should the south have fought a more offensive war

[sidewinder319]

The son was kept in a Prison after he was captured by the Americans.  Ben did not interfer with  the law. How many of our leaders today would have this much courage.  If you said Carter, Clinton or Obama you get an "F".

[windywales]

Actually, Carter had--has--more courage than any other president of my adult lifetime (I equivocate only because I don't know enough about Truman, being too young then; Ike I'm more sure of).  Carter had the courage to suck it up, after the military's best blew it, and save the hostages at the cost of his own second term.  Just ask any one of the hostages; I did.
windy

[williamlayton]

The problem of the slavery issue for all was what to do with them and how to treat them.
Blessings

[NickSS]

At the beginning of the war, the south had no army and the north almost no army.  In addition neither side had adequate arms and equipment to arm and equip even the first wave of volunteers.  The various militia regiments that came forth and fought the first battles were very amaturish and in generals almost none of the officers on either side had any experience commanding units even as large as a regiment.  Even General Lee only commanded a regiment of Calvary and even that regiment was spread out into several different posts hundreds of miles apart.  Both sides were really green as grass during the first battles during the first two years of the war.  Second the south carried on a very wide spread and ongoing war of raiding and clandestine warfare all during the war.  Some of the more notable commanders of this warfare were Forrest, Quantrell,  Anderson, Morgan, and       .  In addition,  they tried things like burning NY City, robbing banks in Vermont and New York, freeing prisoners in Michgan and numerous other small warfare type missions all during the war.

The south had basically two main problems. One was that they fought too aggressively in the east under Lee.  I admire Lee but he was a very aggressive officier who won and lot of battles up until Gettysburg but these battles so reduced the available man power of the south that he was forced to fight defensively for the rest of the war and was ultimately bottled up and defeated when his army was so reduced that they could not fight and win any longer.  Had he fought like he did during the entire war like he did during the last year he would have had much more man power and perhaps been in a position to force the North to offer peace due to high casualties saping the Norths will to fight.  They almost did this in 1864 but Lee did not have the manpower to swing it by that time.
Had the south not fired on Fort Sumter there is a strong likelihood that Lincoln could not have mustered support for an aggressive war to drive the south back into the Union.  The very act of firing on the US Flag had the effect of rallying public opinion in the North to support an aggressive war against the south, the same as the attack on Pearl Harbor and the twin towers in NY City Rallied support for an aggressive war against Japan and the war on Terror.  Without that provocation the North would most likely have had to resort to diplomacy which would have resulted in what the south wanted ultimately.
So really the south lost because they persued an aggressive policy instead of a calm and well thought out defensive strategy.

[SHOOTALL]

The South should have not attacked but blocked resupply in Fort Sumpter . Defended the South but not invaded .

[BAGTIC]

The South should have not attacked but blocked resupply in Fort Sumpter . Defended the South but not invaded .

The best thing the South could have done was to not start the war in the first place. The Federals left the South alone after they seceded. They never tried to force them to return. There was lots of support for the principal of secession in the North. Several New England states had threatened secession during the War of 1812. The South's number one weakness was that it was led by some of the most imcompetent bozos in the history of the country.
In the long run it would not have made much difference. The Europeans were already acquiring other sources of cotton for their mills. England, France and most of them had abolished slavery and there was no popular support for it in their own countries. I imagine that popular sentiment abroad would have eventually resulted in embargoes against Confederate trade. In any event the eventual mechanization of the cotton industry would have made slavery unprofitable. As it was the US had a policy of returning runaway slaves to the states but as a separate nation the US was bound to offer refuge to escaped slaves. The South had cut off its own nose.
A blockade is an act of war. Imagine Japan blockading Pearl Harbor.

[BAGTIC]

The best did fight for the South  ,how many generals did the north go thru before finding one who would fight ? The South lost in part , maybe the biggest part because they had little industry to build cannon, rifles , powder , shot or other supplies. Had the North had a good general and backing by the population in the north the South should not have lasted a year.

It is irrelevant how many generals the Union went through before they found one who would fight. What matters is that they found some who could win. Battles are won, battles are lost. All that matters is who wins the WAR.

[BAGTIC]

is it possible they thought just a show of resistance would of left such a bad taste in the north that they would of just allowed sucession?no one really wants to kill ones own countrymen.?

After Pearl Harbor would you have been willing to forgive and forget? Why would anyone think that the United States would be willing to forgive and forget after Fort Sumter? Did we forgive and forget after Mexico invaded the United States..

[subdjoe]

Amazing.  Lincoln was starting to reprovision and reinforce a fort in SC territory in preparation for an all out invasion, and it is claimed that SC was the aggressor.  That was akin to thug kicking in the door for a home invasion.  He could have pulled those federal troops from SC at any time, but he refused.

