Fiver, that's all well and good, but no amount of destroying his credibility (He has none left) will get him to change his belief system.
An Unfortunate Event: The Trent War
- Thread starter 67th Tigers
- Start date
For the record, in the most recent post by Fiver, I tend to agree with him on much of what he said, particularly with respect to events in California. It is true that Breckinridge won 28% of the vote in California, including winning Los Angeles and San Diego counties (and others). Douglas had a pretty decisive victory in Santa Barbara county and Lincoln took San Bernardino county. Of the four candidates for president, it seems highly doubtful to me that supporters of Lincoln, Douglas, or Bell would have been ready to actively support secession at least in the initial stages. Once it is a fait accompli in their state, some may have faced a tough choice. But, California never approached that level. It is also hard for me to believe that all of the Breckinridge supporters were instantly ready to put their lives on the line to secure secession either. The vice presidential candidate, Lane, former governor and senator from Oregon probably brought in voters to the Breckinridge-Lane ticket in both California and Oregon, perhaps magnifying the 28% they got in California anyway. The pro-unionist areas of the south were where Bell did best. This is a case where Bell supporters remained union supporters even after their states seceded. It is very hard for me to believe that there were very many of the Bell supporters that would have been in a position to support secession in California. The best measure would be the 28% Breckinridge voters and even then the number was probably inflated some.
I just don't see any realistic support for the idea of the southern counties having more than a few hot heads--who promptly left the state--in support of the confederacy.
I just wanted to add context to the statement that the grayback had lost 80% of its value by April 1863. The Union greenback had also lost considerably having lost 66% of its value. Both sides in the war were having difficulties financially at the time. In part, this was because these were the first attempts at a "national level" to issue paper currency and in part because of the huge debts both national governments were running.
I have a lot of trouble with both ideas that the southern economy was either small or large.
It is an interesting point that 10% of the southern states' work force was in the union army. I wonder if Fiver meant "union" or simply in the army in general.
I am still trying to get my mind around the relative size of the UK home islands and the US economies in 1860. If you simply take the nominal then year GDPs in 1860 dollars and pounds and the average exchange ratio, the UK home islands GDP was 91% of that of the US. If you look at it in 1960 dollars, you get the UK economy as 1.69 times that of the US. If you project the respective 1860 GDPs to 2008 US dollars, you get that the UK economy was 1.80 times that of the US GDP.
I wonder if it makes sense to project economy sizes into the future to do the conversion, where the impacts of the world wars and the great depression show. So, I looked at conversion between pounds to dollars for every year between 1830 and 2008 and found the ratio by year. In other words convert using each national sequence into the conversion year, then convert using that year's exchange ratio, and determine the ratio of UK GDP to US GDP. I then took the average over that period and found that the UK economy using the average measure over the data I had available, was 1.01 times that of the US. It depends pretty heavily on which particular year you chose to do the conversion, but when you average it out, apparently, it is very hard to make the claim that in 1860 either the US or the UK home islands were economically larger than the other.
One thing that I find interesting in GDP computations is how much agricultural economies come in lower than industrial economies. It doesn't matter what countries you look at, the percent of the economy that is agricultural tends to dominate the resulting GDP. I think this is a relic of the calculation, not anything real. The rents paid by industrial workers and their food purchases all are counted in industrial economies toward GDP and they are the lion share of the typical worker's expenses in that society. But, in agricultural economies, they tend to be hidden and not counted. Farmers live on their land and often there is no mechanism to determine what they spend to have a place to live. Second, they might sell only 1/3 of the crops and consume the rest. Only that which is sold is counted toward GDP. My point, just looking at three large sections of the US in broad brush, the industrial northeast should compute to higher GDPs than either the southern or mid-western states that consume a lot off the table because of the higher concentration of agriculture in their economies. The is enough of a difference to make me suspicious of GDP computation differences between societies with different levels of agriculture in the economy.
I just don't see any realistic support for the idea of the southern counties having more than a few hot heads--who promptly left the state--in support of the confederacy.
I just wanted to add context to the statement that the grayback had lost 80% of its value by April 1863. The Union greenback had also lost considerably having lost 66% of its value. Both sides in the war were having difficulties financially at the time. In part, this was because these were the first attempts at a "national level" to issue paper currency and in part because of the huge debts both national governments were running.
I have a lot of trouble with both ideas that the southern economy was either small or large.
It is an interesting point that 10% of the southern states' work force was in the union army. I wonder if Fiver meant "union" or simply in the army in general.
I am still trying to get my mind around the relative size of the UK home islands and the US economies in 1860. If you simply take the nominal then year GDPs in 1860 dollars and pounds and the average exchange ratio, the UK home islands GDP was 91% of that of the US. If you look at it in 1960 dollars, you get the UK economy as 1.69 times that of the US. If you project the respective 1860 GDPs to 2008 US dollars, you get that the UK economy was 1.80 times that of the US GDP.
