The ACW Thread

[Hastur]

There has been a lot of talk about the War Between the States lately. I think we need a dedicated thread about it. To kick things off I would like to discuss the naming of the conflict. I feel that it is a bit of a misnomer to call it a Civil War. It misses a lot of the factors we usually find in Civil Wars throughout history. It played out more like a regular war between nation states.

Queen Victoria reffered to it as "hostilities ... between the Government of the United States of America and certain States styling themselves the Confederate States of America"

There is a good article about it on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_ ... _Civil_War

[Ex-California]

It is the bad kind of revisionist history to name it anything but the Civil War no matter how many good reasons there are for doing so.

And at the end of the day, it was still Americans fighting Americans.

[SuburbanFarmer]

That animation is super cool.

[katarn]

It is the bad kind of revisionist history to name it anything but the Civil War no matter how many good reasons there are for doing so.

And at the end of the day, it was still Americans fighting Americans.

True.

If this is a thread for the civil war and not just the name, how do you guys think Lee would have done at Gettysburg if Longstreet and Jackson had swapped places, (Longstreet dies, Jackson is at Gettysburg). The rest of the war with that scenario?

[Speaker to Animals]

War of Democrat Butthurt. (In the near future to be renamed: First War of Democrat Butthurt).

[Smitty-48]

It is the bad kind of revisionist history to name it anything but the Civil War no matter how many good reasons there are for doing so.

And at the end of the day, it was still Americans fighting Americans.

Not technically a civil war in the classical sense tho, because it was American states fighting American states in the wake of formal secession as organized professionalized sovereign armies with their own Westphalian claims and associated Commanders-in-Chief, The French and Indian Wars, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and even the Mexican American War, were all technically Americans fighting Americans, the Revolutionary War was more of a civil war than the Civil War was, while the Civil War was more actually revolutionary in the end, since the British basically just ceded the territory as a strategic option, with neither side needing to anihilate the other.

In effect, and in fact de jure, it was a break away republic, which then went to war to defend itself from its progenitor attempting to destroy it, which, even the British in the Revolutionary War; never actually set out to anihilate their own colonists.

Bear in mind, if it happened today, the CSA would meet the threshold of Democratic Right to Self Determination with Article 51 Right to Collective and Individual Self Defense under the UN Charter within the cofines of international law and the laws of armed conflict, and though the USA could invoke Responsibility to Protect to intervene on behalf of the slaves, "Preserving the Union" by force of arms would be illegitimate.

In essence, the Declaration of Independence, which in the Age of Princes was inherently treasonous against the Westphalian order, has now gone on to be a foundation of international jurisprudence, and once somebody declares independence by democratic means, they acquire Westphalian prerogatives inherently in the process, and preventing them from breaking away as their own country by democratic means, is no longer a casus belli in of itself, and ironically; guess which folks wrote that into the international law post World War One? Them Yankees.

Mind you, when the Viet Minh tried to lawfully assert the rights which America had wrote into the law, them Yankees went all Gulf of Fort Sumter Resolution about it , again. "You shot at our fort! ...er we mean... the USS Maddox! Operation Rolling Thunder naow!"

[Smitty-48]

It is the bad kind of revisionist history to name it anything but the Civil War no matter how many good reasons there are for doing so.

And at the end of the day, it was still Americans fighting Americans.

True.

If this is a thread for the civil war and not just the name, how do you guys think Lee would have done at Gettysburg if Longstreet and Jackson had swapped places, (Longstreet dies, Jackson is at Gettysburg). The rest of the war with that scenario?

I don't know if Jackson would have been in favour of Pickett's Charge anymore than Longstreet was, but the thing is, influential as he might have been, I don't think Jackson could have got Marse Robert to let go of the bone, once he got his blood up, anymore than Longstreet did. Lee respected Jackson's prowess, but Lee was still the boss and Jackson was still one to salute and say "yessir" once the boss had made his decision.

The real problem was Stuart, without any recce to give the AONV a picture of what was coming up the road on them, with time to do something about it, there really wasn't much Jackson, as an infantry corps commander could do about it, and once Meade is on the high ground, what can Jackson really do about that?

He wasn't a miracle worker, he just exploited speed, mobility and surprise, but since the AOTP had achieved surprise, Jackson's specialty was pretty much neutralized, and quite frankly, when Jackson did get into head to head battles, he basically just fired the troops downrange same as Lee did as Gettysburg, so operationally, I can't really see what Jackson could have done to alter the situation, once the AOTP caught the AONV by surprise.

It's not like the troops faltered, they went hard into the breach, what difference would it make if Jackson had been leading the 2nd corps into that breach? They would have got hammered just as hard, Jackson could have layed into them with the crop, but how much harder could they have really gone?

