Secession Nostalgia

The difference seems pretty clear to me. The construction of the second phrase is the same as "If not for X, we'd all be speaking German/Japanese right now." A person making such a statement is almost certainly not doing so as a German/Japanese loyalist who wishes the Allies had lost WW2.

That said, I do have a sneaking suspicion that the first version is a more accurate quote.

Disagree. Chambliss is clearly identifying with the South there. (Keeping in tune with George Allen and all that dreary Confederate flag crapola.)

Or how 'bout "Nathan Bedford Forrest was a military genius with top-notch intelligence, and he founded the Klan"?

All Southern Republicans see themselves as loyal citizens of the Confederacy. And why shouldn't they be more and more open about it? Look around--the South has risen again.

These are bad people, with a very different understanding of "America" than the standard one. That's why Cornyn can say (paraphrase), "Civil liberties don't mean much when you're dead," and think nothing of it. He comes from a different tradition, and that isn't a peculiarly controversial statement to him.

I agree with Aaron.

What I read from a statement like this is that Chambliss has more knowledge that usual about the civil war than the average joe, since the average joe probably wouldn't use the civil war an as example like that.

Aaron, wouldn't it still be weird if he said "if Hitler had done X we'd be speaking German", as an argument for us doing X to fight our wars?

If X is not something untoward (i.e., if X is "have better intel"), then I don't think so. The implication of his official statement is that the Union won the shooting war because it won the intel war. I'm sure there are plenty of ways to indict Chambliss as a Confederate loyalist beyond his pointing out the importance of intel in drawn-out conflicts.

Yeah, better intel and a manufacturing base.

Chambliss may not identifying with the CSA but with the South, as a nation of sorts. If a German politician would have said 'if we had better intelligence we would have won WWII', that wouldn't make him a Nazi sympathizer (though it could).

I think you're being a little too sensitive.

First, it was an off-the-cuff takeoff of a familiar form of statement. Second, of course he identifies with the South when he says "we" -- He's from the South.

Contrary to Aaron's line of thinking, it seems pretty obvious that both statements are the same. Now, Aaron put a different spin on them than I (or Matthew Y.) had assumed, but they can still be read in the same light.

Aaron doesn't see an "Oh, I wish the South had won" sentiment to the second statement, and while I understand his reasoning for how it can be interpreted, one can argue that the first statement is just as benign, and its intent just as similar.

Personally, I tend to lean toward Matthew Y's more skeptical analysis, and also don't see much difference between the two.

In one sense the two statements are not the same. Jeff Davis was the ultimate consumer/user of intelligence, who happened to suffer from an overestimate of his personal military talents and thus might not have made any better use of better intelligence, and Jeb Stuart was the guy who was supposed to bring in the intelligence, and in the most critical moment of his career neglected to do so, apparently in order to try to enhance his personal prestige.

Think of it like a Rorshach blot or word-association test--what does it say about you when you're looking for strategic examples and the one that pops in your head is something the South lacked that would have given them victory? Don't think logical implication, think underlying psychology.

"If Gen. JEB Stuart had had better intelligence, we’d all be meeting in Richmond right now."

The primary function of cavalry in Civil War times was to gather intelligence.

Therefore, it conceivably might make some sense to say, ""If Gen. JEB Stuart had PROVIDED or DISCOVERED better intelligence, we’d all be meeting in Richmond right now.""

But Chambliss appears to be confused about the role of intelligence in the military. It pertains to items which one presently does not know and therefore must go out and ascertain.

When you think you already know things - for example, that Iraq has WMDs or Iraqis will greet you with flowers, then you feel no need to deploy the cavalry to gather information. And, if you are wrong, that can land you in quite a briar patch - to use another Southern metaphor.

From a military standpoint, the only way I can make sense of the quote about JEB Stuart is in reference to the Gettysburg campaign, when he ended up losing contact with Lee's army and riding around the Federal forces for a few days without realizing that his absense was causing Lee a grave handicap. From there, the reasoning is that if he had been with Lee, Lee would have run the Gettysburg campaign better and hence would have won it.

At a larger level, the South usually had much better intelligence than the North, largely because their cavalry was far superior for most of the war. McClellan, in particular, was regularly fed intelligence estimates that wildly overesitmated Confederate strength, which played into his natural tendency to avoid fights. You could make a good case that with better intelligence he would have routed Lee at Antietam, since he came extremely close to doing so despite leaving a substantial portion of his army in reserve out of fear of Lee's "superior" numbers (which didn't actually exist.)

It's pretty obvious that Chambliss' remark (whichever version you choose to go with) was pro-Confederacy. How do we discern this? From the originating context of "intelligence" in this situation.

They're having a meeting. They're discussing intelligence. The US having better intelligence is considered a good thing, right? Right. So, when Chambliss says that if there had been better intelligence during the Civil War, then the South would have won (which is basically what he says), and the fact that he says that in the context of intelligence being a good thing, then it seems pretty obvious that it's a pro-Confederacy sentiment (in either statement).

And that's all we need to know.

