Thank you.
So... what happens if the nazis come to your town and you DON'T oppose them?
Ignoring the possibility that you're starved of entertainment (or at the very least fresh air) and that rhetorical questions need no answers I'll give you one: if 'nazis' pounded on my front door I would call 911. We have that privilege over here in this neck of the woods. And our freedom doesn't extend to 'hate crimes' - even if it's just a slogan on our T-shirt.
But in treating the original member (who countered my assessment of his post with repeating the questions and therefore fairly is obliged to an answer) with an answer, rhetorical question or not, I have dropped in the following - you are welcome to read that, too - if you have the time.
Question(s) still stands.
First of all, welcome to GTPlanet. 👍
I'm always happy to see new members here - especially those who take an active interest while keeping to the AUP.
You must understand my assessment of your post was not to offend you but to view the words in a practical manner; these questions are much like - what happens if aliens come knocking on your door?
But to treat this event with some depth and hopefully to shed some light on why people are
allowed to walk around carrying guns and screaming slogans in America we have to study some history - in fact we have to go back to the very birth of freedom itself before we truly can grasp the concept. If you can understand that after reading all that I will post in here now, you yourself may then find your questions merely rhetorical.
It is unfortunate that someone lost it and someone else died.
It is fortunate that no shots were fired.
Here is why:
There is more to this than just a black/white issue.
This is a Heritage issue covered over with media-hyped polluted by partisan politics, economic greed, cultural fear, and medieval racism. And a fearful lack of historical knowledge that helps us learn from past mistakes.
So let's recap a bit of that history.
The American Civil War is not referred to as 'The American Civil War' by some Southerners - it is referred to as 'The Second War of Independence'.
North and South have different names for many things; the victors write history the way they like to portray it - 'Total War' (which involves the massacre of innocents) is called 'Collateral Damage' by those who press the buttons - the right words are balm to the cruel and inhuman amputation.
Southerners, for instance, call the first major battle of the war Manassas while Northerners call it the First battle of Bull Run; the South tends to connect a battle with the nearest town while the North connects it with some physical feature nearby.
However, we're jumping ahead - how did a unified country (split into two distinct nations headed by different presidents) come to war with itself?
Let's start:
In the 1800s, American society was fairly similar wherever you were - Alabama, Oregon, Indiana or Massachusetts, it didn't matter - the people were all essentially capitalists believing strongly in democracy - the very concept that backed the fight for independence from a monarchy. But there were increasingly growing differences, regionally, in economic and social structures.
One of the key differences was slave labour - an approved resource of the time. One might wonder what would have happened if someone had invented an efficient cotton-picking machine before this war.
While nearly all white Americans, including abolitionists, believed blacks to be inferior, many Christian Americans also believed that not only did slavery violate the basic principles of the United States but also of Christianity - slavery was evil.
The troops, however, that struggled on both sides to win the war were not fighting to save slavery or end it - they were fighting about whether the South would remain a part of the United States - the right to secede.
The issue of slavery was the main difference that brought about the war.
During this period, too, Harriet Beecher Stowe's fictional
Uncle Tom's Cabin wasn't helping.
Stowe portrayed Uncle Tom, a black, as a man of much kindliness and benevolence, self-respecting, dignified, with a humble simplicity who was grossly brutalized by a slaveholder - Simon Legree, a human with the sort of characteristics that Northerners despised; anti-Christian, heavy-drinking, and with brute desires that had no compunctions at all. He ended up beating Tom to death.
Simon was also portrayed as a Northerner who lived in the South; it was as if even a 'good' Northerner would end up corrupted once exposed to the dubious benefits of slaveholding. The book was banned in the South, revered in the North, and was a catalyst fomenting the tormenting thought that all Northerners would eventually become like Legree.
There was, of course, literary opposition to this - an example being George Fitzhugh's
Cannibals All! in which Fitzhugh attacked Northerners as a different sort of slaveholder:
"You, with the command over labor which your capital gives you, are a slave owner - a master, without the obligation of a master. They who work for you, who create your income, are slaves, without the rights of slaves. Slaves without a master!"
He attacked the hypocrisy of the abolitionists further:
"What is falsely called Free Society is a very recent invention. It proposes to make the weak, ignorant, and poor, free, by turning them loose in a world owned exclusively by the few (whom nature and education have made strong and whom property has made stronger) to get a living."
White Southerners also believed that they were the true heirs of the American Revolution; that their patriarchal households had familial order, a sense of grace, liberty, and fairness that the bible-thumping, middle-class, capitalist, self-righteous Northerners had no idea about - and worse - were composed of largely new hordes of Irish and German immigrants who had never fought for independence but were merely streaming in in their hordes. They were also bringing in that monstrous thing called 'catholicism' into the country with all the ramifications of Papal power taking over the style of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for which they had shed blood.
