Confederate States of America

...deal breaker, but not for the South. If Meade had pursued Lee's army after they left the field he could have easily forced Lee to capitulate then and there.

I read once that the Confederate government seriously considered early on to either abolish out right or at least announce a phased end to slavery. This was being considered because they knew the Europeans could never openly back the struggle or recognize them while slavery existed. It was that States Rights issue that started the whole mess which kept this from going anywhere.

Anyway, good post.

Lincoln was quite annoyed that Meade didn't pursue Lee. Meade would lose overall command to Grant the next year after Grant bailed out Rosecrans' diaster at Chattanooga.

McClellan could have done the same at Antietam. Lee had one escape route and McClellan had his marching orders and knew exactly what Lee was going to do yet he didn't crush Lee--any one but for McClellan would have crushed Lee that day. Soon after McClellan was replaced by someone even worse--Burnside who waited to cross Rappahannock River by having pontoon bridges built. The Union also wasted time by looting the city. By the time the Union was ready to move toward Richmond, Lee had discovered his mistake and had troops waiting on the heights for him.

The Union was pounded and lead to Lee's quote(perhaps never spoken) to Longstreet "It is well war is so terrible, least we should grow too fond of it." It seems that Fredericksburg was so scaring on the Union troops that after Gettysburg as Lee's army left the field they chanted "Fredericksburg...Fredericksburg...Fredericksburg" after them.

Pat Cleburne on January 4, 1864 sent forward a suggestion that slaves be freed in the exchange for service in the Confederate Army, but it didn't go anywhere and some suggest why Hood and not Cleburne was picked to replace Johnson before Peachtree Creek--owing to Cleburne's position that is a stretch since he'd have had to jump over a number of people to replace Johnson--e.g. William Hardee. At the end of the war, the Confederacy offered to emancipate the slaves in exchange for recognition and aid, but it didn't go anyplace. One of the last acts of the Confederate Congress was to offer to free the slaves in exchange for their service--basically Cleburne's proposal--but it was far too late to do any good.

Meade was commander of the Army of the Potomac, not an overall comander. When Grant was made the overall commander, Meade offered him his command. Grant demurred, leaving Meade as the field commander while Grant retained overall command. A technical point only. Also, Burnside's plan was excellent. Only nobody told the teamsters that the pontoon bridges were needed ASAP. They moved very slowly and, as a result, the troops waited in the rain for days while the Secesh were able to occupy Mayre's Heights and fortify the place and bring in reinforcements. Had this delay not occurred, Lee would likely have suffered an early defeat. McClellan was a good man, a good strategist and he truly cared about his men. He cared too much to commit them to battle in any decisive way. Grant never suffered from that problem.

film.

The film which I thought was very well done is more a history of the U.S.
than the CSA - you should know this IF you watched until the end!
Most of the racism shown that is done because the CSA won was actually
done sometime in the U.S. after the Civil War. And guess what the CSA
lost! - Get it?

Check these sites out to help y'all:
http://www.csathemovie.com/index2.html

"Willmott explains. "My goal was not to speculate about what could have happened, but to show what did happen." Thus CSA is filled with racist artifacts that seem too outrageous to be true, but aren't: fabricated TV ads for brands like Coon Chicken Inn and Sambo Axle Grease, based on products that persisted into the 20th century."
http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-02-07/film/the-second-civi l-war/

This is a movie that asks for giving a suspension of disbelief, and for the
viewer that does, there are many rewards.

I did in fact watch the movie until the end. It is a piece of crap and the sad thing is that idiotic public school teachers (and there are legions of these) show this film to their equally idiotic students and stress this what would have happened if the Confederacy had won-total BS.

The CSA would have invaded the North when the founders of the Confederacy was terror striken than the free states would join the Confederacy at some point and thus why the lower South enshrined in the Constitution a veto for the lower South on new states joining the CSA. The lower South would have never allowed a free state to join and they were even leary about the upper South like Virginia, thinking these states goals was to withdraw from the Union, force the Union into concessions on slavery ((like the Crittenden Compromise) and then re-enter rather than supporting permanent independence.

(more)

I did in fact watch the movie until the end. It is a piece of crap and the sad thing is that idiotic public school teachers (and there are legions of these) show this film to their equally idiotic students and stress this what would have happened if the Confederacy had won-total BS.

The CSA would have invaded the North when the founders of the Confederacy was terror striken than the free states would join the Confederacy at some point and thus why the lower South enshrined in the Constitution a veto for the lower South on new states joining the CSA. The lower South would have never allowed a free state to join and they were even leary about the upper South like Virginia, thinking these states goals was to withdraw from the Union, force the Union into concessions on slavery ((like the Crittenden Compromise) and then re-enter rather than supporting permanent independence.

(more)

TH as usual sucks wind and thus the reason for the double post.

Now back to the that idiot Kevin Wilmott. Then the stupidity of the Davis Plan wanting to expand slavery into the North. Slavery was dead where it was in the North and still legal (New Jersey, Delaware) and quickly dying in the upper South like Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee. It was only viable (and just barely) in the lower South built on cotton.

Most states at the time had laws against exporting slaves to other states from its borders and is was against Confederate law (it was part of the Constitution) to import slaves from abroad and even if it wasn't the British Navy made the Trans-Atlantic slave trade a very risky adventure. By the 1830s, the trans-Atlantic slave trade was basically dead--there were some ships that made it but many more were caught.

Of course I've already gone over the lunacy of moving into South America, WWI, becoming allies with Hitler, attacking Japan (that really gets me...and the reason for atacking Japan would be?????), and a space program.

