Booth's brother

[olyinaz]

A Unionist. Go figure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Booth

[bdhold]

Maryland.
It was certainly prevalent in the border states, but there were many divided families (there were in the American Revolution, too).
The real driving force for the war was the fact that non-slave agriculture could not compete with the southern slave-based plantations. The war was about economy.
Where my family was from, McNairy Co., Tennessee, there was more guerrilla war between clans and within families than on the Missouri-Kansas border. In the immediate family of my direct ancestor, one brother was a cavalry officer under Forrest, and his brother was a Union private.

[Griff]

Yep, the Booths were the Carradines of 19th century American theatre. And, I suppose every family has a black sheep.

[horsesoldier03]

The dad should have know that dressing them in tights was bound to make them have a few behavioral disorders.

[Charles]

Color me cynical, but I doubt Edwin Booth's loyalties had anything to do with conviction. His fame and fortune came from the urban North and not the rural South. He knew which side of his bread had the butter.

[bdhold]

The dad should have know that dressing them in tights was bound to make them have a few behavioral disorders.

you didn't look at the photo - he's wearing a skirt and high-strap pumps.

[Blaine]

I wish we could have traded Lee for McClellan.... What a loser and puss. A real General could have had Richmond taken in 1862

[bdhold]

Lee was first offered the command of Army of the Potomac. He went with Virginia instead.
While he would have ended the First Civil War of Secession, saving 400,000 lives, we would have fought a Second Civil War over slavery.

[Blaine]

Lee was first offered the command of Army of the Potomac. He went with Virginia instead.
While he would have ended the First Civil War of Session, saving 400,000 lives, we would have fought a Second Civil War over slavery.

You do realize that your last statement blows out of the water the contention that the War Was NEVER about slavery? It was, Suh, all about slavery.

[bdhold]

the war on paper was over secession, and secession was over a fear of losing slavery, but the real cause of the war was market competition in agriculture.

There were four days of riots in New York and Boston over the Emancipation Proclamation.
OK, on paper the riots were over conscription (which the south didn't have).
But the point was, people in the north were not willing to be drafted and die to free black slaves.

[Blaine]

The CSA most certainly had conscription:
-snip-
"Although both sides resorted to conscription, the system did not work effectively in either. The Confederate Congress on April 16, 1862, passed an act requiring military service for three years from all males aged eighteen to thirty-five not legally exempt; it later extended the obligation. The U.S. Congress followed with the Militia Act of 1862 authorizing a militia draft within a state when it could not meet its quota with volunteers. This state-administered system failed in practice and in 1863 Congress passed the Enrollment Act, the first genuine national conscription law, setting up under the Union Army an elaborate machinery for enrolling and drafting men between twenty and forty-five years of age. Quotas were assigned in each state, the deficiencies in volunteers required to be met by conscription."

About half the conscripts for the South and North never showed up. It's interesting to note that Jefferson Davis, who proclaimed an absolute state's rights agenda completely stepped on and trampled his own CSA constitution by enacting his national conscription law. The CSA were outraged that Davis had usurped their power to raise armies....It's also interesting to note that slave owners would later be exempted from military service.

[Hobie]

Yes indeed the south or rather their individual states had conscription. Alabama even described the draft/conscription units as such. One of my wife's 2XGreat-Grandfathers was drafted. He died in a Federal POW camp at New Orleans that same year.

[horsesoldier03]

I wish we could have traded Lee for McClellan.... What a loser and puss. A real General could have had Richmond taken in 1862

McClellan was one of the worst generals of the civil war, his greatest success was the procurement of the McClellan Saddle, which many a cav trooper would argue as being much of an accomplishment. McClellan was actually relieved of command twice as he had problems getting his soldiers into the fight. When Gen. Joseph Hooker took command, his comments to Lincoln were that the men were demoralized from constantly being defeated in battles and that he needed additional time to get them battle ready. One of his moral boosters was to set up a camp of prostitues adjacent to their camp. The prostitues became known as the HOOKER Brigade and that is where the term HOOKER was first associated with prostitues.

On second thought, I have little doubt that alot of Soldiers were grateful that McClellan lost his command, maybe that was his greatest accomplishment?

[Blaine]

Yes indeed the south or rather their individual states had conscription. Alabama even described the draft/conscription units as such. One of my wife's 2XGreat-Grandfathers was drafted. He died in a Federal POW camp at New Orleans that same year.

No...Davis started a CSA national draft....Please look. The Governors were outraged....


http://www.history.com/topics/confedera ... of-america


Snip from above:





Keeping the ranks of the armies filled became difficult as casualties mounted and enthusiasm faded. In April 1862, Congress, on the advice of Davis, passed the first draft law in American history, which took into Confederate service all white men between eighteen and thirty-five. Liberal exemptions (including one white exemption for every twenty slaves owned) weakened the law. But the courts upheld it and most people accepted it as necessary, an attitude that persisted even after February 1864, when the age limits were extended to seventeen and fifty and substitutes were prohibited. In March 1865 blacks finally were enrolled in Confederate ranks, but very few served.