If the Japanese fleet had just sailed into Pearl Harbor, I guess you guys would have said that the US was the aggressor if they had fired the first shot. Actually, since the Ward fired on a Japanese vessel before any Japanese forces fired on the US, the US must be the aggressor there, right?

[williamlayton]

Illogical arguement Joe.
Blessings

[daywash123]

Amazing.  Lincoln was starting to reprovision and reinforce a fort in SC territory in preparation for an all out invasion, and it is claimed that SC was the aggressor.  That was akin to thug kicking in the door for a home invasion.  He could have pulled those federal troops from SC at any time, but he refused.

If the Japanese fleet had just sailed into Pearl Harbor, I guess you guys would have said that the US was the aggressor if they had fired the first shot. Actually, since the Ward fired on a Japanese vessel before any Japanese forces fired on the US, the US must be the aggressor there, right?

I believe that the United States had an embargo around Japan. Being an island nation with limited resources, the Japanese decided to take their best shot. Another case where isolationism would have served us best.

[SHOOTALL]

The best did fight for the South  ,how many generals did the north go thru before finding one who would fight ? The South lost in part , maybe the biggest part because they had little industry to build cannon, rifles , powder , shot or other supplies. Had the North had a good general and backing by the population in the north the South should not have lasted a year.

It is irrelevant how many generals the Union went through before they found one who would fight. What matters is that they found some who could win. Battles are won, battles are lost. All that matters is who wins the WAR.

The ones the North had that after years of war had 3 times the troops and way more supplies them winning dosen't make them great really.

[sidewinder319]

From many of these post it seems that many people in the South continue to hate what they consider people in the North. They seem to refer to these people as "Blue Bellies" and "Yankees" and worse. I never see people from the North post with such venom toward others. I am a westerner our family left the South after the war and moved West. Many of our family served in the Southern cause. But Damn any one from the North or South who visits us will never be called callous names. I visited NC a few years ago and suffered insults because we had Yankee licence plates. Wyoming was not even a state during the Civil War. I no interest in this kind of history.

[SHOOTALL]

I think alot of the talk is in jest and I do hear it from the north about as much as from the South. Then there are the hard core on both sides who do intend to pizz the other side off.
Consider also what the federal govt put the South thru. after the war, much of that resentment is still with many in the South and gaining traction in other places in the country.

[sidewinder319]

It seems impossible to discuss civil War history with out getting into the hate issues. Why use verbal attacks against fellow Americans who were not even alive during that horrible war.  Hell the slaves got a bum deal before and after the conflict.  Too bad these discussions turn into hate debates.

[Dixie Dude]

I think Lee realised that fighting a defensive war was not getting anywhere.  The north was occupying the west by 1862 New Orleans was captured, the north moved in and took Nashville and Memphis.  He knew taking the war to the north would cause the people of the north to persue peace if he won the battles.  He should have opted for a guerrila war destroying the east west railways through Pennsylvania, destroying ports like John Paul Jones did in the Revolutionary War.  Burning warehouses, rail yards, cutting telegraph lines, etc.  Blowing up rail bridges.  The north needed the midwest grain and food.  Restricting its flow from the west would have hurt.  This is what they did to the south by taking the Mississippi.  A guerilla war could also focus on killing officers and generals using snipers or spys. 

[ironglow]

Actually, Carter had--has--more courage than any other president of my adult lifetime (I equivocate only because I don't know enough about Truman, being too young then; Ike I'm more sure of).  Carter had the courage to suck it up, after the military's best blew it, and save the hostages at the cost of his own second term.  Just ask any one of the hostages; I did.
windy

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  I don't like hijacking a thread, but Carter not on was not notably "courageous", but he was a cosmic bumbler.
       First he cuts the military budget to the bone; so much so, that the Navy did not have enough ammo on hand to fire each of it's guns one time !  The same kinds of drastic cuts hit all branches of the military; which is always the Democrats favorite skinning victim.
  The Army could not afford to keep it's troops trained to a high level of efficency nor keep a sharp edge of maintenance on the very choppers used  during  the Carter caused fiasco in the desert .
  Sure he "sucked it up"..what else could he do ?  However, the families of those brave troops had a great deal more to "suck up"..
..... And Obama is just about to make the same mistake every Democrat president has done since WW2...cut the military to the bone....   ..And this at a time when nutsies like Iran, Venezuela's Chavez and the new North Korean dictator are rattling nuclear sabers; not to mention the growing strength of China & Russia..
   It is interesting to note however; while R. Reagan was raising his hand to be sworn in...the hostages of over 440 days ..were leaving Teheran airport...heading for home...
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   Now, let's get back to the original thread..

