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Hazzard posted:Edit: I think the CSA flag (The one that isn't actually the flag) looks better than the USA flag.
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Feb 26, 2016 00:32
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Hazzard posted:What is the lost cause of the South? I've had conflicting definitions. Either it's the idea that the South had zero chance of winning the war, no matter what they did, or it's some sort of justification for the breakaway. Basically it boils down to the Confederate Cause being a noble one that made a heroic stand against great odds and was ultimately defeated despite being superior in every way. It portrays the antebellum south as a perfect society of noble, brave, honorable men and women who fought the good fight and were destroyed as a result. Implicit in this is the need for the contemporary southerner to keep their ideals alive, honor the glory and valor of the CSA, and do everything possible to keep a distinct southern identity that rejects the horrible concessions forced upon them by Washington.
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Feb 26, 2016 00:38
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Hazzard posted:What is the lost cause of the South? I've had conflicting definitions. Either it's the idea that the South had zero chance of winning the war, no matter what they did, or it's some sort of justification for the breakaway. I've always assumed they had a shot at winning the war - not by conquering territory, but by making the North tired enough of the struggle that they elected a President who would end the war and let the South go. If not for Sherman's big victory in Atlanta this might have actually happened. But my boy Lincoln wasn't going to stand for their crap.
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Feb 26, 2016 00:39
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Cyrano4747 posted:Basically it boils down to the Confederate Cause being a noble one that made a heroic stand against great odds and was ultimately defeated despite being superior in every way. It portrays the antebellum south as a perfect society of noble, brave, honorable men and women who fought the good fight and were destroyed as a result. Implicit in this is the need for the contemporary southerner to keep their ideals alive, honor the glory and valor of the CSA, and do everything possible to keep a distinct southern identity that rejects the horrible concessions forced upon them by Washington. On the upside, ACW chat doesn't have the armored vehicle component commonly found with the other "noble society brought low by dirty masses" argument.
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Feb 26, 2016 00:43
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HEY GAL posted:almost everything does The majority of US states' flags disagree. And at least it isn't yet another tricolor.
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Feb 26, 2016 00:46
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Cyrano4747 posted:Basically it boils down to the Confederate Cause being a noble one that made a heroic stand against great odds and was ultimately defeated despite being superior in every way. It portrays the antebellum south as a perfect society of noble, brave, honorable men and women who fought the good fight and were destroyed as a result. Implicit in this is the need for the contemporary southerner to keep their ideals alive, honor the glory and valor of the CSA, and do everything possible to keep a distinct southern identity that rejects the horrible concessions forced upon them by Washington. Basically southerners view themselves as elves
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Feb 26, 2016 00:48
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Hazzard posted:What is the lost cause of the South? I've had conflicting definitions. Either it's the idea that the South had zero chance of winning the war, no matter what they did, or it's some sort of justification for the breakaway. This is a...loaded question, especially in this thread. The traditional "Lost Cause" narrative was four basic things: 1. The South only lost because the Union overwhelmed them with hordes of Lincoln's conscripts; southern soldiers and officers were wholly superior and only attrition defeated them. 2. Certain officers (Lee in particular, also Jackson, Hood, Beauregard, Forrest, Johnston, and so on) were brilliant and upheld southern ideals of gentlemanly conduct and had victory snatched from their grasp by thuggish Union officers (Sherman and Sheridan in particular), and also due to incompetency and/or disloyalty in the southern ranks (Longstreet, Ewell, Johnston, etc). 3. The war was about federal overreach and preserving a way of life and slavery was either incidental or unimportant, and anyway, blacks were better off as slaves. 4. Reconstruction and radical republicanism were blights on the earth and destroyed the prosperity and identity of the south. A lot of this got started by Jubal Early, and a lot of THAT was due to his really, really, REALLY disliking Longstreet, who he kind made the centerpiece of this narrative (never mind that Longstreet was the most competent officer on either side). Longstreet's conversion to Republicanism after the war didn't help things...much the same with Bedford Forrest, who after having been made one of the Lost Cause icons, was roundly cast out and ostracized once his views on race evolved later in life. Eventually it turned into mass media events, "Birth of a Nation" and "Gone With the Wind" being the most prominent examples. Eventually modern historians put this stuff to bed and now we have a much more accurate scholastic view of things, but you still see Lost Cause stuff popping up from time to time. Naturally the internet has swung the pendulum back the other direction, and so now in many places any perspective that doesn't completely eviscerate the CSA gets accused of Lost Causism regardless of its historical validity.