The hard facts?
The North was becoming more powerful; more urban, more industrial, with a population two and a half times as large as the South - of the ten largest cities in the U.S. in 1860, nine were in the North. And yes, populated with comparative strangers to the land.
Add to that, the North had 70 percent of the railroad tracks, had 110,000 factories (compared to the South's 20,000) and produced $1.5 B worth of goods as against the South's hard-eked $155 M.
Obviously, it was a North/South bomb waiting to go off; only a fuse needed to be lit.
But, while these differences were bound to cause some conflict no one would have imagined that it would lead to a four-year war that would kill off over half a million people - fine people on both sides (not all Southerners were slaveholders) - ordinary people forced into war, leaving families and farms aside to battle over a concept - the concept at the time not so much as to whether slavery was to continue or not (forever) but the right to secede.
We have to retreat a few years to understand this better: The acquiring of the trans-Mississippi West and what was labelled the Missouri Compromise of 1820; was slavery to be allowed in these newly acquired territories?
Having established 36° 30' N latitude as a permanent boundary between free and slave states the Union hoped this mess would eventually go away.
But then the United States added a large part of Mexico to its land form after the Mexican War.
There was the fear now that there would be several more 'slave states' which would give the South not only clout in the Senate but possibly in the Electoral College, too.
The Gold Rush in California only added to this political carnage - what about slavery there?
So - another 'compromise' - the Compromise of 1850: This made California a Free State, abolished the sale of slaves in Washington, D.C. (but not slavery itself there) and allowed the citizens of New Mexico and Utah to decide what to do about slavery themselves.
The crap atop this flaming pudding was the Fugitive Slave Act - which required all citizens to aid in the capture of escaped slaves.
Stowe throws her chestnut into the fire around this time.
The debate raged on:
On one side were those who held that slavery was morally wrong - on the other the upholding of the Constitution that was framed to protect the property of citizens.
Add to this the Dred Scott case; a slave who challenged the Supreme Court with a simple premise: did enslaved people become free when taken to territories where slavery was against the law or were they still 'property'?
Nine justices scratched their head over this to finally say that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, that it interfered with the 'right to own property' and that the Framers of the Constitution never intended African Americans to be considered citizens.
Madness . . . in hindsight. And yet justice
in upholding what was written and agreed upon.
Meanwhile there was the kind of tension in Kansas where blood was being shed over this (and not just the blood that came off the backs of slaves from whips). The Kansas-Nebraska Bill permitted the inhabitants there to vote slavery illegal or legal (politics called 'Popular Sovereignity') which resulted in mayhem; Kansas had an antislavery capital at Topeka and a proslavery capital at Lecompton - and they were a mere twenty miles apart.
To gain votes for antislavery Emigrant Aid societies sent hundreds of people (called 'free-soilers') to Kansas. Secret societies of proslavers formed to oppose the free-soilers.
A group of Southerners with the help of a proslavery federal marshall looted newspaper offices and homes in Lawrence, which was a centre of free-soiler activity. This peed off a guy called John Brown who gathered a bunch of antislavers, stole off to Pottawatomie Creek (a proslavery settlement) roused five men from their beds and ran them through with swords in front of their families, leading to a slew of raids and counter-raids where much blood was shed - Kansas earned the name of 'Bleeding Kansas'.
What of the political parties at this time?
Here's a breakdown:
There were Northern Democrats - they were in favour of letting the territories deciding the issue.
There were Southern Democrats - they favoured expanding slavery in the territories.
There were Republicans - opposed to slavery and in favour of restricting immigrants.
And . . . the American Party (known as 'Know Nothings') who were nativist; they favoured those born in America, and wanted stricter immigration laws and longer naturalization periods. They also favoured antislavery.
The Democratic candidate, James Buchanan, became President in 1856 (with the backing of Southerners).
The American Party candidate, Millard Fillmore, hardly distinguished himself.
But . . . the Republican Candidate, John C. Frémont, who had never been a politician, drew a surprising number of votes - much as if the people were tired of politicians and just wanted someone completely out of the loop. Sounds familiar? It's like everything old is new again.
But that's what democracy is about: one doesn't have to be a prince or princess or sheik or imam to inherit the power to run the country - one is elected
of the people, by the people, for the people.
Back to 'Bleeding Kansas ' - in 1857 (with Buchanan in power) a small group of proslavers in Kansas decided to write up a constitution towards statehood. It was called the Lecompton Constitution and was, of course, proslavery. The majority of Kansas was against slavery and voted against it. Buchanan endorsed it. Democratic leader Stephen Douglas berated Buchanan and sent it back to Kansas for another vote and it was soundly defeated.
