The Confederacy: America's worst idea

Discussion in 'United States' started by magnum, Oct 19, 2010.

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  1. George Purvis

    George Purvis New Member

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    Don't get me wrong, I am not dismissing your post, I am simply pointing out that the "other side" dismisses a these quotes and references for many reasons. Douglas is said to have made this speech for propaganda reasons, Steiner was not trained to count troops etc etc etc. the list goes on and on.

    These quotes and references are what a call a standard for copy and paste researchers. They post this without doing any actual research. You will find many of them on the web.

    For the record SHAPE has taken many of these quotes and references and used them as a platform to launch our research. In some cases I think we have found sources that verify these points.

    To the best of my knowledge SHAPE is the only group that has made any effort to locate records and document the Negroes who served the CSA in any capacity. At the present time we have about 3,700 listed and more reserach being done every day.

    Check us out at --



    http://negrosingrey.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com/page.php?2


    George Purvis
     
  2. Woogs

    Woogs Well-Known Member

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    ...a couple of examples of Union brutalities against civilians.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    In April, 1862 Union General John Basil Turchin unleashed his troops on Athens, Alabama. Turchin told his troops, "I shut mine eyes for two hours. I see nothing". What followed was a spree of looting, raping and pillaging. When news of this brutality reached General Don Carlos Buell in June, he launched an investigation and had Turchin relieved of his command on July 2. Charges stemmed from not only the brutal behavior but also from Turchin's having his wife accompany him in the field. Turchin was court-marshaled, found guilty and sentenced to dismissal from the Army in August, 1862.

    President Lincoln set the order aside and promoted Turchin to Brigadier General, retroactive to July 17.

    From ...Encyclopedia of the American Civil War P. 1984

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    On May 15, 1862, Gen. Benjamin Butler issued Field Order 28, which stated..

    "As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insult from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall, by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation [a prostitute]."

    In Britain, where the upper class was already sympathetic to the Confederacy, the London Times characterized Butler's Woman Order as a "military rule of intolerable brutality." The prime minister, Lord Palmerston, condemned it as "infamous. Sir, an Englishman must blush to think that such an act has been committed by one belonging to the Anglo-Saxon race." His foreign secretary, Lord Russell, agreed, and sent an envoy to the American secretary of state, William Henry Seward, who stood firm behind Butler's action.

    From Harper's Weekly July 12, 1862

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    These are but 2 examples. If one is not adverse to looking at 'Southern' sites, many, many examples can be found. All that is needed is to google 'war crimes of the union'. I didn't post any of that here due to the info being discounted by some because of the source.

    There is, however, a well researched book on the subject.... "War Crimes Against Southern Civilians" by Walter Cisco for anyone wanting to read more.
     
  3. JP Cusick

    JP Cusick New Member

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    What in the world was that "myth", as you call it?

    Are you claiming the African slaves fought for the south to preserve their own slavery?

    Was the "myth" that the black people enjoyed being slaves?

    Here is a report about the subject as follows:

    "In January, 1864, General Patrick Cleburne and several other Confederate officers in the Army of the Tennessee proposed using slaves as soldiers since the Union was using black troops. Cleburne recommended offering slaves their freedom if they fought and survived. Confederate President Jefferson Davis refused to consider Cleburne's proposal and forbade further discussion of the idea. The concept, however, did not die. By the fall of 1864, the South was losing more and more ground, and some believed that only by arming the slaves could defeat be averted. On March 13, the Confederate Congress passed General Order 14, and President Davis signed the order into law. The order was issued March 23, 1865, but only a few African-American companies were raised, and the war ended before they could be used in battle." Link = American Civil War.

    It seems far more likely that the rebels used threats and intimidation to get the slaves to fight against the United States Army, as like the whites would threaten to torture the slaves and their families if they did not fight.

    That is not a "myth" as the violent threats is how the white race ruled over the African slaves.

    :omg:
     
  4. Woogs

    Woogs Well-Known Member

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    Published in The New York Times...January 9, 2000

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    While New Yorkers celebrated a new century, a team of biological anthropologists at Howard University in Washington were intensely focused on a most grisly aspect of New York City's past. Led by Dr. Michael Blakey, the team has spent several years examining the skeletal remains of more than 400 African slaves whose graves were accidentally uncovered during the construction of a federal office tower in lower Manhattan nine years ago.

    That the graves existed at all surprised New Yorkers who grew up believing that theirs was a "free" state where there had never been slavery. But a series of reports from the Blakey team -- the first due out early this year -- will present statistics to show that colonial New York was just as dependent on slavery as many Southern cities, and in some cases even more so. In addition, the brutality etched on these skeletons easily matches the worst of what we know of slavery in the South.

