'Lee Takes Command and Johnston Loses Command'

Happy Birthday Jefferson Davis

Happy birthday,Mr.President.Your patriotism,your love of liberty and the Constitution,as well as your sacrifice's and hardships will never be forgotten.God bless you and God bless the Confederate States of America that you so faithfully served.

Robert E. Lee Takes Command

On this day 150 years ago,after the battle of Fair Oaks where then commanding General Joeseph E. Johnston was grievously wounded,President Jefferson Davis placed in command of the Army of Northern Virgina,Robert E. Lee.No other decision would Davis make have a bigger impact on the war.

Lee brought an new aggressive spirit to the ANV.No longer would they wait and react to the actions of Army of the Potomac,but they would now take the initiative and seek to impose its will on the Army of the Potomac,going on the offensive.

The objectives Lee incorporated for the army were these.

 1.) Relieve Richmond.

 2.) Relieve Virgina.

 3.) Invade the North.Thereby relieving Virgina,garnering much needed supplies,and bringing the war home to the North.

 4.) At some point destroy the Army of the Potomac.

Lee succeeded in the first 3 objectives and coming close twice to accomplishing the 4th.

Due to limited resources and a small population from which to draw troop strength from,Lee understood -where many at that time didn't- that he had a very narrow window in which to try to win the war.For a little over a year the ANV dominated the Army of the Potomac,until it made its crest at Gettysburg.

Afterwards,with an severe lack of resources and ranks he could not fill,Lee changed his strategy.He sought to bludgeon the Army of the Potomac,attempting to destroy the North's will to fight.By using earthworks he maximized his troops against impossible odds,2 to 1,3 to 1,eventually 6-1He extended the war far longer than it should have lasted.

Robert E. Lee was this country's greatest general and probably,next to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson,the greatest man this country ever produced,IMHO.

Shiloh

150 years ago today the Confederate Army of Mississippi,commanded by Gen. Albert S. Johnston attacked the Union Armies of the Tennessee and Ohio commanded respectively by Gen. U. S. Grant and Gen. Don Carlos Buell.

At first the Confederate forces surprised the Union armies,driving them from the field.Soon though the Confederate units lost cohesiveness and Confederate commanders lost command and control,resulting in the Confederate attack to be rendered piecemeal.This gave Union forces breathing room and their defence began to stiffen,most notably in what would be later called the 'Hornet Nest',allowing them to make an orderly withdrawal to a defencive line near Pittsburg Landing.

During the Battle for the 'Hornet Nest' while leading a attack in the 'Peach Orchard' Confederate commanding General Johnston was wounded in the left leg.Thinking his wound not be serious,Johnston ordered his surgeon to look after some captured Union prisoners.Soon afterwards Johnston bleed to death,which a simple tourniquet would saved his life.

After countless attacks the Confederates finally seized control of the 'Hornets Nest',at a great cost.The few remaining cohesive Confederate units finally reached Grant's new line near Pittsburg Landing,which they broke as waves upon the rocks.

The next day (April 7th) Grant with the newly arrived forces of Buell launched a counter-attack.The Confederate resistance was stiff but they were far to spent to maintain possession of the battlefield.

Shiloh changed things.It took away the notion of a short war and introduced both nations to the concept of a very bloody war.

Stonewall Jackson's Begins His Famous Valley Campaign

150 years ago the Battle of Kernstown,Va. occurred beginning the greatest military campaign in U.S. history.Though Kernstown was a defeat for Stonewall Jackson and his Army of the Valley -it would be their only defeat in the whole campaign- it became a strategic victory,playing on Lincoln's fears for the security of Washington.To assuage those fears,Lincoln diverted Union Reinforcements from besieged Richmond to deal with the threat in the Valley.From Kernstown Old Jack would go on to defeat Fremont at McDowell,rout Commissionaire Banks at Winchester.Later on Lincoln would try to converge 2 armies,one under the Pathfinder Fremont and the other under Gen. James Shields, in Stonewall Jackson's rear,but Jackson would upset old Abe's plan.Through hard marching and the detailed maps of Jedediah Hotchkiss of the Shenandoah Valley,Stonewall and his Foot Cavalry would beat Fremont and Shields to the spot.Defeating Fremont at Cross Keys,then Shields at Port Republic,securing the Valley until 1864.

'Facing The Arithmetic'

The point I disagree with Bill on here,is that when the collapse comes -not IF but WHEN- it will be far worse than the War Between the States or the Great Depression.

In the WBTS the nation was divided primarily along lines of geography.In the coming collapse the nation will fragment into a thousand pieces,everyone clinging to their racial,ethnic,or economic class, group or tribe.

In the Great Depression we had common values and interests that united us.Now and in the coming collapse we have very little in common with one another.We don't even share a common language in this country any longer.

