This is a massive and capably-written history, the first of two volumes. It will fill in a lot of the cracks in any reader's historical knowledge of the USA--especially if you're like me, someone whose historical knowledge has more cracks than foundation. Recommended as either a starting point to learn about each conflict, or as a finishing point to groove and firm up what you already know.
Before I get to the book itself, let me share a brief thought on the absolute necessity of reading history--but specifically, reading history from historians who lived outside your own time period. Current history writing is subject to a variety of problems, starting with the historians themselves, who are necessarily products of the time in which they live. They hold their era's consensus narratives, and they'll have no choice but to filter their views through modernity. The modern publishing industry adds yet another layer of problems: it acts as a gatekeeping institution, both directly (by publishing only accepted viewpoints from approved types of authors) or indirectly (publishing only books they believe will sell). The idea here is to avoid observing historical events through your era's pre-chewed narrative filters. And the ideal way to control for this is to ingest multiple historians' perspectives, from multiple eras. This doesn't give you the whole truth--nothing gives you the whole truth--but at least you won't be blatantly lied to by today's narrative shapers.
Thanks for indulging me! Now back to the book. I want to cite the first chapter of Part 5: The Civil War, as a beautifully tight twenty-page summary of all the complex forces that led up to that conflict. Unfortunately the author then blasts through the Civil War so rapidly that he does injustice to the subject. This is a structural problem of any multi-war history: the Civil War is so complex and so extensive that it takes a work like Shelby Foote's gigantic three volume history to really cover it properly.
[A quick affiliate link to Amazon for those readers who would like to support my work here: if you purchase your Amazon products via any affiliate link from this site, or from my sister site Casual Kitchen, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!]
It's also interesting to wrap your mind around the fact that the Civil War was just one of many secession movements, in various states, over the course of US history. You'd never guess it, but New England was the most secession-crazed part of the nation--with Massachussetts by far the worst offender, repeatedly threatening to secede during the colonial era, and (even worse) right in the middle of the War of 1812. Man, they never teach you this stuff in school, and it makes you wonder what's coming as the US enters its imperial decline stage.
Also a brief comment on the Mexican-American War, which foreshadowed the US Civil War in many ways. Most of the major figures in the Civil War also fought in the Mexican-American war, which produced a weird dynamic where the leadership of the North and the South knew each other to the point of knowing what they were going to do in battle.
A final thought. I wrote above about historians being a product of their times, and our author, writing in the 1960s, is at times delusionally innocent in his trust of his country and its "democracy." See for example the author's comment on the leadup to the War of 1812: "Democracies, unlike dictatorships, cannot set invasion dates beforehand and then calmly go about faking 'incidents' to justify them." This is the kind of thing a patriotic, rosy-eyed historian might write in peak America-era 1968, and even then he'd have to conveniently forget about faked "incidents" like the Lusitania, the Maine and (just four years before this book was published) the Gulf of Tonkin. In today's era of pseudo-democracy and inverted totalitarianism, however, only the most tone-deaf regime apologist could write something like this.
A short list of other good military histories that overlap well with this work:
Francis Parkman: Montcalm and Wolfe (dense and well-written history of the French and Indian War)
Shelby Foote: The Civil War (3 vols: this is a monster work, I haven't read it yet)
Michael Shaara: The Killer Angels (short narrowcast history of the Battle of Gettysburg)
Michael Cote: Mary's World (history of a family before, during and after the US Civil War)
[Holy COW don't read the notes that follow. They are massive, way too long for a normal person to read. Don't be a psycho: life is short!]
Notes:
Forward by Richard B. Morris
xiff Interesting comments here on Abraham Lincoln, who in 1847 as a freshman congressman, implied that President Polk had lied in his rhetoric declaring that "American blood had been shed on the American soil," which helped bring about the war with Mexico; also interesting to learn that about half the colonial population was against the American revolution. Also comments here on Americans' historical distrust of standing armies.
Preface:
"It [this book] is an attempt to show not only how our wars were fought but also why they occurred, as well as to illustrate what this country has gained or lost by appeals to arms."
Part I: The Colonial Wars
Chapter 1:
1ff 1609: New France's Samuel de Champlain, persuaded by an Ottawa Chief to attack the Iroquois to expand French trade and power into the New World. In 1641 Iroquois wanted revenge for this (after brooding for an entire generation), also acquiring firearms from Dutch traders in Albany; they nearly exterminated 300 French colonists at Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal; on the Iroquois and their cannibalism and torture; on how they were competent at organizing raids but were never an actual military organization and thus could never have defeated New France.
6ff An irony that French treatment of the Indians was much more humane than British or American treatment, and yet the French caught more of the wrath of the Indians.
7ff On King Philip's War; King Philip of the Wampanoag, who understood that there could be no compromise with the white man. "He was the first of the enemies of this country to mistake the peaceful man for the pacifist, and to confuse unreadiness for war with unwillingness to fight."
Chapter 2:
11ff On Frontenac, on King William's War, another colonial conflict between English and France named after William of Orange; on the brutal French attack on Schenectady, reprisals from William Phips, "one of the most remarkable figures in colonial history" and his failed attempt to take the fortress at Quebec.
Chapter 3:
22ff On the War of the Spanish Succession, as King Louis XIV claimed the Spanish throne for his grandson Philip of Anjou, versus the rival House of Austria; note that Americans call this "Queen Anne's War" because she had taken over for William of Orange; this conflict took the form of raids, brutality and scalpings on the borders between New England and Canada; following these border skirmishes the English in 1709 executed a campaign to attack Montreal and Quebec City with 5700 men; it never got off the ground. Finally, a couple years later, the English seized the capital and eventually the entire province of Acadia [basically this was what is today most of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island] after an artillery battle where the French quickly surrendered and left; this was followed by a much more significant attempt to attack Quebec by Britain with a force of 12,000 men, but flopped as well: many of the British ships ran aground, drowning soldiers, and the attack was more or less withdrawn in defeat without even any direct conflict. [The fighting in this war was much more significant in the European theater, the conflicts in the New World were more or less stray, minor encounters, barely worth talking about.]
Chapter 4:
28ff On the Treaty of Utrecht, which brought the War of the Spanish Succession to a close; Britain now supreme on the sea [interesting off-hand comment here on Spain and how far it had fallen from primacy by this point as it leased to England the entire slave trade to Latin America]; now we move on to the War of the Austrian Succession (or King George's War as it was called by the colonists) in 1740 on the death of emperor Charles VI. In the New World there was an engagement between the English and Spanish over St Augustine in Florida where Spain prevailed; this was followed by a Spanish attack on Georgia attempting to take England's colonies: this was destroyed by England, thus this all ended in stalemate; then on to the attack of Louisbourg [in Nova Scotia] by British and colonial forces; some back and forth here but eventually it was taken by the British after a French surrender. Ironically the 1748 peace treaty of the War of Austrian Succession ceded Louisbourg right back to the French.
Chapter 5:
36ff On French and English efforts to control the waterways of the New World, on settling the territory, on their conflict over the Americas. On George Washington, at 21 years old in 1753, given the task to evict the French from Ohio country; the French rejected the ultimatum; on the incredible idea that France was actually thinking "of victory in the contest for North America" as they were massively outnumbered: England had 1.25 million people throughout North America, while the French population was perhaps 80,000. Note that France was more unified, more centralized, more warlike. The author comments on the "welter of races and creeds in the colonies" which is why the English were not well-organized.
40ff Washington given the task of building a fort in Pittsburgh; it was quickly taken and destroyed by the French, who then built Fort Duquesne in its place. Also on Washington's defeat at Great Meadows/Fort Necessity at the hands of the French.
Chapter 6:
42ff England and France had not yet formally declared war, the Seven Years' War was 19 months away but the colonists for each side got "a head start on the fourth and final round in the Anglo-French War for empire." On Major General Edward Braddock, who commanded the British and colonial forces; comments on the infantry used in those days, basically they were seen as a "battlefield automaton" as the author phrases it; Braddock as "an ordinary and competent commander not gifted with the insights of genius" and unable to adapt the standard British dress rank tactics to the American battlefield in the bush and forests which rewarded "dispersion, cover and accuracy." This first major encounter, an attempt to besiege Fort Duquesne, went very poorly for the English and colonials.
Chapter 7:
48ff The British easily seize Fort Beauséjour in Nova Scotia with a lucky shell; they then proceed to deport all of the Acadians out of the region, a "cruel mass deportation" scattering them either to the wilderness, back to French regions in Canada, to Louisiana, or back to France [the author makes some parenthetical comments about the "odyssey of indescribable travail" these French refugees experienced here, it looks like a good subject to learn more about; this was a obviously a textbook ethnic cleansing.] "Of General Braddock's fourfold plan to destroy the French in America, only the minor operation against the Acadians had succeeded."
Chapter 8:
51ff Background on the Seven Years' War beginning in 1756, started by Frederick of Prussia; England sided with Prussia against France and Austria along with Russia and Sweden. Louis Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm, "a splendid new military chief" was sent to the New World; note that France under Madame Pompadour and Louis XV only sent 1,200 troops to the New World versus sending 100,000 to fight the Seven Years' War in Europe. Montcalm attacks Fort Ticonderoga and the Indians fighting with him commit all kinds of atrocities, he couldn't control them.
53ff On William Pitt, the elder; note this amazing quote from Frederick of Prussia: "England has long been in labor, and at last she has brought forth a man." Also on Colonel James Wolfe, known for his "reckless battlefield gallantry"; on the failed attack on Fort Ticonderoga by General Abercrombie; on the English cutting the French supply line around Fort Duquesne and then easily seizing it as the French blew it up and fled, leading to the English building Fort Pitt on the site of the modern city of Pittsburgh. Now New France was split in two and Quebec City was open to attack.