    The first slave ship that sailed into Jamestown Harbor in Virginia in 1619 contained a handful of captive Africans. But by the end of the Atlantic slave trade more than two centuries later, somewhere between 8 million and 12 million Africans had arrived in the New World in chains. The historian Ira Berlin, author of "Many Thousands Gone," estimates that one slave perished for every one who survived capture in the African interior and made it alive to the New World -- meaning that as many as 12 million more captive Africans perished along the way.

    During the 16th century, the massive outflow of slaves decimated countries like the Kingdom of the Kongo, whose monarch, King Affonso I, wrote letter after letter imploring King João III of Portugal to cease the slave trade because it was generating "depravity . . . so widespread that our land is entirely depopulated." He said that "a monstrous greed pushes our subjects, even Christians, to seize members of their own families, and of ours, to do business by selling them as captives."

    Many of the stolen Africans ended up in the United States, some of them in the Dutch colonial city of New Amsterdam, which later became New York City. The Dutch recruited settlers with an advertisement that promised to provide them with slaves who "would accomplish more work for their masters, at less expense than [white] farm servants, who must be bribed to go thither by a great deal of money and promises." Integral to the colony from the start, slaves helped build Trinity Church, the streets of the city and the wall -- from which Wall Street takes its name -- that protected the colony from military strikes.

    In life, slaves lived in attics, hallways and beneath porches, cheek to jowl with their masters and mistresses. In death, these same slaves were banished to the Negro Burial Ground, which lay a mile outside the city limits and contained between 10,000 and 20,000 bodies by the time it was closed in 1794, according to the historian Dr. Sherrill Wilson. The graveyard was paved over, built upon and forgotten -- until 1991, when the General Services Administration excavated the foundation for a new tower. After protests from black New Yorkers, the agency agreed to finance research on the skeletons, but failed to budget the necessary money and generally dragged its feet, putting one of the most important archaeological projects of the century years behind schedule.

    The Howard team has yet to identify among the skeletons the many Africans who are known to have been burned at the stake during the rebellion-plot hysteria that swept the colony in 1741. But what the researchers have found is brutal enough on its own. Of the 400 skeletons taken to Howard, about 40 percent are of children under the age of 15, and the most common cause of death was malnutrition. Most of the children had rickets, scurvy, anemia or related diseases. About twice as many infant girls seem to have died as boys, suggesting at least some infanticide. As Dr. Blakey said, "Women who gave birth in these conditions knew that they were bringing their children into hell."

    The adult skeletons show that many of these people died of unrelenting hard labor. Strain on the muscles and ligaments was so extreme that muscle attachments were commonly ripped away from the skeleton -- taking chunks of bone with them -- leaving the body in perpetual pain. The highest mortality rate is found among those ages 15 to 20. Dr. Blakey has concluded that some died of illnesses acquired in the holds of slave ships or from a first exposure to the cold -- or from the trauma of being torn from their families and shipped in chains halfway around the globe. But in many cases, he said, "what we see is that these women were worked to death by owners who could simply go out and buy a new slave."

    The Blakey team will conduct two sets of studies in an attempt to determine more closely where the slaves where born. One study will analyze tooth enamel for trace minerals that would mark the captives as having grown up in Africa, the Caribbean or in North America. If DNA research proceeds as planned, it will further pin down the country of origin by comparing the dead with known populations in Africa.

    The skeletons will be returned to their graves by 2002.

    By then the burial ground will have rewritten the book on slavery in New York and given historians something to talk about well into the next century.
     
  5. George Purvis

    George Purvis New Member

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    The Cleburne proposal is a fact, however if you would visit the SHAPE's Negros in Gray website you will see plenty of evidence that a blind eye was turned to negro service. This rule surely was not followed at all.

    Prove me wrong.

    George Purvis
    http://southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com/page.php?4
     
  6. George Purvis

    George Purvis New Member

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    You might ugly someone to death whip them --- not likely.

    George Purvis
    http://southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com/page.php?4
     
  7. George Purvis

    George Purvis New Member

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    Gonna have to learn your history if you are going throw out "gotcha" questions. I told you once I may be new to this forum, but I darn sure ain't new to the dance. Your ignorance of history is unmatched by anyone I know, you should shed your hate and use that energy to educate yourself.

    http://negrosingrey.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com/page.php?11

    PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE. SPIRIT OF THE MORNING PRESS.
    Published: November 11, 1864

    WASHINGTON, Thursday, Nov. 10.

    The message of JEFF. DAVIS to the rebel Congress, which assembled on the 7th inst., has come to hand. He reviews the campaigns of the Federal Generals, and deduces the notable consolation, from his own statement of the facts, that the Federal successes have not been commensurate with the power put forth and the sacrifices incurred. In regard to rebel successes he is extremely reticent. It is plain, however, from the attention he gives to the subject of arming slaves, that the recruitment of the rebel army is an extremely urgent matter.

