The American Civil War

Byrnzie · May 2010

I just watched the 9 part PBS series again by Ken Burns. I'm gonna read Shelby Foote's 3 volume history of the war. Anyone else here have an interest in the Civil War? Anyone visited any of the battlefields? I'm definitely gonna visit Gettysburg in a year or so's time, along with Antietam and possibly Shiloh. This war threw up so many fascinating stories.

InsideMan · May 2010

If you want excellent Civil War reading material, pick up anything by James McPherson.

gimmesometruth27 · May 2010

i am a pretty big civil war enthusiast. i have been to shiloh and several minor battlefields such as wilson's creek in southwest missouri. i did the 21 mile march in one day that the confederates did from corinth mississippi to the battlefield at shiloh. it was pretty awesome. i would love to see gettysburg and antietam as well. ken burn's series was amazing. i remember i watched it when it first came out and i tried to get the book by elijah hunt rhodes but it was out of print. that was maybe 12 years ago or so before i became internet savvy. one can probably locate it now if they dug deep enough. i also love that time frame around the end of the war with sherman's march to the sea and the very end of the war with lincoln's assassination and the trials of the conspirators. there is a website about the conspirators that has complete transcriptions from the trial and also there are newspaper articles from that time that chronicled the manhunt and the trials. amazing stuff if you dig history. to me the civil war is the most fascinating time period in all of US history. i know prfctlfts is pretty knowledgeable on the civil war as well so he will probably have some insights for the thread as well.

Pepe Silvia · May 2010

not really a fan but i grew up in northern virginia and there are battlefields around where we'd go on field trips or to harper's ferry which is a really pretty area.

Byrnzie · May 2010

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

i am a pretty big civil war enthusiast. i have been to shiloh and several minor battlefields such as wilson's creek in southwest missouri. i did the 21 mile march in one day that the confederates did from corinth mississippi to the battlefield at shiloh. it was pretty awesome. i would love to see gettysburg and antietam as well. ken burn's series was amazing. i remember i watched it when it first came out and i tried to get the book by elijah hunt rhodes but it was out of print. that was maybe 12 years ago or so before i became internet savvy. one can probably locate it now if they dug deep enough. i also love that time frame around the end of the war with sherman's march to the sea and the very end of the war with lincoln's assassination and the trials of the conspirators. there is a website about the conspirators that has complete transcriptions from the trial and also there are newspaper articles from that time that chronicled the manhunt and the trials. amazing stuff if you dig history. to me the civil war is the most fascinating time period in all of US history. i know prfctlfts is pretty knowledgeable on the civil war as well so he will probably have some insights for the thread as well.

I traveled through Harpers Ferry and the Shenandoah valley in 1991, but I didn't know much about it back then.

The story of Wilmer McLean is pretty amazing. He was a grocer who happened to own a house in Virginia at Bull Run, where the first engagement took place between the Rebels and the Unionists. One of the first shots fired in the war landed in his front parlor, and after the battle he moved with his family 120 miles away to Appomattox, also in Virginia. Four years later, Ulysses S. Grant was on his horse looking for a suitable place to administer the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and Wilma Mclean's wife happened to be walking by. She offered Grant the use of her house for the purpose.

Later, McLean is supposed to have said "The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor".

Byrnzie · May 2010

therk17 wrote:

If you want excellent Civil War reading material, pick up anything by James McPherson.

Just checked his book 'Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era' on Amazon. Looks good.

Byrnzie · May 2010

Thomas Hardy

The Man He Killed

"HAD he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

"But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.

"I shot him dead because—
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although

"He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like—just as I—
Was out of work—had sold his traps-
No other reason why.

"Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat, if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown."

gimmesometruth27 · May 2010

Byrnzie wrote:

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

i am a pretty big civil war enthusiast. i have been to shiloh and several minor battlefields such as wilson's creek in southwest missouri. i did the 21 mile march in one day that the confederates did from corinth mississippi to the battlefield at shiloh. it was pretty awesome. i would love to see gettysburg and antietam as well. ken burn's series was amazing. i remember i watched it when it first came out and i tried to get the book by elijah hunt rhodes but it was out of print. that was maybe 12 years ago or so before i became internet savvy. one can probably locate it now if they dug deep enough. i also love that time frame around the end of the war with sherman's march to the sea and the very end of the war with lincoln's assassination and the trials of the conspirators. there is a website about the conspirators that has complete transcriptions from the trial and also there are newspaper articles from that time that chronicled the manhunt and the trials. amazing stuff if you dig history. to me the civil war is the most fascinating time period in all of US history. i know prfctlfts is pretty knowledgeable on the civil war as well so he will probably have some insights for the thread as well.

I traveled through Harpers Ferry and the Shenandoah valley in 1991, but I didn't know much about it back then.

The story of Wilmer McLean is pretty amazing. He was a grocer who happened to own a house in Virginia at Bull Run, where the first engagement took place between the Rebels and the Unionists. One of the first shots fired in the war landed in his front parlor, and after the battle he moved with his family 120 miles away to Appomattox, also in Virginia. Four years later, Ulysses S. Grant was on his horse looking for a suitable place to administer the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and Wilma Mclean's wife happened to be walking by. She offered Grant the use of her house for the purpose.

Later, McLean is supposed to have said "The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor".

that is an awesome story. probably the most coincidental thing to happen to anyone other than the japanese salesman that survived the atomic bombs of BOTH Hiroshima and Nagasaki..

gimmesometruth27 · May 2010

what is everybody's thoughts on Sherman's march to the sea? that was the first time total war had been used. those armies pillaged and burned most of georgia and south carolina. sherman was an interesting guy. he believed in "a hard war, but an easy peace". him and grant had a very close relationship and when lincoln offered sherman the job of heading the union forces to replace grant he declined because he valued grant's friendship too much. the history channel had a 2 hour show on sherman's march last month. it was quite good.

Byrnzie · May 2010

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

what is everybody's thoughts on Sherman's march to the sea? that was the first time total war had been used. those armies pillaged and burned most of georgia and south carolina. sherman was an interesting guy. he believed in "a hard war, but an easy peace". him and grant had a very close relationship and when lincoln offered sherman the job of heading the union forces to replace grant he declined because he valued grant's friendship too much. the history channel had a 2 hour show on sherman's march last month. it was quite good.

I doubt Southerners think too highly of him.

gimmesometruth27 · May 2010

Byrnzie wrote:

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

what is everybody's thoughts on Sherman's march to the sea? that was the first time total war had been used. those armies pillaged and burned most of georgia and south carolina. sherman was an interesting guy. he believed in "a hard war, but an easy peace". him and grant had a very close relationship and when lincoln offered sherman the job of heading the union forces to replace grant he declined because he valued grant's friendship too much. the history channel had a 2 hour show on sherman's march last month. it was quite good.

I doubt Southerners think too highly of him.

i can't say i blame them. i'm a yankee and he is revered up here, he is reviled in the south. he wanted to punish the south for their treason and i think he did a fair job of it. burned atlanta to the ground and pillaged south carolina after he made it to the sea in savannah, ga. i think what he did would be against all the rules of war today, but if he hadn't completed the march the war might have taken another 3 or 4 years. what are your thoughts?

TravisTheSky · May 2010

Oh, Byrnzie, I didn't think you meant the first civil war. AMT is labelled "Politics and Current Events," so I was expecting your post to say "Coming Soon" or something to that effect.

That civil war was about states standing up for their rights against an overarching federal government. Sounds familiar.

Byrnzie · May 2010

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

what is everybody's thoughts on Sherman's march to the sea? that was the first time total war had been used. those armies pillaged and burned most of georgia and south carolina. sherman was an interesting guy. he believed in "a hard war, but an easy peace". him and grant had a very close relationship and when lincoln offered sherman the job of heading the union forces to replace grant he declined because he valued grant's friendship too much. the history channel had a 2 hour show on sherman's march last month. it was quite good.

