Confederate Veteran John Mosby Knew the Lost Cause Was Bull

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

[Rockingham]

There was no "siege" of Ft. Sumter until Confederate forces opened fire. The Union did not initiate hostilities -- the Confederacy did. The claim that Lincoln had given orders that showed hostile intent is quite beside the point: the Confederates fired first.

At Pensacola, the Powhatan flew a British flag as a way to confuse secessionists and avoid bloodshed. There was no illegality or violation of custom in doing so, and no adverse inference can fairly be lodged against the US Navy for doing so.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp quoting Union Secretary of State Seward:

"Suppose the expedition successful, we have then a garrison in Ft. Sumter that can defy assault for six months.
What is it to do then?
Is it to make war by opening its batteries and attempting to demolish the defenses of Charleston? …..
I would not initiate war to regain a useless and unnecessary position on the soil of the seceding States."

I would call that a mild questioning by the Union Secretary of State as opposed to the total rebuke of Jefferson Davis by the Confederate Secretary of State, Robert Toombs:

"Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North.
You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death.
It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal.[14]"

Our FRiend DiogenesLamp is ever so quick to post the Seward quote, but always pretends there was no such Confederate quote.

But there was.

DiogenesLamp: "...the fort was useless for everything but a cause of war, and that is exactly what Lincoln used it to accomplish."

Fort Sumter was Union property manned by Union troops, just one property among many seized by Confederates, some even before they formally declared secession.
Lincoln saw his duty to recover those properties, without war if possible, with war if necessary.

But the decision for war was Jefferson Davis's, a decision he had no hesitancy making, despite dire warnings from Secretary Toombs.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "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."

As the old song says, our boxer FRiend DiogenesLamp only "hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest".

The facts of history are simple here:

1. In his February 1861 Inaugural address Jefferson Davis promised he would start war if he felt his "integrity" was "assailed".

2. In his March 1861 Inaugural address Abraham Lincoln promised he would not "assail" and therefore Confederates could not have war, unless they themselves started it.

In April Lincoln sent a resupply mission to Union troops in Fort Sumter, an act Davis regarded as "assailing" and so ordered Civil War to begin then & there.

Did Lincoln have other options?
Yes, he had hoped to bargain away Fort Sumter in exchange for Virginia's pledge not to succeed, but Virginians would make no such pledge.
What about surrender without a fight?
Not an option, just as US surrender of Guantanamo Naval Base today to Cubans is not an option.

Did Davis have other options?
Well, from Day One in December, South Carolina governor Pickens had demanded Fort Sumter's surrender, both to Major Anderson and later to Jefferson Davis.
So Confederate public opinion was growing increasingly agitated over Fort Sumter, and Davis could defy it only at his own political peril.
Possibly, Davis felt he had no choice in the matter, regardless of Secretary Toombs' warning.

But the bottom line is that in April 1861, Jefferson Davis did as he promised in February and Lincoln did as he promised in March.

Finally, even if you claim that somehow, some way, Davis was not responsible for starting Civil War, he was absolutely responsible for refusing to end it on any terms better than "Unconditional Surrender" of the Confederacy, and therefore for all the lives lost & disrupted as a result.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "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."

Except that, regardless of DiogenesLamp's fantasies, no Founder -- none, zero, nada -- no Founder ever proposed or advocated secession "at pleasure", meaning without either 1) mutual consent or 2) "a long train of abuses & usurpations".
They considered such disunion "at pleasure" nothing more than rebellion & treason.

DiogenesLamp: "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."

I'd call that a "fog of war" defense, claiming Jefferson Davis was not responsible for ordering the Confederate assault on Fort Sumter because Davis was "confused" by inaccurate intelligence from his spies in Washington, DC, or by misunderstanding Lincoln's message to Governor Pickens.
But you may as well claim Japanese were "confused" into attacking Pearl Harbor, or First World War Germans "confused" into ordering unlimited submarine attacks on US shipping and offering Mexico a big chunk of the US Southwest.

So the problem with DiogenesLamp's "confused" argument is that Davis remained "confused" for the next four years, and indeed never did come to his senses until many years after his war was over, surrendered unconditionally.

DiogenesLamp: " They believed the *PUBLIC* orders that Lincoln's navy had issued."

