Confederate Veteran John Mosby Knew the Lost Cause Was Bull

War is Boring ^ | May 1, 2017 | Kevin Knodell

[C19fan]

John S. Mosby, known as the “Gray Ghost,” was a Virginian who became legendary for his leadership of Mosby’s Rangers—a band of Confederate guerrilla fighters that harassed the Union Army and went toe-to-toe with George Armstrong Custer in the Shenandoah Valley.

Mosby is still highly regarded as a strategist and tactician and is studied to this day by practitioners of unconventional warfare. He lived a long life, dying early in the 20th century, and was also a lawyer, a diplomat and author who wrote about his experiences during the war.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: ** “...when you blockade your competitor’s trade, and force all shipping into your ports, you have a captive market, and you are not feeling the financial forces that would be exerted upon you if you had a competitive market...
...You remove 200-250 million per year from the New York economy and you don’t think that’s a good enough reason to go to war to stop it?” **

First, we should remember the Union blockade was highly ineffective in the beginning.
Even in 1862 the blockade was mocked in political cartoons.
So it was not a Union blockade which stopped Confederate exports in 1861 & 1862, no, that was an inside job by criminal elements within the Confederacy, you remember them don’t you?

Second, the U.S. cotton crop in 1860 totalled around $200 million.
Such numbers repeated in 1861 & 1862 could have armed the entire Confederate Army with Sharps type rifles & ammunition, plus field artillery, turning them into world-beaters.
It would also pay for enough navy ships to seriously challenge the Union at sea.
But it never happened, because of a Union blockade?
No because of criminal elements within the Confederacy, right?

Third, DiogenesLamp’s figure of “200 -250 million per year” is ludicrous because nothing like that number in raw cotton shipped through New York.
Instead, half of US cotton exported from New Orleans.
Much of the rest used such ports as Mobile & Savannah.
Sure, New York got a good portion, where it made economic sense, but only then.

Fourth, the loss of cotton did affect New York business seriously, for a few months in 1861, but after that time, not so much.
Turned out, Confederate state exports were not the huge factor DiogenesLamp keeps telling us they were.

DiogenesLamp: ** “...North Eastern shippers had set their prices just below what it cost to use Foreign Ships and Crew under the penalties imposed by that aforementioned law.
They were gouging. “ **

Your word “gouging” implies Northern shippers charged more than they needed for minimal profitability.
But if that were true, then we would see competitors jumping in to scarf up business, especially Southern ship builders.
But it never happened, and why?
Well, in other posts DiogenesLamp claims Northern shippers were subsidized.
The truth is only a handful of the many hundreds of ocean-going ships got government mail hauling payments.
So, if Southerners didn’t build & operate their own ships, it was not Washington D.C. which stopped them.

[HandyDandy]

Walker issued Davis’ order to Beauregard.

[HandyDandy]

Davis issued the order that Walker conveyed to Beauregard.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: ** “Independence was the unforgivable sin, it cut into the money stream feeding New York/Washington. “ **

But “independence” didn’t provoke war in early 1861 by seizing dozens of Federal properties, threatening Union officials and firing on a union ships, secessionists did that.
And “independence” didn’t start war at Fort Sumter, Jefferson Davis did that.
And “independence” didn’t declare war on the United States on May 6, 1861, Confederate Congress did that.
And “independence” didn’t refuse to stop fighting on any terms better than “Unconditional Surrender”, again Jefferson Davis did that.

So the problem was not “independence”, that happened peacefully enough.
The real problem was Confederates who wanted war, started it and fought to the last poor young Southern white man they could grab for duty.

[HandyDandy]

"Well I would assume they saw no need because they were assured by Seward that the Union Troops would be withdrawn at some point in the future.

Yes, trusting the Lincoln administration officials to be forthright and honest in their dealings was clearly imbecilic".

You are confused. At the time Major Anderson moved into Fort Sumter, Buchanan was president. You are fixated on Lincoln and Seward. They were not involved when Anderson beat the Charlestonians to the punch and occupied Sumter. Of course, immediately after Anderson's move on Dec. 25, 1860, the Charlestonians then decided to occupy all the other forts, including the recently vacated Fort Moultrie. You are stuck on Seward.

[WVMnteer]

What recolonization plan was linking working on in that week where the war was “over” and he was killed?

Lincoln did spend some time his first two years in office exploring the idea of colonization in the first two years of his term - even going so far as to get appropriations from Congress. Everyone who believe in this program had long given up on Africa, but thought Central America was a possibility.

It seems like two things were going on here.

1. Lincoln did seem genuinely curious as to whether such a plan could work. He was a man of his time and certainly didn’t see the two races living in harmony in the US.

