@beachcomber1able Nearly impregnable is right considering Picketts charge broke the union line for a moment, the biggest reason for the failure was the artillery not being as effective in driving off the union artillery. Still Meade did not counterattack after Pickett charges or on the 4th day of the battle Meade still did nothing and let Lee reteart in good order back to Virginia.
@@danielkitchens4512 Was the retreat really in such good order. How much of their ordnance did they leave on the battlefield or on the roads to safety. 🤔 It wasn't a great experience for Southern morale and added to the drip drip effect that eventually resulted in defeat. 😟
@beachcomber1able Good enough order to get over 5000 union prisoners into Virginia, and no summer campaign in Virginia in 1863, no serious campaigning until may 1864. If Gettysburg was so horrible on Lee's army why was he able to send Longstreet and two of his devisons out west? I believe the lost of Vicksburg had a more long lasting impact on Lee's army than Gettysburg.
In "Gone With The Wind" Rhett (Clark Gable) tells the other men at the party on Ashley's Plant- ation (early in the movie) why the South couldn't defeat the North in a war. It sounded very accurate .
In the end, most southern soldiers just had no reason to support the planter's dictatorship of Jefferson Davis. The desertion rates were asternomically high.
The majority of southerners did not support the war. Howell Cobb quite explicitly pointed out that more able bodied men were out of the Army than were in the Army. This was well into the war and after several conscription orders. Alexander Stephens states in his volumes on the war that he knew the war should never have been started when Lee and Davis issued the first conscription order. (Spring 1862)
@@owensomers8572 What I meant was, Money that was worth anything. Like we do in america now, we keep printing more money so the value of said money goes down.
@@jamesellis4664 I know what you meant, but I couldn't resist pointing out the irony of your terse statement. Feel free to give me an example of a society, ever, that did not face inflationary pressures.
@@owensomers8572 Inflation is one thing but when you start printing more money to try to over come bad inflation it is a fools errand. It makes inflation much worse, be it the civil war or now.
@@MM-ie9hj Chickamauga was an exceptional victory, and if not for George Thomas' stand on Horseshoe Ridge, and his orderly withdrawal, the whole army and Chattanooga might have been lost. That probably would have been enough to lose the election for Lincoln and give the rebels their independence.
@@daviddavenport9350 That's not really accurate. Terrain, weather, and rebel action made it a very hard task indeed. Holly Springs set back the capture of Vicksburg by six months. Chickasaw Bayou was a massacre. Murfreesboro delayed the capture of Chattanooga by half a year, and Chickamauga came closer to destroying a Union army than anything Lee's army ever did. Johnston handed Sherman stinging defeats at New Hope Church and Kennesaw Mountain, dragging out the Atlanta campaign so long that Lincoln despaired of reelection.
Great video. The second point about the Confederacy defending territory as opposed to strategic points reminds me of something I read recently about the Ukraine war. The commentator described Russian strategy (and this has been their strategy in the last several centuries) to ignore territorial gains & losses and focus on destroying the enemy's armies & supply lines. Not pretty but it works.
The same thing accelerated Germany's defeat in WWII. The more Hitler took over the running of the war the more it became about holding as much territory as possible, with disastrous results for Germany.
And, having a Navy that could blockade Southern ports, plenty of arms factories, overwhelming population advantage had a lot to do with Union ‘s victory.
For much of the war, the South had better cavalry, Lee seemed to know how to use them. The main reason for their loss still continues to be that they just ran out of men.
The southern system was failing before the war. They had minimal industry limited railroads and a large proportion of their population were not available to fill the ranks of the army because they were enslaved.
They may have run out of men and horses, but the north did not, and they learned how to use them effectively. In the beginning, the north had no need of a cavalry and the south had a lot of experience with horses and hunting. When the north discovered they need a cavalry they produced one.
@@conradnelson5283 Oh, the north very much needed cavalry in the beginning. Cavalry scouted, screened, and skirmished, and a lot of McClellan's early failures were based on his inexplicable decision to have a railroad detective do his intelligence gathering instead of developing competent cavalry. The problem was that it takes a non-horse rider two years to become a moderately effective cavalryman.
His estimation of cavalry was at least 80 years out of date. The reason Civil War cavalry was used differently than in Napoleonic times is because infantry tended to kill charging cavalry in unwelcome numbers.
@@kurtwicklund8901 It might have made a difference if one or both sides in the Civil War had enough cavalry, but both sides had much smaller cavalry:infantry ratios than European armies. Also, neither side had the training, horses, and equipment (cuirasses, lances, etc.) to make effective shock cavalry. Even in Napoleonic battles, heavy cavalry was best deployed against a wavering or broken infantry formation, not against strong lines or squares. It is interesting to speculate about what Lee might have accomplished at, say, 2nd Manassas, if Longstreet's charge had included several thousand trained lancers.
The south misjudged the Northern will and ability. They thought any southern country boy could whup three damyankees with his hands tied behind his back. That arrogance was their undoing. Marching uphill at Little Round Top thinking they could beat up and out tough guys who spent their winters in Maine logging with axes and crosscut saws. Even after the war their egos could not accept the idea that Grant was as good or a better general than their sainted General Lee so they have spent 150 years slandering him despite brilliant campaigns at Vicksburg and Fort Donnellson, turning around a hopeless situation at Chattanooga and a relentless campaign in the east.
Funny Grant had been discharge after fighting in the Mexican War and was working in a Indiana Hardware Store when Lincoln called him up and noteworthy was a fact that General Sherman had a nervous Breakdown and Grant went to his aid for a few days helped him climb out of it
@@edwardgoering1237 Almost. Grant resigned from the army, and was working in an Illinois leather-goods store. Rather than calling him up, Lincoln had no idea who Grant was, although Galena congressman Elihu Washburn was a friend of Lincoln and was a political champion for Grant throughout the war.
@@ToddSauve That's correct. The house he lived in is still there. It's a museum and I've been by it, but not in it. Galena is a lovely town and a great place for a vacation. There's even a Blue-and-Gray mini-golf course where each hole has a Civil War theme, and after playing a round you can get a burger and some frozen custard at a Culver's right next door :D
The naval blockade was only partially successful,with a coast line as extensive as the east coast even today with all the technology available smuggling still occurs.
And when I was back there on vacation I noticed that the East coast topography is very complex, with lots of bays and inlets for a smuggler to hide in.@@robertartiga7
I think it helps to understand how blockades can be effective. They don't need to stop all the ships that try to run them, just a decent enough percentage of them. The result is that fewer ships even try to run them. And the ships that do try sacrifice carrying capacity for speed. Thus the total tonnage of goods drops much further than it would have been otherwise. And this is exactly what happened in the Civil War.
Thanks for the video. Interesting essay and as I hear it he is saying that it was strategic bad management of the CSA government that was the issue with the first two points.
Out-logistic-ed. Same as Germany in WWII. When the enemy has overwhelmingly more resources and supply tonnage than you do, you are doomed. The amazing thing is that the Confederacy was able to resist for four years. General Lee and Pres. Jefferson Davis explained the loss very well in their own final writings about the subject. Pres. Davis, who was in the center of the drama, wrote in great detail in his excellent "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government" -- highly recommended to all real, honest scholars.
RE:your logistics point. The north had far more miles and distribution of railroads, and far fewer different incompatible gauges. It allowed the north to move people and materials faster and more efficiently.
Jefferson Davis was also constitutionally incapable of admitting to a mistake, so his explanations are correspondingly self-serving. All three criticisms pointed out in this video are spot-on.
@@davidb2206 Good thing I was homeschooled and then private schooled! Also, while I've only read portions of some of Davis' writings, I've also read some excellent biographies as well as other analysis of his life and times. Have you read his biography by William C. Davis? I was really impressed by the balance and humanity of the work.
It is not so amazing. Warfare in 1860 greatly favored the strategic defense. Especially in a war of massive armies manned and officered both by rapidly converted civilians.
Bruce Catton put it perfectly; Lincoln knew that the war was won when he met Grant, a soldier who understood what he had felt from the beginning - Confederate resources could not keep up with Confederate geography.
Absurd. While relevant, these reasons are dramatically peripheral. The loss is overwhelmingly attributed to an agricultural economy taking on an industrializing one in an era increasingly defined by urban industrialization and its military institutions increasingly mediated by industrial implements of killing and logistics. The agricultural state cannot compete with the sheer mass of industrial output, the industrial wealth to sustain it, and the greater population sizes of industrial societies.
@@BaikalTii Yes… those would be particularly dramatic examples. Perhaps more apropos would be the Boor (agricultural Dutch in South Africa) revolt against the British Administration of South Africa in 1899-1902. Much more similar. The rural population can have more ‘spirit’ and better leadership… but it will all succumb to sheer wealth, population, and industrial output. In the large cities of the North during the Civil War the field conflict was but a distant distraction that sometimes penetrated other interests such as entertainment, financial, and cultural celebrations. That’s how powerful was the North. The South could ‘never’ win.
The Northern economy was not just more industrialized, it was more well-rounded and integrated. For every factory worker in the South, there was a factory in the North. The North was able to feed, clothe, and equip itself without any help from abroad. Arms bought from abroad were soon discarded as (mostly) inferior to those manufactured at home. Textile factories switched from cotton to wool, and, in general, the Northern economy expanded throughout the war and, by 1865 became the largest industrial economy in the world, surpassing even Great Britain and France. There are many more reasons, but these are sufficient to make the point.
Except when rice farmers in Vietnam fought the French & then the Americans to a standstill in guerrilla warfare. But yes, the South just had less & Grant was a truly modern general who knew that he could get resupplied.
Interesting to hear perspectives from those living at the time. I’m sure every soldier had their own reasons for joining military service. I wonder if, at the beginning of the war, how many soldiers were even literate, let alone educated, and aware of the actual issues facing them. certainly by the end of the war, each soldier now had their own experience and observations to round out their opinions. But like the drawings of MC Escher, individual perceptions will differ depending on the perspective of the viewer. No individual is wrong, yet no one person can possibly calculate the sum of all perspectives into an accurate summation. Even with over 160 years of hindsight, archeology, technology, and analytical forensic research, opinions still widely vary on most reasons, causes, and effects of the Civil War. Thank you for sharing original source material in story format! Very entertaining and educational 👍
To my understanding, all three of the reasons cited reflect the naïve sentiment, held by much of the Confederacy at the outset, that the Union effort would amount to nothing and concession would soon be reached as the Union lost the will to fight.
I don't know, but if Lee had won at Gettysburg, to the North this would have been like a man getting kicked in the testicles by a mule, it's my understanding that morale and support for the war was pretty low already among a lot of the people and in Congress also,President Lincoln was regularly lambasted by Northern newspapers and a defeat at Gettysburg may have sealed his fate in the 1864 elections, he may have been voted out and replaced with a President who wanted peace even if it meant letting go of the South.
@@TorianTammas Haha, someone building a house on property they don't own happens happens more often than you would think! And they often get away with it. I don't think that is a good analogy for the rebellion. Many wars, just like many boxing matches, have one or both sides making claims they know to be unrealistic.
@@hubertwalters4300you are right that had the south won at Gettysburg it would have been a blow to the north, but I don’t know if it really would’ve changed much in the long run. It would’ve been a pretty Pyrrhic victory in that if Lee wanted to continue east towards Washington the Union could more easily replace their losses and there probably would’ve been another battle of that scale that since his army would’ve been depleted it would’ve been really hard to sustain. Vicksburg also fell on the same day as Gettysburg so my guess is that he would’ve had to retreat back into Virginia anyways.
