150th Anniversary of the Civil War

The econony part is the Southern end of the argument.
As I stated before the North could have cared less about slavery and the slaves.

 

You know, on second thought, you are absolutely correct. The Confederate poor did fight for the express purpose of the rich owning slaves. Yep, no way around it; 95 percent of the population went to war for something that benefitted less than 5 percent.

The fact that an invading army was on their land setting fire to homes and farms while stealing everything from food and livestock to valuables and family bibles had NOTHING to do with it.

 

And those Southern troops were trained, outfitted, and armed by a government fighting to keep slavery.

I like your responses, but they really have little of merit beyond the entertainment value.

 

You're probably right on Forrest being a raider more than a cavalry commander like Stuart. Morgan has to be given his props because he actually took his raids into the North more so than Forrest.

Longstreet did have his faults and lost Knoxville. I didn't really mean to knock Jackson. I was just relaying some points that I have read without coming down on either side.

 

Joe, you are arguing why individual Southerners went to war. The SOUTH went to war to preserve slavery.

 

Absolutely 100 percent correct. Say what you want about the Confederate government. Call Jeff Davis whatever you want. I might even agree with you nine times out of 10. I just get defensive when it comes to the good name of the individual Confederate soldier who was defending hearth and home.

 

I encourage you and everyone to listen to the podcasts I've linked above; particularly the third part of the podcast.

They had an expert on who explained in detail how one of the main reasons Southerners fought was because of, of all things, love.

He notes that it was around this time that, for the first time in human existence, couples began to pair up and marry solely due to love of one another (until this time, most marriages were of economic or religious necessity.) And Southern men -- and the women they loved -- feared that the end of slavery would result in hordes of angry black men running around, raping the white women. And it was because of this fear many men went to war.

 

When I try to imagine why so many poor white southerners who could never afford to own slaves signed up for war I can't help but think about the scene in Mississippi Burning when Gene Hackman tells a story about his father.

 

Exactly

 

I've always liked to think of slavery as the gasoline that fueled the Civil War. Without slavery, all of the other issues that divided the nation in that period probably could have been resolved.

But slavery was the combustible that turned normal regional differences into a bloody four-year struggle for survival.

And don't kid yourselves, there were several points when the South could have won the war and established its independence, which would have been a long-term disaster not only for the United States, but for the Western world at large.

Think I'm kidding? Ponder this. What would have been the consequences in 1914-17 had there not been a united America?

 

Isn't there a series of books depicting a 20th century after the South won the CW? I think the CSA hooks up with the Nazis, IIRC.

 

There was one that I saw about 15-20 years ago which depicted what would have happened if the South seceded, but Lincoln just let them go, instead of the war.

The book's theory was that there would have been two countries, but they would have gotten along fairly well, until WWI, then they would have reunited again against the Central Powers because both of their economies would have been at risk with the German U-boats.