5 Responses to “Kick Lincoln out of Washington’s holiday”

1. seaterk
   February 14th, 2010 at 4:10 pm

   

   Or better known as the war of Northern aggression. Funny how you never hear about the other side of things but it’s the winners that write the history books so no surprises here for me. The south was doomed from the start but I think that Lincoln freed the slaves not so much because he was opposed to slavery but as a way to cripple the south economically and ensure that they could never rebel again.

   As an aside, its kind of funny that people from the south form the core of Americas armed forces, especially in the areas of combat. Don’t know why that is but it does seem strange.

2. Mike
   February 14th, 2010 at 4:51 pm

   

   Their firey Scots Irish heritage? Their aptitude for shooting and outdoor sports? I happen to be half southern, but I can’t tell you.

3. Mike
   February 14th, 2010 at 5:07 pm

   

   I’ve heard it suggested that the south may have had far better odds if rather than forming a traditional, centralized command and control military structure and meeting the union in open battle, they had chosen the early tactics of the American Revolution. Their weakness in heavy industry would not have been such a hindrance for a guerilla army of riflemen.

   Such a fighting force is harder to chase down and slaughter or starve, and their morale and motivation are higher, much higher than that of Lincoln’s poor conscript army.

4. seaterk
   February 14th, 2010 at 5:22 pm

   

   Mike,

   I’ll just reference Sherman’s march through the south as an answer to the suggestion that guerrilla warfare would have worked. You don’t win wars with that tactic, not even the American Revolutionary war was won with that tactic but with large fielded armies and a lot of help from the French, otherwise we’d have been toast and still saying God save the queen.

   Personally, I think that the Souths mistake was not invading the North. You can’t win on just defense and that’s all the south really did for the whole war. If they had caused enough damage (read economic pain) to the elites behind the war they might have forced Lincoln to accept the break away of the south.

5. Mike
   February 14th, 2010 at 5:55 pm

   

   I’m by no means well-versed in military history, but I’m not sure a guerilla resistance wouldn’t have worked. Just look at how much trouble the French had in Algeria, and what Afghanistan and Vietnam have done. In the 1860s there were no bomber aircraft, either.

   During Sherman’s march, most of Georgia’s soldiers were away fighting in Tennessee, so the guerillas he encountered were way outnumbered.

   I don’t see how an invasion of the north would have gone well. From a psy-ops point of view, it would have been a bad move, antagonizing the large portion of northerners who either supported the south or didn’t care either way.

   The early tactics of the revolution worked fine, but Washington and some others had notions of being grand commanders in the old European style. I’ve read that they ended up alienating a lot of enthusiastic militiamen with their heavy-handedness. A guerilla war doesn’t mean a disorganized war — it can mean an organically organized one, a more efficient, capitalist approach than what Davis undertook with his conscription, trade regulations and paper money.