Thanks for your response, Wizard. The Union did find a way to prosecute and hang at least one Confederate Officer, the unfortunate Wirtz, commander of the infamous Andersonville Prison. Perhaps he deserved it, but I’m not sure of that. I have also read of very similar conditions in at least one of the Northern POW camps. Sounds like another example of “Victor’s Injustice” right in our own nation. There are other examples that occurred during the Indian Wars as well. Victor’s Injustice has been around a long time, and not just in WWII.
Um, didn’t the Confederate States of America open fire on Fort Sumter? And as for legality, it was the South that seized federal assets with no negotiations…
[i]Yes they did. Only after requests for removal of Federals in the confines of a soverign state. Lincoln was set on re-supplying them, rather than removing them. South Carolina had adopted the Ordinances of Secession. This was a right that had not been forbidden to States by the U.S. Constitution. At the Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made to allow the Federal Government to suppress a seceding state, but that proposal was rejected after James Madison said,
“A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound”.1
Instead of honoring the spirit of the Constitutional Convention, Lincoln seemed determined to provoke a war, instead of recognizing the rights of the States.
Respectfully,
1.Max Farrand,ed, The Records of the Federal Convention, vol.1(New Haven, Conn.(Yale University Press,1911),p.47
[/i]
By the way, Nickdfresh, I notice you are from New York. I have seen in my reading about the War for Southern Independence, that New Yorkers, in general, were friendly to Southrons, and I appreciate that. Perhaps we too, can be friends and just agree to disagree on some things. Long Live the South!
Texag,
I admit that I am not all that well-read on the American Civil War. I do recall something in history class of certain mixed sympathies that resided in both the Northern and Southern regions. There were of course those northerners who had a pipe-dream of one day owning a Southern plantation, some that favored the notion of “states rights,” and many were immigrants from places like Ireland that objected to being conscripted to fight in a war after fleeing the travails of their homelands, which resulted in a surge of draft riots in the City. All understandable, but I doubt there was a significant groundswell of sympathy for secession here, and many New Yorkers bled into the hallowed battlefields…
Long live everyone!
Regards
Agreed, “long live everyone” and the USA.
And peace breaks out just when I thought we were going to see the start of American Civil War II. 
More seriously, what I know about the Civil War would fit on the head of a pin. Is there a readily obtainable and fairly concise book any of you Civil War buffs would recommend as giving a fair view?
I dunno, I’m still stuck in the under-read portion of the War of 1812 and The American Revolution…
Unfortunately, I’ve been stuck on some other interests and have gotten away from wars a bit…
This might make a nice thread in the Civil War forum though, no?
Rising Sun, I can’t think of a single edition, except perhaps the American Heritage single edition if it is still available. Look for anything by Bruce Catton, or Douglas Southall Freeman. Freeman has written several volumes of “Lee’s Lieutenants”. Any one of them would be a good read.
If I think of more, I’ll let you know.
Rising Sun,
The books I mentioned previously were published years ago, But I read one recently that I thought was really interesting. The name is The Jewish Confederates.It came out just a couple of years ago, and gives some insight into the War for Southern Independence (Civil War to the Unionists). It also gives interesting information of the contributions made by Jewish Statesmen, military officers, and just plain fighting men. I really enjoyed it
texag57
Thanks. I’ll see if I can find any locally.
My pleasure. The war was such a hugh part of our history, that it is difficult to find one book that would do it justice. I’ll keep looking through what I have and let you know when I come up with something recent.
I am following this discussion with great interest, and while I may have an opinion about it, I will save that for another time. I post here now just to bring up one point; Tito, and by extension Yugoslavia, needed no pointers from Stalin in regards to his Rule. In fact Yugoslavia was one of the few (East-Bloc) countries that the Soviet Union had little sway in. I bring this up not to in any way glorify Tito, far from it! As an American of Croatian ancestry, I have little love for countryman, (he was a Croat) but he did manage for the most part to keep the Soviets out of his affairs, more than likely because they more often then not were on the same page, so to speak.
