[late]

@late, just how many "Rambo's" did the Taliban have?

You just proved my point.

The Taliban grew up dirt poor, and dying in combat was about the best thing that could happen to them.

Our Rambo wannabees wouldn't last 5 minutes. Sure, there would be terrorism, but that would be it. And terrorism is not revolution...

Washington gave up on militias because they suck.

[Doug64]

@late, that kind of thinking is what helped lead to the last civil war, and makes another one more likely. As for "terrorism is not revolution," I suspect the Republic of Ireland and Algeria might disagree with you.

[late]

@late, that kind of thinking is what helped lead to the last civil war, and makes another one more likely. As for "terrorism is not revolution," I suspect the Republic of Ireland and Algeria might disagree with you.

Look at what Republicans are doing, if you want to see the road to Hell.

The military resources we have are amazing, as long as you are not on the receiving end.

[Doug64]

1864

By the third winter of the war the character of the conflict has altered and the future is more definite. As hope lessens in the South it increases somewhat in the North. The Federal war objective is clear, made so by policy and action, implemented by manpower and material supremacy. Emancipation is an irrevocable commitment. Military conquest of the Confederacy is being pursued relentlessly. The Lincoln administration faces an election, but will that really make a difference?

In the South, they feel pressed back toward their inner bastion, and the dreams of Northern collapse, foreign intervention, lifting the blockade, and dramatic military victories become more and more nebulous. No military campaigns or great battles appear immediate, but the threat is there and many believe it is only a matter of time until disaster. The armies in Virginia, near Chattanooga, and elsewhere, are quiet, but guerrilla activities and small skirmishes are almost continuous. It is a time of regrouping, reassignment of commanders, and soul-searching.
 
January

Since November there has been no major military action and none is in immediate prospect. In areas of the Confederacy controlled by the North reconstruction efforts begin. The Federal Congress is becoming more conscious of the forthcoming elections. Routine fighting continues in many areas. The Confederacy has command problems, particularly in the West, and discontent with policies of the Davis administration increases in Richmond and throughout the remaining sections of the CSA.

January 1, Friday

Extreme cold sweeps across much of the North and South and temperatures below zero as far south as Memphis, Tennessee, and Cairo, Illinois, causes much suffering among the soldiers. The usual New Year’s Day ceremonies take place at both White Houses.

Despite the cold skirmishing breaks out at Dandridge, Tennessee, and Bunker Hill, West Virginia. For most of January there is only desultory firing against Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Until the 5th Federal cavalry sees action in Hampshire and Hardy counties, West Virginia, and a four-day expedition operates against Confederate guerrillas from Bealeton to Front Royal, Virginia. Throughout January minor operations occur in northeastern Arkansas with skirmishing at Lunenburg, Sylamore, and Sylamore Creek. Union action against Amerinds in the Humbolt District of California also continue for much of January. In Tennessee small-scale fighting between pro-Confederate elements and various Federal outposts and garrisons flare on several occasions. The Union Department of Kansas is reestablished as separate from that of Missouri.

[Doug64]

January 2, Saturday

The Confederate Senate confirms Senator George Davis of North Carolina as Attorney General, succeeding Wade Keyes, who has served ad interim since September. Davis, formerly a pro-Union Whig, has eventually supported secession.

In the New York market the price of gold rises steadily.

There is a light skirmish at LaGrange, Tennessee. Off Los Angeles, California, Federal troops occupy Santa Catalina Island, driving out squatters and possible smugglers.

[Doug64]

January 3, Sunday

Union cavalry enter Jonesville, in southwestern Virginia, driving out Confederates. Farther north Federals carry out a reconnaissance from Charles Town, West Virginia, to Winchester, Virginia. Another Northern scout operates from Memphis toward Hernando, Mississippi.

Major General Francis J. Herron assumes command of Union forces on the Rio Grande.

[Doug64]

January 4, Monday

President Davis, endeavoring to obtain food supplies for the Army of Northern Virginia, says to General Lee, “The emergency justifies impressment....”

A minor affair occurs at Lockwood’s Folly Inlet, North Carolina. For around ten days Federals operate around Sparta, Tennessee.

[Doug64]

January 5, Tuesday

President Lincoln suggests to Congress that bounties to volunteers be continued for at least a month and that the subject be reconsidered despite a resolution of Congress prohibiting the payment of the $300.

The fighting continues to be of little significance, with skirmishes at Lawrence’s Mill, Tennessee, and on the Pecos River near Fort Sumner, New Mexico Territory. The Confederates return to the town they were driven out of two days ago—Jonesville, in southwestern Virginia—and after a severe fight the Federals surrender over two hundred men.