Chapter 9:
58ff Backgrounder on James Wolfe; on how the French intercepted information about his assignment to take Quebec; on the ridiculous difficulty of taking the Quebec fortress given the land around it: the cliffs, how well it was defended, etc.; on the conflict between Montcalm and corrupt Quebec governor Vaudreuil.
68ff British firing artillery at Quebec and also wasting and burning the countryside around it to starve the city out; in the meantime the British had occupied and taken Ticonderoga and Fort Niagara, the French were driven from Lake Champlain and Lake Erie and Montreal was at risk. But then winter set in. On Wolfe getting to the Plains of Abraham with a small force via a lightly guarded cliff path; Montcalm was drawn out into the plains to engage Wolfe and his forces before they could dig in; with two volleys the British sent the French running; Wolfe was mortally wounded, as was Montcalm during this famous battle; "Wolfe had fallen knowing that he had won an important skirmish, Montcalm perished aware that his army was routed and demoralized, but neither knew that all was won and all was lost." Note that the following winter the French attempted to besiege Quebec and take it back, after the British army passed a difficult winter there, but then a sea battle in Quiberon Bay off the coast of France between England and France "perhaps more important than the land war in Canada" broke the back of French naval power winning the English full control of the Atlantic. "Thus it was an English and not a French fleet which sailed up the Saint Lawrence" that spring, eventually forcing the French to withdraw from America. France ceded her colony on the St. Lawrence to England, retaining only Louisiana, a huge but vaguely defined region.
Part II: The War of the Revolution
Chapter 1:
81ff On James Otis in a Boston courthouse in 1761, attacking Writs of Assistance, which were search warrants that England used to stop smuggling in America; Otis electrified the audience with the phrase "Taxation without representation is tyranny!" On George III towards the end of the Seven Years' War, needing increased tax revenues from the colonists to pay off debts from the conflict. Notable point here on how most of Parliament were blindly obedient to the king; also none of his ministers nor King George himself had ever been to America and didn't understand "that the colonies regarded the conquest of Canada merely as having ended their need for British protection." [A near-total mismatch of incentives and interests here.] On the Sugar Act, the Molasses Act, and then the 1765 Stamp Act; on the colonists believing that only they had the right to tax themselves. On the violence throughout the colonies which caused stamp officers to resign in droves; when the law went into effect in 1765 it "was simply disregarded." Also a boycott of British goods was organized in the colonies, causing Parliament to repeal the offending law.
86ff 1767: Charles Townshend takes over as Chancellor of the Exchecquer; he passes the famous Townshend Acts which imposed duties on imports of English glass and tea as well as other products; also Writs of Assistance were revived; more mob violence, followed by Britain sending two regiments of infantry into Boston; but no one would quarter or supply them: in fact they even were called "foreigners" by the colonists, which astonished the Redcoats; On the 1770 Boston Massacre; the Townshend duties were repealed; this was after a boycott had cut demand for British exports in half and "a period of quiescence ensued" between England and the colonies. 1772-1773: the burning of the British schooner the Gaspee, followed by the Boston Tea Party which unified colonial merchants with the radical Sons of Liberty in the colonies.
89ff Interesting here to see England decide to escalate things after the Boston tea party: they closed Boston as a port, they took over the upper chamber of the Massachusetts assembly, the king began appointing judges, sheriffs and officials, thus basically taking away self-rule; these were the so-called Coercive Acts; Note that there wasn't even a consensus in Parliament on policy, as the Whigs in England were arguing these steps "would only provoke American confederation and rebellion, perhaps even American independence."
Chapter 2:
90ff On lieutenant General Thomas Gage, who arrived to enforce the Coercive Acts; on the Quebec Act which per this author was "the most statesmanlike measure of George's stormy reign" but because it gave territory in Ohio and Illinois to Quebec and also recognized the Roman Catholic Church in Canada it angered the colonies even more. "It was as though Canada had never been conquered." On the Continental Congress; which was peopled by a surprising amount of conservatives and moderates who didn't actually intend to break with Britain, at least at first. Various escalations in Boston, also Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech in Virginia.
Chapter 3:
94ff General Gage was setting out to get at Minuteman colonial arms caches in Concord, Massachusetts; on Paul Revere's Ride which led to the Battle of Concord; it started with a minor skirmish where eight Americans were killed, and the colonials essentially fled, but then it escalated into a decent rout of the British as Americans fired from behind cover at the lines of Redcoats. This was a minor conflict: the British lost 73 killed and 273 total casualties, the Americans lost 49 killed and total of 93 casualties, but the fact that an actual open conflict had begun was what really mattered: these were the shots "heard round the world" as the author puts it.
Chapter 4:
105ff Peace proposals from the crown that relaxed certain taxes but in reality angered the colonists more; Ethan Allen organizing the takeover of fort Ticonderoga nearly bloodlessly, obtaining ammunition and cannons; King George sent three new leaders to replace General Gage: William Howe, Henry Clinton and John Burgoyne; on the choice of George Washington to lead the colonial army (which had basically already been formed on some level with the taking of Fort Ticonderoga); note the comment from Virginia's Edmond Pendleton who said "although the colonel was a decent man, he had lost every big battle he'd been in." Washington accepts command, but says "I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with."
Chapter 5:
112ff On the efforts to seize Bunker Hill; it was an American victory and a significant British loss; the British were out in the open and the Americans were fighting from behind fortifications.
Chapter 6:
120ff On the birth of the myth of the "invincible Minuteman," in reality they weren't great soldiers and they overlooked the fact that this first victory was from behind fortifications; on the various disorganized aspects of the American irregular troops at the time: Washington's army was temporary, most of his soldiers had only signed up until January 1st, 1776. On the development of the Kentucky rifle, designed in the Midwest by German and Swiss gunsmiths in Pennsylvania; a musket was good for less than 60 yards but a rifle was good at 250 yards. [Note that this drove an enormous evolution in military tactics that negatively impacted the British style of battle, it was analogous to what happened with the wide use of the machine gun in WWI]. On the problem of negro soldiers: debates between northern and southern colonies about whether to use slaves or free blacks; on some of Washington's closest lieutenants like Alexander Hamilton, Henry Knox, Nathaniel Greene.
125ff There was a Continental Congress at the time but it "had no legal foundation for its actions"; basically America didn't have a true government, but the Continental Congress assumed responsibility for conducting the war, issued a paper currency, ran a postal service under Benjamin Franklin; then the Congress "attempted to coax Canada into joining the rebellion" but without success; it then decided to try to conquer Canada [!], an operation that ended in disaster as Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery were routed in Montreal and Quebec.
Chapter 7:
131ff on Washington's struggles to maintain an army: his regulars were short-term and ended their scheduled enlistments in December despite the entreaties of the officers; but then thousands of new recruits signed up; also on the wonderful rhetoric of Thomas Paine and his pamphlets. See for example his "ringing call for freedom" from his pamphlet Common Sense [it resonates even more now that we've given away most of our freedoms without even noticing]:
"O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been haunted around the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her as a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind!"
133ff On Knox's effort to bring guns from Ticonderoga to Boston, a miraculous and incredible effort; when the British saw the amount of guns brought up to Boston they ran out of the city, leaving the Tories there to have their land taken away, just as the British had taken Patriots' land and houses previously [likewise see the various arbitrary expropriations that happened to the losers in the US Civil War]; note the commentary here on the hatred between Tories and Patriots throughout the colonies; the Tories served as a sort of dangerous fifth column, they were nearly as numerous as the Patriots and the British actually believe that the war would be won with a Tory uprising. [A modern reader can see clearly how this rhymes with the modern Democrat/Republican hatred that is increasingly visceral today; also thinking about the border wars in "bleeding Kansas" in the years leading up to the Civil War. It's worth keeping in mind the kinds of things Americans can and will do to each other, happily, because of their hatred for each other.]
135 Note here how the Scottish community in interior North Carolina was recruited to attack the seaborne aristocracy who they hated; some 1,500 Scotts were persuaded to fight; they were quickly crushed as they attempted to take Wilmington, North Carolina on the coast; also an interesting discussion of the British attempt to capture a fort fort off the coast of Charleston, SC, an absolute disaster for the British which ended in several British ships being destroyed, or foundering off the coast.
Chapter 8:
139ff Parliament raised an army consisting largely of "Hessian" soldiers; actually they were German mercenaries hired from a wide range of German regions, but about half of them were supplied by the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, thus "all were called Hessians." Note also that King George rejected olive branches from the Americans and escalated the conflict; this just grooved the rebel movement still more: there was nothing to do but completely break ties with England; on the debate between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson about who should write the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson asked Adams, "What be your reasons?" Adams had three: including "you can write ten times better than I can." On the signing of the Declaration of Independence; on admiral "Black Dick" Howe, who had been granted the ability to offer peace overtures but could only offer pardons; Washington "coolly dismissed" Howe, saying since no fault had been committed no pardon was needed.
143ff The English make an amphibious landing on Long Island and essentially drive Washington right back to White Plains after decisive English victories on Long Island and Brooklyn; on Washington's very lucky retreat and General Howe's missed opportunity to destroy the Patriot army early on in the conflict.
Chapter 9:
147ff Washington's retreat, saving his army, was seen as "as perhaps the most brilliant feat of his career"; More back and forth about peace overtures between Howe and John Adams as well as Benjamin Franklin, all of which came to nothing; the English attack New York; the city at this time is two-thirds Tory; also on the Manhattan fire that starts due to unknown causes and burns big portions of the city, also on Nathan Hale captured as a spy and hanged with the words "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." [It's hard to read about idealism like this today when we are so deep into imperial decay and decline.]
150ff On Benedict Arnold, looking to recover his reputation after the humiliation in Quebec; trying to hold lake Champlain against Sir Guy Carleton; the British won a tactical victory but a strategic loss here as the delay fighting Arnold prevented Carleton and Howe linking up: this would have cut off New England from the rest of the colonies. Meanwhile General Howe had another chance to destroy Washington in White Plains; Washington flees across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, while Howe and his men delayed again, not entering Trenton until the last Americans had crossed the river. Right here the Patriot cause was at its nadir.