    Mr. DAVIS opposes in general the arming of the negro slaves. He says he cannot see the propriety or necessity of arming the slaves while there are so many white men out of the ranks. He would only drill and arm such negroes as are already employed in the Quartermaster and Commissary Departments, &c., and fill the places of such by a draft of negroes from the planters. He would give only the reward of manumission to such slaves as shall have served efficiently with arms in the field. In regard to the rebel finances he says the currency has become so depreciated, that Congress must provide some remedy. The question of foreign recognition or aid is discussed, and DAVIS informs Congress there is absolutely no hope of any help from abroad. He gives foreign nations a loud and lofty scolding for their lack of sympathy with the struggling Confederacy, and comforts the Confederacy with the assurance that the rebellion must rely solely upon its own resources.

    George Purvis
    http://negrosingrey.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com/page.php?2
     
  8. George Purvis

    George Purvis New Member

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    O Glory BE!!!!!! What an unbiased website. Just how much time do you think they put into researching Confederates in this condensed history? If you can find a more informative website that SHAPE's Negros In Gray please let me know. We have the best documentation on the web regarding Black Confederates.

    Forced into service that in itself is an out and out lie. Go to this page http://negrosingrey.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com/page.php?41 and look at the number of months these Black Confederate Pensioners served. Make me believed they were forced.


    George Purvis
    http://negrosingrey.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com/page.php?2
     
  9. George Purvis

    George Purvis New Member

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    House of Delegates.

    The House met at 11 o'clock. Prayer by Rev. Mr. Woodbridge, of the Episcopal Church.

    A bill was reported releasing the county of Dinwiddie from the payment of certain levies.

    Mr. Shackleford offered a series of resolutions, which were referred to the Committee on the subject of slaves for the army. They resolve:

    1st. That the President of the Confederate States be authorized and requested to enroll and organize in the military service--thousand able-bodied male negroes, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, from the slave population of this State, to be obtained by voluntary enlistment and with the consent of the owners.
    2d. To enroll an additional force by demanding from all exempted farmers under forty-five years of age one-fifth of their able-bodied slaves between eighteen and forty-five, as a condition precedent to the permanent exemption of said farmers; and to discharge from the service all persons over forty-five upon receiving from them one-fifth of their able-bodied slaves.
    3d. That such enrollments (the owners consenting to the terms on which the negroes are enrolled) shall be considered as the emancipation of said negroes; and, if the negroes are faithful to the Confederacy, be permitted to reside in the State.
    After some other business of less importance the House adjourned.

    Source:
    The Daily Dispatch: February 18, 1865. Richmond Dispatch. 4 pages. by Cowardin & Hammersley. Richmond. February 18, 1865. microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mi : Proquest. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm.

    Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant provided support for entering this text.
     
  10. Woogs

    Woogs Well-Known Member

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    The study of prison camps from the War For Southern Independence presents us with a multitude of examples of extreme hardships that many Prisoners of War suffered through. Studying prison camps through U.S. history tends to place almost complete emphasis on one Confederate prison, Camp Sumter, otherwise known as "Andersonville," Georgia. The prison at Andersonville was built to house 10,000 prisoners. When USA General William T. Sherman began his march into Georgia the prison camp numbers soon swelled. At one point some 29,000 prisoners were sent there over a four month period. There were some 6,000 sick in the hospitals at one time and there was no medicine, for the United States had declared medicine was a "contraband of war", the first time in history that this had been done. By being contraband, it could not be imported from foreign countries due to the Northern blockade, nor could it be shipped from the North to the South to care for the Northern prisoners. Lincoln’s policy, enforced by his army and navy, was to starve the South by blockade, halting the importing of materials including food and medicine and to destroy all grain, stock, farming utensils, etc. This had impact not only on the South’s ability to feed, cloth and take care of medical needs of it’s own men in arms, but also of its civilian population, innocent women and children, and of course prisoners in their charge. The North wanted to bleed the South of all resources, including man power. They were satisfied allowing their captured troops to be held in camps. Camps that had to be in remote areas, away from the invading Northern troops. Camps that would require men be pulled from the fight against the invasion to guard the prisoners. The Union soldiers, held in Southern prisons were mere pawns in Lincoln’s campaign against the South. This is one of the first points made regarding Northern policies that contributed to the suffering and death of her own soldiers.

    The extremely high death rate amongst the prisoners at Andersonville can be attributed to many causes. The single most cause of death was disease. The food supply was short there and many prisoners became weak and suffered malnutrition. But the food ration to the prisoners held there was exactly the same as was given to the Confederate soldier, including the guards at Andersonville. The South did not have the resources at that time to care for their troops, nor the prisoners held, yet the North refused to allow food to be sent to their own men. Again, it is seldom pointed out that there was a food shortage in the South, particularly when Sherman was pillaging Georgia. As a matter of fact, the death rate amongst the Confederate guards at Andersonville was higher than that of the prisoners.

