Would the American Civil War have ended differently if it started earlier?

[Gucumatz]

That's only partly the reason from how I understand it. In the earlier votes for secession it was 60-70% against secession across the state. Politically you have to understand the landscape was different Hobs. Lincoln only won about 40% of the Popular vote and the rest of the vote was split among factional democrats and the dying whigs. In North Carolina the Whig Party was still a major power and nearly every Whig was initially against secession and about a third of democrats too. In the presidential election I believe NC gave the Whig candidate about 49% in both Lincoln's and the previous election.

From documents I have read about the governors, politicians, etc. of our state including the Confederate governor of this state Zebulon Vance were strong pro-unionists. It was the battle of Fort Sumter and the call up of Union troops that caused newspapers, Vance, and other unionists to swap sides. Had Lincoln not left troops in Fort Sumter I think its a genuine possibility that NC would have never joined the war for the Confederacy. Even once the war began a good 30% of the politicians were still actively against the war in NC.

I think it would have made a drastic change to the war too. NC basically became the Ukraine of the Confederacy, supplying more food and soldiers than any other state even though it was the state with the least to gain and the last the join in the confederacy. The Fayetteville Observer before it switched after Fort Sumter was even urging North Carolinians to rise up with other states and remove any Confederate sympathizers across the state.

Its the Whig influence that people often neglect, that I think could have been used as a bridge to shorten the war and end it with a far lower cost in life. Without NC other borders states may have been hesitant and Virginia would have been caught between two Union strongholds and could have fallen quickly. With the amount of manpower NC provided in the hands of the Union the South could have not possibly held out as long as they did

 

[Antilogic]

This. If I'm not mistaken, the population difference (in terms of percentage) was even more in the north's favor the earlier you go back as a general rule of thumb, because the Union territory had large cities first (not an absolute rule). Even as it was in 1861 when the south was developing more rapidly than ever (up to that point in time) they could not last against the sheer population advantage of the north. It's like playing chess with having less than half the pieces (that valuable ones, that is) of your opponent. It's technically possible to win. but that's not going to happen unless you are exceptionally good and your opponent barely knows how to play.

But urban areas in the Midwest didn't really start to grow until the 1830s or later (I guess it's more like 1820s for Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee), and New Orleans, Charleston, and the cities of Virginia were not negligible.

It's fun to wonder how much Lost Cause ideology would have stuck around if the South had lost in 1962.

I'd have a hard time figuring out who the heroes would be if the Confederacy was defeated so early. Stonewall Jackson would likely be the penultimate hero. Presumably Lee fails to do as well as he did in reality if the South loses in 1862 so he ends up being condemned as the guy who could have won it but lost it all.

So a question for you all - Do you all think had the South not seceded from the Union and instead waited 4 more years until the next presidential election and patched up democratic political differences that they could have thrown out Lincoln

Also - about the Whigs and their supporters in the border states - I have read some NC newspapers from the era talk about creating a Central Union among it and some other border states that would remain a part of the Union. If it weren't for Fort Sumter do you all think this theoretical central confederacy could have ever come to pass? The Whigs/Unionists were still incredibly powerful in some of the border states (and particularly here in NC) and I think its quite possible that the war may have ended much quicker if it weren't for troops remaining in Fort Sumter and the subsequent callups by Lincoln.

It's tough to predict how the election would play out if the Democrats had their act together, but maybe we could draw some comparisons to 1856 when they were united behind Buchanan. I'm not sure the Democrats could have carried enough of the Northern states to win, given Buchanan's home state was Pennsylvania and that was one of the two key states preventing a Fremont victory. Pennsylvania and either Illinois (Buchanan won by 4%) or Indiana (Buchanan won by 10%) would have won the election for Fremont.

Without a favorite son on the ticket and given the massive effort to build up the local Republican Party, Pennsylvania would be much more hotly contested and I think would have leaned Republican even without the 1860 Democratic split. It gave an absolute majority of over 56% to the Republicans in 1860, so the Dems would not only have to get their act together but also significantly chip away at the Republican coalition. How the Dems would have walked that Southern tightrope when it just obliterated the Whig party the election before is anyone's guess.