Douglas, himself, believed that white Americans were superior to black, and tolerated slavery, but he also firmly believed in the absolute right of white citizens to chose the kind of society and government they wanted - that subtle declaration of Independence again.
Douglas was now running for President - and along comes one of the most iconic figures in American history - Honest Abe.
No need to go too much into log cabins, and strength of character - Abraham Lincoln is quite well-known.
What may not be well-known is that he said (during his campaign against Douglas) :
"I am not nor ever have been in favour of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races."
He didn't propose forbidding slavery in the South - he just wanted to confine it to those states and hoped that some day the whole cotton-pickin' mess would blow away.
At this point, I must mention that I am hoping his memorial stays in place - if only to not erase America's colourful history altogether.
He lost that election to Douglas - but he had captured the attention of the American people - and with zero help from Twitter.
Back to John Brown, now.
Three years after his attack along Pottawatomie Creek, Brown attacks the Federal Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (which is now West Virginia). He had twenty-two men - two were African Americans; we have to realize that there were many 'free' blacks around at the time - not every black person in America was a slave - and who better to recruit into this war than blacks? Brown and his followers wanted to seize the weapons, give them to enslaved people and start a massive uprising.
I'm not sure if there is a monument up there to him, but the history books are plastered with his pics and the stories, of course.
If Brown had succeeded and blacks were weaponised America would have been a very different white today.
And now here is the most ironic part of this tale - in context of tearing down anything to do with Robert E. Lee.
Having being alerted to this attack of Federal property, United States troops under the command of a certain Colonel Robert E. Lee tore down to Harper's Ferry, surrounded Brown and his men in the arsenal, killed half of them, captured the rest and packed them off to be convicted for treason against the State of Virginia.
Brown was hailed as a martyr by Northerners. Southerners branded him a terrorist and a catspaw of abolitionist Republicans.
We begin 1860 with a great distrust between North and South - and Lincoln looming on the horizon.
This was probably the actual beginning of the Second War for Independence.
At this point in time, only once in history - 1860 - did the people who practically invented the peaceful transfer of power from one group of people to another group of people, refuse to accept the outcome of the electoral process.
The result? The Union failed and the country was split into two nations.
Here's what happened:
The Democratic Party, ripped apart, were unable to chose a satisfactory candidate, vacillating between Stephen Douglas and John Breckinridge. Leading Republican Candidate William Seward was too aggressive about ending slavery; so the Republicans kept their eye on Lincoln who was moderate and a smooth talker.
There was also the Constitutional Union Party, who chose John Bell (a moderate slaveholder) as their nominee.
This was actually two elections now - with North and South pretty much ignoring what the other was doing: the one in the South between Breckinridge and Bell, and the one in the North between Lincoln and Douglas.
It was a strange outcome - any political scientist would find it unnerving.
Breckinridge won North Carolina, Arkansas, Delaware, Maryland and the states of the Lower South.
Bell took three border states; Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia.
Douglas carried off Missouri.
The Republicans won a majority in the North, swiping every free state but New Jersey which they split with the Democrats backing Douglas.
So who won this election?
Lincoln received 180 electoral votes out of 303, the majority he needed - but he received only 40 percent of the popular vote.
(Douglas got 29 percent, Breckinridge 18 percent, and Bell trailed in with 13 percent.)
Lincoln got no votes at all from the lower South. It was a sectional victory.
The South was furious.
Obviously, none of us was there, but until parts of American history are systematically erased, textbooks burned, monuments crushed, plaques defaced and graves buried over, some of us will still unearth the truth - so that we can learn, remember, and experience history - whatever curated media survives.
To the furious South it was as if the government of their nation had completely slipped out their hands - their vote was valueless. There was no option but to leave this Union, to secede, to call it the best of a bad job and leave. The secessionists argued that since they voluntarily joined, they could voluntarily leave.
As we can see, slavery was the fuse, secession was the bomb, the Civil War the explosion.
South Carolina was the first to leave - on December 20, 1960.
Six other states of the Lower South followed suit.
A few months later delegates from seven states - TX, LA, MS, AL, GA, FL, and SC - met in Montgomery, AL, to create a new nation; They called it the Confederate States of America.
This was nothing to do with moonshine or gunrunning. It was a Confederacy, a nation.
They elected a President - Jefferson Davis.
I'm willing to bet half the present United States isn't familiar with that name and that half would also tell me it doesn't matter one whit.
Which - IMHO - is a shame. When a country is ashamed of how it came about, it is no country but a business that files away its losses, never learning from it, never handing over to new-comers and next generations the truth.
Lincoln, President - elect, is now about to inherit a major conundrum; Buchanan, still in power, hangs about doing what he is famous for - nothing.
