Discipline in American Civil War Armies

[The Brain]

My impression from reading history and what little I happen to know about Swedish law is that often putting down rebellions is a domestic police action and the rebels are criminals. I don't know the exact legal situation in the US in the mid-19th century, hence my questions.

There were a few reasons the leading confederates weren't tried for crimes:

1) it wouldn't have promoted reconciliation after the war, which was a priority,
2) in the US you get a trial by jury in the place you committed the alleged crime, and a conviction of leading confederates in jury trials to be held in the south was far from certain,
3) for those with military positions, the terms of surrender often included not being tried.

There were a few efforts to prosecute former confederates after the war, but for the most part they went no where.

Yes, my impression is that there was (rightly or wrongly) a strong desire in the US to consider it a war.

[mongers]

At war with a rebellious section of the country. How is this complicated?

How is it not? The Union hadn't declared war. There was no legal entity to be at war with.

Is the US at war with a single violent criminal? Probably not. A hundred criminals? A hundred thousand criminals? Well... The line isn't obvious to me.

Who says you need a legal entity to be at war with?

And no, the "Union" did not declare war, because there was no such entity, legal or otherwise, defined as the "Union" to begin with - that is just a description of the parts of the United States that were at war with the other parts of the United States that were in a state of rebellion.

There was no declaration of war, because, as you say, there was nobody to declare a legal war against, what with not being able to declare war on yourself and all.

So what made it a war in a legal sense?

The US could be fighting a war to put down a rebellion without it having to be in an interstate conflict.

[The Brain]

At war with a rebellious section of the country. How is this complicated?

How is it not? The Union hadn't declared war. There was no legal entity to be at war with.

Is the US at war with a single violent criminal? Probably not. A hundred criminals? A hundred thousand criminals? Well... The line isn't obvious to me.

Who says you need a legal entity to be at war with?

And no, the "Union" did not declare war, because there was no such entity, legal or otherwise, defined as the "Union" to begin with - that is just a description of the parts of the United States that were at war with the other parts of the United States that were in a state of rebellion.

There was no declaration of war, because, as you say, there was nobody to declare a legal war against, what with not being able to declare war on yourself and all.

So what made it a war in a legal sense?

The US could be fighting a war to put down a rebellion without it having to be in an interstate conflict.

And which legal mechanism made putting down a rebellion a war?

[mongers]

At war with a rebellious section of the country. How is this complicated?

How is it not? The Union hadn't declared war. There was no legal entity to be at war with.

Is the US at war with a single violent criminal? Probably not. A hundred criminals? A hundred thousand criminals? Well... The line isn't obvious to me.

Who says you need a legal entity to be at war with?

And no, the "Union" did not declare war, because there was no such entity, legal or otherwise, defined as the "Union" to begin with - that is just a description of the parts of the United States that were at war with the other parts of the United States that were in a state of rebellion.

There was no declaration of war, because, as you say, there was nobody to declare a legal war against, what with not being able to declare war on yourself and all.

So what made it a war in a legal sense?

The US could be fighting a war to put down a rebellion without it having to be in an interstate conflict.

And which legal mechanism made putting down a rebellion a war?

War can be a process rather than a status.

[Berkut]

At war with a rebellious section of the country. How is this complicated?

How is it not? The Union hadn't declared war. There was no legal entity to be at war with.

Is the US at war with a single violent criminal? Probably not. A hundred criminals? A hundred thousand criminals? Well... The line isn't obvious to me.

Who says you need a legal entity to be at war with?

And no, the "Union" did not declare war, because there was no such entity, legal or otherwise, defined as the "Union" to begin with - that is just a description of the parts of the United States that were at war with the other parts of the United States that were in a state of rebellion.

There was no declaration of war, because, as you say, there was nobody to declare a legal war against, what with not being able to declare war on yourself and all.

So what made it a war in a legal sense?

It was a war in the vernacular sense, but not a constitutionally defined war.

[Berkut]

But doubling the ANV at the end of the war wouldn't help the south. The ANV was down to 30k because they were losing the war. Twice as many of very little doesn't change anything.

Agreed, though Sherman for example was concerned not that it would change the outcome but extend the war.

But while 30k in 1865 is pointless, in 1863 it increases the ANV's infantry at Gettysburg by 50%.

Im not sure this is true.

Did Lee have 70k men because there weren't any more men anywhere to be found to go with him, or did he have 70k men because given his ability to sustain an army in the field, he ended up with about that many?

IE, would adding more bodies into the pool, and bodies that by definition are coming from the exact same pool of bodies used to actually grow food and do all the non-shoot-someone-with-a-rifle work needed in direct and indirect support of the national military, actually result in more bodies at the pointy end?

I don't think it does, in fact. It might increase strength a little bit, but I suspect every single black slave enlisted in 186s represents a net decrease in the Southern states ability to sustain a war over more than a couple months. Former slaves would be shitty soldiers until they are trained, likely be shitty soldiers fighting for the South even once trained (for the most part), and in constrast actually probably made pretty good "grow stuff in the fields" assets in comparison.

[jimmy olsen]

At war with a rebellious section of the country. How is this complicated?

How is it not? The Union hadn't declared war. There was no legal entity to be at war with.