I wonder if it makes sense to project economy sizes into the future to do the conversion, where the impacts of the world wars and the great depression show. So, I looked at conversion between pounds to dollars for every year between 1830 and 2008 and found the ratio by year. In other words convert using each national sequence into the conversion year, then convert using that year's exchange ratio, and determine the ratio of UK GDP to US GDP. I then took the average over that period and found that the UK economy using the average measure over the data I had available, was 1.01 times that of the US. It depends pretty heavily on which particular year you chose to do the conversion, but when you average it out, apparently, it is very hard to make the claim that in 1860 either the US or the UK home islands were economically larger than the other.
One thing that I find interesting in GDP computations is how much agricultural economies come in lower than industrial economies. It doesn't matter what countries you look at, the percent of the economy that is agricultural tends to dominate the resulting GDP. I think this is a relic of the calculation, not anything real. The rents paid by industrial workers and their food purchases all are counted in industrial economies toward GDP and they are the lion share of the typical worker's expenses in that society. But, in agricultural economies, they tend to be hidden and not counted. Farmers live on their land and often there is no mechanism to determine what they spend to have a place to live. Second, they might sell only 1/3 of the crops and consume the rest. Only that which is sold is counted toward GDP. My point, just looking at three large sections of the US in broad brush, the industrial northeast should compute to higher GDPs than either the southern or mid-western states that consume a lot off the table because of the higher concentration of agriculture in their economies. The is enough of a difference to make me suspicious of GDP computation differences between societies with different levels of agriculture in the economy.
67th Tigers
Banned
He's confusing "workforce" with "military population", and making an overly generous set of assumptions.
The Provost Marshal attributes the southern states for the following numbers of *enlistments*:
Tennessee: 31,092 (often talked up by some double counting to above 40,000) - 13 Cav Regts, 10 Inf Regts, 8 Btys, 8 Mounted Inf Regts and 4 Militia Regts, some of them have multiple enlistments
Virginia: 31,872 (this number includes large numbers of Pennsylvanians and Marylanders who filled the West Virginia Regiments) - 3x 3 year cav regts, 1x 1 year cav regts and 4 more formed by the reenlistment of the mounted inf (1 yr)
Arkansas: 8,279 - about half of these were from Arkansas, of the 4 cavalry regiments 3rd and 4th were effectively organised twice, and so the enlistments double counted, the 1st Arkansas Inf Bn was organised as a one year unit, and upon expiry was reorganised as 1st Ark Inf Regt, a 2nd Ark Inf was added, but the 3rd and 4th failed to complete and the men reenlisted into the other units, being counted again. A battery was also formed.
Louisiana: 5,224 (2 Cavalry Regts, 3 Inf Regts and another failed to form and the men transferred)
North Carolina: 3,156 - 4 inf regts (2 mounted)
Alabama: 2,576 - all enlisted in 1st Alabama Cavalry, originally a 1 year regiment, on discharge the 1 year coys were reorganised as 3 year coys be reenlistment, and very late in the war the flagging regiment added a number of 1 year coys
Texas: 1,965 - 2 cavalry regts (and a partisan unit right at the wars end)
Florida: 1,290 (2 cavalry regts)
Mississippi: 545 (1st Mississippi Mounted Rifles)
Georgia: ca. 200 - 1 Bn
SC: nil
= 86,199 enlistments attributed to the south, excluding ca. 2,700 PWs enlisted from prison out of 2.828 million processed papers. From this PoV Southern Unionists make up around 3% of the Union Army.
Removing multiple enlistments, bounty jumping attempts (and there were a lot of these) and some Tennessee militiamen you'd be in the right ballpark to estimate that maybe 30-40,000 men really soldiered for the Union.
The 11 states in 1860 had a population of 9,101,090, so overall the enlistments total a little under 1% of the CS population, or, removing the slave, you might suggest that about 0.4% of the white southern population enlisted in the Union Army, after account for reenlistments etc.
Now, where this "10% of the workforce" comes from is not a mystery, it is just a lesson in the misunderstanding of statistics. Realistically about 3% of the productive CS workforce, black and white, gave real service in the Union Army (including about 90,000 ex-southern slaves enlisted into the Union).
67th Tigers
Banned
1. California
The secession was a done deal in California. The Pico Act had passed in 1859. It was awaiting Federal approval that never came because of the ACW. No ACW = a state of Colorado in southern California.
My reading of California indicates they had an extremely strong nativist movement which formed the core of the pro-Union faction. It a bizarrely complex mix.
Also, Tielhard (one of the great minds of this forum who is now permabanned along with SM Stirling!) pointed out to me recently that California suffered the worst floods in centuries in 1861-2, forming an inland sea into which RN gunboats could steam to Sacramento with impunity.
California is such a complex situation that the mind recoils.
2. Economics
Remember that the CS took a huge chunk of the GDP with it. In 1860 the US stood 4th in the western world, when it split the rump stood at 6th. Also remember that the foreign exchanges were still based on specie, and that you had to pay for your imports with specie. The south generated ca. 80% of all specie traded (by selling cotton etc.), with California producing virtually all the rest (the California and Nevada mines produced about $70 m pa and the set exchange rate of $20.66 per ounce).
3. Ranks
I'm going by the Army Register. It is the official list. Those involved in hold rank often had differing opinions.....