That is very interesting to me. I first heard of Tito when I was a youngster during WW 2. Back then, he was leading the partisans against Germany, so he was generally well thought of here.
“Deo Vindice”
Hello Texag57. The Russians and Stalin were also looked upon favorably during the War. Drazha Mihailovich, the leader of the Chetniks in Yugoslavia, was named Man of The Year by Time Magazine! But then politics shifted and Tito and his partisans were given the prodigal son status. Mihailovich and his chetnik band, even after the Allies deserted his cause (he was a royalist) and hitched their pony too the communist cart of tito, saved, hid, and arranged the pick up of over 600 Allied Fliers, shot down over Yugoslavia. The Germans were routinely executing captured pilots in Yugoslavia. Mihailovich was shot at the wars end by tito, despite a personal plea from the U.S. State Department to spare him, those pilots and personel that were involved in the operation to repatriate them,(Operation Halyard) had mounted a massive campaign to try and save him, to no avail. In 1948, urged on by a group of military officials, President Truman awarded a posthumous-but secret-Legion of Merit to Mihailovich for his contributions too the Allied cause. Tito may have been generally well thought of as you say, but he isn’t too well thought of where I grew up, and I mention Drazha Mihailovich’s name not out of any sense of loyalty, he was a serb, I’m Croatian, enough said there. But as how loyalties and ones perceptions of people and events can shift, or be sublimaly shifted for you by the press and propoganda.
Hello HOS BANDIT, I know what you mean about loyalties, after the war, I believe most of us finally saw the real Tito, and we changed our feelings towards him, or at least I did. I was older and became more aware of politics. I was not aware at that time of Mihailovich, but I have learned something new, thanks to you. In my later years, I have become more aware of the conflict between Serbs and Croations as well, but still know only some basics. I always love to learn more, since I was a teacher of history before retirement. The more I can learn, the better.
You would have been my favorite Teacher Texag57, I loved History when I was in high-school, and later in college I always chose a History course as one of my electives. The conflict between the Serbs and Croats has been the bane of the Balkans for centuries. I grew up in a small steel-mill town in Pa. Steelton.
There is a very large Serb-Croat neighborhood in the town, and growing up we all got along just fine, in fact my Fathers Sister married a Serb! That all changed in 1990 when Milosovic, a Serb, changed the constitution, severely weakening Croatian self-determination. Practically overnight my neighborhood became a microcosym of Yugoslavia. 80 yr. old men who had been friends since childhood, started stabbing each other because one was a serb, and the other was a croat! There was a private club called the Serb/Croat Club, that was a neighborhood watering-hole for years, but within 3 months of the outbreak of hostilities in Yugoslavia it was closed by the State, after the State and Local Police told the Liquor Control Board that they were responsible for the 24 altercations that they had responded too there, that had led to one death and numerous serious injuries. I mention all this because the more some things change, the more other things remain the same, and as a History teacher, you can surely appreciate the old maxim, those who forget the past, are doomed to repeat it!
Amen to that old maxim. I well remember all the troubles with Milosovic, and I still have trouble with the United States getting directly involved in combat there. I really did not understand whose side we were supporting and why. I am so very sorry Milosovic turned the two peoples against one another, and that it caused such divisions in our own country. I hope the situation has improved and that old friends can once again get along. It sounds a lot like the division in our own country in the 1860’s. Take care.
“Deo Vindice”
What about Dresde?, more than 150.000 civilians killed in one night, with no military reason at all. …policy to murder POWs, when Rommel took by surprise some british headquarters in Africa there were found orders, documented , of killing german and italian POW’s …Experiment on captives? , do you still believe in Santa?
by the way, alllies put the mafia back in Sicilia, as a payment for its colaboration with “the goods”
Then, don’t talk about moral superiority