The Confederacy lost the war with the first cannonball fired at Fort Sumter. Long ago, when I was in the U.S. Navy a guy from Alabama told me "the only reason you yankees.(you yankees) is because y'all had more guns and men. If the odds were even, we (we) would've won". I said "I sincerely believe that the best way to win a war is to have more guns, and more men. To fight against the overwhelming amount of weapons and personnel thinking that the bravery and superior character of the Southern soldier was enough to win a war that's only going to be two weeks long, is not only ignorant, it's downright stupid".
Washington D.C. is more broke today than the Confederacy was in 1861. US$35 trillion national debt. Meanwhile Biden is giving billions more to foreigners, 900 military bases, and "wars." It seems intentional.
The United States, under Lincoln, would NEVER give up the fight to preserve the union, and they had a strategy for doing so. It seems that the confederacy, on the other hand, had no strategy for victory.
A very debatable topic with clear points. Commendable that these topics can still be discussed... I was hoping that you may look into the Tex-mex Confederate company.... My understanding,, "We never lost a battle.."
You could say Rose was talking tactical issues while he forgot all about the overarching Strategic issues. The “South” was fighting with a much smaller population, a significantly smaller and less productive economy when was was becoming more technological, and just as importantly the south was sullied by issue that stopped them from acquiring allies… it did not have the moral high ground. What European power was going to openly support slavery over freedon and also lose the massive market that was the North? As Shelby Foote noted the North did not fight the war with both hands, if it had more losses, Foote noted, the North would simply unloose the other hand. While most Generals think tactics, Patton reportedly said the best Generals think logistics…and the North had comparatively unlimited logistics.
Interesting lessons Ron. Number 1 and 2 would still apply today. Politicalization of any army is a hinderance to say the least and has been demonstrated time and time again as being harmful. Printing money for war makes no more sense than printing money for economic benefit, you end up at the same place - inflation. I remember reading that buy late in the war a confederate $10 bill was placed on a sheet cake and traced with a knife to determine the portion….talking about shrinkflation. I cant comment on the Calvary in relation to today, but would enjoy someone else’s comment.
Well, cavalry today enters battle in helicopters and armored personnel carriers. Army helicopter-borne troops are called "air cavalry". They still perform the traditional functions of cavalry - recon, shock troops, flanking attacks, pursuit. So I'd say we still have cavalry, just faster and more powerful.
Point 2 is well-taken. “Who defends everything defends nothing” not sure what the options were as far as paper money was concerned. Cavalry? WTF My understanding is that, apart from Gettysburg, confederate cavalry was pretty effective until later in the war, after Brandy Station.
Confederate cavalry was better, but not numerous enough to effectively pursue a beaten foe. I believe that in the Civil War armies the infantry:cavalry ratio was 10:1. In professional European armies it was 6:1 or even 4:1. And Civil War cavalry was trained for scouting and skirmish, and did not include cuirassiers and lancers, the sort of heavy cavalry that European armies used for shock combat.
@@mjordan79705 It did in certain important ways. Lee thought primarily of Virginia even when the war was being lost in the west and did not want to release any of his troops to that theater. At the end North Carolina had 90,000 uniforms in warehouses that it's governor refused to release to all except home state troops, at the time when most Confederates were reduced to wearing rags and many were shoeless. Jefferson, and Lincoln as well, shared the myopia that their capitols must be defended at all costs, most likely since they personally did not want to be caught up in the fighting and perhaps captured.
Most interesting. All three points debatable, of course. The finance point is complicated and comments preceding make clear most do not understand it. For those interested, a concise treatment: Confederate Finance by Richard Cecil Todd. Perhaps the Southern problem was "If you cannot defend it, it isn't yours". Cavalry was the most expensive, least effective military asset on a civil war battlefield. Reconnoiter, yes. Combat against infantry, no.
The "irredeemable paper money" was problematic not because it was paper, it was irredeemable because the Confederacy did not have the resources to back it. Of course, lack of resources will hit you on the battlefield...for instance, Confederate soldiers wernable quite often unable to perform effectively due to malnutrition. Likewise, they were often wanting for weapons, ammunition, uniforms, horses, wagons, etc., etc., etc. The slavery mentality left many southerners unwilling to do the 'menial' labor necessary for success -- digging trenches was for slaves. Lack of naval capability left the Confederacy unable to effectively counter the Union blockade. Having Jefferson Davis as a leader was a bad situation as he tended to interfere more with his generals than did Lincoln, Jefferson was also loyal to old classmates and kept them in position when he should have sacked them. The Confederacy lacked for European recognition and/or support once Lincoln framed the war as a battle against slavery. The South lacked for strategic vision, Grant employed forces to cripple the Confederacy as an entity, Lee was focused on protecting Virginia.
The Confederacy had an advantage in that it did not need to conquer the North. It simply had to survive long enough to convince the northerners that the cost in men and material to hang on to the southern states was not worth the effort. And that came close to occurring. McClellan was the peace candidate in 1864 but by the time of the election there had been enough Union victories for Lincoln to be re-elected. Conventional doctrine is that the side on the offense has to have 3 times the resources of the side on the defence, and that assumes that both sides are equally motivated to win. But as stated in the video, the strategy of the Confederacy was poor, trying to defend everything. The North had to invade and conquer the South, which in the end they did. At the beginning of WWI, Lord Kitchener, a former Field Marshall who had defeated the Boer farmers in the Second South African war by using brutal measures, including herding the farmers' families into concentration camps where many died of disease and hunger, shocked the establishment by saying that it would take 3 years to defeat the Germans. Both sides thought it would be a short war. The small professional British army had been reduced to a shadow of its former self in the first year of the war. Kitchener raised the New Army which eventually won the war with the help of the late arriving Americans and the French army which had almost collapsed in mutiny in 1917. The end came with the Battle of Amiens on August 8 1918, which Ludendorff called the Black Day of the German army which began the Hundred day advance ending with the November 11 armistice. It was spearheaded by the Australian and Canadian Corps using combined arms tactics refined by Australian Corps Commander General John Monash. Kitchener did not live to see it having drowned as a consequence of a U-boat attack in 1916. And the British naval blockade had reduced Germany to near starvation.
Early in the war a strong Southern cavalry might have made a difference, but once both sides figured out the value of entrenchments, the war devolved into trench warfare where the cavalry was neutered. A short war may have favored the South, but Jeff Davis never seemed to possess that understanding. It could be argued that Jeff Davis was the reason the South lost. Had Stonewall Jackson had his way, Southern forces would have marched to DC in May of 1861. Davis held him back. Currency was a huge problem, but the underlying problem there was the insufficiency of Southern industrial production.
"All we have to do to raise money is to print it....expansion and redundancy".... o boy that sure rings the death bell tale! Real good overview. Two points on the cavalry, yes JEB Stuart proved much but also caused much for lack of presence at Gettysburg as stated. But one example of the cavalry in greater strength and failing miserably to tactics and skill was when the French were destroyed at Agincourt (1415) by archers with the the longbow ..even while outnumbering the English 5:1....and the English having no cavalry to speak of, the French lost thousands.
Cavalry has to be properly deployed, no doubt. This article is specifically discussing the need for sufficient cavalry to pursue a beaten foe. The French at Agincourt were trying to use cavalry to break an enemy infantry formation.
@@aaronfleming9426 True...point well stated and taken. But the thought I had generally speaking, cavalry is still a bigger target with well placed shots
@@theophilhist6455 Quite right. And honestly I don't know enough about European warfare between Napoleon and WWI to know how effective shock cavalry were once the rifled musket was introduced en masse. Interestingly enough, there were a couple of effective cavalry charges in WWI, early on before both sides dug in.
@@aaronfleming9426 This is a good conversation Aaron. We'll find it interesting to study the US Army "dismounted cavalry doctrine" practiced with the advent of the breech loaded Springfield's (trapdoors) and many kinds of repeating rifles. (1870-90s). Units could quickly deploy, dismount, and discharge and direct accurate concentrated fire and leave. It's how the US Cavalry was finding it could hit and destroy less organized native warriors. It failed obviously at the Big Horn due to the vast superiority in numbers of the Lakota and Cheyenne (8:1) and Custer's poor leadership. However the doctrine is still seen in APVs deploying infantry....or the "Air Cavalry" used since Vietnam.
@@theophilhist6455 Well put. As far as I'm aware, that doctrine really started to develop with Wilder's "Lightning Brigade". It's interesting to me that it was the Army of the Cumberland - sort of the least appreciated Union army of the war - that pioneered truly effective mounted infantry with repeating weapons.
The paper money reason is more or less stating the Southern economy could not match the North's especially considering the strangulation of foreign trade, aka 'real' money. The second reason I find interesting. He suggests trading land for blood, an intentional strategy to fall back to distant capital. I doubt it would have won the war but it is an interesting suggestion. The cavalry reason of course vastly over values whatever validity he tactical preferences might have.
I would say 1) because the large rivers of the West were navigable, rendering the West indefensible, and 2) because Grant decided to move beyond purely military warfare on to economic warfare.
The north had too large of a population for the south to defeat! The north had a massive amount of weapons and resources that the South could not match! The South was greatly dependent upon capturing northern suplies to survive! This shows that the south could not have won the war!
By 1864 recruiting in the north was drying up. Just because you have people doesn't mean they'll volunteer; just because you conscript them doesn't mean they'll be effective fighters. The article's second point is the most important, since it's the foundation for understanding how the rebels squandered what advantages they had by trying to defend everything.
He makes an excellent point, the Confederacy never even attempted to set up a mint. The South had plenty of gold to mint coins and Mexico would have sold them all the silver they wanted.
The fact is the war was many different things to the participants, and still is to us today. Answers, right or wrong, offered at the time most likely depended upon the particular individual's position regarding the war.
Some interesting points raised there for sure. Maybe the Confederates should have concentrated everything on an invasion of Wash DC and into Philadelphia/NJ? Abandoned the Western theater? Could they pull it off? It always comes down to the South had do something and hope the Northern population got sick of it and then quit.
People keep forgetting how the south came pretty close to getting recognition from foreign powers more than once.. In fact, The folks in the union were considering throwing the towel in in eighteen sixty four. That is why lincoln made it a point to permit the soldiers to vote from the field, In why Mcclellan was even considered a viable peace candidate in eighteen sixty four. Even with all this economic preponderance of manufacturing, The north had a distinct possibility of losing the war. It was simply that, Like nazi germany years later, They lost steam before they could achieve the key victories necessary. Many wars are fought where people recognize that they are weaker than their adversary, But they count on elań esprit de corps and their superior knowledge of warfare to win out. Similar to the strategy the japanese had in the pacific. All were lost causes because they did not have the material means to win in a protracted, struggle.
Actually pretty fair reasons there.. Esp 2 n 3 as for Struat n Gettysburg He was doing what he had been ordered to do.Lee simply goofed on the 2nd n 3rd..
The Confederacy failed for lack of strategic planning. Early in the war Gen. Winfield Scott, the overall Union commander came up with the Anaconda Plan. In the end, this is pretty much how the war was won. There was no strategic plan for the South so even though there were some major victories in the field, they were ineffective.
What strategic plan, similar to the Anaconda Plan, could be carried out with so few people? I've wondered that myself but have never heard a sound suggestion. Guerrilla warfare, attack and retreat, seems most effective in smaller numbers but home front is not easily protected over such a massive area, again with such few numbers.
@@dcs5343 Sacrifice space for time and/or opportunity. In trying to defend everything, the rebels refused to sacrifice space. They exhausted themselves before the '64 election in which a change of administration in the north might have given the south a chance for independence. Ask yourself what the two greatest southern victories were. If you say Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg instead of Holly Springs and Harpers Ferry, you're still making the mistake they made.
@@aaronfleming9426 I was thinking Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg. Can you give me the layman's reason for Harper's Ferry and Holly Springs being the greatest?