I doubt Southerners think too highly of him.

i can't say i blame them. i'm a yankee and he is revered up here, he is reviled in the south. he wanted to punish the south for their treason and i think he did a fair job of it. burned atlanta to the ground and pillaged south carolina after he made it to the sea in savannah, ga. i think what he did would be against all the rules of war today, but if he hadn't completed the march the war might have taken another 3 or 4 years. what are your thoughts?

I think the war could have been brought to a close in 1861 if George MCclellan hadn't been so hopelessly lackluster and incompetent.

Byrnzie · May 2010

TravisTheSky wrote:

That civil war was about states standing up for their rights against an overarching federal government. Sounds familiar.

The right to enslave black people.

Maybe the federal government is needed to keep such yahoo's in place. The same kind of yahoo's who are now causing trouble for ethnic minorities in Arizona.

gimmesometruth27 · May 2010

TravisTheSky wrote:

Oh, Byrnzie, I didn't think you meant the first civil war. AMT is labelled "Politics and Current Events," so I was expecting your post to say "Coming Soon" or something to that effect.

That civil war was about states standing up for their rights against an overarching federal government. Sounds familiar.

what is past is prologue. are you the board police? i think it is relevent to current topics...

gimmesometruth27 · May 2010

Byrnzie wrote:

I think the war could have been brought to a close in 1861 if George MCclellan hadn't been so hopelessly lackluster and incompetent.

yes mcclellan was kind of an enigma. he constantly overestimated the size of the enemy forces and failed to act decisively even when victory was all but guaranteed. im sure mcclellan was not very happy about being replaced by burnside and a later the drunk that was U.S. Grant...

by the way, grant's farm is about 15 miles from my house. it is pretty cool to see the home of the former leader of the union forces and later the president of the united states. he was a pretty simple man. the home has been restored, but the land and most of the property has been preserved so a lot of it is like it was when grant lived there.

Byrnzie · May 2010

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

yes mcclellan was kind of an enigma. he constantly overestimated the size of the enemy forces and failed to act decisively even when victory was all but guaranteed. im sure mcclellan was not very happy about being replaced by burnside and a later the drunk that was U.S. Grant...

by the way, grant's farm is about 15 miles from my house. it is pretty cool to see the home of the former leader of the union forces and later the president of the united states. he was a pretty simple man. the home has been restored, but the land and most of the property has been preserved so a lot of it is like it was when grant lived there.

You live in a nice part of the country. I love places with history. Any place with old traditional buildings. I love seeing the old Ming and Qing Dynasty buildings here in China too. I don't really have much interest in the modern world as it pretty much all looks the same. I like old stuff. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia e.t.c, have plenty of nice old buildings.

gimmesometruth27 · May 2010

Byrnzie wrote:

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

yes mcclellan was kind of an enigma. he constantly overestimated the size of the enemy forces and failed to act decisively even when victory was all but guaranteed. im sure mcclellan was not very happy about being replaced by burnside and a later the drunk that was U.S. Grant...

by the way, grant's farm is about 15 miles from my house. it is pretty cool to see the home of the former leader of the union forces and later the president of the united states. he was a pretty simple man. the home has been restored, but the land and most of the property has been preserved so a lot of it is like it was when grant lived there.

You live in a nice part of the country. I love places with history. Any place with old traditional buildings. I love seeing the old Ming and Qing Dynasty buildings here in China too. I don't really have much interest in the modern world as it pretty much all looks the same. I like old stuff. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia e.t.c, have plenty of nice old buildings.

i wouldn't call it a nice part of the country. there are some nice areas and there is a lot of history here, but i would rather live on one of the coasts. i love seeing old buildings as well. for some reason i am particularly drawn to old cemeteries. to me it is very interesting to see all of the headstones that are 100 to 200 years old, and each one of them has a story and each one represents a life long dead and gone. all of those places you listed have some erally nice old historical areas as well.
i forgot to tell you, if you go to shiloh be sure to visit everything. there are hikes you can do where you can see the old heavy guns and cannons that are green like the statue of liberty. they are copper and you can actually use a pocket knife or something to scrape of the green coating and reveal the copper surface like it looked in 1862. you can also visit the major areas of the battle, the church, the sunken road, the hornet's nest, bloody pond, the field hospital, hte cemetaries, the mass graves with nothing but cannonball borders on the perimeter of the graves to mark the location. also, each state that had troops fight there has their own monument to those particular troops. soe are nicer and more elaborate than others, but they are all really cool. it is a cool place that is screaming with life and you can really appreciate the struggle that occurred there.

