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It's also worth noting that after the close of the Civil War it was largely anticipated that northern investment would flow south and reconstruct the south through northern-style development. Instead, northern capital, entrepreneurs, and populations flowed disproportionately westward into the Old Northwest and further on to the West Coast. Within 20-30 years of Appomattox you had King Wheat replacing King Cotton, mostly drawn from farms in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and the upper midwest. The south did not receive the anticipated development for a variety of reasons, and proceeded to languish. I bash on the South alot, but it is worth acknowledging that the actual votes to secede by southern states were very close. I don't have them in front of me (from Potter's Impending Crisis), but it is clear that a large portion of the voting populace was forced over the precipice by an admittedly larger group of radicals and Slave Power elites. This sort of thing seems alive today, as I certainly don't think that all southern whites are bad people, but their leaders are poo poo-eating monster douchebags.
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Nov 3, 2013 00:40
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Rand alPaul posted:That is interesting, I've always learned that the Northern and Southern economies were actually largely independent of each other. If you were to look at a map of the US, the economies of both grew westward, parallel to each other, but were not interrelated at all. The best example of this was the antagonism over tariff policy. The North desired a strong protective tariff to protect industries and manufacturers in their infancy against better and cheaper produced goods from England and France. The Northern and Southern economies were integrated but not in the way that you would expect given they were nominally the same country. The relationship was more like that between metropole and colony, such as Britain and India. The colony supplies the metropole with raw materials, while acting as a captive market for the metropoles manufactured goods. In the case of the antebellum USA, the North was the metropole, the planters were the colonial administrators, and the slaves (and to some extent the poor whites) were the oppressed colonial subjects. The parallels aren't exact but you can see the similarity. quote:The South despised this, as they had no industry to benefit from a tariff, yet they imported most of their industrial goods and luxuries not from New York or Boston but from London and Paris. Thus, the South was being "taxed" to promote northern industry. South Carolina's nullification of the Tariff of 1828 best exemplifies this antagonism between the North and South's economy and was a strong reason for the advocating of States Rights. This was the case at the time of the Nullification Crisis, but that was resolved in favor of the tariffs and they worked as designed. The tariff income was plowed into infrastructure projects in the North like canalization, Northern industry was made artificially more competitive against Europe and swelled in size, and by 1860 commerce between North and South was much more active. Again, for a long time history instruction was designed to avoid emphasis on slavery as the cause of the American Civil War, and drawing a thick arrow from Nullification to Secession played into that. There was definitely a connection but it wasn't causation. Schenck v. U.S. fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Nov 3, 2013 |
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Nov 3, 2013 00:47
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:I bash on the South alot, but it is worth acknowledging that the actual votes to secede by southern states were very close. I don't have them in front of me (from Potter's Impending Crisis), but it is clear that a large portion of the voting populace was forced over the precipice by an admittedly larger group of radicals and Slave Power elites. This sort of thing seems alive today, as I certainly don't think that all southern whites are bad people, but their leaders are poo poo-eating monster douchebags. I think this has a lot to do with the value of the "Lost Cause" in American culture. There was a concerted, long-term propaganda effort by Southern partisans like the United Daughters of the Confederacy to reshape the popular memory of the Civil War, and part of that would have been forgetting the widespread opposition to secession within the South. They want to make the case that the Civil War was fought to protect Southern culture and States' Rights from Northern aggression, and that argument falls apart if you admit that many Southerners stood firm against secession--and in fact many places attempted to counter-secede, with some successes such as West Virginia. If you look at an American history textbook you'll probably see a lot about dissent in the North, like Copperheads and pro-Confederate movements in the Border States, but not nearly as much about Southern Unionists.
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Nov 3, 2013 01:01
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EvanSchenck posted:The Northern and Southern economies were integrated but not in the way that you would expect given they were nominally the same country. The relationship was more like that between metropole and colony, such as Britain and India. The colony supplies the metropole with raw materials, while acting as a captive market for the metropoles manufactured goods. In the case of the antebellum USA, the North was the metropole, the planters were the colonial administrators, and the slaves (and to some extent the poor whites) were the oppressed colonial subjects. The parallels aren't exact but you can see the similarity. This is a consequence, of course, of the colonial ancestry of the USA as a whole. The 13 Colonies were set up in this way, with the North attracting a broad segment of British society to live more or less as they did in England. The South, on the other hand, was seen from the beginning as ripe for agricultural exploitation, and slavery was vital to that exploitation at the time.