Chapter 10:
153ff On the capture of the Patriots' General Charles Lee in a tavern in Basking Ridge, New Jersey; Lee had been a huge critic of Washington; on Washington needing to do something quickly because most of his soldiers would leave at the end of the year after finishing their tours, so he needed some sort of major counter-stroke, and so he conceived the Battle of Trenton. Note the incompetence here of Hessian colonel Johann Rall, in command at Trenton; Rall actually received word that the Americans were on the march, but he stuffed the message into his pocket unread as he enjoyed Christmas day drinking and playing cards at the home of a wealthy Trenton merchant. [!!]
Chapter 11:
159ff Engagements in Princeton after Trenton; also discussion of rape and pillage by British and Hessian soldiers after these defeats, wanting to punish the people of New Jersey, these atrocities turned many more Tories to the Patriot cause.
Chapter 12:
163ff Washington forced to stay in Morristown for 5 months, down to just 3,000 men by the spring of 1777; but then supplies and 9,000 additional soldiers arrived; on the British campaign in 1777 to move into Pennsylvania, beginning with a landing in the Chesapeake in Maryland and an encounter between Howe and Washington at Brandywine Creek, where Howe routed the Americans; Howe then divides his army, sending some into Philadelphia and sending the rest into Germantown, Maryland. Washington attacked and potentially had a chance to fully defeat the British army here but, once again, Washington lost this engagement too. Lots of panicking and fleeing of the American soldiers here.
Chapter 13:
168ff A lot of engagements all over the entire region discussed here: On British general Johnny Burgoyne and his Anglo-Hessian force that he took across the lake and river chain between Canada and Albany to retake Fort Ticonderoga; also see the death of Jane McRae, captured and scalped by Indians; her death created further enthusiasm among the Patriot soldiers; also engagements at the Battle of Bennington where the Americans routed British and Brunswick forces; an engagement at Oswego where Americans under General Nicholas Herkimer (who died in the battle) routed the British; the Battle of Freeman's Farm which was sort of a tie, a back and forth engagement as part of the battling around Albany and Ticonderoga. Finally the Battle of Bemis Heights, which was "the last nail in the coffin of Burgoyne's army." Burgoyne was later surrounded in Saratoga, surrendering to the patriots, and laying down the arms of his remaining 5,000 men. All of these various conflicts were collectively called The Battle of Saratoga and collectively it was a major victory for the Patriots, with significant political ramifications, because it spurred Congress to adopt the Articles of Confederation and send them to the separate states for ratification. It also brought the French into war against England. "Spain followed suit in 1779, then came Holland, ordering her Dutch West Indies to increase their aid to the Americans. Catherine of Russia followed, organizing a League of Armed Neutrality which deterred British trade."
Chapter 14:
179ff Despite all the good news resulting from the Battle of Saratoga, there was also extensive backbiting from a coalition of Washington's critics, including Samuel Adams, John Adams, Richard Henry Lee and other powerful congressman who wanted to replace Washington with Horatio Gates.
181 Interesting (and depressing) comments here about "a spirit of profiteering and a habit of graft" in the colonies where soldiers went half-naked because Boston merchants wouldn't sell clothing at less than tremendous profits, likewise farmers and cattle owners would rather sell to the British for hard currency (rather than sell to the Americans for worthless paper currency), etc. [See also all the shoddy production sold to the US government during the Civil War and World Wars: obviously the structural profiteering of the military-industrial complex has been in place much longer than we'd all care to admit.]
181ff On Baron von Steuben, the Prussian military expert who helped drill the Americans into a disciplined force; General Howe captures Philadelphia, but then Ben Franklin famously replied "No, Philadelphia has captured Howe!" referring to the fact that the British soldiers were basically partying and dining there rather than "occupying" it; then a French fleet was sailing for America, and so the British left Philadelphia to take New York; this led to a battle of Monmouth, the Americans learned that they now were a match for British regulars in the field. It also secured Washington's position as commander-in-chief after this encounter; the two main armies did not meet again.
Chapter 15:
187ff Various minor engagements here in Newport, Rhode Island, the British torched the settlement in Cherry Valley in western New York; Savannah, Georgia was taken by the British, and then both armies went into winter quarters, frustrating Washington because 1778 had begun so brightly "only to fizzle out in the end."
Chapter 16:
189ff Minor skirmishing in Georgia and South Carolina, raids and torching of Iroquois villages in Western New York; geopolitical events start to show some velocity now as Spain declares war on England and a Franco-Spanish alliance begins taking various islands in the Caribbean; on John Paul Jones, a Scotsman who changed his name and took the fight to the British Isles, raiding seaside towns in England and Scotland and also winning a minor naval battle ("I have not yet begun to fight"), giving a kind of birth legend to the history of the Continental (and later US) Navy. Failed attempts to retake Savannah by French soldiers under Count d'Estaing and Pulaski; Washington back in winter quarters in Morristown during a very cruel, cold winter; also note there was at this time a hyperinflation in Continental and colony monies, giving rise to the phrase "not worth a Continental."
Chapter 17:
198ff 1780 begins with Sir Henry Clinton taking Charleston against Benjamin Lincoln, leading to the surrender of 5,000 patriots; also this led to the beginning of effectively a civil war in South Carolina between Loyalists and Patriots; [the idea here was the British thought that the South would flip to the Tory side, but it turned out they just flip-flopped over and over again]; the Patriots had now nearly lost the South to the British.
201ff On Benedict Arnold, angry at being passed over and snubbed for higher command [sounds like a textbook Gamma]; he betrays the Americans, offers the British West Point and its surrendered soldiers for £10,000, he is caught, found out and flees; eventually the British gifted him land in Canada in the Ontario peninsula plus a pension. [Even the scoundrels make out okay if they manage to get away in time.]
Chapter 18:
203ff France promises to provide troops, but they are bottled up by the British navy; also on Major Patrick Ferguson pillaging the Carolinas, leading to the uprising of some thousand Scots-Irish settlers and frontiersman against him at King's Mountain, a victory that began to turn the tide against the British in the South. [Once again, the British couldn't get out of their own way: all they seemed to be able to do was antagonize--and therefore unify--the colonists!]
Chapter 19:
205ff Mutiny of Pennsylvania soldiers in Morristown, who had not been paid for a year, were "half-naked and starving" and kept past their three year sign-on commitments; Washington had to show quarter to them or he'd lose more of his army so he promised them back pay, and then discharges the men who did their three years. Then the New Jersey soldiers mutinied, and Washington uses force to subdue them.
206ff Nathaniel Greene takes command of "the ragged Southern army in Charlotte" divides his "tatterdemalions" against a superior foe, breaking "the biggest rule of the art of war." Engagement here between Tarleton (famous for the ruthless fighting without quarter, hence the sarcastic phrase "Tarleton's quarter") and Daniel Morgan at the Battle of Cowpens, kind of an interesting order of battle here; the British lost 90% of their 4000 mean to just twelve (!) Americans killed and 60 wounded. The author calls it "the American Cannae."
Chapter 20:
210ff Battle of Yorktown: various feints and tricks set up by the Patriots to make it look like an attack was coming in New York, also the French fleet tricked England and defeated them in the Chesapeake Bay, Cornwallis was then trapped in Yorktown and he knew it; he attempts a breakout, then surrenders and asks for terms.
Part III: The War of 1812
Chapter 1:
217-8 Final comments here on the revolutionary war: "...fighting sputtered on for another year, chiefly on the western borders" then North's government in England was replaced by a Whig government eager to end the war." Hostilities ceased on January 20, 1783, then September 3, 1783 the Peace of Paris formally brings the war to an end. [Unbelievable luck on so many levels, and you also needed political luck too in the home country. It's not just about sheer military might, it almost never is.]
218-9 [Good section here!] On the assumption that Washington, if he were like most military leaders across history, would just take control of the USA; the author tells a story here of one period during the war where it looked like the military might actually take political control of the colonies (this was during the 1782-83 winter, among a group of officers camped at Newburgh), and how Washington persuaded his officers against it: Washington joins them, making a surprise appearance, then puts on his glasses and tells them, "Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only gone gray, but almost blind, in the service of my country." Per the author, "the danger of military despotism was avoided and the new American nation was saved by the one man who could have killed it."
219 On problems with the Articles of Confederation; distrust and lack of unanimity among the colonies: North vs South, big colonies vs small, etc. No one respected the federal government; on Shay's Rebellion in 1787: Massachusetts farmers hurt by sound money policies and heavy taxes [this sounds quite a lot like a "Great Taking"/deleveraging event happened here], the rebellion "alarmed the nation" and helped lead to convening a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in May 1787; "Thus was born the American system of the division of powers..." [Note the various naively optimistic comments in here about the USA' sfounders and system--stuff like this could be written with a straight face in 1968, but certainly not now.]
221ff [Now we start talking about some of the geopolitical drivers behind the 1812 conflict] England with its presence in the two provinces of Upper Canada (as in "up" the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes chain: think of this as really midwestern Canada) and Lower Canada ("down" and therefore eastern) Canada; Britain wanting to contain the new America with an Indian buffer state; American wanting to limit England's influence right next door.
224 On the "XYZ affair"" the post-French Revolution Directory started having military success in Europe and also began capturing US merchant shipping; John Adams sent a delegation to France which Talleyrand received coldly, sending officials so minor that they were called "Monsieurs X, Y and Z" and then demanding a huge bribe paid to both Talleyrand as well as to France in order to open negotiations; this was the so called Naval War with France.