    The cemetery at Andersonville contains 12,912 marked graves. This was not done and is highly unusual at U.S. prisons containing Confederate POW graves. The most common scenario was that used at Camp Douglas, located just south of Chicago, Illinois.

    On the grounds where it once stood there is a Confederate "mound" containing the bodies of the 4,450 or more Confederate POW's who died there. Rather than take care and have respect for a soldiers body, they frequently piled the dead Confederate prisoners up and buried them in mass graves. In February 1863, 387 of the then reported 3884 prisoners died or 10 percent in one month. Its abandonment as a prison cap was urged by H.W. Bellows, President of Sanitary Commission.

    The highest death rate at any prison during the War was at Elmira, New York. Elmira was created in May of 1864 by enclosing a 30 acre site containing 35 barracks (two-story, low-ceilinged, with unsealed roofs and floors) which held only half of the 10,000 enlisted Confederate prisoners, with the rest living in tents or sleeping in the open, even in the worst winter weather.

    Clothing and supplies sent from the South were warehoused by the Commandant and not distributed for up to six months. Food donated by local churches was sold to the prisoners by corrupt Union officers. Many more prisoners were transferred into Elmira from the Point Lookout, Maryland, prison.

    Broiled rat was regarded as a delicacy and any dog that wandered within reach was quickly slaughtered and consumed even though it was a punishable offense.

    A one acre lagoon pond produced from stagnant river water within the compound served as a latrine and dump, and led to large disease epidemics. More than 10% of the prisoners had no blanket, food was scarce and usually spoiled. Scurvy was common. The Commandant refused to "waste" medicines on prisoners and also barred Sanitary Commission inspectors from entering the stockade.

    One doctor boasted "I have killed more Rebs than any soldier at the front." There were few escape attempts because few prisoners were healthy enough to try. Discipline was strict and brutal, even by contemporary military standards. Hanging by the thumbs was a popular punishment for infractions of the Union prison camp rules.

    An Erie Railroad train jammed with Confederate prisoners collided with a freight train on July 15, 1864. More than 100 injured prisoners were dumped into the compound untreated and most died within a few days.

    Elmira is noted for the observation towers that were built outside the compound walls. Private citizens could pay ten cents and climb the tower to view the Confederate soldiers within the compound. Lemonade and cookies were sold there as refreshments for the viewers. A second tower went up on the other side of the compound, competing for "business" with the existing tower. The second tower dropped the fee to five cents. Evidently this was quite an amusement for the ladies of the North, to see the starving, suffering Confederate prisoners as most of the customers were well dressed women.

    Elmira's extremely conservative estimated overall death rate of 24% was the highest of any prison camp during the War. The Confederacy held some 50,000 more Union prisoners than did the Union held of Confederate prisoners, yet more total Confederate prisoners died in U.S. prisons than did U.S. prisoners in Confederate prisons.

    Approximately 9% of all U.S. soldiers held prisoner in Confederate prisons died, while some 12% of all Confederate soldiers held prisoner in U.S. prisons died. The Union did not have the problems of lack of supplies such as medicine, food, clothing and articles such as blankets as did the South. The North had a bounty of goods, supplies and medicine. For the "good North" who is seen as the moral beacons of the American continent, they could not send that food South to their own men held prisoner, and did not see fit to share that bounty in humanitarian efforts with its Confederate prisoners.

    When the food rations amongst the Confederate soldiers would become smaller due to the lack of available food, the food rations would have to be cut for the Confederate soldier and for the U.S. soldiers who were held in Confederate prison camps. This ration for the Union prisoner was not smaller than that ration of the Confederate soldier.

    Southern officials offered many times on humanitarian grounds to release the sick prisoners to Northern officials without the consideration of the return of Confederate soldiers. Pleas for medicine and doctors to administer to the prisoners were made by the Confederate government. These offers were all refused or simply ignored. The Confederate government, even though it was strapped for resources, offered to buy medicine for the prisoners with gold, cotton or tobacco and that Union Surgeons could bring the medicines down to the prison camps and administer them to their sick troops. The offers were ignored.

    On several occasions Yankee prisoners were released from Andersonville to travel to Washington D.C. to plead for relief and the resumption of exchanges. Their heartrending petition was published in the New York and Washington papers. Their pleas fell on deaf government ears as there was no relief offered. Lincoln was unwilling to interfere with Grant’s inhuman determination. The prisoners were allowed to speak freely about Andersonville and the conditions there. No where in there report can it be found that any murders had been committed by Southern troops, nor did they speak evil of the Southern leaders. In fact they spoke of Major Wirz as a kind man, and of General Winder, Wirz’s commander, they had nothing but praise for his kindness.