It's certainly true that Union Secretary Seward told pro-Confederates Lincoln intended to withdraw from Fort Sumter, but I've seen no evidence Lincoln's orders to the Navy were made public ahead of time.

DiogenesLamp: "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?"

I doubt if anyone who did not know Lincoln (i.e., Davis) considered him a "clever fellow" at that time.
"Ape" Lincoln was the common portrayal in Confederate circles.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "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? "

The first key fact which DiogenesLamp ignores is that those Southern Democrat Slave Power planters and Northern Democrat Big City merchants were in cahoots -- economically, politically & socially joined at the hip.
They were not two different species of creature, they were much the same.

The second is that so-called "products of the South" included exports from Union states like Kentucky and Maryland and mid-Western produce shipped down the Mississippi & out through New Orleans.
Yes, irreducible Deep South cotton was 50% of US total exports, but everything else could and did come from all over the US.

Third, the figure DiogenesLamp quotes so often -- 40% Northern value (or cost) added to Southern exports -- that includes what Southern exporters spent in those Northern cities for goods they did not themselves manufacture.
And nobody stopped them from making their own stuff, or shipping their own exports.
Those were strictly economic decisions they could & did change as conditions changed.

DiogenesLamp: "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."

Except that by 1860, white Southerners especially in the Deep Cotton South, were on average the wealthiest people in the history of Earth at that time.
Yes, Tara from Gone With the Wind was an exaggeration, but not by much.

DiogenesLamp: "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..."

Not just silly, mendacious.

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

Because first, Union states and Union regions of Confederate states produced far more than 25%, approaching 50%.
Second, Southern exporters purchased goods manufactured in the North or imported by Northerners.
The result "spread the wealth" far beyond the slaveocratic South.

So there's no doubt that Northern Democrat merchants benefitted from Southern Democrat exports.
It's one reason such Northern Democrats were called "Doughfaced" for not wishing to p*ss-off their Slave Power partners.

DiogenesLamp: "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? "

But the answer is simple and only your deliberate blindness prevents you from seeing it.
Just to pick out one example: for more than 20 years before 1860 Southerners invested heavily in railroads & trains, all of which came from Northern manufacturers.
Some of that money went to pay for Northern imports.
So, there's neither mystery or scandal here despite DiogenesLamp's repeated claims.

DiogenesLamp: "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."

And yet, during the Civil War thousands of Southern ships were used as blockade runners.
So Southern shipping was not as dead as DiogenesLamp claims.

DiogenesLamp: "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."

Those government contracts went to a small handful of the latest, largest & fastest mail-carrier ships, not to the thousands of ships used in everyday commerce throughout the South, North & West.

So those few subsidized ships were not the South's problem.
The South's real problems included three basics:

1. From the 1830s on the newest ships required more & more manufactured components such as steam engines and iron hulls, manufacturing the North had in abundance but the South did not.

2. Compared to the highly profitable cotton production, shipping was very risky business which did not always return a reliable profit.

3. According to Texas Senator Wigfall at the time (thanks to Bubba Ho-Tep post #73 for this):
   "We are a peculiar people, sir!
   We are an agricultural people; we are a primitive but a civilized people.
   We have no cities – we don’t want them.
   We have no literature – we don’t need any yet …
   We want no manufactures; we desire no trading, no mechanical or manufacturing classes …
   As long as we have our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, and our cotton, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from those nations with which we are in amity, and to lay up money besides."

DiogenesLamp speaking of "Northerners": "They effectively create a monopoly\cartel that minimizes the ability of outsiders to break into their industries."

No.

[OIFVeteran]

From what I have read Davis was hoping that the actions at Fort Sumter would push the remaining slave states to secede. Which did happen to some extent.

I think Davis was in a damn if you do and damned if you don't situation. If he doesn't fire on Fort Sumter and Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas stay Union cooler heads may prevail and the whole rebellion sputters out.

If he fires on Fort Sumter he may provoke a military response by the United States. He rolled the dice and got some of what he wanted but awoken a sleeping giant.

[OIFVeteran]

I think this ties into the whole “defending your honor” thing that the south had. This could lead to physical violence as was seen with Mr. Sumner in congress. The rebels saw the possession of Fort Sumter as an affront to their honor.