224ff Hamilton's Federalists lose power to Jefferson's Republicans; on the wars with the Barbary pirates; see also William Eaton, an interesting guy here, the American consul at Tunis, who hated the pasha and hated that his fellow Americans were ransomed in the region, conspired to put the brother of the pasha back in power in return for friendship with the US. [An interesting proto-CIA move here!] Note that the original pasha made a deal with the US and stayed in power, so the revolution here failed, but this is where the Marines say "the shores of Tripoli" as this was an successful collaborative land and sea assault on the fortress of Derna; On Jefferson's 1803 Louisiana Purchase, "derided at the time"; the Union also now has 17 states as Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio join; on 1805 and the Lewis and Clark expedition.
227 Sidebar here on Aaron Burr who wanted the northern colonies to secede, with New York as the anchor state; his conflict with Hamilton as Hamilton thwarted his plan; on Burr's unethical comportment in their duel: Burr more or less made up that Hamilton has slurred him; Hamilton purposely missed but Burr shot to kill, etc.; then Burr goes to try to set up a conspiracy to make himself emperor of Mexico [!!! what the heck?] and set up an independent Republic in Louisiana, he flees to Europe after being unsuccessfully tried for treason and then tried for high misdemeanors.
Chapter 2:
228ff US caught between England and France's war, both countries forcibly impressing American seamen; the Chesapeake incident; Jefferson's Embargo Act, which kept American shipping out of foreign ports to try and punish England, it failed and almost led to New England seceding from the USA [this keeps happening, totally wild!] Both France and England were pretty much being dicks here and it inflamed a sense of "national honor" in the USA. Jefferson's Embargo Act was repealed shortly before he left office, replaced by James Madison.
230ff The US election of 1810-11 brings war hawks to Congress; ulterior motives here for more land, subduing Indians, in particular Tecumseh and his brother the Prophet; William Henry Harrison and the engagement at Tippecanoe which helped president Harrison win, also deluded the war hawks into believing they actually had a real army and could even take Canada. Tecumseh continues raiding, "and Americans were reminded how the unholy alliance of redskin and redcoat had bloodied the American frontier during the Revolution." Also the assassination of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in 1812, the next administration revoked the British blockade (this had caused a depression in the agricultural regions of the South), but despite the olive branch here from the new English administration President Madison signed the war declaration that began the War of 1812.
Chapter 3:
233ff On the incompetence of the US military at this point, from President Madison on down.
236 More delusional naivete from the author, writing about the leadup to the ill-advised War of 1812 and America's plans to invade Canada: "Democracies, unlike dictatorships, cannot set invasion dates beforehand and then calmly go about faking 'incidents' to justify them." [Note that this astounding claim is by a historian who in this book writes about the Civil War (which became a hot war thanks to a false flag event at Fort Sumter); who in the next volume will write about WWI and apparently conveniently forget that the US entry into WWI was thanks to yet another false flag event (the Lusitania), and then write about WWII, where the US entry was triggered by a green flag event (Pearl Harbor), and then he'll write about Vietnam, triggered by yet another false flag event (the phony Gulf of Tonkin)!! Democracies certainly can and do fake "incidents" to justify wars, the US does this all the time. Delusional and downright incomprehensible naivete on the part of the author here to write that quote.] Also states like Massachusetts and Connecticut refused to send troops as requested by Madison: "Westerners wanted this war, let them fight it."
237ff On William Hull losing his invasion plans to the British, then losing his nerve; through his cowardice and sluggishness he ended up surrendering Detroit to the British; a string of defeats and incompetence after this: Niagara, Sackett's Harbor, and Lake Champlain.
Chapter 4:
245ff On the contrasting success of the young US Navy against the British; Captain Isaac Hull (ironically nephew and adopted son of the soon-to-be-disgraced William Hull!); On the USS Constitution, called "Old Ironsides" because the oak beams making the hull were forced into shape rather than steamed into shape (steaming weakened the wood); outmaneuvering a group of British ships in one engagement and destroying the British ship Guerriére in another. A few other naval engagements described here as well.
Chapter 5:
250ff President Madison is re-elected in 1813; on William Henry Harrison army makes failed attempt to move against Upper Canada; on the English blockade of the American Coast. On atrocities committed by the British in the Chesapeake Bay region, raping and pillaging. On Captain James Lawrence who, defeated and dying during an engagement with the British on the USS Chesapeake, famously said what became the motto of the United States Navy: "Don't give up the ship. Fight her till she sinks."
255 Fun blurb here about Pierre du Pont de Nemours, who left France to come to America with his two sons, his sons built a gunpowder factory and launched a business dynasty.
257ff Oliver Hazard Perry commanding the flotilla at Lake Erie; his famous quote "We have met the enemy and they are ours."
265 Tecumseh forecasts his own death after the naval engagement on Lake Erie exposed him; this engagement was between the British forces under General Henry Proctor and the USA's William Henry Harrison at the Battle of the Thames/Battle of Moraviantown, which was a resounding American victory; Tecumseh died and Proctor fled. The victory here "ended British power in Upper Canada" and consolidated American power over most of the Midwest, all of which was made possible by Perry's victory on Lake Erie.
Chapter 6:
267ff Fractiousness among the command in the eastern US; on a halfhearted attempt to attack Montreal that never even got anywhere near the city itself; this ultimately resulted in eliminating "the last of the graybeards" in charge of the American military: Wilkinson, Hampton, and Morgan Lewis.
270ff Atrocities from both sides here: the Americans under General George McClure burned the town of Newark (now known as Niagara) on Lake Ontario, claiming it would deny the British winter quarters; in response to this atrocity, which left town residents homeless right before winter, British and Indians ran into fort Niagara and bayoneted 67 Americans before accepting an American surrender of the fort; then the British turned the Indians loose in Buffalo, NY and "by New Year's Day of 1814 Buffalo was a cinder smoking in the snow" with various towns around it devastated as well.
271 See photo below of a poem that became popular during the court-martial of General Hull; this basically lists the names of all these incompetent generals [and it brings to mind Colonel John Boyd's famous quote "make it so simple that even a general can understand it."] "Only one general of reputation remained. He was in the south, and his name was Andrew Jackson."
Chapter 7:
273ff Disturbing example here of the Creek Indians and how they were split into a civil war: one side wanting to attack the white man, the other not; then it became a full-breed versus half-breed Civil War, [highly reminiscent of the atrocious Cabanagem violence in Brazil I read about in the bio of Alfred Russell Wallace: once you import new people, then have them mix, you can divide them up in all sorts of ways]; on the Creeks only having about 4,000 warriors and never more than 1,000 at a time assembled for a single battle; but they were hidden in inaccessible wilderness; but Jackson with 2,500 men--including Davy Crockett and Sam Houston--led an action against them, during which Jackson actually had a bullet lodged in his shoulder from a barroom brawl months before [!]; on the Battle of Horseshoe Bend where the Creek War came to an end.
Chapter 8:
279 "Whereas in 1812 there had been eight top generals averaging 60 years of age, in 1814 the ranking nine averaged only 36." [Often typical of Americans at war, the incompetents and sinecurists are gradually replaced, not as quickly as they should be, but at least eventually.]
279ff The Napoleonic Wars end with Napoleon abdicating, Britain winning; Wellington had ships and regiments ready to come to the United States. Comments here on the Battle of Chippewa where the Americans beat the British using their own style of battle. But then a strategic defeat and a tactical draw at the Battle of Lundy's Lane.
Chapter 9:
284ff Three expeditions planned by England that could have given them possession of much of New England as well as the Great Lakes and Louisiana Territory; they first planned to invade New York at Lake Champlain; second, an army-navy team would attack American coastal cities; third, a plan to capture New Orleans. Washington was largely undefended and the British moved to torch it, including burning the White House.
Chapter 10:
291ff Peace talks begin at Ghent; in the meantime the British easily took Maine; an engagement at Lake Champlain where the American Navy ambushed and defeated the British; this happened just as the British were about to take Plattsburgh, but news of this defeat caused the British army to retreat back into Canada.
Chapter 11:
295ff September 1814 Britain's Robert Ross and George Cockburn attempt to assault Baltimore; because Washington was burned first, the city had time to prepare fortifications; also a sharpshooter shot Ross on the way to the city and killed him; the bombardment of Fort McHenry also failed and the British fleet eventually sailed back to Halifax and the troops returned to Jamaica. Note that Fort McHenry was the scene for Francis Scott Key's anthem: "Such was the British failure at Baltimore, and it might not have merited more than a passing notice in the annals of American arms had not a Washington lawyer named Francis Scott Key watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry from a British cartel boat." Two paragraphs to follow here describing how Key saw the fort under fire and how he revised the poem, he sent it to his brother-in-law who had actually been at the fort, and the brother realized that the song could be set to popular drinking song called "Anacreon In Heaven"; it was quickly published and began spreading across the country--although it was not adopted as the national anthem until 1931.
Chapter 12:
299ff England was under pressure to raise money to continue the War of 1812, likewise "the coalition which had conquered Napoleon was coming apart at the seams." On "war weariness" across England, even pessimism from the Duke of Wellington about the situation there; ironically at the same time the US was running out of money and experiencing an economic collapse and even a near-rupture of the American Union.
301ff On the Hartford Convention a "quasi-secessionist assembly"; Massachusetts, as well as delegates from Connecticut and Rhode Island, plus a few from Vermont and New Hampshire, met to consider secession, although it was ruled out early on; basically this assembly formed out of frustration with the fact that England had taken Maine and was ready to descend on Boston. New England made demands here that they would defend themselves with their own forces financed by federal tax monies collected within their borders, and if the Congress did not accept this and other proposals it would hold another convention which likely would involve secession. [Note the hypocrisy here of Massachusetts because it became wealthy through trade here, supplying war equipment both to Canada and to the US! Massachusetts kind of looks pretty bad here, especially in light of the irony that just two generations after this they would play a major role in violently attacking a secessionist movement in the south.]
