OT: Gen. Grant is being promoted.
- Thread starter GloryDawg
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Dr. John Marzalik is one of the worlds leading scholars of U.S. Grant. He taught at MSU and is now I believe retired. His civil war class was one of the best classes I ever took.
I do get a kick out of it when my friends (all MS educated) say the CW wasn't about slavery and try to romanticize it, I simply point them MS's article of secession. Most wars are "rich man" wars, but the CW may have been the ultimate rich man's war.
That guy doesn’t deserve a promotion, he hasn’t done anything in years.
But to be fair, the only person to scare Rebels more than Jake Mangum is General Grant.
But to be fair, the only person to scare Rebels more than Jake Mangum is General Grant.
Agreed.
I used to get a kick out of doing the same as you but now I feel more like Colonel Jessup…
I used to get a kick out of doing the same as you but now I feel more like Colonel Jessup…
i had Dr. Marzalek for Civil War Era back in the day. He made us read his book on Grant. Darn good book. Great class.
Cool and all, but why now? Nothing was recently discovered that should change anyone's opinion of him or anything like that, right?
A position was created for him back when he was alive that gave him the highest rank. He was as high a rank as it got.
He lived a heckuva life and died nearly penniless. Fascinating guy to read about.
A position was created for him back when he was alive that gave him the highest rank. He was as high a rank as it got.
He lived a heckuva life and died nearly penniless. Fascinating guy to read about.
He owned one. It was given to him as a wedding present by his father-in-law. He freed the man prior to the Civil War. He freed him, not sold him. Grant was nearly penniless at the time.
He held the position but never the title. General of the Army is the General who controls all the armies in the field. After Vicksburg Lincoln put him in charge of all the Union Armies that were in the field. He marched with the Army of Potomac but he control them all. Up to that point each army commander could pretty much do what they wanted. This gave more of a central control. Washington held the position and the title.
He owned one that he got from his father in law. Grant freed him in 1859. The other slaves were his wife's or his father in law's.
It shouldn't matter but it does in the modern society that we live in. If you don't like history the way it's written you can rewrite it
My favorite crazy idea at the time that all the "Slave Owner" history was as all the rage, Washington owned slaves, Jefferson owned slaves, and "that guy" owned slaves was the idea put forth that Abraham Lincoln was a racist.
SMH
I think that both viewpoints are correct. For the Confederacy, the Civil War was 100% about slavery. But I think it’s naive to say that the North was so altruistic and good-hearted that they were willing to die to end slavery. For them, it was about preserving the Union and shifting the power balance between slave states and free states. I mean, come on. You guys know that Jim Crow wasn’t just in the South, right?
So he gets a pass even though he was married to someone who owned them? That's a pretty far reach.
I think an interesting discussion would be what if Slavery in the US was abolished in 1787. What would the US look like now?
The South would have seceded in 1787, probably without a Civil War, and would be a separate country. Eventually, it would have been forced to abolish slavery, probably much later than the 1860s though. Economically and militarily, the South would be much weaker than it is now.
Didn't say he should get a pass, just adding perspective. Since he owned a slave he was a slave owner at one point in his life. Unlike most other slave owners he didn't turn traitor.
You're trying to judge him based on modern standards. You can't do that. He had no control over his wife's and father-in-law's business. For his day, he was pretty anti-slavery even before the war. And then there's the whole almost single handedly winning the war that abolished slavery thing. The way the North was 17ing up the war in the East, they very well could have managed to lose it if not for Grant.
I don't know if the South would have seceded if only because Eli Whitney's cotton gin had yet to be invented.
The only reason slavery was allowed in the original Constitution was so the South would sign off on the Constitution. It was very contentious and by no means a done deal that the South would stay with the northern colonies. And they wouldn't have without a lot of compromise.
You have a very valid point. I'm just thinking that the ratification of the Bill of Rights was ultimately more crucial.
If I remember correctly, Eli Whitney’s cotton gin invention drove him deeply into debt and he had to start making guns to get out of debt. Also Whitney hoped the cotton gin would end slavery but instead had the opposite effect.