The lack of hard currency may have contributed to south high desertion rate. They had no money of real value to send home to support their families. Some who were literally starving.
I'm reading Confederate General Longstreet's memoirs. It appears that his boss General Bragg wasn't exactly a man easy to get along with. Bragg was combative with his generals and stole some of their glory. Confederate President Jeff Davis had to go onto the battlefield where they were and tried to smooth things out. That failed. So the Confederate army was running low on everything they needed and the generals bickered with Bragg once too often. That's how you lose a war.
Johnston was even worse. Read his book. It's his own version (= his best shot) and he comes across as a whining defeatist during he whole Atlanta Campaign. I would not want him on my staff, even as a lieutenant.
The war of northern aggression was NOT about slavery. It was started and fought over states rights. One only has to look at the abortion issue which was..wait for it..sent back to the states. This is a REPUBLIC. Not a democracy. The founding fathers in their wisdom made sure that even the smallest still had a voice that couldn’t be trampled by the many. ( look at the state of affairs today, lots of eerie similarities, this is a nation as divided as it was back then. Though slavery was rightly and justly abolished, it wasn’t the reason the south seceded.
I am a Georgian. I have always heard that in the 1800’s, everyone was devoted to their state. Lee is always an example . He fought for Virginia because he saw himself as a Virginian. Anyways, if everyone identified with their state (which I believe to be true because travel was so difficult and internet wasn’t around, etc)… With that said, why did someone in Georgia care about these new states being created hundreds of miles away from their state? Kansas had no bearing on Georgia and why would Georgians care if Kansas was a slave state or not? If I was pro slavery-I would want less slave states because it’s less competition. Idk…just food for thought.
It was not over slavery and there is overwhelming proof. For one thing, fewer than 1 in 7 southerners had any connection with slavery. They were too poor, like my sharecropping ancestors. Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation regarding slaves held in territories OUTSIDE his control (!) until 1863. If slavery had been the issue of the war, he would have issued a mission order immediately in 1861, at the beginning of the war, to all his generals to release slaves wherever they were encountered. He did not! Lincoln, like the corrupt and devious politician and tyrant that he was, only latched on to slavery as a political issue in 1863 when he thought he was losing the re-election. Look at his first inaugural speech in 1861 in which he says (lied) that he himself believed he had not the right to "interfere" with slavery anywhere! My direct ancestors in Georgia did not own any slaves and died in that war. You bet it is personal with me.
@@davidb2206 I don’t think I said it was or was not over slavery. I asked why people in states cared if another state hundreds of miles away had slaves or not. Read it again and save your tangent.
@@davidb2206it was precisely about slavery and its expansion. The sad part is so many poor white men fought and suffered to maintain the wealthy's outdated status quo when they gained very little, if anything, from the enslavement of four million Blacks.
Cotton as a crop was land hungry. With the farming methods of the time the south need to be able to expand to grown the same amount as the land became exhausted. Anything that stopped that happening was a problem. Hence bleeding kansas.
Thank you for tracking down this interesting document. It does seem typical of accounts from that time (don't blame the generals). I'm not sure how you can blame paper money when the Union basically paid for its war effort with greenbacks. Probably more accurate to say that a mercantile/slave economy, besides being cruel and immoral, was also unable to keep pace with an industrial rival that promoted innovation and infrastructure. Reliance on cotton meant that the South never developed a middle class or a bureaucracy that could manage the daily business of government. By the end of the war, the Confederate Army was the only functioning institution left: there are reports of Confederate units presiding over civil court cases and distributing the mail. The Union blockade hurt but then so did the Confederate decision to cut cotton production by 90%, which was a disastrous calculation to force European intervention. Not to mention that most of the South's "capital" simply ran for their freedom whenever the Union Army came near. So Duncan Rose is right in a sense-Confederate paper money was worthless-but it's important to talk about the reason why. The South lost for the very reason it seceded: its slave economy.
Greenbacks were only a relatively small part of an impressive effort on the part of northern bankers and economists. I highly recommend Roger Lowenstein's book "Ways and Means" for a deep but easy-reading dive into the financing of the Civil War on both sides!
They didn't need such a ruling from the Supreme Court. The provisions of Amendment X provided states with the right to secede because: 1) the power of secession was not delegated to the federal government, and; 2) the power of secession was not prohibited to the states. It was therefore reserved to the states (or to the people respectively). Moreover, secession was 'not' the cause of the Civil War. Confederate President Jefferson Davis' act of war in ordering the reduction of Fort Sumter if U.S. forces refused to evacuate it was the cause of the conflict.
Of course it did. Don’t be ridiculous. More to the point, it had everything to do with the slave-holding states’ insistence on being able to export their slave labor-based agrarian/plantation economy to newly admitted states. That caused a tension with the free states that had been brewing since 1820.
I have read that the issue was still very much in doubt in late 1864. If McClellan had won the Presidency, entirely possible and expected for much of that year, he very well might have gone for a negotiated settlement giving the CSA victory. I don't think the outcome was inevitable even given the North's industrial and population advantages.
The issue was in doubt due to the political BS that was going on in the Lincoln administration and Lso in the Davis administration. Sherman gave a warning to the South about the folly of war, which they ignored. The South did better at first because they were better prepared than the North, not because they were better over the long haul. The Anaconda plan won by wearing the South out.
Lee threw the fight. Did not follow Manassas with assault against Washingtion, also complicit in the murder of Jackson. Was the pope's man, along with Davis and myself who then was Gen. Slaughter.
You see, there's an easy way to tell if a conspiracy is true or not. Does it seem really stupid when you stop and think about it? If it does seem really stupid, it's not true. So stop and think about what you're saying: Instead of simply staying with the Union, Lee joined the rebellion, infiltrated its army and achieved the highest rank possible, repeatedly kicked the Union's butt, but held back juuuuuust enough that he didn't win...because the Pope told him to. Now, does that make sense when you think about it? No? That means it's a false conspiracy theory. Here's another helpful tool, called Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity." So what's more likely: that the south had a bunch of reasons to lose, including poor economic, diplomatic, and strategic planning (stupidity); or that Lee maliciously conspired with the Pope to infiltrate and then sabotage the Confederacy? What's more likely: that Jackson was shot while riding in the dark toward his own lines - straight toward battle-hardened men who were crashing off the adrenaline high of combat; or that Lee maliciously and secretly convinced a group of veteran warriors to gun down their beloved commander because the Pope told him to? Also...Lee wasn't even in command at the first battle of Manassas. After the second battle, where he did command, he tried to pursue the Union army but was blocked at Chantilly...to say nothing of the fact that in either case there still wouldn't have been a way to get across the Potomac to take Washington anyway. Bro, you have to start thinking this stuff through before you say it in public.
2nd reason is actually reasonable. Vietnam style guerilla tactics would probably have given victory to confederacy. 1st and 3rd reasons are silly and stupid.
The south used guerilla bands like Quantrell's Raiders and the Moseby insurgency quite effectively to attack and pillage Union supply lines. They captured large amounts of food, weapons and gunpowder. But when Sherman cut his supply lines loose on his march to the sea, the guerillas lost that advantage. Ultimately it was sheer Union numbers and firepower that defeated the south.
@@brianniegemann4788 that was not Vietnam-tactics. That would have been not defending area and letting Union troops to South. Then striking them and hiding after. First election and South would have won..
A gorilla style of war might have been a pain in the ass for awhile, but in no way would it have brought victory for the south. It just would have brought total misery to much of the country, as well as a huge number of starvation deaths to the south.
@@frankperkin124 I don't think that northern electorate would have had stomach for real gruel guerilla war. Offcourse neither would south but that would have been only way south could win.
@@kallekonttinen1738 I think the south had even less of a stomach for a gorilla war than Northern voters. Watching your families die of starvation does not exactly motivate you to fight for rich plantation owners who got you in the war in the first place.
I agree with the video I see Lack of men to fight Lack of money Slavery was not the only issue but It did have a lot to do with it Have you ever wondered what if 2 Americans nations had emerged Think about that
I have always heard the battle at Prarie grove Arkansas the confederate army lost 2 or3 wagons of supply including ammo to fight battles If that were true the south was incapable of winning the war Again i ask this What if two nations had emerged from the war America is again facing division
The Confederacy failed because their leaders began a war which they were completely unprepared for, and over a strip of land which had been the property of the United States for almost 25 years- and which had never been part of the Confederate States of America. They did this at a time when they had no army, no navy, no general staff, no industrial base with which to produce the war material which they would need, and no allies. Added to this are the facts that they were significantly outnumbered and had no strategy for victory. They are an outstanding example of the negative aspect of Sun Tzu's statement that: "With many calculations, one can win; with few, one cannot. How much less chance of victory has one who makes none at all? Had their leaders been wise, they would have played for time and begun preparing at full speed for a conflict with the United States which was all but inevitable. Instead, they plunged headlong into war- and it cost them everything- which, in retrospect, was all for the good.
@@manilajohn0182 Nothing personal about our other disagreements, I'd like to call out the agreement when we see eye to eye just as much as the disagreements!
@@aaronfleming9426 I could not agree more with that. Few people disagree on everything, and it's better all- around to emphasize the positive rather than the negative- particularly in the field of military history. Cheers...
yes, Gettysburg was lost because Stuart was out of communication and thus failed in his responsibility. another military factor was the death of Albert Sidney Johnston, which basically cost the Confederacy cohesion and generalship in the west.
Why do people blame Stuart? He was a great General that was crucial in the Chancellorsville battle. Early was in Gettysburg on June 26. Lee was the one that had his men marching AWAY from Stuart, AWAY from Gettysburg. Lee's supposed plan was to break up the Army of the Potomac as it marched north in separate columns. The most likely place for that to happen was Gettysburg. It was a crucial error by Lee not to hold Gettysburg on June 26. It would have been easier to recover Stuart if he held Gettysburg on the 26. Lee lost four days to select his battlefield. His errors, selected the battlefield for him.
Albert Sidney Johnston accomplished almost zero. There is no basis to say that his death made a big difference; the fact that he was behaving like a brigade commander at Shiloh is an indication that he was not prepared for army command.
The problem with the paper money argument is that the creation of the Greenback by Samuel Chase was a major force multiplier in Lincoln's war economy, The political construct of the rebellion was anchored squarely on the fallacy of the separate parts being greater than the whole, The misapprehension that "Cotton is King in formed this economic distortion, the Pyrrhic victory of Ft. Sumter established the state of siege that persisted throughout the war and was generally perfected at Vicksburg, The rebellion's arrangements for the strategic vindication of their ambitions by military district reflected the fantasy of their state's rights impregnability and didn't matter, in the final analysis, Robert E. Lee himself observed that that rebellion had adopted the one form of government that was destined to fail, Or words to tht effect. Without command of Hampton Roads and unfettered access to the Atlantic, the southern proposition was forlorn before the fact, Lee knew this, If Richmond society had not been dominated by politicians like Glenn Youngkin, Virginia might have stayed in the Union and the entire squabble concluded far less dramatically, the cost being Chattel Slavery would have persisted into the 20the century,
And one thing iyou'll notice if you've ever been to the South, with fewer successful businesses.and people used to living simply, southerners to far less consuming than people in the North, so there isn't much to drive up inflation.
Shelby Foote said the Confederacy could never have won the Civil War. He said the Union fought the war with a hand tied behind their back. The union generals in the early years were pitiful especially McClellan. The south has been making excuses for their loss ever since.
The UNION would have used the repeating rifles 1 year earlier, after Gettysburg and Vicksburg. Some soldiers bought repeating rifles from their money in Rosercrans Army and without logistic they had few cartridge and without logistic they stopped using at Chicamagua soon! What a scandal, the Northern military armament supply managers refused the repeating rifles becauset hey believed that the soldiers would shoot indiscriminately from the metal-cased cartridges and thus the logistics would not provide enough cartridges. Lincoln tried the repeating rifle in the garden of the White House, but not to be dictator he could not introduce the Army use in 1863.