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Feb 26, 2016 00:49
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pthighs posted:I've always assumed they had a shot at winning the war - not by conquering territory, but by making the North tired enough of the struggle that they elected a President who would end the war and let the South go. If not for Sherman's big victory in Atlanta this might have actually happened. But my boy Lincoln wasn't going to stand for their crap. I've understood that the North wasn't even close at going all in at any point of the war and that war exhaustion wasn't such a big deal for them. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:09
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Why do you have Longstreet as being definitely the most competent? I don't know enough to have an opinion, but I'd be interested to hear more.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:16
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Hogge Wild posted:I've understood that the North wasn't even close at going all in at any point of the war and that war exhaustion wasn't such a big deal for them. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. There's a difference between "going all in" and "war exhaustion". We certainly could have escalated Korea or Vietnam further, but the public wouldn't stand for it (rightly so). There's some argument as to how annoyed the public in the north was getting wrt to conscription and the "income tax thing" by 1864, but there were plenty more potential mans available to be drafted.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:18
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bewbies posted:A lot of this got started by Jubal Early, and a lot of THAT was due to his really, really, REALLY disliking Longstreet, who he kind made the centerpiece of this narrative (never mind that Longstreet was the most competent officer on either side). Longstreet's conversion to Republicanism after the war didn't help things...much the same with Bedford Forrest, who after having been made one of the Lost Cause icons, was roundly cast out and ostracized once his views on race evolved later in life.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:19
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Hogge Wild posted:I've understood that the North wasn't even close at going all in at any point of the war and that war exhaustion wasn't such a big deal for them. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. The North wasn't ever fully mobilized in the sense that, say, WWII Germany or Russia were, but that was due more to the politics of the situation than a lack of need. The war was very unpopular in a lot places in the north, and the Democrats essentially took a fairly strong anti-war position that was born decades prior during the free state/slave state debates. This meant that Lincoln had very serious political opposition to overcome the entirety of the war, which is a fact that isn't really widely discussed in modern histories for whatever reason. But anyway, to avoid going into a really long meandering post about this, the war looked very, very "loseable" for the Union during the spring of 1864, in the sense that the political willpower to finish the war was very nearly exhausted. The huge casualties of the Overland Campaign coupled with a handful of other blunders (particularly Red River) were seriously taxing the political will of the North, and the Democrats ran essentially on a peace platform. It was a very close-run thing right up until the election: Atlanta, Mobile Bay, and some incompetency by the Democrats settled the issue in favor of Lincoln, but things looked somewhere between bad and irredeemable throughout the summer and early fall. xthetenth posted:Why do you have Longstreet as being definitely the most competent? I don't know enough to have an opinion, but I'd be interested to hear more. I'm happy to go into more detail on this later but my local pub awaits, will post on it tomorrow..... HEY GAL posted:was Early the guy who had troubles in West Point after he hit another cadet in the head with a plate? It was he. He may have had some anger issues....
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Feb 26, 2016 01:20
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago quote:(Long-time readers will remember that German combat engineers are combat engineers; our long-departed correspondent the German Sapper spent a lot of his time throwing grenades at the enemy.) Did the Sapper die, or has he just not written anything relevant since we last heard from him?
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Feb 26, 2016 01:26
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bewbies posted:It was he. He may have had some anger issues.... edit: who was the other cadet?
