View single post by pamc153PA
 Posted: Sun Nov 2nd, 2008 02:58 pm
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pamc153PA
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Joined: Sat Jun 14th, 2008
Location: Boyertown, Pennsylvania USA
Posts: 407
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Mana: 
 I am always awed at the volume of info Johan can impart--and feel lucky about it, too, that he isn't stingy about sharing it. The whole group of you is one huge resource for me, thankfully!

I think that if I were Gordon, Lee, or Cleburne, especially at the end of the war, I would look longingly at that large resource of black men as a way to avoid the attrition issue. I found Lee's letters (if they are a legitimate source--Johan?) to be surprisingly magnanimous as to conditions to be expected for black troops. But I also found the fact that wealthy slave owners were not open to this "solution"--enlisting their property, for that was what it was--sort of a metaphor for an important issue with the South's reasons for war at all. Correct me if I'm off base here, but wasn't state's rights to govern themselves a main sticking point? Sort of like they wanted to fight for their rights against a federal government, yet above that was the importance of their own state's rights to government? Is this too simplistic of a view? Feedback?

Pam