Fighting Ourselves
Editorial by: Phillip J. Wilson

There are many different trains of thought on why the Confederacy lost the war. Those range from lack of supplies and manpower to an act of God himself, on behalf of Slavery. It is this editors belief it was something much simpler. Simple Politics. To understand what I mean, we must regress and decide what the South was fighting for. Lot's would say slavery. Some would say economics. I believe it was a smidgen of both, in a grand package called States Rights. Which by the way, was basically what we fought for in the Revolutionary war, but that is another story. Now, for the Confederacy to win the war, we would have had to Join ourselves, at least temporarily, into one Nation. Here lies the problem.
States Rights would give each State basically it's own Government. With this on the mind of each Governor, it became increasingly more difficult for Jefferson Davis to be effective in his office as President of the Confederacy. Without President Davis having the power to take men, money and supplies from each state, as opposed to requesting it, it made his job an exercise in futility.
As the war drug on, this became more and more of a problem. It also caused irratation between the State Governments and the CSA Government.
So, when I say it was simple politics that lost the South the war, it was politics, but not all that simple!
We were fighting against the very thing that was necassary to gain our Freedom. Central Government!

General McClellen; Friend or Foe?

By: Phillip J. Wilson

George B. McClellen was commander of The Army of the Potomac, during several major battles of the Civil War. The two that I will focus on in this piece are The Peninsular Campaign, and Antietam. During both of the battles, Gen McClellen had overpowering numbers, which he did not make use of. Why didn't he use his massive numbers or tactical locations against the Confederacy? Did he want to win the War? I will attempt to answer those questions.

During the Peninsular Campaign, it is said that he didn't attack head-on, because he was receiving false information from his intelligence officer. This is true, he was. But he had to know that the numbers he was hearing concerning confederate strength were not entirely true. Most accounts say that he didn't want to risk having his precious army destroyed, which made him hesitant to enter the fight. I have read several accounts from staff officers who fought with Gen McClellen, which say that he said, "I wish that we could just go back to the way it was in 1860".

At the battle of Antietam, he had the "lost order". This order was confirmed as authentic by his staff. It gave him the whole battle plan of the Army of Northern Virginia, yet he still didn't act. He had the opportunity to crush the confederate army right then. All he had to do, was act on his fortunate discovery. Yet, he was still slow to send his army into battle.

Now, to answer my questions I posed earlier. First, I do believe that he did want to win the war. He was too proud a man, not to want to bask in the glory of victory. On the other hand, I think that he didn't want to beat the confederacy in a way that would cause his country to change. I am not sure how he hoped to win the war and return to the way things were in 1860, but I believe that is what he had in mind. He did think that if things went on the way they were, that both sides would just say stop. I think he was hoping that they would loose intrest. That is why he didn't use his overpowering numbers or his intelligence coup, "the lost order", in a timely manner, which could have ended the war.

These Articles are the opinion of the Webpage Author. Any comments can be sent to Me. Have a very Confederate Day.

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