I rather accept Margaret Mitchell s account explained by her Character Rhett Butler. All you have ( with which to fight a war) is cotton and arrogance.
I humbly submit that Margaret Mitchell was not an expert on military history. I accept, rather, the analysis of ground breaking military theorists and historians such as Major General JFC Fuller, who would heartily concur with this article's 2nd point.
Those three reasons seem valid to me. I would like to add, that there never should have been a war in the first place. The Confederacy should not have started out it's existence with any hostilities whatsoever towards its new but great neighbor up north. Sure the remaining Union occupation of Fort Sumter was a thorn to the South's pride, but sometimes it's better to put up with a thorn than turn it into a sword. But if the South saw war as inevitable, it should have prepared in advance sufficiently to end the war on its first day of battle. Maybe that meant having a stronger cavalry at First Manassas. And maybe they should also have created a large store of rifles based on the revolver principle, so they could have had 6 to 10 rifle shots instead of having to reload after every single shot. The South should have avoided war. We would all be a lot better off now if they had. But if there had to be war, they should have resolved to win it or lose it at the first battle.
Do i understand you corrctly, you imagine that you can produce a superior, reliable weapon in large quantities within weeks and the ammunition as well? Well the CSA had not the factories for that nor the expertise, nor the supply.
@@TorianTammas Of course not within weeks. The point is that the (foolish) bombing of Fort Sumter should not have been seen as an urgent priority. [BTW, it gained them no strategic advantage, since the North was still able to blockade Southern shipping.] Whatever time they needed to develop the necessary weaponry should have been the priority. That development should have been done before there was any military action.
This was Lincoln's plan and the South fell right into it! Lincoln wanted a war to preserve the Union, to bring the South back into the Union, but he didn't want to start it. So he goaded the South into starting it by keeping fort Sumter garrisoned. The South MIGHT have won the "war," but only if there's no war to begin with, through restraint and diplomacy...
Great article that informs of confederate thinking. We dont have to buy the excuses; knowing of them is more useful. In the 1890's revisionism was in full force. This helps to explain revisionist thinking.
The South lost simply because it could not find the means to entice European powers to acknowledge its existence. They never had their 'Saratoga' moment (which convinced France to openly declare on behalf of the American rebels). With that, they win. Lee understood this.
I'm getting a big laugh from the comments. This video covers a 19th century regurgitation of the whys and wherefores of the Civil War and it has stimulated the gazillionth regurgitation in these comments. I would love to see a prelude to any of these and future comments to this effect: "Thank God the rebellion was defeated. I'm a Southerner and I vastly prefer living in the United States vs. what life would have been in the CSA." I get the feeling that a lot of people today wish the CSA had won and just can let it rest. I'm a WW II buff and I love to read the regurgitations about that war. Should Monty have been sacked? Why wasn't Patton allowed to fight all the way to Berlin? Was dropping the atomic bomb really necessary? Etc. But you never get the sense, from Americans at least, that wouldn't it have been better for Germany and/or Japan to have not made so many mistakes and actually won the war? In the video prior to this one a commenter wrote, "Long live Dixie". I think that says it all. I don't think you'd ever see a Mark Felton video with a comment like "Long live the Third Reich".
Thank you. The Southern apologists give me a pain. If the South had somehow managed to win the war, it would likely have remained a backward, feudalistic third world country well into the 20th century.
Totally agree… for me I think people get wrap up in a romantic view of the south (ie) Gone with the wind, knights of old honour, the under dog, the lost cause ! The war should never have happened thus possibly a political solution ? Personally I think old Jeff missed a opportunity for independence seeking British recognition and support but slavery and all its evils was the south major down fall, A civilisation gone with the wind. 🇬🇧🏴🇺🇸
Felton censors. Censorship is dishonest and unethical. When he instantly deleted one of my benign and literate opinions on one of his videos, I unsubscribed immediately and will never watch him again. He is not an honest scholar.
@@davidb2206 Boo hoo hoo. Methinks it wasn't so benign and literate. He's an outstanding scholar who must put up with the comments section but isn't obliged to keep any comment in view if he doesn't care to.
@@emmgeevideo An honest scholar does not delete people he disagrees with. Just like the dishonesty of youtube, nothing should be deleted unless it is vulgar, libel, communicates a threat (which is a crime), or abuses plagiarism and fair academic use of copyright. I do not support those who do not honor free speech. Most American's don't, either. Around the world, who censors? The communists.
Greenbacks were only a modest part of the effort to keep the treasury solvent. Actually a pretty fascinating aspect of the war. I recommend Roger Lowenstein's outstanding book "Ways and Means" on the funding of the Civil War.
@@hubertwalters4300 Deflation can be as crippling as inflation. I recommend reading up on the Panic of 1857. Awful tales of $1,000 properties that couldn't be sold for $10. Consumers couldn't pay retailers, retailers couldn't pay wholesalers, no one could pay taxes, state governments couldn't provide services or pay salaries....
The South made their mistake by turning to war in the first place. If they had sought a peaceful political solution, it may have taken much longer to achieve independence, (like India) but they would have stood a better chance of achieving their goals, or at least part of their goals. Attacking Fort Sumner just turned them into the bad guys, for starting the war.
It has long been my opinion that, as the US constitution stood in 1859, the southern states had every right to leave the union. If they had pressured a legal course the supreme court would have eventually ruled in their favour.
They DID! Lincoln, the tyrant, refused to meet with the 3 Peace Commissioners after he was sworn in, in 1861! Lincoln, unlike Gorbachev during his break-up, WANTED bloodshed and disaster! 600,000 dead! Lincoln, like Churchill, was a warmonger! Keep in mind, it was not the South that invaded the North.* The war really began on April 15th, when Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers and SENT THEM ACROSS THE STATE LINE into Virginia to murder and pillage Southerners! *(Nobody was killed in battle at Fort Sumter. It protected the harbor of Charleston and was no use to the federal government. It was a ruse. Federal troops had been moved there only a few days before to PROVOKE the Southerners, as it served no purpose for them. Additionally, D.C. had given its word by telegraph that NO reinforcements would be sent to occupy that territory. Then, it was found by Southerners that Lincoln had lied and a reinforcement ship was already underway. Sumter was in no way the "cause" of the War, as has been propagandized by the victor.)
Duncan Rose was wrong all three counts. At lease that the way it seems to me. The Union had more men, more material, more food, and better transportaion. It is a miracle the south lasted as long as it did.
And after General Grant took command of all Union land forces, the Union had an intergrated focused command structure without interference of "political" generals
Well the Prussians won in 5 weeks against Austria which had more soldiers, more railwway miles, a larger industrial base, more people. It seems one can win when one has a plan and the means to actually execute it.
In 1861, the U.S. Army had 16,000 men. Nearly a third of them deserted to the rebel cause. Most of the rest were scattered across the western frontier. Very few officers had led even a regiment-sized formation. So they had to build an army from scratch, with the strategic imperative to subdue a would-be nation with a landmass larger than any that had been conquered since Ghengis Khan. It's a miracle the U.S. accomplished that in only 4 years.
I always thought being the South arrived first they only took Culps Hill as High Ground anybody looking the place over can see The Round Tops Devils Den & Cementary Ridge all were Union Strong holds
Well these patriots had french money, french weapons, thousands of french soldiers and a french navy that won against the british. Not to mention that a large amount of spanish and french ships hold more of the British fleet in Europe.
@@TorianTammas While true Ya forget it was a long while til the French did show up to fight. Not to mention that both Union n Confederacy Got Aid in some form from European powers. Only difference was Not Troops Nor was the Confederacy ever recognized by them..
Monetary deficiencies or mismanagement are symptoms, not causes. Points two and three are interesting, perhaps also a reflection of the perceived monetary mismanagement, but I wonder if the northerner's military industrial production and manpower would have overcome the southerners no matter what they did.
The northern industry and manpower were useless if the public decided the war wasn't worth fighting. Point two is the most important of the three...the rebels refused to sacrifice space for time, when time is what they needed.
Always wonderful, different and interesting stories of the Civil War, but, please, take a hint, put your face in a little square at the bottom of the screen. I mean, who wants to look at your nostrils and moustache 10 inches from the screen. Come on...
![[ ออกกอง ] วัยหนุ่ม 2544 โลกหลังลูกกรง..ทัวร์กองถ่ายหนังใน "คุกของจริง" | JUSTดูIT.](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vB--aOkZCpw/mqdefault.jpg)
When asked why Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg failed, Pickett reportedly replied: "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."
Lee was the big boss and shouldn't have made the suicidal charge directly at the nearly impregnable position the Federal army wanted him to.
@beachcomber1able
Nearly impregnable is right considering Picketts charge broke the union line for a moment, the biggest reason for the failure was the artillery not being as effective in driving off the union artillery.
Still Meade did not counterattack after Pickett charges or on the 4th day of the battle Meade still did nothing and let Lee reteart in good order back to Virginia.
@@danielkitchens4512 Was the retreat really in such good order.
How much of their ordnance did they leave on the battlefield or on the roads to safety. 🤔
It wasn't a great experience for Southern morale and added to the drip drip effect that eventually resulted in defeat. 😟
@beachcomber1able Good enough order to get over 5000 union prisoners into Virginia, and no summer campaign in Virginia in 1863, no serious campaigning until may 1864.
If Gettysburg was so horrible on Lee's army why was he able to send Longstreet and two of his devisons out west?
I believe the lost of Vicksburg had a more long lasting impact on Lee's army than Gettysburg.
Vicksburg was more conclusive than Gettysburg. The real "high water" mark was at Vicksburg. Gettysburg got the press.
In "Gone With The Wind"
Rhett (Clark Gable) tells
the other men at the party on Ashley's Plant-
ation (early in the movie)
why the South couldn't
defeat the North in a war.
It sounded very accurate .
Margaret Mitchell had amazing insights into that war. Probably because she'd grown up listening to actual Confederate veterans.
In the end, most southern soldiers just had no reason to support the planter's dictatorship of Jefferson Davis. The desertion rates were asternomically high.
I've often wondered about that, because a majority of people didn't own Plantations, so there sentiments towards the cause weren't quite as strong.
@@fokkerd3red618but they were as many civil war writings show. It was by no means universal but it was very well shared.
The majority of southerners did not support the war. Howell Cobb quite explicitly pointed out that more able bodied men were out of the Army than were in the Army. This was well into the war and after several conscription orders. Alexander Stephens states in his volumes on the war that he knew the war should never have been started when Lee and Davis issued the first conscription order. (Spring 1862)
1. Badly outnumbered. 2. Very little industry. 3. Very little money.
Depends on how you define money! The argument put forth was the South had too much money!
@@owensomers8572 What I meant was, Money that was worth anything. Like we do in america now, we keep printing more money so the value of said money goes down.
@@jamesellis4664 I know what you meant, but I couldn't resist pointing out the irony of your terse statement. Feel free to give me an example of a society, ever, that did not face inflationary pressures.
@@owensomers8572 Inflation is one thing but when you start printing more money to try to over come bad inflation it is a fools errand. It makes inflation much worse, be it the civil war or now.
@@owensomers8572 Third Reich.
Out numbered is a big one. No industry no shoes, food. But for about three year's they were a hell of a foe.
Confederate generalship in the West was deplorable from the get-go. Not one major victory.
This hapoens when militia slugs it out.
@@MM-ie9hj Chickamauga was an exceptional victory, and if not for George Thomas' stand on Horseshoe Ridge, and his orderly withdrawal, the whole army and Chattanooga might have been lost. That probably would have been enough to lose the election for Lincoln and give the rebels their independence.
