I like the final score but the North didn't cover the spread. And I also bet the over. Dang it....
OT: History Channel Miniseries "Grant"
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I like the final score but the North didn't cover the spread. And I also bet the over. Dang it....
I think an absolute certainty...the south had about 1/4 or maybe 1/5 the number of people that the North had along with resources. All things being equal and we would have two countries today. I think if Stonewall jackson had not been killed when he did, the war may have ended differently or lasted longer. but who knows for sure?
I think they got the rewrite of history exactly right. There was a cottage industry in the south trying to justify why they fought for such a terrible cause. Over time they convinced a lot of people that slavery wasn't the issue and some even that Forrest wasn't a racist murderer but some kind of patriot. The Civil War has long been the one exception to the rule that the winners write the history.
One has to wonder how much better it might have been had Lincoln lived to finish his second term and then been followed by two Grant terms. Certainty Reconstruction would have been handled better, and maybe we might have avoided the next 100+ years of discrimination. You have to think that we'd be in a much better place today.
Why...the confederates were trying to leave the US not replace its not like a confederate victory would destroy the north.
Interesting discussion: how have history played out if the South had been victorious?
No way to predict the outcome of such a huge shift in history. For one, as the West was settled, new states would have had an option which country to join. Or a couple may have joined together to create a third......of fourth........or even more. North America may have looked more like Europe. It would have possible, even likely, that border disputes could have led to regional wars.
Even more likely, IMO, would be continuing conflicts between the United States and the Confederate States. The prior based on individual freedom and the latter based on slavery, they could not exist side by side in peace. It would be inevitable that slaves would have fled to the north as much as possible with the underground railroad becoming larger as years go by. The south would be sending in bounty hunters to retrieve escaped slaves, amplifying the already hostile feelings between the two countries. It would be highly likely that additional wars would have broken out between the two.
World history would be dramatically different. Two, or more, weaker countries would have been less likely to resist foreign aggression. They certainly would have less impact on WWI, WWII, post war reconstruction, the formation of NATO and the UN, the Cold War/Soviet aggression. Would the mass migration from Europe had occured into a more chaotic continent? The list of what ifs could go on.....
What a different world it would be.
Harry Turtledove wrote a series of books on this very topic. Very interesting.
THIS is why you never watch anything in real time any more. DVR is your friend.
I watch 99% of the shows I watch off DVR, watching in real-time with commercials is brutal
Wow. That is some great "what if" thinking. Mind boggling to consider that "what ifs" had the South won the CW. Like you said, their goal was to succeed from the Union, not to invade & conquer. Most likely, had the South won they would have simply wanted their independence to form their own country.
My guess is that the first domino to fall in that change to history would be Texas being it's own country & not a state. Texas had internal disputes about picking a side and joining the war. Sam Houston wanted Texas to remain out of it. My guess is that had the South won, Texas would have eventually declared thier own indepdence.
Texas, US North and US South would have been 3 countries.
My guess is that most of the southwest would have aligned with Texas and become part of the Country of Texas.
Fascinating "what ifs".
Very plausible.
What is interesting to me is how world history would be different without the United States as we know it today?
Would a divided US be able to marshal the significant resources to defeat the Nazi’s and Japanese in WW2? I suppose the USSR would’ve still crushed the Nazi’s in Europe regardless, but would a divided US have the power to influence and stop the spread of communism in Europe? Would Russian influence have spread across Western Europe after the war? Is there a Cold War at all or does the USSR become an unstoppable force with no rival? Are we able to defeat the Japanese without the massive resources provided by a country that spans a continent?
Does our continent become the economic superpower it is today? With the south remaining agrarian and dependent on slave labor for decades to come, how does that impact the economy on the continent?
yeah...the south is not that influential in US thinking outside of SEC football. I am going to pass on the slavery issue except to state that many states felt that the USA was a union of separate states. While Slavery was clearly the lynchpin issue, it was much greater than that. The entire plantation/biz model was based on slavery. If you break slavery, you break the model. In addition, the south couldn't adapt to the model of the NE because it would take decades to rebuild. Of course, it was broken as a result of the war. The civil war was the start of federalism. while Federalism may or may not be a bad idea, the federal govt became THE source of power and the states were gutted. From that came federal income taxes, voting laws, etc. So while I do agree that the southern states fought to preserve slavery, they also fought to preserve their culture and a level of independence. I mean, in Penn State terms, the B1G life under federalism. ND's model, belonging to multiple conferences depending upon the sport, is the other.
https://www.sparknotes.com/us-government-and-politics/american-government/federalism/section2/
The South's better soldiers only existed in the East where they had better commanding officers. DH Hill fought in both theaters and was very good under Lee and Longstreet. He was ineffective under Bragg, as were many very good generals. Even Longstreet caught the disease of Bragg.
The Shenandoah Valley was the breadbasket of the Confederacy. If Grant didn't send Sheridan there, God only knows how long the war would have been drawn out. The people of Georgia and the Carolina's feel much the same way about William Tecumseh Sherman.
My final thought on this is that TV needs more of this type of programing. It held my interest for 3 days, was generally historically accurate, and prompted me to begin reading Ron Chernow's book Grant.
Dang....there goes my Great American Novel idea! Have to read that, should be interesting. How long ago did he write that?
Would be an awesome miniseries.
Or would WWII have ever happened?? A splintered United States would have had a drastic effect on WWI. There was a lot of pro-German sympathy at the time. Would any hypothetical North American countries have sided with Germany? Would any North American troops have been sent to Europe the help Germany? What if Germany had won? There would have been no WWII as we know it and Hitler would have remained an anonymous wannabe artist living on the streets of Vienna.
