Who is this "Martin Luther King" and why does he have his day off today?

[kentonio]

Correct.

Sorry, was half asleep when I posted that. It's still hardly true that they 'destroyed everything in their path' though. I think they were pretty restrained all things considered. Can you honestly tell me you wouldn't have annihilated Texas given the opportunity?

[MichaeltheGreat]

No, I wouldn't have. Doing so would have just created a bunch of refugee Texicans flooding the rest of the country.

The only thing William T. Sherman ever got right was his views on Texas: "If I owned hell and I owned Texas, I'd sooner live in hell and let out Texas."

[MichaeltheGreat]

I must say you've done a poor job of it in this thread. Most people seem bemused by your outlandish assertions and then just walk away.

Truth and righteousness are hard to digest.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I must say you've done a poor job of it in this thread. Most people seem bemused by your outlandish assertions and then just walk away.

I was about to mount a spirited defense on the overrated nature of Lee and the underrated nature of Grant but then realized I have been bested per the above.

[MichaeltheGreat]

The American Civil War's history is one of the few wars whose history written by the victorious side, is actually more accurate/factual than the losing side's account of the war.

After the failure of Reconstruction, and especially when many whites in the Republican party and in the North reconciled with white Southerners in the spirit of white supremacy and historical amnesia, the losing side - the Confederate veterans and Southern civilians - actually did a remarkable job in creating a strong, revisionist, but ultimately distorted history of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

I'd recommend that you read the book, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in Memory, by David W. Blight.

Do you think that neo-Nazi's historical account of World War II is more accurate/factual than the victorious side's account of World War II? Maybe the Holocaust never happened! Because that was written and claimed by the victorious side! How convenient that the victorious side's account of World War II is accepted as more factual/true than any neo-Nazi's account of World War II.

Nice job of Godwinizing. The "Lost Cause" revisionism is really not much compared to the on-going yankee revisionism about everything from yankee participation and financial investment in slavery, to yankee racism, to the role that pursuit of economic dominance played in "free state" vs. "slave state" relations. No, the yankees were being so nice, and they were attacked by those big bad slave-abusing southerners, and since slavery was such an evil thing that all yankees despised, the ppor yankees had to shed all that blood to free the slaves.

Sounds much nicer than the facts that yankee banks and the shipbuilding industry made nice fat profits off of slaving, or that dominance of cotton supply and use of tariffs as an anti-competitive measure to force southern trade with yankee states in lieu of more competitive trade with Europe was just one component (as was talk of abolition, which was a radical minority view) of economic warfare already being waged by yankee states against the south.

[MichaeltheGreat]

I was about to mount a spirited defense on the overrated nature of Lee and the underrated nature of Grant but then realized I have been bested per the above.

If Lee had Grant's materiel advantages, the yankees would have formed their new capital in New Brunswick.

If Grant had inherited Johnston's command in 1862, he might have held Richmond, but only because of McClellan's lack of balls and adopting similar tactics as Lee.

[regexcellent]

It's worth pointing out that the south didn't just have better generals, it had better officers all the way down. It had more experienced, better trained, and better educated company and field grade officers. The south has always had more military tradition. Even today a ridiculously outsized portion of the US Army officer corps comes from the south.

[MichaeltheGreat]

That's much less so the case than generally thought. Braxton Bragg, Leonidas Polk, Edward O'Neal, Alfred Iverson, etc. The south had plenty of politically connected incompetent hacks from field grade on up. It's also an issue that was dynamic - the south had (in general) its best officers in the field early, and attrition plus the Peter Principle diluted the quality of the officer corps over time. Cases in point for the latter - A.P. Hill was an outstanding division commander, but unmanageable, and he was mediocre at best as a corps commander. R. H. Anderson and Baldy Ewell were good at brigade and divisional commands, respectively, and the combination of attrition of others and seniority saw them both elevated to corps commands that neither of them had any business holding.

With the yankees, a lot of the buffoons and mediocrities were retired, promoted or sent where they could do no harm (e.g. "Old Brains" Halleck, Pope and Sykes), or killed or wounded and the cadre of officers who was promoted up tended to improve the pool. Of course, you still had Banks and Butler, and such luminaries as John "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dis..." Sedgwick.

[kentonio]

The "Lost Cause" revisionism is really not much compared to the on-going yankee revisionism about everything from yankee participation and financial investment in slavery, to yankee racism, to the role that pursuit of economic dominance played in "free state" vs. "slave state" relations. No, the yankees were being so nice, and they were attacked by those big bad slave-abusing southerners, and since slavery was such an evil thing that all yankees despised, the ppor yankees had to shed all that blood to free the slaves.