303ff At the same time the Hartford Convention was riding down to Washington to let them know their demands, a large British force began invading New Orleans; even Thomas Jefferson assumed it would fall and "be held indefinitely by the British." Andrew Jackson was there, however; various engagements in the region here including Pensacola and Mobile, Alabama. On the British surprising Jackson by getting within seven miles of New Orleans, then doing what was tactically unsound: an amphibious assault of the city as opposed to attacking via a land route from Mobile; on Jackson responding to the surprise with his own surprise, counterattacking the British immediately after they had arrived, knowing they would likely pause before attacking the city. Jackson had artillery attack the British from one direction where they were camped, and then he attacked them immediately after from another direction. Note that this was a very small battle, with only 46 killed and 167 wounded on the British side (versus 24 killed and 115 wounded on the American side). Note also this battle took place six weeks after the Treaty of Ghent had already been signed, both sides agreeing to the status quo ante bellum; the treaty didn't address anything about American fishery or the impressment of American sailors, and of course in New Orleans nobody knew anything about the treaty until weeks afterward.
309ff An artillery battle on New Year's Day 1815, as the British yet again attempted to seize New Orleans but their guns were silenced and defeated by the Americans with their own responding artillery; then a week later one more engagement after both sides received reinforcements; the Americans destroyed another British attack on the city, losing just 8 Americans killed and 13 wounded versus more than 2,000 British casualties.
313 Final comments here on how the news of the Battle of New Orleans traveled even slower than the news of the Treaty of Ghent and the ambassadors of the Hartford Convention were assuming the Americans would be defeated as they rode towards Washington. But ultimately, on February 13th, 1815 news of the Treaty of Ghent was received in Washington and the Hartford Convention emissaries had to slink back to New England.
Part IV: The War with Mexico
Chapter 1:
314ff The final defeat of Napoleon in 1815; the Americans had been drawn into the Anglo-French conflicts six times now, "four times with the British, twice against them," but were now finally free of "the broils of Europe" as the Pax Britannica began. "It is one of the great paradoxes of American history that the British Navy which had so insulted America by its insistence on the right to impress her seamen would now by its mastery of the seas enable the United States to embark unmolested upon an era of territorial expansion and internal development." On the so-called "Era of Good Feeling" between Great Britain and the United States; the election of James Monroe in 1816; four new States created: Indiana in 1816, Mississippi in 1817, Illinois in 1818 and Alabama in 1819; the slave and free states were 11 each until Missouri sought admission as a slave state in 1819; secession talk began yet again, but then the Missouri Compromise was agreed upon with the creation of Maine as a counterbalancing free state.
316ff In 1817, the start of the first of the wars with the Seminole Indians: Andrew Jackson broke the power of the Seminoles then took Pensacola and ejected its Spanish governor; and then Spain, realizing it couldn't really govern Florida anyway; Spain agreed to sell its claims to the Oregon Territory as well as to its lands east of the Mississippi to the USA for $5 million. Note that Mexico shortly would become a free republic, and it had control of much of what would later become the southwest United States. On the independence movements in the various Spanish colonies in the Americas, which climaxed with Mexico's independence; on the Monroe Doctrine which barred all European powers from the western hemisphere. Note here that the US had no power to enforce such a declaration, and only British Sea power was capable of patrolling the shores of both continents, thus the Monroe Doctrine was effectively propped up by the British Navy! Only later did this doctrine solidify "into one of the pillars of American foreign policy."
Chapter 2:
318ff Interesting comments here on aspects of the brewing conflict between Mexico and the US [as politically incorrect as it is to say it, we see here another textbook example of the heuristic "diversity plus proximity equals war playing out]. Note that the northern regions of Mexico were only loosely bound to the central government in Mexico City; also on the importation of white settlers into Texas by design by the Mexicans themselves! Mexico granted land tracts to various "Yanquis" in return for settlement.
319 The US offered to buy Texas from Mexico, twice: under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, refused angrily both times.
320ff By 1836 there were 30,000 Americans in Texas, outnumbering Mexicans; Santa Anna takes over power in Mexico, sweeping away states' rights; Texas responds by declaring independence. The Alamo, the defeat of Santa Anna's army and freedom for Texas in 1836; on Texas asking the US early on for statehood but there was too much hesitancy and wrangling in the US over the slave/free state balance; finally it was admitted under Polk in 1845, but Polk also wanted California: he rode a wave of expansionist sentiment in the USA to beat Van Buren and Clay to win the Presidency, "the first 'dark horse' presidential candidate in American history." Polk won the Democratic nomination against Van Buren "chiefly because he was an annexationist" and then won a close presidential election "aided by anti-slavery Whigs voting for an abolitionist candidate." On "manifest destiny": even abolitionists fearing a slavocracy in the south "could not resist the lure of that magical, mystical phrase." Declaration of war after Mexico ambushes 63 Americans, killing 11.
Chapter 3:
325ff Interesting to know the population differential: US 20m, Mexico 7m; but Mexico had a much bigger army, albeit with hidden defects. On the Mexican's assumptions about the incompetence of the American military; note also, interestingly, that nearly half of the US forces at the time were foreigners (!); at the same time the Americans had "what was and still is the finest group of young officers in the nation's history" as the officers in this conflict were like a roll call of future generals in the coming US Civil War.
327 Cute anecdote here about the origin of the term "doughboys": the World War I term came from "adobies" which was the nickname for infantry covered in dust as they were marching south through Texas into Mexico; the word was shortened to "dobies" and then morphed into "doughboys."
327ff On General Zachary Taylor, "Old Rough and Ready," who experienced the same hardships as his men; on the Battle of Palo Alto, an artillery duel between Taylor and Mexico's General Arista, and another example of how technology and tempo can win a conflict: the American artillery was far more accurate and mobile; on the cautiousness of most of the officers after the first day of the battle, then Zachary Taylor asks Captain Duncan his opinion: "We whipped 'em today and we can whip 'em tomorrow!" The next battle took place in sunken lagoons, resacas, and thick chaparral, much different terrain; it was another victory for the Americans; the casualty numbers were small but the Mexicans lost some six times the American losses of 48 dead and 128 wounded.
Chapter 4:
335ff On Zachary Taylor's popularity; President Polk realized he was waging war to make the next president a Whig president, but there was nothing he could do; volunteers came from all over the country with the exception of New England where they still resented the annexation of Texas; On Polk's plan to put General Santa Anna back into power: he was in exile in Havana at the time; the US government planned to bribe him with $2 million to cede California and declare peace; see also David Wilmot a representative from Pennsylvania who inserted his famous Wilmot Proviso to prohibit slavery in any lands acquired from Mexico; this killed Polk's plan as it was filibustered in the Senate; also Mexico had hoped to have British support in their conflict as England and the US were at the same time arguing over where the boundary line would be in the Upper West: hence the phrase "54-40 or fight!" Also Polk did not want a two front war so he renewed the 49th parallel offer and obtained a compromise with England; this became the Oregon Treaty and the permanent dividing line between the US and Canada in the West.
338 Then basically California and New Mexico fell into American hands as Commodore John Sloat basically just took over the capital of Monterey in California and raised the flag over the custom house there [holy cow this is a far cry from Jedediah Smith's experience being imprisoned there by Mexican authorities back in the 1820s]; there was a minor revolt but it was quickly put down by another 150 American soldiers brought in by Colonel Steven Kearney, who had earlier invaded New Mexico and annexed the province. And then at the same time Mexico fell back under the control of Santa Anna: while he was in exile in Havana he convinced President Polk to let him go back and seize power and sign the treaty that Polk wanted.
341ff On the invasion of Mexico and the siege of Monterey (Mexico this time). Note Jefferson Davis was one of the leaders here, the reader gets to see southern and northern men fighting together against a common enemy... when barely 14 years later they'll be murdering each other in the American Civil War.
Chapter 5:
344ff On the gradual US disenchantment with the Mexican conflict; "Polk and his advisors--who had begun the war with no real plan--at last decided on the obvious step of striking at the enemy's heart in Mexico City." Deciding to approach from Veracruz on the Gulf, also a rapid victory was necessary to "retrieve Democratic political fortunes" after the 1846 Congressional elections resulted in a victory for the Whig party. Polk chose General Winfield Scott to lead the effort. [Note also the tremendous politicization involved in Polk choosing generals, like Scott, who would remain politically harmless: this is one of the reasons Zachary Taylor wasn't chosen for this mission. I guess this stuff has also been going on all along all through the USA's history.] Back and forth here on how Scott "smelt a rat" when he was chosen: he didn't want to have "fire upon his rear" from Washington and "fire in front" from the Mexicans; Scott quickly recalled back to Washington. See also this quote: "He [Scott] might have been too fond of plans and calculations, as his nickname 'Old Fuss 'n' Feathers' suggests; he may actually have been so prim and prissy that, as one general's wife disdainfully observed, you could cover his mouth with a button; but he was nevertheless the most professional and scientific soldier the United States had yet produced--and without him there might not have been much of an army."
Old Fuss 'n' Feathers, General Winfield Scott
347ff Mexico's General Santa Anna, hearing of anti-war sentiment in America, wanted a smashing victory in the north of Mexico; note that New England leaders were against the war, they were deeply fearful of a new slavocracy being formed. On Santa Ana's ability to make an army out of practically nothing. [Note also the author's offhand mention here of Ivan the Fool, which sent this reader down a rabbit hole to learn about the character from Russian fables as well as the short story by Tolstoy]; striking bravery of Zachary Taylor during the Battle of Buena Vista where the Mexicans attacked an outnumbered American Force; the Americans held them off, losing 700 killed, wounded and missing, but the Mexican lost five times as many soldiers. This battle denied Santa Anna his smashing victory, and it also revived the enthusiasm of the USA in this conflict and made them determined to continue the war.
