Question of the Week: What non-military aspect of the Civil War do you find most interesting?
Politics, Diplomacy, Medicine, Enslavement, Economics, something else? Besides military history, what aspect of the Civil War do you enjoy learning about?
Politics, Diplomacy, Medicine, Enslavement, Economics, something else? Besides military history, what aspect of the Civil War do you enjoy learning about?
Logistics
I study the geology and the geography of battlefields. Ed Bearrs always said that the terrain decides who is able to survive, who is wounded and who is killed in action.
And also by adding a “hard” science to a discussion or tour of a battlefield, you are elevating the presentation to a more serious level.
Finance and law.
The Federal Government continued to look past the South and realized the future was the settlement of the West. The one example was the passage of the Homestead Act of 1862. Which It indicates the Country could chew gum and walk at the same time. With this passage of this act, it appears to me that Congress and Lincoln were attempting to isolate the Confederacy.
Outside of military history, I enjoy unusual, quirky, and obscure topics like outliers, folklore and coincidences. Home front dissent as well.
Economics- How did both sides finance their efforts. Currency is also a favorite, because there is such a wide variety.
Geopolitics of the time. International relations.
Development of Greenbacks to fund the war!
The Lieber Code. In my research and academic presentations on the nature of war and war’s forms and patterns, the phenomenon of “total” or “absolute war” (and wars of annihilation vs. wars of attrition or exhaustion) as they gradually unfolded in the American Civil War and the introduction of the Lieber Code combine to produce a complex web of contradictions and ambiguities that still characterize and influence modern wars and warfare. It is a staple of thoughtful inquiry in the discussion of the “Just War ” tradition (“Jus in Bello, Jus ad Bellum”) as it has morphed and matured over the centuries. Dr. Paul Severance
Logistics, War effort, war management.
Hi, Bert. I have to totally agree with your observation w/war management; effort; and war termination. In most of my experiences attending other people’s staff rides, there is rarely if ever, any discussion of the writings of the “Dead Saints” (Jomini, Frederick, Clausewitz, Eccles, Liddell-Hart) and how the enduring principles, theories, concepts, etc., of war were either applied and/or (in most cases) ignored. Ergo, in my 400+ staff rides/field studies I conducted at National Defense University (and beyond), my principle “carrier wave” was consistently the strategic and operational dimensions of war and warfare for the conduct of the war. Comprehension-wise, it’s arguably tough sledding for “Joe Citizen,” but nonetheless important to understanding how wars start and finish and how they are pursued in the interim. Paul
I find that the events contributing and leading up to the Civil War the most interesting. I also wonder if there was any way it could have been avoided and the union preserved.
Emancipation
The least surprising answer here, Tim!
I find two areas interesting. The first is diplomatic relations with European and South America nations especially involving maritime commerce and relationships.
The second is the growth of sanitation commissions and their competition with each other for primacy.
Reconstruction and the consequences of its end
The facts and truth behind the myths and propaganda.
For example, we’re told it was a war of Abolition, yet in 1860, only 2% of Northerners identified as Abolitionists, and just a quarter of them, 0.5%, actually joined Abolitionist societies. At that time, the height of slavery, just 0.008% of Americans owned slaves, and the Federal Government didn’t get around to amending the Constitution to ban slavery, and get that amendment ratified, until eight months after the war ended. No society with an issue that held so little support amongst the populace has ever gone to war over it.
Your statistics are a little off. 1.4% of Americans owned slaves in 1860, about 7.4% of households. Still a small minority, but far, far from 0.008
Interesting and useful “arguments” WRT to statistics. I hold an MS in Operations Research and Systems Analysis. One view that I would offer is that statistics is a straight line from a prejudiced opinion to a foregone conclusion :-)! A second thought about statistics was offered by one of my professors at USC: My wife and I only have 2 children because statics show that every third child born in the US is oriental. OK. it’s clearly inappropriate in today’s environment of DEI, but nonetheless instructive in cautioning people to regard statistics with a “clear eye (to quote BG John Buford) and a reasoned degree of care. Not a sermon ; just a thought.
The politics and political commentary of both the North and South. Twitter/X would have been something else at the time.
The logistics involved in organizing and maintaining a campaign.
Civil War memory – how Americans remember (and misremember) the conflict. ~Mark
Civilian wartime diaries, especially by women who were acute observers…