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Nov 3, 2013 01:08
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Another amusing note is the whole states rights obsession meant the short lived southern nation had more in common with articles of confederation period and during the war there was lots of inter-state bickering over allocation of military resources.
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Nov 3, 2013 03:04
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Rand alPaul posted:That is interesting, I've always learned that the Northern and Southern economies were actually largely independent of each other. If you were to look at a map of the US, the economies of both grew westward, parallel to each other, but were not interrelated at all. The best example of this was the antagonism over tariff policy. The North desired a strong protective tariff to protect industries and manufacturers in their infancy against better and cheaper produced goods from England and France. The South despised this, as they had no industry to benefit from a tariff, yet they imported most of their industrial goods and luxuries not from New York or Boston but from London and Paris. Thus, the South was being "taxed" to promote northern industry. South Carolina's nullification of the Tariff of 1828 best exemplifies this antagonism between the North and South's economy and was a strong reason for the advocating of States Rights. The thing about History is that if somebody tells you that two things grew independently of eachother past, say, 1700, then that's pretty much a lie. We are all connected in the strangest ways, and those connections reach far into the past. e: probably a whole lot earlier than 1700 but I'm not ready to argue pedantics.
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Nov 3, 2013 07:55
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etalian posted:Another amusing note is the whole states rights obsession meant the short lived southern nation had more in common with articles of confederation period and during the war there was lots of inter-state bickering over allocation of military resources. Not to mention to actually pay for it either since the central government as it was had no taxation authority on its own (beyond tariffs), and ended up just printing money. The government or less survived in the beginning on donations. Ron Paul's America would look like the confederacy...but everyone already knows that. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 10:08 on Nov 3, 2013 |
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Nov 3, 2013 10:03
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This has surely been posted a few times in D&D, but: all the changes made to the US Constitution to make the Confederate Constitution, with commentary. Interesting stuff, though it's frankly a little shocking that any historian could see the primary sources and conclude that no, this wasn't about the slave mode of production.
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Nov 3, 2013 13:30
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Ardennes posted:Not to mention to actually pay for it either since the central government as it was had no taxation authority on its own (beyond tariffs), and ended up just printing money. The government or less survived in the beginning on donations. Ron Paul's America would look like the confederacy...but everyone already knows that. Hence the impressive amounts of inflation in Confederate dollars especially during the end phase of the war. By comparison the US dollar stayed fairly stable despite being in inflationary wartime economic environment.
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Nov 3, 2013 16:39
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:This has surely been posted a few times in D&D, but: all the changes made to the US Constitution to make the Confederate Constitution, with commentary. Interesting stuff, though it's frankly a little shocking that any historian could see the primary sources and conclude that no, this wasn't about the slave mode of production. It would also be interesting to see how that country was going to function outside of war time, states had the "the power to enter into treaties with other states to regulate waterways, the power to tax foreign and domestic ships that use their waterways, the power to impeach federally-appointed state officials, and the power to distribute "bills of credit." I could see this becoming very interesting especially if states started to bicker with each other, issuing interstate tariffs and their own currencies not to mention chick out federal officials (mostly the judiciary I think). I have to disagree with the author of the page though, the states had a massive if not unworkable amount of power, and its constitution doubled down on a economic system that was already dying. For example, the South could only have tariffs for the purpose for revenue not protection of its internal industries, it is most likely the South would have industrialized even slower because of it and the government was banned from spending on infrastructure beyond waterways. It is a very very backward looking document that was going to led to the country falling apart in 10-15 years.
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Nov 3, 2013 16:42
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It seems like it would've ended up with a situation similar to the Zollverein. I'm not sure who would've become the Prussia in that scenario. That said it is highly unlikely that kind of unification could've happened without the Union recapturing their territory.