    On two occasions the Confederate authorities were requested to send their very worst cases of sick prisoners North. It was thought that possibly humanitarian efforts were forth coming. Instead the sick prisoners were taken to Annapolis, and then photographed as "“specimen prisoners". This was another propaganda measure to trick the Northern population in to believing the South was willfully starving and mistreating the Northern soldiers.

    The North had plenty of food, clothing, medicine, housing, and had every opportunity to purchase and import and supplies needed if they could not produce it themselves. The fact is that the mortality rate was higher in Union prisons than in Confederate prisons. Consider the inequality in resources. Why is Andersonville the shame? The truth is the South did the best they could with what they had. The North did the worst. They allowed suffering of their own men held in prison by their policies and practices. They tortured Southern soldiers with neglect, starvation and disease in the face of abundant resources that were available. Where were the real war crimes committed? Was it Wirz or Lincoln and Grant that were guilty of war crimes?
     
  11. Woogs

    Woogs Well-Known Member

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    Prisoner exchanges were a way for captors to avoid the responsibility and burden of guarding, housing, feeding, clothing, and providing medical care for prisoners of war. It allowed for sick and wounded prisoners to be released to their own forces for treatment and care. Exchange of prisoners began with informal agreements between the individual commanders of the armies after particular battles, but the practice was formalized by a cartel between the USA and CSA in July 1862. The cartel was suspended by the US Government in May 1863. Still in the name of decency and humanity, individual commanders again arranged exchanges and paroles until 1864. The US Government was outraged at this humanitarian action and called a halt to all exchanges in early1864, threatening commanders who continued the practice.

    Commissioners of exchange were appointed by each government, and they exchanged and compared lists and computed how many on each side were to be exchanged. There were official points where prisoners were to be taken for exchange such as City Point, Virginia in the East and Vicksburg, Mississippi in the West. Equal ranks were exchanged equally, and higher ranks could be exchanged for some number of lower ranks according to an agreed upon list of equivalents (e.g. 1 colonel equaled 15 privates). If one side still had prisoners left, after the other side had exhausted its supply of prisoners by exchange, those excess prisoners would be released on parole. Paroled prisoners were returned to their side, but were prohibited by an oath of honor from taking up arms or performing any duty that soldiers normally performed until they were properly exchanged. Generally each side maintained parole camps where their paroled soldiers were kept while they awaited exchange, but in other cases the parolee was allowed to return home until exchanged.

    One contribution to the high death rate in prison camps was Union General Ulysses S. Grant's stopped the prisoner exchange program. The Confederate government asked the U.S. government to accept an exchange offer but Grant would not agree. The Confederate government even told the U.S. government of the condition of the prisoners at places like Andersonville, Georgia, but Grant still would not agree to exchange prisoners. Grant knew that exchanging prisoners would mean that the U.S. prisoners would return home as, more than likely, their enlistment would have already ran out whereas Confederate prisoners exchanged would return to the battlefield. Grant also felt the more prisoners held in Confederate prisons, the more resources including guards, food, medicine, shelter would be required. No, Grant felt the Union prisoners could just suffer along. He would show no concern or mercy for his own suffering troops, if it meant easing the hardship also posed to the Confederacy.

    Exchanging of prisoners up to 1863 was a common and humane policy practice by all civilized countries with a history going back to the middle ages. Lincoln wanted to fight a war of attrition with the South. Draining her of fighting men, food, supplies, materials, medicine and the ability to fight on. Lincoln threw every obstacle he could in the way of exchanges. He appointed “The Beast”, Benjamin Butler as Commissioner of Exchanges, a man who so outraged Southerners, that he had been outlawed for base conduct. Later he appointed Grant in this position who was opposed to all exchanges on the ground apparently of the superior patriotism of the Southern soldiers, who he felt if exchanged would hurry back to their regiments to take up arms against the North once again. The North with overwhelming numbers could easily replace capture men, but South called up every available man and each soldier lost rendered them that much weaker. The North then abandoned their captured comrades to fend with what fate had in store.

    Charles A. Dana, U.S. Assistant Secretary of War, said after the war, "We think after the testimony given that the Confederate authorities and especially Mr. Davis (President Jefferson Davis) ought not to be held responsible for the terrible privations, suffering, and injuries which our men had to endure while kept in Confederate Military Prisons; the fact is unquestionable that while Confederates desired to exchange prisoners, to send our men home, and to get back their own men, General Grant steadily and strenuously resisted such an exchange."

    Charles A. Dana again said in the New York Sun newspaper, "It was not Jefferson Davis or any subordinate or associate of his who should now be condemned for the horrors of Andersonville. We were responsible ourselves for the continued detention of our captives in misery, starvation and sickness in the South."