It really should say:

"If Gen. Lee had better command and control concerning JEB Stuart, we’d all be meeting in Richmond right now."

It sounds like an attempt at being homespun and clever. It is clearly neither. Now, what regiment's statue is that?

Doug T makes good points, but since he mentions Antietam I might point out that McClellan had the best intelligence you could get, a copy of Robert E Lee's orders to one of his top commanders, and still fought a McClellan battle.

Yglesias is incorrect.

The first version, if "we" had better intel, identifies Chambliss with the Confederacy.

The second version makes no such identification, but speculates (implausibly, but not uniquely by any means) that, had Stuart done his fucking job in the Gettysburg campaign, Lee would've been prepared for the battle and would've won it.

As noted by some above, it's along the lines of "if Hitler had the Bomb before we got it, we'd all be speaking German."

The 1st version identifies the speaker with the CSA, the second doesn't. Simple grammar.

and the fact that he says that in the context of intelligence being a *good* thing, then it seems pretty obvious that it's a pro-Confederacy sentiment (in either statement).

Sorry, that's just dumb. When is having good intel a *bad* thing? *Any* military power, good or evil, will benefit from having good intel.

If he's said "if Charles Martel had lost at Tours, we'd all be speaking Arabic now," would that make him pro-Muslim? Anti-Muslim? Neither, of course.

Do the Civil War geeks around these parts believe it is true? Could the South possible have won the War to the degree that the Senate would be meeting in Richmond, in other words defeated and accepted a surrender of the North?

It is the first time I have heard that. The best scenario I know posits a draw and independence.

No, it isn't just dumb. If you just focus on simple grammar, you're missing the point. If I said "If Bad Guy had Good Thing Bad Guy would have won therefore we should have Good Thing", it neither logically nor grammatically says that Bad Guy is a Good Guy--but chances are unless I had some sympathy with the Bad Guy I wouldn't have said it.

Such a metaphor clearly says more about Chambliss than his point of view on intelligence and his knowledge of the Civil War. That's what we're talking about here--a metaphor comparing us to the CSA. Simple as that.

Could the South possible have won the War to the degree that the Senate would be meeting in Richmond, in other words defeated and accepted a surrender of the North?

That's an interesting thought. As I pointed out in Matt's post a few weeks ago about a Confederate insurgency, the South inflicted twice their casualties on the North. If Gettysberg had gone the other way, and Lee went on to capture DC and possibly all of Pennsylvania, New Englandish states would have been isolated from the rest of the country. At that point, the Confederates could have demanded the surrender of the Union Army and likely gotten it. But would have happened after that? Would the South have occupied the North or simply gone home? Certainly they would have disbanded the remains of the Union Army and taken control of all rail lines south of New York as well as shipping along the Ohio and Mississippi. They would have been in position to control the western expansion of the states. How long before New England's large population would have been starved of food and natural resources such as coal, steel, timber, and of course cotton, and sought to join the Confederacy? It's an interesting thought.

How long before New England's large population would have been starved of food and natural resources such as coal, steel, timber, and of course cotton, and sought to join the Confederacy?

Never. This is still America, where the good guys always win in the end.

If General Sherman hadn't been so soft-hearted, the US would now be a much better place.

The most likley scenario for a CSA victory was in 1862, when the South was on the offensive in all three theaters (Virginia, Tennessee-Kentucky, and Mississippi). Gettysburg was too late in the game: The South would have been cut in half at Vicksburg no matter what happened at Gettysburg, and its economy was already collapsing. In the autumn of 1862 the South might well have become victorious by winning key battles and taking Washington, all Maryland and Kentucky, thereby gaining recognition and aid from France and England. There would have been a negotiated peace which probably would have left the South with Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma (Indian Territory) maybe West Virginia, parts of Missouri and New Mexico-Arizona. An the CSA would have eventually augmented that heritage with Cuba and other portions of the Carribbean, while the North would still have gained Alaska (Russia was friendly, and in need of quick cash) but not much else. There would have been no possibility (or desire) to occupy the North itself, which would have continued on as a separate USA, probably with great enmity and further wars in the future against the CSA. And for sure the remaining USA would have been more liberal, perhaps even socialist, without the drag of the South. The really big question is what would have happened to slavery. It's grotesque to imagine it persisting into the 20th century, but I also cannot think up any realistic scenario whereby the victorious plantocracy and the severely racist non-slave owners who supported them would have ended slavery on their own.

This is still America, where the good guys always win in the end.

Yeah, that must be the reason Kobe can't lead a team past the first round of the playoffs.

Okay, this is weird.

What's truly weird is that there is a person named "Saxby Chambliss." Who's writing this stuff, I'd really like to know.

Had the South won the USA would have continued along the lines JonF suggests but I think Maryland would have been forced to stay in the North, the South simply lacked the resources to occupy the North or sustain any prolonged offensive. It would have been an interesting alternative history since the industrialized North would presumably have grown economically at a far faster rate than the South - where the agrarian based elite, flush with victory, would have held more power than ever. At some point some general, maybe Stuart or Forrest, would have staged a coup to remove the corrupt civilian government and become caudillo. I expect the South would have completely degenerated into an English speaking Latin American style oligarchy or military dictatorship by the beginning of the 20th century. Another interesting question is whether the CSA, as a nation founded on secesssion and which had already seceded from larger political entities twice in the preceding 80 years could have ever held together. The likely result would have been a number of states trying to secede at various points in time after the war, probably pushing the government of the CSA to become ever more authoritarian as it tried to hold the mess together.