The whole honor thing had gotten to a point where even talking about slavery in a negative light was besmirching the honor of the south. This is why I think that even if the south would have won their rebellion and formed a nation based on chattel slavery they would have been at war with the U.S. within ten years.

Why? I think the underground railroad would have gone into high gear, and the United States would do little or nothing to stop it. The confederacy would have protested and eventually felt their “honor” was at stake because their “property” wasn’t being returned to them and declared war against the U.S.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp on slavery: "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. "

No, not "pragmatism", it was Lincoln's commitment to the US Constitution, which recognized slavery and could only be overturned by constitutional amendment -- the 13th Amendment.

But Lincoln also knew that Civil War created "contraband of war" escapees he could, as commander in chief, order emancipated pending ratification of the 13th Amendment.

We should note also that Lincoln's Civil War strategy very likely came originally from our Founders, through one of their youngest, former President John Quincy Adams.
For the last two years of his life Adams mentored 38 year-old Congressman Lincoln, including Adams' ideas on emancipation if the South seceded.

[Rockingham]

Your surmise is well-founded. In early April of 1861, the secession movement had stalled, with an essential northern tier of states holding back. The attack on Fort Sumter though and Lincoln’s call for the raising of troops swiftly led to the secession of Virginia on April 17, 1861). The Confederacy would not have been viable for long without Virginia and its size, wealth, population, and the essential Tredegar Iron Works for the production of armaments.

[BroJoeK]

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

DiogenesLamp: "It has certainly led me astray from the conventional wisdom, which I now realize has just been propaganda."

But Lost Causer mythology is the very definition of the word "propaganda".
It's total nonsense, invented after the fact to obscure and revise the historical realities.

DiogenesLamp: "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."

Certainly "money and power" motivated Deep South Slave-Power Fire Eater Democrats to declare their secession and war on the United States.
And it may have motivated Northern big-city Democrats to temporarily switch sides and support the Union.
However, rural & small town Republicans were motivated by something different.

Yes, it's too much to say that most Republicans in 1860 were motivated by abolitionism, but they all understood that slavery was morally wrong and should be limited as much as possible, under the circumstances.
That began in the Western territories.

History is very clear on this.

DiogenesLamp: "The "Empire State" maintained their Empire."

Before 1860, like Pennsylvania, New Yorkers almost always voted with Southerners for Democrats, except when Southerners themselves voted Whig -- as in 1840 Harrison and 1848 Taylor.
Only in 1856 did Upstate New Yorker Republicans come out in enough numbers to outvote Big City Democrats, thus turning New York "red" one cycle before Pennsylvania.

But after the Civil War in 1868 New Yorkers instantly flipped back into supporting their Southern Democrat allies.
In 1876 New York Democrats joined Southern Democrats in getting Union troops withdrawn from former Confederate states (thus clearing the way for Jim Crow) and in 1884 joined the South in electing a Democrat President, Grover Cleveland.

Point is: whatever you claim regarding "Northerners" may or may not be true, but relates only to Northern Democrats, political & economic allies of the Southern Slave-Power Democrats both before the Civil War and soon again after it.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp on Union General Butler: "Well, one is a Military Officer during a time in which "Honor" was supposed to be a big thing... "

Sometimes our FRiend DiogenesLamp gets his propaganda wires crossed.
In this case he's temporarily "forgotten" than following only Lincoln & Sherman themselves, the biggest demon amongst Northern devils was our now "man-of-the-hour", General Benjamin "Beast" Butler.

In any other discussion "the Beast" was the worst of the worst, but since he here contradicts what history tells us about Lincoln, suddenly "the Beast" is DiogenesLamp's angel of truth!

[BroJoeK]

Handy Dandy: "Abraham Lincoln hated slavery."

DiogenesLamp: "But he hated letting people out from under his control even more."

On Handy Dandy's point: certainly Lincoln was the first openly anti-slavery president ever elected.
It is the root-cause reason Deep South Fire Eaters declared secession.

On DiogenesLamp's point: Lincoln was no more nor less devoted to the Constitution than any previous President.
Going all the way back to George Washington response to the 1791-1794 Whiskey Rebellion, every President responded appropriately when faced with rebellion, insurrection, invasion & treason.

[BroJoeK]

rockrr: "Which 'states rights' specifically?
The only one the rebel states ever mentioned was the 'right' to own other human beings."