Some politicos wanted to draw up compromises, but the people were fed-up with compromises buy now. Others wanted to let the Lower South go their way and wash their hands off the whole business. Still others were horrified at the loss of business that secession would create.
And then there were those who felt that states had no business a-coming and a-going as they pleased - this would set an awful precedent and weaken the very foundation of Unity itself.
Months passed.
With no FB, Twittter or coiffured anchors to stir the pot, things remained relatively calm and it was business as usual.
But then, it was Abe's turn in the White House, and this was not a man to sit around (whatever his memorial represents, this was an active guy - he split rails for a living once).
He was also no mean lawyer. To him, secession was wrong. He was also committed to curbing the expansion of slavery, butt he was far more deeply committed to upholding the Constitution.
In a sense, it was a Constitution at war with itself - what price Liberty?
And so began the physical war with a very simple errand: take supplies to Fort Sumter.
Fort Sumter was a Federal fort, in the harbour of Charleston, South Carolina.
A Federal ship which had been sent with supplies to the fort had been turned back by Confederate forces in the last days of Buchanan. The men at the fort under the command of Major Robert Anderson were starving by the time Lincoln got into the White House. If fresh supplies didn't arrive, they would have to surrender.
Lincoln also saw Fort Sumter as a symbol of the Union that he hoped to preserve. Refusing to recognize the new nation and the Confederate government, Lincoln sent provisions off to Fort Sumter.
President Davis ordered General Beauregard to take Fort Sumter. If Anderson refused, Beauregard was to take it by force.
Anderson did refuse. Beauregard opened fire on the fort. After a severe 24-hour bombardment, Anderson took down the Stars and Stripes and surrendered Fort Sumter.
People had actually gathered to watch this battle - that was how it was in those days.
And they had forgotten the carnage of the American Revolution.
By firing on federal property, this new Nation had now committed an act of war. As the defender of the Constitution, Lincoln had no choice but to respond. He called for volunteers. Southerners saw it as an act of aggression. The Upper South - Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas now joined the Lower South in the Confederacy, leaving the four border states torn between the two hostile nations.
This was now proving to be a second American Revolution; transforming the United States like no other event had.
Yet no one expected major carnage at first. They expected a short and glorious war. The South was going to teach the North that it could not tell them what to do, and the North was going to teach the South that it had better listen.
With the secession of the Upper South from the Union, (and a larger nation now) the Confederacy moved their Capital to Richmond, Virginia. And this is when the first major battle that I mentioned in the beginning - Manassas (or the First battle of Bull Run) took place.
General Irvin McDowell pitched thirty thousand Union troops against General Beauregard's paltry troops. Meanwhile the advancing Union troops were followed by a crowd of civilians who had travelled out from Washington behind the army to picnic and watch the battle. Obviously, there was no TV.
But the Confederates were well prepared.
The fighting was fierce; by the time it was over nearly 5000 men were killed, wounded, or missing.
That afternoon, fresh Confederate troops were brought in. Exhausted, the Union soldiers quit the battle, retreating, and in fact as they turned back, the Union soldiers ran into the crowds of sightseers who followed them. Soldiers and civilians were caught in a huge mess on the narrow road. Terrified that Confederate forces would overtake them, troops and picnickers panicked and bolted. The army disintegrated and became a mass of people running for the safety of Washington.
It was at Manassas, this first major battle, that a Confederate officer named Thomas Jonathan Jackson turned his troops into a stone wall during the Union attack. He stopped the Union advance, earning the name Stonewall Jackson. Both armies, however, were poorly organized and trained. The Generals soon realized this. Neither General had proper officers to deliver orders to the battlefield, and even if the orders were delivered, the soldiers had no training and didn't know what to do.
Here's another little bit of irony: almost all the Generals had trained at the same place - at West Point. They all shared knowledge of the same tactics. They had all been Union officers before this war began.
But there was also new technology in motion. Gunmakers had learned how to make pointy bullets instead of lead balls. They also realized that spiral grooving cut inside the barrel of a gun - called rifling - would make a bullet pick up spin and travel in a fairly straight line instead of drifting. Cannonballs too had improved. They now could now make shells that exploded in the air after firing, or burst on impact. Basically giant shotguns. It was suicide to send soldiers against soldiers or across fields with this technology in use. Yet they continued to do so and initiated massacres against themselves.
Why did they do this? Because politicians, in the safety of their offices, demanded instant results, and the Generals listened to the politicians and sent their men out to fight as swiftly as possible.
