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]

x: "Then there were some ships in Southern ports seized by state governments.
In addition, Confederate agents bought older ships in the British Isles and outfitted them as blockade runners."

Right.
The astonishing numbers to me are about 3,000 total blockade runs, which comes out to roughly two per day over four years, of which in total 80% made it, meaning 20%, 600 captured or sunk.
However, the statistics on captured are 1,100 and sunk another 350 or 1,450 total.
If 1,450 represents the 20% captured or sunk, that makes the other 80% about 5,800 and the beginning total 7,250 which is too astonishing.

So whatever the correct number, what were they?
Well surely they were ships in Southern ports belonging to Southerners, or manned by Southern crews, which did not escape in early 1861 when they might have.
It suggests that "Southern shipping" as a whole was not as small a player as some here claim.

Of course, we don't know much about those 1,450 sunk or captured blockade runners -- they might have been mostly row-boats for all we know.
Perhaps most of the big ocean freighters used to haul cotton did escape, or just not return and those 1,450 smaller blockade runners were all the Confederacy had left?

In any case I'm not satisfied that I understand the real story here, and it's important because our Lost Causers tell us that Northern shippers became dominant by nefarious subsidies from Washington.
I don't believe it....

(L) New York harbor, 1837, (R) 19th century New Orleans shipping:

[BroJoeK]

pierrem15: "I think the proximate cause was not slavery but more precisely who was going to make the decision about slavery: the states (or people of a territory) individually; or, the Federal government.
Seen in this light, the Republican denial that slavery could be extended to new territories was itself an assault on states rights or the rights of the people of a territory."

Sorry, my mistake, I misread somewhere...
Regarding "Bleeding Kansas", Republicans opposed the 1857 Democrat Lecompton Constitution and Republicans supported both the 1858 Leavenworth Constitution and the 1859 Wyandotte Constitution, both free-state constitutions.
I mistakenly assumed this meant Republicans supported a territory's right to chose on entry, slavery or free-state.

But, as you quoted from the 1860 Republican platform, it called for outlawing slavery in all US territories -- just as Congress in 1787 outlawed slavery in the then Northwest Territories.
Presumably with slavery outlawed in territories they necessarily would seek admission to the Union as free-states, not slave.
And that may be the "states' rights" to which you refer.

What Northern Douglas Democrats wanted was, as in Kansas territory: slavery was lawful and Kansans voted on free vs. slave state on entry to the Union.
Southern Democrats opposed any choice, they wanted slavery lawful everywhere as, indeed, the Supreme Court's 7-2 Dred-Scott decision clearly implied.

pierrem15: "Regarding the legality of secession, that really depends on how you understand the Articles of Confederation and what was accomplished by the Constitution of 1789.
I don't think the Southern argument about the Union being a confederation was correct.
But I do find it reasonable; and I do see how many could believe it."

As I have reviewed often before, our Founders Original Intent regarding "secession" was simple and consistent.
Secession, disunion or dissolution were acceptable to Founders under two, but only two, conditions:

1. By mutual consent just as Founders had with their new Constitution in 1788.

2. Of necessity after "a long train of abuses and usurpations" just as Founders had with Britain in their 1776 Declaration of Independence.

Any other secession Founders considered "at pleasure" and no Founder ever approved "at pleasure" secession.
They considered it rebellion & treason.

The Southern idea of secession did not come from our Founders, but decades later with a new generation of leaders.
Former President James Madison famously addressed the issue in 1830, but without using that word "secession" except at the very end where he regrets South Carolina's new claims:

"...which are understood to assert a right to annul the Acts of Congress within the State, & even to secede from the Union itself.
But I am unwilling to enter the political field with the 'telum imbelle' which alone I could wield.
The task of combating such unhappy aberrations belongs to other hands."

On the question "Did Thomas Jefferson support secession 'at pleasure' ", the answer is "no", see this link.
Jefferson's word for it was "scission".

pierrem15: "So I wouldn't call all the secessionists traitors: that's too facile a response for an issue that tore even particular families apart and sometimes set brother against brother, father against son."

The US Constitution (Article 3, section 3) clearly and unequivocally defines "treason" as:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

So a declaration of secession, in and of itself, is not treason, but provoking, starting, declaring and waging war against the United States certainly is.
Yes, Lost Causers often say: "but the Confederacy was a different country and therefore no treason was possible."

Possibly true, or at least arguable, in the beginning for Deep South citizens who peacefully declared secession and Confederacy.
However, once Jefferson Davis ordered war to begin on April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter, and the Confederate Congress formally declared war on May 6, 1861, then any US citizens who adhered to Confederates, giving them aid and comfort were guilty of treason, according to the Constitution.
That included the many citizens of Upper South and Border South states who sided with Confederates as well as those few from Northern states, also known as "copperheads".

pierrem15: "Finally, viewed with hindsight, it appears to me that Jeff Davis was right (in the long run) about everything except slavery."