Additionally, the 1860 apportionment gave significantly more influence to the Northwestern states. Minnesota became a state, and Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa gained in the apportionment, all of which were Republican in 1856 and reliably so afterwards. That's a minimum swing of 13 EVs towards the Republicans just from the Northern Midwest. If you add in Lincoln's home state of Illinois (which went from 11 to 16 EVs in the apportionment, and went from Democratic in 1856 to Republican for Lincoln), you are already looking at a 29 EV swing from the West alone, add in Pennsylvania's 26 and you are at a 55 EV swing. Democrats could aim for New York, that only gave the Republicans a 53-54% majority in 1860 and was worth 33 EVs in 1864, but that might not be enough.

Long story short, patching up the Democratic coalition isn't enough when the Republicans are getting absolute majorities in states that grew during the apportionment. I'm not quite to this point in Michael Holt's book yet, so maybe in another month or three I'll have some other insights into the political transformation of the 1850s.



The Central Union idea you mention is interesting--at first, I was going to talk about all the alternative confederacies of Midwestern, Pacific states, New York City, etc. that wanted to be independent nations. But I think you are talking more about the Unionist sentiment in North Carolina and in some Appalachian areas like West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Hobbs is right, North Carolina was the last state to join the Confederacy and left an interesting hole in the map until it joined.

Sherman's troops did rough up South Carolina a little more than Georgia (or North Carolina, for that matter) since they started the chain of secession.

 

[dutchfire]

Because we had a problem: Electoral math in alternative 19th century history.

 

[Antilogic]

Because we had a problem: Electoral math in alternative 19th century history.

Dude, I have problems.

 

[Dachs]

I'd have a hard time figuring out who the heroes would be if the Confederacy was defeated so early. Stonewall Jackson would likely be the penultimate hero. Presumably Lee fails to do as well as he did in reality if the South loses in 1862 so he ends up being condemned as the guy who could have won it but lost it all.

Lost Causers made - and make - people into heroes without regard to what they actually did. Albert Sidney Johnston put in one of the worst performances of any higher commander in the entire war and somehow got his dumb ass turned into a holy martyr by the likes of Shelby Foote. Whereas somebody like Joe Johnston who spent the entire war being a reasonably competent professional gets virtually ignored.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

That's only partly the reason from how I understand it. In the earlier votes for secession it was 60-70% against secession across the state. Politically you have to understand the landscape was different Hobs. Lincoln only won about 40% of the Popular vote and the rest of the vote was split among factional democrats and the dying whigs. In North Carolina the Whig Party was still a major power and nearly every Whig was initially against secession and about a third of democrats too. In the presidential election I believe NC gave the Whig candidate about 49% in both Lincoln's and the previous election.

From documents I have read about the governors, politicians, etc. of our state including the Confederate governor of this state Zebulon Vance were strong pro-unionists. It was the battle of Fort Sumter and the call up of Union troops that caused newspapers, Vance, and other unionists to swap sides. Had Lincoln not left troops in Fort Sumter I think its a genuine possibility that NC would have never joined the war for the Confederacy. Even once the war began a good 30% of the politicians were still actively against the war in NC.

I think it would have made a drastic change to the war too. NC basically became the Ukraine of the Confederacy, supplying more food and soldiers than any other state even though it was the state with the least to gain and the last the join in the confederacy. The Fayetteville Observer before it switched after Fort Sumter was even urging North Carolinians to rise up with other states and remove any Confederate sympathizers across the state.

Its the Whig influence that people often neglect, that I think could have been used as a bridge to shorten the war and end it with a far lower cost in life. Without NC other borders states may have been hesitant and Virginia would have been caught between two Union strongholds and could have fallen quickly. With the amount of manpower NC provided in the hands of the Union the South could have not possibly held out as long as they did

I don't contend anything you say but what I was told by in History Class in HS in Fayetteville (where I grew up) is that the major reason they joined was because Virginia did and they don't have a realistic choice to not join. As a Confederate state, they could have hope of not being invaded but as a Union state surrounded by Confederates, invasion would be immediate and devastating.

 

[Gucumatz]

I don't think it would have been immediate and devastating though. NC ended up providing basically 1/7th of the Confederate army and more front line soldiers than any other state too. Remember, the Union controlled the eastern half of NC for practically the entire war (from 1861-65) and it wouldn't have been hard to give more support to NC if needed.

With the Confederacy potentially losing 1/7th of its manpower and even more of its food, bread riots across the south would have been catastrophic and with decent defensive positions across the swamps and rivers of NC it wouldn't have been hard to defend against any potential invasion.