It's entirely plausible that Jackson could have sided with Lee against Longstreet, Jackson could have got his blood up and started invoking the Battle of Armageddon and how it was God's will that they take this hill and the angels will part the sea of Yankees before them, or some such shit like that. I mean, he was a batshit nutwing after all. Jackson didn't always stick and weave, there were plenty of times where he just fed troops into the meatgrinder singing "Allahoo ackbar" as he went.

At the same time, the year before at Sharpsburg, Jackson pretty much just let his subordinates do their thing while he hung out on Hauser's Ridge, so the idea that Jackson always took the bull by horns and charged into the breach come hell or high water, not actually the case neither.

[katarn]

It is the bad kind of revisionist history to name it anything but the Civil War no matter how many good reasons there are for doing so.

And at the end of the day, it was still Americans fighting Americans.

True.

If this is a thread for the civil war and not just the name, how do you guys think Lee would have done at Gettysburg if Longstreet and Jackson had swapped places, (Longstreet dies, Jackson is at Gettysburg). The rest of the war with that scenario?

I don't know if Jackson would have been in favour of Pickett's Charge anymore than Longstreet was, but the thing is, influential as he might have been, I don't think Jackson could have got Marse Robert to let go of the bone, once he got his blood up, anymore than Longstreet did. Lee respected Jackson's prowess, but Lee was still the boss and Jackson was still one to salute and say "yessir" once the boss had made his decision.

The real problem was Stuart, without any recce to give the AONV a picture of what was coming up the road on them, with time to do something about it, there really wasn't much Jackson, as an infantry corps commander could do about it, and once Meade is on the high ground, what can Jackson really do about that?

He wasn't a miracle worker, he just exploited speed, mobility and surprise, but since the AOTP had achieved surprise, Jackson's specialty was pretty much neutralized, and quite frankly, when Jackson did get into head to head battles, he basically just fired the troops downrange same as Lee did as Gettysburg, so operationally, I can't really see what Jackson could have done to alter the situation, once the AOTP caught the AONV by surprise.

It's not like the troops faltered, they went hard into the breach, what difference would it make if Jackson had been leading the 2nd corps into that breach? They would have got hammered just as hard, Jackson could have layed into them with the crop, but how much harder could they have really gone?

It's entirely plausible that Jackson could have sided with Lee against Longstreet, Jackson could have got his blood up and started invoking the Battle of Armageddon and how it was God's will that they take this hill and the angels will part the sea of Yankees before them, or some such shit like that. I mean, he was a batshit nutwing after all. Jackson didn't always stick and weave, there were plenty of times where he just fed troops into the meatgrinder singing "Allahoo ackbar" as he went.

At the same time, the year before at Sharpsburg, Jackson pretty much just let his subordinates do their thing while he hung out on Hauser's Ridge, so the idea that Jackson always took the bull by horns and charged into the breach come hell or high water, not actually the case neither.

I thought as much. I was prompted to ask when I read that Lee supposedly said later that, if he had Jackson, he would have won Gettysburg.

[Smitty-48]

I thought as much. I was prompted to ask when I read that Lee supposedly said later that, if he had Jackson, he would have won Gettysburg.

Well, thing is, the only hope I can see for Gettysburg to go the AONV's way, would be for the Yankees to have broke and run, right at the breach, if, when the Rebs were right on top of them, guy's like Joshua Chamberlain had faltered, if portions of the Union lines had panicked and broke and ran, tactical level, then it could have been a rout, but them Yankees held firm, at the tactical level there was no break in the lines, and I can't really think of how Jackson, as a corps commander, could have changed anything there, it's not like, as a corps commander, he'd be going into the Union lines like Batman Ninja taking them Yankees out all by himself and causing them to panic in the process.

Even where there was a Confederate Batman Ninja, that wasn't Jackson, that was Forrest.

[Hastur]

I thought as much. I was prompted to ask when I read that Lee supposedly said later that, if he had Jackson, he would have won Gettysburg.

Well, thing is, the only hope I can see for Gettysburg to go the AONV's way, would be for the Yankees to have broke and run, right at the breach, if, when the Rebs were right on top of them, guy's like Joshua Chamberlain had faltered, if portions of the Union lines had panicked and broke and ran, tactical level, then it could have been a rout, but them Yankees held firm, at the tactical level there was no break in the lines, and I can't really think of how Jackson, as a corps commander, could have changed anything there, it's not like, as a corps commander, he'd be going into the Union lines like Batman Ninja taking them Yankees out all by himself and causing them to panic in the process.

Even where there was a Confederate Batman Ninja, that wasn't Jackson, that was Forrest.

Yes. Lee lost because the Confederates made to few big mistakes to exploit. Had a gap appeared it would have been exploited. The AONV had exceptionally competent people all along the line leading experienced troops. It was a close run thing but Meade and his subordinates made all the right moves.

I still don't think Buford get's enough credit for what he did day one.

I went looking for an animated map and found this new series of videos put up by the Civil War Trust. Well produced, concise and distilled.