The Confederate States Of America-Ransom

[wkwillis]

Half way through. Not bad. He says that if the South had got some lucky breaks the North might have given up. Almost certainly true. He does fall into the common trap of dividing the states into slave and free in 1790, instead of figuring out that that was not true at the time and only later did the division appear.
There is some notice (so far, I'm up to page 163) that King Corn was replacing King Cotton. Maybe he'll go into that. It's one reason I think the Erie and Ohio canals were so important. It was cheaper to ship grains by canal boat till than even railroads.

[Faeelin]

Originally Posted by wkwillis

Half way through. Not bad. He says that if the South had got some lucky breaks the North might have given up. Almost certainly true. He does fall into the common trap of dividing the states into slave and free in 1790, instead of figuring out that that was not true at the time and only later did the division appear.

He does make a huge mistake later on, regarding the finances; essentially, emancipation his way would cost 100x the number he gives, and while he admits his number is wrong, he doesn't think it'd cause a change in Confederate acceptance of emancipation.