150th Anniversary of the Civil War

A while back, I think during a South Carolina controversy, I asked a friend of mine, who's a history prof and just wrote an academic book focused on Reconstruction, "overly simplistic question: was slavery the cause of the Civil War?"

His response:

 

http://twitter.com/civilwarreportr

Interesting.

 

It's interesting to look at the dividing line between the North and South these days. Even car-manufacturing has a North-South look with union shops in the north (non-union) in the south.

 

"Virginia is my country."

I don't remember whether it was Lee or his father who said that.

 

It was Lee. Paradoxically, both Lee and Davis, who did as much as any two men to make sure the war was as long and awful as it was through their work for their side, both foresaw a long and horrible war and attempted to tell others this would be a consequence of secession.

 

Why is it we always lie to ourselves despite volumes of evidence that war - any war - will be quick and painless?

 

That's not really a fair comparison. Part of the fascination is that the American Civil War was the biggest and, so far, the last war fought on this continent.

As far as your comment about it being halftime, I think that only applies to a small segment of the South these days. But I can think of at least five military schools in Virginia founded between 1880 and 1910. I wonder why they thought there was such a need for young men to get military training back then?

 

Not suprisingly, History Channel's website has a pretty good overview of the War. There is an interactive section that highlights the weapons, leaders and medicine. One fascinating thing: 34,000 died of diarrhea, 20,000 died as a result of surgery and 66% of all deaths were attributed to disease.

I took a walk through a Civil War museum in Atlanta a few years back and was amazed at the battlefield medical care (or lack thereof). It seems doctors were doing the same type of amputations as during the Revolution.

Wasn't it only 20 years or so later that antiseptics were discovered?

 

A country that was primarily a nation of small farmers or people living in small towns to provide services to farmers was full of young men with no resistance to infectious diseases as they joined amateur armies with no idea of sanitation. Hell, in those days, the mosquitoes in the South carried diseases no Northern kid had any native immunity for.
Medical care had advanced from the Revolution, but not by much. I think World War I was the first war in human history where more people died of wounds than of disease and famine.

 

As a Southerner, I can tell you that segment is larger than most are willing to admit.

 

Google "Battle of the Boyne", still being refought every year, especially during marching season.

 

With respect. ....

In the opening days of the Peninsula Campaign, Mac had a vast numerical advantage against MacGruder along the Warwick Line. He he pressed at the opening, the door to Richmond would have been wide open.

But the Warwick Line was formidable, and Prince John did a lovely job of convincing Mac that his numbers were greater than they were, and Mac was cautious to a fault. So the Yanks settled into a month-long siege at Yorktown, waiting for the big guns to come up.

It was Mac's failure in those first days of April that really made the Peninsula Campaign a wasted opportunity.

By the time - in May and June - when Mac had arrived at the gates of Richmond, the Confederates had stripped troops away from coastal defenses from all over the East, and the Union numerical advantage was slight - probabably less than 3:2 - and the Chickahomeny River provided a nice anchor for the defenders - and necessitated the splitting of the Union Army on either side of it's frequently-swollen banks.

Also - the Union failure to employ McDowell (and this one is Lincoln's fault ... and perhaps to Jackson's credit) played a huge role in how the campaign unfolded. There was virtually nothing standing between McDowell in Fredericksburg and Richmond, but his guys basically sat the campaign out.

I'm no Mac defender .... but the Penninsula Campaign was no safe bet piddled away by the Yanks.

His biggest failure, IMO, was the disaster at Antietam - amazingly poor coordination of forces when he had a massive manpower advantage, plus the decision to not follow up the so-called victory, when Lee's army was at the lowest point it would be until Petersburg.

Want to learn more about this particular campaign? I recommend ...

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4205/on-to-richmond