Author: Joseph HoltPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Judge advocates
Languages : en
Pages : 32
Book Description
The Fallacy of Neutrality
Author: Joseph HoltPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Judge advocates
Languages : en
Pages : 32
Book Description
Secession and the U.S. Mail
Author: Conrad KalmbacherPublisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1481744143
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
In Secession and the U. S. Mail: The Postal Service, The South, and Sectional Controversy, Conrad Kalmbacher tells the little known story of over fifty years of dissension between the Post Office Department and the South, culminating in the department's role in the events leading to secession and the Guns of April 1861. Severe reductions and retrenchment in mail service throughout the South and on Mississippi River steamboats during the administration of Postmaster General Joseph Holt, 1859-1860, angered southern senators and congressmen against the federal government. Deploring the postmaster general's policy, southern leaders called Holt "our bitter foe" who, "by a mere stroke of his pen" had curtailed mail service in the South "to such a degree as to render it no service at all." Because of this bitter anger, one Pulitzer Prize-winning historian characterized Holt's policy as "one of the less tangible factors leading to secession." Drawing on House and Senate documents, postmasters general reports, and Congressional debates, as well as personal letters, diaries, memoirs, and newspapers of the time, the author makes extensive use of primary sources. The book details how antagonisms between the Postal Service and the South had their beginnings early on in American history: "Continual debates questioned whether the South received its fair share of federal dollars for post offices and post routes. Southerners defended the maintenance of unprofitable mail routes in remote areas. Negro postriders caused resentment among Southerners. And years of controversy inflamed the South over the distribution of abolitionist literature through the mails." Today, when the role of government is a central issue in American politics, it is revealing to consider the ominous signposts of 1859-1860, as the Post Office Department - at that time the principal political agency of the federal government – became embroiled in overheated debate, partisan bickering, and failed compromise.
Divided Loyalties
Author: James W. FinckPublisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1611211034
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 165
Book Description
On May 16, 1861, the Kentucky state legislature passed an ordinance declaring its neutrality, which the state’s governor, Beriah Magoffin, confirmed four days later. Kentucky’s declaration and ultimate support for the Union stood at odds with the state’s social and cultural heritage. After all, Kentucky was a slave state and enjoyed deep and meaningful connections to the new Confederacy. Much of what has been written to explain this curious choice concludes Kentucky harbored strong Unionist feelings. James Finck’s freshly written and deeply researched Divided Loyalties: Kentucky’s Struggle for Armed Neutrality in the Civil War shatters this conclusion. An in-depth study of the twelve months that decided Kentucky’s fate (November 1860 – November 1861), Divided Loyalties persuasively argues that the Commonwealth did not support neutrality out of its deep Unionist’s sentiment. In fact, it was Kentucky’s equally divided loyalties that brought about its decision to remain neutral. Both Unionists and Secessionists would come to support neutrality at different times when they felt their side would lose. Along the way, Dr. Finck examines the roles of the state legislature, the governor, other leading Kentuckians, and average citizens to understand how Kentuckians felt about the prospects of war and secession, and how bloodshed could be avoided. The finely styled prose is built upon a foundation of primary sources including letters, journals, newspapers, government documents, and published reports. By focusing exclusively on one state, one issue, and one year, Divided Loyalties provides a level of detail that will deeply interest both Kentuckians and Civil War enthusiasts alike. Kentucky’s final decision was the result of intrigue and betrayal within the Commonwealth while armies gathered around its borders waiting for any opportunity to invade. And it was within this heated environment that Kentuckians made the most important decision in their history.
The Rivers Ran Backward
Author: Christopher PhillipsPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195187237
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 528
Book Description
Most Americans imagine the Civil War in terms of clear and defined boundaries of freedom and slavery: a straightforward division between the slave states of Kentucky and Missouri and the free states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kansas. However, residents of these western border states, Abraham Lincoln's home region, had far more ambiguous identities-and contested political loyalties-than we commonly assume. In The Rivers Ran Backward, Christopher Phillips sheds light on the fluid political cultures of the "Middle Border" states during the Civil War era. Far from forming a fixed and static boundary between the North and South, the border states experienced fierce internal conflicts over their political and social loyalties. White supremacy and widespread support for the existence of slavery pervaded the "free" states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, which had much closer economic and cultural ties to the South, while those in Kentucky and Missouri held little identification with the South except over slavery. Debates raged at every level, from the individual to the state, in parlors, churches, schools, and public meeting places, among families, neighbors, and friends. Ultimately, the pervasive violence of the Civil War and the cultural politics that raged in its aftermath proved to be the strongest determining factor in shaping these states' regional identities, leaving an indelible imprint on the way in which Americans think of themselves and others in the nation. The Rivers Ran Backward reveals the complex history of the western border states as they struggled with questions of nationalism, racial politics, secession, neutrality, loyalty, and even place-as the Civil War tore the nation, and themselves, apart. In this major work, Phillips shows that the Civil War was more than a conflict pitting the North against the South, but one within the West that permanently reshaped American regions.
