Brother Shatterstone
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Storm Raven said:
Yeah, their homeland was being invaded. (Seems like a reasonable course of action to me.)
Greatest American? (All Over on Page Eight)
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Yeah, their homeland was being invaded. (Seems like a reasonable course of action to me.)
Darth K'Trava
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Brother Shatterstone said:
I could go with that.. But it all started with the fear that when he was elected, that Lincoln would move immediately to abolish slavery. He didn't, fearing to piss off those "border states" that didn't have any but could sway either way in the whole thing. It wasn't until later that slavery became an issue in the war. And it was the south who fired first onto Fort Sumter.
Storm Raven
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Brother Shatterstone said:
Their homeland wasn't invaded until after the Confederates had signed up in droves. They supported secession (via their elected state legislatures) based solely on the possibility that Lincoln would abolish slavery based upon the fact that he was a Republican, and had once been a member of the Free Soil movement. In point of fact, until the attack on Fort Sumter, Lincoln ignored several extremely provocative moves made by Southerners, even to the point that he didn't call for volunteers until after the Fort was attacked.
Storm Raven
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diaglo said:
That was later, after the draft was instituted, and was mostly the result of the policy allowing someone to buy their way out of the draft for cash. The original call for union enlistment was for 75,000 volunteers for a 90 day stint.
In the three months that followed the election of Lincoln (before he even took office), seven states seceded from the Union: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. Representatives from these seven states quickly established a new political organization, the Confederate States of America.
On 8th February the Confederate States of America adopted a constitution and within ten days had elected Jefferson Davis as its president and Alexander Stephens, as vice-president. Montgomery, Alabama, became its capital (later moved to Richmond, Virginia) and the Stars and Bars was adopted as its flag. Davis was also authorized to raise 100,000 troops.
At his inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln attempted to avoid conflict by announcing that he had no intention "to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." He added: "The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without yourselves being the aggressors."
President Jefferson Davis took the view that after a state seceded, federal forts became the property of the state. On 12th April, 1861, General Pierre T. Beauregard demanded that Major Robert Anderson surrender Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour. Anderson replied that he would be willing to leave the fort in two days when his supplies were exhausted. Beauregard rejected this offer and ordered his Confederate troops to open fire. After 34 hours of bombardment the fort was severely damaged and Anderson was forced to surrender.
On hearing the news Lincoln called a special session of Congress and proclaimed a blockade of Gulf of Mexico ports. This strategy was based on the Anaconda Plan developed by General Winfield Scott, the commanding general of the Union Army. It involved the army occupying the line of the Mississippi and blockading Confederate ports. Scott believed if this was done successfully the South would negotiate a peace deal. However, at the start of the war, the US Navy, had only a small number of ships and was in no position to guard all 3,000 miles of Southern coast.
On 15th April, 1861, Lincoln called on the governors of the Northern states to provide 75,000 militia to serve for three months to put down the insurrection. Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee, all refused to send troops and joined the Confederacy. Kentucky and Missouri were also unwilling to supply men for the Union Army but decided not to take sides in the conflict.
Given this time line of events leading to the Civil War, I'm thinking that the Southerners were pretty beliigerent, and brought everything that came after onto their own heads.
diaglo
Adventurer
don't forget the occupied state of Maryland.Storm Raven said:
the state song, Maryland My Maryland, is still a bash against Lincoln.
more Marylanders fought for the South than the North...considering Maryland is South of the Mason Dixon Line... it wasn't surprising.
slave owning states that remained loyal to the union were exempt initially from having to free their property.
edit: and Maryland.. a Catholic founded state... known as the Free State... was a common path for the Underground Railroad... it wasn't that Marylanders didn't believe in abolishing slavery...
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Storm Raven
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diaglo said:
The legislature voted not to seceed.
But, oddly, not adopted as such until 1939. It was also not written (because the incident that sparked it did not occur) until after Fort Sumter.
Incorrect, about 60,000 Marylanders served in the Union forces, and about 25,000 for the Confederacy.
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Darth K'Trava said:
Exactly the freeing of the slaves came after the war had already been going on.
The south fired first because the commander of the fort was stalling giving the fort up. Since the south had proclaimed that it was no longer apart of the union then those forts that were in their soverign lands belonged to them. And I can understand why they did not want union troops to occupy them.
Storm Raven
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diaglo said:
Yes, and in many other states too. But statistics from the era are difficult to come by, since the USAs records were pretty bad, and the CSAs were atrocious.. The 60/25 split has been pretty much the best guess (given the numbers we can point to accurately, and some educated guessing) we have that matches with the records.
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