I don't think Virginia could have survived if it had to fight a legitimate 2 front war from its southern and northern border either and when it came to troops, NC troops ended up being far more trained and useful in battle than troops from most other states (compare that to how much the Confeds lamented about Texan troops IE)

An army has to be fed - if NC had remained a part of the union it would not have been hard to block supply lines to Virginia effectively starving the army out shortly

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I didn't know the Union controlled eastern NC for so long, nor did I realize it was that important. I would have thought Virginia was the CSA heavyweight.

 

[Gucumatz]

Yea that is often the perception of a lot of people, but I think its interesting to look at the numbers and demographics of these things - Virginia has always liked to play up its roots in regards to manpower, casualties, etc. but NC exceeded every other state in the Confederacy is pretty much every vital statistic

NC was actually the bastion that made the Civil War possible for the South - not because of overwhelming support, but simply because of numbers.

About 40% of all rifles used by the Confederates came through NC [Wilmington was the last Confederate port to fall and one of the last major centers in the east of NC to not fall], Lee's army survived months on Carolina provisions alone, and the manpower given was easily the highest of any state and proportionally too. I think NC was honestly a missed opportunity for the Union, a state that could have pretty much destroyed the Confederacy internally like Sherman's March did only earlier. It makes me wonder why the Civil War is never really given an NC perspective, even here in NC from what I have heard here

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah I don't remember people in NC having a particularly strong affinity for the CSA. I mean, it was there but it's nothing compared to Alabama or Georgia.

Maybe it has something to do with the piles of rubble still laying around. Even Fayetteville had a pile - it was the remains of an armory the Union troops razed. Eh, it's probably not even that because other states got the razing much worse.

 

[Dachs]

It's important to remember, though, that North Carolina numbers provided to the Confederacy are skewed because of the desertion issue. NC soldiers had a comically high desertion rate, and frequently would abandon armies at harvest time and then reenlist, so that the number of soldiers the state supplied to the traitor military might be several times smaller than it actually was. (It's impossible to know, because the Confederacy was notoriously bad at keeping records.)

The food issue is a bit more complex. Both North Carolina and Virginia did supply an awful lot of food to the traitor forces, but that was mostly by virtue of being on the front lines. (Same with Tennessee.) Those states played host to lots of armies, and with most food it's easier and cheaper to move it from a short distance away than from a long one. If North Carolina hadn't been on the edge of Confederate-controlled territory, then it probably wouldn't have supplied as much food. The real champ state for food supply in the Confederacy was probably Florida, whose north-central farmland supplied a ridiculous quantity of beef to the ANV for virtually the entire war, despite being nowhere near the battle lines.

None of this is to say that North Carolina wasn't fairly important to the Confederacy, obviously, but I think there might be more than a little bit of undeserved home-state pride in what Gucumatz is saying.

 

[Gucumatz]

Oh yea desertion was a huge problem. Organizations like Heroes of America that were actively anti-war in NC garnered up to 10k members and helped deserters flee across the state. If I recall there had to be several campaigns to round up deserters and one of the confed generals had to march a campaign against deserters in the west of the state.

But even still ... Desertion rates spiked for pretty much every state following several horrible defeats for the Confederacy. Casualty rates still have NC as the highest according to Historians above any other state in the Confederacy including Virginia and they are legitimate criticisms [North Carolina after all wasn't a highly developed state for trade, most of its products did end up in Virginia anyhow even prior to the war]

But still if any one state, particularly NC cut off its food supply to the rest of the confederacy, food riots could have easily been exacerbated. The food shortages in Richmond and the riots actually resulted in greater increases in desertion across the Confed armies in Virginia. Tactically people think about their stomachs and their lands, starving a people out not used to starving imo would have been a superior strategy.

The fact that NC was ripe for the taking for the Union, I think was a missed opportunity. Although the Union was struggling to keep other border states like Missouri after gaffes like Fremont did in his pre-emancipation proclamation emancipation, it still begs the question - why didn't the Union and North try harder to keep NC?

 

[Lord Baal]

I haven't 'adopted" anything, nor do I plan to. But please, continue insinuating...

Then what is your argument? You argued that twenty years is not a long history, yet claim above that the length of a history is relative. Either history has an absolute length, in which twenty years is not a long time, or history has relatvie lengths, in which twenty years can be a very long time, depending on what it is being compared to. You can't have it both ways.

Do you even know what you are trying to argue here?

Yes. What is the scale of history? Is there an absolute historical time-frame which encompasses history? If so, who made you its arbiter, because this is the first time I have ever come across such an historical scale.

