American Civil War question

[viper37]

The attempted hijack of the Scottish independant thread made me think...

In the movie Gods & Generals, one of the Generals, Jackson, I think, says that the Confederates should have abolished slavery and then declared independance.

Given that slavery (or to right to hold slaves if you prefer) was pretty much central to the conflict, was that a feeling generally shared by many of the Confederates officers, or simply the ramblings of a few disgruntled officers that the war wasn't winning itself fast enough?

Likewise, given that some Southerners had anti-slavery sentiment, yet fought for their State, did any Northern officer ever expressed - during the war or shortly before - some form of support toward slavery while at the same time a desire to preserve the Union?

Hmm, support might be too strong a word.
More like an officer who sees his sole duty as protecting the Union and couldn't care less about the status of black people, slaves or free.

[Berkut]

There was a LOT of northern sentiment that the war was about preserving the Union, and who gives a shit about slaves. I mean, it isn't like racism wasn't rmapant and the norm in the north.

In fact, I would say that the vast majority of men fighting for the Union who were doing so for ideological reasons (as opposed to being drafted) were doing so not to fight slavery, but to preserve the Union.

That being said, I think a lot of the men fighting for the South were doing so not because of slavery (after all, only a small fraction of southerners owned slaves anyway) but because they felt that their loyalty was to the South.

But I think there is an important distinction to be made between the reasons that the men who fought were willing to fight, and what caused the war. They are not the same thing. The war was fought because of slavery - the men who fought it fought primarily (and of course I am over-generalizing) to preserve the Union, or because they felt the need to protect their culture and country (which included the concept of slavery).

[Drakken]

Given that slavery (or to right to hold slaves if you prefer) was pretty much central to the conflict, was that a feeling generally shared by many of the Confederates officers, or simply the ramblings of a few disgruntled officers that the war wasn't winning itself fast enough?

Antebellum, the measure of success and living the American Dream for the average Yankee was owning a factory and making oneself financially independent; for the average Southerner, it was owning one or more slaves and not having to work the fields manually. While most Confederate soldiers couldn't afford even one slave, the criteria of being successful was having the means to afford at least one to do the work while they participate in their local society, as a Southern gentleman.

Whatever their personal sentiments over slavery was, what they didn't tolerate was to be told by some holier-than-thou Yankee that their lifestyle was either evil, morally corrupt, or unacceptable in a civilized nation, and that people in Washington who never set foot in the South could dictate what they should or shouldn't do their own State. The ACW is the result of more than a decade of tit-for-tat, back-and-forth hostile politics between North and South; politics which, as the years passed, made things more and more personal and acrimonious to the point that it became de facto two entirely different societies barely tolerating living under the same flag.

Also keep in mind that some States, like Maryland and Missouri, decided to remain in the Union even though they continued being slave States. Lincoln was shrewd enough to keep in mind that making the war about slavery risked alienating those States away from the Union.

[Razgovory]

The attempted hijack of the Scottish independant thread made me think...

In the movie Gods & Generals, one of the Generals, Jackson, I think, says that the Confederates should have abolished slavery and then declared independance.

Given that slavery (or to right to hold slaves if you prefer) was pretty much central to the conflict, was that a feeling generally shared by many of the Confederates officers, or simply the ramblings of a few disgruntled officers that the war wasn't winning itself fast enough?

Likewise, given that some Southerners had anti-slavery sentiment, yet fought for their State, did any Northern officer ever expressed - during the war or shortly before - some form of support toward slavery while at the same time a desire to preserve the Union?

Hmm, support might be too strong a word.
More like an officer who sees his sole duty as protecting the Union and couldn't care less about the status of black people, slaves or free.

I saw G&G once (which was more then enough), I do remember in the movie Gettysburg Longstreet says something to that effect.  I don't know if he ever actually said it, but after the war he became a Republican and supported rights for former slaves.

There were people in the North who supported the South and were pro-slavery.  Sympathetic politicians were called "doughfaces".  Several Presidents were considered "doughfaces".  Abolition of Slavery and preserving the Union were often complimentary views as many people viewed slavery as a danger to the Union itself.  This view point grew stronger as the war went on.  The Confederacy was always fighting to preserve slavery, the Union did not start off fighting slavery but ended up doing so.  I should note that not everyone in the South was keen on the Confederacy.  Terror and intimidation were used on the Southern populace to keep it quite and keep men going into the armies.  There were a lot of Southerners who fought for the Union rather then the Confederacy.

[Martinus]

What Berkut said - similarly the soldiers of Wehrmacht were often fighting in Hitler's wars not because they were nazis or wanted to exterminate the Jews - that does not make the overall cause of the nazi Germany or the confederate South less evil.