Sounds much nicer than the facts that yankee banks and the shipbuilding industry made nice fat profits off of slaving, or that dominance of cotton supply and use of tariffs as an anti-competitive measure to force southern trade with yankee states in lieu of more competitive trade with Europe was just one component (as was talk of abolition, which was a radical minority view) of economic warfare already being waged by yankee states against the south.

Of course the real irony here is that the 'Lost Cause' revisionist actually does more to perpetuate the northern revisionism than anything else. By defending the evils of the past south, southerners provide the north with a clear and continuing target. Why would the north feel any need to look back at its own sins, when the south continues to try and defend the indefensible?

If you southron folk had the good sense to hold your hands up and say 'Yeah, the southerners back then were ****ing *******s, good thing the world turns and we're not those people' then the north would be under far more pressure to accept its own role in the evils of slavery.

[giblets]

If Lee had Grant's materiel advantages, the yankees would have formed their new capital in New Brunswick.

If Grant had inherited Johnston's command in 1862, he might have held Richmond, but only because of McClellan's lack of balls and adopting similar tactics as Lee.

LOL yeah in a fictional universe where the South had far more manpower and resources it could have conquered the North just as the North conquered the South in our universe.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

If Lee had Grant's materiel advantages, the yankees would have formed their new capital in New Brunswick.

I already conceded thanks to Oerdin, but that being said, Lee never demonstrated the aptitude for logistics that offensives required, unlike Grant. i.e. He attempted (unsuccessful) summer offenses where in he could scavenge but never had to consider long term winter deployments in enemy territory.

If Grant had inherited Johnston's command in 1862, he might have held Richmond, but only because of McClellan's lack of balls...

Most important part here.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Nope. Not many southerners (and none that I know) defend either (a) the institution of slavery, or (b) the ineptitude of CSA politicians and policy.

Lost Cause revisionism was primarily a regional thing, not national, except when it was convenient to adopt for other purposes (e.g. the northern and western spread of the second wave Kluckers in the 1920s and northern white hostility to blacks in general).

Yankee revisionism is more pervasive in a couple of respects - on the smaller scale, yankee revisionism seeks to counter Lost Cause revisionism regarding reconstruction and carpetbaggers. There was plenty of corruption from the carpetbaggers - a lot of these were the same folks who'd bought "permits to trade with the enemy" issued by Chase's agents. Being a carpetbagger was a money making opportunity for most. Not near all, but most. There was a lot of good done by principled yankee missionaries and such, but that wasn't the political machine norm.

The second, bigger part of yankee revisionism is that whole "aw, shucks, we just done it for freedom and sweetness and light because Amurka's the good guys in the world" - the same sort of thing that minimized native genocide and cultivates that whole "Amurka's the beacon of goodness and light and righteousness in the world" horse**** that's been used to justify every yankee intervention everywhere.

You couldn't raise generations of school children to be unquestioning "Amerca is #1" Pay-tree-ots who blindly supported the government if you explored the effects of good ol' greed and economic dominance in relations between the states.

[giblets]

Is the South lacking in unquestioning "America is #1" pay-tree-ots or do Southern schools engage in yankee revisionism?

[MichaeltheGreat]

I already conceded thanks to Oerdin, but that being said, Lee never demonstrated the aptitude for logistics that offensives required, unlike Grant. i.e. He attempted (unsuccessful) summer offenses where in he could scavenge but never had to consider long term winter deployments in enemy territory.

Good point, but Lee never had the opportunity. Logistics wasn't within his purview, and the south never had anything close to the industrial (e.g. rail and barge building) or transport logistics. Both Lee and Grant worked with what they had - but what they had were two entirely different things.

Given the north's massive superior numbers in manpower, miles of rail, rivers and barge transport, shipping, the blockade, etc., neither Hannibal nor Alexander the Great could have sustained operations in the north over winter, so it's not surprising Lee didn't have the opportunity either. The important thing is Lee knew how to work as effectively as possible with the constraints over which he had no control.

Most important part here.

Not really. Even McClellan would have got the siege artillery in range if the south had adopted defensive tactics at that point. It was only through violent offensive action to give McClellan a reason to give into his natural temerity that McClellan would have been stopped.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Is the South lacking in unquestioning "America is #1" pay-tree-ots or do Southern schools engage in yankee revisionism?

For the most part, they do. Courtesy of reconstruction and the perversion of the southern education system.