And there's that name again, "Jeff" Davis!
Who do you think he was, your buddy, your friend, your pal, your Jeffy baby??
Who do you suppose called him "Jeff" to his face in his lifetime? Nobody!
He was not their friend, he was not your friend, he was instead a slavocratic dictator who launched and waged war for four years refusing to stop the fighting on any terms better than "Unconditional Surrender".

And he was certainly wrong about absolutely everything, from the legality of secession to his unnecessary starting of Civil War, to his refusal under any other terms than "Unconditional Surrender" to stop fighting.

In short, Jefferson Davis was perfectly insane, as is the Lost Causer mythology which has deified him ever since.

"Oh!" Lost Causers say: "you worship that 'Ape' Lincoln!"
No we don't, but we do recognize the facts of history: Lincoln was on the side of Union, abolition & civil rights among other things, and that's where Republicans remain to this day.

[jeffersondem]

“I like to think that preserving the country that our Founding Fathers bequeathed to us, whole and intact, was high moral cause enough.”

“Whole and intact”?

Not quite whole and intact. It was missing something. About 650,000 people, many of them descendants of the Founding Fathers.

And it lost the original constitution bequeathed by the founding fathers.

Arguably, it was a small price to pay to be happily ruled by Washington D.C.

[DoodleDawg]

Not quite whole and intact. It was missing something. About 650,000 people, many of them descendants of the Founding Fathers.

Lay the blame for them at the feet of Jefferson Davis and the Confederate leadership.

And it lost the original constitution bequeathed by the founding fathers.

A matter of opinion.

Arguably, it was a small price to pay to be happily ruled by Washington D.C.

Again, opinion.

[jeffersondem]

“Finally, once Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation then regardless of what people had felt before it certainly did become all about “freeing the slaves”.”

Lincoln, on two occasions - once after the the EP - swore oaths to “preserve, protect, and defend” the pro-slavery Constitution of the United States.

Now you tell me that Lincoln was using the army to fight and “free the slaves” and to rid the nation of the pro-slavery Constitution.

Arguably, Lincoln was fighting to free the slaves and the Gulf of Tonkin incident was just a pretext. I meant to say the Fort Sumter incident.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "Lincoln, on two occasions - once after the the EP - swore oaths to 'preserve, protect, and defend' the pro-slavery Constitution of the United States.
Now you tell me that Lincoln was using the army to fight and 'free the slaves' and to rid the nation of the pro-slavery Constitution."

Total rubbish.
In fact, "Contraband of War" was never a constitutional issue.
"Contraband" was universally recognized, had been declared by the US military in previous wars/operations and indeed was practiced by Confederate Armies themselves, whenever outside Confederate states -- including the grabbing of any African Americans whether fugitive slaves or not.

Union Army seizure of contraband was made lawful on August 6, 1861 with passage of the First Confiscation Act.
The Second Confiscation Act of July 1863 went further, authorizing trials against Confederate officials for treason & rebellion, confiscating their property, including slaves.

Point is: contraband was a normal, expected part of war and practiced with gusto by Confederates outside the Confederacy.
Yes, the path from "contraband" to emancipation proclamation to 13th amendment was somewhat slow, but also inexorable during Civil War.

jeffersondem: "Arguably, Lincoln was fighting to free the slaves and the Gulf of Tonkin incident was just a pretext.
I meant to say the Fort Sumter incident."

Or, you might as easily have said, "that little incident at Pearl Harbor, just an excuse."
But it was far more than "excuse" because, like Pearl Harbor, Fort Sumter established the material fact of war against the United States.
Jefferson Davis's attack, as provided in the 1792 Militia Act, authorized Lincoln to call for troops -- according to the act:

"...whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed, in any state, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings..."

Those are the exact words of Lincoln's April 16, 1861 "Proclamation Calling Militia and Convening Congress"
So, our Lost Causer claims that Lincoln's actions were unlawful or unconstitutional are just nuts.
They weren't.
They were in accord with the same 1792 Militia Act used by President Washington to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.
Washington's 1794 army was 13,000 strong, equivalent in our population then to the 75,000 Lincoln called in 1861 (but fewer than the 100,000 Confederates called up in March '61).

October 3, 1794 -- President Washington reviews US troops in Harrisburg, PA on their way to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion.
Washington next rode to Cumberland, Maryland where he placed Virginia Governor Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee in command of his army to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion
"Lee", there's an interesting family name, seems eager to suppress rebellion in Pennsylvania, but what about in Virginia?