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Nov 3, 2013 17:11
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Ardennes posted:I have to disagree with the author of the page though, the states had a massive if not unworkable amount of power, and its constitution doubled down on a economic system that was already dying. For example, the South could only have tariffs for the purpose for revenue not protection of its internal industries, it is most likely the South would have industrialized even slower because of it and the government was banned from spending on infrastructure beyond waterways. It is a very very backward looking document that was going to led to the country falling apart in 10-15 years. It's likely that the Confederacy would have become a failed state. They're a pretty clear example of a single-commodity export economy. Overwhelming reliance on one agricultural export, minimal domestic industry, limited infrastructure, massive income inequality, a huge disenfranchised underclass, worthless currency and a weak cash-based economy (by 1863 the CSA government was reduced to collecting taxes in kind), a practically non-existent banking sector, I could go on. They were just extremely poorly situated to thrive in the later part of the 19th century. Tensions with the Union would be impossible to alleviate, in part because you would expect slave escapes across the border to become uncontrollable. Long term my guess would be that the Confederate government would be unable to fund itself and would have to borrow at usurious terms from British lenders, winding up a debtor state in hock to the City of London.
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Nov 3, 2013 17:57
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Assuming the confederacy had survived and been an independent nation, how would it have differed economically from some South American countries like Brazil in the same time period.
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Nov 3, 2013 18:27
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EvanSchenck posted:Long term my guess would be that the Confederate government would be unable to fund itself and would have to borrow at usurious terms from British lenders, winding up a debtor state in hock to the City of London. Another interesting side story is the CSA did try to raise bonds with foreign investors but the whole slavery issue made it really hard given how european nations had banned slavery. They did have some luck selling cotton backed bonds to investors and the investors also had the foolish hope that even if the CSA went under the US treasury would still honor the CSA bonds. So pretty much while the CSA was starved for revenue and taxes due to the design the constitution, the US government was able to adapt much better to the wartime financial environment.
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Nov 3, 2013 19:07
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Branis posted:Assuming the confederacy had survived and been an independent nation, how would it have differed economically from some South American countries like Brazil in the same time period. Possible worse off, because many of those countries experienced several waves of immigration from Europe that radically reshaped their societies to a great extent, especially Uruguay, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. In addition, the US would certainly be out to ruin the CSA from day one and basically the CSA had no way to fund a standing army and eventually their credit would have run dry. Ultimately, the French and British would have probably lost interest as well because slavery and the confederacy was so deeply unpopular. I guess the guess is how it would eventually die, either losing badly in a second war with the US or eventually just being reabsorbed by the USA in order to pay off its mountain of debts.
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Nov 3, 2013 20:00
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If the CSA amd USA did not immediately go to war, it is likely that the CSA would have begun a war of expansion in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. I'm not sure how sucessful they would have been, or what the economic effects would have been, but it is pretty clear that the south wanted to expand southward. The failed annexation of Cuba, filibusters to South America, and a few other examples show their intentions pretty clearly.
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Nov 3, 2013 20:38
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I'm curious about how well Andrew Carnegie stands up to history because as a person from the Pittsburgh region he is kind of mythologized and presented as this ideal rich man who did no wrong/it was the other rich people's fault. Was he just as bad as all the other robber barons of the time? I'm kind of interested how Pittsburgh stacks up in importance in American history because I've seen it downplayed at times and hilariously hyperbolically "We won WWII because we made lots and lots of steel" played by people here. I do find it funny that both the Republican party and the labor movement have early history here.
