🇺🇸 HISTORY IS WILD! CANADIAN'S FIRST TIME REACTION TO The American Civil War - OverSimplified Part 1
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- Опубліковано 15 бер 2024
- Hello, history buffs and curious minds alike! Today, we're embarking on a journey back in time with our first reaction to "The American Civil War - OverSimplified Part 1." As Canadians, we're fascinated by the rich and complex history of our neighbors to the south. This series promises to deliver a digestible yet thorough overview of one of the most defining periods in American history. Join us as we dive into the causes, key figures, and major events of the Civil War with fresh eyes.
⭐️ WHAT WE LEARN IN THIS VIDEO:
Our initial impressions of the American Civil War's complexities as presented by OverSimplified.
Reacting to the engaging and informative storytelling style that breaks down historical events.
Discussing the major causes and early battles of the Civil War, including the roles of notable figures like Abraham Lincoln.
Sharing our thoughts on the insights gained and how the portrayal of the Civil War in this format enhances our understanding of American history.
🎥 ABOUT THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR - OVERSIMPLIFIED:
The American Civil War was a pivotal conflict in United States history, fought from 1861 to 1865. OverSimplified's Part 1 of the series explores the origins and early stages of the war, blending accurate historical facts with engaging animation and narration to make learning about this complex period accessible and entertaining.
👫 WHO WE ARE:
We're a Canadian couple with a passion for history and learning about the world around us. Our channel is dedicated to exploring historical events, cultures, and significant moments in time through reaction videos and discussions.
💬 COMMENT BELOW:
What aspect of the American Civil War do you find most fascinating?
Are there other historical events or OverSimplified videos you'd recommend for our next reaction?
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#americancivilwar #oversimplified #americanhistory - Розваги
My own ancestor, Edward McGivney, who emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland, enlisted in the 69th New York Regiment in 1860, and, fought as a member of the fabled Irish Brigade until war's end in 1865.
Raise the Harp!
Probably looking down from above on his descendant who took the soft life in the Navy, shaking his head...;)
Shots fired! (Interservice rivalry never gets old) 😆
Also, let's call them legendary, not fabled. A legend charges through musketballs. A fable is what a man calls his bayonet when he can't get it up.
Same here, Mathew Blyde, my Irish ancestor who originally lived in Canada and was in the barrel making business in the Hudson bay area. When the war started he took his brothers boots and went south into the Union to enlist, only to find his brother had chased him all the way down where they both enlisted together. After the war he settled down as a teacher in Chicago. We have pictures of him in uniform, I unfortunately don't know the unit he was in. And supposedly he carried a bullet in him from the war to his grave. At least that's how the story goes according to my 92 year old grandmother god bless.
George McClellan was responsible for creating, from scratch, the Army of the Potomac. He did a really excellent job of it, the Army was robust, well supplied, and well trained. BUT... when it came to using it to fight, he didn't want to get their nice uniforms all dirty.
Correct. If a general/military commander is very good at one aspect of soldiering it doesn't mean he is across the board. One of Napoleon's greatest strengths was precisely delegating his Marshalls to tasks he knew they would excel at.
I agree he loved to read his name in the paper but was either to scared to attack or to cautious either way it made him look like a damn fool I personally. think he got off to easy he should have been sent with General Pope way out west to fight the Indians where they would do little harm they both damn near cost the Union the war in the first two years of the fighting.
McClellan is the Sobel of the Civil War. (Band of Brothers reference)
This "yes, ok, ANYTHING" at 37:00 just sums it up perfectly.
he is the captain sobel of this era.
29:55 The differences between Lincoln and McClellan about the general's overly-cautious nature were not exaggerated. In fact, Lincoln was so frustrated at McClellan's failure to act, he sent the general a telegram that read, "If General McClellan does not want to use the Army of the Potomac, I should like to borrow it for a time..." Lincoln is also quoted as saying, "If we had a million men, McClellan would swear the enemy had two millions, and then he would sit down in the mud and yell for three."
