...here's something for you Irish-descended romantics who revel in the Lost Cause.
Mind you, I think the correct side won that war - but like all wars, the unintended consequences were unanticipated, too. And are reflected in Congress, even as we sit here.
[Grabs the popcorn, to see where the Usual Suspects take this]
Mind you, I think the correct side won that war - but like all wars, the unintended consequences were unanticipated, too. And are reflected in Congress, even as we sit here.
[Grabs the popcorn, to see where the Usual Suspects take this]
You gotta thank us all Ricans for bringing you together. The schism of 1861didn't heal at Appomattox. It lasted alive and hostile all during Reconstruction and on for another four decades. It took the sinking of The Maine and the resulting war of 1898 to bring the nation back into one united team.
Thank-me ye fools!
Yer welcome :-()
They tend to disregard the Southern Irish and Scots Irish, even though the Ozarks and southward were heavily laden with such influence in that time frame.
Just a personal gripe, I confess, but nonetheless one that seems prevalent, so sincere Kudo's here Armorer
And the only Irish Brigade I've ever heard of is the Union brigade that was built around the 69th New York regiment.
Also was the 10th Tennessee (CSA).
There's a few out there, but they get little notariety, not due to their lack of contributions I think but more due to the culture involved after the war. Lets face it. Most folks when you say irish American think Boston or other like locations. The foothills of kentucky aren't exactly reknowned as being a Irish hot bed.
But don't tell the locals that...
Scots Irish don't count they are neither Scots nor Irish. That's a paper length topic but they are Picts not Scots chosen for their rabid anti-Catholicism to settle the Ulster Plantation.
Surprise John no discussion of Lincoln running roughshod over the Constitution.
If you get a chance read James Webbs "Born Fighting"
Excellent read regarding Scots-Irish in America and how the term is used more generally here versus there. some with the label of Scots-Irish in America are neither Ulster nor Ire, but rather those who just walked away from the troubles in general and whom were tired of English rule and irish tempers.
Good book!
Jim - what part of: ...And are reflected in Congress, even as we sit here.
[Grabs the popcorn, to see where the Usual Suspects take this] was confusing? I knew it was going to get taken care of. In fact, you are one of the one's I had in mind when I wrote that...
1. People of Irish descent make up a higher p;percentage of the population of Kentucky than Mass.
"Ever since, horses and bourbon have become synonymous with Kentucky. When you are out on the rolling plains of western Kentucky, you notice the same mortar-less stone walls we have in Connemara. These are testament to the massive immigration of Irish Catholics in the years after the famine.
They are called ‘slave walls’, but they weren’t built by black slaves. They were built by our ancestors who mixed with black slaves at the bottom of the pile, leading to significant levels of intermarriage."
2. There is also Col Theodore O'Hara and the very famous poem inscribed at Arlington,
The Bivouac of the Dead . O'Hara fought in the Mexican war and for the Confederacy with distinction. He died in 1867 and is buried in the Frankfort Cemetery where his poem is inscribed on a memorial to all of America's War dead. Kentucky, being a bitterly contested border state, gives equal treatment to dead Yankees and Rebels.
3. Anecdotally, our Irish family can boast 2 great-great uncles who fought in the "War of Northern Aggression" with the Kentucky Orphan Brigade. One was killed at Shiloh by Yankee cannon.
I, for one, am impressed!
I confess I may be somewhat blinded by my relationship with my brother-in-law a reenactor out of Buffalo who concentrates heavily on the Irish contribution to the Union.
Unfortunately I can not claim any relations to the Civil War. My family was still in ireland at the time, but the history is nonetheless extremely interesting to me.
John - small world, ain't it. Especially considering the nature of the Orphan Brigade and how it got its nickname. If others out there are interested, I'll elaborate or you can go to the hyper link in my posting above.
I've quoted my grandfather often who told me countless times as a child "We're Irish, boy. We fight wars."
Your thoughts, sir?
If it was fought to a stalemate, the Union would not have been intact.
WWI, the Depression, and WWII - and the subsequent Cold War - especially the perpetual state of "national emergency" endemic (and still applied) to the Cold War have done much to facilitate the centralization of power in the Executive.
It's a continual battle. Those who want to exercise power, whether from good motives or not, always want more power, because if "they get just a little more, than can do so much more..." or such is the bill of goods they sell.
And many members in Congress, in exchange for safer seats and the perks of incumbency (especially in a media-driven world) have let slip their power so as to be able to eschew accountability.
And we, the people, let them get away with it, largely because it's normally such an incremental process.
I have often wondered that has Jackson been allowed to intrument his "black flag" policy if the scenario John has placed here would not have been what unfolded.
As you mentioned frogs with hip pockets. :)
Had the Democratic party not nailed its own feet to the floor with the arguement over candidates and so on.
