Guerilla South

In the course of critiquing a Richard Cohen column, Publius says:

In April 1865, [Robert E.] Lee had a fateful choice. Sure, the war couldn’t be won in the traditional sense. But Lee could have turned his battle-hardened army into a guerrilla outfit that could have harassed federal armies for decades. To his eternal credit, he declined to do so. Choosing guerrilla war would have made post-war North/South tensions even more poisonous than they were (with longer lasting effects).

I'm not sure that reflects a correct understanding of the strategic conflict during the Civil War. It's true that in a conventional war of national liberation, this kind of guerilla strategy would be the expected line for the Confederacy to take. But the rebels had a very specific goal in mind -- they seceded from the Union after Lincoln's electoral victory because they wanted to preserve slavery. It's very hard to see, however, how a guerilla strategy could have been consistent with the goal of maintaining slavery or the plantation economy. The strategy Southern elites did pursue, of seeking to re-establish first white control over southern state and local governments (including in the states and counties where blacks were a majority) and then total exclusion of blacks from the political process, was, by contrast, a good way of hanging on to half a loaf.

Meanwhile, though the Confederate military didn't pursue guerilla war against the Union Army, it should be remembered that southern whites did launch a large-scale, years-long campaign of terrorist violence against their African-American neighbors.

Comments

Whether or not guerilla warfare was consistent with the stated goal of the insurrection isn't really the question. The question is: were there elements of the Confederate Army and, more specifically, the Army of Northern Virginia, that were hankering for a protracted fight that would've ultimately taken on a guerilla form? The answer to that is, yes. This is why Lee's resistance to the idea was so important. Publius is correct.

Posted by esso | June 9, 2008 2:24 PM

Yeah, I have to say that this is pretty much a load of crap. The union army made the mistake of allowing southern whites to retain ownership of their weapons. Once reconstruction ended, they were able to re-establish their dominance over blacks. The path they pursued at the end of the civil war, was the best case outcome for them. Nor would it have been in the character or personality of Lee to consider a guerrilla campaign. I'm not sure how much credit you should give to a man for making a decision that was it was his nature and upbringing to make, and was also the best decision for his 'side'.

Posted by mpowell | June 9, 2008 2:26 PM

I don't think that Lee could have "turned his battle-hardened army into a guerrilla outfit that could have harassed federal armies for decades." They were pretty much starving to death and had no powder or bullets. Lee doesn't deserve any credit for not doing the impossible. This is neo-Confederate nonsense. And, yes, southerners did launch a "campaign of terrorist violence against their African-American neighbors," one that lasted, not for years, but for a century.

Posted by Alan Vanneman | June 9, 2008 2:29 PM

it should be remembered that southern whites did launch a large-scale, years-long campaign of terrorist violence against their African-American neighbors.

Yep.

Maybe Lee did not decide to turn his army into a guerrilla force, but that's pretty much what did happen. The Union Army came in and was welcomed by the Southern poor (both black and white alike ... remember the scalawags?) as liberators, but the army of liberation was in fact driven out by an insurgency (e.g. the Klan).

Eventually, a compromise was reached -- the South and its gentry got what it wanted (to be a resource colony with slave labor, albeit with labor provided by "share croppers" as a de facto colony of the North rather than Great Britain) and the North got President Hayes.

Maybe it's because I'm a partisan Dem. who thinks Tilden would have made a better President, but I think the North got #@$%ed by that compromise. In any case, the North didn't win the war in 1865, the South won it in 1876, after a long insurgency.

If Bush wants to compare himself to Lincoln ... well, we can expect the Baathists to retake over Iraq in about 10 years, I reckon.

Anyway, it does always amaze me that supporters of the war, many of whom were drawn from the South, didn't think enough about their own history to remember how "armies of liberators" get treated and to plan for an insurgency. Paging George Santayana, please pick up the blue courtesy phone ...

Posted by Red Sea Pedestrian, So Shouldn't I be in Shul not Work? | June 9, 2008 2:30 PM

Elect Obama-Garnett 2008 for a strong national defense!

Lakers suck and are crybabies.

You don't get foul calls when you don't play hard.

Are you totally outclassed? Or just outworked?

When you play like Euros, you ain't winning no title.

Obama-Garnett 2008

Posted by Obama-Garnett 2008 | June 9, 2008 2:30 PM

But, but, but the Civil War was about states' rights! Which rights, exactly? Oh, nevermind about that.

Posted by lfv | June 9, 2008 2:31 PM

If I recall correctly, Sherman and many like him employed guerrillla tactics near the end, sacking farms, killing civilians, all in all forcing the non-combatents to pay a severe toll for the war . . . it doesn't seem that the South had the stomach for it after that.

And Lee had express orders against sacking civilian farms.

Posted by Joshua James | June 9, 2008 2:34 PM

Joshua James,

Sherman employed tactics that have been used by almost every conquering army in history. Haven't you ever heard of "atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant?"

Now, if I recall correctly, Porter Alexander was the one who argued for this course, and he later regretted it. Mainly because if the South had started guerilla war immediately after the end of major hostilities, Grant and Sherman would have unleashed Phil Sheridan to turn everything south of the Mason-Dixon line into the Shenandoah Valley.

And Lincoln probably wouldn't have lifted a finger.

Posted by Greg | June 9, 2008 2:40 PM

Remember also the primacy of Robert E. Lee in any nostalgia toward the Confederacy. Having been born in Virginia, I grew up with Lee as a larger-than-life figure. Lee's virtues were trumpeted all around. Heck, my high school was Robert E. Lee High School. Several of Lee's homes are preserved as historical monuments.

"Rehabbing" Lee's image isn't the right word, because what's going on isn't supposed to rehab the image (which is generally good). The point is that this reading of the history reinforces that already "noble" image of Lee. I, of course, am the wrong person to speak on this. That whole "born Virginian" thing leaves me pretty much unable to discuss Lee without bias. Too many stories about Robert E. Lee the consummate Virgina gentleman in my past to even try.