[jeffersondem]

“Lay the blame for them at the feet of Jefferson Davis and the Confederate leadership.”

My good friends across the Mason-Dixon aisle usually do.

Your post reminds me of post 120 on this thread:

“But South Carolina made it clear that unless slavery was protected, they would not approve the Constitution. It was only the first example of northern states being forced to go along with something they found abhorrent in order to preserve the union.”

In other words, South Carolina forced New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland - all states that fought for Lincoln - to vote slavery into the constitution and were FORCED to take slavery dividends and grow wealthy.

Later, those same states were forced to fight a war they did not want to destroy the slavery that they voted to enshrine in the constitution. That's what they teach in public schools today and on the Internet.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "Later, those same states were forced to fight a war they did not want to destroy the slavery that they voted to enshrine in the constitution.
That's what they teach in public schools today and on the Internet."

Contraband of war, addressed at length in my post #506 just above.
We should note that for months Lincoln himself opposed making slavery the prime issue of war, hoping Confederates would stop fighting soon, on terms which did not require abolition.
But as the war dragged on & on, Lincoln's terms became increasingly tough -- "contraband of war" became emancipation plus enlistment of 175 United States Colored Troop regiments.
As late as early 1865 Lincoln offered to pay compensation for emancipation, but Confederates refused.
Finally, by war's end emancipation became the 13th amendment, abolishing slavery nationwide, no compensation for slaveholders.

So what began at Fort Sumter as Lincoln's attempt to resupply Union troops and Jefferson Davis's military action against Union "assailing" Confederate "integrity" ended as a war "to make men free".

Of course, jeffersondem knows all this, every bit, but is just too, too too clever to let it stand as is.
It's way more fun to twist it one way, then the other way, and then back again.
Jeffersondem imagines, I'd suppose, the truth itself twisting in his wind.

[BroJoeK]

Ooooops!

Second Confiscation Act, July 17, 1862, not 1863.

[DoodleDawg]

My good friends across the Mason-Dixon aisle usually do.

While you lay all the blame with Lincoln.

[DiogenesLamp]

What happened matters more than what might have happened.

What I hear you saying here is that we should ignore the evidence that Lincoln did deliberately and with malice aforethought trigger a civil war that killed 750,000 people and destroyed billions of dollars worth of land, property and wealth because you think the outcome achieved was a good result.

Well I have a couple of issues with this approach, not the least of which is the damage caused to the inherent right of independence. Now most of the population do not believe that people can have self determination unless they have the power to fight and win a war with the larger part of the nation. The original consensual pact has become a Mafioso style coerced "family" which you can't leave.

As it was, instead of waiting for the surrender and evacuation of Fort Sumter due to lack of supplies on April 15 as promised by its Union commander, the Confederates fired on it on April 12 and began the Civil War.

Of course they did. Lincoln's *PUBLIC* orders were that when the flotilla was complete with all ships present, the Union Forces would attack and attempt to reinforce the fortress by force. No one knew about his secret order preventing their main battleship from showing up at the appointed time and place.

People expected that when the Powhatan arrived, the ships would began firing on the Confederate forces than surrounding the fort, and a man would have to be a d@mn fool to know that an attack is coming and be expected to just stand there and wait to be caught between the guns of the Fort and the guns of Naval Warships.

If the Confederates had waited for the Union Navy to arrive in force, the battle might also have included exchanges of fire between Confederate land artillery and Union vessels attempting to supply Fort Sumter. Yet, by Confederate choice, that is not what happened.

Yes they did. They believed the *PUBLIC* orders that Lincoln's navy had issued. They already knew the ships were ordered to attack them, and silly them, they thought that perhaps it would be best to not face both the Fortress guns and the Ship guns at the same time.

Lincoln had already taken a swing at them when he issued those orders. No one expected him to pull back his punch at the last moment. Lincoln was a clever fellow, wasn't he?

[DiogenesLamp]

The consumer demand just wasn't there to support much direct trade between Southern cities and Britain or France -- or rather, trade became more profitable when Northern cities were included in the loop.

Tell me how this works. Southerners make money from Europe. Northerners buy European products. How did the Northerners get the European money to pay for those products?

Your argument requires the Southerners to be content to ship products without getting anything in return, because apparently the money they earned gets used by Northerners to purchase European goods.

You have seemingly left out the part of the "consumer demand" loop in which those that have earned the money get compensated by spending their money. Call me silly, but my understanding of economics is that people shipping product are not going to be content to let someone else collect the goods and services in payment for the shipped product. Somehow the people shipping product have to get compensated, with European money, goods or services. This makes *THEM* the "consumer."

How does the North "buy" the bulk of European products when they only produced 25% of the overall export value?

The trade went through New York because Northern cities supplied by New York had a great desire for imported consumer goods.