2. Lincoln was a brilliant politician and knew that the Emancipation Proclamation was going to cause an uprising in the North when he presented it. He wanted to this idea of colonization to be out there to alleviate the fears of Northern whites.

It should be noted that Congress pretty much pulled the plug on any colonization plans in 1863, about 6 months after Lincoln stopped discussing it either privately or publicly.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: ** "Let me state it more plainly: I doubt the people that vote for a Clinton, or an Obama, even know what it means to love the USA.
What they love is free stuff."**

Agreed, but it turns out the vast majority of those people don't live in real America, but rather in about 52 (of 3,141 total) counties, those same "sanctuary cities" which ignore Federal laws they oppose and largely consider themselves "citizens of the world" advocating "one world government".
In short, they hold about 2% of US territory while exercising over 50% of US votes.

Let me put it this way: I can drive from North to South, East to West and diagonals, except in Massachusetts, Vermont & Hawaii never touching a blue county.
Sure, we're "flyover country" but we're still the real deal Americans.
We love our country and we love each other too, FRiend.

[WVMnteer]

As I pointed out, Lincoln did seem genuinely interested in a voluntary colonization scheme. He and everyone associated with the idea had long given up on Africa as a destination. But Central America was seen as a real possibility.

Lincoln actually did take steps in this direction, but - like you said - when he saw the utter lack of enthusiasm among the black leaders he spoke to, he eventually just gave up on the idea.

Coincidently, he gave up on the idea right around the time the Union’s fortunes in the war started improving.

Lincoln was no saint, of course. But he brilliantly slow walked the idea of full emancipation and finally the 13th Amendment through a political mine field.

[DiogenesLamp]

First, we should remember the Union blockade was highly ineffective in the beginning.

It was effective in convincing their normal traffic not to attempt it. The Numbers i've seen were that a thousand ships or so got past it, but the normal traffic was around twenty thousand ships.

That's all the extent of your message that I feel like reading.

[DiogenesLamp]

Walker issued Davis’ order to Beauregard.

On that we can agree.

[DiogenesLamp]

Skipping this one. To respond to your claims is to lend credence to your false premises.

[OIFVeteran]

It does seem that the lost causers like to portray Abraham Lincoln as this arch villain. As if he planned this whole thing with no support from anyone in the north, even his own party. It seems to me that even if one of the other Republican candidates had won the nomination, and the election, the response from the south would have been to same.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: ** “told my brother that day before yesterday, but he did not believe me.” **

In the 1790s our first two parties called themselves “Federalists” and “anti-Federalists”.
Over time Jefferson’s Southern anti-Federalists became the highly dominant Democratic Republicans and Jacksonian Democrats.
Northern Federalists later became Whigs and eventually Republicans.

However, Whigs were never just Northerners, there were also Southern Whigs and they elected two Presidents, Harrison & Taylor, both Southerners, generals & slaveholders.
But slavery split Whigs into Northern Republicans & Southern “Americans” or in 1860 Constitutional Unionists.

Point is, Pennsylvania, then as now, usually voted with Democrats — Jefferson & Jackson Southern Democrats before 1860.
But the antebellum South itself sometimes voted for Whigs, and when it did, Pennsylvania was there with them.

So, snarl, sneer and mock all you wish, but Pennsylvanians as well as big city New Yorkers were friends of the South until Fire Eater Secessionists drove us away.

Think about it.

[OIFVeteran]

This has been told to you before on other threads. Abraham Lincoln HAD NO CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY TO OUTLAW SLAVERY IN THE STATES THAT WERE NOT IN REBELLION!!! However, when the opportunity presented itself he did strongly push for an amendment to abolish slavery.

[DiogenesLamp]

You are confused. At the time Major Anderson moved into Fort Sumter, Buchanan was president.

No, i'm not confused. I simply thought it would be fun to see if you noticed that I did what your side does. Use future justification for past deeds.

Seward didn't meet with the Confederate officials until after Lincoln was Inaugurated in March, so he couldn't have been responsible for what happened back in December.

I guess it is just a measure of how seriously I regard your questions and statements. Usually I figure you aren't about anything other than snark, so why bother being serious with you?

I'm sure nobody in South Carolina at the time thought anyone would deliberately provoke a confrontation, so why prepare for an event that you didn't think plausible?

[DiogenesLamp]

What recolonization plan was linking working on in that week where the war was “over” and he was killed?

You are putting qualifiers on my statement that I never said. I never said anything about "that week" where he was killed, I said he was working on plans to deport Blacks, and his plans were interrupted by his death.

