Andersonville Redux

The number of lives lost on both sides is staggering. The massive volume of destruction to property is also mind boggling. To me one of the most poignant elements of war- no matter the era- are the wounds unseen.

War is hell. Those who tout it as a means of righting wrongs, or vanquishing evil surely must be blind to the reality of it.

The Civil War was perhaps the greatest tragedy of this country. Slaves at the time of the American Revolution were the largest asset class in the United States. Every part of the country had slaves or dealt in slaves. There were Indian slaves, Scots and Irish slaves and others from England's wars as well as those from Africa. Even those who had once been slaves ended up owning slaves.

While it is likely that slavery was not the major impetus for the Civil War, the end of slavery was perhaps its greatest outcome. Alternative history aside, it is hard to imagine what sort of country we would be if the South had won. Slavery is such a disrespect of human life and a moral cancer to owners.

We had great loss of life and property in the Civil War that still echos in the South. The South has still not returned to its former glory in comparison to the Northern States. Or at least to its position of preeminence in regards to the rest of the country.

The fact that the United States survived the Civil War is nothing short of miraculous. With the discovery of gold in 1849, and all the lumber and other resources in this still pristine country, and the presence of other foreign interests on American soil, we certainly were ripe for the picking. You surmise what this country would be like if the South won? What if we had become Northern Mexico? Or Southern Canada?

War is hell, no doubt about it. And there have always been Angels of the Battlefield, and there will continue to be, as long as war exists.

Cali

This is so weird! Only this afternoon I was reading a book about the civil war ... I made the following notes as I am continually doing research ... "Andersonville ... Southern prisoners confined 45,000 died 13,000. Shiloh the bloodiest Civil War battle ... The North used Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek & Seminole Indians in an attack on Springfield February 12th ... What happened to the American Indian?"

Jj.

Interesting that Jj brings up the issue of the Native Americans and what happened to them as far as the Civil War was concerned.

Most of the Indians in the southeast had been "removed" to Indian Territories on the Trail of Tears years before the War to what later would become Oklahoma. Of the Indians in the northeast and Midwest, most had already been moved to reservations in New York, Wisconsin and Michigan and in general not involved in the War.

However, west of the Mississippi things were different. Many of the plains tribes saw a release of pressure from settlements as the North had to turn its attentions to dealing with the rebellion and left many of the tribes to reassess their dealings with the eastern migrations of settlers that had already taken place as far west as Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri, states within the Union. The South could have had an opportunity to open a second front in the West and use disaffected Indians to tie up vital Union resources and out of the South's way, but due to some surviving issues about Indians and slaves, such as possibly forming some sort of ad hoc terrorist force to harass the South as much as the North, nothing was done.

What was done, was the Union garrison some troops on the frontier as a trip wire against Indian attacks using a sting of lightly defended forts along the frontier from the Dakotas to western Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska.

In the movie "Dancing with Wolves" the Kevin Costner's character is sent to reestablish such a fort, since at the of the Civil War most of these forts were abandoned as the troops involved were discharged and the units decommissioned.

Then as the country recovered, the pressure was even greater to not only move through Indian country to get to Oregon and California, but to settle west of the Missouri and south on cheap federal land made more valuable due to a growing demand of agricultural products in the east and the spread of railroads to move products to east also cheaply. The overall event was also known as Manifest Destiny as the overall justification of what moving West meant to America and Americans.

Along with this developing demand was the residual of an Army that had fought a great and long war who's attention was being focused on the "Indian" problem created by the settlers to take and use more Indian lands. It is also interesting that a large part of the military used to suppress the Indians were the Buffalo Soldiers, who were in the main, freed blacks.