Posted by James Hare | June 9, 2008 2:47 PM

Greg,

Lincoln wouldn't have lifted a finger because he would have been dead.

Posted by PTS | June 9, 2008 2:48 PM

Jay Winick, who Publius is referencing, makes a pretty convincing argument in April 1865 that Lee could've easily turned his army into a guerrilla outfit. Many in his officer corps were advocating such a move, just as Jeff Davis vowed to maintain the Confederacy even as he fled Richmond. All you have to do is look west, to Missouri and the likes of Jesse James and similar gangs to see such an insurgency in action. In fact, throughout the South, former Confederates formed bands that terrorized blacks and sympathetic whites. What they didn't do was engage the Union Army, which helped their cause immensely. No Matt, Lee did a great thing by refusing to head into the mountains. But even he couldn't contain the forces the war unleashed. April 1865 is a pretty great book, btw. I highly recommend it.

Posted by NHCt | June 9, 2008 2:55 PM

Lincoln wasn't dead until after Appomattox.

Had Lee allowed his men to go bushwhacking, Lincoln would have been allowed, no, forced by the Republicans, to have a massive bodyguard.

Posted by Greg | June 9, 2008 3:00 PM

they seceded from the Union after Lincoln's electoral victory because they wanted to preserve slavery.

There is a very well known school of thought that the cause of the civil war was over the tariff. According to this viewpoint, the industrializing North was seeking to exploit the agrarian South by high tariffs. While early in the 19th century, the South had aligned with the then also agrarian MidWest. However, in the 1850's, the construction of the railroads caused the MidWest to realign itself with the North.

This imbalance led to the Civil War, according to this viewpoint.

Following this logic, it would have been the blockade - which crushed the South's agrarian economy - and not any action on Lee's part, which would not have affected Johnson's soldiers, for example - which led to the South's submission.

Posted by Boswell | June 9, 2008 3:15 PM

Matt writes "Meanwhile, though the Confederate military didn't pursue guerilla (sic) war against the Union Army, it should be remembered that southern whites did launch a large-scale, years-long campaign of terrorist violence against their African-American neighbors"

That "years-long" would be better recast as century-long.

Posted by Mark | June 9, 2008 3:18 PM

Boswell, every major Civil War historian I am aware of (Foote, McPherson, Foner, etc) has trashed this meme; the tariff was an indirect battle for slavery. That it does not directly correspond with the same battle lines had to do with the Whig Party's existence in the South, but it was a way of defending slavery without having to say that you were defending slavery.

Posted by Greg | June 9, 2008 3:22 PM

Red Sea:
" In any case, the North didn't win the war in 1865, the South won it in 1876, after a long insurgency.

If Bush wants to compare himself to Lincoln ... well, we can expect the Baathists to retake over Iraq in about 10 years, I reckon."

The South succeeded in seceding? I don't think so. And seeing as the Democrats are about nominate a black for their Presidential candidate, I'd say white supremacy in the US has failed.

Maybe one day the Sunnis and Shia and Kurds will be able to live together?

Posted by Peter K. | June 9, 2008 3:25 PM

Red Sea:
" In any case, the North didn't win the war in 1865, the South won it in 1876, after a long insurgency.

If Bush wants to compare himself to Lincoln ... well, we can expect the Baathists to retake over Iraq in about 10 years, I reckon."

The South succeeded in seceding? I don't think so. And seeing as the Democrats are about nominate a black for their Presidential candidate, I'd say white supremacy in the US has failed.

Maybe one day the Sunnis and Shia and Kurds will be able to live together?

Posted by Peter K. | June 9, 2008 3:26 PM

Part of Lee's motive for rejecting guerilla warfare was the predictable reprisal on the Southern civilian population -- he had before him what Sheridan did to the Shenandoah Valley.

As for "would it have advanced the CSA's goals," it might have. The point of the war was to exhaust the Union into accepting CSA independence (not to mention slavery).

A prolonged guerilla campaign might have done that. I won't say "probably," but it was not a ridiculous notion by any means.

Posted by Anderson | June 9, 2008 3:31 PM

Maybe it's because I'm a partisan Dem. who thinks Tilden would have made a better President, but I think the North got #@$%ed by that compromise.

It wasn't a compromise between the north and the south. It was a compromise between Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats. Among others, northern Democrats got screwed - they lost out on getting the first Democratic president since the Civil War and on all the federal patronage positions this would have entailed. In exchange they got - well, nothing of value to them. They were mostly not particularly friendly to Republican Reconstruction policies, but getting all those patronage positions, from which they'd been frozen out for 16 years, was much more important to them. Instead, the Southerners' deal kept them out of power for another 8 years. (The Southern Republicans, obviously, were even more screwed, since the deal basically cost them their viability as a competitor to the Democrats in the South).

Tilden would have ended Reconstruction, anyway - his electoral success was largely dependent on racist southern Democrats, and it would have been one of the first things he'd have done. Most of the South had already abolished Reconstruction by 1877, anyway - I think only three states still had federal troops.

As to the argument that the tariff caused the civil war, that's ridiculous. The tariff was low in 1860, and the Republicans would not have had the votes in the Senate (or possibly even the House) to raise it. The only reason they succeeded in doing so in 1861 was because the southerners had withdrawn after their states' secession. And, even so, the Morrill Tariff was, so far as I'm aware, not particularly worse than old whig tariff positions which had actually been supported by many southerners.

It's also worth noting that, while the situation of Blacks in the post-Reconstruction south was obviously very bad, it's still wrong to say that the south "really" won the Civil War. As Matt said in the original post, they got half a loaf - they got to maintain white supremacy and white political dominance, but they didn't get to maintain the antebellum system, and the situation of blacks in the south after Reconstruction was, for all its flaws, still a lot better than slavery.