NOt in the Western theater....after Shiloh, the Union armies pretty much moved at will....
@@daviddavenport9350 That's not really accurate. Terrain, weather, and rebel action made it a very hard task indeed. Holly Springs set back the capture of Vicksburg by six months. Chickasaw Bayou was a massacre. Murfreesboro delayed the capture of Chattanooga by half a year, and Chickamauga came closer to destroying a Union army than anything Lee's army ever did. Johnston handed Sherman stinging defeats at New Hope Church and Kennesaw Mountain, dragging out the Atlanta campaign so long that Lincoln despaired of reelection.
Ron thank you for another great story!
Throughly enjoying listening to these excerpts. Thank you Ron.
Wow, great article! Stuff like that is why I subscribed!
Great video. The second point about the Confederacy defending territory as opposed to strategic points reminds me of something I read recently about the Ukraine war. The commentator described Russian strategy (and this has been their strategy in the last several centuries) to ignore territorial gains & losses and focus on destroying the enemy's armies & supply lines. Not pretty but it works.
The same thing accelerated Germany's defeat in WWII. The more Hitler took over the running of the war the more it became about holding as much territory as possible, with disastrous results for Germany.
And, having a Navy that could blockade Southern ports, plenty of arms factories, overwhelming population advantage had a lot to do with Union ‘s victory.
For much of the war, the South had better cavalry, Lee seemed to know how to use them. The main reason for their loss still continues to be that they just ran out of men.
The southern system was failing before the war. They had minimal industry limited railroads and a large proportion of their population were not available to fill the ranks of the army because they were enslaved.
They may have run out of men and horses, but the north did not, and they learned how to use them effectively. In the beginning, the north had no need of a cavalry and the south had a lot of experience with horses and hunting. When the north discovered they need a cavalry they produced one.
@@conradnelson5283 Oh, the north very much needed cavalry in the beginning. Cavalry scouted, screened, and skirmished, and a lot of McClellan's early failures were based on his inexplicable decision to have a railroad detective do his intelligence gathering instead of developing competent cavalry. The problem was that it takes a non-horse rider two years to become a moderately effective cavalryman.
His estimation of cavalry was at least 80 years out of date. The reason Civil War cavalry was used differently than in Napoleonic times is because infantry tended to kill charging cavalry in unwelcome numbers.
@@kurtwicklund8901 It might have made a difference if one or both sides in the Civil War had enough cavalry, but both sides had much smaller cavalry:infantry ratios than European armies. Also, neither side had the training, horses, and equipment (cuirasses, lances, etc.) to make effective shock cavalry. Even in Napoleonic battles, heavy cavalry was best deployed against a wavering or broken infantry formation, not against strong lines or squares. It is interesting to speculate about what Lee might have accomplished at, say, 2nd Manassas, if Longstreet's charge had included several thousand trained lancers.
The North had the capacity, the depth of population and materials to lose until they won.
The South had the ability to win until they lost.
The south misjudged the Northern will and ability. They thought any southern country boy could whup three damyankees with his hands tied behind his back. That arrogance was their undoing. Marching uphill at Little Round Top thinking they could beat up and out tough guys who spent their winters in Maine logging with axes and crosscut saws. Even after the war their egos could not accept the idea that Grant was as good or a better general than their sainted General Lee so they have spent 150 years slandering him despite brilliant campaigns at Vicksburg and Fort Donnellson, turning around a hopeless situation at Chattanooga and a relentless campaign in the east.
Funny Grant had been discharge after fighting in the Mexican War and was working in a Indiana Hardware Store when Lincoln called him up and noteworthy was a fact that General Sherman had a nervous Breakdown and Grant went to his aid for a few days helped him climb out of it
@@edwardgoering1237 Almost. Grant resigned from the army, and was working in an Illinois leather-goods store. Rather than calling him up, Lincoln had no idea who Grant was, although Galena congressman Elihu Washburn was a friend of Lincoln and was a political champion for Grant throughout the war.
@@aaronfleming9426 Thanks
@@aaronfleming9426 I think Grant was working in his father's leather business in Galena, Illinois.
@@ToddSauve That's correct. The house he lived in is still there. It's a museum and I've been by it, but not in it. Galena is a lovely town and a great place for a vacation. There's even a Blue-and-Gray mini-golf course where each hole has a Civil War theme, and after playing a round you can get a burger and some frozen custard at a Culver's right next door :D
The money was irrelevant. With ports blockaded they had no way to buy things from abroad.
The naval blockade was only partially successful,with a coast line as extensive as the east coast even today with all the technology available smuggling still occurs.
And when I was back there on vacation I noticed that the East coast topography is very complex, with lots of bays and inlets for a smuggler to hide in.@@robertartiga7
I think it helps to understand how blockades can be effective. They don't need to stop all the ships that try to run them, just a decent enough percentage of them. The result is that fewer ships even try to run them. And the ships that do try sacrifice carrying capacity for speed. Thus the total tonnage of goods drops much further than it would have been otherwise. And this is exactly what happened in the Civil War.
The blockade is WHY they had no 'real' money. The guy was onto a root cause though he may not have percieved it quite correctly.
Thanks for the video. Interesting essay and as I hear it he is saying that it was strategic bad management of the CSA government that was the issue with the first two points.
Out-logistic-ed. Same as Germany in WWII. When the enemy has overwhelmingly more resources and supply tonnage than you do, you are doomed. The amazing thing is that the Confederacy was able to resist for four years.
General Lee and Pres. Jefferson Davis explained the loss very well in their own final writings about the subject. Pres. Davis, who was in the center of the drama, wrote in great detail in his excellent "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government" -- highly recommended to all real, honest scholars.
RE:your logistics point. The north had far more miles and distribution of railroads, and far fewer different incompatible gauges. It allowed the north to move people and materials faster and more efficiently.
Jefferson Davis was also constitutionally incapable of admitting to a mistake, so his explanations are correspondingly self-serving. All three criticisms pointed out in this video are spot-on.
@@aaronfleming9426 Did you read his book? Didn't think so. There is MORE to the story than what you've been told in public schools.
@@davidb2206 Good thing I was homeschooled and then private schooled! Also, while I've only read portions of some of Davis' writings, I've also read some excellent biographies as well as other analysis of his life and times. Have you read his biography by William C. Davis? I was really impressed by the balance and humanity of the work.
It is not so amazing. Warfare in 1860 greatly favored the strategic defense. Especially in a war of massive armies manned and officered both by rapidly converted civilians.
Very interesting! Thank you
A Union Soldier asked a Confederate soldier why he was fighting the war. The Confederate soldier said "Cause you're down here"
Bruce Catton put it perfectly; Lincoln knew that the war was won when he met Grant, a soldier who understood what he had felt from the beginning - Confederate resources could not keep up with Confederate geography.
Interesting insights, still pertinent to consider today for our times.
Absurd. While relevant, these reasons are dramatically peripheral. The loss is overwhelmingly attributed to an agricultural economy taking on an industrializing one in an era increasingly defined by urban industrialization and its military institutions increasingly mediated by industrial implements of killing and logistics. The agricultural state cannot compete with the sheer mass of industrial output, the industrial wealth to sustain it, and the greater population sizes of industrial societies.
like Vietnam? or Afghanistan?
And how was the agricultural system maintained.?
@@BaikalTii Yes… those would be particularly dramatic examples. Perhaps more apropos would be the Boor (agricultural Dutch in South Africa) revolt against the British Administration of South Africa in 1899-1902. Much more similar. The rural population can have more ‘spirit’ and better leadership… but it will all succumb to sheer wealth, population, and industrial output. In the large cities of the North during the Civil War the field conflict was but a distant distraction that sometimes penetrated other interests such as entertainment, financial, and cultural celebrations. That’s how powerful was the North. The South could ‘never’ win.
The Northern economy was not just more industrialized, it was more well-rounded and integrated. For every factory worker in the South, there was a factory in the North. The North was able to feed, clothe, and equip itself without any help from abroad. Arms bought from abroad were soon discarded as (mostly) inferior to those manufactured at home. Textile factories switched from cotton to wool, and, in general, the Northern economy expanded throughout the war and, by 1865 became the largest industrial economy in the world, surpassing even Great Britain and France. There are many more reasons, but these are sufficient to make the point.
Except when rice farmers in Vietnam fought the French & then the Americans to a standstill in guerrilla warfare. But yes, the South just had less & Grant was a truly modern general who knew that he could get resupplied.
Interesting to hear perspectives from those living at the time. I’m sure every soldier had their own reasons for joining military service. I wonder if, at the beginning of the war, how many soldiers were even literate, let alone educated, and aware of the actual issues facing them. certainly by the end of the war, each soldier now had their own experience and observations to round out their opinions. But like the drawings of MC Escher, individual perceptions will differ depending on the perspective of the viewer. No individual is wrong, yet no one person can possibly calculate the sum of all perspectives into an accurate summation. Even with over 160 years of hindsight, archeology, technology, and analytical forensic research, opinions still widely vary on most reasons, causes, and effects of the Civil War. Thank you for sharing original source material in story format! Very entertaining and educational 👍
To my understanding, all three of the reasons cited reflect the naïve sentiment, held by much of the Confederacy at the outset, that the Union effort would amount to nothing and concession would soon be reached as the Union lost the will to fight.
I don't know, but if Lee had won at Gettysburg, to the North this would have been like a man getting kicked in the testicles by a mule, it's my understanding that morale and support for the war was pretty low already among a lot of the people and in Congress also,President Lincoln was regularly lambasted by Northern newspapers and a defeat at Gettysburg may have sealed his fate in the 1864 elections, he may have been voted out and replaced with a President who wanted peace even if it meant letting go of the South.
So this rebellion was buikt on a "may be" if so then who would build a hiuse on land that may be belong to you one day.
@@TorianTammas Haha, someone building a house on property they don't own happens happens more often than you would think! And they often get away with it. I don't think that is a good analogy for the rebellion. Many wars, just like many boxing matches, have one or both sides making claims they know to be unrealistic.
@@hubertwalters4300you are right that had the south won at Gettysburg it would have been a blow to the north, but I don’t know if it really would’ve changed much in the long run. It would’ve been a pretty Pyrrhic victory in that if Lee wanted to continue east towards Washington the Union could more easily replace their losses and there probably would’ve been another battle of that scale that since his army would’ve been depleted it would’ve been really hard to sustain. Vicksburg also fell on the same day as Gettysburg so my guess is that he would’ve had to retreat back into Virginia anyways.
The Confederacy lost the war with the first cannonball fired at Fort Sumter. Long ago, when I was in the U.S. Navy a guy from Alabama told me "the only reason you yankees.(you yankees) is because y'all had more guns and men. If the odds were even, we (we) would've won". I said "I sincerely believe that the best way to win a war is to have more guns, and more men. To fight against the overwhelming amount of weapons and personnel thinking that the bravery and superior character of the Southern soldier was enough to win a war that's only going to be two weeks long, is not only ignorant, it's downright stupid".
Men and material. 3:09 sounds exactly like U.S. today.
Washington D.C. is more broke today than the Confederacy was in 1861. US$35 trillion national debt. Meanwhile Biden is giving billions more to foreigners, 900 military bases, and "wars." It seems intentional.
The United States, under Lincoln, would NEVER give up the fight to preserve the union, and they had a strategy for doing so. It seems that the confederacy, on the other hand, had no strategy for victory.
A very debatable topic with clear points. Commendable that these topics can still be discussed...
I was hoping that you may look into the
Tex-mex Confederate company....
My understanding,, "We never lost a battle.."
The absurdities of war have always existed and always will. What's happening currently today is absolutely no different. Thanks for this episode.
