--- Kevin Tarr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I don't want to bring back the discussions of the > American generals; just a > simple question. I'm assuming you are not saying > Lincoln was a genius war > president. I've only read Gods and Generals, > otherwise I know little about > the war. It seemed that the north (generals) made a > lot of mistakes before > finally winning, not pressing advantages or getting > into traps. This is all > hindsight and some of it is still disputed. OTOH It > seemed Davis let his > generals go; was smart enough to know that he didn't > know enough. From the > beginning the South was out manned and under > equipped? > > The question is, was the south's loss inevitable? > > I can't imaging that the southern society was as > rigidly stratified. There > had to be poor Southers that rose in society. David > Crockett didn't learn > to read or write until he was 18. Daniel Boone moved > to the south when he > was 15 from PA and I doubt it was at the behest of a > rich landowner. > Lincoln himself was born in Kentucky, moving when > they were eight.
> > Kevin T. - VRWC As to the stratification of Southern society - just look at the leadership in the Civil War. Lincoln was a poor farmer's son. So was Grant. The two most important figures in the Union war effort were "up from poverty" types. By contrast, I can't think of a single high officer in the South who wasn't a part of the planter aristocracy. First, I _am_ saying that Lincoln was a genius war President. In fact, I'm saying that if anyone else in the United States had been President instead of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, the North would have lost. Any other person. If you want proof of divine favor for the United States, you can't do better than to ask what are the odds that a poor farmboy with less than six months of formal education whose only previous federal elective office was _one term_ in the House would turn out to be the greatest strategic thinker in American history and (in my opinion) the greatest of all Americans. This is not exactly a likely outcome. Davis did let his generals go. This was not smart. It was, in fact, very dumb. The job of generals, in a sense, is to win battles, not wars. Clausewitz said, right, that war is "the continuation of politics by other means." Wars are fought in order to obtain political ends. That's what Lincoln understood. So your tactics, operations, everything, must be subservient to your strategy, and your strategy is dictated by _politics_. How could the South have won? How about no major offensive operations, force the North into a grinding war of attrition and denying it any major victories while either getting European intervention (which almost happened) or a Democratic victory in 1864 (which _also_ almost happened, and would have had Farragut not taken Mobile Bay and Sherman not taken Atlanta). Lee, by taking the offensive repeatedly, both tactically and operationally, drained Southern manpower and gave the North the opportunity to win the war. By focusing Southern attention on the Northern Virginia theatre - instead of the West, where Lincoln (the first President born west of the Appalachians) understood it would actually be decided, Lee's personal prestige probably did a great deal of harm to the war effort. So, was Southern defeat inevitable? I would actually say, in retrospect, that it's actually fairly improbable. Why didn't Britain intervene? Mainly the extraordinary diplomatic adroitness of the Lincoln Administration. Why did the Republicans survive the 1862 midterm elections? Lincoln. Why did they win the 1864 election? Lincoln again. Why did they (finally) find the generals (Grant and Sherman) who understood the war (not just tactics, but the war itself) and what it took to win it? Lincoln. And what are the odds of that? ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
