• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

The Civil War

Who was right: North or South?

  • North

    Votes: 34 77.3%
  • South

    Votes: 6 13.6%
  • Neither

    Votes: 4 9.1%

  • Total voters
    44
I don't agree. Strategy is planning. Tactics is strategy in motion. This can appy to any portion of a battle or campaign.

That is not how the military uses it. Once the enemy is in sight, it's tactics(broad comment, used to illustrate not to be 100 % true).
 
Maybe, but I still think IF he fought it, he still would have fought it with the reckless abandon he fought most of his engagements.

I agree, but, Hoods battle plan at Franklin made wreckless abandon look like extreme caution. Forrest was so pissed off over the plan that he said something to the effect of, "If you were a whole man, I would beat you within an inch of your life...goddamn you!". I can't remember his exact words, but I think that's close.

It could have been worse, I guess; Bragg could have still been in command.
 
most of you know me as a Clausewitz disciple...as he put it, strategy is the employment of battles to end the war, for what that is worth.
 
That is not how the military uses it. Once the enemy is in sight, it's tactics(broad comment, used to illustrate not to be 100 % true).

I'm not military. I'm using layman's definitions. Perhaps THAT'S the disconnect.
 
I don't know about that. Yes, Hood changed after Gettysburg... similar to Ewell after Groveton, but Hood was always a gambler and preferred a head on approach to tactics. Good for a brigade commander, Disasterous for an army commander.

This is great stuff, I'm loving this discussion! :clap:
 
I don't agree. Strategy is planning. Tactics is strategy in motion. This can appy to any portion of a battle or campaign.

Tactics are, "the handling of men", as defined in a period manual on infantry tactics, but I can't remember if it's Hardee's, or another one.
 
I agree, but, Hoods battle plan at Franklin made wreckless abandon look like extreme caution. Forrest was so pissed off over the plan that he said something to the effect of, "If you were a whole man, I would beat you within an inch of your life...goddamn you!". I can't remember his exact words, but I think that's close.

It could have been worse, I guess; Bragg could have still been in command.

Yeah, good point. If they had left Johnston in command, they would have still been unable to stop Sherman, but the army would have been saved.
 
most of you know me as a Clausewitz disciple...as he put it, strategy is the employment of battles to end the war, for what that is worth.

Clausewitz was kinduva **** nut, too. Not completely, but purdy much. I like his ideas on maneuver, but that's where he and I part company.
 
Yeah, good point. If they had left Johnston in command, they would have still been unable to stop Sherman, but the army would have been saved.

Joe Johnston often led to the rear. I find that to be his major fault. He was fine defensibly, but otherwise Johnston had a history of remaining in place or pulling back early.
 
Clausewitz was kinduva **** nut, too. Not completely, but purdy much. I like his ideas on maneuver, but that's where he and I part company.

That's fine, pretty much everyone who reads vom kriege interprets it differently and come out with different judgments. I for one found it difficult but very insightful and applicable to modern day warfare as it pertains to strategy/policy/politics.
 
Yeah, good point. If they had left Johnston in command, they would have still been unable to stop Sherman, but the army would have been saved.

If Albert Sydney Johnston hadn't died at Shiloh, the entire war in the west would have been very, very different, IMO.
 
That's fine, pretty much everyone who reads vom kriege interprets it differently and come out with different judgments. I for one found it difficult but very insightful and applicable to modern day warfare as it pertains to strategy/policy/politics.

I find Clause to be very insightful, but only on certain points, such as maneuver, economy of force, etc. He was a peacenic. His treatise on war was more about how to bring wars to a close, with as little loss of life as possible, than it was about all out defeat of the enemy.
 
Last edited:
Joe Johnston often led to the rear. I find that to be his major fault. He was fine defensibly, but otherwise Johnston had a history of remaining in place or pulling back early.

You have a point. He did a smashing job fighting his way into Vicksburg. :lamo
 
Maybe we would be better off if the Confederacy had won the war... I mean, assuming that the end result was two countries, not one that was controlled by the Confederate constitution. Think about it, all the industry and science was concentrated in the north, all the international influence, and most of the infrastructure, food, and water. I have no doubt that the international community would have shunned the CSA for its continued practice of slavery, and it would have been far poorer than it was.

The USA would have continued on its path, becoming a world power, and would likely have outsourced a lot of labor to its poor cousin to the south, much as we presently do with Mexico. And we would have a USA untarnished by the modern republican party, meaning no Reagan corporatism, no religious right, and no Bush wars...

Who knows, maybe we'd have managed a better relationship with the Soviets and wouldn't have screwed up the Middle East. Modern terrorism might never have existed.

Damn, now I wish we'd just let the south go, and saved ourselves all this trouble...
 
Maybe we would be better off if the Confederacy had won the war... I mean, assuming that the end result was two countries, not one that was controlled by the Confederate constitution. Think about it, all the industry and science was concentrated in the north, all the international influence, and most of the infrastructure, food, and water. I have no doubt that the international community would have shunned the CSA for its continued practice of slavery, and it would have been far poorer than it was.