    General Grant and General Benjamin F. Butler held a conference at Fortress Monroe, April, 1864 on the matter of prisoner exchange. At this conference it was finally decided that they would agree to accept such Union captives as the Confederate might see fit to surrender, but that no Confederate prisoners would be delivered in return. General Grant once said, "Not to take any steps by which an able-bodied man should be exchanged until orders were received from him."

    General Grant again said, "If we hold these men caught they are no more than dead men. If we liberate them we will have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated." General Grant wrote to General Butler on August 18, 1864, "It is hard on our men in Southern prisons not to exchange them, but it is humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our battles."

    General Butler put on record the reason why General Grant and himself refused the offer to exchange: "Many a tribute has been paid to the soldier of the South by those for whom he fought, by those of the same blood and faith, by those who gloried in his splendid courage and pitied his terrible sufferings, but the highest compliment that ever was paid to the tattered and half-starved wearer of the gray was that of the Commander-in-chief of the Union armies who, in a council of war, took the ground that the Confederate prisoner was too dangerous to be exchanged."

    From this link.... http://congress.confederateliberation.com/prisoners_war.html

    >>>NOTE<<< The above info is from a 'Southern' site. I used it because it was more detailed than other single sources. I do have a list of 'non-Southern' sources where the above info of these 2 posts can be confirmed. They are listed below.

    http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/cw_pows/html/cwpows6.html

    http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/elmiraprison/boltz.html

    http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v02/v02p137_Weber.html
     
  12. Rexody

    Rexody Member

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    You keep talking about white racist as if one has to be a racist in order not to love your hypocrisy.

    What will happen if different people in the South who have nothing to do with racism as you see it will rise to secede from your strange devastating and live with sins policy?
     
  13. JP Cusick

    JP Cusick New Member

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    I do not get the point, as you and that report seem to see this as some sort of competition which it is not.

    I say most people would agree that the northern white racist were just as evil and despicable as were the southern white racist.

    The two big notable differences is that the south started their rebellion to preserve their slavery, while the north had a growing strong population of abolitionist including particularly the newly formed Republican Party.

    In fact it would be near impossible to argue that the entire USA history between 1859 - 1865 was not dominated by the super hard line determination of just the one person of Abraham Lincoln. Even the entire Civil War is defined by Lincoln's involvements.

    Abe Lincoln is called "the great emancipator" not just for freeing the slaves, but because Lincoln also set free the white population from our ignorant sin of slavery.

    The horrible racist crimes by the northern whites are inexcusable too.

    :omg:
     
  14. JP Cusick

    JP Cusick New Member

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    I do not see how you can refer to me as being hypocritical, because I accept my own white racist guilt, and I share the guilt of our white ancestors.

    Unfortunately everyone who praises the south includes the racism and I have never seen any who exclude the racism from their southern claims.

    And I do know that some say such words as if they are not racist but then display such things as the old racist rebel flag which make hypocrisy out of their words.

    I have nothing against the southern States except for their racism.

    I lived in Virginia Beach VA for a while, and I first found out that I was a Yankee when I lived in Orlando FL, and I lived in New Orleans for a while and made a bunch of money there and had a fun time, then lived about 4 years in Texas as a truck driver throughout Texas as that is a big State, and I learned lots of the customs and had several girl friends in different States, so I have nothing against the south except for the racism, and I do not like the northern white racist either.

    :omg:
     
  15. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    Based on writings of the time, it's a pretty accurate statement.


    Fort Sumter was in the middle of a confederate state. It should have been abandoned after secession.

    They were fighting because the South was being invaded. Until the end of the war, most of the fighting was done in Confederate states (and border states).

    They were racists (as were both sides, even most abolitionists were racists).

    At the time, identity as a state citizen was greater than identity as a U.S. citizen. Read Robert E. Lee's biography as an example. That changed as part of the aftermath of the Civil war.

    They weren't traitors to their states. They were citizens of states that no longer wanted to be part of the Union.
     
  16. George Purvis

    George Purvis New Member

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  17. George Purvis

    George Purvis New Member

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    Brings to mind Lincoln's colonization program.

    Practical Abe:

    "To say that Lincoln's approach to the slavery question was governed my his penchant for philosophic resignation is not to say that he had no policy of his own. His program flowed from his conception that his role was to be a moderator of extremes in public sentiment. It called for compensated emancipation (at first in the loyal border States) assisted by federal funds, to be followed at length by deportation and colonization of the freed Negroes. To a member of the Senate he wrote in 1862 that the cost of freeing with compensation all slaves in the four border States and the District of Columbia, at an average price of four hundred dollars per slave, would come to less than the cost of eighty-seven days of the war. Further, he believed that taking such action would shorten the war by more than eighty-seven days and "thus be an actual saving of expense."