[Doug64]

January 6, Wednesday

Confederate guerrillas attack the steamer Delta on the Mississippi, one of numerous such incidents occurring on the Western rivers. Skirmishes take place at Flint Hill, Virginia, and at Dalton, Georgia, both areas where the major armies remain at rest. Until near the end of the month Federal troops under Kit Carson operate against the Navajo Amerinds from Fort Canby, New Mexico Territory, to the Cañon de Chelly area. Many Navajos are sent to a reservation at Bosque Redondo in a sad condition.

President Davis suspends the execution of a Virginia private.

[Doug64]

January 7, Thursday

On Waccamaw Neck, South Carolina, near Charleston, a lieutenant and a private of the Twenty-first Georgia Cavalry capture twenty-five Federals. Other fighting occurs at Martin’s Creek, Arkansas, and Warrenton, Virginia.

The Confederacy names William Preston as envoy to Mexico.

Federal Judge Caleb Blood Smith, Secretary of the Interior in Lincoln’s Cabinet until December, 1862, dies in Indianapolis, Indiana.

President Lincoln commutes the death sentence in the case of another deserter “because I am trying to evade the butchering business lately.”

[late]

What Hath God Wrought is the pulitzer prize winning history of the period from the end of the war of 1812, to the beginning of the Civil War.

It's one of the best history books I've seen, and I've read a fair amount of academic history.

Right now I'm in the run up to the Civil War. I'd never paid attention to this era before. What a mess...

https://www.amazon.com/What-Hath-God-Wrought-Transformation/dp/0195392434/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1E9RX713H87VD&keywords=what+hath+god+wrought+the+transformation+of+america+1815-1848&qid=1641490885&sprefix=what+hath+god+wrought%2Caps%2C92&sr=8-1

[Doug64]

@late, “a mess” is certainly one way to describe it. The Mexican War pretty much finished off Manifest Destiny thanks to the implications of its incredible success, after that we had two warring domestic policies with foreign policy implications—the Civil War was just when that war shifted from words and ballots to bullets. That was actually what did in Stephen A. Douglas, as brilliant a politician as he may have been he was a Manifest Destiny man and never really adapted to the new reality. He blew up the Missouri Compromise because it was in his way, and set the ball rolling.

[Doug64]

January 8, Friday

In New Orleans, pro-Union elements convene to consider reconstruction of Louisiana.

David O. Dodd, convicted as a Confederate spy, is executed in Little Rock, Arkansas, in a case which has aroused considerable agitation.

In Richmond a reception honors John Hunt Morgan, the western raider.

President Davis writes Governor Zebulon B. Vance of North Carolina regarding discontent in the state, “I cannot see how the mere material obstacles are to be surmounted” in order to bring about a cessation of hostilities. Repeating his desire for peace with independence, Davis adds, “this struggle must continue until the enemy is beaten out of his vain confidence in our subjugation. Then and not until then will it be possible to treat of peace.”

Action occurs at Moorefield Junction, West Virginia. Today and tomorrow Federals bombard Confederate works at the mouth of Caney Bayou, Texas.

[Potemkin]

President Davis writes Governor Zebulon B. Vance of North Carolina regarding discontent in the state, “I cannot see how the mere material obstacles are to be surmounted” in order to bring about a cessation of hostilities. Repeating his desire for peace with independence, Davis adds, “this struggle must continue until the enemy is beaten out of his vain confidence in our subjugation. Then and not until then will it be possible to treat of peace.”

Davis was surely correct about this. Any attempt to negotiate a ceasefire with the North would have led nowhere - the North would (quite rightly) have demanded unconditional surrender. The morale and the war-making logistics of the South had not yet been sufficiently degraded to induce them to even contemplate that. But it's interesting that the first cracks were beginning to appear in the Confederacy's determination to keep fighting....

[late]

@late, “a mess” is certainly one way to describe it. The Mexican War pretty much finished off Manifest Destiny thanks to the implications of its incredible success, after that we had two warring domestic policies with foreign policy implications—the Civil War was just when that war shifted from words and ballots to bullets. That was actually what did in Stephen A. Douglas, as brilliant a politician as he may have been he was a Manifest Destiny man and never really adapted to the new reality. He blew up the Missouri Compromise because it was in his way, and set the ball rolling.

Doris Kearns Goodwin recently compared the Jan 6 coup attempt to the beating of Sumner of the floor of Congress.

The only reason it wasn't murder is because the cane broke. That cost the Whigs support, and their party died partly because of it. That support shifted to the Republicans, and we got Lincoln partly because of it.

There had been a lot of terroristic violence, mostly because that's what that sort of person does. It's a first resort, not last.

Goodwin thinks the two events are comparably divisive, and we know how the first one turned out.