Chapter 6:
353ff February 1847: General Scott arrives at Lobos Island, the staging area for the march to Mexico City, this would be the first amphibious operation in American history. [Also take a look at General Scott's officers and command structure: it is a who's who of the Civil War: Beauregard, Meade, Joe Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Jubal Early, Stonewall Jackson, etc.] The landing at Veracruz happened without the loss of a single man, partly because of Santa Anna's decision to fight Taylor in Buena Vista; but also the fact that Mexico was facing the "Polko rebellion" a sort of national schism between the conservative merchants class as well as the clergy against acting president Farias, who was seizing Church property and also not honoring property rights; this was seen as a struggle between the Puros and the Polkos; "...the Puros-Polkos duel was in many ways an adumbration of the bloody factional strife of the Spanish Civil War as well as the dualism which still divides Latin America." The government saw the church and its wealth as a solution to the bankruptcy of the Mexican state; thus the church took the side of the Polko battalions. Also Farias decided to get rid of the Polko battalions by ordering them to defend Veracruz when Scott was landing but they refused; note also that Santa Anna "refrained from taking sides openly" although he was working toward a reproachment with the Church and working for the downfall of Farias. Scott, using artillery, took the city within four days with hardly any losses, it was quickly surrendered by the Mexicans.
Chapter 7:
358ff On the Battle of Cerro Gordo, where the Americans managed to get away from Vera Cruz ahead of yellow fever season; they flanked the Mexicans and captured half of Santa Anna's army of 6,000.
Chapter 8:
362ff Discussion here of President Polk's peace commissioner Nicholas Trist and his conflicts with General Winfield Scott, how General Scott felt harried by Washington sending him random letters or messages that might cripple his mission, so he decides to make his army self-sustaining and March 10,500 soldiers directly to Mexico City, which he believed to be defended by an army of triple his forces.
370ff On Chapultepec Castle; there were many American losses here; this led some of the most gallant American soldiers in this battle to desert; on hangings, brandings and floggings of American deserters here; then the famous encounter in the Mexican military college with Los Niños, including 18-year-old AgustÃn Melgar; the author says that General Scott's victory "was the high point of a great career" and "one of the most momentous fighting marches in all history." The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2nd 1848, added 1.2 million square miles of territory to the US, an area more than five times the size of France; in return, the US assuming Mexico's unpaid claims and paid Mexico $15 million.
376 Finally a fascinating quote here from Abraham Lincoln, who at the time was a young Whig congressman, criticizing "Mr. Polk's War" as unconstitutional. Lincoln here openly talked about the peoples' right to revolt: "Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better." [Boy he sure did have amnesia for that speech a few years later! Talk about hypocrisy and doing what is politically expedient at all costs.]
Part V: The Civil War
Chapter 1:
377ff [This chapter opens with a wonderfully tight summary of all of the complex forces leading up to the US Civil War. Really well done.] Polk did not seek re-election, true to his word, and the Democrats nominated Lewis Cass of Michigan, while the Whigs nominated Zachary Taylor, passing over Henry Clay; Taylor swept to victory with the assistance of the Free-Soiler party led by Martin Van Buren; anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats formed a coalition which essentially gave New York to Taylor; on the "49er" discovery of gold in California; this was also literally a golden age for the United States, as it experienced a massive economic expansion, with mass immigration from Europe, etc. On the growth of sectionalism as the North and South culturally and economically began to diverge more and more; also the growth of the abolition movement, which gave this divergence a moral aspect; on Henry Clay, who had engineered the Missouri Compromise years ago, now in 1850 proposing the so-called Compromise of 1850 which admitted California as a free state, but also put into place a new Fugitive Slave Law; note also that Zachary Taylor might have actually vetoed this bill, but he died [killed by his doctors!] before he could do so, and his successor Millard Fillmore let the bill stand. [It's amusing here as the author makes mocking comments here about Fillmore being "the perfection of mediocrity" as well as in the next few pages as he mocks four successive mediocrities in the White House: Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and ending with James Buchanan.]
383ff On the book Uncle Tom's Cabin which alarmed the South and angered the North; Franklin Pierce in 1852 was the third mediocre president in a row, per the author: he was "always persuaded by the last man to talk to him, especially if it was Secretary of War Jefferson Davis." Also on Stephen Douglas and his notion of popular sovereignty, leading to the Border Wars in Kansas and Nebraska and leading to the Kansas-Nebraska Act which went through Congress and effectively reversed the Missouri Compromise; note also that Kansas had a 10 to 1 advantage of anti-slavery versus pro-slavery citizens but yet was admitted as a slave state.
387ff On the Dred Scott decision, which is a fascinating and disturbing example of a southern-dominated Supreme Court really bending the hell out of the law to extend and codify slavery in a way that was completely not reflective of society at the time, [Holy shit was Murray Rothbard ever right!] Various legislatures and various states completely rejected this ruling and would not honor it. And then in 1857 the Kansas Senate rejected an anti-slavery constitution but then the people were allowed to vote on it and by a margin of six to one made Kansas a free state. Also on the Lincoln-Douglas debates for the 1858 Senate seat in Illinois; the rise of Abraham Lincoln and his evolution towards being more and more against slavery; on John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry and how it enraged and terrorized the South because Brown wanted to arm the slaves and incite a general slave revolt; then the 1860 presidential election where Abraham Lincoln defeated Seward in the primary to get the nomination, and then in a four-way election against John Breckinridge, John Bell and Stephen Douglas, Lincoln was elected president capturing only 39% of the popular vote, although a majority of the electoral vote [a rather interesting election]. In December of 1860 South Carolina secedes, followed a few weeks later by Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and Texas (Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina seceded later, in April and May of 1861).
Chapter 2:
392ff "Secession was a fact; the question now was: Would there be war?" Interesting discussion here of how neither side really wanted to start anything [maybe it's more accurate to say the elite power structures on both sides didn't yet want to start anything, or make it look too much like they "started" something that wasn't "justified." You can get really down, really down, if you take too hard a look at the true nature of war, why it's started, how to arrange the "thing" that sets it off, and of course who benefits from it...]; Lincoln gave some fiery speeches but basically vacillated; all but three forts that were part of the federal military in the South were handed over without firing a shot at all; and yet there was Fort Sumter, which was up in the air in South Carolina. Part of the issue here was that if something started, then some of the "wavering" states (like Virginia, and probably North Carolina) would immediately join the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis ordered General Beauregard to demand Sumter's surrender, and seize it if it should be refused; he was refused by Major Robert Anderson of Kentucky; but Anderson, because of a lack of supplies would likely be forced to capitulate anyway; note here that there was still a solution where the South didn't want to start things, so they instructed Beauregard to hold off on attacking if Anderson would specify at what date he would evacuate; his response was that he could not hold out past April 15th unless he received instructions from his government or additional supplies; the response from the South, men who were firebrands per the author, was that this is an unsatisfactory answer, and on April 12th, the south fired on Fort Sumter, electrifying and unifying both sides [basically a cynic could look at this as a manufactured causus belli] where thousands of youths signed up for both the North and the South; also Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee quickly seceded and joined the Confederacy, followed by a "reverse secession" where the Western region of Virginia seceded from Virginia and eventually rejoined the Union as the state of West Virginia.
394 Very interesting discussion here about the drivers to the conflict in reality versus the political differences beforehand. "...both sides unconsciously sidestepped the very issue which had divided them. In the South it was probably easier to get men to fight for 'our rights' rather than for the institution many of them instinctively despised, and in the North most of the abolitionists were cheerleaders at heart and the true fighting men would rather risk their flesh for the sacred Union than for distant Negroes whom they loved as little as their Southern opponents." [As usual, the people who really, really want to go to war rarely fight.] Also: "As is customary in American military history, both sides envisioned a short spectacular land war...and both sides thought themselves prepared."
396 On the South is a feudal society, much like the Quebec of Frontenac and Montcalm, which lent itself to martial spirit and rapid mobilization; also the slave population was a stable labor force, freeing almost every white male for duty in the field, also the South would be fighting a defensive war which would be much to their advantage even against a much larger Northern army; on the strategic level, the North had to attack/invade to crush the Confederacy. Finally, the South had far superior generals.
397 "The U.S. Army, while compelling its enlisted men to remain loyal, had permitted its officers to resign, and about 270 of 900 followed their conscience south. Moderns might well gasp at such a mad and noble gesture, for no modern government would do less than imprison commanders of such proven worth and plain disloyalty. But this was the last of the gentlemanly wars..." [Also noteworthy here that these leaders all knew each other, making it less likely they would jail each other.]
397ff Certain liabilities of Jefferson Davis: he was a micromanager and only gave full power to Lee at the very end of the conflict; also he mistakenly believed that cotton was such a powerful force that England would go to war on the Confederate side just to get access to cotton supplies; it turned out that Europe found incremental sources in India and Egypt.
398 Also on the liabilities of states' rights: it caused the Confederate states to be unwilling to give up any resources or taxes to a central government. "States' rights could only be protected by insisting on a temporary cession of them." [Temporary, sure! "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."]
399ff On the unique position of the various slaveholding border states where allegiance was divided inside those states; see Maryland where there was civil unrest and not a clear allegiance to one side of the other until Lincoln threw Baltimore's mayor, 19 state legislators and numerous other secession-minded Marylanders into jail, see also George McClellan, who won the military engagement to retain West Virginia in the North; see also Kentucky and Missouri, which were eventually pulled into the Union sphere of control.
403ff On the Battle of Bull Run (Manassas as the Southern states called it); the first major engagement where the South won but both sides experienced significant casualties, more than 2,000 each.
Chapter 3:
407ff On the effects of Bull Run: Europe looked at this and saw that the South actually was a real fighting force; it awakened the north "to the reality of a long and dreadful war"; it also ended the idea of romantic war and introduced modern warfare; see how Napoleon's France started to use mass armies; the American Civil War used mass armies plus the industrial revolution plus the telegraph, steamboat and railroad to mobilize an entire society against another.