As for Europe getting involved, it is mentioned in the video is because the Union blockade had stopped all shipments of cotton to the European countries. What you need to know is that the Southern US was, and still is, the biggest exporter of Cotton. Like you mentioned before, economics played a big role in people getting involved in the US civil war and Britain, and other European countries, still have a strong need for cotton and their main supplier was in the middle of Civil War. It’s also why the British had leaned on the idea of helping the Confederacy at the start of the war until the emancipation proclamation.
On why President Lincoln did not declare the war was about abolishing slavery at the beginning: The cause of the Civil War was Slavery, but that was not the reason why people fought in the Civil War. The reason for the Union fought was to preserve the Union, and the Confederacy fought to preserve its freedom from the overreach of the Federal Government. If you told people on either side that “we need you to fight to free the slave” or “preserve someone’s else’s right to own slaves” nobody would have fought for that.
Remember that abolishing slavery is still a very new phenomenon in the world at this time and would not be a strong reason for people to fight for it.
True that the north did not initially fight the Civil War to end slavery.
But the south very much was fighting to preserve its economic
and social institutions which were
built around slavery.
If secession was simply about rejecting Federal overreach, why didn’t the Confederacy open its membership to any free state sick of Washington?
It was always Lincoln's and most Northerners main motivation, and the only way to preserve the Union was to get rid of the idea of slavery. He also was wise enough to know when to make that move.
@@kbrewski1Yep. Slavery was the catalyst for every other listed reason above.
And while slavery was not invented by Americans, the timing of the Industrial Revolution combined with America’s resources is estimated to have fueled over 75% of global economic prosperity; but slaves were deprived of any generational wealth.
There are lots of letters from Confederate soldiers where they explicitly state that they were fighting to preserve slavery as an institution. Poor white southerners had been pumped with anti-black propaganda for over a century in order to prevent any sense of camaraderie developing between poor disenfranchised whites and black slaves. An institution that kept what they perceived as a barbarous people separate from "polite society" wasn't disliked.
Basically, the ruling class of the southern states were rich coastal planters, dependent on slave labor and trading a single product with a few select partners. The ruling class of the northern states were rich, industrial capitalists dependent on constantly expanding factories and new markets. Given the living conditions of those industrial workers, the 12+ hour workdays and the wages barely sufficient to pay for food and rent, the European nations couldn't even decide who had the moral high ground.
Fear of losing their slaves was definitely the cause of the 1861 secession, but the southern states had almost seceded before in 1832 and 1850 over issues of taxes and tariffs favoring northern industry at the expense of southern agriculture. The United States was more of a voluntary, if grudging, confederation until 1865. Arguably the people didn't even think in terms of nation over state until a generation after the war.
People in the north were not universally against slavery. That's the main reason Lincoln was hesitant to make the war about slavery in the beginning. There wouldn't have been support for it at that point. Once he formally made the war about slavery there was more kick back in the north.
The north was against slavery as an economic threat to free white labor. It wasn’t so hot on the idea of freed slaves wanting to move north and compete with the white working class for jobs.
Not really true. They were slightly more opposed to war in general.
About a third of the Union Army were immigrants. There's were huge cultural differences between the north and south in the mid ninetieth century. Most of the northern population were immigrants who fled their nations to the U.S. due to famine and wars. To go off fighting and leave you family to totally fend for themselves would be very difficult to do.
You also do realize to the common people like some Irish born coal miner and their family in northeastern Pa, a German born wheelwright in Ohio and a Dutch born steel worker in NY knew or cared little to nothing about what was happening in South Carolina let alone Texas, Southern way of life seemed a world away. Those places would be a month's or more journey. To them would seems farther away than Beijing China is to us today.
The economics of the war, Most production went to the war effort reducing quality of life in the north all around. An army moves on it's stomach, while the union soldiers had better rations than southern soldiers, they were nothing close to what civilians would be able to have and the toil produce and move them created waste and shortages.
The resources in coal, iron etc... needed for the war effort were staggering. The labor in industries were reduced because many who otherwise would be farming, mining and manufacturing are off fighting the war.
So, it's not an economic boom, much more like blowing up.