I think, generally, the idea (espoused universally or at least by a significant part of the populace) that you can and should refuse to fight in your country's war because you are opposed to its ideological underpinnings is a rather novel idea.

[The Brain]

Yeah, HEAVEN FORBID that Maryland and Missouri leave the union.

[jimmy olsen]

The attempted hijack of the Scottish independant thread made me think...

In the movie Gods & Generals, one of the Generals, Jackson, I think, says that the Confederates should have abolished slavery and then declared independance.

Given that slavery (or to right to hold slaves if you prefer) was pretty much central to the conflict, was that a feeling generally shared by many of the Confederates officers, or simply the ramblings of a few disgruntled officers that the war wasn't winning itself fast enough?

Likewise, given that some Southerners had anti-slavery sentiment, yet fought for their State, did any Northern officer ever expressed - during the war or shortly before - some form of support toward slavery while at the same time a desire to preserve the Union?

Hmm, support might be too strong a word.
More like an officer who sees his sole duty as protecting the Union and couldn't care less about the status of black people, slaves or free.

Read "What They Fought For" by McPherson.  He analyzed letters and diaries by over 1000 soldiers when writing it.

[The Brain]

NSA wannabe ftw.

[Drakken]

Yeah, HEAVEN FORBID that Maryland and Missouri leave the union.

Especially since the frontier of Maryland is within 25 miles of Washington DC.

[grumbler]

Union General George Thomas was a Virginian and a slaveholder right up until the start of the war.  He never wrote about his opinions on slavery (insofar as I know), but it was, at a minimum, tolerance.  He chose to remain with the US Army because he felt that secession was wrong, not because he felt slavery was wrong.

I'd argue that the cause of the war was industrialization more than slavery, per se.  In the North, fortunes of "new money" were being made by people lacking any trace of aristocracy.  The Southern aristocracy saw that this was going to happen in the South, sooner or later, and that industrialization would make slavery economically unnecessary and ruinously expensive compared to machinery.  Further, the political and social power they possessed by being the only ones with education and money would end.  They wanted to flee the future, and the only way they could do that was to flee the country where that was possible, taking their society with them.  You can just imagine how successful they would have been running a country that was averse to industrialization.

[OttoVonBismarck]

There were a lot of people on both sides who had conflicting views, lots of Northerners were both pro-Union and either pro-Slavery or anti-Abolition, there was always some number of pro-Union, anti-Slavery Southerners as well. Especially the more border states, a lot of Virginians fought for the North considering Virginia had formally seceded from the Union and was at war with it (certainly more fought for the Confederacy.)

I certainly agree with grumbler on industrialization being a major cause of the war (I don't believe in a one-cause explanation for the ACW in any case.) I've oft-remarked one of the many reasons Thomas Jefferson should be vilified is his almost single-handed creation of a philosophic support for the concept of agrarianism as the ideal culture, to the detriment of any attempts to industrialize.

[viper37]

There was a LOT of northern sentiment that the war was about preserving the Union, and who gives a shit about slaves. I mean, it isn't like racism wasn't rmapant and the norm in the north.

In fact, I would say that the vast majority of men fighting for the Union who were doing so for ideological reasons (as opposed to being drafted) were doing so not to fight slavery, but to preserve the Union.

That being said, I think a lot of the men fighting for the South were doing so not because of slavery (after all, only a small fraction of southerners owned slaves anyway) but because they felt that their loyalty was to the South.

Thank you Berkut.

But I think there is an important distinction to be made between the reasons that the men who fought were willing to fight, and what caused the war. They are not the same thing. The war was fought because of slavery - the men who fought it fought primarily (and of course I am over-generalizing) to preserve the Union, or because they felt the need to protect their culture and country (which included the concept of slavery).

Yes, I understand that, there's been multiple threads on the subject over the years, I was simply unsure if it was a contemporary feeling or something that came up later as a justification for the war.

[viper37]

I saw G&G once (which was more then enough), I do remember in the movie Gettysburg Longstreet says something to that effect.  I don't know if he ever actually said it, but after the war he became a Republican and supported rights for former slaves.

Could have been Gettysburg, one of the two, certainly not elsewhere.

[viper37]

Read "What They Fought For" by McPherson.  He analyzed letters and diaries by over 1000 soldiers when writing it.

thanks, I've added it to my wishlist.

[derspiess]

It was Gettysburg-- the scene where Longstreet is talking to the Brit LTC Fremantle.

Coincidentally, I got the directors cut of Gods & Generals on Blu-ray yesterday. Watched the first hour of 4.5 hours last night. So far it's been about 90% Stonewall Jackson.