U.S. Grant

[Salty]

From Wiki (article is about U.S. Grant)
. Attending Lincoln's funeral on April 19, Grant stood alone and wept openly; he later said Lincoln was "the greatest man I have ever known."[242] Upon Johnson's assuming the presidency, Grant told Julia that he dreaded the change in administrations; he judged Johnson's attitude toward white southerners as one that would "make them unwilling citizens", and feared that the Civil War would be revived.[243]

Do yo think that there was a good chance for the WBTS to be revived.

Open for discussioin

 

[Deacon]

WBTH = War between the States... had to look it up

Here we call it the Civil war.
To this day in the South, it's often called "The War of Northern Aggression".

Rob

 

[Rob_BW]

I'd say don't conflate "a civil war" with "The Civil War."

 

[rsr]

The quote is a bit perplexing. Johnson was more conciliatory to the former rebels than Grant was. I suppose that Grant didn't know that at the time.

 

[Jerome]

Grant's memoirs (a better source than some snippet from Wikipedia!) makes it clear that after expressing some harsh rhetoric especially after the assassination, Johnson quickly shifted, taking a different tack towards the South:

Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant

"I knew also the feeling that Mr. Johnson had expressed in speeches and conversation against the Southern people, and I feared that his course towards them would be such as to repel, and make them unwilling citizens; and if they became such they would remain so for a long while."

"I believe the South would have been saved from very much of the hardness of feeling that was engendered by Mr. Johnson's course towards them during the first few months of his administration. Be this as it may, Mr. Lincoln's assassination was particularly unfortunate for the entire nation. Mr. Johnson's course towards the South did engender bitterness of feeling. His denunciations of treason and his ever-ready remark, "'Treason is a crime and must be made odious,' was repeated to all those men of the South who came to him to get some assurances of safety so that they might go to work at something with the feeling that what they obtained would be secure to them. He uttered his denunciations with great vehemence."

Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant

"Mr. Johnson, after a complete revolution of sentiment, seemed to regard the South not only as an oppressed people, but as the people best entitled to consideration of any of our citizens. This was more than the people who had secured to us the perpetuation of the Union were prepared for, and they became more radical in their views. The Southerners had the most power in the executive branch. Mr. Johnson having gone to their side."

 

[Wesley Briggman]

[

QUOTE="Salty, post: 2417155, member: 5656"]From Wiki (article is about U.S. Grant)
. Attending Lincoln's funeral on April 19, Grant stood alone and wept openly; he later said Lincoln was "the greatest man I have ever known."[242] Upon Johnson's assuming the presidency, Grant told Julia that he dreaded the change in administrations; he judged Johnson's attitude toward white southerners as one that would "make them unwilling citizens", and feared that the Civil War would be revived.[243]

Do yo think that there was a good chance for the WBTS to be revived.

Open for discussioin[/QUOTE]

To what end? To reinstate slavery? Give me a break!

 

[Salty]

To what end? To reinstate slavery? Give me a break!

No! Slavery would soon be out anyways.

What the South wanted all along - independence from DC!

 

[Rob_BW]

No! Slavery would soon be out anyways.

What the South wanted all along - independence from DC!

What the South wanted was spelled out sufficiently in the individual state's articles of cessation.

 

[Salty]

Not disputing the fact that slavery was one of the issues,
But there were many more.

 

[Reynolds]

From Wiki (article is about U.S. Grant)
. Attending Lincoln's funeral on April 19, Grant stood alone and wept openly; he later said Lincoln was "the greatest man I have ever known."[242] Upon Johnson's assuming the presidency, Grant told Julia that he dreaded the change in administrations; he judged Johnson's attitude toward white southerners as one that would "make them unwilling citizens", and feared that the Civil War would be revived.[243]

Do yo think that there was a good chance for the WBTS to be revived.

Open for discussioin

Not at that time. The will of the South to fight had been broken.

 

[rsr]

At that point it was still an open question. Jefferson Davis wanted to continue the war as a guerrilla conflict. Lee, Johnston and Breckenridge in effect conspired to circumvent Davis' orders and engineered the surrender of the two largest Confederate armies remaining in the field — and that (belated though it was) may have saved the South from even more devastation.

 

[Reynolds]

At that point it was still an open question. Jefferson Davis wanted to continue the war as a guerrilla conflict. Lee, Johnson and Breckenridge in effect conspired to circumvent Davis' orders and engineered the surrender of the two largest Confederate armies remaining in the field — and that (belated though it was) may have saved the South from even more devastation.

The armies were no longer being supplied.

 

[rsr]

That didn't matter to Davis. He wanted to unite all the eastern armies against Sherman in North Carolina (which Johnston and Breckenridge foiled by surrendering), then regroup in Alabama with Forrest and rebuilding in the Trans-Mississippi.

 

[Alcott]