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/lincoln-colonization-and-the-sound-of-silence/?_r=0

By early 1864, faced with bureaucratic dysfunction, inadequate support and diplomatic complications, the president had no choice but to acquiesce in colonization’s stagnation. Yet Secretary Welles recalled that Lincoln had still “by no means abandoned his policy of deportation and emancipation.” In conjunction with the loss of many of the wartime records, the paper trail for a stalled policy thins out for the last year of Lincoln’s life, but it does not disappear.

Finally, Lincoln’s attachment to colonization resurfaces in Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler’s recollections of two April 1865 meetings, in which the men resumed a similar conversation of early 1863 about the policy.

Call me silly, but since Lincoln was Assassinated on April 14, 1865, that sounds a lot like he was working on it till death interrupted his plans. It might have even been in the week before he was killed.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp on Jefferson's deleted anti-slavery passage: ** " Thomas Jefferson condemned it in the draft.
The others removed that language deliberately." **

Like I said, Jefferson condemned slavery in the Declaration of Independence.

DiogenesLamp on Lincoln's ideas for emigrating freedmen: ** "He didn't drop it, he got killed, and so he could no longer further those plans he had worked on." **

First, any serious history records Lincoln's ideas on this as voluntary emigration, not forced deportation.
Second, John Wilkes Booth decided to assassinate Lincoln when he heard Lincoln propose giving freed blacks the vote.
That should tell even DiogenesLamp something about Lincoln

Lincoln on abolition

[DiogenesLamp]

This has been told to you before on other threads. Abraham Lincoln HAD NO CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY TO OUTLAW SLAVERY IN THE STATES THAT WERE NOT IN REBELLION!!!

If it's an issue moral enough to kill 750,000 men invading the South, you would think it would be at least moral enough to stop it in the Union.

But to speak to your point, where did he get the Constitutional Authority to outlaw slavery anywhere? The Constitution specifically said that all slaves must be returned to the person to whom their labor is due by the laws of that state.

By what Authority can this man override a clause of the Constitution?

Yes, we know he overrode Constitutional laws willy nilly. He pretty much started his Presidency ignoring or working around Constitutional roadblocks.

But since you are deploying the Constitution as a defense for what he did, please cite the Constitutional clause that gave him power to do what he did.

However, when the opportunity presented itself he did strongly push for an amendment to abolish slavery.

Which would only affect Union States and teeny parts of the conquered confederacy at that point.

The vast bulk he had already declared freed by Diktat. Freeing the remainder under Union Control was more political optics to cover for his Diktat, than anything else.

It became embarrassing to people to notice that the Union still had slaves while the Confederacy did not, and their need to feel morally superior simply couldn't deal with that fact.

Plus it very badly undermined the propaganda that they were fighting to abolish slavery to explain why they went to war with the South.

[DiogenesLamp]

Like I said, Jefferson condemned slavery in the Declaration of Independence.

No, it is not at all like you said. The Declaration of Independence was the document sent to England. That document did not contain Jefferson's efforts to put that language in there. Jefferson's Drafts of the Declaration contained such language, but the actual "Declaration of Independence" did not.

Jefferson attempted to condemn slavery in the Declaration, but he was overridden by the rest of the committee.

Second, John Wilkes Booth decided to assassinate Lincoln when he heard Lincoln propose giving freed blacks the vote. That should tell even DiogenesLamp something about Lincoln

That he wanted more power for his political party and his agenda? Yeah, I think i've already figured out that part. Modern day Liberals are trying to pull the same trick with illegal immigrants.

[DoodleDawg]

But to speak to your point, where did he get the Constitutional Authority to outlaw slavery anywhere? The Constitution specifically said that all slaves must be returned to the person to whom their labor is due by the laws of that state.

Under the authority granted by the Confiscation Acts of 1861 and 1862 which allowed the government to seize property used to support the rebellion. Constitutionality upheld by Supreme Court in the 1863 Prizes Case decision (67 U.S. 635).

Yes, we know he overrode Constitutional laws willy nilly. He pretty much started his Presidency ignoring or working around Constitutional roadblocks.

And you're back to bullsh*t again.

Which would only affect Union States and teeny parts of the conquered confederacy at that point.

Once again you are ignoring the obvious. The Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in the rebellious parts of the country. It did not outlaw slavery, either in the rebellious parts or the non-rebellious parts. Absent the 13th Amendment, what was to prevent slavery from being reintroduced in the Southern states post rebellion? So as a point of fact, the 13th Amendment affected the entire country.

It became embarrassing to people to notice that the Union still had slaves while the Confederacy did not, and their need to feel morally superior simply couldn't deal with that fact.

And who were these embarrassed people?

Plus it very badly undermined the propaganda that they were fighting to abolish slavery to explain why they went to war with the South.