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Feb 26, 2016 01:27
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pthighs posted:I've always assumed they had a shot at winning the war - not by conquering territory, but by making the North tired enough of the struggle that they elected a President who would end the war and let the South go. If not for Sherman's big victory in Atlanta this might have actually happened. But my boy Lincoln wasn't going to stand for their crap. Then it becomes a question of "Can the Confederacy sustain itself?" Breaking away from the Union lost them a ton of industrial capability, as the South was predominately agriculture running on a slave economy; the whole reason for the war in the first place was that the South was afraid that they'd lose their entire business model if they lost the slaves needed to run it. For all the screeching about "STATES' RIGHTS!!!!" the only right they cared about was the right to own slaves and keep the cotton flowing. What this means is that if the CSA somehow fought hard enough to get the USA to just give up and let the states secede (which is highly doubtful, as allowing the secession would have opened the floodgates for any state that wanted to secede and Washington knew that very well), they would have been a predominately agricultural nation that was recently having to make deals with European countries to try and get more guns because they didn't have enough factories to pump out clones of the Springfield rifled muskets and converting flintlocks only goes so far. I'm picturing one of those "The South wins the war" alternate history novels where the United States still exists, and it's established that after a few decades of independence the CSA couldn't stick it out and asked to please be let back into the Union.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:31
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HEY GAL posted:ruining a Good Dude's reputation seems in character My mistake it was actually Armistead who hit Early in the head with a plate. still I think it speaks to early's character
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Feb 26, 2016 01:36
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bewbies posted:My mistake it was actually Armistead who hit Early in the head with a plate. still I think it speaks to early's character
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Feb 26, 2016 01:36
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quote:This meant that Lincoln had very serious political opposition to overcome the entirety of the war, which is a fact that isn't really widely discussed in modern histories for whatever reason. Probably because the modern history (outside of revisionist states like Texas) has to paint the Civil War as close to "Abolitionists fight to free the slaves" as possible, at least until the students get older and you're willing to trust them with the facts like "Nobody really gave a poo poo about freeing the slaves when the war started anyway". Keeping the political opposition to the war out of the history lesson helps keep it unambiguous.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:38
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chitoryu12 posted:I'm picturing one of those "The South wins the war" alternate history novels where the United States still exists, and it's established that after a few decades of independence the CSA couldn't stick it out and asked to please be let back into the Union. Assuming some kind of 'South wins' endgame leading to an industry-starved agrarian South, how likely would it be for European nations to help them out? What were European attitudes towards the CSA, and would they invest in Southern industry or prefer to keep them as a backwater source of raw materials?
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Feb 26, 2016 01:41
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chitoryu12 posted:I'm picturing one of those "The South wins the war" alternate history novels where the United States still exists, and it's established that after a few decades of independence the CSA couldn't stick it out and asked to please be let back into the Union. Wouldn't they theoretically been able to build up an industrial base given some time? Also, I just got done reading Foote, and even though I am American I didn't know much about the details of the ACW before that. It did really seem like through most of the war the Union often got its rear end handed to it, usually by a smaller force, up until at least Gettysburg. Is that true? If so, why? I know the Confederates were on the defensive but they seemed to like to maneuver and attack more than the Union side regardless, so I don't think you can chalk it up defensive advantage. pthighs fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 01:44
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hogmartin posted:Assuming some kind of 'South wins' endgame leading to an industry-starved agrarian South, how likely would it be for European nations to help them out? What were European attitudes towards the CSA, and would they invest in Southern industry or prefer to keep them as a backwater source of raw materials? Highly doubtful in the long run. The United States made it clear that openly supporting the Confederacy would be tantamount to a declaration of war. In 1861 the British had enough stores of cotton that their textiles industry wasn't really dependent on supporting the Confederates. On the other hand, the British had gotten reliant on shipments of grain from the US, and the Union would cut that off if they supported the CSA. They'd also lose the rest of their import-export deals with the US, their investments in American securities, higher taxes on imports, etc. They didn't really have much desire to piss off the much more powerful United States in the name of a backwater, upstart agricultural nation of slavers.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:45
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pthighs posted:Wouldn't they theoretically been able to build up an industrial base given some time? It depends a bit on how the war in this alternate history went. In real life, while the CSA would have been ranked the 4th richest country in the world as of 1860, the Union engaged in heavy blockading to cut off their imports and exports. The South had a low-level and lovely rail system that they couldn't keep up repairs on with the war at stake. Assuming the CSA forced a draw and earned their independence in 1863 or 1864, it would have been after facing bread riots on the homefront, virtually no working railroad system, a collapsed currency (the Confederate dollar was worth only 6 cents in gold by 1863, having started the war at 90 cents) that resulted in civilians resorting to a barter economy, and little chance of foreign assistance with the threats the Union was making to European nations that made bedroom eyes at Jefferson Davis. This is a quote from General William Tecumseh Sherman in a letter he wrote in December 1860: "The North can make a steam-engine, locomotive or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or a pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical and determined people on earth--right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared. . . . At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, and shut out from the markets of Europe by blockade as you will be, your cause will begin to wane."