While inflation was increasing. It's not like government would take care of their families back home. Soldiers were not exactly paid well, The salary for a union private was $11 while the average salary of a man in the north in 1860 was $18.50 a month.
Incorrect.
They weren't all for black voting rights. Big difference.
The disdain for Slavery was very widespread in the North for decades and decades. Religiously it was not accepted by Catholics, Quakers and other New England Puritan Protestant religions, and many immigrants like Italians and Irish who had suffered tough times themselves and highly valued freedom. So your statement is very untrue.
Any early hesitancy in actually fighting the War was getting over the idea that you were actually going to be killing fellow Americans. Possibly relatives in some cases.
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made the moral argument much clearer and defined and spurred the North to victory.
Lincoln didn't initially want to make the war about slavery because he hoped the rebellion would die down without getting too far out of hand and he wanted to make it easy for the South to lay down its arms. Once he made the Emancipation Proclamation, it committed the South to fight to the bitter end, and likely helped fill its ranks with more recruits who weren't necessarily pro-slavery but terrified of living in equality with freed blacks. The North was not divided over slavery. Every Northern state had to take government action to abolish slavery, most starting in the 1780s shortly after independence. It wasn't something they just stumbled into, it took consensus and popular support. But voting against slavery doesn't necessarily mean you'd be being willing to die on a meat grinder battlefield to end slavery in a foreign state for the benefit of people you'd never met.
The North were not just against slavery for economic concerns. The Society of Friends (the Quakers) most concentrated in Pennsylvania were definitely morally against the practice.
There was also people in the South who were morally against it but they didn't feel like it was their right to tell other people what to do or how to live their life. Which I understand. If you go telling people what you think they should and should not do kind of makes you look like a tryant.
So were most Catholics, the Italian and Irish immigrants who came to the US en masse for more freedom and economic power themselves.
@@scottbivins4758
Get rid of the Confederate profile pick Traitor.
Yeah, Oversimplified overstresses that part. Those people existed, but were mostly rural Northerners in the frontier states farming newly acquired land. Pennsylvania and New England had already begun the abolition process 80 years before the civil war. The economics of the moment had nothing to do with it.
@@scottbivins4758So slavery is bad, but telling other people what to do or how to live their lives is worse?
People were more loyal to their state than to the nation. Remember, people back then rarely traveled more than 20 miles from their place of birth. Robert E. Lee was against Virginia leaving the Union and would have fought for the North had Virginia not voted for secession.
Interesting facts:
The 5 “Civilized Tribes” the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, Seminole, and Choctaw all based in Oklahoma (or “Indian Territory” at the time) all had enslaved Africans. The Civil War broke tribes apart and one half could be in favor of slavery while the other half would want to abolish it. A sizable amount of Confederate troops were made up of Native Americans and Free Blacks who themselves owned slaves. The last Confederate general to surrender his troops was Stand Watie a Cherokee general who surrendered his unit of Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, and Osage Native troops in Oklahoma. After his surrender General Lee signed the terms of surrender at Appomattox Court House which was supposedly written up by Ely Samuel Parker a Seneca native and close friend of the Union general and future president, Ulysses S. Grant who personally chose him to be apart of his inner circle. Lee was alleged to have looked at Parker and say “I’m glad to see one real American here” and Parker said back “We are all Americans”. Despite the fact that so many people nowadays say the civil war was about “Whites keeping Blacks down” it’s so much more complicated then that and all groups and races had a hand in both the wars start and end.
What about the way the slaves were treated after being set free ??? Everyone talks about the civil war/slavery,but,don't talk about the Jim Crow laws,black codes,rise of the KKK,grandfather clauses. Then the mass lynching of black citizens,the raping of black women by white men ( they'd form an all white jury to find the guilty wht men innocent ) then the 1900s there're 300 recorded incidents of black towns burned to the ground and innocent black citizens killed by white mobs.From 1865-to-1965-that's a 100 yrs of murders,lynchings,rapes,tortures,etc,etc,..of innocent black citizens,their-BLOOD-is on america's hands.
Oversimplified left some things out?? Surely not. I took two, semester-long history courses just on the Civil War and the professor kept emphasizing how much he was leaving out. Oversimplified has mastered the art of knowing what to leave out while keeping the idea intact. Love the review.