Another item of wrote is as John points out that we have allowed this erosion to take place. i tend to agree. In this day and time where folks are labeling themselves Coffee, Tea, Independent, RINO, etc I would probably have to count myself a acksonian, after Old Hickory. I am a strong advocate for states rights and am firmly of the belief that the Fed should not overrule States regulations.
That said having been given a decidedly southern education, delivered by carpetbaggers and served with crow, I am well aware of the ideaology that prevails that states rights had nothign to do with said unpleasentries.
I am decidedly not one of those.
Hey, we're talking, right? I expect JimC will come back after work, and Kevin will show up whenever he finally wakes up.
John - In politics, never say never. Yes it was a dissolution of the Union. But, think about all of the leaders of the CSA that had served the USA in their lives. They dissolved the Union because they didn't trust Washington to adhere to the principles of the constitution. Remember the War of 1812 ended in an armistice (meaning the people of that generation were not apposed to the idea of armistice), so it would not have been beyond the realm of possibility for the union to have been re-established (if not immediately, but eventually). Look, I know this is partially a fantasy, but it is a fantasy based on writings I've seen on the attitudes of the many of the CSA leaders, eg, Lee. Anyway, whether it is probable or not, I still believe a lot of the problems since the Civil War relating to the tension between States Rights and the central government would have not even been issues if my fantasy scenario had occurred.
Jim B swills a couple fingers of Jameson.
The US civil war is the most studied war in the entire world because a. it is considered the first modern war (breach loading rifles, iron clad ships, one semi-successful submarine, etc); b. the first war where 90% of the enlisted soldiers on both sides were literate so there are many letters from the front to read especially since c. the chain of command had not thought of censoring letters home yet.
Barring any specific Constitutional articles or provisions to the contrary, it would seem that those States who popularly elected to withdraw from that social contract, and the Union, were well within their rights to do so.
This action would seem to have been supported by the preamble of the Declaration of Independence:
"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. "
If the South had not started the war by attacking Fort Sumter, then perhaps we could have actually considered it as "The War of Northern Aggression". But I think the US government had an obligation to respond, and I think many of us would now agree that preserving an evil institution like slavery was not consistent with our democratic ideals or values of human rights.
However, as my 8th grade History teacher taught me, even if the Confederacy had won, it would probably have ultimately failed because of the problem inherent in it's very name .... confederation. Just as the US government that was formed under the Articles of Confederation failed: it would have been too weak, loosely organized, and poorly funded to succeed.
We would probably have seen some Confederate states drift back into the Union over time - if the North would accept them.
I had relatives on both sides of the Unpleasantness Between the States -- if great-great grandpa Fullerton (at Shiloh) had been an inch taller, I wouldn't be here. Come to think of it, there have been Tuttlekin on *both* sides of every 'Murrican disagreement involving gunpowder between1635 and 1865.
We've always considered ourselves Equal Opportunity Scrappers...
Now, I have to go to bed. It's 2253 in the UAE and I have to get up at 0430. Good night all. Hopefully, we can have a good North-South debate on a Friday night when most don't have to pay the piper. Good night all!
While the South did indeed want to move in to the industrial era, their agriculture base depended on the Norths industrial ability just as much as the North needed the Souths agricultural prowress.
That said part of the Souths financial situation had been brought about by the Norths "300 lb gorilla" mentality with which they approached the south and for lack of a better way to phrase it, their way of life.
In my eyes this means that the rebuilding of the union would more than likely have taken a few years as the south was brought back on more equal terms. The North would see that it was much more cost effective to have friends below the Mason Dixon with whom to keep their factories rolling and their families fed as the South would see it a economic boon for similar reasons
i think slavery would have died its own death as Oldloadr pointed out earlier, but I think this would have been the best solution overall, that nonwithstanding. My reasoning for such is that i think the issue of states rights would have been broadly enforced, and other states would also follow suite, not neccesarily with a removing themselves from the Union, but rather a growing of political backbone so to speak, in later years as it would be solidified as to what the states could and could not do, unlike our current situation where the states are more or less bullied (again my point of view) in to submission
Obviously he was a fellow Aspie, and I honor him for that.
Yes when firing on Fort Sumter they were supposedly firing on South Carolina...but they were also firing on US citizens and the US Army.
To my knowledge, only the original 13 states has a legitimate claim to secession. They were independent before they agreed to the Constitution. All other States came out of Federal property and agreed to abide by the Constitution and were never free. Texas has a case...they were a whole independent country.
Yes, we are sometimes a bit strange in the head.
JTG....yes on Lincoln maneuvering but SC seceded before Lincoln became President. They really wanted a fight. Sun Tsu was not at work here.
Oh and I'm looking at a townhouse in Beaufort to retire to.Since secession is nowhere prohibited by the Constitution it is a right that states retain.
In keeping with the flavor of the writing of the 1860s:
I remain, your obedient servant.