If the Confederacy had waged a war of attrition like the Americans had done against the British during the Revolution, the Confederacy may have won this war. Although President Jefferson Davis knew this, his citizens pressured him to win as quickly as possible. To win a war of attrition, the army of the weaker side has to avoid direct confrontation. It needs to strike and run. But the Southern population insisted that their government defend the entire South - the result being that the South had to stretch its soldiers and equipment in a thin line from Virginia to Texas to keep attacking Union armies out of the Confederacy.
Let's regard for the moment the differences between these two nations at war.
The North - population: 21.5 million. The South - 9 million.
Railroads? 21.7 thousand miles versus 9 thousand miles.
Number of workers? 1.17 million versus 111 thousand.
Bank deposits? $207 million versus $47 million.
Horses? 4.2 million versus 1.7 million.
It was Goliath versus David.
The goal of the North was to conquer the South. General Scott, commander of the U.S. Army in 1861called for Union forces to surround the Confederacy and squeeze it to death - they called it 'The Anaconda Plan.' Union riverboats would cut the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi and Northern ships would cut off the South from the rest of the world - especially Great Britain and the rest of Europe who were still trading with the South. Great Britain watched, ready to recognize the Confederacy as a nation if it had any success at all.
At this time, both North and South still dreamed that it would be a short, sharp war. But even though the carnage at Manassas horrified soldiers and humiliated officers, the populations of both sides clamoured for a quick victory and an end to it all - a fast resolution. This only led to battle after battle like Manassas, battles fought mainly between the two capitals - Richmond and Washington - cities only a hundred miles apart.
It was capturing the capital - capturing 'the flag', that mattered.
The day after Manassas (or the First Battle of Bull Run) Lincoln appointed General McClellan to command the major U.S. Army (the Army of the Potomac). McClellan spent months organizing his army.
Meanwhile Union officers of the U.S. Navy, not hesitating, retook several important Federal forts along the Confederate seacoasts setting up blockades of the important ports bringing the vast strength of the U.S. government into play with almost 600 ships.
But in order for the Anaconda to really squeeze they had to gain control of the Confederacy's 'midwest.' There was also conflict taking place further west - Indian territory - but the war in the midwest (also referred to as the War of the West) was the vital conflict - Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana - a land of waterways. Whoever controlled these rivers controlled movement throughout this area. Confederates built forts along these waterways to protect them - Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.
The U.S. again brought new technology into play - deadly gunboats, armoured and armed to the teeth with cannon. Under the command of a determined Union general - U.S. Grant - the gunboats pounded the forts into unconditional surrender.`General Grant now had access into the heart of the midwest. Nashville fell next.
Then the Confederate Army struck unexpectedly near Shiloh Church in Tennessee driving the Union forces almost back into the Tennessee River. Grant got reinforcements and advanced again, winning the battle this time - but now this had become the bloodiest battle so far - 13,000 union men, and 10,000 Confederate troops killed, wounded or captured.
This war was now turning serious and America was losing fine people on both sides.
The battle of Shiloh demonstrated that the South would not give up - but they had lost western Tennessee and important waterways.
Battle after battle, the Union seized New Orleans, then Memphis, took control of a thousand miles of navigable river and 50,000 square miles of the Confederacy.
At this point only two major posts in this area remained to be captured - Port Hudson . . . and Vicksburg.
If they were taken, the entire Mississippi River valley would be under Union control.
But the North was still obsessed with capturing Richmond - the capital of the Confederacy of States.
While all this naval warfare was going on, Lincoln fretted about what General McClellan was doing. McClellan had organized a well-prepared army - cared-for, well-fed, and ready to battle - 100,000 men carefully moved into place within sight of Richmond. This was twice as many men as the Confederate force based near Richmond.
The Confederate Army, however, had two of the most brilliant military tacticians to ever walk Planet Earth - two men whose tactics are probably still studied in military academies the world over. These were not men who sat in offices and signed documents or flew planes and dropped bombs - they were absolutely brilliant leaders and I'm quite sure most military brass in any army would agree.
These Americans were such great military strategists that many military types re-enact their battles over and over simply to learn.
The first was General Robert E. Lee - the same guy that captured John Brown and his arsenal full of terrorists. He has been recorded (for now) as having been an experienced officer, a leader of great courage and intelligence and a highly dignified and moral man. He had once called slavery "a moral and political evil," but he fought for Virginia because - like many Americans of that time - he had more loyalty to his state than the ephemeral Union.
I understand that now Americans want to rewrite his history - that's a shame.
The other brilliant military tactician was General Stonewall Jackson.
Stonewall Jackson was a ghost - moving his army with such stealth and speed - that he continually baffled Union forces. While McClellan was creeping along to Richmond, Jackson dashed off North and carried a series of lightning attacks on Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley making Lincoln quite jittery that Jackson would come over to Washington itself and grab him personally. Jackson seemed to be everywhere at once - and seemingly had large numbers of men - yet he actually commanded only a small army of 17,000 men.