408ff On the resignation of Winfield Scott (note how the author calls him "dropsical" in a prior chapter, based on his advanced age, harsh) and his replacement, George McClellan. "There was so little humility in McClellan that he was not above snubbing Lincoln, and yet he did have organizing ability." McClellan is overcautious to the point where Lincoln said, exasperated, "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it."
409ff On the conflict in the West where General Fremont, an incompetent, took too much political action, proclaiming martial law in Missouri, ordering the confiscation of slaves and property of all Confederates, etc., and Lincoln replaced him with General Henry Halleck. Also out west was Ulysses S. Grant, at the time 39 and nearly unknown; during peacetime Grant began to drink and was forced out of the army for drunkenness, but when the war started he was put in charge of a regiment of volunteers as a colonel. Also a beautiful quote from his experience of being fearful before his first engagement against the rebel forces in Missouri. "It occurred to me at once, that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him. This was a view of a question I had never taken before; but it was one I never forgot afterwards."
412-3 Another good example here of the Civil War leadership of both sides making accurate predictions about what the other leaders would do with their troops: here Grant knew General Gideon Pillow from the Mexican-American war, knew that he was no soldier, and thus Grant knew would be able to march his men up to within gunshot of any of his entrenchments.
415ff Grant achieved a major victory in the west, and it basically turned the tide, leading eventually to total Union control of the West; but Grant was also a threat to General Henry Halleck, who wanted overall command in the West; he saw Grant as a rival and wanted him out; thus he claimed to McClellan that Grant had resumed drinking and attempted to remove him from command, Lincoln more or less overrode him.
416ff On the Battle of Shiloh, where the Confederates surprised the Union under Grant and Sherman; but then the union surprised the rebels with a surprise counterattack a day later: "two of the bloodiest days in Civil War history" with 3,500 killed and 24,000 casualties. Grant came under further criticism for being a heartless butcher; Lincoln responded with "he fights!"
Chapter 4:
420ff On the Monitor and the Merrimac: Swedish inventor John Ericsson offered to design and build the Monitor for the Union, the Merrimac was a frigate covered with 4" iron plates and a ram. "History's first contest between ironclad battleships ended in a draw."
Chapter 5:
423ff On McClellan here and his sluggishness, personally brave but afraid to take his army into the field, trusting ridiculously overestimated guesstimates at the size of the Confederate forces. [I had no idea about this part]: McClellan used Allan Pinkerton, described here as "woefully inept," for his intelligence on Confederate military strength.
428ff On Stonewall Jackson, "a warrior out of the Old Testament." On his rapid movement of forces, and how General Lee used him as a ranging threat around Washington, DC to prevent the Union army from deploying at full strength; DC was always in a state of near panic with rumors of Jackson invading and so a large army was kept nearby just in case. Also on the Battle of Fair Oaks/Battle of Seven Pines, where General Joe Johnson was seriously injured and then control and command of the army of Northern Virginia then went to Robert E. Lee, which "was a great calamity for the North."
430ff On Robert E. Lee and the reverence his soldiers had for him; "Hating slavery, he had drawn his sword not to defend that detestable institution but in the service of the beloved soil that made him." On Lee being too gentle at times, deferring to Jefferson Davis "almost without deviation," also not quick to dismiss incompetent officers.
Chapter 6:
435ff More on changing technology of war: the rifled bullet gave a huge advantage to defense and "dethroned the bayonet"; and none of the generals of the Civil War realized that the "headlong assault" era was over. On the development of the Minié ball, expanding the muzzleloader's range from 100 yards to 500 yards; also on developments in entrenching tactics; [note also an obvious but underappreciated factoid about military combat]: all of the attacker's body was exposed to gunfire but only one-fifth of the defender's body was exposed; and with the Minié ball, the defenders' effective bullet range increased 5x to 500 yards. Further, improved rifles could fire three times a minute; then later in the Civil War breech-loading rifles had an even faster firing rate; all this meant the bayonet charge and a cavalry charge became a "bloody anachronism"; finally comments here on the Second Battle of Bull Run where the Confederacy had a huge victory over the Union army under General Pope.
Chapter 7:
441ff On the celebrated Mason Slidell affair which caused a bit of a diplomatic breach between the Union and England; as the North fired across the bow of a British ship which had Confederates aboard; Lincoln apologized and released the two men; note also that the elites of England supported the South but the middle and lower classes supported the North; and most of Europe politically sat on the fence--although they might have had an interest in dividing the United States permanently to weaken it. Also on Lee's decision to invade the North, the idea was to bring Maryland to the Southern side (which didn't happen), and also to show Europe that the South was for real; also McClellan is brought back into command after Pope's loss to Lee at Bull Run/Manassas, much to the Union soldiers' joy: "Incredible as it may seem, these men actually did love this simulacrum of a general, this splendid hesitator."
443ff On the discovery, by two Union soldiers, of three cigars wrapped in a piece of paper that included orders for the army of Northern Virginia to march on the Hagerstown Road, giving away (at least on a general level) Robert E. Lee's plans to invade the North. Despite having the information, McClellan moved slowly to actually attack Lee's army. McClellan's army followed Lee to the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day of the Civil War, the two sides fought a seesaw battle eventually ending at a draw where the South lost 13,700 casualties against 12,300 Union losses; Lee vowed to fight the next day [and note the reference here to "Roland preparing for another Roncessevalles" referring to the 778 AD Battle of Roncevaux Pass (Roncesvalles in Spanish), where Basques ambushed a Frankish army under Charlemagne. You never know what you're going to learn reading history.] Note also that Lee "knew his man," he knew that McClellan would not fight the next day, even though he had the power to overwhelm Lee's army right then once and for all.
447ff Secondary effects to the Battle of Antietam: Europe realized they were unlikely to intervene; also the Emancipation Proclamation; on Lincoln not wanting to antagonize/screw over the loyal slave states of Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri and West Virginia; but also wanting to weaken the South: slaves could be taken as "contraband" and they could be even organized into Union labor battalions; note that Lincoln had to wait until the Union scored a victory and Antietam was that "victory," so on September 22nd, 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing only slaves held in any state then in rebellion. Obviously this proclamation did not free a single slave. However there was an immediate geopolitical effect: the author claims that no foreign power responsible to public opinion would dare now to "enter the war against a nation now dedicated to the destruction of slavery" thus it isolated the Confederacy diplomatically. [Interesting.] Unfortunately it also escalated the Civil War further, implying that unconditional surrender would be forced on the South, and as a result "the Southern spine was stiffened to fight to the end." [Also interesting. It's amazing how something as geopolitically nuanced as this can be reduced to the rote propaganda phrase we were all taught in school: "Lincoln freed the slaves."]
449 Finally out of frustration Lincoln relieves McClellan of command after McClellan let Lee slip through his hands two more times out of hesitation.
Chapter 8:
449ff On General Ambrose Everett Burnside, the next general of the Union army; "Twice Burnside told Lincoln that he was 'not competent to command so large an army' and he was so shocked by the president's final order that he had to be talked into obeying it by George McClellan himself." Also a little trivia factoid here: Burnside's unusual side whiskers, a style that inherited his name "the Burnside," eventually evolved into what we today call "sideburns." Finally, Burnside lasted precisely one battle, Fredericksburg, which was a slaughter of Union soldiers in a foolish attempt to attack the rebels on superior ground.
Chapter 9:
454ff Here Grant starts to get traction, successfully capturing Vicksburg; the Union gains control of the Mississippi River, splitting the South in two.
Chapter 10:
460ff "The Army of the Potomac" (basically the Union army in the eastern USA) is now is under the command of "Fighting" Joe Hooker. On Lincoln's letter to Hooker, per the author "among the most extraordinary letters of promotion ever composed by a commander in chief." Referring openly to Hooker's desire to have a dictatorship: "Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship." Hooker proved to be an able leader.
462ff Hooker attacks Lee at Chancellorsville; Lee divides his forces into three numerically inferior separate groups, in defiance of all rules of military engagement (and audacious even for him). Confederate losses were 13,000 casualties versus 17,000 for the Union, but Lee lost Stonewall Jackson as he died days later from a wound sustained during the battle; Lee famously said, "He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right."
465ff Strategic discussion here on how Lee could gain repeated victories on the battlefield but did not know how to use them; also in the west, Longstreet recommended transferring soldiers out west to recapture the Mississippi, leaving just a modest force in the east to contain Hooker; but Lee wanted to defeat the Union in the east first, and thus proposed to invade Pennsylvania to draw the Federals away from Richmond. Lee also "had to enter the North for provisions," writing, "an army which invades to ease its hunger does not march under the banner of a prospering cause."
467ff Hooker resigns from command with a conflict from Henry Halleck; George Meade is put in command of the Army of the Potomac, the sixth man to command the east; the two armies are about to meet in Gettysburg.
468ff [On the Battle of Gettysburg: the author does his best here, but note that it is impossible to describe this multi-day engagement in text, you really have to go to the national park or look at a video (say for example Ken Burns' treatment of it in his documentary) where you can see the movements of the troops over the course of the battle.] Interesting also to read here General Longstreet's concerns about the battle tactics and his concerns about whether or not Pickett should charge. This battle ended in significant losses to both sides; Lee's "second attempted invasion had ended more disastrously than the first."