If the CSA had won slavery would have ended soon after. No way would it have existed to this day no matter if the CSA had won or not.

(still more)

The one point that really bugged me was his claim that the South was only one battle victory away from European recognition? Name me the battle? Gettysburg? Vicksburg fell the next day? So No. Shiloh? Kennesaw? Peachtree Creek? Well I suppose if you redefine all reality like the CSA builds a time machine, goes to 2003, steals a nuclear weapon (one that could say be fired from a Civil War-era cannon) and begins to nuke Union Armies, okay--then maybe Europe comes to the CSA side, but as battles were fought in the 1860s...not a chance. Now if the CSA had strung enough battles together--say winning Shiloh and Antietam and then a number after that then perhaps just perhaps Europe comes to the CSA aid despite the slavery issue. Everyone likes to be on the winning team after all, but the sad fact was the South was never able to make victory seem to be in the realm of possibility, thus Europe was never going to back what seemed to be (and was) a lost cause.

There are much better true alternate histories such as those by Harry Turtledove. Although I think the CSA and USA would in the future have developed a much friendler relationship than Turtledove writes. And then the novels by Newt--which focus more on the war and the CSA loses in the end in his books. And then the Shiloh Project by David Poyer where the CSA develops nuclear weapons (and it does go into details on what Confederate society could have been like--in this--President Lee frees the slaves in the mid-1860s).

If he wanted a more reasonable foil that America is a racist society and used the South as the usual whipping boy to drive this point. He could have followed Poyer's example, the South wins the war, gains independence and frees the slaves but creates a South African-type regime in its place. And at least this would conform to at least some sense of reality.

(still more)

ANd why did he picks Gettysburg..let me guess the only battle in the so-called Civil War he has ever heard of? Or he rightfully assumed the only battle the idiot viewers of this film had ever heard of. As I pointed out, even a victory at Gettysburg, the CSA would still have been in grave trouble. And there was no way in hell the Europeans would have come to the aid of the CSA in the months prior to that battle again, does that hellhole in Kansas have a history department or just a bunch of thugs that can play basketball well? In short is KU a farm team for the NBA or a university? If it is an actual university I shiver at what must be taught behind its walls.

I am sure if you are an anti-Southern bigot, you will get many rewards from watching this piece of crap. Frankly it is not even worth the gasoline that it would take to burn it...unless it was used as tinder to burn Wilmott at the stake or perhaps Lawrence itself..we can do a re-enactment of Quantrill's visit back in 1863, in fact the 146th anniversary of it is on Friday. I wonder if Wilmott is aware of that event siunce he seems to be totally clueless on the war or the ideological basis behind the CSA.

Yes. I get it. The US is a racist country blah blah blah. The problem is that idiot public school teachers and the near-brain dead public school students will not. They will present this "And this is how it would have been..."

Because most public school teachers know as much about the so-called US Civil War as they do about say the sacking of Kaifeng which is next to nothing.

The end...for now, unless you want to continue your mindless defense of this trash.

Meade wasn't the overall commander of all Union Armies. I didn't meant to imply that as that would have been Halleck.

In 1863, Meade was basically the overall commander in the East, Rosecrans in Tennessee and Grant in Mississippi and Halleck over everyone. In March of 1864, Halleck was basically demoted to Chief of Staff and put in charge of basically administration while Grant and Sherman were in charge of actually winning the war. In 1863, Meade was in charge of what went on in the east, but in March of 1864, that was now Grant, while Meade was still commander of the AOP, Grant was in charge of it and everything else including the various Sherman armies (the Army of the Cumberland, Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Ohio).

"Also, Burnside's plan was excellent. Only nobody told the teamsters that the pontoon bridges were needed ASAP. They moved very slowly and, as a result, the troops waited in the rain for days while the Secesh were able to occupy Mayre's Heights and fortify the place and bring in reinforcements. Had this delay not occurred, Lee would likely have suffered an early defeat."

Excellent except for the fact who was leading it--that being Burnside. He could as he was advised to to move down stream where the AOP could cross the Rappahannock, but instead he waited for the bridges. If had had forded the river instead of waiting for the bridges, he would have defeated Lee badly and perhaps walked into Richmond, wouldn't Jeff Davis had been suprised and if so probably ending the war. Burnside today would be viewed as the second coming of Washington (and no doubt he would have become the 17th or 18th POTUS) rather than the total boob he is seen as today.

"McClellan was a good man, a good strategist and he truly cared about his men. He cared too much to commit them to battle in any decisive way. Grant never suffered from that problem."

I agree and why his troops called him "the butcher" and not what he did to Lees Army but to his own--see his loses at Cold Harbor?

Grant's tactics were unimaginative and reminds one of Maoist human-wave tactics. However, Grant could suffer these losses--suffer them in spades and Lee could not. While Grant could replace his men and send them into the meat grinder only to be replaced by more stupid immigrants that had flooded the North, Lee couldn't replace his.

And this was the same reason the North and Grant didn't care a lick of the suffering they were causing to their own men at places like Camp Sumter (Andersonville). While they could replace the men they lost to capture, the Confederates couldn't repalce theirs suffering the same fate at places like Camp Douglas.

A war of attrition and in this the South had no hope of winning this type of war. I wil say he was a much better commander than a president, but seeing how awful a president he was that's not saying much. Not that I would have wanted to be on the side of the Union, Grant's Army is probably the last army though I would have wanted to be a solider in. I'm a Pat Cleburne and John S. Mosby fan myself. Like Forrest too, but there is Fort Pillow though.