Spot on comment.
The gentleman forgot to mention industry and population. He could have added devine intervention.
Yes divine intervention for the north taxing the South into Oblivion and getting zero in return. Well said!
You could say Rose was talking tactical issues while he forgot all about the overarching Strategic issues. The “South” was fighting with a much smaller population, a significantly smaller and less productive economy when was was becoming more technological, and just as importantly the south was sullied by issue that stopped them from acquiring allies… it did not have the moral high ground. What European power was going to openly support slavery over freedon and also lose the massive market that was the North? As Shelby Foote noted the North did not fight the war with both hands, if it had more losses, Foote noted, the North would simply unloose the other hand. While most Generals think tactics, Patton reportedly said the best Generals think logistics…and the North had comparatively unlimited logistics.
The south had an 18th century
Army fighting a nineteen century war against a 20th
Century power. That pretty much was the writing on the
Wall.
Interesting lessons Ron. Number 1 and 2 would still apply today. Politicalization of any army is a hinderance to say the least and has been demonstrated time and time again as being harmful. Printing money for war makes no more sense than printing money for economic benefit, you end up at the same place - inflation. I remember reading that buy late in the war a confederate $10 bill was placed on a sheet cake and traced with a knife to determine the portion….talking about shrinkflation. I cant comment on the Calvary in relation to today, but would enjoy someone else’s comment.
Well, cavalry today enters battle in helicopters and armored personnel carriers. Army helicopter-borne troops are called "air cavalry". They still perform the traditional functions of cavalry - recon, shock troops, flanking attacks, pursuit. So I'd say we still have cavalry, just faster and more powerful.
Point 2 is well-taken. “Who defends everything defends nothing” not sure what the options were as far as paper money was concerned. Cavalry? WTF My understanding is that, apart from Gettysburg, confederate cavalry was pretty effective until later in the war, after Brandy Station.
Jeff Davis was seemed convinced that the theory of regional autonomy played a decisive role in the defeat of the confederacy
Confederate cavalry was better, but not numerous enough to effectively pursue a beaten foe. I believe that in the Civil War armies the infantry:cavalry ratio was 10:1. In professional European armies it was 6:1 or even 4:1. And Civil War cavalry was trained for scouting and skirmish, and did not include cuirassiers and lancers, the sort of heavy cavalry that European armies used for shock combat.
@@mjordan79705 It did in certain important ways. Lee thought primarily of Virginia even when the war was being lost in the west and did not want to release any of his troops to that theater. At the end North Carolina had 90,000 uniforms in warehouses that it's governor refused to release to all except home state troops, at the time when most Confederates were reduced to wearing rags and many were shoeless. Jefferson, and Lincoln as well, shared the myopia that their capitols must be defended at all costs, most likely since they personally did not want to be caught up in the fighting and perhaps captured.
Most interesting. All three points debatable, of course. The finance point is complicated and comments preceding make clear most do not understand it. For those interested, a concise treatment: Confederate Finance by Richard Cecil Todd. Perhaps the Southern problem was "If you cannot defend it, it isn't yours". Cavalry was the most expensive, least effective military asset on a civil war battlefield. Reconnoiter, yes. Combat against infantry, no.
By gettysburg union cavalry had caught up and was larger in numbers.
The "irredeemable paper money" was problematic not because it was paper, it was irredeemable because the Confederacy did not have the resources to back it. Of course, lack of resources will hit you on the battlefield...for instance, Confederate soldiers wernable quite often unable to perform effectively due to malnutrition. Likewise, they were often wanting for weapons, ammunition, uniforms, horses, wagons, etc., etc., etc. The slavery mentality left many southerners unwilling to do the 'menial' labor necessary for success -- digging trenches was for slaves. Lack of naval capability left the Confederacy unable to effectively counter the Union blockade. Having Jefferson Davis as a leader was a bad situation as he tended to interfere more with his generals than did Lincoln, Jefferson was also loyal to old classmates and kept them in position when he should have sacked them. The Confederacy lacked for European recognition and/or support once Lincoln framed the war as a battle against slavery. The South lacked for strategic vision, Grant employed forces to cripple the Confederacy as an entity, Lee was focused on protecting Virginia.
The Confederacy had an advantage in that it did not need to conquer the North. It simply had to survive long enough to convince the northerners that the cost in men and material to hang on to the southern states was not worth the effort. And that came close to occurring. McClellan was the peace candidate in 1864 but by the time of the election there had been enough Union victories for Lincoln to be re-elected.
Conventional doctrine is that the side on the offense has to have 3 times the resources of the side on the defence, and that assumes that both sides are equally motivated to win. But as stated in the video, the strategy of the Confederacy was poor, trying to defend everything.
The North had to invade and conquer the South, which in the end they did.
At the beginning of WWI, Lord Kitchener, a former Field Marshall who had defeated the Boer farmers in the Second South African war by using brutal measures, including herding the farmers' families into concentration camps where many died of disease and hunger, shocked the establishment by saying that it would take 3 years to defeat the Germans. Both sides thought it would be a short war.
The small professional British army had been reduced to a shadow of its former self in the first year of the war. Kitchener raised the New Army which eventually won the war with the help of the late arriving Americans and the French army which had almost collapsed in mutiny in 1917.
The end came with the Battle of Amiens on August 8 1918, which Ludendorff called the Black Day of the German army which began the Hundred day advance ending with the November 11 armistice. It was spearheaded by the Australian and Canadian Corps using combined arms tactics refined by Australian Corps Commander General John Monash. Kitchener did not live to see it having drowned as a consequence of a U-boat attack in 1916.
And the British naval blockade had reduced Germany to near starvation.
Early in the war a strong Southern cavalry might have made a difference, but once both sides figured out the value of entrenchments, the war devolved into trench warfare where the cavalry was neutered. A short war may have favored the South, but Jeff Davis never seemed to possess that understanding. It could be argued that Jeff Davis was the reason the South lost. Had Stonewall Jackson had his way, Southern forces would have marched to DC in May of 1861. Davis held him back.
Currency was a huge problem, but the underlying problem there was the insufficiency of Southern industrial production.
"All we have to do to raise money is to print it....expansion and redundancy".... o boy that sure rings the death bell tale! Real good overview.
Two points on the cavalry, yes JEB Stuart proved much but also caused much for lack of presence at Gettysburg as stated. But one example of the cavalry in greater strength and failing miserably to tactics and skill was when the French were destroyed at Agincourt (1415) by archers with the the longbow ..even while outnumbering the English 5:1....and the English having no cavalry to speak of, the French lost thousands.
Cavalry has to be properly deployed, no doubt. This article is specifically discussing the need for sufficient cavalry to pursue a beaten foe. The French at Agincourt were trying to use cavalry to break an enemy infantry formation.
@@aaronfleming9426 True...point well stated and taken. But the thought I had generally speaking, cavalry is still a bigger target with well placed shots
@@theophilhist6455 Quite right. And honestly I don't know enough about European warfare between Napoleon and WWI to know how effective shock cavalry were once the rifled musket was introduced en masse. Interestingly enough, there were a couple of effective cavalry charges in WWI, early on before both sides dug in.
@@aaronfleming9426 This is a good conversation Aaron. We'll find it interesting to study the US Army "dismounted cavalry doctrine" practiced with the advent of the breech loaded Springfield's (trapdoors) and many kinds of repeating rifles. (1870-90s). Units could quickly deploy, dismount, and discharge and direct accurate concentrated fire and leave. It's how the US Cavalry was finding it could hit and destroy less organized native warriors. It failed obviously at the Big Horn due to the vast superiority in numbers of the Lakota and Cheyenne (8:1) and Custer's poor leadership. However the doctrine is still seen in APVs deploying infantry....or the "Air Cavalry" used since Vietnam.
@@theophilhist6455 Well put. As far as I'm aware, that doctrine really started to develop with Wilder's "Lightning Brigade". It's interesting to me that it was the Army of the Cumberland - sort of the least appreciated Union army of the war - that pioneered truly effective mounted infantry with repeating weapons.
The paper money reason is more or less stating the Southern economy could not match the North's especially considering the strangulation of foreign trade, aka 'real' money.
The second reason I find interesting. He suggests trading land for blood, an intentional strategy to fall back to distant capital. I doubt it would have won the war but it is an interesting suggestion.
The cavalry reason of course vastly over values whatever validity he tactical preferences might have.
I would say 1) because the large rivers of the West were navigable, rendering the West indefensible, and 2) because Grant decided to move beyond purely military warfare on to economic warfare.
The north had too large of a population for the south to defeat! The north had a massive amount of weapons and resources that the South could not match! The South was greatly dependent upon capturing northern suplies to survive! This shows that the south could not have won the war!
By 1864 recruiting in the north was drying up. Just because you have people doesn't mean they'll volunteer; just because you conscript them doesn't mean they'll be effective fighters. The article's second point is the most important, since it's the foundation for understanding how the rebels squandered what advantages they had by trying to defend everything.
For whatever reason, thank God they failed.
😅😂😅
He makes an excellent point, the Confederacy never even attempted to set up a mint. The South had plenty of gold to mint coins and Mexico would have sold them all the silver they wanted.
The South spent most of its bullion on foreign weapons in the first two years. What did that leave for minting currency for the domestic economy?
The fact is the war was many different things to the participants, and still is to us today. Answers, right or wrong, offered at the time most likely depended upon the particular individual's position regarding the war.
Some interesting points raised there for sure. Maybe the Confederates should have concentrated everything on an invasion of Wash DC and into Philadelphia/NJ? Abandoned the Western theater? Could they pull it off? It always comes down to the South had do something and hope the Northern population got sick of it and then quit.
People keep forgetting how the south came pretty close to getting recognition from foreign powers more than once.. In fact, The folks in the union were considering throwing the towel in in eighteen sixty four. That is why lincoln made it a point to permit the soldiers to vote from the field, In why Mcclellan was even considered a viable peace candidate in eighteen sixty four.
Even with all this economic preponderance of manufacturing, The north had a distinct possibility of losing the war. It was simply that, Like nazi germany years later, They lost steam before they could achieve the key victories necessary.
Many wars are fought where people recognize that they are weaker than their adversary, But they count on elań esprit de corps and their superior knowledge of warfare to win out. Similar to the strategy the japanese had in the pacific.
All were lost causes because they did not have the material means to win in a protracted, struggle.
Actually pretty fair reasons there..
Esp 2 n 3 as for Struat n Gettysburg He was doing what he had been ordered to do.Lee simply goofed on the 2nd n 3rd..
The Confederacy failed for lack of strategic planning. Early in the war Gen. Winfield Scott, the overall Union commander came up with the Anaconda Plan. In the end, this is pretty much how the war was won. There was no strategic plan for the South so even though there were some major victories in the field, they were ineffective.
What strategic plan could they have devised, except to find a way to get European powers to support them?
What strategic plan, similar to the Anaconda Plan, could be carried out with so few people? I've wondered that myself but have never heard a sound suggestion. Guerrilla warfare, attack and retreat, seems most effective in smaller numbers but home front is not easily protected over such a massive area, again with such few numbers.
@@Francis-m2dGuerilla warfare as applied by the Spanish against French forces.
@@dcs5343 Sacrifice space for time and/or opportunity. In trying to defend everything, the rebels refused to sacrifice space. They exhausted themselves before the '64 election in which a change of administration in the north might have given the south a chance for independence.
Ask yourself what the two greatest southern victories were. If you say Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg instead of Holly Springs and Harpers Ferry, you're still making the mistake they made.
@@aaronfleming9426 I was thinking Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg. Can you give me the layman's reason for Harper's Ferry and Holly Springs being the greatest?
sort of like what's going on now
There are two reasons
1 lack of resources
2 poor leadership
The US Navy won that war by blockading Southern ports.