I don't care how big their "desire" was, where did they get the money to *PAY* for European imported consumer goods? The South earned it. The North only earned 25% of the total, so how are they buying these goods without earning but 25% of the European coin?

I would look for rational reasons why New York predominated as a port, and one important reason was the South's lack of interest in seafaring.

The South had an interest in seafaring. Charleston had several ship building companies in 1800, but the North East simply undercut them, and so collapsed their industry. Government contracts for shipping and mail delivery created an artificial support structure for the North Eastern shipping, and so effectively subsidized them in a manner which the Southern industry could not compete.

Another reason was, as noted, the greater population density in the Northeast, and also the rail and canal connections between New York and other cities. Indeed, once you have many people in banking, finance, insurance, shipping and related fields in a city they attract business.

They effectively create a monopoly\cartel that minimizes the ability of outsiders to break into their industries.

[DiogenesLamp]

You couldn’t be more wrong about Lincoln’s views on slavery.

I couldn't be more wrong about the fact that Lincoln tolerated Union slavery for the entire duration of the war? Oh, you put the word "Views" in there, as if we are supposed to draw a distinction between what Lincoln said and what he did in fact do.

Yes, Lincoln's rhetoric was all about being against slavery, but his actions were to tolerate it in areas under his control, and he did so for the entire war. He also supported the Corwin amendment which would have made it far harder to ever get rid of slavery. He also attempted to reassure the Southerners that he would do nothing to eliminate slavery if they would just stop fighting and rejoin the Union.

I'm sure Lincoln's preference was to get rid of it, but his pragmatism made it clear that he was willing to live with it indefinitely.

[DiogenesLamp]

I believe in your two years of research on the civil war you have been lead astray.

It has certainly led me astray from the conventional wisdom, which I now realize has just been propaganda. The things I have uncovered have given me a clearer picture of what occurred, and the more I see of it, the more distasteful it becomes.

Money and power. It always boils down to who controls the money and the power. So long as Washington and New York were able to control the money and the power, they would tolerate slavery indefinitely, but when their ability to control the money and the power was threatened, they ruthlessly destroyed their economic competitors.

The "Empire State" maintained their Empire.

[DiogenesLamp]

Joe, do you see how this -- uh, character -- operates? Butler wrote his book over twenty years after the war and published it almost 30 years after the war and one year before he died.

Well obviously this proves everything he wrote is false.

Butler is widely regarded as unreliable.

Report nasty things about people's venerated President, and the long knives will come out for you. Of course a bunch of people are going to call him unreliable, because they don't want the damage to their narrative that accepting Butler's statements would cause.

Cui Bono?

But for Diogenes, Butler is a "man of honor" so we have to believe what he says. Lincoln is the devil incarnate, so we have to believe the worst of him.

Well, one is a Military Officer during a time in which "Honor" was supposed to be a big thing, and the other is a corporate lawyer turned Politician, and well known for being willing to pull some dirty tricks in his politics.

As a lawyer, Lincoln would argue one side of a case in the morning, and then argue the very opposite side of a case in the afternoon. A Judge once asked him how he could square changing his position 180 degrees from the morning to the afternoon.

He replied something to the effect that in the morning he thought he was correct, but by the afternoon he realized the other position was more correct.

He was a charmer, though accounts of his duplicity in various situations are not hard to find.

[DiogenesLamp]

They have a strong emotional commitment to their positions, and they simply do not want the objective truth to be otherwise than what they believe.

This often manifests itself as shrill accusatory/emotional responses from them.

[DiogenesLamp]

Thank you very much for posting that. Abraham Lincoln hated slavery.

But he hated letting people out from under his control even more. He was willing to tolerate the former indefinitely, so long as he didn't have to tolerate the latter.

[DiogenesLamp]

Which “states rights” specifically? The only one the rebel states ever mentioned was the “right” to own other human beings.

As has been pointed out to you endlessly, Every state in the Union already had that right, and Lincoln was going to make sure that this "right" would be even more protected than it already was.

[DiogenesLamp]

So I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that there was no states' right to secede.

You just glossed right over that Declaration of Independence thing, didn't you?

If the right to independence given us by "nature, and Nature's God" can break the thousand year old English Union, it can certainly break one that was only "four score and seven years" old.

The principle articulated in the Declaration is the moral and legal crowbar to break any compact. It is the natural law right to independence granted by God, and no laws made by man can trump it.

[DiogenesLamp]

The United States Constitution provided the means to end slavery - the amendment process. But there was no pressure to abolish slavery. The new president said that he had no intention to change the status quo.

Oh, so you do understand that the "right" to own human beings was going to be protected by Lincoln?

So why did this "right" which Lincoln was going to continue, become unacceptable when people wanted to get free of Lincoln's control?