Is the US at war with a single violent criminal? Probably not. A hundred criminals? A hundred thousand criminals? Well... The line isn't obvious to me.

Do declarations of war matter? By that logic the US hasn't been at war since WW2

[Razgovory]

I am quite baffled by this as well.  You stated

How is it not? The Union hadn't declared war. There was no legal entity to be at war with.

This indicates to me that you have some understanding.  There is no legal entity to be at war with.  If the Confederacy was legal entity, why would the US be at war with it?  It can't be because Confederacy controls US territory because if the Confederacy is a legal entity that their claim to the territory is just as good as the US claim if not better.  Is it because the Confederate government shot at US soldiers and took US forts and arsenals?  They were in Confederate territory.

What is your goal with this line of discussion? The scenario where the Confederacy is recognized by the Union doesn't interest me since AFAIK the Union didn't recognize the Confederacy.

I'm trying to figure out what you want.

[dps]

At war with a rebellious section of the country. How is this complicated?

How is it not? The Union hadn't declared war. There was no legal entity to be at war with.

Is the US at war with a single violent criminal? Probably not. A hundred criminals? A hundred thousand criminals? Well… The line isn't obvious to me.

Who says you need a legal entity to be at war with?

And no, the "Union" did not declare war, because there was no such entity, legal or otherwise, defined as the "Union" to begin with - that is just a description of the parts of the United States that were at war with the other parts of the United States that were in a state of rebellion.

There was no declaration of war, because, as you say, there was nobody to declare a legal war against, what with not being able to declare war on yourself and all.

So what made it a war in a legal sense?

What makes you think that, during the 1860's, there was a legally recognized definition of what does or does not constitute a war?

[Razgovory]

I think rebels are like pirates in that they are lawbreakers that are stopped by a military force.  I don't know when the ideas regarding who is and who is not a legal combatant were accepted by the people in the Western World.

The US has not declared war on anyone for 70 years.  The US has been at war a whole bunch of times since then.  I think a formal declaration of war would result in certain powers moving from the Executive to the Congress, and all the US presidents in that time have wanted to avoid that.

[alfred russel]

Did Lee have 70k men because there weren't any more men anywhere to be found to go with him, or did he have 70k men because given his ability to sustain an army in the field, he ended up with about that many?

In terms of the Gettysburg campaign specifically, I think it was because there weren't any more men to be found to go with him. My understanding is that the confederacy saw a window of opportunity after Chancellorsville and with union enlistment terms coming up. There were debates on what to do: detach a significant force from Virginia to either relieve Vicksburg or attempt an offensive in Tennessee, or gather available forces for an invasion of the north to attempt a decisive engagement. I think there was disappointment that the 70k able to be gathered was not larger.

Later in the war that is absolutely not the case. With the union controlling the Mississippi, and effectively all of Tennessee while marching through the Carolinas, Alabama, and Georgia, the confederates couldn't feed the paltry forces they had left.

Nevertheless--there were 3.5m slaves. I don't think that it is unreasonable to think that a percent or two could be effective soldiers (many freed slaves were effective for the north after all). And if we are talking a number of soldiers that low, it wouldn't make a big difference in the labor available on the farms and plantations.

[Berkut]

I disagree. There may have been 3.5m slaves, but surely at least half of those were women.

Of the remaining, a huge number would be children.

Of the remaining of those, most of them are likely too old, or unhealthy.

And of the ones who are male, of military age, and healthy enough to serve, I suspect that they also represented, by far, the most labor productive group enslaved as well. It's the same problem with non-slaves, of course, only almost certainly considerably worse. I suspect that amongst slaves the concentration of useful productive work being in the same demographic as useful military material is much greater than in the non-slave population, since slavery was primarily an agricultural endeavor, and a very physical one at that.

I think the South had trouble getting and keeping men under arms for a variety of reasons, only a couple of which could be alleviated by a new potential pool of former slaves of useful military caliber.

I suspect that a decision in 1862 to selectively offer freedom to slaves willing to fight (if we assume such a thing could somehow be politically acceptable) would not result in a significant increase in actual military capability of the South. Manpower was only one of their many issues. Not a small one to be sure, but still just one of many.

[alfred russel]

I suspect that a decision in 1862 to selectively offer freedom to slaves willing to fight (if we assume such a thing could somehow be politically acceptable) would not result in a significant increase in actual military capability of the South. Manpower was only one of their many issues. Not a small one to be sure, but still just one of many.

The south had a white population of 5.5m and per Wikipedia got 750k to 1m under arms. Obviously that level of participation would not be met with the slave population, but it didn't need to in order to have an appreciable effect. Also, if you look at the casualties the south sustained (~300k dead, many more wounded and captured), it should be clear that a shortage of military manpower was a problem. I get that there were food shortages especially late in the war. However, a soldier would be more valuable than a field laborer.

The impact of freeing slaves would do much more than providing more soldiers: it would make possible foreign intervention, reduce northern recruiting, and reduce black support for the union war effort.

[Eddie Teach]

Why would it reduce northern recruitment?

[Valmy]

The impact of freeing slaves

How exactly could they do that? Each state would have to vote to free their slaves individually. None of them would have done so. So what is this shit? Some kind of fantasy? Why not speculate if the Confederacy had nuclear bombs or battle droids?