Posted by John | June 9, 2008 3:35 PM

the tariff was an indirect battle for slavery. That it does not directly correspond with the same battle lines had to do with the Whig Party's existence in the South, but it was a way of defending slavery without having to say that you were defending slavery. - Greg

I am not a historian, but it seems to me that the tarrif and slavery were actually two sides of the same coin more than the tarrif being a polite proxy for slavery. Pace Boswell, it wasn't that the North was trying to get money from Southern imports, but it was trying to protect its nascent industries from foreign competition (and the Brits, the major industrial power of the time, were not above dumping and similar practices to stifle competition which they viewed as "un-natural" ... arguments for "free trade" that sound familiar).

The South wanted to maintain its existance as a de facto resource colony, e.g., of Britain -- with "free trade", etc. The British may have been uncomfortable with slavery (why the Emancipation Proclaimation was so important) but they were happy to have the fruits of slavery so long as the Southern gentry bought British products.

Peter K., this is the reason why many say the South won in 1876. The South's goal wasn't secession (actually it was some in the North that were first keenest of seccession from a Southern dominated Union) but remaining a backward agrarian de facto resource colony. As such, the South won in 1876 as they were able to maintain their manorial lifestyle (the Planters may not have had slaves, but they had share-croppers, etc.) in spite of being still formally part of the Union.

Posted by Red Sea Pedestrian, So Shouldn't I be in Shul not Work? | June 9, 2008 3:35 PM

Confederates fought guerrilla-style during the Civil War in parts of KY & TN, for example. That doesn't take away from Matt's post, or any of the good comments (i.e. ones I agree with).

Posted by American Citizen | June 9, 2008 3:36 PM

Something Matt probably doesn't know--and something that Jay Winik goes into at great length in the book mentioned above--is that the South had decided, while in its death throes, to start arming the slaves and sticking them in the Confederate Army. It was a last-second desperation tactic, and never got further than a few companies drilling in Richmond, but they did make the decision.

Posted by Vidor | June 9, 2008 3:38 PM

While hanging out with some liberal friends one of them relayed a quote from an unnamed professor of his which went something like "The Civil War is not really over but still being fought today, and we are getting our asses handed to us."
That was a few years ago during the early days of the "permanent Republican majority," and it looks as if now the tide is turning yet again. Long live the Union!

Posted by Jack | June 9, 2008 3:44 PM

Boswell, every major Civil War historian I am aware of (Foote, McPherson, Foner, etc) has trashed this meme; the tariff was an indirect battle for slavery.

If it weren't a major school of thought, then all these fine fellows wouldn't be "trashing" this "meme." They wouldn't even be discussing it.

What would be more interesting would be if you could advance arguments against it.

Posted by Boswell | June 9, 2008 3:45 PM

File this post under "bloggers' random point-making". We're commenting on a comment on a comment on an example for an argument about Hillary Clinton. Wouldn't it be great if bloggers had a computer filter that would find all columns, articles and blog posts published today that mention anything that you, the blogger, know something about? All that said, this thread is actually pretty good--a lot better than the underlying layers of commentary!

Posted by Colatina | June 9, 2008 3:54 PM

" The South's goal wasn't secession (actually it was some in the North that were first keenest of seccession from a Southern dominated Union) but remaining a backward agrarian de facto resource colony."

You wrote "the South won it in 1876". Technically that's not true. And I'd say the South's goal was secession.

Regarding Iraq - or, say, Burma - people would cry "bombing people never solved anything". Well, military might ended slavery in the South. Inadvertently, maybe, but still. But, yeah I'd agree that Reconstruction failed miserably, which no doubt made the white supremacists happy.

Posted by Peter K. | June 9, 2008 4:06 PM

"There is a very well known school of thought that the cause of the civil war was over the tariff. According to this viewpoint, the industrializing North was seeking to exploit the agrarian South by high tariffs. While early in the 19th century, the South had aligned with the then also agrarian MidWest. However, in the 1850's, the construction of the railroads caused the MidWest to realign itself with the North.

This imbalance led to the Civil War, according to this viewpoint."

This is a well-known school of thought that co-existed with the view that Reconstruction was a terrible disaster and the Ku Klux Klan a noble institution. In short, it's a view whose day is long gone and which was largely adopted in order to ignore the real cause of the war, the South's insistence on retaining slavery. Boswell is either really old and hasn't read much Civil War history lately, or he just associates with a really weird political crowd,

Posted by David in NY | June 9, 2008 4:13 PM

I always thought it just and fitting that the US government buried thousands of the Union dead in Robert E. Lee's front yard across the Potomac River, in plain view.

I hope someday to see a national cemetery in Crawford, Texas. George can start clearing the brush now.

Posted by Tom in Ma | June 9, 2008 4:55 PM

I'll respectfully disagree with that analysis of what the Confederacy was fighting for. Yes, slavery was part of it. It was as much a part of the cause of going to war as it was for Lincoln to adopt it as one of the reasons to keep fighting. But the primary reason? It was about states' rights more than any of the rest of it, because the South felt that the North was violating them in more ways than competing for slave/non-slave states.

Slavery is so often cited as the reason for the war. While it's wrapped in big flashing blinking letters, it wasn't the only reason, or even the primary reason. In the eyes of the South, there was more at stake than losing slaves. If it was only about slaves, then the non-slave holding South wouldn't have gotten involved. Around 1/3 of the South owned slaves at the beginning of the war, and it's very loosely estimated that close to 1/3 of the Southern armies came from slave-holding families (though I've heard it estimated lower than this).

So, for your original hypothesis, it would still make since for guerrillas to fight for states' rights and independence, as they do all over the world now. You're right about guerrillas fighting for slavery. It would be a hopeless cause if there ever was one. But states' rights? That's the stuff of revolutions.