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Nov 3, 2013 20:47
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:If the CSA amd USA did not immediately go to war, it is likely that the CSA would have begun a war of expansion in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. I'm not sure how sucessful they would have been, or what the economic effects would have been, but it is pretty clear that the south wanted to expand southward. The failed annexation of Cuba, filibusters to South America, and a few other examples show their intentions pretty clearly. The French only withdrew their support for Maximilian I after the Union won the Civil War and asked them to leave, so any Confederate designs on Mexico would have been blocked by French interests there. I think Harry Turtledove's deeply silly "Southern Victory" alternate history series has the Confederacy purchasing Chihuahua and Sonora from the French-backed Mexican government, but I'm not sure how he imagined they would pay for it. Wanting to annex Cuba runs into a bit of a brick wall, namely the Spanish Navy, which wasn't exactly fearsome but could have dispensed with any Confederate Navy out of hand. Again, Turtledove had the Confederacy purchasing Cuba from Spain peacefully, which is dumb as hell. In real life, Spain fought multiple wars to maintain control of Cuba, why would they sell it? And again, with what money does the Confederacy make the purchase? They don't have any! Central America is more doable, but like any of these projects it would fizzle on diplomatic grounds. The Union would be disposed to act against Confederate expansion, and even if not there would also be Britain and France. What possible reason would Britain have to tolerate the expansion of chattel slavery to Central America by military force? achillesforever6 posted:I'm curious about how well Andrew Carnegie stands up to history because as a person from the Pittsburgh region he is kind of mythologized and presented as this ideal rich man who did no wrong/it was the other rich people's fault. Was he just as bad as all the other robber barons of the time? I'm kind of interested how Pittsburgh stacks up in importance in American history because I've seen it downplayed at times and hilariously hyperbolically "We won WWII because we made lots and lots of steel" played by people here. I do find it funny that both the Republican party and the labor movement have early history here. Carnegie tends to have a positive reputation because he was a rare case of actually rising from extreme poverty to ridiculous wealth, and because he directed his enormous fortune to philanthropic projects. Carnegie also managed to keep his own hands clean while his partners, such as the odious robber baron Henry Clay Frick, managed the dirty end of the business and wound up with sullied reputations (Frick is still known as the worst CEO in American history). The Carnegie hagiography will talk about how he disagreed with Frick's methods, but if he really felt strongly about it Carnegie probably wouldn't have kept partnering with him.
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Nov 3, 2013 21:56
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I think there is a slight possibility Britain could've turned the CSA into a puppet via finance and driven by the importance of cotton to northern (UK) industry. Still slavery would've been a big issue and the Union wouldn't have liked it one bit. On the other hand the US was clearly a rising power and it was only fifty years since the US tried to invade Canada, having the Union penned in north and south would have had its attractions. Plus I like the idea of the only viable Confederacy was one that was at the feet of the British crown.
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Nov 3, 2013 22:12
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Ofaloaf posted:Texas never played a big role in because they were on the far side of the Mississippi and even if Vicksburg didn't fall until 1863, Union gunboats made it tricky to maintain solid, steady connections with the western side of the Trans-Mississippi. I'm glad this was brought up because I have often felt that the importance of splitting the Confederacy, and specifically Vicksburg, has been greatly exaggerated over the years. It's sort of a situation where, on paper it makes a lot of sense, and that for the last 150 years we've been telling ourselves the same thing so that it becomes more true. But in actuality the states beyond the Mississippi were of low use to the Confederacy anyways. Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana contributed little to the war effort under even the best of times. Once the Union gained control of the Mississippi (outside of Vicksburg) these three states were virtually locked out. But, again, there wasn't much to be locked out. Vicksburg has been made out to be the Constantinople of North America, but it's really not. Even before the siege the city was cut off and useless. Very little was flowing through the city from the West by that point. Arguably the city help more importance in terms of morale than anything else, both armies badly wanted the city even though it's strategic significance had been greatly diminished. The war in the west is much more important for chewing up the resources (namely Confederate soldiers) from the states of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. Now, if those states could have been cut off by taking control of the Mississippi it'd be a lot different. As it was though the war was always going to be won in the East, Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas just didn't matter. Btw, what are some good books that discuss Reconstruction? I've seen a few book recommendations in this thread, but I'm not sure any of them were specific to Reconstruction.
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Nov 3, 2013 22:29
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SpitztheGreat posted:
Eric Foner, Eric Foner, Eric Foner. Leading American historian of reconstruction. David Blight at Yale is also good. If you read only one book about the period make it Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution or A Short History of Reconstruction, both by Foner.