Ordeal of the Union by Allan Nevins 8 full volumns didn't even cover it all.
It's almost as if they oversimplified the subject....I'll see myself out
I feel like he shows too much favoritism to the union. I think when we are talking about the Civil War it is best not to show favoritism no matter what you think about the reasons of the war. If you truly love American history then you understand that both sides were American and they were fighting for what they believed. I dont agree with slavery but i dont judge them by todays standards thats not fair to them. I appreciate the dead on both sides i wish more people would think like that but they let emotions get the best of them instead of just see history for what it is an they cant stop hating o southerners they act like we are responsible for what people did before us. And I have never met a single Civil War veteran so that just goes to tell you how much of role modern played in the civil war an slavery.
Like I dont know the slaves who built the Norths industrial sector first before they wanted to get rid of slavery
@@Wickedurc Slaves built the North's industrial sector? For which country, because this was not the case in the US. If you believe it was, then you are accepting revisionist and demonstrably false history.
Last I checked the US civil war played a part in the formation of Germany.
I remember reading somewhere that Prussia would sent people to the US to observe the war and thus learned how to use trains and rail systems to move troops and supplies more effectively. Also they got to see some new weapons in action.
Well also don’t forget the union had over 200k Germans (who didn’t speak English at all) in their army.
The Gettysburg 1993 movie would be great for you to watch and react to. Shows both sides unbiased in my opinion. Thanks for the video.
I am proud to be related to Hariett Tubman and Frederick Douglas.
That's awesome
There's a very small chance that you are related to both of them but your probably not. I mean I have DNA evidence that proves I'm the 3000th person in line for the crown of England so what evidence do you have to prove your related to 2 black people that were living in different states and lived at different times? I think your mom told you some bullshit so you felt like you were somebody when your really nobody
gross
F@@jmyers52995 Are you one of those confederates believe the wars still going on? YOU FRIGGING LOST YOU MIGHT LIKE TO NO I AM CAUCASIAN
How did you determine that? Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas are not related in any way, by the way. The odds you are related to both are pretty far fetched.
Here's another fact that's rarely mentioned... There was a young boy 9 years old wanted to enlist he was a drummer boy he was turned down but finally the 22nd Michigan let him be the drummer boy and at 12 he became an official member.. he served at Shiloh and chickamauga and was wounded.. stayed in the military for most of his life.. he is buried at Arlington national cemetery.. his name was Johnny Lincoln Clem.. I'm sure majority of people have never even heard of this boy little boy who became a man very quickly and served his nation for many many years.. look him up if you don't believe me
Of course they missed stuff.....people have written their PhD thesis on the American Civil War. Every general in WW1 studied the American Civil War....it was the first war to have rifles, Gatlin guns, AKA machine guns, and trench warfare. It's a large slice of Western history.
its called oversimplified for a reason
HEY Phil & Sam, great breakdown and analysis. Thanks for sharing!💯✌️
Thank YOU for supporting the channel!
650,000 americans died during the Civil War,this problably doesn't include the dead civilians either. So many people died in such a short period of time,great deal of the male age work-force gone too.Including 650,000 tax payers gone,plus this included the babies that would've been born from all these casualties.Problably took america several years to recover from these issues.
I believe with civilians added it was about 1 million, which if it was adjusted to today's population it would be like 10 million! It's hard to imagine what it would be like, today, if we had that many people dead in just 4 years!
@@RogCBrand 1 million sounds about right,in my opinion a civil war is one of the worst kind of wars to fight,hard feelings last for a very-LONG-time from both sides. I can only imagine the personal vendettas played out over the years.
@@RogCBrandthat's a third of my state cali's population. Thats INSANE
@@user-be7tc2bd6e
The Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi lasted for 70 days, ending on July 4th. It affected them so much that the city of Vicksburg didn’t celebrate the 4th of July for almost a century.
@@kevinhooper3003 I wouldn't want to celebrate on that date either.
The terrible thing about Civil Wars is that you literally have brother against brother. In our family there were brothers on each side.
