Professor Lowe is, of course, right on the point and also about the tone of the
discussion.
  We often forget that the main armies of the Confederacy got little
chance to demonstrate what they would do on non-slaveholding
soil.  The Army of Northern Virginia got north of Maryland only
once, and in that campaign, General Lee issued order which
remind us of the policy of Mao Tse-tung during the Chinese Civil
War:  urging the non-molestation of the civilian population of
Pennsylvania for very political reasons.  His troops did, of course,
completely demolish the iron works at Chambersburg, PA
belonging to Congressman Thaddeus Stevens;  but that was a blow
in a political grudge match.
  General Morgan's cavalry raid into Ohio in 1864 (date?) has a
somewhat different history.  One wonders what Jubal Early would
have done in Pennsylvania in 1864 if had proved safe for him to
march North after his raid on the Washington, DC outskirts.
  Ultimately, the Union was able to wage total war on the territory of
the Confederacy, because the Union forces had the upper hand.  4
July 1863 marks the date of the strategic military defeat of the
Confederacy.  The remaining 21 months of war represent both the
considerable will to fight of the core of the Confederate officer corps
and troops, but also a waste, because victory was pretty much out
of the question.
  Would any on this list want to contemplate an alternative
southern history based on the following facts:  1) at least 100,000
Confederate troops dead, maimed, or in Union prison camps;
Union blockage and railroad destruction severely hampering
Confederate defense of its own territory;  3) Union has armed at
least 100,000 black men, mostly emancipated slaves, are they are
trained, equipped, armed, and stationed in the South.  (Hint:  even
were the Union to agree to a truce and withdraw, a black army
would remain on in the South;  with no alternative but to fight
literally for their lives.
  If members of this list think that Sherman, Sheridan, etc. did
damage to the South, just imagine a guerrilla war lasting years.
Imagine Robert E. Lee, perhaps the greatest traditional military
thinker in the Western Hemisphere, taking on an African-American
Toussaint L'Overture or Emiliano Zapata, fighting in the very
heartland of the Confederacy.  This, after all, was the nightmare
that disturbed Thomas Jefferson's sleep, as he half confessed in
his Notes on Virginia.
  Given the readily imagined alternative outcomes, the South--as
Kenneth Stampp observed in his synthesis on Reconstruction,
published in 1965--was extremely lucky in the outcome of the War.

Harold


Date sent:              Sat, 01 Sep 2001 13:27:34 -0500
From:                   Richard Lowe <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Re: idealogy
To:                     [log in to unmask]
Send reply to:          Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
        <[log in to unmask]>
Priority:               NORMAL

> > In response to my note on idealogy and objectivity we had an
> > excellent example of what I was saying,
> >
> > In defense of Sherman, someone suggested that patients could be taken
> > out of hospitals before he destroyed them.
>
>    Please calm down.  It was only an attempt to lighten and soften
> the conversation.
>
>    Besides, it IS possible to destroy a hospital without killing
> anyone -- not that I approve of destroying hospitals.
>
>  ===========================
>  =       Richard Lowe      =
>  =   Univ. of North Texas  =
>  =       [log in to unmask]      =
>  ===========================
>
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Harold S. Forsythe
Assistant Professor History
Director:  Black Studies
Fairfield University
Fairfield, CT 06430-5195
(203) 254-4000  x2379

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