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Nov 3, 2013 22:44
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ReV VAdAUL posted:I think there is a slight possibility Britain could've turned the CSA into a puppet via finance and driven by the importance of cotton to northern (UK) industry. Still slavery would've been a big issue and the Union wouldn't have liked it one bit. On the other hand the US was clearly a rising power and it was only fifty years since the US tried to invade Canada, having the Union penned in north and south would have had its attractions. I seem to remember reading an article about this very subject though I've forgotten where and really wish I could remember. The aristocracy in Great Britain was inclined to support the south if they did want to get involved. But they knew that their subjects would have been livid if they'd offered support to slavers. The value of southern cotton to Europe was greatly overestimated by the Confederates, the British had India anyway. Supporting the CSA war effort would have been very costly (financially and politically) for a very small gain.
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Nov 3, 2013 22:44
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oldswitcheroo posted:I seem to remember reading an article about this very subject though I've forgotten where and really wish I could remember. The aristocracy in Great Britain was inclined to support the south if they did want to get involved. But they knew that their subjects would have been livid if they'd offered support to slavers. Didn't Egypt become the replacement source of cotton for much of the world?
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Nov 3, 2013 22:46
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SpitztheGreat posted:Vicksburg has been made out to be the Constantinople of North America, but it's really not. Even before the siege the city was cut off and useless. Very little was flowing through the city from the West by that point. Arguably the city help more importance in terms of morale than anything else, both armies badly wanted the city even though it's strategic significance had been greatly diminished. Capturing Vicksburg was also important because it freed Union troops to proceed against Confederate positions in Tennessee. The Union armies in the Western Theater gradually fought their way across the Confederacy, culminating in Sherman's March to the Sea, which isolated the Deep South from the rest of the Confederacy. Finally they turned northward into the Carolinas even as Grant was finishing Lee off in Northern Virginia. These campaigns were slower to bear fruit than campaigns in the East but in the long term were every bit as fatal as events in the Eastern Theater. e: Farecoal posted:Didn't Egypt become the replacement source of cotton for much of the world? Egypt invested heavily in cotton cultivation in hopes of capturing the South's market share during the Union blockade. After the war ended and American cotton exports resumed, the Egyptians could not match the price, which left their economy in shambles and resulted in bankruptcy and the loss of their last vestiges of independence from Britain. Under British administration cotton eventually became a major export for Egypt, although India eventually became the most significant source of supply for the British textile industry. I believe Egyptian cotton was of a higher quality and tended to be used for luxury textiles. Schenck v. U.S. fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Nov 3, 2013 |
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Nov 3, 2013 22:49
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Farecoal posted:Didn't Egypt become the replacement source of cotton for much of the world? Eventually, yes. But Great Britain didn't get Egypt as a colony until later.
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Nov 3, 2013 22:52
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SpitztheGreat posted:I'm glad this was brought up because I have often felt that the importance of splitting the Confederacy, and specifically Vicksburg, has been greatly exaggerated over the years. It's sort of a situation where, on paper it makes a lot of sense, and that for the last 150 years we've been telling ourselves the same thing so that it becomes more true. But in actuality the states beyond the Mississippi were of low use to the Confederacy anyways. Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana contributed little to the war effort under even the best of times. Once the Union gained control of the Mississippi (outside of Vicksburg) these three states were virtually locked out. But, again, there wasn't much to be locked out. In Texas wasn't there also this whole mess with Sam Houston refusing to swear loyalty to the Confederacy (even being asked to put down any dissent by the federal government and considering it for a while)? Ending in him having to be deposed in order to bring Texas in on the Confederate side. oldswitcheroo posted:Eventually, yes. But Great Britain didn't get Egypt as a colony until later. But Muhammad Ali had turned Egyptian agriculture away from mostly grain production and export and towards cash crops, predominantly cotton, in order to fuel his modernization of the Egyptian state and military to challenge the Ottoman Empire for control of the Middle East by the early 19th century, so this was already becoming a thing quite a while before the British occupied Egypt 1882 (This is an interesting history in itself, it is also interesting to note that Muhammad Ali basically ran Egypt as his own personal colony drawing inspiration from British India among others in how he ruled the country) Randarkman fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Nov 3, 2013 |
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Nov 3, 2013 22:54
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^^^ Yes, that is true. His warning to fellow Southerners about the war always reminds me of Admiral Yamamoto's statement about "waking a sleeping giant." EvanSchenck posted:Capturing Vicksburg was also important because it freed Union troops to proceed against Confederate positions in Tennessee. The Union armies in the Western Theater gradually fought their way across the Confederacy, culminating in Sherman's March to the Sea, which isolated the Deep South from the rest of the Confederacy. Finally they turned northward into the Carolinas even as Grant was finishing Lee off in Northern Virginia. These campaigns were slower to bear fruit than campaigns in the East but in the long term were every bit as fatal as events in the Eastern Theater. I agree 100%, my argument is exclusively that cutting off the Confederacy west of the Mississippi was not all that vital because Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas didn't really have much to contribute. SpitztheGreat fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Nov 3, 2013 |
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Nov 3, 2013 23:00
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Yeah, it is safe to say that the CSA was buttfucked from the start no matter what they could have tried.
