Map of the United States with railways at the start of the civil war.
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 10 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Funny how the southern states literally only had Mobile, New Orleans, and Charleston. The war should've been a year long no diff ngl. Good generals make a difference, who could've guessed?

  • source
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    'Good' is a strong word. A lot of '61 was two sets of incompetents flailing at each other, and the dice coming up lucky for the South, while '62 and '63 was largely a series of unforced errors on the part of incompetent Northern generals. The strategic acumen of Lee et co is much overstated.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    The northern elite also didn’t want to win at the start of the war: the union as it was, constitution as it is (with slavery that is). For the northern elite the south was a source of cheap cotton and an export market for finished goods, winning decisively would break that balance.

    The end of slavery was truly a bottoms up movement, that forced the contradiction to be so great that it could not exist in one country.

    John Dolan (aka the war nerd) has a great series on this subject on his podcast: Radio War Nerd.

  • source
  • parent