In My Humble Opinion...

I posed the question on Sunday, the readers responded. I promised you my two cents, here it is.

On April 12, 1861, Southern artillery opened fire upon Fort Sumter, a Federal installation in Charleston harbor, South Carolina. Nearly four years later, on April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. While some fighting continued past that date (CSS Shenandoah was still taking prizes in June of that year), the war was effectively over.

Could the South have won that war? Not really, no. However, if Robert E. Lee had accepted the post offered to him, command of the United States Army, it's quite possible that the first battles would have gone in the North's favor, Lee was that good of a general.

On the other hand, that would have required Lee to take up arms against his home state of Virginia, which was not going to happen.

Another possibility for Southern victory would have been Lee taking James Longstreet's advice upon the second Southern invasion of the North. Take up a strong position and make the Army of the Potomac attack. Something which they had yet to prove they were any good at.

In reality, the South's only hope for victory was probably a short, sharp early victory and the seizure of Washington, DC. Many thought that should have been the outcome of First Bull Run, (First Manassas) but in reality both of the armies engaged that day were rank amateurs. None of the generals on either side had ever commanded large bodies of troops in the field, so effectively they were rookies at that level of command. Many folks don't know just how close that battle was to being a Northern victory.

But it was not to be. Could the South have hoped to tire the North of the fighting? Maybe, there were defeatist elements in the North, peace at any price, etc., etc. There are those factions in any war. Could Lincoln have been defeated in 1864? By whom I ask? McClellan, who had proven himself to be a great organizer but a completely ineffective leader in the field? No, most folks had seen through "Little Mac" by then.

The North wanted the war over, but by 1864 the South was on their last legs. Gettysburg and Vicksburg had realistically dashed all hopes of a Southern victory in July 1863. July 4th was the death knell of the Confederacy.

But what really killed the South's hopes was the individual states. Who were supposedly fighting for "states' rights" against the centralized Federal government. Does any one believe that they could have subordinated themselves to a different centralized government, only in Richmond, not Washington? One of the very reasons for their secession doomed their chances for success.

Would slavery have eventually ended in the South (and in those states kept in the Union where slavery was allowed) with a Southern victory, or no war at all?

Yes, it probably would have. The South would have seen the same agricultural advances as other nations, they would have had to industrialize further in order to compete with the rest of the industrialized world. While Europe was forced to turn to Egyptian cotton by the war, who's to say that would not have happened eventually anyway? A completely agrarian economy with very little industry wasn't a recipe for success by 1861. Furthermore, had the South become a separate nation and stayed that way past 1865 for whatever reason, the North had an interest in seeing them fail. For purely economic reasons, not to mention spite.

Would the black population of the South been better off? I doubt it. Southern society was built upon the alleged superiority of the white race, it is unreasonable to assume that just because folks of any degree of African descent could no longer be bought and sold at market, doesn't mean they would've been accepted as equals. That didn't even happen after the South had lost the war. That required more strife and bloodshed some one hundred years later.

While some argue that slavery was anathema in Europe, therefore the South would have to give it up carries no water with me. Slavery still exists in this world and I don't mean people having to work at crappy jobs for crappy wages. Human trafficking is still practiced and is a stain on humanity's conscience. It will not end until its practitioners, both providers and customers, are eradicated from the planet.

What do I really think about the causes of the Civil War?

The fear on the part of Southern politicians losing power in Congress as more free states were added to the Union. Compromises, adding a slave state for each free state, would eventually prove to be unworkable.

It was all about power, the South feared being dominated by the North, when Lincoln ran for President, the South indicated that if he was elected, they would not stand for such an outcome.

When Lincoln was elected, seven states almost immediately seceded from the union, to be followed by four more. In those days when people said they would leave the country rather than have "that man" as their President, they meant it.

I might start referring to the Civil War as The LDS War. LDS standing for, and you had to see this coming, Lincoln Derangement Syndrome. Same party, same nonsense. At least in 1861 they had the courage of their convictions. Not so much these days.

Anyhoo, that's my two cents. Your mileage may indeed (and probably does) vary.

Ball's back in your court readers, I breathlessly await your thoughts. (And Beans, I'll try and keep up this time.)