Posted by W.E.B. Adamant | June 9, 2008 5:13 PM

WEB Adamant,

The assertion that state's rights was the primary cause of the Civil War has been debunked elsewhere, it was primarily about slavery. Or to turn it around, what rights were the slave states fighting to retain?

Or, simply read the declaration of independence of the slave states where they explicitly cite slavery as the way of life they fought to defend, or even the constitution of the CSA which denies states the right to grant manumission.

Posted by freddiemac | June 9, 2008 5:37 PM

W.E.B., if you would read some of the secession proclamations in which the states themselves explained their motives, your beliefs might be changed.

Mississippi's proclamation begins like this:

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

Posted by Anderson | June 9, 2008 5:42 PM

Re: The union army made the mistake of allowing southern whites to retain ownership of their weapons.

Irrelevant in the long-run (and even in the short run). In the decade of so that comprised Reconstrcution they would have easily gotten their hands on new weapons if Grant and Sherman had insisted on taking the guns they had.

Re: but the army of liberation was in fact driven out by an insurgency (e.g. the Klan).

The Union army was not driven out by the Klan. That's giving the Klan way too much credit. In fact, the Klan left the Union army strictly alone knowing they'd get their butts handed to them if they had tried attacking military facilities in the occupied South. The Union Army eventually left the South because the American people grew tired of maintaining an army of occupation. Like Iraq today, the Union occupation of the South was simply not sustainable. Moroever civil rights for Blacks were never part of anyone's war motives: preserving the Union and, eventually, the abolition of slavery were. Both were achieved and in 1876 they were permanent facts.

Re: Sherman and many like him employed guerrillla tactics near the end, sacking farms, killing civilians, all in all forcing the non-combatents to pay a severe toll for the war

Those weren't guerilla tactics, and you are exaggerating what was done. There was no deliberate killing of civilians, except of civilians who were themselves acting as guerillas by taking pot-shots at the Union army. There was plenty of property destruction and theft, but that's not guerilla war. There was one explicit threat of genocide made by Sherman, and that was in response to a Confederate threat massacre all Union POWs in Andersonville (GA) prison if Sherman marched on it to secure their liberation. Sherman's reply was that that he would order the the massacre of all Confederate civilians behind his lines if that were done. However, he stayed well away from Andersonville so as to avoid having to carry out his threat (the prison commandant was a sort of pre-Nazi German who was just crazy enough to carry out his own threat; after the war he was hanged for war crimes, the only Condederate so treated).

Re: There is a very well known school of thought that the cause of the civil war was over the tariff.

Well known maybe, and utterly false. There was a fracas over tarrifs in the 1830s, but that was settled and the issue never flared again. You need read no further than a political history of the 1850s to know that the only issue was slavery.

Re: That "years-long" would be better recast as century-long.

The KKK disbanded at the end of Reconstruction. It was not revived until the early 1900s, in repsonse to increased civil righst agitation and the flood of immigrants into the country. At that point it became a national not just a regional terror group. In fact, the state with the largest neo-KKK membership at its height in the 20s was Indiana.

Re: it was only about slaves, then the non-slave holding South wouldn't have gotten involved. Around

90% of Southern whites owned no slaves-- but they still had a huge stake in keepin Blacks enslaved. It's as simple as racism. In fact, in some ways the non-slave holding South was more brutal toward Blacks than the slave-holders were. The latter at least has d teal personal contact with their slaves and that often tempered their harshness. The former saw nothing but Black beasts of burden, fearing their cometition for jobs, power, and of course women.

Posted by JonF | June 9, 2008 5:42 PM

Great post.

Posted by joejoejoe | June 9, 2008 5:43 PM

One word: Quantrill.

Quantrill's Raiders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantrill's_Raiders

Money Quotes:

Missouri was fertile ground for the outbreak of guerrilla warfare in late 1861. Secessionists had already been organized to some extent by the proslavery "Border Ruffian" movement of the 1850s, in which Missourians crossed the border into the Kansas Territory in an effort to make it a slave state. Unionists were less well organized, but the populace was nevertheless deeply divided.

Quantrill was not the only Confederate guerrilla operating in Missouri, but he rapidly won the greatest renown. He and his men ambushed Union patrols and supply convoys, seized the mail, and occasionally struck at undefended towns on either side of the Kansas-Missouri border. Reflecting the internecine nature of the guerrilla conflict in Missouri, Quantrill directed much of his effort against Unionist civilians, attempting to drive them from of the territory where he operated. Under his direction, Confederate partisans also perfected military tactics such as coordinated and synchronized attacks, planned dispersal after an attack using pre-planned routes and relays of horses, and other technical methods, including the use of the long-barreled revolvers that later became the preferred firearm of western lawmen and outlaws alike. The James-Younger Gang, many of whose members had ridden with Quantrill, applied these same techniques after the war.

Quantrill claimed sanction under the Confederate Partisan Ranger Act, which authorized certain guerrilla activities, and apparently he had received a regular Confederate commission as a captain. However, like almost all of the Missouri bushwhackers, he operated outside of the Confederate chain of command. Some of his activities, most notably the massacre of some 200 men and boys in Lawrence, Kansas in August 1863, appalled the Confederate authorities. In the winter of 1862-63, when Quantrill led his men behind Confederate lines into Texas, their often lawless presence proved an embarrassment to the Confederate command. Yet the generals appreciated his effectiveness against Union forces, which never gained the upper hand over Quantrill.

