FAPPAF Bucket

Someday I will be dead, and maybe you will want to know about the media I consumed or wanted to consume. Furthermore, while I am still living, perhaps you want ideas on gifts you could give me. Well, either way, you've come to the right place.

Dec 14, 2009 4:52pm
Finished ‘Tried by War’ by James McPherson.  Some points… Policy: preservation of the United States as a nation. “We must settle this question now, whether in a free goverment the minority have the right to break up the goverment whenever they choose.  If one state may secede, then any other may until there is no goverment and no nation.” Clausewitz: “The political objective is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose…therefore, it is clear that war should never be though of as something autonomous but always as an instrument of policy.” To maintain support for the war among Democrats, border states and pro-Union southerners, at first policy was always preservation of the union, irregardless of slavery.  However, as the war progressed, the issue of slaves as contraband arose, and eventually it was realized that as slaves contributed to the southern war effort, slavery needed to be attacked so as to combat Confederate logistics, growing of food, etc.  Therefore, slowly, emancipation emerged as a necessary national and military strategy. At start of war, the Federal army was composed only of 16,000 men. A third of officers were from the South, including a disproportionate number of higher ranking officers. Lincoln felt his duty to preserve, protect and defend the U.S. superceded various legal constraints.  For instance, drawing money from the treasury without the consent of Congress, ordering a blockade of Southern ports, suspension of habeas corpus.  “Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution? By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the nation.” The states that made up the Confederacy covered more than 750,000 sq miles - as large as France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Great Britain combined. “To win the war the CSA needed only to defend successfully their existing boundaries.” Some, such as General Winfield Scott, believed the “passions of the moment had swept a temporary majority in the CSA into the secession camp” but believed they would return to the Union if Lincoln pursued a firm yet conciliatory strategy.  This, according McPherson, turned out to be a delusion. The decision of the CSA to place its capital in VA made VA the main theater of the war. McClellan’s chronic overestimation of enemy forces is often blamed on Allen Pinkerton, a Chicago detective who was GMs intelligence officer - yet GM overestimated before him, as well. On November 1, 1861, Winfield Scott retires and GM becomes General-in-Chief AND Commander of the Army of the Potomoc.  “I can do it all,” he says. “Because the CSA’s basic military strategy was to defend the territory that lay behind its fronteir, Southern armyies had the advantage of interior lines.  That advantage allowed them to shift reinforcements from inactive to active fronts.  This concentration in space could be overcome only if the Union employed its greater numbers (a reality despite GM’s belief to the contrary) to attack on two or more fronts at once - concentration in time.”

Finished ‘Tried by War’ by James McPherson.  Some points…

Policy: preservation of the United States as a nation. “We must settle this question now, whether in a free goverment the minority have the right to break up the goverment whenever they choose.  If one state may secede, then any other may until there is no goverment and no nation.”

Clausewitz: “The political objective is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose…therefore, it is clear that war should never be though of as something autonomous but always as an instrument of policy.”

To maintain support for the war among Democrats, border states and pro-Union southerners, at first policy was always preservation of the union, irregardless of slavery.  However, as the war progressed, the issue of slaves as contraband arose, and eventually it was realized that as slaves contributed to the southern war effort, slavery needed to be attacked so as to combat Confederate logistics, growing of food, etc.  Therefore, slowly, emancipation emerged as a necessary national and military strategy.

At start of war, the Federal army was composed only of 16,000 men. A third of officers were from the South, including a disproportionate number of higher ranking officers.

Lincoln felt his duty to preserve, protect and defend the U.S. superceded various legal constraints.  For instance, drawing money from the treasury without the consent of Congress, ordering a blockade of Southern ports, suspension of habeas corpus.  “Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution? By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the nation.”

The states that made up the Confederacy covered more than 750,000 sq miles - as large as France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Great Britain combined. “To win the war the CSA needed only to defend successfully their existing boundaries.”

Some, such as General Winfield Scott, believed the “passions of the moment had swept a temporary majority in the CSA into the secession camp” but believed they would return to the Union if Lincoln pursued a firm yet conciliatory strategy.  This, according McPherson, turned out to be a delusion.

The decision of the CSA to place its capital in VA made VA the main theater of the war.

McClellan’s chronic overestimation of enemy forces is often blamed on Allen Pinkerton, a Chicago detective who was GMs intelligence officer - yet GM overestimated before him, as well.

On November 1, 1861, Winfield Scott retires and GM becomes General-in-Chief AND Commander of the Army of the Potomoc.  “I can do it all,” he says.

“Because the CSA’s basic military strategy was to defend the territory that lay behind its fronteir, Southern armyies had the advantage of interior lines.  That advantage allowed them to shift reinforcements from inactive to active fronts.  This concentration in space could be overcome only if the Union employed its greater numbers (a reality despite GM’s belief to the contrary) to attack on two or more fronts at once - concentration in time.”
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