Or you could back it up further. No Spanish-American War. No charge up San Juan Hill and maybe no Teddy Roosevelt presidency. What would Cuba be today? Or the Philippines? There are so many hypotheticals involved from 1865 onward.
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The U S government was federalist from the beginning. The Civil War didn't bring about federalism.
do i remember my history correctly in that Stonewall Jackson was actually shot by a confederate soldier by accident as he rode back from the battlefield to general headquarters as that soldier thought he was a union solider.
Wikipedia has an entry 'American Civil War alternate history' that lists several books by different authors. Some are pretty extreme. One that looks closest to what I feel is accurate is Southern Victory. But the changes would be so dramatic that its is impossible to say.
Ironically, Jackson preferred that Virginia stay in the union.
Longstreet was the target of the lost cause. During the war he was thought of as being on par or better than Jackson. There is a reason Lee promoted Longstreet to Lieutenant General one day before Jackson in order for Longstreet to rank him. Seldom do you hear of Jackson's terribly bad performance on the peninsula. He also failed to follow Lee's order to attack at 2nd Manassas after Longstreet's flank attack. Longstreet understood that Lee's aggressiveness could only lose the war. Defensive actions and prolonged death of more Union men was the only way they could win. Longstreet was attacked for stating that he disagreed with Lee. What they forget is that Lee liked to plan with Longstreet.
first "federalist" isn't a binary choice. it is more or less federalist. There is, of course, the supremacy clause and several SCOTUS rulings like Marbury vs Madison. there were many laws and many constitutional amendments passed as a result of the civil war. The emancipation proclamation being one. today, we have another: does the fed govt have a right to close down or open state's businesses? Does the federal govt have the right to tell people that they must wear masks? This is a much different application when considering Manhattan NY to Manhattan Texas. The issue of federalism has been moving back and forth since the start of this nation.
Agree - much, much more of this type of programming needed...and a few less Kardashian freak shows! Bought Chernow’s Grant yesterday - $1.99 for Amazon Kindle...heck of a bargain!
McClellan actually disagreed with the Democrat platform. He would only accept peace, if the Union were maintained. He did not want the fighting to have been in vain. If Lincoln lost the election the pressure to end the fighting no matter what probably would have been too great.
what does 'south win the war even mean'? Not like the South was ever going to march North all the way to main and conquer the Union. Winning for the South meant basically forcing the North to recognize the succession and the South forming their own country. And if that would have happened, I am of the belief that another war between the country which would have been called The United States of Northern America and the country called The Southern Confederacy. So another war would have occurred sometime in the future when you look at all the wars around the world in the next 100 years that occurred. So I think in the end, the South would have been re-united with the North.
I do think the Texas question is a good one as they probably to form their own country along with the other states that are now around them. And then what becomes of Califonia/Oregon/Washington/Idaho type locations, would they have formed their own country or would they have gone with Texas or what?
I agree. Would you agree that during, and as a result of the Civil War the country shifted towards federalism and has not shifted back anywhere close to the state's power position that existed prior to the war.
Some random thoughts about the mini-series "Grant"
1. The program talked about border states and said (I think) there were 4 border states. The graphic map displayed 5 States, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. I have always thought there were 3 border states Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland. West Virginia succeeded from Virginia and therefore was not a threat to succeed. While Delaware was a slave state, I have never heard it was considering succession. Delaware gave us the case of a black man who owned slaves
2. In the program after the fall of Vicksburg they displayed a map showing the Union opening up the Mississippi down to Vicksburg but it showed no Union drive up from New Orleans nor could I see that New Orleans was in Union control.
1. The program talked about border states and said (I think) there were 4 border states. The graphic map displayed 5 States, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. I have always thought there were 3 border states Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland. West Virginia succeeded from Virginia and therefore was not a threat to succeed. While Delaware was a slave state, I have never heard it was considering succession. Delaware gave us the case of a black man who owned slaves
2. In the program after the fall of Vicksburg they displayed a map showing the Union opening up the Mississippi down to Vicksburg but it showed no Union drive up from New Orleans nor could I see that New Orleans was in Union control.
3. In regards of Grant being a great General many have mentioned the Vicksburg campaign, but or equal significance was the capture of Forts Henry and Donaldson. This was a significant victory made possible by the close cooperation between Grant and Commodore Foote. That Grant was able to forge a working relationship with Foote speaks to his ability to keep credit from hindering victories.
4. I admire Lee for the way he conducted himself at the surrender and after. The South could have launched a guerilla war but did not manly due the conduct of Lee
4. I admire Lee for the way he conducted himself at the surrender and after. The South could have launched a guerilla war but did not manly due the conduct of Lee
The number of casualties in the Civil War still staggers me. 620 thousand deaths from a population of 32 million. In proportion, that would be 6.4 million deaths from today's population of 331 million. Hard to imagine the horror of the general population as those news paper headlines of the battles rolled out.
Exactly. Davis didn't govern the South. State governors did. And many hoarded supplies like food clothing, shoes and arms that hampered the cause. States rights.
With the discussion of alternate history, there was a film in 2004 called CSA: The Confederate States of America. It is a mockumentary of sorts that reveals what 20th Century life would be like had the Civil War ended differently. I wouldn't call it good but it was interesting.
In a federal system of government, there is a strong central government which has the majority of the power. In a confederal system, the central government is quite weak and the entities that making up the confederation, such as states, are the ones with all the power.
Not trying to argue. My point is that i wouldn't call a confederacy where the states can do as they please a country.
Well, Texans fought in the Eastern Theater - how’d that happen?
Yeah that would have been ****ing great. Slavery would have endured!! What a noble cause that would have been!!
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