The North had more soldiers too.
The lack of hard currency may have contributed to south high desertion rate. They had no money of real value to send home to support their families. Some who were literally starving.
Some things never change (money)
👍 👍
I'm reading Confederate General Longstreet's memoirs. It appears that his boss General Bragg wasn't exactly a man easy to get along with. Bragg was combative with his generals and stole some of their glory. Confederate President Jeff Davis had to go onto the battlefield where they were and tried to smooth things out. That failed.
So the Confederate army was running low on everything they needed and the generals bickered with Bragg once too often. That's how you lose a war.
Johnston was even worse. Read his book. It's his own version (= his best shot) and he comes across as a whining defeatist during he whole Atlanta Campaign. I would not want him on my staff, even as a lieutenant.
The north significantly outnumbered the south plain and simple. The south did not have heavy rail or any significant industry. End of story.
needed to just play defense and wait for the 1864 election
The war of northern aggression was NOT about slavery. It was started and fought over states rights. One only has to look at the abortion issue which was..wait for it..sent back to the states. This is a REPUBLIC. Not a democracy. The founding fathers in their wisdom made sure that even the smallest still had a voice that couldn’t be trampled by the many. ( look at the state of affairs today, lots of eerie similarities, this is a nation as divided as it was back then. Though slavery was rightly and justly abolished, it wasn’t the reason the south seceded.
I am a Georgian.
I have always heard that in the 1800’s, everyone was devoted to their state. Lee is always an example . He fought for Virginia because he saw himself as a Virginian.
Anyways, if everyone identified with their state (which I believe to be true because travel was so difficult and internet wasn’t around, etc)…
With that said, why did someone in Georgia care about these new states being created hundreds of miles away from their state? Kansas had no bearing on Georgia and why would Georgians care if Kansas was a slave state or not? If I was pro slavery-I would want less slave states because it’s less competition. Idk…just food for thought.
It was not over slavery and there is overwhelming proof. For one thing, fewer than 1 in 7 southerners had any connection with slavery. They were too poor, like my sharecropping ancestors.
Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation regarding slaves held in territories OUTSIDE his control (!) until 1863. If slavery had been the issue of the war, he would have issued a mission order immediately in 1861, at the beginning of the war, to all his generals to release slaves wherever they were encountered. He did not! Lincoln, like the corrupt and devious politician and tyrant that he was, only latched on to slavery as a political issue in 1863 when he thought he was losing the re-election.
Look at his first inaugural speech in 1861 in which he says (lied) that he himself believed he had not the right to "interfere" with slavery anywhere!
My direct ancestors in Georgia did not own any slaves and died in that war. You bet it is personal with me.
@@davidb2206 I don’t think I said it was or was not over slavery.
I asked why people in states cared if another state hundreds of miles away had slaves or not.
Read it again and save your tangent.
@@davidb2206it was precisely about slavery and its expansion. The sad part is so many poor white men fought and suffered to maintain the wealthy's outdated status quo when they gained very little, if anything, from the enslavement of four million Blacks.
Cotton as a crop was land hungry. With the farming methods of the time the south need to be able to expand to grown the same amount as the land became exhausted. Anything that stopped that happening was a problem. Hence bleeding kansas.
@@patrickporter1864when did the land become exhausted? I wasn't aware that cotton cultivation ever stopped as it still continues today.
These youtubers lose monitization from me. Some of the ads are offensively deceitful. I skip over them asap.
Thank you for tracking down this interesting document. It does seem typical of accounts from that time (don't blame the generals). I'm not sure how you can blame paper money when the Union basically paid for its war effort with greenbacks. Probably more accurate to say that a mercantile/slave economy, besides being cruel and immoral, was also unable to keep pace with an industrial rival that promoted innovation and infrastructure. Reliance on cotton meant that the South never developed a middle class or a bureaucracy that could manage the daily business of government. By the end of the war, the Confederate Army was the only functioning institution left: there are reports of Confederate units presiding over civil court cases and distributing the mail. The Union blockade hurt but then so did the Confederate decision to cut cotton production by 90%, which was a disastrous calculation to force European intervention. Not to mention that most of the South's "capital" simply ran for their freedom whenever the Union Army came near. So Duncan Rose is right in a sense-Confederate paper money was worthless-but it's important to talk about the reason why. The South lost for the very reason it seceded: its slave economy.
Greenbacks were only a relatively small part of an impressive effort on the part of northern bankers and economists. I highly recommend Roger Lowenstein's book "Ways and Means" for a deep but easy-reading dive into the financing of the Civil War on both sides!
@@aaronfleming9426 Thank you! I'll look it up.
Read Hinton Rowan Helper's _The Impending Crisis_.
Money. What else could the CSA do?
Another great story. Thank you Ron. Good to see real history instead of the revisionist woke BS.
They should have gone to Supreme Court and gotten a ruling saying there is nothing in constitution preventing them leaving..
Where was it in the constitution of thr CSA that thry could leave? They could not leave from the CSA and they were damned to be slave states.
They didn't need such a ruling from the Supreme Court. The provisions of Amendment X provided states with the right to secede because: 1) the power of secession was not delegated to the federal government, and; 2) the power of secession was not prohibited to the states. It was therefore reserved to the states (or to the people respectively).
Moreover, secession was 'not' the cause of the Civil War. Confederate President Jefferson Davis' act of war in ordering the reduction of Fort Sumter if U.S. forces refused to evacuate it was the cause of the conflict.
God Said So.
Just always remember, the civil war like all other ones had NOTHING to do with slaves
Of course it did. Don’t be ridiculous. More to the point, it had everything to do with the slave-holding states’ insistence on being able to export their slave labor-based agrarian/plantation economy to newly admitted states. That caused a tension with the free states that had been brewing since 1820.
I have read that the issue was still very much in doubt in late 1864. If McClellan had won the Presidency, entirely possible and expected for much of that year, he very well might have gone for a negotiated settlement giving the CSA victory. I don't think the outcome was inevitable even given the North's industrial and population advantages.
The issue was in doubt due to the political BS that was going on in the Lincoln administration and Lso in the Davis administration.
Sherman gave a warning to the South about the folly of war, which they ignored.
The South did better at first because they were better prepared than the North, not because they were better over the long haul.
The Anaconda plan won by wearing the South out.
Because God abhors slavery.
GOOD v EVIL?
Lee threw the fight. Did not follow Manassas with assault against Washingtion, also complicit in the murder of Jackson. Was the pope's man, along with Davis and myself who then was Gen. Slaughter.
You see, there's an easy way to tell if a conspiracy is true or not. Does it seem really stupid when you stop and think about it? If it does seem really stupid, it's not true. So stop and think about what you're saying:
Instead of simply staying with the Union, Lee joined the rebellion, infiltrated its army and achieved the highest rank possible, repeatedly kicked the Union's butt, but held back juuuuuust enough that he didn't win...because the Pope told him to.
Now, does that make sense when you think about it? No? That means it's a false conspiracy theory.
Here's another helpful tool, called Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity."
So what's more likely: that the south had a bunch of reasons to lose, including poor economic, diplomatic, and strategic planning (stupidity); or that Lee maliciously conspired with the Pope to infiltrate and then sabotage the Confederacy?
What's more likely: that Jackson was shot while riding in the dark toward his own lines - straight toward battle-hardened men who were crashing off the adrenaline high of combat; or that Lee maliciously and secretly convinced a group of veteran warriors to gun down their beloved commander because the Pope told him to?
Also...Lee wasn't even in command at the first battle of Manassas. After the second battle, where he did command, he tried to pursue the Union army but was blocked at Chantilly...to say nothing of the fact that in either case there still wouldn't have been a way to get across the Potomac to take Washington anyway.
Bro, you have to start thinking this stuff through before you say it in public.
2nd reason is actually reasonable. Vietnam style guerilla tactics would probably have given victory to confederacy. 1st and 3rd reasons are silly and stupid.
The south used guerilla bands like Quantrell's Raiders and the Moseby insurgency quite effectively to attack and pillage Union supply lines. They captured large amounts of food, weapons and gunpowder.
But when Sherman cut his supply lines loose on his march to the sea, the guerillas lost that advantage. Ultimately it was sheer Union numbers and firepower that defeated the south.
@@brianniegemann4788 that was not Vietnam-tactics. That would have been not defending area and letting Union troops to South. Then striking them and hiding after. First election and South would have won..
A gorilla style of war might have been a pain in the ass for awhile, but in no way would it have brought victory for the south. It just would have brought total misery to much of the country, as well as a huge number of starvation deaths to the south.
@@frankperkin124 I don't think that northern electorate would have had stomach for real gruel guerilla war. Offcourse neither would south but that would have been only way south could win.
@@kallekonttinen1738 I think the south had even less of a stomach for a gorilla war than Northern voters. Watching your families die of starvation does not exactly motivate you to fight for rich plantation owners who got you in the war in the first place.
Cause they whipped us.
I agree with the video
I see
Lack of men to fight
Lack of money
Slavery was not the only issue but
It did have a lot to do with it
Have you ever wondered what if 2 Americans nations had emerged
Think about that
You have Canada ans Nexico to American nation as all are in America named after Amerigo Vespucci and from Florence, Italy
I have always heard the battle at Prarie grove Arkansas the confederate army lost 2 or3 wagons of supply including ammo to fight battles
If that were true the south was incapable of winning the war
Again i ask this
What if two nations had emerged from the war
America is again facing division
The Confederacy failed because their leaders began a war which they were completely unprepared for, and over a strip of land which had been the property of the United States for almost 25 years- and which had never been part of the Confederate States of America. They did this at a time when they had no army, no navy, no general staff, no industrial base with which to produce the war material which they would need, and no allies. Added to this are the facts that they were significantly outnumbered and had no strategy for victory. They are an outstanding example of the negative aspect of Sun Tzu's statement that:
"With many calculations, one can win; with few, one cannot. How much less chance of victory has one who makes none at all?
Had their leaders been wise, they would have played for time and begun preparing at full speed for a conflict with the United States which was all but inevitable. Instead, they plunged headlong into war- and it cost them everything- which, in retrospect, was all for the good.
We've argued about many other topics, so I'd like to say that I'm in full agreement with you on this one. Well said!
@@aaronfleming9426 Well, many thanks. I very much appreciate your comment!
@@manilajohn0182 Nothing personal about our other disagreements, I'd like to call out the agreement when we see eye to eye just as much as the disagreements!
@@aaronfleming9426 I could not agree more with that. Few people disagree on everything, and it's better all- around to emphasize the positive rather than the negative- particularly in the field of military history.
Cheers...
Because Bobby Lee personally wiped out 20% of the military age men in the Confederacy,
One word. DuPont.
Do a deep dive. JS
yes, Gettysburg was lost because Stuart was out of communication and thus failed in his responsibility. another military factor was the death of Albert Sidney Johnston, which basically cost the Confederacy cohesion and generalship in the west.
Why do people blame Stuart? He was a great General that was crucial in the Chancellorsville battle. Early was in Gettysburg on June 26. Lee was the one that had his men marching AWAY from Stuart, AWAY from Gettysburg. Lee's supposed plan was to break up the Army of the Potomac as it marched north in separate columns. The most likely place for that to happen was Gettysburg. It was a crucial error by Lee not to hold Gettysburg on June 26. It would have been easier to recover Stuart if he held Gettysburg on the 26. Lee lost four days to select his battlefield. His errors, selected the battlefield for him.
Lee had more cavalry with his army than Stuart had, Lee MISUSED that cavalry. He was blind at his own doing.
@user-sq1ml3js1m Lee did not need more cavalry he needed Stuart who was great at information gathering
Albert Sidney Johnston accomplished almost zero. There is no basis to say that his death made a big difference; the fact that he was behaving like a brigade commander at Shiloh is an indication that he was not prepared for army command.