[williamlayton]

Defense does not win wars or football games--they just put off loosing longer.
Lee had no illusions. I really think Lee knew the South would loose.
Blessings

[BAGTIC]

You bet.  They should have put the federal troops from Ft. Sumter to the sword.  Followed up First Manassas killing every federal soldier that was taken, captured Washington City and put it to the torch.  Hanged Lincoln, his cabinet, and every northern member of Congress they could catch.  Then sent part of the army to the coast to work its way up, torching every shipyard, every warehouse, every wooden pier and dock.  The other part of the army should have gone after all iron and bronze foundries, destroying them as well as blasting closed all mine shafts and destroying all mining equipment.  All northern food stores should have been destroyed, and any citizen of the north put to death.

Just what we should expect from an unreconstructed redneck. 150 years and still living in a fantasy world like the kids that play fantasy games.  Of course that is the expected results of 150 years of reactionary southern tradition. Really no different than the neo-Nazis  or the Japanese  reactionaries who dream of bringing back the good old days. Some people will go to the gates of Hell kicking and screaming and protesting about how they, in their wildest fantasies, have been wronged before they will ever say "I make a mistake and I regret it." For the Christians out there you will probably recognize the behavior.  There can be no forgiveness or salvation unless there is first repentance and there are some who will prefer erlasting damnation to repentance.

[BAGTIC]

The problem of the slavery issue for all was what to do with them and how to treat them.
Blessings

Just about every other civilized nation in the world managed to work through it without a bloodbath.

[BAGTIC]

At the beginning of the war, the south had no army and the north almost no army.  In addition neither side had adequate arms and equipment to arm and equip even the first wave of volunteers.  The various militia regiments that came forth and fought the first battles were very amaturish and in generals almost none of the officers on either side had any experience commanding units even as large as a regiment.  Even General Lee only commanded a regiment of Calvary and even that regiment was spread out into several different posts hundreds of miles apart.  Both sides were really green as grass during the first battles during the first two years of the war.  Second the south carried on a very wide spread and ongoing war of raiding and clandestine warfare all during the war.  Some of the more notable commanders of this warfare were Forrest, Quantrell,  Anderson, Morgan, and       .  In addition,  they tried things like burning NY City, robbing banks in Vermont and New York, freeing prisoners in Michgan and numerous other small warfare type missions all during the war.

The south had basically two main problems. One was that they fought too aggressively in the east under Lee.  I admire Lee but he was a very aggressive officier who won and lot of battles up until Gettysburg but these battles so reduced the available man power of the south that he was forced to fight defensively for the rest of the war and was ultimately bottled up and defeated when his army was so reduced that they could not fight and win any longer.  Had he fought like he did during the entire war like he did during the last year he would have had much more man power and perhaps been in a position to force the North to offer peace due to high casualties saping the Norths will to fight.  They almost did this in 1864 but Lee did not have the manpower to swing it by that time.
Had the south not fired on Fort Sumter there is a strong likelihood that Lincoln could not have mustered support for an aggressive war to drive the south back into the Union.  The very act of firing on the US Flag had the effect of rallying public opinion in the North to support an aggressive war against the south, the same as the attack on Pearl Harbor and the twin towers in NY City Rallied support for an aggressive war against Japan and the war on Terror.  Without that provocation the North would most likely have had to resort to diplomacy which would have resulted in what the south wanted ultimately.
So really the south lost because they persued an aggressive policy instead of a calm and well thought out defensive strategy.

 
 
Nick, You are a wise, wise man.

[BAGTIC]

Apparently a LOT of people here don't know the difference between an embargo and a blockade.
When you get POed at some company and vow to not do business with them again that is an embargo. Perfectly honorable.
When you encircle their business and threatened to kill anyone who crosses your picket line that is a blockade. That has always been considered an act of War.
The claim that the federal forts in SC were intended as a base for an attack on SC is absurd. If that were true why would SC itself encourage their construction. The forts purpose was to defend SC in the event of another naval invasion such as the War of 1812. Naval invasions are always more difficult than land invasions especially in the case of two counties with long borders. A naval invasion would have been a last option if the US had wanted to invade the CSA. Even during the Civil War itself the Union seldom attempted amphibious  landings in force preferring to utilize a distant blockade stopping ships at sea outside the range of coastal guns.

[BAGTIC]

Had the South captured Washington the war would have beed over .

If the War of 1812 did not end when the British captured and burned Washington, D.C. why should it have ended if the capitol had been captured by the CSA. The British controlled the sea and had won every battle of the War of 1812  yet we did not quit. During the CW the United States Navy controlled the seas and the fate of the south was sealed by the USN blockade. As for an argument given elsewhere that the British needed southern cotton to supply their mills someone better check their facts. Within three years of the war's beginning the British had found alternative sources for all of their cotton requirements. Also, if cotton was so critical to Britain why did not they intervene on behalf of the CSA? Because they found that it was more profitable to supply their own cotton from their own colonies.