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Feb 26, 2016 01:54
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Of course, if the CSA did somehow manage to survive into the late 19th/early 20th century, its economy would have gotten utterly wrecked by the boll weevil. (I doubt the planter class would've had enough collective foresite to diversify their economy beyond cotton before the infestation.)
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Feb 26, 2016 01:57
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Empress Theonora posted:Did the Sapper die, or has he just not written anything relevant since we last heard from him? I definitely didn't lose the book with him in for about three months or anything  The brutal fighting at Vauquois is the last significat thing he wrote about :; the story just stops in its tracks from April until September 1955, when he gets home leave for the first time and then deserts into the Netherlands. (The Friendly Feldwebel quickly left the Eastern Front for a dull stint of headquarters duty, then got stuck in Second Champagne, then got wounded by shellfire on day 3 of Verdun and was declared unfit for front-line service; he's eventually sent with a third-line unit to guard the Danish border in case someone should steal it, where he took the opportinity to desert.)
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Feb 26, 2016 01:57
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Trin Tragula posted:I definitely didn't lose the book with him in for about three months or anything I assume you mean 1915?
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Feb 26, 2016 02:06
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One of the worst things about all the pro-Confederate stuff, in my opinion, is how people in areas of the South that were heavily Unionist, that are descended from Unionist Southerners, crap all over their heritage when they wrap themselves in the Stars and Bars, but don't seem to know any better. Having a basic working knowledge of local history isn't the most difficult thing in the world.
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Feb 26, 2016 02:21
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hogmartin posted:Assuming some kind of 'South wins' endgame leading to an industry-starved agrarian South, how likely would it be for European nations to help them out? What were European attitudes towards the CSA, and would they invest in Southern industry or prefer to keep them as a backwater source of raw materials? The general attitude was "it'd be kinda cool if the US got taken down a peg, but we are certainly not going to antagonize the Union government to achieve that." In the case of a southern victory, why on earth would they invest in Southern industry? Think about it from the Anglo-French point of view: this is a brand new country, with one export to run their entire economy, and also you have access to multiple sources of said good. They don't even have any real capital to invest or compete overseas, because it's all in the form of disgruntled human chattel. Said new country is fairly reliant on your support, given the angry neighbour next door. That poo poo is a colony waiting to happen, if only in economic terms.
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Feb 26, 2016 02:24
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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The ACW only went well for the South if you focus on Virginia. Which, to be fair, is exactly what the press did at the time. Everywhere else things went very badly very early. It's just that the western CSA was so big it took years for even bad generals to lose it. The South certainly could have won the war, though I suspect if that had happened there would have been another over control of the western lands.
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Feb 26, 2016 02:30
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pthighs posted:Wouldn't they theoretically been able to build up an industrial base given some time? Weren't they trying to avoid transitioning to an industrial economy? Wanting to stay as a slave-based agrarian economy?
