Greetings, friends!
I've just returned from a fascinating journey to Baltimore, Annapolis, and the Antietam National Battlefield. Maryland has much to offer, historically!
From top to bottom, you can see here: one of the many monuments at Antietam, where in September 1862 the U.S. suffered its bloodiest day of battle ever; the Maryland State House in Annapolis; the central hall at the B&O Railroad Museum; and the Star-Spangled Museum at Baltimore's Flag House, where the seamstress who made the flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the infamous British bombardment in 1814 lived.
Sure, Maryland is a cesspool of progressivism now, but once upon a time it was the proud home of patriots and lovers of liberty galore! It's a very pretty state too. It's well worth a visit. Put it on your list!
Dr.Waddy from Jack: I've hiked the Antietam field many times and was in the 150th anniversary reenactment as a member of the 42d Pennsylvania, the Bucktails. All of that was an intense thrill:to be in the very place of such transcendent history ! Union "victory" or no it earned a decisive role in world history by motivating Lincoln to promulgate the the Emancipation Proclamation which confirmed the reluctance of Queen Victoria and, consequently, her subservient, Napoleon III ,from entering on the Confederate side. Its hallowed ground and I say this knowing of the stench, the visible and audible HORROR produced in that theretofore pastoral setting. That ground is yet hallowed, from the devotion shown by the combatants, all Americans, on both sides!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: The Maryland I have experienced, from just below Gettysburg and the post battle sites on the Confederate army's fraught filled retreat across the Potomac, from Sharpsburg down to Harper's Ferry (itself verymuch worth the drive) is redolent with American history. You can see it down many side roads.Maryland may be said to have hedged its bets during the Civil War (I think it provided regiments to both sides); of course then it could so with impunity since Lincoln dreaded its ascession to the Confederacy. Maybe it is doing that in this present civil war.
ReplyDeleteJack, as you say, the horror that unfolded on those bucolic and tranquil fields is mind-blowing.
ReplyDeleteI've seen that claim before: that Antietam set up the conditions for the Emancipation Proclamation...but I don't understand why. What's the connection?
Jack, I learned during my wanderings in Maryland that the Union detained Maryland legislators for the express purpose of preventing them from voting on secession, and newspaper publishers who were similarly unreliable were silenced. The gloves came off in the Civil War! Maybe it was for a good cause, but when our liberties and even our democratic processes are subordinated to the overriding goal of protecting federal sovereignty and hegemony, it's not hard to imagine that the end result will be autocratic...sooner or later.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: My understanding is that Lincoln had the Proclamation ready before the battle.1862 in the more visible East had been a series of very discouraging defeats for theUnion and Lincoln believed he needed a Union victory to make the Proclamation credible. He chose to regard Antietam as a victory of sorts.A sign at the "Sunken Road" says that the Confederate line was broken there and the "end of the Confederacy was at hand". Longstreet and his staff were manning a battery. Union soldiers up forward came back saying they had nothing facing them!I've reenacted that moment. It was time for the Union reserve to pour through the gap. But McClellan, apparently advised by 40 year army veteran Gen. "Bull" Sumner, who was at the Sunken Road and perhaps traumatized by the appalling mayhem,not to bring up the reserve, declined to advance. Lee did retreatback into Va and Lincoln chose to regard that as success adequate to support the issuing of the Proclamation.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I suppose forcing Lee to retreat was a "victory" of sorts. Do you regard the proclamation as a principled pivot to a war to end ALL slavery...or an opportunistic stratagem to cause mayhem behind Southern lines?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I am sure Lincoln was glad to strike a blow at slavery; he had seen slave markets on a tripdown the Mississippi and was appalled. But he thought his war powers only, gave him authority to take the limited measure the Proclamation was. I'm sure he very much feared the all powerful Royal Navy coming over to break the blockade, sink Union ships used in the capture of Confederate ports and perhaps landing redcoats. You can still see today Civil War era ramparts at Fort Niagara, facing Canada. I've read that thousands of redcoats boarded Canada bound ships after the Trent affair, singing Yankee Doodle. Some of them may have been Crimean War vets and we know how Napoleonic War Brits handled "Jonathan" for awhile. Lincoln may have known that Victoria had grave misgivings about slavery and Napoleon III would not have supported the Rebs if the Brits hadn't.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: In issuing the Proclamation he transformed the war, in the eyes of some, to a crusade. But he also hardened Confederate resistance and generated considerable outrage among
ReplyDeletesome Union troops;though some were inspired by it .I think its main lasting effect , aside from keeping the Brits out,was on the very late warand early post war politics leading to the 13th Amendment.