Yeah I had family on both sides too
I live in a border state. The county where I'm from was split almost 50-50.
Same here. My family members are from Pa and Md.
Grant is one of my favorite people from American history...he was a really good guy to a fault. Grant by Ron Chernow is an outstanding biography. Grant's attack on Vicksburg won the war even if Gettysburg never happened.
I need to read his autobiography and other books on Grant. The more I learn about him, the more I like him. He's my kind of guy.
A slight rewording that makes a big difference: "Grant's attack on Vicksburg..." should read "Grants months-long CAMPAIGN against Vicksburg" in large part led to Union victory in the war.
What many seldom speak about anymore is this was a war of "brother against brother."
Family members and friends - especially in those states along the border lines, Virginia, Maryland, etc... fighting on opposing sides. Yes the war that literally split collogues, friends and families.
Imagine being a union private and finding a friend, brother, uncle or cousin in a confederate uniform wounded, dying or dead during or after a battle.
Among union generals - Winfield Scott ret. but presidential advisor was a Virginian, George Thomas also a Virginian. First admiral David Farragut - Tennessee “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”
Colonel Robert E, Lee - from Virginia - He was just appointed command of the U.S. Army's First Regiment of Cavalry in March 1861.
Privately he opposed the new Confederate States of America in all his letters in early 1861.
Letter to his father-in-law Washington Curtis:
"The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the acts of the North, as you say. I feel the aggression, and am willing to take every proper step for redress. It is the principle I contend for, not individual or private benefit. As an American citizen, I take great pride in my country, her prosperity and institutions, and would defend any State if her rights were invaded. But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for "perpetual union", so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled."
He was offered the role as major general to command the defense of the national capital. by presidential advisor Francis P. Blair.
He replied:
"Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native state?"
Immediately afterward he went to Scott, who tried to persuade him that Union forces would be large enough to prevent the South from fighting, so he would not have to oppose his state; Lee disagreed. When Lee asked if he could go home and not fight, the fellow Scott said that the army did not need equivocal soldiers and that if he wanted to resign, he should do so before receiving official orders. Scott told Lee he had made "the greatest mistake of your life".
He resigned from the U.S. Army. When he arrived in Virginia, as he got off the train he was given George Washington's sword and the command of the Army of Northern Virginia.
A few points not talked about. Eli Whitney is remembered for two things. First he developed the concept of interchangeable parts in manufacturing. He used this concept to change a lot of things but what we are going to talk about today is in the production of firearms. It was a great limitation on firearms for the military because each one was hand made and if it needed repair you had to have a gunsmith or maybe a blacksmith custom make you the part you needed. This is why the military wanted people to be able to bring their own weapons. When Eli pitched his idea to the government he took the parts for ten muskets, put them on the table and then assembled ten muskets with random parts. Suddenly armies could be bigger because you could arm more people faster and cheaper than before. Then having been raised on a farm he turned his attention to helping farmers. The two main export crops in the south were cotton and tobacco. Tobacco was doing ok but cotton was so labor intensive it really wasn’t practical. It would take a massive labor force to grow and process enough cotton to be economically feasible which required the huge plantations. Most people couldn’t afford it. Then Eli developed the cotton gin to process the cotton to get it ready for market and suddenly you had a machine that could process as much cotton as you could get as fast as you could get it. Suddenly you needed to have lots of workers to get you cotton. Large fortunes were made from this but the slaves were the weak link to the process. Mechanical means of planting and caring for doing the work was coming but it probably would have taken at least another generation to impact slavery very deeply but a tractor you use and then return to the barn till next time would eventually be acknowledged as cheaper over the long run than owning people would be. What they don’t get into much is that Grant figured he could lose five men for every rebel he killed and still win. Since he demonstrated that he was willing to do this, that was one of the reasons the southern leadership sued for peace and the northern leadership was willing to talk about it.
What this does a good job of is the characterization of Lincoln's thinking and objectives. He condemned slavery but put the priority on preservation of the Union. Look up his letter to Horace Greeley for confirmation.