Quantrill died at the hands of Union forces in Kentucky in May 1865, but his legacy would live on. Many of his men, including Frank James, rode in 1864 under one of his former lieutenants, "Bloody Bill" Anderson, who was killed in October 1864. Much of that group remained together under the leadership of Archie Clement, who kept the gang together after the war, and harassed the Republican state government of Missouri during the tumultuous year of 1866. In December 1866, state militiamen killed Clement in Lexington, Missouri, but his men continued on as outlaws, emerging in time as the James-Younger Gang.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | June 9, 2008 5:49 PM

While it's true that the percentage of families owning slaves in 1960 was 20-50%, even worse was that almost HALF of all Southern capital was invested in human property. It was the tail end of an enormous speculative boom brought on, IIRC, by increased industrial demand for cotton.

Pointing out that a lot of white Southerners had a lot to lose financially doesn't make their defense of slavery any more excusable. As a matter of fact, they look pretty dumb for betting big on a dead-end institution.

Posted by theo | June 9, 2008 5:52 PM

To Anderson and JonF-

I was simply recalling what I had learned in my Civil War class. I'm a historian, but 19th century isn't my forte.

That said, I agree with your comments, but I still think that the original hypothesis posed in the post lacks a bit in understanding the possibilities and plausibilities for guerrilla war.

Still, with that said, I realize that my saying that slavery wasn't the primary reason for the South is controversial, and probably errs too much on the wrong side. Yet it at least wasn't their only reason. And it certainly wasn't the North's reason.

Thanks for both of your insightful comments, though! I'm always up for being proven wrong.

Posted by W.E.B. Adamant | June 9, 2008 6:11 PM

W.E.B., if you would read some of the secession proclamations in which the states themselves explained their motives, your beliefs might be changed.

Mississippi's proclamation begins like this:

Hell, look at (I think) South Carolina's. Maybe North C. Not only did they go on at length about the threat to slavery, they were complaining about the lack of slavery in the Northern States as a threat in itself!

Every single state that officially published its reason for seceding listed slavery. All of them. For most, it was the only reason they listed (Texas was an exception with a longer laundry list of complaints). The CSA constitution explicitly mentioned slavery and prohibited abolition by its members (so much for states' rights). The politicians at the time on both sides said it was slavery. US Grant in his memoirs is quite clear it was about slavery. Secession started as a result of an election of a president who made no bones about not liking slavery. Everyone knew it was about slavery. I think I'd take their word for it.

Saying it wasn't about slavery, or that slavery was a minor (or even equal) reason with others is a 20th Century invention mostly promoted by people who don't want to accept the fact their ancestors were either assholes who defended an obscene institution or were men who willingly volunteered to assist the assholes defending an obscene institution.

Posted by KeithM | June 9, 2008 6:34 PM

W.E.B., if you would read some of the secession proclamations in which the states themselves explained their motives, your beliefs might be changed.

Mississippi's proclamation begins like this:

Hell, look at (I think) South Carolina's. Maybe North C. Not only did they go on at length about the threat to slavery, they were complaining about the lack of slavery in the Northern States as a threat in itself!

Every single state that officially published its reason for seceding listed slavery. All of them. For most, it was the only reason they listed (Texas was an exception with a longer laundry list of complaints). The CSA constitution explicitly mentioned slavery and prohibited abolition by its members (so much for states' rights). The politicians at the time on both sides said it was slavery. US Grant in his memoirs is quite clear it was about slavery. Secession started as a result of an election of a president who made no bones about not liking slavery. Everyone knew it was about slavery. I think I'd take their word for it.

Saying it wasn't about slavery, or that slavery was a minor (or even equal) reason with others is a 20th Century invention mostly promoted by people who don't want to accept the fact their ancestors were either assholes who defended an obscene institution or were men who willingly volunteered to assist the assholes defending an obscene institution.

Posted by KeithM | June 9, 2008 6:36 PM

I'm always up for being proven wrong.

Cf. Socrates in Plato, Gorgias:

I am one of those who are very willing to be refuted if I say anything which is not true, and very willing to refute any one else who says what is not true, and quite as ready to be refuted as to refute; for I hold that this is the greater gain of the two, just as the gain is greater of being cured of a very great evil than of curing another.

Keith: is a 20th Century invention

I think the revisionists began shortly after 1865 -- the "Lost Cause" myth. Jefferson Davis's memoirs were IIRC a prime source.

Posted by Anderson | June 9, 2008 6:43 PM

"But the rebels had a very specific goal in mind -- they seceded from the Union after Lincoln's electoral victory because they wanted to preserve slavery."

I agree entirely with Matthew's post. It isn't often that someone makes this point so clearly.

However, I'd add one more factor to be considered.

The vast majority of those Southerners who made the decision to seceede strived to be good Christians.

It was a fair question for them to ask, if Jesus never said that slavery was wrong, what right did the Yankees have to criticise it?

Jesus doesn't seem like one hesistant to speak his mind.

Someone who could become physically violent, driving the money changers out to the temple, would certainly have condemned slavery, if he thought it a sin.

So, if you wish to castigate the old South, I think you must also denounce Christianity to remain consistent.

Posted by Mike Furlan | June 9, 2008 7:00 PM

Around 90% of Southern whites owned no slaves-- but they still had a huge stake in keepin Blacks enslaved.

It's more complicated than that.

There's a reason why groups fight. It may not be the same at why people within those groups decide to fight, which may be different again as to why they actually stood and fought.

The US Civil War was fought over slavery. The Southern Government(s) saw it threatened and seceded to preserve it, and started the war to defend it. Because of that, the Northern Government(s) fought to preserve the Union. No slavery, no secession, no war.

Now did John Smith, eldest son of a Virginian farmer with no slaves and a small plot of land, go to war to defend slavery? Probably not. He probably went to war because he saw his state as being threatened, and/or because everyone else his age was doing it, and/or he thought it would be a grand adventure, or he had no immediate future plans and saw it as a job, or he just hated Yankees. He probably didn't give a rat's ass about black people.