The values and institutions that used to unite us have been either destroyed or assaulted into irrelevance by the progressives.They have destroyed the family,replacing it with the Nanny State.They have forced religion out of the public square,making us a godless people.Through their dominance of the public education system they have removed national pride and a common heritage from us,creating instead a shame in our country and divided us into competing groups all in the name of diversity.

I hope I am wrong,but in the coming economic collapse we will not all unite and come together to face our problems like on the Walton's.On the contray,our cities will burn with rage and our streets will run with blood as people starve,because the state they so depended on can no longer take care of them.

'A More Truthful Version Of The Gettysburg Address'

Via Free North Carolina:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers declared independence from the United Kingdom and then went on to form a loose confederation of independent states which was scrapped a few years later in favour of a somewhat more centralised federation of states. Some of our ancestors have been agitating since that time to further impose their values upon others, consolidate power and make the voluntary Union compulsory.
Now are are waged in a great war to centralise power and and gain economic and political benefits over Southerners, testing whether we can prevail on the battle-field and dominate the South for many generations to come. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that our vision of involuntary, centralised government might be forced upon others. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have advanced through superior manpower, funding and supply of arms. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this involuntary union, under an unconstrained executive, shall have fewer freedoms and more centralised power – and that government in Washington, DC, by Northern elites, for their economic and political interests, shall not perish from the earth.

Happy Birthday Alexander Stephens

Today is the 200th birthday of Alexander Stephens,the Vice-President of the Confederate States of America.God bless you sir and I hope you are warm.

Happy Birthday Stonewall Jackson

Maybe the finest soldier Christendom ever produced,God bless you Gen. T. J. Stonewall Jackson.

Happy Birthday Robert E. Lee

Faithful in your duty and with unstained honor til the very end,the South has never produced a greater hero than you,Gen. Robert E. Lee.

'The Complete Hunley Unvieled - Finally'

From the Old Virgina Blog:

"No one alive has ever seen the Hunley complete. We're going to see it today."

The True South Through My Eyes - HK Edgerton

Hat tip to Free North Carolina.

'Behind The Dixie Stars'

I am sick and tired of liberal historians and other liberal "Civil War" bloggers constantly denying men,like Nelson W. Winbush and others,their heritage,for the sole reason that they and their Confederate ancestors are black and it does not fit into their preconceived narrative on how history should be.

Mr. Winbush's documentation is the same as any other descendants of Confederate soldiers,as well as descendant's of Union soldiers.Why should he or any others be held to a higher level of proof of their ancestors service,just because they happen to be black?

Tell me who is being prejudice now?

Tell Me Exactly Who Is In Rebellion,Junior?

Jesse Jackson Jr. wants,Obama to declare Congress in rebellion,and operate outside the bounds of the Constitution:

Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. told The Daily Caller on Wednesday that congressional opposition to the American Jobs Act is akin to the Confederate “states in rebellion.”
Jackson called for full government employment of the 15 million unemployed and said that Obama should “declare a national emergency” and take “extra-constitutional” action “administratively” — without the approval of Congress — to tackle unemployment.
“I hope the president continues to exercise extraordinary constitutional means, based on the history of Congresses that have been in rebellion in the past,” Jackson said. “He’s looking administratively for ways to advance the causes of the American people, because this Congress is completely dysfunctional.”

No,Congressman Jackson,"congressional opposition to the American Jobs Act" is not "akin to the Confederate states in rebellion."

First of all,the Confederate States were not in rebllion,they left the Union of their own free will,as it was their right to do so.It was Lincoln,who operated outside the bounds of the Constitution,subjagated the Southern states by force of arms.It was Lincoln who was in rebellion,rebellion to the Constitution.

If Obama takes "extra-constitutional" measures,like Lincoln 150 years ago,he would be in rebellion to the Constitution.Then every state -not 13 as 150 years ago,but all 50 states- should secede from the Union immediately,and reform our government under the Constitution.

What should be done now with Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.,Sister Tolijah has the answer:

Glenn Reynolds thinks Jackson should resign over this. Resign, hell. “Representative” Jesse Jackson, Jr., should be brought before the House and expelled for violating his oath.

It will never happen,but it should.

The Stars And Bars And The Star Of David

From The Richmond Times Dispatch:

"In general, people paint a broad brush about who the average Civil War soldier was. They see them as white, young men," said Andy Talkov, coordinator for the Virginia Historical Society's 150th anniversary exhibition, "An American Turning Point: The Civil War in Virginia."
"It turns out that Jewish people were very much involved in their community in the war, as were all the other non-Jewish communities. That's kind of the biggest revelation about Jewish people in the Civil War. … There were Jewish people who were slaveholders. There were Jewish people who owned property. They threw their lot in with the Confederacy like many of their white neighbors did."

Hat Tip to the Old Virgina Blog.