As for "Little Mac"/General McClellan, he was great at training troops and terrible at prosecuting a war. His greatest contribution was arguably the McClellan saddle, of which, I wish I had one. They still have enthusiastic fans to this day.
Surprisingly comfortable and much lighter on the horses back. I have three. One original and two reproductions I used as a Union cavalry reenactor, commanding the 9th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, Company F.
@@garybradford8332 I envy you, sir! I've had a western saddle, an Australian stock saddle, a barrel racing saddle and even had an English saddle custom made for my daughter. I believe the barrel racing saddle is my closest approximation to the McClellan given that it is still a very different creature.
I enjoy the reenactments at odd whiles and even thought I'd like to participate. As it stands, my lineage would have me in butternut and lined up in the field across from you.
My g-g uncle, Sidney J Hatch, was in the 7th Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry, Co. D. UNION. He was part of the "Home Grown Yanks" which infuriated Nathan Bedford Forrest. He joined on September 24, 1862 for one year and died at age 21 on September 23, 1863, one day shy of his enlistment. I've not been able to find his cause of death, his records were destroyed by Forrest's men after his company was tricked a few months later into surrendering. Those poor TN soldiers arrived at Andersonville stripped of all possessions, practically naked. My Bradford family settled in Arkansas, so I believe I had relatives on both sides. I occasionally rode Confederate when I first started reenacting. I honor the Americans on both sides of that horrible war. @@philipstoddard1502
@@garybradford8332 It's easy to believe that you could have family on both sides. It was a more common phenomenon than is widely realized. There is a novel based upon the family history of my father's forebears, Long Meadows. It concludes with members of this same family facing off on opposite sides in the final battle. My family always hung on to that redemptive notion, but my own research only makes confirmed connection to Confederates. Unlike previous generations of my family, my feeling center around understanding more than guilt. One can't choose or rewrite the past, only learn from it.
If you want to see a movie about the Civil War try watching Glory. The cast are made up of famous actors. It's about a company of first African American soldiers recruited to fight in the North. A more in depth analysis would be the PBS documentary Ken Burns Civil War. It had several episodes and included famous actors who read diaries and letters at the time of the war from both sides.
After you finish part 2, I suggest that you two react to the movie "Amistad," which explores the issue of slavery shortly before the American Civil War.
you might be interested in Ken Burns' documentary THE CIVIL WAR
if the first 3 minutes don't hook you turn it off
1) Are Canadians taught about the Underground Railroad?
2) The northern states had a growing industrial economy prior to the Civil War, but they also profited tremendously from the commerce of slave-produced cotton, tobacco, sugar, and rice. Prior to the abolition of the slave trade in the early 1800s, in my northern colony/state of Rhode Island, many great fortunes were amassed in the slave trade, one by the family for which Brown University is named.
3) OverSimplified briefly mentioned the fear Southerners felt toward Abraham Lincoln. I believe this is an underappreciated cause of the war. In their secession decrees, the Confederate states talked about the wrongs they thought they had already endured. But I think the fervent zeal for secession was fueled by the fear of what the increasingly dominant northern states were about to do.
4) One reason Americans tended to identify more with their state than the country is that the railroads had only recently been built. Excluding sailors, most Americans had never travelled further than 50 or 100 miles from their birthplace. Unrelated, this would dramatically increase the mortality rates from disease when soldiers mingled in the army camps.
5) It was never likely that the UK would intervene on the side of the Confederacy. While the textile workers were suffering, the general population of the UK held anti-slavery sentiments.
6) Despite having Lee's plans for the Battle of Antietam, the battle was tactically a draw and strategically a defeat for the Union, because McClellan allowed the enemy's army to escape and fight many more battles. But since the invasion of the North was repelled, it looked enough like a victory to be considered one.
The importation of slaves was banned in 1800, but couldn't take effect until 1808 because the North had to guarantee leaving the slave trade open for 20 years to get the Southern states to ratify the Constitution in 1788. Wealthy Rhode Island ship owners may have benefited, but nevertheless the leaders Rhode Islanders elected cut off the slave trade they economically benefited from as soon as legally possible. If anything that shows better character than being anti-slavery with nothing to lose from abolishing it.