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Nov 3, 2013 23:02
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Yeah, it is doubtful if Britain would rather have the CSA at its "feet" or rather if they paid back their loans. The CSA was going to be a one trick pony, and they needed cotton to do pretty much everything for them, even if they were producing all the cotton they could and selling to the UK at a discount, it probably wasn't going to satisfy their mounting debts, lack of industry or diversification or a cultural attachment to an institution that proved to not only be inefficient but inhuman. Their constitution pretty much spelled out that their only interest was to benefit the planter aristocracy, and the country would have to wait for them to do basically anything since states were so powerful. It is also doubtful the CSA could have adequately protected itself for long much less launched an expedition or bought more territory. It's navy was tiny and stretched thin, and it is doubtful it was going to be expanding any time soon. It's army needed to be immediately demobilized to cut down its costs, and there would probably be plenty of flack from veterans who were going to get zilch as far as benefits. Also, yeah Britain and France ultimately didn't want to deal with the poo poo that was going to happen if their governments were openly supporting the south, the Paris commune was in 1870 remember. If anything it would be a giant boon to the left. The Western states didn't have much to contribute but controlling the Mississippi even if it was for just transportation purposes was obviously a boon, especially since the union already controlled New Orleans, and also made sure at least theoretically there wouldn't be an issue with the remaining Western confederate states. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Nov 3, 2013 |
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Nov 3, 2013 23:04
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I would say that taking control of New Orleans was the bolder, and dramatically more strategically important, move for splitting the Confederacy and controlling the Mississippi. And yet, New Orleans is never really discussed and Vicksburg gets all the love.
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Nov 3, 2013 23:13
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SpitztheGreat posted:I would say that taking control of New Orleans was the bolder, and dramatically more strategically important, move for splitting the Confederacy and controlling the Mississippi. And yet, New Orleans is never really discussed and Vicksburg gets all the love. A lot of that is that the Vicksburg/ Central MS campaign was so devastating (to the people there and to the Union Army that kept being told to charge a hill they fundamentally could not take from that angle). It also resulted in the burning of Jackson, MS to the ground (only antebellum buildings in the city are the Governor's Mansion and the old Capitol, the former served as Grant's headquarters and the latter as a hospital.) Also didn't New Orleans fall relatively quickly and easily to the Union? I don't remember hearing that the Union had any particular trouble taking it.