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Feb 26, 2016 02:52
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BurningStone posted:The South certainly could have won the war, though I suspect if that had happened there would have been another over control of the western lands. The only way the South could have ever won would have been the Union capitulating almost immediately. While there was pressure on Lincoln to give up because the war wasn't that popular, there was also pressure to not give up because allowing the secession to occur would permanently destroy the Union's ability to remain together. If a bunch of states of this upstart country (not even a century old) could just break off when they didn't like what the federal government was doing, there was now precedent in case everyone else wanted to leave to do their own thing. With how quickly the South's economy collapsed as the war progressed (civilians being forced to barter after only a few years because of the currency making an epic plunge in value and bread riots from food shortages), any victory would have been a Pyrrhic one. They'd have emerged as an independent state already on the brink of collapse, with no foreign nation willing to help them because it would mean pissing off their even more powerful neighbors (who may have very well decided "Hmmm, those colonies in Canada are looking like mighty fine payment for helping the CSA out, Vicky"). A CSA victory would look less like a Turtledove novel and more like the Balkans.
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Feb 26, 2016 03:05
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pthighs posted:Wouldn't they theoretically been able to build up an industrial base given some time? Cotton was an extremely profitable export commodity and planters could theoretically invested that money in expanding their transport infrastructure and industrial base. For example, entrepreneurs, state governments, and potentially the Confederate government could have secured capital by borrowing against anticipated future cotton harvests with European banks. They tried to do so during the war, with limited success. But let us be serious for a minute. Cotton was insanely profitable throughout the decades leading up to the Civil War, and very little of that money was invested in infrastructure. In more general terms you can also look at the concept of the "resource curse." Cotton wealth did not lead to reinvestment in anything but real estate and slaves, that is, in the means of producing more cotton. Southern planters who needed manufactured goods bought from factories in Europe or in the North. There was really no need for them to develop their own industrial base. A Confederacy that survived and won the Civil War might have had a government that saw the necessity of investment in these things. Then again, it might not. Assuming the government in Richmond wanted to do it, actually doing it is a whole separate problem. Real improvement would involve a long-term, expensive, concerted effort by the CSA's central government to develop its infrastructure and industrial production. Southern politics was very parochial before the Civil War and remained so during it, and government-back development projects in particular always engendered fierce opposition. It seems very unlikely that they could have overcome that. Even just repairing the damage sustained during the war might have been too much for them to handle. No, the most likely outcome is that the CSA would have continued being a cotton-producing dependency of industrialized countries, as it had been before the war. The more interesting question, to me, is whether slavery would have been sustainable after the CSA became independent. I can't imagine the Union would have been very helpful with rounding up runaway slaves after the fighting ended.
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Feb 26, 2016 04:41
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The post above me is good. It's also worth remembering that there were only two serious rail & industrial hubs in the seceding states: Richmond and Atlanta. With no real means of producing more rolling stock, there wasn't much to keep the CSA able to defend itself.
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Feb 26, 2016 04:48
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I'd have to wonder if some form of Dolchstoßlegende would lead to a second Union vs Confederacy showdown 10 or 20 years later.
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Feb 26, 2016 04:48
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EvanSchenck posted:But let us be serious for a minute. Cotton was insanely profitable throughout the decades leading up to the Civil War, and very little of that money was invested in infrastructure. In more general terms you can also look at the concept of the "resource curse." Cotton wealth did not lead to reinvestment in anything but real estate and slaves, that is, in the means of producing more cotton. Southern planters who needed manufactured goods bought from factories in Europe or in the North. There was really no need for them to develop their own industrial base. A Confederacy that survived and won the Civil War might have had a government that saw the necessity of investment in these things. Then again, it might not. Assuming the government in Richmond wanted to do it, actually doing it is a whole separate problem. Real improvement would involve a long-term, expensive, concerted effort by the CSA's central government to develop its infrastructure and industrial production. Southern politics was very parochial before the Civil War and remained so during it, and government-back development projects in particular always engendered fierce opposition. It seems very unlikely that they could have overcome that. Even just repairing the damage sustained during the war might have been too much for them to handle. And of the two things the secessionists changed in their new constitution, wasn't one of them that federal funds couldn't be use to fund interstate infrastructure projects?