[Doug64]

Davis was surely correct about this. Any attempt to negotiate a ceasefire with the North would have led nowhere - the North would (quite rightly) have demanded unconditional surrender. The morale and the war-making logistics of the South had not yet been sufficiently degraded to induce them to even contemplate that. But it's interesting that the first cracks were beginning to appear in the Confederacy's determination to keep fighting....

No, Lincoln's pragmatism would have made a negotiated settlement possible. The problem is that what wasn't negotiable was a recognition of an independent Confederacy. The Confederacy could have surrendered on terms, but they would have had to surrender. And yeah, by this time it's pretty clear that the question isn't whether the South can militarily hold off the North, but if the North is willing to pay the price needed to overwhelm the South.

Doris Kearns Goodwin recently compared the Jan 6 coup attempt to the beating of Sumner of the floor of Congress.

The only reason it wasn't murder is because the cane broke. That cost the Whigs support, and their party died partly because of it. That support shifted to the Republicans, and we got Lincoln partly because of it.

There had been a lot of terroristic violence, mostly because that's what that sort of person does. It's a first resort, not last.

Goodwin thinks the two events are comparably divisive, and we know how the first one turned out.

I have to disagree with Goodwin, because there's a major difference between the two events--so far as I know, no Republican of any real power or influence has said that the rioters were right to do what they did. just the opposite, actually, they all condemned the violence regardless of what they thought about the election. The reaction to Sumner's caning on the part of the South was very different.

That hasn't stopped the Democrats from doing their best to turn that riot into a "bloody shirt" they can wave around, though there is a distinct problem with their efforts, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out:

The number of people killed by pro-Trump supporters at the January 6 Capitol riot is equal to the number of pro-Trump supporters who brandished guns or knives inside the Capitol. That is the same number as the total of Americans who — after a full year of a Democrat-led DOJ conducting what is heralded as “the most expansive federal law enforcement investigation in US history” — have been charged with inciting insurrection, sedition, treason or conspiracy to overthrow the government as a result of that riot one year ago. Coincidentally, it is the same number as Americans who ended up being criminally charged by the Mueller probe of conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election, and the number of wounds — grave or light — which AOC, who finally emerged at night to assure an on-edge nation that she was “okay" while waiting in an office building away from the riot at the rotunda, sustained on that solemn day.

That number is zero. But just as these rather crucial facts do not prevent the dominant wing of the U.S. corporate media and Democratic Party leaders from continuing to insist that Donald Trump's 2016 election victory was illegitimate due to his collusion with the Kremlin, it also does not prevent January 6 from being widely described in those same circles as an Insurrection, an attempted coup, an event as traumatizing as Pearl Harbor (2,403 dead) or the 9/11 attack (2,977 dead), and as the gravest attack on American democracy since the mid-19th Century Civil War (750,000 dead). The Huffington Post's White House reporter S.V. Date said that it was wrong to compare 1/6 to 9/11, because the former — the three-hour riot at the Capitol — was “1,000 percent worse.”

So far as I know, most people--certainly most Independents--aren't buying it. A closer comparison would be the shoot-up of the Congressional Republicans' baseball practice, but again, the Democratic reaction to it doesn't match the South's reaction to Sumner, either, and Republican attempts to turn it into a "bloody shirt" were half-hearted at best.

No, we aren't to the Sumner levels of antipathy yet, but we could get there.

[late]

That hasn't stopped the Democrats from doing their best to turn that riot into a "bloody shirt" they can wave around, though there is a distinct problem with their efforts, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out:



So far as I know, most people--certainly most Independents--aren't buying it. A closer comparison would be the shoot-up of the Congressional Republicans' baseball practice, but again, the Democratic reaction to it doesn't match the South's reaction to Sumner, either, and Republican attempts to turn it into a "bloody shirt" were half-hearted at best.

No, we aren't to the Sumner levels of antipathy yet, but we could get there.

Greenwald is a horse's patoot. It's not just the riot, not by a country mile.

We're closer than you think. Republicans are talking violence, doing low grade terrorism, and changing the way they handle elections so they can do massive cheating (which is what it will take for them to win, which is why they are doing it.) It's gonna get uglier, and it ain't pretty now.

[Doug64]

@late, I have trouble seeing how laws designed to make it harder to cheat make it easier, but that’s a discussion for a different thread.

[late]

@late, I have trouble seeing how laws designed to make it harder to cheat make it easier, but that’s a discussion for a different thread.

All you have to do is follow the news.

[Doug64]

January 9, Saturday

President Davis warns his commanders in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi of reports that Admiral Farragut is preparing to attack Mobile and attempt to pass the forts as he did at New Orleans. A skirmish at Terman’s Ferry, Kentucky, is the only recorded military operation.