Were we too soft with the leaders of the Confederacy after the ...

[demosincebirth]

Civil War. They were the cause of almost 600,000 soldiers losing their lives. I think he should have tried many of them for treason. To my recollection, only one was tried and executed. He was the commander of Andersonville, the prison.

[cbdo2007]

1. Lincoln died a week after the war was over....

expecting a little much for that last week, eh?

[demosincebirth]

2. Insert 'We" for Lincoln.

[Fumesucker]

Lincoln didn't just "die"..

He was assassinated by a Confederate sympathizer.

Edited for speling.

[demosincebirth]

10. Yup.

[yellowcanine]

11. Actually less than a week. Lee surrendered April 9, 1865. Lincoln assassinated April 14, 1865.

And technically the war wasn't even over on April 14. Confederate General Joseph Johnson did not surrender his army until April 26, the Confederate cabinet met for the last time in early May, Jefferson Davis was captured on May 10, and various mop up activities continued into the summer of 1865.

[Kalyke]

3. What does that matter, now?

:shrug:

[Deep13]

5. History is more than just memorizing or recording events.

It also involves an analysis to see why things happen the way they do and what there is to learn about the mistakes and successes of the past.

[MUAD_DIB]

6. This is just more of the "don't kill the terrorists" threads.

[demosincebirth]

7. Because I'd like to know others opinions...thats why.

[MUAD_DIB]

4. Seeing how there was not much left of the South at the end I'd say no.

What was left of the Confederacy was a sad remainder...just scraps.

[demosincebirth]

9. Is there no penalty for Treason?

[MUAD_DIB]

12. Sure. The South paid with the blood of their youth and the ruination of their lands.

At that point there was nothing left.

[yellowcanine]

16. Actually the North and the South paid. There are no "winners" in any war, let alone a civil war.

The North actually suffered greater casualties, though not by percent.

Yes the South suffered a lot more in terms of infrastructure destroyed.

[MUAD_DIB]

18. Really? The North suffered too? I didn't know that.

[Posteritatis]

30. I'd call 635,000 dead and wounded suffering, yes. (nt)

[demosincebirth]

20. The youth paid dearly with their lives, but what about their leaders who died of old age?

and probably lived in comfort.

[demosincebirth]

22. What did they expect when they seceded from the Union?

[Ian David]

8. I'm going to build a time machine so I can give Lincoln access to nuclear weapons.

I don't think the Slave States were sufficiently trashed, or we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Ground Zero for the first nuke should be the regiment where Pat Buchannan's great-grandfather was.

That'll learn 'em.

[Xithras]

13. The Union needed the Confederacy to formally surrender.

One of the greatest fears at the time was that the Civil War would devolve into a protracted insurgency that could take decades to completely stamp out. Because the nation didn't have a standing army at the time, Lincoln rightly realized that he was unlikely to win the war if it descended into a decade long struggle between conscripted and poorly equipped Union soldiers, and small bands of rebel fighters picking off a few dozen soldiers a week. The remaining Union states would have eventually withdrawn their armies, and the Confederacy could have won a de facto victory. It was neccesary for the Confederacy to formally surrender while the war was still being fought by major armies, so the rank and file soldiers would lay down their arms and return home.

The only way to convince the southern armies to surrender and disband was to offer amnesty.

Besides, as Grant put it after Lee surrendered: "The Confederates were now our countrymen, and we did not want to exult over their downfall." It was a different era.

[proteus_lives]

23. dupe

[proteus_lives]

24. Exactly.

Harry Turtledove (master of alternate history) wrote a great short story about that insurgency happening.

[yellowcanine]

14. Hard to say now. The South was occupied by Federal Troops until the Compromise of 1877, in which

the Democrats essentially dropped their contest of the disputed 1876 Presidential Election in return for the removal of Federal troops and an end to Federal control over Southern state governments. Wars, particularly civil wars, seldom end neatly with everyone being brought to justice. Political calculations are made in order to balance the need for justice with the need to keep the peace. If the North had treated the South more harshly with treason trials all around it is hard to say if the long term result would have been better or worse.

[demosincebirth]

21. What is the justice for the 500k young men who died?

[barbiegeek]

15. Yes, we were

[Recursion]

17. Yeah, Grant and Lee should have gone to Versailles

Punitive treaties don't have the best history.

[Obamanaut]

19. "We"? nt

[Canuckistanian]

25. I'll always remember the end of Ken Burns' documentary

The South's army was ragged, hungry and had run out of supplies and their supply routes were practically nonexistent.

The Union soldiers were tired, most were probably suffering from PTSD or disease.

When Lee met Grant at the farmhouse, there were no shouts of joy. No triumphant glee among the Union soldiers and officers, other than being thankful it had ended. Many broke down and cried, realizing they could finally go home.

There was little sentiment for retribution. They knew the horrors of war had hit BOTH sides. It was time to rebuild and recover, NOT call for MORE blood.

It was not what I expected from a war's end but I literally cried myself, knowing (almost) exactly what they had been through.

[Karmadillo]

26. Kind of what we do. We were pretty soft on the leaders of the US who were the cause of millions

dying in Vietnam. And we're likely to be pretty soft on the leaders of the US who were the cause of hundreds of thousands and maybe over a million dying in Iraq.

[dorkulon]

27. We should have let them secede.

Except for the slavery and all.

All I know is we wouldn't be dealing with these teabagger fools, and Obama would have been the conservative candidate.

[jdp349]

28. No, the goal was to bring the South back into the Union

punishing the south too severely would have left deeper seeds of resentment.

[newspeak]

29. It was not only that they were allowed to go back

but after the civil war, schools were set up for african american children and there were some african americans who had won small elections in the South. But, the federal government making deals with those Southern owners, made sure that the reforms that were being enacted would disappear. I think it did more harm for the progression of civil rights for african americans.