If one thinks about the need for large amounts of manpower for many years after the war, and the system of labor that followed slavery, sharecropping, it would seem to me that without the 14th amendment, slavery would have existed in the United States until at least the early years of the 20th Century.
Sometimes its good to remember how Old Hickory dealt with States Rights folks in SC.
Thanks for the reminder to wear my green on Wednesday.
Deo Vindice!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAfHigPsC_s
Sadly, time and (political circumstance) has proven the Southern stance... absolutely correct.
I'll leave the historical 'what if's' and 'what could have beens' to the authors of alternative history.
The Southern, Confederate States, were absolutely correct in their actions regarding "States rights" and the voluntary membership in the 'union' and the Constitution. Check the arrangements and agreements by the "several, soveriegn States" and the conditions that were made regarding the entry of their States into the Union.
As to the origin of this thread, I'll demur to the theatrics of Gods and Generals, and the Georgia Irish vs. the poor paddies of the "Irish Brigade" who were deluded into supporting the "Union". Their history in Missouri is particuarly telling. In the series of films, called Gods and Generals...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcm8C3xpaRg
"They're our brothers, they've been misslead to their fates".
A sadly prophetic statement of the 'union' in our days and times.
If ever there was a nation or peoples who have been so sadly abused and misused.. it was the Irish. Apologies to the Hungarians and Polish patriots...
As to my sentiments... God bless Robert E. Lee and God Damn William Tecumseh Sherman. A war criminal in all but save prosecution and a justly deserved execution.
"Mind you, I think the correct side won that war"
Oh, and pray detail HOW you believe that the "cowardly Lincolnites" were the 'correct side"? Correct about... what?
I defer again, to the theatrics, artistic license and... historical accuracy of the 'Gods and Generals' series of movies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL5h19Sk8nk&feature=related
Don't argue with me, contradict the words and sentiments of Generals Lee & Jackson, self-avowed "union men" and proven combat veterans while wearing Federal blue....
Also, please explain what the "lost cause" is?
Finally, can we at least agree to be historically and technically accurate? It was NOT a "civil war".
*Grabs his own popcorn and awaits the counterbattery fire.*
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Georgia_Secession_Causes.htm
The reasons they and those from other Southern states gave for secession sound quite similar to those expressed by the Founders in the Declaration of Independence, and reinforce the notion of States rights and the sovereignty of states within the Federal structure.
"It took the sinking of The Maine and the resulting war of 1898 to bring the nation back into one united team."
You obviously have never been to a 'Border War' game played between the politically incorrect Missouri Tigers and the murdering, raping, plundering red-leg scum of Jim Lanes Jayhawker Kansans.....
Heh, it's a regional thing and if Quantrill had done it right, there would be no KU.....
That is, when Quantrill and his men were killing every white man and boy in Lawrence, Kansas, they went to Mr. Wattles' ancestor's farm and said to the wife, "We're going to burn this place and kill any men we find. You may load one wagon with whatever you can and get out of here." She rolled up her husband in a rug, loaded him into the wagon, and drove away. And that's how I got to meet his descendant, Mr. Wattles.
No war is ever clean and neat, and rarely are they black and white, except, perhaps, to their participants in the trenches. And once they start,
And war aims change over time, during a war.
The slavery issue does it for me - and as I said, I am not interested in the discussion of when slavery became an official war issue.
Many of the boys in Blue fighting in the war, even before January 1863, were fighting to end slavery.
The whole discussion is so much easier without the issue of slavery in there - but it was.
I don't judge the Southerners who fought as harshly as many do these days, I accept that they were fish swimming in the cultural/historical waters of their time. I'm not ashamed of Pappy Hays, who fought at Shiloh, and Murfreesboro and Chickamauga.
But slavery is the issue that trumps for me. And no, I don't care if that was not an official opening issue of the war.
It was the elephant in the room, and to deny that is to skew the picture.
Then, put me in with Hemingway, in his intro to "Men at War"
"The editor of this anthology [i.e., Hemingway], who took part and was wounded in the last war to end war, hates war and hates all the politicians whose mismanagement, gullibility, cupidity, selfishness, and ambition brought on this present war and made it inevitable. But once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in a war."
If we're going to apply your metric for Sherman, at a minimum we're going to have to put the entire leadership of the bomber units of the USAAF in the dock, too.
Pffft... your blog, your perogative. Seems a cheap way out of discussing serious historical issues.. but.. okay....
However, as mental fodder for those inclined to so educate themselves...
Lincoln and a multitude of others (including Grant and Sherman) in that time and place have clearly stated.. the "civil war" was NOT about slavery.
The psychopath and yes, admittedly effective, war criminal W.T. Sherman has even stated that if the issue was over slavery... that they would not have served to prosecute the war.
What a bugger eh?