The USA would have continued on its path, becoming a world power, and would likely have outsourced a lot of labor to its poor cousin to the south, much as we presently do with Mexico. And we would have a USA untarnished by the modern republican party, meaning no Reagan corporatism, no religious right, and no Bush wars...

Who knows, maybe we'd have managed a better relationship with the Soviets and wouldn't have screwed up the Middle East. Modern terrorism might never have existed.

Damn, now I wish we'd just let the south go, and saved ourselves all this trouble...

The South was slowly industrializing before the war.
The war effectively annihilated the industrialization process.

I believe that slavery would have effectively ended during the gilded age, if no war took place.
Black people wouldn't have been scape goated, in the after years, by ambitious politicians.

I think the Jim Crow era was heavily influenced by that fallout from the war.
 
Joe Johnston often led to the rear. I find that to be his major fault. He was fine defensibly, but otherwise Johnston had a history of remaining in place or pulling back early.

He was the right man at the end of the war when the South had limited resources. When holding off Sherman before he was replaced with Hood, he frustrated the hell out of Sherman, holding him to less than a mile of movement a day, and beating him in casualties by a large percentage. Brilliant defensively, but certainly not offensively.
 
Last edited:
If Albert Sydney Johnston hadn't died at Shiloh, the entire war in the west would have been very, very different, IMO.

I never thought much of AS Johnston. His battle plan at Shiloh was shoddy at best, completely disorganized at worst. The one thing that him surviving would have done would have been adding stablity to the leadership of the Army of Tennesse (then known as the Army of Mississippi). Hopefully it would have prevented Bragg from ever commanding.
 
Maybe we would be better off if the Confederacy had won the war... I mean, assuming that the end result was two countries, not one that was controlled by the Confederate constitution. Think about it, all the industry and science was concentrated in the north, all the international influence, and most of the infrastructure, food, and water. I have no doubt that the international community would have shunned the CSA for its continued practice of slavery, and it would have been far poorer than it was.The USA would have continued on its path, becoming a world power, and would likely have outsourced a lot of labor to its poor cousin to the south, much as we presently do with Mexico. And we would have a USA untarnished by the modern republican party, meaning no Reagan corporatism, no religious right, and no Bush wars...Who knows, maybe we'd have managed a better relationship with the Soviets and wouldn't have screwed up the Middle East. Modern terrorism might never have existed.
Damn, now I wish we'd just let the south go, and saved ourselves all this trouble...

The righteousness of the South would have eventually put the debauchery of the North on full display. Materialism and recognition aren't everything. The world the North built is Soddom and Gommorah.

 
Why was a civil war fought? It was not fought to free the slaves. It was fought to preserve the Union. The fight over ending slavery began well before the civil war. Counting slaves as 3/5ths of a person was designed to lessen the power of the slaveholding states. One finds that in the Constitution (Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons).

Given the goal of preserving the Union I support the North. Given the destruction of liberty in the US today I am no longer so sure. The world needs a place of freedom. It is not likely that a separate South would have been that place either. So maybe we need to return to the Republic of Texas. Or we need to take back control of our government. The statists have held power too long. It is time to return to constitutionally limited government.
 
Well, I just spent 2 hours reading this thread from start to finish. I knew very little about the minutiae of the causes of the war or the strengths and weaknesses of the main military players. Now I do. This has been a wonderful, impressive advertisement for the strength of argument, knowledge and intelligence of DP members.

I'm sorry that I don't have the historical education to contribute, but I did want to express my appreciation for a terrific read and for the manner of debate that all posters (El Cid excepted) have shown here. Congratulations! Sincerely.

Now, would anyone be interested in a thread on The Wars of the Roses, the Spanish Civil War, or the Hundred Years' War? I'd be able to contribute a lot more to those.

:applaud:applaud:applaud
 
Last edited:
The North. Preservation of the Union was the most important factor, and slavery was nothing short of a flagrant hypocrisy in a country that claimed to offer and value liberty.
 
The North. Preservation of the Union was the most important factor, and slavery was nothing short of a flagrant hypocrisy in a country that claimed to offer and value liberty.

Oh yes - because no one with the Union supported slavery or ever had slaves. :roll:
 
Well, I just spent 2 hours reading this thread from start to finish. I knew very little about the minutiae of the causes of the war or the strengths and weaknesses of the main military players. Now I do. This has been a wonderful, impressive advertisement for the strength of argument, knowledge and intelligence of DP members.

I'm sorry that I don't have the historical education to contribute, but I did want to express my appreciation for a terrific read and for the manner of debate that all posters (El Cid excepted) have shown here. Congratulations! Sincerely.

Now, would anyone be interested in a thread on The Wars of the Roses, the Spanish Civil War, or the Hundred Years' War? I'd be able to contribute a lot more to those.

:applaud:applaud:applaud

My specialty is the Korean War and WWII. I have read and has many books on those two wars. In fact, I'm somewhat of a knowledgeable person on those two wars, but not a historian or even an amateur.
 
The righteousness of the South would have eventually put the debauchery of the North on full display. Materialism and recognition aren't everything. The world the North built is Soddom and Gommorah.


Does owning people count as materialism?
 
Back
Top Bottom