Did Tom Smith, son of a New York City shopkeeper, go to war to reunite the Union? Probably not. He probably went to war because he saw his country as being threatened, and/or because everyone else his age was doing it, and/or he thought it would be a grand adventure, or he had no immediate future plans and saw it as a job, or he just hated those uneducated yokels who kept throwing their weight around before they seceded. He probably didn't give a rat's ass about black people.

Once went to war they both fought because of peer pressure, unit cohesion, honour, not wanting to look bad, staying alive, all that stuff that modern militaries attempt to instill in their recruits. The reason for the war probably became unimportant, and they both likely still didn't give a rat's ass about black people.

A lot of people get this wrong. Why a war starts doesn't necessarily have anything to do with why people join to fight it, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with why the individual actually fights.

Were there Southern troops who fought to defend slavery? Of course. Northern troops who held their position at Little Round Top because the future of the Union depended on them? Of course. Just like there were true believers in racial superiority and Nazism who fought for Germany, Americans in Vietnam who honestly thought they had to hold back the Commie hordes lest the dominoes fall, and believers in the Revolution who rode a T-72 into Afghanistan.

But just because there are some doesn't let you make the assumption about all. Not all German troops wanted to conquer the world and obliterate the untermensch, not all Americans cared about the threat of Communism, and certainly not all Russians had any illusions about the glories of the Party.

Posted by KeithM | June 9, 2008 7:02 PM

The union army made the mistake of allowing southern whites to retain ownership of their weapons.

What was the alternative? Take everybody's weapons and hope that they wouldn't get new ones once reconstruciton ended?

Take away southern whites weapons and not southern blacks (and have the south turn into a Zimbabwe-like hellhole after Reconstruction ended)?

Keep the south under Northern control as a police state forever? Never let Southern whites vote again and have the Northern states basically rule the South as a colony run by black viceroys?

A much better solution, in my opinion, would have been to have immediately restored all voting rights, etc. to the rebel whites and to then try to set up the Reconstruction government in those states so that former slaveowners would have to form coalitions with former slaves to get anything done.

Setting up blacks as equals would have been a lot better than trying to set them up as superiors (which is the effect of disenfranchising those who fought for the Confederacy while enfranchising blacks) in terms of fostering tranquility. Trying to force blacks and whites to work together would have been a lot more effective than using blacks' newfound status to humiliate the white population, as much as doing so might have humored many of the commentators on this blog.

Posted by Glaivester | June 9, 2008 7:07 PM

"A lot of people get this wrong. Why a war starts doesn't necessarily have anything to do with why people join to fight it, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with why the individual actually fights."

May be true about modern wars. But the past wasn't just like the present, except everybody was dressed funny.

Ante-bellum voter turn out was as high as 80%. And almost everybody was literate, read a newspaper and was avidly interested in politics. Men on both sides knew exactly what the issues were. Hey, but you don't have to take my word for it, they wrote lots of letters that explain it all better than I ever could. Or would could read McPherson's "What They Fought For 1861-1865" for the condensed version.

Posted by Mike Furlan | June 9, 2008 7:24 PM

RE: Michael Furlan

What's particularly striking about that book is just how many Unionists were fighting to abolish slavery. They may not have liked blacks, but, especially the Irish and other Euros who fought for the North, they recognized that it wouldn't be too much of an intellectual leap enslave them, especially considering that in their places of origin, they were usually unfree.

Indeed, Marx and a lot of others looked at the Civil War from across the Atlantic and figured that if the Great Republic couldn't end slavery, a free Europe didn't have a chance.

Posted by Greg | June 9, 2008 7:38 PM

Take away southern whites weapons and not southern blacks (and have the south turn into a Zimbabwe-like hellhole after Reconstruction ended)?

There ya go. Or directly give the Confederate weapons to the newly freed slaves.

The nation would have been better off and the result more just if there had not been a white left in 1875 Dixie. I hope most would have ran like hell rather than died. The blacks certainly did not deserve the next century of hell.

Posted by bob mcmanus | June 9, 2008 7:38 PM

Blacks in the US Military 1870-1916

I can't prove it, athough there is evidence on the page, but I think for example it was White Southerners getting back into West Point that kept blacks out. I would preferred that no white southerners (or those southerners moved west) had been kept out of West Point and Annapolis for 50 years.

The Southern spread of racism and Jim Crow into the rest of America 1876-1900 may be a worse crime than the Civil War.

Posted by bob mcmanus | June 9, 2008 8:26 PM

After Sherman took Atlanta, Hood planned to run a guerilla campaign against Shermans supply lines. Sherman knew that was a war he did not want to fight. So Sherman sent Thomas to Nashville and took off for Savannah leaving a 60 mile swath of desolation in his wake. Sherman arrived in Savannah with thousands of freed slaves in tow. He gave 40 acres and a mule to each. Sherman incorporated blacks into his army. Rather than an army of occupation in Atlanta, the South was faced with an army of liberation that could march unopposed through its territory, liberating its property, destroying its improvements and leaving the South with nothing to fight for. Still Lee did not surrender. So Sherman marched his army through South Carolina and burned it even worse as a greater demonstration and pay back for being first to secede. When Lee surrendered, there was truly no Confederacy left.

Posted by bakho | June 9, 2008 8:35 PM

Re: So, if you wish to castigate the old South, I think you must also denounce Christianity to remain consistent.

Huh?
You are aware that most of the abolitionists were acting out of religious motives. And for that matter Jesus never explicitly said a great many things were wrong. He never menmtioned abortion or genocide or abusing the environemnt or rape or.... the list goes on. Jesus was not a lawgiver, he was a teacher of love (agape). In fact he rejected the legalistic approach to religion. Unless you meant it tongue and cheek, your post is one of the more off-the-wall things I've seen.

Re: The Southern spread of racism and Jim Crow into the rest of America 1876-1900 may be a worse crime than the Civil War.