Pepe Silvia · May 2010

Byrnzie wrote:

TravisTheSky wrote:

That civil war was about states standing up for their rights against an overarching federal government. Sounds familiar.

The right to enslave black people.

Maybe the federal government is needed to keep such yahoo's in place. The same kind of yahoo's who are now causing trouble for ethnic minorities in Arizona.

but didn't lincoln say he didn't care about slavery and had the majority of the states voted to keep slavery he would've fought the war to protect that right?

gimmesometruth27 · May 2010

Pepe Silvia wrote:

but didn't lincoln say he didn't care about slavery and had the majority of the states voted to keep slavery he would've fought the war to protect that right?

that is a common misconception. going back as far as the 1850's lincoln is on record as having "sympathy for the plight of the negro" and being anti slavery. by the time the war broke out, slavery was an antiquated notion in the north and was pretty much out of fashion and virtually non-existant. lincoln did not want to use an executive order and issue the emancipation proclamation due to the potential political fallout, but it was clear that the south was not going to allow slavery to die out as it was too vital to the southern economy. lincoln was hoping that the south would acquiesce and outlaw slavery on its own but they never did, so the bloody war continued. some people will say that the war was over state's rights, but that is not entirely true. southern states were threatening to secede if lincoln won the presidency for many months before the election and he won, so their hand was forced. the south knew that lincoln was anti slavery and it was just a matter of time before he either issued an executive order, or the northern members of congress would pass a bill making slavery illegal. as a result, the writing was on the wall and rather than have the northern politicians dictate to them that they had to pay those that worked their cotton fields, they left the union. northern freed slaves wanted to take up arms against the south so the emancipation proclamation was a way of making it legal for them to join the union army.

Pepe Silvia · May 2010

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

Pepe Silvia wrote:

but didn't lincoln say he didn't care about slavery and had the majority of the states voted to keep slavery he would've fought the war to protect that right?

that is a common misconception. going back as far as the 1850's lincoln is on record as having "sympathy for the plight of the negro" and being anti slavery. by the time the war broke out, slavery was an antiquated notion in the north and was pretty much out of fashion and virtually non-existant. lincoln did not want to use an executive order and issue the emancipation proclamation due to the potential political fallout, but it was clear that the south was not going to allow slavery to die out as it was too vital to the southern economy. lincoln was hoping that the south would acquiesce and outlaw slavery on its own but they never did, so the bloody war continued. some people will say that the war was over state's rights, but that is not entirely true. southern states were threatening to secede if lincoln won the presidency for many months before the election and he won, so their hand was forced. the south knew that lincoln was anti slavery and it was just a matter of time before he either issued an executive order, or the northern members of congress would pass a bill making slavery illegal. as a result, the writing was on the wall and rather than have the northern politicians dictate to them that they had to pay those that worked their cotton fields, they left the union. northern freed slaves wanted to take up arms against the south so the emancipation proclamation was a way of making it legal for them to join the union army.

yes, he was anti-slavery but pro-colonization.

he also wrote

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause."

he was against slavery but what did he want to do with them?
"I have said that the separation of the races is the only perfect preventative of amalgamation. I have no right to say all the members of the Republican party are in favor of this, nor to say that as a party they are in favor of it. There is nothing in their platform directly on the subject. But I can say a very large proportion of its members are for it, and that the chief plank in their platform -- opposition to the spread of slavery -- is most favorable to that separation.

Such separation, if ever effected at all, must be effected by colonization; and no political party, as such, is now doing anything directly for colonization. Party operations at present only favor or retard colonization incidentally. The enterprise is a difficult one, but 'when there is a will there is a way;' and what colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be. The children of Israel, to such numbers as to include four hundred thousand fighting men, went out of Egyptian bondage in a body."

The American Civil War

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