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One of my pet peeves is when people try to glorify Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. I realize Lee was personally against slavery but he got hundreds of thousands of men killed in an effort to preserve slavery, an institution that was on its last legs. These two men (along with others, but these two are the most glorified), led the South in an un-winnable war to preserve slavery which would likely only lasted a couple more decades at the most. Slavery was against the economic benefit of most common southern soldiers as it drove wages down. I'm all about honoring the foot soldiers of the CSA, like my two great uncles who died at Kennesaw Mountain, but not the leaders.
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I’m not CW buff
Or history buff for any time period, but this always struck me as one of the dumbest wars. The South chose to go to war and risk a whole lot to gain very little. Idiots. Trying to set aside the whole morality issue of slavery and look at it from a strictly economic standpoint, the South could’ve just freed the slaves, paid them as little as the north paid factory workers, and built that into the price of cotton. Instead, they went to war and lost everything. What was the potential upside for the south besides keeping slaves? As much money as the southern plantation owners were rolling in, I guess they just thought they were gods and nothing they did could end poorly.
Or history buff for any time period, but this always struck me as one of the dumbest wars. The South chose to go to war and risk a whole lot to gain very little. Idiots. Trying to set aside the whole morality issue of slavery and look at it from a strictly economic standpoint, the South could’ve just freed the slaves, paid them as little as the north paid factory workers, and built that into the price of cotton. Instead, they went to war and lost everything. What was the potential upside for the south besides keeping slaves? As much money as the southern plantation owners were rolling in, I guess they just thought they were gods and nothing they did could end poorly.
The soldiers of the South were not as ambivalent about slavery as many make them out to be. There is a book called "Mr. Lee's Army" that is very good of this issue.
Actually most plantation owners were NOT rolling in money. They were wealthy for sure but their wealth was tied up in land and slaves. Lots of wealth, not much cash. I found that very interesting when I discovered it. It explains a lot about why they did what they did.
Great point that was not mentioned very much when I was going to school a long time ago in MS as much as that state's right thing that was the real reason for the Civil War.
Both can be true. Overall probably the main issue was indeed states rights. The main one for most (if not all) of the southern states was slavery. I think we lose sight of just how little power the Federal Government had during this time. As some people tried to give it more power to "strengthen" the Union, others fought it because they wanted to govern themselves.
Ironically it's somewhat of the same issue a lot of places today as we still fight over what should be enforced at a Federal level vs. a state level. The battles over abortion and marijuana use among those big ticket items being argued about right now. It makes for pretty good discussion on where the lines should be drawn and hundreds of years later we still struggle with the balance.
One thing I do remember reading back in college was that Lincoln was about ready to concede on the slavery thing for a period of time to keep the Union together, but then Ft. Sumter happened and it pissed Lincoln off and the rest is history.
Also remember that Lincoln getting the nomination for President was quite scandalous as well. Something about fake tickets and promising the same Cabinet position to multiple influential people. I wish I didn't forget half the stuff I read because historical sites are really interesting. Went to Williamsburg area last summer and could have spent a month there visiting all the sites.
The ONLY states' right the Civil War was about was slavery. Just read the articles of secession. It could not possibly be more clear. Please find me any mention of any other state's right in this. We were fed a line of lies in school back in the day.
There was also a "20 Slave Law" whereas men with 20 slaves or more were exempt from military conscription. Those who would benefit the most didn't even have to fight.
Many slave holders were actually small farmers who owned only a few slaves, not large plantation owners.
The south would have still seceded when they did. The war was not about maintaining slavery. It was about the expansion of it and that is what Lincoln was stopping. Slavery as it existed and where it existed was going nowhere. There was even an amendment (which Lincoln spoke in favor of during his inaugural address) that had passed congress and was out being ratified by the states that slavery would be allowed to exist forever where it was already legal. At the time of the war, the south was paying for the overwhelming majority of the government through tariffs but only the north was benefitting from industrialization. The south was wanting to expand slavery to the new western states and territories to create a larger voting footprint in congress to keep the northern states from passing tariffs favorable for themselves. The first of these tariffs almost caused succession and a war about 20 or 30 years earlier before Old Hickory told John C. Calhoun he would personally come down to South Carolina and whip his ***.
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I'm pretty sure that law was a big contributor to the formation of The Free State of Jones.
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