The secession was a done deal in California. The Pico Act had passed in 1859. It was awaiting Federal approval that never came because of the ACW. No ACW = a state of Colorado in southern California.
My reading of California indicates they had an extremely strong nativist movement which formed the core of the pro-Union faction. It a bizarrely complex mix.
Also, Tielhard (one of the great minds of this forum who is now permabanned along with SM Stirling!) pointed out to me recently that California suffered the worst floods in centuries in 1861-2, forming an inland sea into which RN gunboats could steam to Sacramento with impunity.
California is such a complex situation that the mind recoils.
2. Economics
Remember that the CS took a huge chunk of the GDP with it. In 1860 the US stood 4th in the western world, when it split the rump stood at 6th. Also remember that the foreign exchanges were still based on specie, and that you had to pay for your imports with specie. The south generated ca. 80% of all specie traded (by selling cotton etc.), with California producing virtually all the rest (the California and Nevada mines produced about $70 m pa and the set exchange rate of $20.66 per ounce).
3. Ranks
I'm going by the Army Register. It is the official list. Those involved in hold rank often had differing opinions.....
67th Tigers
Banned
War dept =/= US Army.
The numbers add up. You just don't understand that the majority of War Dept spending was on coastal fortifications.
The worst I'd heard was the greenback losing 50% of it's value.
I meant 10% of the white men of draft age from the 11 states that formed the Confederacy served in the Union army. That's based on the estimates in Lincoln's Loyalists by Richard Current.
Using the nominal period exchange rate seems the most reasonable.
No, I'm using an actual published source, Lincoln's Loyalists by Richard Nelson Current.
I never stated how much of Union manpower was provided by southern Unionists.
Lincoln's Loyalists mentions a work that alphabetically lists over 39,000 men from Tennessee who served in the Union Army. That list did not include Tennesseans who served in regiments of other states.
Of that 9,101,090 population; 1,347,987 were free white males between the ages of 15 and 49. Richard Current estimates that 900,000 served in the Confederate Army and about 100,000 in the Union Army so about 10% of the draft age white men from the CSA served in the Union Army.
The secession of southern California was a done deal which simply never happened...
It does appear I made a mistake. The US Army Budget was closer to $16 million than $17 million. $700,000 of that was allocated for coastal fortifications. That's less than 5% of the Army budget.
It also appears the source listing 13,000 US regulars was listing PFD and slightly underestimating. Total compliment on the eve of the ACW was 16,024, 14,658 of whom were present for duty.
That means the CSA will need to spend $98 million to maintain a 100,000 man army, $107 million to maintain 100,000 present for duty. The numbers drop to "only" $94 milllion and $103 million if they foolishly spend nothing on coastal fortifications.
That's about 75% higher than the entire US government budget for 1860, but the CSA has less than 1/3rd the population. And they might want to fund a navy and the civilian government, too.
The Pico Act was about trying to separate from California, not from the US. It does not support your opinions in any whatsoever.
The south produced about 60% of all US exports. They had about 10% of the US specie. Exports were a small fraction of the economy.
67th Tigers
Banned
North America, 1863
After the dust settled on the North American continent four nations had been carved out of the United States.
The Confederate States flew 14 stars on their flag for their 14 states (a rump Maryland being admitted). Additionally they had acquired three territories; Kansas, Arizona and Colorado. They began to consider where to site their capital territory, as Richmond was only the provisional capital.
The rump United States consisted of 19 states and 4 territories; Nebraska, Utah, Washington and the new Territory of Columbia, created from the District of Columbia and the western counties of Maryland who were assigned to the US. Washington of course ceased being capital which was moved initially to Philadelphia. Maine lost the northern counties to New Brunswick.
Two Indian territories were recognised by the US and CS. The Five Nations effectively were integrated into the CSA as a protectorate over the next few years, but remained an independent state.
The Sioux began their brief period of independence in the two "free territories" the US gave up for them. It would not last, and whilst defeated in their first war of annexation, the US eventually annexed these territories back into themselves.
After the dust settled on the North American continent four nations had been carved out of the United States.
The Confederate States flew 14 stars on their flag for their 14 states (a rump Maryland being admitted). Additionally they had acquired three territories; Kansas, Arizona and Colorado. They began to consider where to site their capital territory, as Richmond was only the provisional capital.
The rump United States consisted of 19 states and 4 territories; Nebraska, Utah, Washington and the new Territory of Columbia, created from the District of Columbia and the western counties of Maryland who were assigned to the US. Washington of course ceased being capital which was moved initially to Philadelphia. Maine lost the northern counties to New Brunswick.
Two Indian territories were recognised by the US and CS. The Five Nations effectively were integrated into the CSA as a protectorate over the next few years, but remained an independent state.
The Sioux began their brief period of independence in the two "free territories" the US gave up for them. It would not last, and whilst defeated in their first war of annexation, the US eventually annexed these territories back into themselves.
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67th Tigers,
I've just found this thread recently and I have to say it is fantastic! I'm really enjoying it thus far and I hope you keep it up!
I've just found this thread recently and I have to say it is fantastic! I'm really enjoying it thus far and I hope you keep it up!