(Don't confuse this guy with Andrew Jackson, 'Old Hickory', 7th President of the U.S. a.k.a. 'King Andrew the First' - we're in 1862 now not 1829.)
The Union Secretary of War at the time, Edwin Stanton, thoroughly alarmed, dispatched 50,000 troops to pursue Jackson (instead of joining McClellan) but Jackson disappeared - after thoroughly confusing Washington he had slipped back to join Lee.
McClellan couldn't take Richmond - in the Seven Days' Battles fought from June 25 through July 1, 1862, the grossly outnumbered Southerners`wore out the well-fed Union army and sent it off limping to safety. But, yet again the cost to the country was gruesome - 30,000 Americans killed or wounded.
Meanwhile, Lee, well aware that Great Britain was watching like a hawk, waiting for a sign that the Confederacy could stand on its own and therefore turn out to be a valuable trading partner and in fact recognize the Confederacy of States as a Nation and even assist in the war against an 'old enemy', decided to invade the North. All this while they were only engaged in defending their newly formed nation - but now it was time to truly show their strength. For a few months they successfully fought their way into Maryland. It seemed like they would finally win their independence from the Union.
But tragedy struck at Sharpsburg, Maryland.
McClellan, smarting from the last defeat, and now defending homeland, had reorganized his army and met Lee with full force.
It was the Battle of Antietam - bloodiest single day of the war - 6000 soldiers killed and 17000 wounded. Neither side won a clear victory.
Lee, with heavily diminished forces, was forced to return to Virginia.
After Antietam, McClellan was replaced and the Union Army commanded by General Burnside took 110,000 men against Lee's 75,000 near Fredericksburg, Virginia. Lee thrashed and sent them off.
Once more, another Union general - Hooker - clashed with Lee at Chancellorsville, Virginia. Lee, split his forces, attacked them front and back, and sent a Union army twice the size of his own scurrying.
But there was some dismay after this battle. Jackson had been wounded - and died shortly after of his wounds. It was a terrible blow to Lee.
The North, meanwhile had lost another 17,000 men and had now given up the idea that this was going to be a short, sharp 'teach-them-a-lesson' war.
It was a stalemate.
The Union armies couldn't breach the East and Grant was stuck up the creek in the West unable to take Vicksburg.
But while Lee was brilliant, Grant was determined - nothing would stop him - not even if he had to declare 'Total War' - and that meant every man, woman and child standing - black or white, in Vicksburg.
Meanwhile, what of the politicians - those grand old men who have portraits and monuments scattered throughout the land?
The Civil War changed the relationship that Americans had with their government.
The governments of Presidents Jefferson Davis and Lincoln were not very different - the branches, powers and Constitutions were similar - except for the weak link in the Southern Constitution - a Constitution that protected the 'property' (human slaves) of its citizens and recognized the individual states' rights. This tension between the federal government and the state governments was the challenge.
The Confederate government faced severe challenges - being new, they didn't even have furniture for their offices. They lacked money. They lacked officials. And they were in the midst of a fierce war.
Both governments had to persuade an intensely independent, democratic people to sacrifice personal interests for the greater good. With the South it was even more difficult - persuading people to be loyal to a new government after being disloyal to an older one. The Confederate government passed draft laws to recruit men - first of its kind in American history - forcing people to fight for their independence - a paradox.
The Northern government quickly followed suit with its own draft laws - though not very successful; of the 776,000 northern men ordered to report for service only 46,000 complied. almost 87,000 paid a fee to avoid it, 74,000 hired substitutes, and many of the rest fled to Canada or the far west.
The Southern government also quickly took over control of the South's economy - everything from the production of cotton to the privately-owned railroads - in fact exerting more control over its citizens than the Union government formally did.
The Southern states, though, had always been fiercely independent, and protected their own rights more than the rights of their new federal government. So there also remained a lot of tension between the Confederate states and their new government.
Meanwhile Lincoln wasn't resting on his ass - he took over people's lives by denying them basic rights; he shut down newspapers that criticized him, and suspended the writ of habeas corpus - a basic civil liberty protected by the Constitution and it was no idle threat - over 13,000 Americans who objected to federal policies were imprisoned.
Also now that the Democrats were non-existent in Congress, the Republicans passed major laws that were to affect the country for generations to come - from promoting big business to the Internal Revenue Act of 1862. They created taxes on liquor, medicine, newspaper ads, tobacco, stamps . . .
Many of the laws they created during this war still remain.
But all this laid a foundation for the U.S. to become a major industrial and agricultural force in the world - for decades southern Democrats from Presidents Jefferson to Jackson had limited what the federal government could do to influence the economy, but now with Democrats out of the way, and a Republican war Congress in power it was a field day creating close relationships between big business and government.
