The US Civil War

[Cavebear]

I was re-watching Ken Burns's 'The Civil War' recently, and realized something that shocked me.  Now, do understand that I am a Yankee and do have a particular view point, but something shocked me.  I know that POWs were kept in bad conditions on both sides because they didn't actually love each other behind the lines.  History is history...

And Andersonville was just one of bad places to be kept in 'The South" because "food was scarce in the South" The North wasn't all that great either, because it was pretty cold in Winter.  But at least  the Southern POWs got food, as bad as things were otherwise.  I always chalked it up to "hard times" in the South and forgave them...

But today, I was suddenly struck by the fact that Sherman's 62,000 man army went through a NARROW part of Georgia and one soldier wrote that he never ate so well before marching through Georgia, just a few miles away from Andersonville (they learned late)... 

So how was it that 62,000 soldiers passing through a narrow band of one State lived literally "high off the hog" to the point they were bored with the great food and the POWs nearby were holocaust-like starved scarecrows unable to walk out the camp doors without help?   

It changed my entire view of the POW situation in the South...

Thoughts?

[Baruch]

You are a damned Yankee ;-)  And I am a Texan ;-))

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War_prison_camps

Yes, the commandant of Andersonville .. did pay a price.

Did the commandant at Elmira NY pay any price?

The Ken Burns series was excellent, if conventional (possible because of all the photography).  There is a lot of propaganda about all wars, including American ones.  And ones that remain part of the self-delusional identity of Americans for example, are still alive.  Same happens in every country.  Humans can't accept what they really are.  Sherman committed war crimes ... though I happen to agree with his technique.  War is always a crime.

Why is the string not in the History section?  Planning on burning down Atlanta again?

[Cavebear]

You are a damned Yankee ;-)  And I am a Texan ;-))

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War_prison_camps

Yes, the commandant of Andersonville .. did pay a price.

Did the commandant at Elmira NY pay any price?

The Ken Burns series was excellent, if conventional (possible because of all the photography).  There is a lot of propaganda about all wars, including American ones.  And ones that remain part of the self-delusional identity of Americans for example, are still alive.  Same happens in every country.  Humans can't accept what they really are.  Sherman committed war crimes ... though I happen to agree with his technique.  War is always a crime.

Why is the string not in the History section?  Planning on burning down Atlanta again?

Ah, la Bell Hood!  As Lee said :"thoose Texnaaans nevah fail meee".  Only they did at Atlanta when Hood destroyed the southern Confederate army in insane attacks at Atlanta, hmmm? 

And you might want to check your history about Atlanta.  Sherman ordered the citizens out and seized the cannons and cotton.  The citizens burned down the city looting it for food and supplies themselves after he left. 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If you think the POW situation was bad, consider that there was no establishment for removing wounded from the field. The ambulance crews got what they could but lying in a field for two days with serious wounds was not uncommon.

[Cavebear]

If you think the POW situation was bad, consider that there was no establishment for removing wounded from the field. The ambulance crews got what they could but lying in a field for two days with serious wounds was not uncommon.

Yes, there was little organization for dealing with the wounded.  The winning army had to cope with them.  And medical care was woeful.  The US was nearly a nation of amputee men by the end.  The pictures I've seen of the prosthetics are gruesome.  They were good tries, but still primitive.

[Baruch]

Yes, there was little organization for dealing with the wounded.  The winning army had to cope with them.  And medical care was woeful.  The US was nearly a nation of amputee men by the end.  The pictures I've seen of the prosthetics are gruesome.  They were good tries, but still primitive.

Union good.  Rebels bad.  I get that.  And it isn't true, it is part of our post-Civil War mythos.  It takes two to tango or tangle.

Clara Barton was a good woman, built American Red Cross.  But what can one woman do, and in the Victorian period?  And without Florence Nightingale a decade earlier in the Crimea ... not even that much.  Fortunately today, militaries take rescue of battlefield casualties seriously, it is what units like where I work, do for a living.  One of our doctors is going on deployment next week ... and we send nurses and techs also (who do get shot at).  In modern times the whole unit doesn't go on deployment, just the rotating uniformed staff.

[Cavebear]

Union good.  Rebels bad.  I get that.  And it isn't true, it is part of our post-Civil War mythos.  It takes two to tango or tangle.

The South seceded in support of slavery, which was BAD.  And if you doubt that, just read most of those States Articles Of Secession.  They specifically mention slavery. 

And let's keep in mind that The South had control of the Federal Government from its establishment to 1860 when the Northern States finally became sufficiently populous to overcome the Southern States' electoral advantage and got so pissed they decided to object to a Damned Northener being elected President who wasn't likely to go their way though he even married into a slave-holding family). 

So it was a fit of pique that led them to withdraw.  And that slavery-thing they didn't want challenged even though Lincoln said in his inaugural address he had no intention of challenging...  They just didn't win the Presidency for once, and like a child taking his ball from the game and going home, they left.

The anti-slavery movement in the North only really got going when Union soldiers moved into the South in the West and saw discovered how horrible things were there.  They wrote letters back home saying they had seen black men with so many whip scars on their backs they could not imagine how anyone could be treated that way.

And by 1863, most Union soldiers were so disgusted at how the negroes were treated they had determined that it had to end ALONG WITH forcing the Southern States back into the Union. 

I will not deny that the issue of permanent Union was unsettled at the time the Southern States seceded. I think there were decent arguments for it.  But by the middle of the war, slavery ruined all moral arguments for the Confederacy. 

Plus, as Jefferson Davis himself admitted, he could not lead a group of individual Sovereign States without Federal power.  The Confederacy was doomed at the outset and their arguements for "Their Peculiar Institution" only made it worse.

N'est-ce pas?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Union good.  Rebels bad.  I get that.  And it isn't true, it is part of our post-Civil War mythos.  It takes two to tango or tangle.

You are an idiot.

[Cavebear]

You are an idiot.

Surely a profound counter-argument!  But I would appreciate some factual discussion in there somewhere.  Are you able?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Surely a profound counter-argument!  But I would appreciate some factual discussion in there somewhere.  Are you able?

Sorry, I was referring to Baruch. This cell phone is a PITA to post on.

[Cavebear]

Sorry, I was referring to Baruch. This cell phone is a PITA to post on.

OK.  I live on a desktop and that is a LOT easier, LOL!  You can't beat a real keyboard.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

OK.  I live on a desktop and that is a LOT easier, LOL!  You can't beat a real keyboard.

I'm not even supposed to have the cell phone when I'm under the tent. Damn 20th Century policies can go fuck themselves.

[Cavebear]

I'm not even supposed to have the cell phone when I'm under the tent. Damn 20th Century policies can go fuck themselves.

I found several meanings for that, and I won't ask.  It sounds very personal and specific... 

[SGOS]

OK.  I live on a desktop and that is a LOT easier, LOL!  You can't beat a real keyboard.

Amen!
Ten times.

[Cavebear]

Amen!
Ten times.

If I can't type for real, I won't bother to...