The 150 Anniversary Of The Battle Of 1st Manasass

Today is the 150 anniversary of the battle of 1st Manasass.This day marks the 1st major engagement of the WBTS in which close to 5,000 men were killed,missing,and wounded.On this day the"rebel yell" was 1st sounded on a battlefield when Gen. T.J. Jackson told his men, "to yell like the furies."Also,who can forget,today Thomas Jonathan Jackson got his more famous sobriquet "Stonewall" from Gen.Bernard Bee.Last but not least,today marks the day the Yankees got their 1st butt whopping,they would receive many more by the end of the war.

"Rothbard On Lincoln And His War"

Via Free North Carolina;

Like the leftists and neocons who are Lincoln cultists, the beltway "libertarians" have taken to smearing and defaming Lincoln critics as "neo-Confederates." In doing so they support the centralized governmental leviathan and the foreign policy of military imperialism that is Lincoln's legacy. That of course is why statists of the Left and the Right idolize Dishonest Abe. I'd like to see if the beltwaytarians have the chutzpah to apply this label to the late, great Murray Rothbard, of Brooklyn, New York, who authored this scathing critique of Lincoln and his war that contained such passages as the following:

"The two just wars in American history were the American Revolution and the War for Southern Independence."

"If the Articles of Confederation could be treated as a scrap of paper, if delegation to the confederate government in the 1780s was revocable, how could the central government set up under the Constitution, less than a decade later, claim its powers were permanent and revocable? . . . [T]hat monstrous illogic is precisely the doctrine proclaimed by the North, by the Union, during the War Between the States."

"One of the central grievances of the South . . . was the tariff that Northerners imposed on Southerners . . . The tariff at one and the same time drove up prices of manufactured goods, forced Southerners and other Americans to pay more for such goods, and threatened to cut down Southern exports."

"The Republicans [in 1861] adopted the Whig program of statism and big government; protective tariffs, subsidies to big business, strong central government, large-scale public works, and cheap credit spurred by government."

"[Lincoln's] major emphasis was on Whig economic statism . . . Lincoln's major focus was on raising taxes . . ."

"In his first inaugural, Lincoln was conciliatory about maintaining slavery; what he was hard-line about toward the South was insistence on collecting all the customs tariffs in that region."

"Lincoln was a master politician, which means that he was a consummate conniver, manipulator, and liar."

"Lying to South Carolina, Abraham Lincoln managed to do what Franklin D. Roosevelt and Henry Stimson did at Pearl Harbor 80 years later — maneuvered the Southerners into firing the first shot."

"There is no heresy greater, nor political theory more pernicious, than sacralizing the secular. But this monstrous process is precisely what happened when Abraham Lincoln and his northern colleagues made a god out of the Union."

"Sherman's infamous March through Georgia was one of the great war crimes, and crimes against humanity, of the past century-and-a-half."

"[B]y targeting and butchering civilians, Lincoln and Grant and Sherman paved the way for all the genocidal horrors of the monstrous 20th century."

Rothbard is right,Mr. Lincoln's war was a war of genocide.The Union hide this genocidal war behind the pre-text of a war to free the slaves,while Mr. Lincoln imposed a all powerful federal government by the force of arms on the states.

"We Must Set Aside Old Myths"

Via Old Virginia Blog;

"Setting myths aside, a review of the Civil War era strongly suggests that economics, not a moral crusade, brought on the war and shaped its aftermath. More specifically, an examination of this period indicates that the evolution of the Northern and Southern economies was the most important factor producing the conflict . . . Now more than ever we must set aside old myths. Economics more than high moral concerns produced the Civil War." ~ Professor Marc Egnal

"Slavery Was Not The Cause-According To Sherman"



 Via Old Virginia Blog;

"I am now satisfied that Slavery is not the Cause but the pretext, and that when these important defections take place, what will be the new Combinations?" ~ General William Tecumseh Sherman

"Aftermath:Desruction And Military Rule"

Via Free North Carolina-Aftermath:Destruction and Military Rule;

“Grim scenes abounded as the homeward-bound North Carolinians rode South. One event in particular must have made [General Bryan] Grimes wonder what was in store for him as a defeated soldier without the means to fight back. According to Grimes’ astute traveling companion, Thomas Devereux:

“A few miles from the forks of the road we came to an old man, Loftin Terrel, his house was on the roadside and he was knee-deep in feathers where [Sherman’s] bummers had ripped open the beds, a yearling and a mule colt were lying dead in the lot; they had been wantonly shot.

Old man Terrel was sitting on his door step, he said there was not a thing left in the house and every bundle of fodder and grain of corn had been carried off; that he had been stripped of everything he owned and he had not a mouthful to eat. They had even killed his dog which was lying dead near the house.”

Atrocities like this were not local,but happened all over the South.Both small and great suffered at the hands of the Union.