@@aaronfleming9426 better him than Bragg in command of the Army of Tennessee. much better chance of cohesiveness in 1862 and early 1863.
The problem with the paper money argument is that the creation of the Greenback by Samuel Chase was a major force multiplier in Lincoln's war economy, The political construct of the rebellion was anchored squarely on the fallacy of the separate parts being greater than the whole, The misapprehension that "Cotton is King in formed this economic distortion,
the Pyrrhic victory of Ft. Sumter established the state of siege that persisted throughout the war and was generally perfected at Vicksburg, The rebellion's arrangements for the strategic vindication of their ambitions by military district reflected the fantasy of their state's rights impregnability and didn't matter, in the final analysis, Robert E. Lee himself observed that that rebellion had adopted the one form of government that was destined to fail, Or words to tht effect.
Without command of Hampton Roads and unfettered access to the Atlantic, the southern proposition was forlorn before the fact, Lee knew this, If Richmond society had not been dominated by politicians like Glenn Youngkin, Virginia might have stayed in the Union and the entire squabble concluded far less dramatically, the cost being Chattel Slavery would have persisted into the 20the century,
And one thing iyou'll notice if you've ever been to the South, with fewer successful businesses.and people used to living simply, southerners to far less consuming than people in the North, so there isn't much to drive up inflation.
Shelby Foote said the Confederacy could never have won the Civil War. He said the Union fought the war with a hand tied behind their back. The union generals in the early years were pitiful especially McClellan. The south has been making excuses for their loss ever since.
The UNION would have used the repeating rifles 1 year earlier, after Gettysburg and Vicksburg. Some soldiers bought repeating rifles from their money in Rosercrans Army and without logistic they had few cartridge and without logistic they stopped using at Chicamagua soon! What a scandal, the Northern military armament supply managers refused the repeating rifles becauset hey believed that the soldiers would shoot indiscriminately from the metal-cased cartridges and thus the logistics would not provide enough cartridges. Lincoln tried the repeating rifle in the garden of the White House, but not to be dictator he could not introduce the Army use in 1863.
If grant had mcclellans resources in the strategic position he had them the war would have ended two years earlier.
@@avenaoatThe Springfield 1870 was the way to go as breech-loading mutiplued the fire rate to 6 shots per minute and yiu coukd reload kneeling.
I rather accept Margaret Mitchell s account explained by her Character Rhett Butler. All you have ( with which to fight a war) is cotton and arrogance.
I humbly submit that Margaret Mitchell was not an expert on military history. I accept, rather, the analysis of ground breaking military theorists and historians such as Major General JFC Fuller, who would heartily concur with this article's 2nd point.
Those three reasons seem valid to me.
I would like to add, that there never should have been a war in the first place. The Confederacy should not have started out it's existence with any hostilities whatsoever towards its new but great neighbor up north. Sure the remaining Union occupation of Fort Sumter was a thorn to the South's pride, but sometimes it's better to put up with a thorn than turn it into a sword.
But if the South saw war as inevitable, it should have prepared in advance sufficiently to end the war on its first day of battle. Maybe that meant having a stronger cavalry at First Manassas. And maybe they should also have created a large store of rifles based on the revolver principle, so they could have had 6 to 10 rifle shots instead of having to reload after every single shot.
The South should have avoided war. We would all be a lot better off now if they had. But if there had to be war, they should have resolved to win it or lose it at the first battle.
One southerner could whup 10 Yankees. Unfortunately as always in these case there were 11 Yankees. Hubris should never be discounted. 😊
Do i understand you corrctly, you imagine that you can produce a superior, reliable weapon in large quantities within weeks and the ammunition as well? Well the CSA had not the factories for that nor the expertise, nor the supply.
@@TorianTammas
Of course not within weeks.
The point is that the (foolish) bombing of Fort Sumter should not have been seen as an urgent priority. [BTW, it gained them no strategic advantage, since the North was still able to blockade Southern shipping.] Whatever time they needed to develop the necessary weaponry should have been the priority. That development should have been done before there was any military action.
This was Lincoln's plan and the South fell right into it! Lincoln wanted a war to preserve the Union, to bring the South back into the Union, but he didn't want to start it. So he goaded the South into starting it by keeping fort Sumter garrisoned. The South MIGHT have won the "war," but only if there's no war to begin with, through restraint and diplomacy...
@@ukulelemikeleii I doubt that anyone has a plan as otherwise it would not have been the death of so many.
Great article that informs of confederate thinking. We dont have to buy the excuses; knowing of them is more useful. In the 1890's revisionism was in full force. This helps to explain revisionist thinking.
A lot of nonsense. The South lost stop looking for excuses to justify it.
The South lost simply because it could not find the means to entice European powers to acknowledge its existence. They never had their 'Saratoga' moment (which convinced France to openly declare on behalf of the American rebels). With that, they win. Lee understood this.
In a nutshell, the north had far superior numbers and equipment.
In a nutshell the north had a strategy and the general and men to succeed.
I'm getting a big laugh from the comments. This video covers a 19th century regurgitation of the whys and wherefores of the Civil War and it has stimulated the gazillionth regurgitation in these comments. I would love to see a prelude to any of these and future comments to this effect: "Thank God the rebellion was defeated. I'm a Southerner and I vastly prefer living in the United States vs. what life would have been in the CSA." I get the feeling that a lot of people today wish the CSA had won and just can let it rest.
I'm a WW II buff and I love to read the regurgitations about that war. Should Monty have been sacked? Why wasn't Patton allowed to fight all the way to Berlin? Was dropping the atomic bomb really necessary? Etc. But you never get the sense, from Americans at least, that wouldn't it have been better for Germany and/or Japan to have not made so many mistakes and actually won the war?
In the video prior to this one a commenter wrote, "Long live Dixie". I think that says it all. I don't think you'd ever see a Mark Felton video with a comment like "Long live the Third Reich".
Thank you. The Southern apologists give me a pain. If the South had somehow managed to win the war, it would likely have remained a backward, feudalistic third world country well into the 20th century.
Totally agree… for me I think people get wrap up in a romantic view of the south (ie) Gone with the wind, knights of old honour, the under dog, the lost cause ! The war should never have happened thus possibly a political solution ? Personally I think old Jeff missed a opportunity for independence seeking British recognition and support but slavery and all its evils was the south major down fall, A civilisation gone with the wind. 🇬🇧🏴🇺🇸
Felton censors. Censorship is dishonest and unethical. When he instantly deleted one of my benign and literate opinions on one of his videos, I unsubscribed immediately and will never watch him again. He is not an honest scholar.
@@davidb2206 Boo hoo hoo. Methinks it wasn't so benign and literate. He's an outstanding scholar who must put up with the comments section but isn't obliged to keep any comment in view if he doesn't care to.
@@emmgeevideo An honest scholar does not delete people he disagrees with. Just like the dishonesty of youtube, nothing should be deleted unless it is vulgar, libel, communicates a threat (which is a crime), or abuses plagiarism and fair academic use of copyright. I do not support those who do not honor free speech. Most American's don't, either. Around the world, who censors? The communists.
The North suspended specie payments and funded the war on paper money. I guess the guy never heard of “greenbacks.” 😂
Greenbacks were only a modest part of the effort to keep the treasury solvent. Actually a pretty fascinating aspect of the war. I recommend Roger Lowenstein's outstanding book "Ways and Means" on the funding of the Civil War.
Arrogance and stupidity.
Printing money is not the problem if you have a vibrant economy to back it up.
If you have a vibrant economy you don't need to print more more money .
@@hubertwalters4300 Deflation can be as crippling as inflation. I recommend reading up on the Panic of 1857. Awful tales of $1,000 properties that couldn't be sold for $10. Consumers couldn't pay retailers, retailers couldn't pay wholesalers, no one could pay taxes, state governments couldn't provide services or pay salaries....
Factories steel mills money and men. The Japanese lost for the same reason and the native Americans did to. The USA had the atomic bomb
The South made their mistake by turning to war in the first place. If they had sought a peaceful political solution, it may have taken much longer to achieve independence, (like India) but they would have stood a better chance of achieving their goals, or at least part of their goals. Attacking Fort Sumner just turned them into the bad guys, for starting the war.
It has long been my opinion that, as the US constitution stood in 1859, the southern states had every right to leave the union. If they had pressured a legal course the supreme court would have eventually ruled in their favour.
They DID! Lincoln, the tyrant, refused to meet with the 3 Peace Commissioners after he was sworn in, in 1861! Lincoln, unlike Gorbachev during his break-up, WANTED bloodshed and disaster! 600,000 dead! Lincoln, like Churchill, was a warmonger!
Keep in mind, it was not the South that invaded the North.* The war really began on April 15th, when Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers and SENT THEM ACROSS THE STATE LINE into Virginia to murder and pillage Southerners!
*(Nobody was killed in battle at Fort Sumter. It protected the harbor of Charleston and was no use to the federal government. It was a ruse. Federal troops had been moved there only a few days before to PROVOKE the Southerners, as it served no purpose for them. Additionally, D.C. had given its word by telegraph that NO reinforcements would be sent to occupy that territory. Then, it was found by Southerners that Lincoln had lied and a reinforcement ship was already underway. Sumter was in no way the "cause" of the War, as has been propagandized by the victor.)
Duncan Rose was wrong all three counts. At lease that the way it seems to me. The Union had more men, more material, more food, and better transportaion. It is a miracle the south lasted as long as it did.
And what's more it could get the stuff where they needed the stuff to be. Supply. The csa could not.
And after General Grant took command of all Union land forces, the Union had an intergrated focused command structure without interference of "political" generals
@@patrickporter1864 Logistics is everything
Well the Prussians won in 5 weeks against Austria which had more soldiers, more railwway miles, a larger industrial base, more people. It seems one can win when one has a plan and the means to actually execute it.
In 1861, the U.S. Army had 16,000 men. Nearly a third of them deserted to the rebel cause. Most of the rest were scattered across the western frontier. Very few officers had led even a regiment-sized formation. So they had to build an army from scratch, with the strategic imperative to subdue a would-be nation with a landmass larger than any that had been conquered since Ghengis Khan.
It's a miracle the U.S. accomplished that in only 4 years.
Mosby Forrest & Jeb Stuart were superior
I always thought being the South arrived first they only took Culps Hill as High Ground anybody looking the place over can see The Round Tops Devils Den & Cementary Ridge all were Union Strong holds
Everybody points to the South being out numbered..Thats a valid point..They forget however that so was the Patriots of the Revolution..
Well these patriots had french money, french weapons, thousands of french soldiers and a french navy that won against the british. Not to mention that a large amount of spanish and french ships hold more of the British fleet in Europe.
@@TorianTammas While true Ya forget it was a long while til the French did show up to fight.
Not to mention that both Union n Confederacy Got Aid in some form from European powers. Only difference was Not Troops Nor was the Confederacy ever recognized by them..
God was not on the side of the slave owners.
Monetary deficiencies or mismanagement are symptoms, not causes.
Points two and three are interesting, perhaps also a reflection of the perceived monetary mismanagement, but I wonder if the northerner's military industrial production and manpower would have overcome the southerners no matter what they did.
The northern industry and manpower were useless if the public decided the war wasn't worth fighting. Point two is the most important of the three...the rebels refused to sacrifice space for time, when time is what they needed.
Always wonderful, different and interesting stories of the Civil War, but, please, take a hint, put your face in a little square at the bottom of the screen. I mean, who wants to look at your nostrils and moustache 10 inches from the screen. Come on...
Maybe because good triumphs over evil?
Jesus himself said , " None is good, save the Father in heaven".
@@telbon8869who?