Chapter 11:
476ff Postmortem on Gettysburg; the Confederates lost 28,000 casualties, around a third of Lee's entire force; if Meade had pursued him vigorously after the battle, instead of remaining in position, "he might have made Gettysburg a truly decisive victory." The author argues that Gettysburg destroyed Southern hopes for victory on Northern soil, as well as any chance for getting help from abroad; but it was Vicksburg [in the western theater of the war] which the Union took the day after Pickett's charge "that gave the Confederacy its mortal wound." Also on the increasing unpopularity of the Civil War in the North; on a three-day riot in New York City against "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight." On the ability of many people in New York and New England to buy "substitutes" for $300; also on huge corporate fortunes made: by the Armour Company in meatpacking, the Borden company in dairy products, Carnegie in iron and steel, Wyerhauser in lumber, Remington in guns, etc. [This is a who's who of major American companies, many of which still exist today] also comments here on inflation and wages not keeping up; see also France's invasion of Mexico in 1863 under Napoleon III, which was a flagrant violation of the Monroe doctrine but Lincoln could do nothing about it; see also fractiousness in the South where "states' rights" governors like Joseph Brown of Georgia suspended the draft and raised a militia of 10,000 men to defend Georgia, and Georgia alone. Also North Carolina "was so full of antiwar sentiment" that it almost seceded from the Confederacy [!]. Also very strong anti-war sentiment throughout the north as well. [Lots of examples here of things that rhyme when a country is on the late end of major conflict. You see how Cantillon insiders (anyone near the government moneyprinter) become unbelievably rich, you see the fractiousness all over society, inflation gets out of control with all the typical results, etc.]
480ff Also on bounties paid to soldiers who joined the Union army; soldiers would desert and then earn another bounty from another state; also on "bounty brokers" who sprang up as bounties rose to as high as $1,000 per man: these would go out and "find" men willing to enlist for a fee, typically doing various unethical things in the process; see also in the South the so-called "20 N*gger Law" which meant that plantation overseers [maybe we could think of them as a sort of proto-midlevel management class in the plantation/agrarian economy of the South] would be exempt from military service at the ratio of one to every 20 slaves; this enraged poor whites in the south.
482ff The Battle of Chickamauga; Lincoln names Grant chief of the Union forces in the west; and sends him to Chattanooga to salvage what was becoming a major Confederate victory there, as the Union forces were caught in a trap and potentially at risk of being forced into surrender. Ultimately the Battle of Chattanooga resulted in the Union having full control of the West, improving Grant's reputation to the point where he was put in charge of all the armies of the Union. Lincoln sarcastically suggested that all the timid generals who criticized Grant's drinking might do well to try Grant's brand of whiskey.
Chapter 12:
487ff March 9th, 1864: Grant receives command of all Union armies; Lincoln at last found his General; their strategic plan here was to wear down the Confederate armies with Sherman pushing Johnston towards Atlanta while Grant would attack Lee constantly in Virginia, such that neither Confederate force could help the other. "In the simplest terms, the pressure was to be applied everywhere and made unbearable." Also on the Battle of the Wilderness which was another seesaw battle with significant casualties on both sides; Lee's army almost collapsed here but was rescued at the last minute with the arrival of Longstreet with a force of Texans. Comments here on how Grant was now controlling the tempo and the pace of the war, he was dictating play, and was both stalking Lee and putting him on the defensive: "Lee's moves hereafter were to be in response to Grant's."
492ff On the Battle of Spotsylvania, and the so-called "Mule Shoe" a specific zone of this battle with incredibly bloody hand-to-hand fighting; also Jeb Stuart dies in battle, shot at by a Yankee footsoldier.
496 On the Battle of Cold Harbor, where the Union experienced huge losses as Grant once again failed to understand the new defensive war fighting style, ordering an all-out frontal assault all along Lee's line rather than massing at a single point; then Grant secretly launches a Robert E. Lee-like maneuver around Lee's rear to cut off his supply; then a lost opportunity to take Petersburg before the South reinforced it.
Chapter 13:
499ff Lincoln's re-election was coming up; the election was becoming more or less "a vote for or against continuing the war." The opposition was fractured among War Democrats, Peace Democrats, Copperheads; even Radical Republicans who thought the war wasn't being fought hard enough, etc. "The Confederacy did seem unshaken in the summer of 1864. It was in truth a hollow shell, its inside eaten away by economic ills, but most people only saw that hard outer rind." [It doesn't look like anything until the thing collapses, surprising everyone--except the postdicter pundits who are always "not surprised."] Note also here the Battle of the Crater outside Petersburg, costing another 4,000 Union soldiers; at this point Lincoln (and everyone else) thought that he would not be reelected. See also the Democratic convention which nominated George McClellan on a peace platform, and "as August ended it appeared that universal war weariness would put Little Mac in the White House." [Great example here of an entire political system bottomticking reality.]
502ff On another Union victory at Mobile, Alabama that destroyed the remaining Confederate fleet; also here was where admiral Farragut made his famous quote "Damn the torpedoes"--in this case torpedoes were actually the term used for mines; also Jefferson Davis foolishly replaces Joe Johnston with John Hood, a rash and reckless commander; Sherman was "delighted" with this: he knew that Hood would attack him in contravention of all intelligent military strategy and tactics; this led to the Union victory in Atlanta which electrified the North and essentially put Lincoln into office a second time. [Again a sobering instance where politicians really wreck things, as they typically don't understand the nature of war, and they further don't understand the on-the-ground nature of the specific conflict they are fighting: at this point the South was really, really losing, it couldn't win; all it could do was fight delaying actions, and it could never safely go on the offensive and score some amazing military victory at this point. Jefferson Davis needed the latter to survive politically and he put a rash leader in charge to get it; that action led to the undoing of the whole thing as it accelerated the South's collapse. We don't know what we're doing while we're doing it.]
504ff The Union decides to clear out the Shenandoah Valley and destroy all provisions there; comments here on increasing brutality from both sides as Andersonville became known in the North but also in the north the prisoner camp at Elmira was "only a bit less miserable." The union torching of the Shenandoah Valley caused Lee to send Jubal Early to drive Sheridan out of the Valley, this resulted in the Battle of Winchester which "was another Union victory to lift Lincoln's reviving political stock still higher." Interesting story here, quite an emotional one, on General Phil Sheridan, by himself, putting spine in his army during a retreat, and the famous Sheridan's Ride, this "turned defeat into victory and closed the Shenandoah to the South forever."
507ff "...in an event unique in history, a democracy engaged in a dreadful Civil War was electing a President." Lincoln wins reelection.
Chapter 14:
508ff On various innovations in warmaking: breech-loading rifles, barbed wire, hand grenades, rockets, booby traps, a submarine [!], machine guns, the first battle of ironclad naval ships, armored trains, land mines, trench warfare, field telegraphs, flag and lamp signaling, observation balloons; "the foundation for the arsenal of modern warfare had been laid." Also on Sherman's total war in Georgia, Sherman seen as the first of the modern strategists, a truly original mind, seeing that modern industrialized war was not just a military conflict, but a conflict on the level of an entire society's war-making potential; on Sherman as "an unusually perceptive, gifted and complicated human being." Also on Sherman deciding to abandon his supply line and lead 60,000 men from Atlanta to Savannah as an army of "human locusts" that would devour all the food it needed from the countryside and "make Georgia howl": first burning Atlanta and then moving on a 60 mile-wide front during harvest time, combing the countryside and destroying everything. On Sherman's quote from his Memoirs: "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it."
512ff In the meantime General Hood was driving into Tennessee: interesting here how Sherman ignored him and faced the other way to do his march; but the various successes the Confederates were having against the Union army turned out to be temporary anyway: the Union general Thomas ended up defeating him anyway, making this "the South's last gasp in the West."
513ff On frustration with Jefferson Davis in the South: Davis simply didn't get it, he didn't see that this wasn't a war like he'd imagined, it was civilization against civilization, mechanized economy against what was now a starving agrarian economy; on a secret peace mission between Confederate VP Alexander Stephens and Lincoln and Seward, Stephens suggested the two camps unite to join to evict the French from Mexico in defense of the Monroe Doctrine, but Lincoln replied that he would not negotiate unless the Confederacy agreed to return to the Union and abolish slavery; thus the war went on. Note also that there were so many desertions in the South at this point that the Confederacy passed a law conscripting slaves, a deeply gross irony here as slaves were basically fighting to preserve their own enslavement.
514ff Finally Lee decided to bet on a breakout from Petersburg to join Johnston; they hoped to get down into the Carolinas and then overwhelm Sherman; after which both the armies would return to defeat Grant; but the attempted breakout failed and then Grant attacked all along the Rebel line.
516ff While in church, Jefferson Davis receives a message from Lee advising him to flee Richmond, VA tonight; the city more or less descends into chaos, as the people there begin looting their own city.
518ff Lee, retreating, unable to obtain rations, is invited to surrender by Grant but refuses; Lee attempts to fight another rearguard action to get to Appomattox station; on Lee's final surrender at the McLean House, which was owned by the same guy who owned the same home that General Beauregard took over during the First Battle of Bull Run [a major war over years produces all these weird coincidences]. Grant permits the Confederate soldiers to keep their own horses and mules and take them home to work their farms; after obtaining this concession from Grant, Lee says, "This will have the best possible effect on a man. It will be very gratifying and will do much toward conciliating our people."
Vocab:
tatterdemalions: a person in tattered clothing; also can be used to describe something as ragged, unkempt, or dilapidated
kedge: A small anchor used to move a vessel by carrying out a kedge in a boat, dropping it overboard, and hauling the vessel up to it
uti possidetis: under possession
nolens volens: like it or not; whether a person wants or likes something or not (lit. "unwilling willing")
To Read:
Francis Parkman: The Pioneers of France in the New World
Francis Parkman: A Half-Century of Conflict
Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Influence of Sea Power upon History 1660-1783
Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.: The Patriotic Chiefs: A Chronicle of American Indian Leadership
Christopher Hibbert: Wolfe at Quebec
Christopher Ward: The War of the Revolution
John C. Miller: Triumph of Freedom, 1775-1783
***Willard M. Wallace: Appeal to Arms
Harry L. Coles: The War of 1812
Marquis James: The Life of Andrew Jackson
Robert Selph Henry: The Story of the Mexican War
Justin H. Smith: The War with Mexico (2 vols)
Samuel Elliot Morison: The Oxford History of the American People
Douglas Southall Freeman: Lee's Lieutenants
William Tecumseh Sherman: Memoirs