Blacks didn't have a lot of rights (if any) in the North before the war either. About the only improvement they had was that they were not enslaved. The South did not export racism and Jim Crow; it was already firmly in place.

Re: He gave 40 acres and a mule to each.

Sherman did not give anything to anyone. He had nothing to give. He didn't garrison the countryside through which he marched and after his passage what was left reverted to Confederate control (with the exception of Savannah which was garrisoned by the Union navy afterwards). As for the freed slaves trailing after Sherman, some of them went north but many of them returned home afterwards, or found new homes. And a great many of them simply starved amid the ruins.

Posted by JonF | June 9, 2008 9:10 PM

"Huh?
You are aware that most of the abolitionists were acting out of religious motives."

Huh? is right.

I said Christianity, based on the Bible as written. Not your vague "religion."

The abolitionists imagined that Jesus was on their side without any evidence to support their case.

The slaveowners were the better Christians.

The abolitionists were the better people.

To do the right thing we must think for ourselves, and not depend upon "god."

And that was asking a lot from the people of 19th century America.

Posted by Mike Furlan | June 9, 2008 10:38 PM

Blacks didn't have a lot of rights (if any) in the North before the war either.

No shit? Frederick Douglas couldn't vote or run for office, own property, get a degree practice law own property? Get a room in a NY Hotel?

I think you are wrong, de jure, if not de facto about free blacks in the north. And I suspect many of the limitation were derived from the need to get along with white southerners.

Jim Crow and descrimination started in the south and moved North, as the New York or Chicago Hotels etc were afraid of losing white Southern customers.

Posted by bob mcmanus | June 9, 2008 11:14 PM

No. The islands off the coast of Georgia had been vacated by Confederate slaver owners. Sherman gave the islands to the freed slaves in 40 acre parcels along with a mule to work the land. Former slaves held the land for generations after that although more recently some of the property has been purchased to build resorts. "Forty acres and a mule" is a direct quote from Sherman's "Special Field Order 15".

Since much of the wealth of the South was tied up in slaves, the wealthy southerners were ruined whether or not the war continued. Sherman did not garrison the South because there was no military advantage to be gained. Sherman wanted the South to end its rebellion and return to the Union and the rule of law.

In the rest of the South, Farragut, "Damn the Torpedoes, full speed ahead" took Mobile bay, Hood destroyed his Confederate army in suicide charges against Thomas in TN, New Orleans, Vicksburg and Memphis had already been already under Union control. Thomas's army was then unopposed and Sherman vastly outnumbered Johnston. Lee's Army disintegrated on the road from Petersburg. Sheridan had burned out the Shenandoah. The mountains of NC and TN were areas of widespread Union support within the Confederacy, so really, Lee was out of options. The mountain areas of the South (the areas most suited to insurgency) were the least sympathetic to the Confederacy. Lee was cut off from joining Johnston. Western Virginia was opposed to secession from the beginning and Lee was run out in the first year of the war, never to return. West Virginia was already a new state. Sherman feared a guerilla war, but the prospect of Sherman's army burning and pillaging its way across the South while chasing the remnants of Lees army was not something the South could tolerate. Lees army had a lot of defectors from SC and NC who had left to protect their family and property from Sherman. Because Sherman showed a willingness to destroy cities and property, the guerilla option was unattractive. Before Sherman burned Atlanta, he had already burned Jackson, the capital of MS along with Meridian. After Atlanta, Sherman burned Milledgeville, capital of GA and Columbia, capital of SC. Sherman was moving on Raleigh when Johnston surrendered the rest of the Confederate Armies (Lee only surrendered his own army).

Posted by bakho | June 9, 2008 11:28 PM

Would it be asking too much for MY an others to realize that people in the south are not all identical; don't and didn't behave identically? This applies to all races and religions, including "whites".

MY should have written "...it should be remembered that some southern whites did launch a large-scale, years-long campaign of terrorist violence against their African-American neighbors."

It appears that racism and guilt-by-association are acceptable when applied against southern whites. So enlightened.

Posted by justme | June 9, 2008 11:32 PM

"MY should have written "...it should be remembered that some southern whites did launch a large-scale, years-long campaign of terrorist violence against their African-American neighbors.""

Sure there were some. And there was a special name for those southern whites who refused to go along with the greatest terrrorist campaign in American history. They were called Scalawags. "Joseph E. Worcester's 1860 Dictionary of the English Language defined scalawag as "A low worthless fellow""
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalawag

You will not find any monuments to the Scalawags anywhere in the south, while even the most vile Southern terrorist is remembered fondly.

The ritual murder of blacks eventually became so widely accepted that picture postcards of lynching were sent through the US mail by the thousands.

See: http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/

Posted by Mike Furlan | June 9, 2008 11:59 PM

And there was a special name for those southern whites who refused to go along with the greatest terrrorist campaign in American history.

Your citation neither says nor implies what you claim. It actually says:

"In the United States, a scalawag was a Southern white who joined the Republican Party in the ex-Confederate South during Reconstruction. The term originally was pejorative and meant rascal, but is used descriptively in the 21st century by most scholars and reference books. The postwar scalawags overlapped with the wartime Unionists in the South, but they were distinct groups.

.

Perhaps you can't understand the difference, but I can assure you that joining the Republican party is quite different from not joining the KKK, and/or not killing or terrorizing one's neighbors.

The ritual murder of blacks eventually became so widely accepted that picture postcards of lynching were sent through the US mail by the thousands.

Your second citation doesn't support what you claim either. It does show 71 lynching pictures and/or postcards (BTW, a single lynching is horrible, and way, way too many). But nothing in your citation supports your claim that lynchings were "widely accepted", or that "picture postcards of lynching were sent through the US mail by the thousands".

In sum, you apparently are trying to justify your own prejudice which holds that all southern whites were or are racists.