If you actually read what I wrote, you wouldn't respond with such ad hominem nonsense. (Oh, and I think you're a bit too young to be calling me little boy, junior.)

I did read what you wrote. I would attack your argument, rather than you personally, but first you'll need to actually develop an argument for me to attack. You seemed to originally have one, albeit one that was indefensible. Later you adopted my argument, that your "scale of history" was in fact relative, yet still decided to cling to your claim that twenty years was not a long time. You simulataneously abandoned your argument but still claimed your position as correct, which is not logically valid.

You can read can't you? Because I'm beginning to doubt your ability to do so...

My Enlgish teacher done learned me to do the alpahbte good.

Also, what italicised portions are you talking about? You didn't answer that question, merely dodged it.

Not a grammatical error, my friend, to compare two different entities. It's a mental error.

Dutch is a language. It's history is shorter than that of Latin or Ancient Greek. I should have been more careful with my sentence structure, but if you weren't actively seeking a minor semantic argument to avoid actually having to defend your position against my actual argument you would have simply accepted the obvious implied meaning and moved on. Instead, you've now wasted two posts attempting to argue a minor syntax issue rather than focus on the underlying argument. Please stop wasting both our time and do so.

Feel free not to "converse". What you're doing I wouldn't consider belonging in the category.

Tried it, but I just can't let your bullcrap slide. If I don't point out the fallacies in your argument, who will? Everyone else has lost interest.

That might be, because there really isn't one, as Latin, Greek, Romanic and Germanic languages all belong to the same language group. (And that, my friend is about linguistics. It appears you have trouble with such categories as grammar, linguistics and logic. That might explain the confusion of what you consider an argument.)

"I do not have an actual argument, so I will instead attempt to belittle my opponent in an attempt to demonstrate my superiority."

If your position is actually defensible, defend it. If not, stop wasting every one in WH's time with your tired and transparent "debating" tactics. I admit, I got too personal because I find you very annoying. Your stubborn illogic and refusal to ever admit you're wrong despite adopting your opponent's arguments whenever you debate is highly-frustrating and my temper got the better of me. But now the ball is in your court. Do you have an argument to present, or are you willing to admit that your original argument was flawed or ill-conceived?

Unless you actually attempt an argument in your next post I will no longer converse with you. I'm sure you will probably use that statement as an opportunity to avoid making an actual argument and simply repeat your claim despite not backing it up with anything, so you can pass off my lack of response as some sort of victory on your part. But I feel that the people in this thread deserve to see your argument, should you actually have one.

 

[Agent327]

Then what is your argument? You argued that twenty years is not a long history, yet claim above that the length of a history is relative.

No. I said long is relative - to context. The context being the foreign policy of a US "party" towards France. (Party already being a stretch, as they didn't develop as such until about the mid-19th century.) Now, compared to America, the US do not have a long history. (Even compared to "the Dutch" they do not, but that would be an unfair comparison as they are different entities.) Apparently some people disagree. Soit.

Everyone else has lost interest.

Possibly because of the bickering. Or the semantics of long and short. You may have noticed the thread has moved on already.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Possibly because of the bickering. Or the semantics of long and short. You may have noticed the thread has moved on already.

Or because you've never had anything of worth to contribute to any thread on Civfanatics.

Moderator Action: Infracted for flaming - please don't make personal attacks like this.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Lord Baal]

Or because you've never had anything of worth to contribute to any thread on Civfanatics.

I love the assumption that I was talking about people not arguing with him in this thread, rather than the fact that I am now essentially the only person who attempts to debate with JEELEN in any thread. And the continued attempt to agree with my argument while still maintaining his original point despite the clear illogical nature of such, which I pointed out. Sadly, I think I'm done responding to anything JEELEN says, ever. If everyone else feels the same, maybe CFC will be a mildly better place.

 

[Agent327]

So... when running out of arguments one turns to slander. Nice touch, gentlemen... I think I'll go watch a movie now; surely that will be time better spent.

 

[caketastydelish]

So... when running out of arguments one turns to slander. Nice touch, gentlemen... I think I'll go watch a movie now; surely that will be time better spent.

Watch Gone with the wind.

 

[Takhisis]

Best watch Birth of a Nation. Good, solid 'Murican history.

 

[Traitorfish]

So... when running out of arguments one turns to slander. Nice touch, gentlemen... I think I'll go watch a movie now; surely that will be time better spent.

He's right, though. Do you really think that the rest of us decline to argue you with you out of respect?