Dr.Waddy fromJack: To answer you directly, yes. I think he advanced the measure as a tactical war decision but that his heartfelt loathing for slavery was addressed by action he had thought himself theretofore Constitutionally unauthorized to enact.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: In the1860s our democracy was still very much of an experiment. Lincoln acknowledged as much at Gettysburg. Are such Civil War measures as the suspension of Habeas Corpus and what was enacted in critical border state Maryland comparable to today?I think, yes! The left would blithely enact similar measures to advance their tota!itarian goals, for sure! But their goals would be very much the opposite of Lincoln's.
ReplyDeleteJack, do you think it was ever vaguely realistic that Britain and France would enter the Civil War on the side of the South? I find that very hard to imagine, especially after both countries had abolished slavery themselves. The South was always a big underdog in the conflict as well. Why bet on a likely loser?
ReplyDeleteOne wonders, as far as domestic politics goes, if, by tying the Civil War so closely to slavery and rights for black Americans, Lincoln might actually have undermined the North's chances of victory, at least in the short term. Many Northerners had no appetite for a "crusade", surely...
And could Lincoln's constitutional overreach provide precedent for the Dems' eventual suspension of civil liberties? Absolutely! They're setting up a paradigm of "insurrection" and "treason" for good reason! I'm frankly surprised they didn't push that line of thinking closer to its logical conclusion in recent months. Their timidity is more remarkable than their audacity, at this stage, but that could change very quickly.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Ithink it plausible; my reasons: Both Confederate and Union leaders thought it so at times and consequently took significant actions. Lee used it as one of his arguments for his first invasion of the North. The South was beginning to look like a winner after Second Manassas and although the Brits did see Antietam as a Union victory, in October they seriously considered a proposal from Napoleon III forEngland,France andRussia (!) to "step in and bring about" asix month armistice which would have meant Confederate independence(Catton in Mr. Lincoln's Army). The Brit Foreign Minister supported it but was beaten in the Cabinet. Had Lincoln not issued the Proclamation, with the Army of the Potomac looking yet feckless especially after Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville,the Brits might have reconsidered it. In England and certainly other monarchies there was much hope that the American experiment would fail. The convulsions of 1789 and 1848 bred much fear of American exemplified populism. In the Proud Tower,Tuchman describes still widespread convictionin the 1890'sin the British
ReplyDeletearistocracy, that only they were fit to rule Britain.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Lincoln and Seward got "the skeer" put in 'em by outrage plainly, materially and expressively, demonstrated by the Brits after the unanticipated Trent affair. War looked like such a credible possibility thatthey backed down and the Brits accepted their apology of sorts. Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg about the war testing whether a nation "... so conceived and so dedicated" as was the still nascent American popular experiment after only 80 years compared with Europe's millenia, could survive. In doing so he hinted at the pleasure and satisfaction with which many of Europe's crowned heads would have greeted victory by the South. Heck, in 1865, even comically named Napoleon III sanctioned the aiming of feckless Maximilian's troops in Mexico, toward Texas. They backed down fast enough with the dispatch of very seasoned U.S. vets to Texas. They did not wish to tangle with the Union Army and with good reason!
ReplyDeleteHmm. So what does "step in and bring about" mean, exactly? I'm not sure how they would have achieved an armistice...although it's a fair point that all the South needed to accomplish in the Civil War was to wear down the North's desire to reimpose its will. Even a smidgen of European diplomatic support might have done wonders.
ReplyDeleteWhat's this "Trent affair"?