From Property to Person
Author: Silvana R. SiddaliPublisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807130421
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
Most historians accept the proposition that in the first two years of the Civil War the North's primary aim was to reestablish the Union and the Constitution, not to emancipate slaves. But when northerners began clamoring for the confiscation of southern land and slaves as a punitive, military, and revenue-raising tactic, the constitutional right to personal property, particularly human property, came into question. In From Property to Person, Silvana R. Siddali traces the resulting discourse among northern voters, politicians, military leaders, and President Lincoln, elucidating how emancipation ultimately became an essential political cause in the North. After the outbreak of civil war, many northern citizens demanded that slaves be seized as contraband without necessarily endorsing their emancipation. Siddali examines the public and political debates in the North over southerners' private property rights and explains how these deliberations set in motion the first major reconsideration of the Constitution since the Bill of Rights. Fundamental questions arose: Who had the right to control the war effort? What were the rights of rebellious citizens in a democratic Republic? How did one define human bondage that is implicitly protected in the nation's founding documents? Would the destruction of slavery irreparably damage the Constitution? Through the two Confiscation Acts of 1861 and 1862, the author argues, Americans worked out a conundrum between property rights and constitutionally protected civil liberties. The right of all human beings to freedom now trumped white southerners' right to human property. In a rich analysis of editorials, pamphlets, letters, and congressional speeches, From Property to Person reveals the swift transformation in rhetoric concerning the Constitution and its protection of private property rights. The Confiscation Acts paved the way for the Reconstruction Amendments by fostering support for a broader reach by the federal government into private property rights and envisioning a new interpretation of an individual citizen's rights and obligations.
Bibliotheca Americana
Author: Joseph SabinPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : America
Languages : en
Pages : 582
Book Description
A Dictionary of Books Relating to America
Author: Joseph SabinPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : America
Languages : en
Pages : 584
Book Description
Ohio Valley History
Author: Bibliotheca Americana
Author: Joseph SabinPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : America
Languages : en
Pages : 1154
Book Description
Confederate Generals in the Western Theater, Vol. 3
Author: Lawrence L. HewittPublisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1572337907
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman";}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; line-height: 200%; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } The American Civil War was won and lost on its western battlefields, but accounts of triumphant Union generals such as Grant and Sherman leave half of the story untold. In the third volume of Confederate Generals in the Western Theater, editors Lawrence Hewitt and Arthur Bergeron bring together ten more never-before-published essays filled with new, penetrating insights into the key question of why the Rebel high command in the West could not match the performance of Robert E. Lee in the East. Showcasing the work of such gifted historians as Wiley Sword, Timothy B. Smith, Rory T. Cornish, and M. Jane Johansson, this book is a compelling addition to an ongoing, collective portrait of generals who occasionally displayed brilliance but were more often handicapped by both geography and their own shortcomings. While the vast, varied terrain of the Western Theater slowed communications and troop transfers and led to the creation of too many military departments that hampered cooperation among commands, even more damaging were the personal qualities of many of the generals. All too frequently, incompetence, egotism, and insubordination were the rule rather than the exception. Some of these men were undone by alcoholism and womanizing, others by politics and nepotism. A few outlived their usefulness; others were killed before they could demonstrate their potential. Together, they destroyed what chance the Confederacy had of winning its independence. Whether adding fresh fuel to the debate over the respective roles of Albert Sidney Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard at Shiloh or bringing to light such lesser known figures as Joseph Finegan and Hiram Bronson Granbury, this volume, like the ones preceding it, is an exemplary contribution to Civil War scholarship. Lawrence Lee Hewitt is professor of history emeritus at Southeastern Louisiana University. A recipient of SLU’s President’s Award for Excellence in Research and the Charles L. Dufour Award for “outstanding achievements in preserving the heritage of the American Civil War,” he is a former managing editor of North & South. His publications include Port Hudson: Confederate Bastion on the Mississippi. The late Arthur W. Bergeron Jr. was a reference historian with the United States Army Military History Institute and a past president of the Louisiana Historical Association. Among his earlier books were Confederate Mobile and A Thrilling Narrative: The Memoir of a Southern Unionist.