    (The American Political Tradition, And the Men Who Made It, Richard Hofstadter, Vintage Books, 1948, page 130)




    George Purvis
    http://southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com/page.php?4
     
  18. Woogs

    Woogs Well-Known Member

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    The 'point' is to show that the North can claim no moral high ground in regards to slavery, which renders many arguments moot.

    On the issue of slavery and the politics of the US and its history, let's just cut right down to the meat of it.

    Slavery existed in the US since the 1600's and was not confined to the South.

    The founding of this country would not have happened had not slavery been allowed.

    The slavery issue has been brought up ever since this country's founding.

    The issue was decided by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. That really should have settled the issue, as far as the politics of it goes. The logical solution for westward expansion would have been to extend the agreed upon line westward. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 opened that can of worms once again and gave rise to the Republican Party.

    To jump a little ahead, the end result was the South's secession from the Union. They had seen enough of the radical abolitionists and of the unfair tariffs and wanted to be left alone, a legal right afforded them and shown several times in this thread.

    Which brings us back to war. Why war? When you look at all the circumstances leading up to it and Lincoln's own stated reason (to preserve the Union), the answer becomes clear. The North simply couldn't AFFORD to lose the South as it was largely financing the Federal govt. In Lincoln's own words....

    "But what am I to do in the meantime with those men at Montgomery [meaning the Confederate constitutional convention]? Am I to let them go on... [a]nd open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry, with their ten-percent tariff. What, then, would become of my tariff?" ~ Lincoln to Colonel John B. Baldwin, deputized by the Virginian Commissioners to determine whether Lincoln would use force, April 4, 1861.

    There was no moral high ground. It was simple greed and economics. Lincoln's conduct of the war upended the Constitution and the war crimes of some his Generals is a stain upon this country that should be an embarrassment to all of us. And the Abolitionists high morality against slavery? The hypocrisy of that is made apparent in their silence on the issue of 'those little imps' behind barbed wire in the Northern states, as was detailed earlier.

    My last two prior posts detail the indifference Lincoln had towards his own troops by allowing them to suffer in POW camps when the South was perfectly willing to do prisoner exchanges. He found the issue to be a useful propaganda tool by photographing scrawny Union prisoners and accusing the South of deliberate abuse, all the while knowing the South could provide no better for these men and wanted the North to take them back. This created hate among the populace for the South which largely wasn't there prior and that hatred reared its head in Reconstruction.

    What's amazing is that, to this day, he still has most of you fooled. People blindly accept that the war was over slavery, Ole Abe was the Great Emancipator, the South was wrong....end of story. What is ignored is the unlawful pretext for the war, how it was actually provoked, the barbaric conduct of it and the liberties lost for all Americans as a result of it. Now, 150 years later, things have come almost full circle and people are finally starting to see the error in having an over-reaching Federal Govt. Whether we have the will within us to make the changes needed remains to be seen.
     
  19. unrealist42

    unrealist42 New Member

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    The war ended slavery in the US. All else is irrelevant, adrift, alien, back-burner, beside the mark, beside the point, beside the question, dinky, dispensable, extraneous, extrinsic, foreign, gratuitous, ill-adapted, ill-assorted, ill-chosen, ill-considered, ill-fitted, ill-matched, ill-seasoned, ill-sorted, ill-suited, ill-timed, immaterial, impertinent, improper, inadmissible, inapplicable, inapposite, inappreciable,
    inappropriate, inapt, inauspicious, incidental, inconsequent, inconsequential, inconsiderable, inconvenient, inept, inessential, inexpedient, infelicitous, inferior, inopportune, insignificant, intempestive, intrusive, irrelative, late, little, mal a propos, maladjusted, malapropos, minor, minute, misjoined, mismatched, mismated, misplaced, mistimed, negligible, nihil ad rem, nonessential, not at issue, not vital, off base, off the subject, out of character, out of joint, out of keeping, out of line, out of phase, out of place, out of proportion, out of season, out of time, out of tune, out-of-the-way, parenthetical, petit, premature, small, technical, too late, too soon, unadapted, unapt, unbecoming, unbefitting, uncalled-for, unconnected, unessential, unfavorable, unfit, unfitted, unfitting, unfortunate, unhandy, unhappy, unimportant, unimpressive, unlucky, unnoteworthy, unpropitious, unqualified, unready, unrelated, unripe, unseasonable, unseemly, unsuitable, unsuited, untimely, untoward, pathetic excuses for a cause lost long ago to history.
     
  20. Woogs

    Woogs Well-Known Member

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    Surely you can come up with a few more adjectives for your snarky remark that shows nothing more than your love affair with a thesaurus. Must be your favorite bathroom reader.

    After reading your 'comment', I can safely say that, compared to you, debating with JP Cusick is a pleasure. He at least believes what he says while you are just engaging in grammatical masturbation. You are badly mistaken if you think that passes for intelligence.
     
  21. Rexody

    Rexody Member

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    And over 150 years prepared a way to...what?
     