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Nov 3, 2013 23:24
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SpitztheGreat posted:I would say that taking control of New Orleans was the bolder, and dramatically more strategically important, move for splitting the Confederacy and controlling the Mississippi. And yet, New Orleans is never really discussed and Vicksburg gets all the love. Both of them were necessary, ultimately though by April 1862 the war was won by the Union in any real sense. Without New Orleans, the confederacy lost its probably most important port and the lynch pin for a lot of their economic strategy (not to mention it was a major city). There is a lot of hay made about if the South won this or that battle, the union was finished but Britain or France actually joining the war was very minute (they knew the left was just waiting for the opportunity, Engels' was covering the war extensively), it didn't make any sense for them especially since how costly it was going to be in many ways for very few real benefits. In addition, the South wasn't going to invade the north even if they tip toed over the Mason-Dixon line. The quality of the Southern leadership kept them in the war but it is obviously a losing proposition. Edit: New Orleans fell easily, not because it wasn't strategically important but the confederacy hadn't anticipated it and once the Union got it, it was going to very difficult to get it back from them especially since they had an obvious naval advantage and the confederacy was already utilizing the rest of its manpower on other fronts. They hosed up and the loss of New Orleans probably doomed them in the end, granted the other blockades also helped obviously. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Nov 3, 2013 |
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Nov 3, 2013 23:26
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EvanSchenck posted:In real life, Spain fought multiple wars to maintain control of Cuba, why would they sell it?
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Nov 3, 2013 23:29
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oldswitcheroo posted:Also didn't New Orleans fall relatively quickly and easily to the Union? I don't remember hearing that the Union had any particular trouble taking it. It was dramatic because I believe the Union commander sailed up the Mississippi and attacked New Orleans from the North, it was a move that was complete unexpected and I believe also unauthorized. Once New Orleans was taken the Mississippi really lost a great deal of it's importance, but the goal of complete control remained intact.
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Nov 3, 2013 23:50
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EvanSchenck posted:Carnegie tends to have a positive reputation because he was a rare case of actually rising from extreme poverty to ridiculous wealth, and because he directed his enormous fortune to philanthropic projects. Carnegie also managed to keep his own hands clean while his partners, such as the odious robber baron Henry Clay Frick, managed the dirty end of the business and wound up with sullied reputations (Frick is still known as the worst CEO in American history). The Carnegie hagiography will talk about how he disagreed with Frick's methods, but if he really felt strongly about it Carnegie probably wouldn't have kept partnering with him.
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Nov 3, 2013 23:59
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So did we really have to drop the bombs on Hiroshima/Nagasaki to end the war and achieve the same results? For some reason in history class I just kept thinking "Couldn't we have dropped it on a military base or somewhere deserted just to show how destructive it was?"
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Nov 4, 2013 01:12
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Orange_Lazarus posted:So did we really have to drop the bombs on Hiroshima/Nagasaki to end the war and achieve the same results? For some reason in history class I just kept thinking "Couldn't we have dropped it on a military base or somewhere deserted just to show how destructive it was?" That was debated, but the thinking was that 1) dropping it on a military base wouldn't cause the Japanese to surrender (as it turned out, dropping on a populated city didn't cause them to surrender, so this was probably correct thinking), 2) there were actually only two bombs' worth of atomic material ready, so using one to demonstrate was very risky, leaving just one before weeks of wait for the next, and 3) if we announced where we were setting a bomb off, the Japanese would put civilians there for propaganda effect. Also don't underestimate the moral numbing effect of years of war. There were enormous atrocities committed against and by the Allied forces, and there was not a particularly high premium on lives in enemy nations, right or wrong. That too vvvvvv berzerker fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Nov 4, 2013 |
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Nov 4, 2013 01:28
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Orange_Lazarus posted:So did we really have to drop the bombs on Hiroshima/Nagasaki to end the war and achieve the same results? For some reason in history class I just kept thinking "Couldn't we have dropped it on a military base or somewhere deserted just to show how destructive it was?" It was more for Stalin's benefit.
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Nov 4, 2013 01:32
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Hiroshima was a military target though. In addition to being a major port it also housed the headquarters of the Imperial army that was to defend the western half of the home islands. The bomb actually destroyed what ability that army had to function in case of an invasion.
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Nov 4, 2013 01:57
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 17:54 |
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berzerker posted:2) there were actually only two bombs' worth of atomic material ready, so using one to demonstrate was very risky, leaving just one before weeks of wait for the next, That's true for August, but the production line was going strong enough for doing 2 or possibly 3 a month, the 2 over a few days thing was a strategic choice but if they hadn't surrendered it'd have been 2 a month or more.
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Nov 4, 2013 02:12
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