[Hobie]

Yes indeed the south or rather their individual states had conscription. Alabama even described the draft/conscription units as such. One of my wife's 2XGreat-Grandfathers was drafted. He died in a Federal POW camp at New Orleans that same year.

No...Davis started a CSA national draft....Please look. The Governors were outrages...

CSA draft enacted April 16, 1862, more than a year before the federal government BUT this effort was almost completely administered on a local basis allowing for a lot of latitude or variation in enforcement from one jurisdiction to another. It was a real patchwork and if you then consider the varying levels of loyalty to the two principal governments (or to neither) and those who hid out and the local forces raised to hunt them down you might see a NATIONAL conscription that was at best a state effort or sometimes a county by county effort depending on where you might be. Western North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky as well as Missouri were hotbeds of bushwacking where individual loyalties might well be construed as being more important than any other influence. There was a rise in criminal activity operating under the banner of one side or the other in an attempt to attach some legitimacy to simple brigandage. Some men enlisted and died just trying to make the best of a bad situation. In many (most perhaps) ways it was worse than the draft dodging we remember during the Vietnam War era.

[Griff]

The dad should have know that dressing them in tights was bound to make them have a few behavioral disorders.

you didn't look at the photo - he's wearing a skirt and high-strap pumps.

Also likely to have caused some issues!

And really...? WE'RE going to argue about this? All I remember about it was what my grandmother told me... and that from her father's stories about HIS father. We weren't there! Were we? Yes there was conscription on both sides, according to those stories... and no the WAR of Northern AGGRESSION was over state's rights. Popularily sold to both sides on the basis of slavery. As with all wars, the victors will justify their actions by casting them in the best of lights, and the vanquished will argue for the truth.

[Blaine]

and no the WAR of Northern AGGRESSION was over state's rights. Popularily sold to both sides on the basis of slavery. As with all wars, the victors will justify their actions by casting them in the best of lights, and the vanquished will argue for the truth

Gawd...same, tired, old whining....You fired the first shot, and we kicked your azz....How much can that possibly be twisted and "justified"...Try harder next time...

Hobie, all draft programs were administrated at the local level.....I don't recall FDR classifying eligible young fellas....The FACT remains that Davis usurped states rights, and made a national law....States Rights my azzz.....

[Booger Bill]

Did you read the part where edward booth saved lincolns son from injury or possible death in a fall at a train station?

[bdhold]

The CSA most certainly had conscription:
-snip-
"Although both sides resorted to conscription, the system did not work effectively in either. The Confederate Congress on April 16, 1862, passed an act requiring military service for three years from all males aged eighteen to thirty-five not legally exempt; it later extended the obligation. The U.S. Congress followed with the Militia Act of 1862 authorizing a militia draft within a state when it could not meet its quota with volunteers. This state-administered system failed in practice and in 1863 Congress passed the Enrollment Act, the first genuine national conscription law, setting up under the Union Army an elaborate machinery for enrolling and drafting men between twenty and forty-five years of age. Quotas were assigned in each state, the deficiencies in volunteers required to be met by conscription."

About half the conscripts for the South and North never showed up. It's interesting to note that Jefferson Davis, who proclaimed an absolute state's rights agenda completely stepped on and trampled his own CSA constitution by enacting his national conscription law. The CSA were outraged that Davis had usurped their power to raise armies....It's also interesting to note that slave owners would later be exempted from military service.

fairnuf

thanks Hobie and Blaine

Did you read the part where edward booth saved lincolns son from injury or possible death in a fall at a train station?

cool stuff - it certainly left him above suspicion when the smoke cleared

the war was over economics - the states never had the right to secede, though I believe we will see it in the future without a shot being fired.
There is no greater class division than owning another human being. Don't give me the benign slaveholder stuff, either - it's revisionist bunk.
In many ways, our nation is becoming more colloquial than it was in 1860, and it's not right for a few big cities to rule and tax our whole nation.

azzkicking? No, the south lost the final battle but won the war until the 1960s - they didn't even lose their slaves until WWII manufacturing moved them to Detroit and Cleveland. In my lifetime, my grandfather paid them $0.02/lb to pick cotton. You ever picked 50 lbs of cotton? 100 lbs? What does it take to live on? (OK, I'll be fair - he paid the same thing to me, my cousins, aunts, uncles, neighbors - anyone who wanted to pick cotton)
Even though he fed them lunch at the dinner table where my Ma'am-ma cooked biscuits and cornbread for every meal (the breakfast cornbread was for the dogs, who also got the leftover gravy). More revisionist bunk - no, my Pap-pa didn't hate blacks - he loved everybody, and everybody loved him. But he took advantage of them. Doesn't matter that everyone else did it and you could justify it by the economics. Back to that economics thing.

It was God who made the war about slavery.
It was God who called Pickett's charge.

Two sides as prayed up as they were - God's will was done.