French, Spanish, black, mixed race ethnic Creole, Acadia Indian (Cajun), Protestant, Catholic, Voodoo, and African tribal religion. Nobody fucked with anybody else, because no group had a 50% majority. It was a crazy place, full of prostitutes, brothels, bars, and pirates. Cotton empire owners were more than happy to buy a ticket on a steamboat to reach the formal, structured society of Natchez, less than a day’s ride up the river.

A couple of generations earlier, Natchez had been just the opposite; quite possibly less civilized and more dangerous than New Orleans, before the steam era. Wooden rafts used to be used to float cotton and tobacco down the Tennessee and the Mississippi, from Nashville to Natchez, where the goods would be loaded onto sailing ships. The rafts would be broken up, sometimes used for lumber. The crews would be paid in gold, and they would soon head up the Natchez Trace, a dirt road (former Indian trading path) to Nashville that was much shorter than the water route. Most of them had to walk.

Well, you know what always happens when a lot of sailors reach port and receive a lot of money. It was worse there in Natchez. Due to extreme risk of highway robbery on the Trace, most raft crews decided to blow most of their money before leaving town, on liquor, women, and gambling. The waterfront scene made most of the American Wild West you see on TV look like a church picnic. For a while, they even had a local tradition that the winner of a street fight had the right to gouge out the eyes of his opponent. Nobody would have guessed what Natchez was about to become.

Today, New Orleans is no longer the largest city in the South, or even in the top five, but it’s still a place where all cultures and lifestyles and viewpoints are accepted, as long as you don’t bother anyone else. Laws against victimless crimes are rarely enforced. I find it to be even more tolerant than San Francisco, where a narrow, politically correct form of liberalism is often socially enforced. And the average Southerner still doesn’t quite know what to think of the place. “Scary” is a commonly used adjective. If you want to damage the reputation of a Natchez resident, just start a rumor that he likes to go to New Orleans.

The current economy of Natchez is close to nothing, and tourism is hampered by the lack of a convenient airport. I don’t know how they are able to maintain all those old mansions.

Visitors to New Orleans, unless they venture over to Lee Circle, the home of the big CW museum and the world’s largest Lee statue, won’t see anything to remind them of the CW period. Lee Circle is on the opposite side of the modern business district from the French Quarter. One time, when a carriage driver was asked about Civil War period structures, he was only half joking when he replied, “We don’t have anything that new.” Most of it goes back to the Spanish period.

Everybody makes mistakes sometimes, and how do you move on after your mistake has cost people their lives?

Mary Custis Lee was a descendent of Martha Washington and her first husband. George Washington had no natural children of his own. That’s how Mary came into possession of that fine house overlooking the city of Washington. Many of the letters she wrote to her husband are strange, almost as if she has no understanding of the importance or magnitude of his responsibilities. She wanted to always be his top priority. During the war, it just wasn’t possible. The calmness of Richmond seemed to delude her.

Not yet, but I’ll put it on my list.

 

I am afraid that where I live, rich in history, I tend just to take it for granted. But also I have been learning about english and european history for many years. These days I have tried to widen my interests a little and focus on other historical subjects that interest me.

Fascinating. Natchez seems to have been very anarchical and wild in the early days. You wouldnt want to loose a street fight....

 

Something else occurs to me. And Karen, I am wearing my red tunic here

It is this. Slavery, as an institution, was something which that rotten old edifice, the British Empire, bequeathed to you Americans.

In Britain before the Roman conquest, slavery was common. Tribal Kings and Chiefs in fact had a lucrative trade going on in slaves with the Romans, slaves taken captive in raids on other tribes.
After the Romans came, there were slaves held by Romans, and also wealthy Brits, who adopted the Roman ways.
After the Romans left, we had something very similar to slavery back in the middle ages under the feudal system. The serf was in effect, a slave.
Gradually, after Magna Carta, things changed, and in effect, serfdom was abolished slowly over a period of time, as progession towards a parliamentary form of government proceeded.
Our civil war, which in one aspect was about doing away with the old idea of the "divine right of kings", and thus nailing down the lid of the coffin of feudalism, was about the rights of the ordinary person to a basic set of freedoms and legal rights.

Later on as we began to colonize the Americas,we found it economically convenient to bring back slavery, of the African. A race Europeans of that era found it easy to view as "inferior". In need of "improvement". Nothing like hard work to improve a race.

What followed is well known, and represents a vile crime against humanity. There are no other words for it.
I know some Rastafarians,of Jamaican descent, and they say they dont hold it against white people of our generation, or at least, ones who see the injustice and the horror of what went on. And from my own reading, I think that actually slaves in the Old South got less severe treatment than a lot did in the British West Indian sugar plantations. Which incidentally, were the biggest earner for the Empire in its earlier phase.

So before the War of Independence, the die was cast. And the way in which America developed, made an eventual showdown inevitable. So it seems to me.
All this may seem obvious. But I wanted to try to show briefly how many historical forces converge on the CW. Even the notion of the "free man" had all been thrashed out in bloody wars in Europe, and maybe particularly in England, long before.

And I am sure there are many more fundamental forces in world history one can cite as playing a role in Americas War.
We cant just look at the immediate events in the US leading up to the war, important as they are. To get a deep understanding, we need to see how the whole situation in America itself had come to be. Where the ideas of liberty and freedom of the individual, of which the founders spoke, had come from, and how they had emerged from the fog of European feudalism.
So to some extent, you have to have an overview of the whole of history to understand this single event of the Civil War. And the forces that motivated its actors.

 

I agree with all the background info you gave. I also see that in addition, other factors such as geography, climate, world trade, technological progress, and evolving religious views also had to come together exactly as they did to create this volatile situation that exploded into war. Had the political and economic power of the industrial North and the agricultural South not been so close to equal, maybe the crisis could have been averted or solved in a less violent way.

I'm surprised that point doesn't come up more often here. You guys hardly ever get any blame for American slavery, even though there is no doubt that it was set up when you guys were making all the decisions for us.

I never have understood the concept of holding people responsible for the actions of their ancestors.

There were great variations in treatment. Some freed slaves asked if they could stay on, because they didn't see any better options. Others literally ran out like the building was on fire.

 

Do you know what areas they did this? Florida? Out west? Mississippi River Valley areas that they later lost to France?