As regards the actions of General Sherman.... pray tell, where ANY regular units of the Confederacy made war upopn women and children as a matter of policy? W.T. Sherman employed the same tactics against the Indians. I understand, the military policy.... doesn't mean I agree with it, even through our modern day rose colored, revisionist glasses.
But there is NO comparision of the actions, advocacy and policy of Sherman and those of the zoomies in WW2. You know better than that. Shame on you. Seriously... dude... wow...
The Germans, Italians and Japanese inititated the 'total war' concept. Tit for tat and one of the reasons "Bomber Harris" is so loathed by the Germans.
This was NOT the case in the war of Northern aggression. As a historian, you know better. And, yes, you DO!
Boo, hiss. Intellectually and historically dishonest.
No corned beef or Guiness for you!
Admittedly, I loathe both.. blugh!
That being said, and the questions I raised having been ignored... ie. The "lost cause" comments amongst others.
Can't we all just get along?
It was NOT a 'civil war' and I refuse to drink government school koolaide in regards to history.
Erin go bragh!
PS. SWWBO.. Green is good, Orange is bad. Now.. about the "tombs"....
If that means you win, fine, I surrender. Unconditionally, simply because to continue the fight is essentially immoral at that point.
But I still say you don't like Sherman, you don't like Lemay.
It doesn't matter the provocation.
We attacked the civilian infrastructure to destroy the enemy's will-to-fight as well as their ability. To deny that is to deny the history of the war.
If you want, from that, to draw the conclusion that Union=Nazi/Japanese from an equivalency perspective, fine.
But don't deny the essential aim of the air war in World War II.
An interesting feature of comparisons between Sherman's jaunt to Savannah and what the ANV did or didn't do in 1863, is that it neglects the many free blacks and runaway slaves that were kidnapped from southern PA and sent South to be sold at the auction block.
"Let South Carolina nullify, seceed, revolute, and be damned!"
unknown North Carolinian at the 1860 Secession Convention.
"Immoral"?! Dude.. seriously....
Lemay= Sherman?
Dinna think so laddie and again.. you as a historian should know better.
No comparison between the total war of Sherman and that of the Axis. The South did not ever engage in this sort of military/political action. The Axis did and also initiated 'total war' as evidenced by their actions on Rotterdam, London, Eastern front et al. Never mind the 'final solution' mindset,or the Eastern front policies. Shermans own words, even moreso, his actions, damn him as a fellow traveler of the 'final solution.'
Taking into consideration the times and circumstances.... Constitution be damned, ideology included.... Lincoln was as wrong as he was 'racist' as were Generals Grant and Sherman. It's born out by their own statements. Quotes can be a bugger.
That being said. Sherman was a brutally effective general who effectively executed the policy of his government. His 'war crimes' were effective in prosecution of his governments policy objectives. Sherman was a 'brilliant' and successful general.
Ask the citizens of Columbia, South Carolina or Atlanta, Georgia... never mind the Sioux....
He 'won'. To the victor goes the the history books. His actions in modern times would also label him as a 'war criminal". Key phrase being; 'modern times'.
Pls... political/ideological disagreements aside... the evidence of history is against you. Sherman was a brutally effective and efficient engine of his governments policies. Making war upon women and children is an effective action of government policy engaged in total war. Destroy the base of support and you hopefully destroy the military effectiveness of the opposition.
However, Lemay, Bomber Harris, etc. were all creatures of their environment and responded to the actions of the opposing forces. And yes, given the information at the time.. I too as CIC woulda nuked Japan..... This is however in no way a valid comparison of Shermans actions.
We didn't start the fire etc.... There was no tit for tat.
No such evidence supports the actions of William Tecumseh Sherman. No Southern General ever allowed, much less ordered his men to commit such depravities.
Luv ya like a brother, but, given that historical period in time, if you were enrolled in the ranks of the Lincolnite bluebellies who invaded my home state and attempted to overthrow by force of arms my legally elected government... I'd shoot you down like a dog if I could.
That's why it was tragically named a war of brothers against brothers.
Ideologically, historically and constitutionally.. you are on the wrong side of history.
Might, evidentally does make right and to the victor goes the history books.
Now... I have a copy of the 'Official Soviet History of the Great Patriotic War". How about them dastardly reactionary Finns and their treacherous attack upon the Glorious Peoples Republic?
See a parallel? I can.
God luv ya, wrong as you are on this issue, IMHO...
Now.. margaritas for all?
Smooches?
First observe the label on the Irish Whiskey on the back bar.
If it is Jameson's; you are likely in a Catholic pub.
If it is Bushmill's; you are likely in a Protestant pub.
As an Irishman you'll be welcome in both; just do mind your tongue.
If you see both; move along me boy'o, t'is no pub worthy of an Irishman's penny!
And as every right-minded man knows, it takes an Irishman to play the pipes.