Well, if we're going to have alt.history fun:

I don't see how the South could prosper, long term. It would have chosen to stick with an economy that depended on slave labor at a time when "supplier" nations (e.g., Britain) weren't in the slave-running business. At the same time, Southerners didn't go in for the kinds of education that lead to a more skilled workforce or a more efficient production environment. So the South stays stuck in an agrarian economic model, with a workforce that has none of the incentives we associate with economic innovation, diversification, or even stability.

Plus, I don't see the slave populations deciding to settle down and not make any more trouble, do you? There would still be Underground Railroads, at least winked at or supported outright by the North. There would be more, and maybe bigger, uprisings - again, possibly funded and supplied by sympathizers in the North. The North could have quite a lot of incentive to support slave insurgencies, esp. if cheap plantation goods (food, textiles, etc.) are competing with Northern output. And that's assuming just pragmatic reasons to undermine slavery: I doubt the ethics-driven abolition movement would just "settle down and not make any more trouble" any more than the slaves themselves would.

Then you have the whole Westward-expansion and Indian issue to deal with. The Indian Wars - the genocidal campaigns - really got going after the Civil War, when the entire energy of the Federal Government could be dedicated to enabling western expansion. A Confederacy victory throws that out the window. The North and South would be spending a lot of resources on each other: on intel, on insurgencies, on border skirmishes (esp. along the wilder border areas), on replacing the loss of Southern agriculture and the loss of access to Northern industries. That gives the Indians time to rethink their own strategies; time to come up with more Tecumsehs and Sequoias and Crazy Horses. Maybe some forward-looking, brilliant Indian leaders decide to play nonaligned games, playing the CSA and USA off against each other. Imagine the best and brightest Indian kids getting educated at the best US schools, as progressivists and abolitionists and idealists turn some of their attention to the matter, and TPTB thinking that alliances with tribes are a useful counter to the CSA (which might be doing the same thing.) Maybe there's a renaissance in urbanized tribal culture, esp. out West in the Californias and Pacific NW.

Would the fabled "Westward ho!" ever have happened? Certainly - one of the most fascinating eras of US history is the post-Civil War diaspora west by the disaffected, dispossessed, and utopian idealists - but it wouldn't be anything like the one we actually had, because (again) there wouldn't be the entire might of the US military enabling it. Maybe there'd be a patchwork of small Confederations, from the utopian to the theocratic, each of them making war or alliances with the local tribes.

Would there still be a war with Mexico, and an annexation of Texas? By who, the USA or CSA? There could be a Civil War II over that issue - imagine a war between the USA, the CSA, Mexico, and a League of Native Nations. Whoo boy.

"If the South had won" - there would not be a coast-to-coast USA. North America would be a polyglot of small countries, with very different cultures, getting along uneasily with one another (at best). How, or even whether, we'd have much to do with Europe is an interesting question: (what American country, if any, would enter WWI? and on whose side?). Whether there would still be the vast immigration waves of the early 1900s is another interesting question.

One thing I'm relatively sure of, though: the CSA would either be the "sick man" of North America due to its pseudo-medieval social and political structure, or become aligned with, if not absorbed into, Latin America, where pseudo-medievalism was very much alive and well.

fwiw, it's not uncommon for white southerners of all political stripes to say 'we' when discussing the South and the Civil War, sometimes off the cuff and sometimes in jest. many trace their ancestry here to before the Civil War, and so had relatives who fought for the CSA. usually it tells you nothing about the person's current political sympathies. I know this may seem weird to Northerners, but there it is.

If the South had better intelligence? In a very weird parallel to the Iraq fiasco, Southern secessionists had all the intelligence they needed to avoid being humiliated in a war they couldn't win.

The secessionists were told over and over and over again that secession would lead inexorably to war, and that bloody war would lead inexorably to defeat for the seceded states. They chose to listen to the voices in their heads rather than to the conservative voices of reason. Amoung those advocating restraint, patience, and continued Union were the 1860 VP candidate Herschel Johnson, the future VP of the Confederacy Alexander Hamilton Stephens, future VP of the United States Andrew Johnson, Texas Governor Sam Houston, etc, etc, etc.....

Then, as now, the blowhards lacked judgement.

Would there still be a war with Mexico, and an annexation of Texas? By who, the USA or CSA?

So we're doing the nineteenth century backwards now?

Re: Would there still be a war with Mexico, and an annexation of Texas

Um, that happened 20 years before the Civil War.

Re: "If the South had won" - there would not be a coast-to-coast USA.

There already was a coast-to-coast USA when the war started. With the exception of Alaska and Hawaii the USA had gained all its current inherent territory by then. California and Oregon were already states in 1861.

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