DiogenesLamp: "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."

As has been pointed out to DiogenesLamp endlessly, nonsense piled on top of nonsense does not make any of it true.
So Lincoln, for whatever his "political incorrectness" in today's historical context was in fact the first openly anti-slavery President ever elected.
That's why Deep South Fire Eaters declared secession!

[BroJoeK]

pierrem15: "So I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that there was no states' right to secede."

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

No, because regardless of how much DiogenesLamp pretends otherwise: neither the Declaration of Independence nor any Founder ever declared an unlimited "right to secede" at pleasure.

Founders agreed to "disunion" or "secession" under two, but only two, conditions:

1. By mutual consent such as their 1788 "secession" from the old Articles of Confederation.

2. By necessity after "a long train of abuses and usurpations" such as their 1776 "secession" from Britain.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp to rockrr: "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?"

Once again: "contraband of war" was understood as far back as our Founders, specifically, John Quincy Adams who mentored 38 year-old Congressman Lincoln in 1847-'48.
I think Adams understood that if secession lead to Civil War, then the President could declare fugitive slaves "contraband of war" and so emancipate them in states then under rebellion.

Yes, Lincoln was willing to settle for less than 100% abolition and citizenship for freed slaves, in exchange for peace, but Jefferson Davis refused and fought on until Unconditional Surrender, 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The Declaration does not say abuses are necessary for independence.
It merely lists them in an effort to justify what they were doing, but the Declaration says the right is inherent."

So you constantly pretend, but in fact the Declaration from its first sentence is clear:

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands..."

"Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government..."

"We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends."

So our Founders used that word "necessary" over and over again to explain why they did what they did.
Never did any Founder suggest disunion or secession "at pleasure".

But that's exactly what Deep South Fire Eaters did starting in December 1860.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp to rockrr: "If you aren't claiming Lincoln fought to 'free the slaves', why do you keep bringing up 'the right to own other human beings'? "

I'd say in this case Lincoln was fully capable of "walking & chewing gum at the same time", as they say.
The historical record is clear that Lincoln was anti-slavery, that's why Deep South Fire Eaters declared secession.
But Lincoln was also initially reluctant to use Civil War as his tool for 100% emancipation -- just so long as any remote possibility for peaceful reunion existed.

But as the war dragged on month after month, year after year, Lincoln applied more & more those abolitionist policies, deep fear of which had caused the Deep South to declare secession & then war to begin with.

What's so amazing here is that DiogenesLamp for sure knows all this, and yet constantly pretends otherwise!

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "we can dismiss forever the notion that the North fought the war for some high moral cause like 'freeing the slaves.' "

DiogenesLamp: to jeffersondem: "They aren't going to give that up.
It's the only 'moral' reason for which they can sort of justify all the blood that was spilled.
It is their fig leaf."

Far more than mere "fig leaf", fear of Lincoln freeing the slaves drove Deep South Fire Eaters to declare secession and ultimately war on the United States.
Emancipation and abolition were also strong motivators for many Republicans (but not Democrats) and became more so as the war dragged on:

Johnny Cash sings Battle Hymn of the Republic

Or, if you prefer, Elvis Presley

This one doesn't say, but sounds like a Mormon Tabernacle Choir version.
If you watch carefully, you'll see references to the Iron Brigade & Irish Brigade as well as the 54th Massachusetts "Glory" regiment.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp to Rockingham: "You say that, but I believe that is completely wrong.
Lincoln was intent on starting hostilities, and he had a separate mission attempting to start hostilities at Ft. Pickens, but it is not much discussed because the Sumter incident sucked up all the oxygen."

Totally false.
The absolute worst you can say about Lincoln in this regard is: he offered Jefferson Davis the opportunity to start Civil War, if Davis wanted it.

Of course, it may have been a little like offering candy to a child, how could a child resist?

But Lincoln himself was pledged and also ordered his military forces not to start it.

[BroJoeK]

OIFVeteran: "This is why I think that even if the south would have won their rebellion and formed a nation based on chattel slavery they would have been at war with the U.S. within ten years."

Yes, two world wars in the 20th century showed us what can happen when you fail to totally defeat an unrepentant aggressor.
As soon as they feel strong enough, they come back for Round Two.