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Feb 26, 2016 05:01
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I would like to think that an independent confederacy would be dealing with well-funded and highly sophisticated operations to arm slaves and spark a massive servile war that would make Haiti look like a dinner party for actuaries.
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Feb 26, 2016 05:02
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FAUXTON posted:On the upside, ACW chat doesn't have the armored vehicle component commonly found with the other "noble society brought low by dirty masses" argument. Southern armoured trains were so much better and more advanced than Northern armoured trains, all modern armoured train designs are still based on them 
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Feb 26, 2016 05:07
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EvanSchenck posted:Assuming the government in Richmond wanted to do it, actually doing it is a whole separate problem. Real improvement would involve a long-term, expensive, concerted effort by the CSA's central government to develop its infrastructure and industrial production. Southern politics was very parochial before the Civil War and remained so during it, and government-back development projects in particular always engendered fierce opposition. It seems very unlikely that they could have overcome that. Even just repairing the damage sustained during the war might have been too much for them to handle. Plus, again, they had to deal with an incredibly tanked currency and food shortages on top of repairing whatever damage was sustained in the war. PittTheElder posted:And of the two things the secessionists changed in their new constitution, wasn't one of them that federal funds couldn't be use to fund interstate infrastructure projects? Here's the relevant changes: quote:Article I Section 8(1) So the Confederate Congress could not impose import taxes to try and protect their own industry or appropriate money for the purpose of facilitating interstate commerce. I guess that kind of infrastructure improvement was left up to the states. And the states themselves couldn't tax non-seagoing vessels to help maintain their rivers and harbors without consent from Congress.
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Feb 26, 2016 05:24
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PittTheElder posted:And of the two things the secessionists changed in their new constitution, wasn't one of them that federal funds couldn't be use to fund interstate infrastructure projects? Apparently yes, Article 1 Section 8(1) and (3) quote:Sec. 8. The Congress shall have power-
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Feb 26, 2016 05:24
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wdarkk posted:I'd have to wonder if some form of Dolchstoßlegende would lead to a second Union vs Confederacy showdown 10 or 20 years later. There's not really any need for a legend, there would have been plenty of issues left outstanding. Say we're imagining that Lincoln had a worse 1864 and lost the election to McClellan. I believe Lincoln had privately stated that, if he lost, he would continue prosecuting the war to the fullest extent possible until the day his successor was inaugurated. But even if he just lets it ride for the lame duck period and hangs on to what they already hold, the Union occupied a lot of the Confederacy. What will the mutual borders be after peace negotiations? In Louisiana and Arkansas everything of importance has been occupied by the Union. Tennessee and West Virginia are fully under Federal control and have large unionist populations. Missouri is in the Union and has a unionist state government, but it also has a secessionist state government-in-exile that sided with the Confederacy. Kentucky is in a similar position. Huge numbers of slaves have already been freed, and aside from that there has been much damage to Southern property and infrastructure. Who is going to pay for that? Is the US government supposed to compensate slave-owners for freeing their slaves? Confederate politicians also had extravagant long-term expectations of expansion into Latin America: buying or seizing Cuba from Spain, to reach the Pacific Ocean via northern Mexico, filibustering in Central America, etc. Would this have led to renewed war with the United States?
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Feb 26, 2016 05:35
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One thing your responses have highlighted is that, perhaps the "states rights"-loving CSA would have lacked the national foresight and political willpower to make the necessary investment in interstate infrastructure, transportation and manufacturing to achieve a thriving industrial economy.
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Feb 26, 2016 06:04
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