  22. George Purvis

    George Purvis New Member

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    Did it ever occur to you the Confederates were fighting against the same government problems that face us today? This same cause was no more lost or pathetic then than it is today. Think about it.

    George Purvis
    http://southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com/page.php?4
     
  23. George Purvis

    George Purvis New Member

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    "On the 18th instant, Wendell Phillips made a speech in Boston, on the war. In that harangue he said:
    * * *. Let Mr. Lincoln perpetuate this war, and hand it down to his successors in anything like his present guise, and in the canvass that begins eighteen months hence you will see a candidate on the other side of the mountain, one plank in whose platform will be that the West desert the East and join her natural ally who holds the mouth of the Mississippi. If the Democratic politicians of Albany have their way, there is more danger of an alliance among twenty States leaving New England out in the cold, than there is of an alliance among twenty States leaving the Cotton States out of the Union****

    Commenting upon this extract the New York Mercury says:

    "Just so, Mr. Phillips. You and your friends are beginning to see in what an awkward dilemma you have placed New England. You made the war for the negro. You were willing to let the Union slide," in order to free the slaves of the South, under the cover of "military necessity." You could not produce that "necessity" without first getting up a civil war, and you got up that war so ingeniously as to make it seem not your act, but the act of the South. Now you discover that the work of "wiping out" the South is not so easy a job as you supposed it would be. Your only remaining hope is in inciting the slaves to revolt. Your panacea for all the terrible evils of this so called rebellion, is a servile insurrection. And you tell Mr. Lincoln, poor old man, that if he does not help you to set the negroes of the South to cutting the throats of the women and children in that section, you will not only fail in your emancipation scheme, but that the war will end by a separation of the Union which will leave all Yankeedoodledom "out in the cold!" That is just what we have expected from the beginning, and that is just what will certainly occur, if the States which Yankee fanaticism and injustice have driven into secession cannot be forced back again. That they can or will be is hardly probable, if we may judge from the small progress that has yet been made in the enterprise, after nearly two years of prodigious effort.

    We believe that the North has already put forth the greatest strength she will ever exert in this struggle. She is capable of more; but she has lost heart in the cause, and she has lost it only because of the gross manner in which the radical Abolition partisans of the Administration have misused both the armies and the treasures of a loyal, but conservative people. We believe that the last army that the North will ever raise and put in the field in this war, is now in the field, and that it must conquer the rebellion or fail. If it fails, then the dissolution of the old Union will be un fail accompli, and in that event the six States of New England, which together are not much, if any, bigger than Virginia, will find themselves "left alone in their glory."--And they will have no right to complain. They will really have earned that guerdon of isolation. Like arrogant partners, representing a very small proportion of joint capital, they have striven to bend the views, wishes, and interests of the firm to their special benefit, and are likely, in the end, to be kicked out of a concern in which they have sought to enjoy a disproportionate control and advantage against all the plain stipulations and equities of the original contract.

    In our opinion, events show that the great mistake made in forming the Union, in the outset, was in taking New England into the partnership on any terms whatever. And we are quite as sure that no confederation of States of which she is a part can ever exist in peace, harmony, and property on this Continent. She is too selfish for any association founded in mutual compromise of opposed interests; too intellectually conceited to subordinate her insane ideas of "higher law" to the collected wisdom of a great commonwealth, and too meddling in other people's business for a political system which allows no one State in the Union to entrench on the reserved rights of any other. New England, therefore, should be abandoned to her egoism."

    From an opinion article in the New York Mercury, December, 1862.
     
  24. JP Cusick

    JP Cusick New Member

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    Except the one huge big point that the north through President Lincoln used the southern rebellion as a way of ending the slavery in the USA.

    That one is a really huge BIG point of morality in which you say the north has no claim.

    You say "radical abolitionist" as in they wanted white people to stop the immorally and barbaric institution of slavery.

    Radical indeed.

    Of course the south rebelling against their own Country just to preserve the African slavery - as that was the true racist radical idea.

    The "greed and economics" was the southern rebel call to arms.

    Along with their ignorant and barbaric ideals of white superiority.

    The south started their rebellion, and they started their war whether you cry about it being "provoked" or not.

    And the south started their war of rebellion to preserve the African slavery, which mean the start of the Civil War was about slavery, and later President Lincoln made the ending of that rebellion to include the ending of the slavery.

    If the white racist ever decide to rise-again then this time when they get whooped down then it will be the last time.

    :omg:
     
  25. JP Cusick

    JP Cusick New Member

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    Yeah, the government says now you have to pick your own cotton, or else pay other people a livable salary to do your work for you.

    Ever after the gov has said that you can not own people, you can not exploit their free labor, you can no longer rape defenseless women, you can no longer abuse children for being black.

    Indeed - think about it.

    :omg:
     
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