So enlightened.

Posted by justme | June 10, 2008 12:25 AM

"justme" Thanks for keeping this thread alive.

Name one non-Republican who came out publically, and unreservedly against violent against black folks during Reconstruction.

Just one.

"The thousands of recorded lynchings throughout the United States generated such profits as penny postcards gave to small-town photographers. Only in the mid-twenties did the Postmaster General ban such postcards from the mails."

http://bad.eserver.org/reviews/2000/2000-4-7-7.53PM.html

Posted by Mike Furlan | June 10, 2008 12:57 AM

-> Mike Furlan,

Look, at some point in your life I hope for your own sake that you'll come to understand that treating any group of people as all the same is a problem, and that you can't properly ascribe the crimes or sins of some people in a group, to all people in the group.

It's not something I can get you to understand by arguing with you. You're going to have to come to that understanding, if at all, by yourself, at some quiet and safe time in your own head.

If you do come to see people as individuals, you will benefit, as will others around you. Your world will become larger.

Regards.

Posted by justme | June 10, 2008 2:07 AM

Re: I said Christianity, based on the Bible as written. Not your vague "religion."

Christianity was not "based on the way the Bible is written". Biblical literalism is a modern delusion. Anyway, educate yourself. Your post is as historically absurd as those who try to claim the Civil war was about slavery. Among other things you may wish to lean that Southern slavery was not "Biblical" and in fact Southern churches, while generally being pro-slavery in the abstract, railed against the way slavery was practiced in the old South because it was not in line with the Bible.

Re: Jim Crow and descrimination started in the south and moved North

In a very narrow sense you are write: obviously there were no Jim Crow laws until Jim Crow laws came into existence after the war. But if you're trying to claim there was no racism in the North then you are very wrong. Northern racism was pervasive too. During the New York Draft Riots in 1863 for example Blacks were murdered by the mobs and their property destroyed. That was not due to Southern influence.

Posted by JonF | June 10, 2008 6:38 AM

Again, "justme" thanks for participating.

You say "treating any group of people as all the same is a problem."

But the definition of the group in question is their attitude on race:

"It is not the land of cotton alone or of plantations alone; and
it has not always been the land of 'Dixie,' for before its
ecstatic adoption in 1861 that spine-tingling tune was a mere
'walk around' of Christie's minstrels. Yet it is a land with a
unity despite its diversity, with a people having common joys
and common sorrows, and, above all, as to the

white folk a
people with a common resolve indomitably maintained--that it
shall be and remain a white man's country. The
consciousness of a function in these premises, whether
expressed with the frenzy of a demagogue or maintained with
a patrician's quietude, is the cardinal test of a Southerner and
the central theme of Southern history." U. B. Phillips

Those people, even those who lived in the Southern States at the same time were not considered "Southerners" but were "negroes", Scalawags and Carpetbaggers. Southerners were those who supported the violent maintainence of white supremacy.

Just give one example of a Southerner who did not, please.

Posted by Mike Furlan | June 10, 2008 7:00 AM

"Christianity was not "based on the way the Bible is written"."

OK.

So Jesus was an abolitionist, because you said so?

"Southern slavery was not "Biblical" and in fact Southern churches, while generally being pro-slavery in the abstract, railed against the way slavery was practiced in the old South because it was not in line with the Bible."

Again. Where did they say that slavery was wrong?

Sure, they fell short of perfection in their practice of slaveowning, just like they did in other aspects of their lives. But you cannot find any support for condemning slavery in the words of Jesus.

One of the things that Southerners hated about the Yankees was their prediliction to believe in non-traditional "nonsense" like abolitionism, feminism, socialism, communism etc.

On balance, I think the Yankees were right, but they were not right because they were better Christians.

Posted by Mike Furlan | June 10, 2008 7:17 AM

"During the New York Draft Riots in 1863 for example Blacks were murdered by the mobs and their property destroyed."

Yes, and afterward at least some New Yorkers thought that the riot was a bad thing:

"Those blacks who remained in the city found a somewhat chastened elite eager to help New York's black residents recover in the aftermath of the riots. The seven-month-old Union League Club (which had as one of its main tenets black uplift) and the Committee of Merchants for the Relief of Colored People spearheaded relief efforts to blacks, providing forty thousand dollars to almost twenty-five hundred riot victims and finding new jobs and homes for blacks. Just under a year later, Republican elites and New York City blacks publicly celebrated their renewed alliance. In December of 1863, the secretary of war gave the Union League Club permission to raise a black regiment."
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/317749.html

Compare that to the way the "Battle of Liberty Place" was remembered. There is a monument in New Orleans that celebrates the victory of white supremacists in that riot.

Posted by Mike Furlan | June 10, 2008 7:43 AM

"During the New York Draft Riots in 1863 for example Blacks were murdered by the mobs and their property destroyed."

Yes, and afterward at least some New Yorkers thought that the riot was a bad thing:

"Those blacks who remained in the city found a somewhat chastened elite eager to help New York's black residents recover in the aftermath of the riots. The seven-month-old Union League Club (which had as one of its main tenets black uplift) and the Committee of Merchants for the Relief of Colored People spearheaded relief efforts to blacks, providing forty thousand dollars to almost twenty-five hundred riot victims and finding new jobs and homes for blacks. Just under a year later, Republican elites and New York City blacks publicly celebrated their renewed alliance. In December of 1863, the secretary of war gave the Union League Club permission to raise a black regiment."
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/317749.html

Compare that to the way the "Battle of Liberty Place" was remembered. There is a monument in New Orleans that celebrates the victory of white supremacists in that riot.

Posted by Mike Furlan | June 10, 2008 7:43 AM

Sherman's orders never mentioned mules. Given the amount of livestock loose & captured, some redistribution wasn't unlikely.

Posted by El Cid | June 10, 2008 7:52 AM