November 3, 2004
THE NEXT 70:
1864 Redux? (William J. Stuntz, 11/02/2004, Tech Central Station)
Outside Atlanta, Sherman and Joe Johnston, later John Bell Hood, maneuvered for advantage. But Sherman's army was at once bigger and more mobile -- as it soon proved in its march through South Carolina's swamps. Also better armed, and vastly better supplied.In Petersburg and in Georgia, there was only one possible outcome of a fight, whenever the fight came. The South was finished. The North had won.
Unless the North decided it had had enough. Lincoln was right about the country's resources -- they really were inexhaustible. But Northern patience could be exhausted. It nearly was: a few months before Lincoln faced the voters in November 1864, he famously wrote his cabinet a letter to be opened after the election, instructing them to work with soon-to-be President McClellan to save the Union before McClellan would take office in March 1865. Lincoln was sure he was going to lose, and feared that McClellan's success at the polls would mean Northern surrender on the battlefield. Lincoln's fear was Robert E. Lee's hope.
It seems impossible to us now: How could Northern voters even think of walking away when victory was certain? Grant had Lee in his grasp; there would be no more Chancellorsvilles or Fredericksburgs, no more magic flanking movements that rolled up whole corps. Sherman's army could move at will through the heart of the Confederacy, eating its fill from the South's farms and burning what was left. Surely the North wouldn't tell Sherman to turn around and march back to Ohio, or tell Grant to leave Lee's dwindling forces in peace. Not when victory was so close.
But it was possible, and for a very simple reason: Northern voters did not understand how close the victory was. When Atlanta fell that September, they began to see the true situation; Lincoln's election was then secure. But Atlanta had not changed the strategic situation one whit: the South was beaten well before the city fell. Instead, Atlanta changed the political situation; it gave the Northern electorate a clearer, more accurate picture of the war's status and likely outcome.
George W. Bush is no Abraham Lincoln, and Iraq is not at all like the Petersburg trenches. But there are some important similarities.
The presidential election of 1992 remains the most important of our lifetime, because with the Cold War ending the winner was certain to enjoy a massive peace dividend and reap the benefits of the ensuing peace and prosperity. Had Geoirge H. W. Bush had sense enough not to raise taxes and easily won re-election in '92 the country's transition back to a permanent Republican majority would not have had to wait until 2000. But, even more importantly, had Biull Clinton governed as the Third Way Democrat he ran as, and moved his party as far Right as Tony Blair has moved Labour, the Republicans would have been toast. It was only be the grace of Hillary's Health Care Plan and President Clinton's stumbles on social issues--guns and gays--that the Republicans were saved.
Now, as the shgooting phase of the War on Terror winds down, President Bush and the GOP will get the benefit of the victories they won, something which eluded the partyt despite Ronald Reagan winning the Cold War. By using the coming years to extend school choice to poor folk and expand upon the Ownership Society in ways that will predominately aid those Americans who don't have personal savings now, Republicans can permanently alter the political landscape and lock in the kind of majority that Lincoln gave the GOP, which lasted from 1860-1932, and FDR gave Democrats, which lasted from 1932-2000.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 3, 2004 12:29 PMWell, well, who would have thought the South won the war.
The South has risen.
It's not the same South it was back then.
Posted by: Mike Morley at November 3, 2004 1:34 PMThe most interesting thing, to me, about Stuntz's summary is that in 1864, Northerners did not understand how close they were to victory.
Victory was assured back in 1862, when New Orleans was captured.
Just goes to show, I guess, that most folks cannot understand grand strategy.
Some things never change.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 3, 2004 1:47 PMThat remains to be seen. I'm banking on the power of religion.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 3, 2004 8:46 PMThe most important election of my lifetime was in 1980 because that ended the arch-KEynesian economics and the policy of surrender to the Soviets.
This one is second, because it is a clear recognition by Americans that Old Europe is worthless and we should turn our backs on them like Paul Sorvino did to Ray Liotta.
Posted by: Bart at November 3, 2004 10:27 PMYou're wrong Harry.
The war could have easily been lost by the North tiring of the expenditure and loss of life just as in Vietnam.
And shouldn't McKinley be getting some credit?
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at November 4, 2004 12:46 AMHarry:
As Europe testifies, religion is less powerful than History.
Posted by: oj at November 4, 2004 8:17 AMSure the Soviets days were always 'numbered' but that was true of Imperial Spain, another hollow empire based on plunder, violence and totalitarianism. Yet, they hung on for a hundred years after the Spanish Armada.
Reagan hastened the collapse of the Evil Empire. Reagan ended the defeatism that plagued America, and that is not chopped liver. Reagan changed the intellectual climate of the US, ending the notion that Big Government is Better Government. Not bad for a B-movie actor from Downstate Illinois.
Posted by: Bart at November 4, 2004 9:35 AMA hundred? It lasted another three hundred, because great.
Communism lasted seven decades because unworkable.
Posted by: oj at November 4, 2004 9:52 AMThe Spanish Empire was ended as a serious force in 1660 after losing the War of the Pyrennees to the French, losing Rousillon in the process and then being crushed by the bullionism crisis. It limped along in some form until 1898 but was a mere shell, even more of a sick man than the Ottoman Empire. The constant civil wars and the succession crises where it was a mere tableau for the big boys to play on should tell you something.
Posted by: Bart at November 4, 2004 10:36 AMIt was the only European nation to successfully defeat Communist revolution and ward off Nazi aggression.
Posted by: oj at November 4, 2004 10:51 AMThe Francoist victory was the result of Stalin's co-optng the Popular Front by being the only world leader to actively back them and then betraying them as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. He stopped the arms and left them high and dry.
How did the Spanish ward off Nazi aggression? Franco knew that if he actively supported Hitler, he'd have gotten whomped by the Americans and the British. He did send troops to aid Hitler on the Eastern Front, calling them 'volunteers.' And it took till the mid-1950s to rationalize his relations with the rest of Europe and that was only the result of pressure from the Nazi-loving Dullest brothers.
Posted by: Bart at November 4, 2004 11:10 AMThe Americans weren't coming and the Brits were losing.
Posted by: oj at November 4, 2004 11:45 AMBy the time he consolidated his power, the Americans were already in the war and Hitler had turned on his Soviet friends. Once that occured, it was only a matter of time before the Germans got squashed. He was smart enough to see the writing on the wall, before people like Serrano Suner did.
Franco was a master politician, even switching gears in the mid-50s loosening state control of the economy under the advice of Manuel Fraga, in a manner that presaged Pinochet in Chile.
In any event, I was talking about the Spanish Empire not the rump state remaining today.
Posted by: Bart at November 4, 2004 12:21 PMBart:
That's historically inaccurate, of course, but good Leftist cant:
http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/693/
Posted by: oj at November 4, 2004 12:34 PMMr. Choudhury, I think not. Northerners recognized they were fighting for something, the Union, which was important to them. Nothing in Vietnam was ever important to us.
Furthermore, the losses in 1862 were so large that it brought out Americans' stubbornness.
I suspect that if we'd had 500,000 killed in Vietnam, or had had 50,000 killed in one year instead of spread over several years, we'd have stayed until every last hooch had been burned.
(I have always thought that Franco learned from the Turks that staying out of a general European war was better than getting in. Heck, even the Turks learned that.)
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 4, 2004 4:27 PM