There were riots, too, against this Northern government, mostly by Irish Catholics who had been targeted by Republicans for years - and who believed they were being drafted into a war to merely save African Americans; some African Americans were killed, too. Dozens were beaten. A home for African Americans was burned to the ground. Anti-war Democratic politicians (called Copperheads) played on Northerners' fears warning that freed slaves would take jobs away from the whites.
During the early part of the war Lincoln had insisted that the war was about the Union, that if the states didn't secede they could keep their slaves. He hoped that eventually slavery would die down - but he finally realized this wasn't going to happen and wrote the Emancipation Proclamation that freed all slaves including slaves in all the Southern states - a masterstroke, since he was technically freeing people in another nation at war with him.
This had both a practical and moral effect - since slaves were 'property' and therefore contraband, whenever the Union won a battle and captured slaves (or took them as 'contraband' they freed them immediately after. It was a strange setback for the South to have their own assets turn on them - for many freed black men now joined the Union army.
After one raid in Mississippi, a Union general reported : "We bring in some 500 prisoners, a good many refugees, and about ten miles of (slaves)."
By leaving the plantations African Americans weakened the Confederacy further.
In fact, almost 180,000 African Americans joined the Union forces, 68,000 were killed or wounded and 21 of them were awarded the medal of Honour.
Back to the war - a stalemate for now; Richmond uncaptured, with Lee having trounced Hooker, and Vicksburg holding out with Grant unable to take it.
Grant sent General Sherman and several thousand troops to attack Vicksburg but the mission failed. Grant tried digging a tunnel from one part of the Mississippi to the other - that didn't work either. Grant tried to attack Vicksburg from the North but still failed - Vicksburg was a fortress, not just another military prize but the second largest city with more than 5000 inhabitants including about 1400 slaves and 31 free African Americans.
1963 - the war drags on, but still unable to capture Vicksburg, Grant declares total war. Determined, Grant sends his army south of the city, marches inland while gunboats make a mad dash through the cannon fire of Vicksburg. He finally links up with his navy south of the city. Then he heads northeast, captures the city of Jackson and burns it to the ground. Now Vicksburg's supply line is cut off. Confederate forces try to stop him but he chases them back into the city. Now Grant is finally at the doorstep to Vicksburg and the siege begins.
Vicksburg locks down and holds out. Grant still doesn't have his victory.
Back East, Lee, having finished with Hooker, moves his troops into the North once again, pushing as far as Pennsylvania, planning to capture Washington, D.C. - and finally win independence for the South.
This is when the battle of Gettysburg takes place.
Union troops begin to clash with units of Confederate forces. Lee marshals his troops but within hours tens of thousands of Union troops pour into the area and a huge battle takes place - a battle that rages for three horrifying days.
On the first day Confederate troops push Union troops through Gettysburg and into defensive positions on high ground along a south ridge of the town.
On the second day Lee tries to break through this line in several places to no avail.
On the third day Lee orders General Pickett to directly attack the centre of the Union line.
Disaster - it was the classic confrontation between old and new warfare - 14,000 Confederate soldiers were showered with devastating fire from cannon shells and exploding canisters as they sped across this open ground - only a few made it to the Union lines where they fought hand to hand with Union troops.
If video was around at this time it would not be aired to the public, the carnage was so terrible.
The next day - July 4th - the Confederate army, which had suffered 28,000 casualties left the arena, defensive.
The Union forces which had 23,000 dead, wounded or missing, did not follow them.
Every American should remember this - and never ever let it happen again.
It was a bloodbath that nearly destroyed the country, and most certainly resulted in the deaths of many fine people on both sides, tearing families apart and causing a rift that has never seemed to heal.
To hear newcomers to the country revile them, to think that the millions that live in America now, cosy in their ivory towers have no knowledge of the blood, sweat and tears that were shed to build the land they enjoy, forget these heroes and spar with each other once more, is beyond disgusting. It's frightening.
Back at Vicksburg, Grant had had it - he shelled the hell out of the city averaging about 2800 shells a day. It was Total War - nothing and nobody was to be spared. For forty-seven days, hour after hour Vicksburg was pounded to smithereens while whoever survived starved to death.
On the same day that General Pickett led his brave troops across the fields at Gettysburg to their death, General Pemberton, commander at Vicksburg met with Grant to discuss surrender. The next day - the fourth of July - Vicksburg was turned over to the Union.
And so, in this way was the 87th birthday of the United States celebrated.
While a band played music in celebration, and hungry inhabitants finally ate food, and wept, African Americans rejoiced in their freedom as they watched the fireworks burst overhead.
The newly founded Confederacy of States had been cut in two - just a month after Lee had almost been at the point of success.
Meanwhile the Northern people were devastated by the carnage at Gettysburg - and decided that ALL who died there would be treated with honour, buried in a new cemetery.
Lincoln was invited to make some remarks over the fallen soldiers - both Confederate and Union.
And this is where he delivered that famous Gettysburg address - a somber occasion.
This is where the lessons of that war were reiterated, and the idea of freedom defined, telling his people that "
. . . these dead shall not have died in vain; this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Lincoln's words marked a dramatic new definition of the United States. Freedom and equality was not limited to a few as the original Framers of the Constitution had decided.
Freedom belonged to all - wherever they existed on this Planet - irrespective of caste, creed, or colour. They were the right of ALL humans - and if they couldn't find it in their own oppressive lands then America would welcome them with open hands.
In short - Liberty didn't exist for just white men - it existed for all - and that Liberty expands everyday to embrace all, whatever the gender, whatever the faith, whatever the personal opinions one may have.
But the war wasn't over.
It would continue till all the Southern states were officially back in the Union.
Grant continued to chase down Lee, and Sherman cut a swathe through the southern countryside. Sherman captured Atlanta and then marched his troops from Atlanta to the sea destroying everything in his path he didn't need. He told Grant: "If we can march a well-appointed army right through (Jefferson Davis's) territory, it is a demonstration to the world, foreign and domestic, that we have a power which Davis cannot resist."
Sound familiar? Truman's idea, too, before he dropped the bomb.
And with that Grant left Atlanta in flames, and continued to plough his way across the land, burning harvests, plundering plantations, uprooting railroad tracks, and smashing bridges, factories, and mills.
Not only were monuments created for him, thereafter, even tanks were named after him.
But this further carnage, done to teach the people never to war again, only deepened the rift between North and South.
Meanwhile, Grant was relentlessly after Lee - who was outnumbered two to one. Lee kept fighting battles that impeded the Union advance but each time Lee got in his way Grant side-stepped and kept attacking. By June of that year Grant had lost 65,000 men but still wouldn't give up. Lee still defended Richmond.
Finally, unable to take Richmond, Grant took his forces further south to a position threatening Petersburg, the railway centre that supplied the Confederate capital. Lee followed him and the stand-off lasted a year, neither side giving in.
As one can imagine - Robert E. Lee was more than a hero to the people of the South - he was a living representative of the bravery, spirit, tenacity and independence of the original people who fought for independence from a monarchy that very probably (at the time) watched this destruction with glee.
For a new generation, most of whom are completely oblivious of the facts to callously kick down a monument erected to his memory, to wipe out any existence of the man, is therefore beyond belief to some southerners and no doubt to some northerners, too.
If he was the enemy - then he was an honourable enemy - a man truly worth defeating in battle.
While Grant and Lee were trying to deal death blows to each other in the South, Lincoln was fighting his own battle - re-election, of course.
Lincoln, running against a man who irritated him a lot (no less than General McClellan himself) won the election with 212 out of 233 votes, his popularity having risen after the war and for his stand against slavery.In fact, three months later, the Thirteenth Amendment was passed. Ratified by the states, slavery was forever outlawed in the United States making slaves the real winners of this war.
While all this was happening, Grant, and then Sheridan, kept hammering at Lee - who found that the people of the South were now sick of this war. His men were deserting him in the proverbial droves, not wanting to starve to death, Finally Lee sent word to Grant that it was time to surrender.
They met at the Appomattox Court House and Lee, dignified in defeat as he had been courageous and brilliant in battle officially surrendered.
Grant proved to be generous in victory - the men agreed to the terms of surrender, shook hands, and were enemies no more - soldiers having done their duty.
Five days later Lincoln was assassinated.
360,000 Union and 258,000 died of disease, wounds and lack of medical treatment. The South did not win the independence it struggled for, the North suffered great losses, and both sides suffered bitterly - but they gained an undivided country that would go on to become the most powerful country in the world - and gained many new citizens; African Americans that became an integral part of America.
And many more citizens from around the world who would come to America in search of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
But what has happened now is that all that is forgotten under the slur of cosplayers pretending to be white, wearing krautish helmets and carrying machine guns and backward Hindu symbols - because the Constitution upholds their right to do it - that's liberty - that's what the North fought for.
This, then, is the price of liberty. And if one challenges that then there is the chance that one may be run over. Simple truths.
The lesson to be learned is that divided, liberty fails. United, it is the strongest freedom. It is a shame that the descendants of these great men who fought to resolve these questions of freedom are further humiliated.
As you may understand now - this is all about the American Constitution. And the defence of freedom.
If you have further questions, go ahead.
I am not always here - but always eventually here.
H.