If you or your family is from one of the former confederate states, you learn pretty early on how to deal with this subject. You avoid it like the plague until you're cornered. Then, you just zone out, bob your head and wait for a chance to change the subject to college football.
Accused by a political opponent of being "two-faced", Lincoln responded: "If I had another face, would I really use THIS one?"
Edit: The dangers of a major uprising by former slaves who no longer had any means of living (as demonstrated by a number of such in places like the Philippines) was another factor that delayed the end of slavery. Even people who detested it and had the political power to DO something couldn't figure out HOW to do it without vast upheaval.
Edit 2: Winfield Scott was also one of the major heroes of the War of 1812, particularly the northern campaigns in New York and Canada.
My husband is a musician so we watch you everyday. May I suggest Autograph, Turn up the radio. I think you will love it. First time commenter!❤
I suggest the 1st and 2nd Punic war for oversimplified next reaction, they’re his best videos
I think it's awesome to do this by "over simplified" first! It gives you some decent context. Like you say, you can look at other things in detail, but without the general war context, you can't get as much out of a deeper dive. You guys are lucky all around regarding what you watch. You are starting at the top of every genre and working out. Those that lived through the '70's and '80's heard a lot of crappy music, too, that you don't have to hear!
"Ultimately, British popular opinion was not decidedly pro-North or pro-South at the start of the Civil War. The preservation of slavery was a chief concern of the southern states in the years leading up to secession, which went against widespread anti-slavery sentiment in Britain. However, the North’s initial lack of enthusiasm for emancipation made people doubt the Union's commitment to abolition. Additionally, protectionist U.S. trade policies against British products, which were driven by northern Republicans, made many see the North as Britain's economic adversary.
As a result, many contemporary British commentators were uneasy about supporting the Union, including Charles Dickens who believed the war was caused by northern protectionism. However, the popular majority in Great Britain also objected to and was disturbed by southern support for slavery. For this reason, general British attitudes towards the American Civil War could be characterized as indifferent or even disdainful towards both the North and the South. In the end, the Confederacy's commitment to slavery, and the Union's eventual dedication to supporting abolition, served to undermine attempts by Confederate leaders to win widespread popular support in Britain."
Imports were extremely important during the first year-and-a-half of the war. The union bought much needed supplies and even arms from British companies. So did the south.
The Enfield Rifle was British made and the most widely used weapon in the war.
The republicans did not come into power in congress or the executive branch until 1860 and after. Before that congress were all Democrats and Whigs.
Part 2 please ❤
Going to also put in a bit about George b McClellan. He was one of the worst Union generals. He was a great administrator but terribly cautious on the battlefield. Like at the battle of Antietam. He had (at the beginning of the Battle) 73,500 men battle ready again Robert e lees 15,000. If he had attacked with overwhelming force, the war could have ended then and there. But moving on from that point. The best generals that the US had, many of them went to fight for the south. Robert E Lee, Joesph E Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnson, James Longstreet, Thomas J (stonewall) Jackson etc. all went south. So the officer corps that Lincoln had to choose from was very limited. Many were fresh off the dock at West Point, old past their prime, or were politicians with no reason to be on the battlefield in a position of leadership to begin with.
You have to remember (or learn) that at the start of the war, Lincoln is a backwoods nobody belonging to the Radical and Brand NEW Republican Party.
He has no actual school experience while the Army Officers, including McClellan were all West Point (Army College) graduates.
Essentially even Northern Republicans weren't sure he could command a war. Today the President is the commander in chief of the US Armed forces, in 1860 that was Winfield Scott. Abraham Lincoln essentially created the idea that military policy was a concern of the President, not the highest rank military commander (with the help of the Telegraph).
If you want to learn more I recommend Shelby Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative
I will also add this for context. The Confederate Government did believe in racial inequality which stems from the religious as well as social beliefs they held. General Lee went with Virginia because that was his home. So it shows that in the army of Northern Virginia some fought for slavery and some may not have. Patriotism is huge with the American identity, but in those days patriotism consisted of two different ideas. 1. Loyalty to one's state 2. Loyalty to the nation. These two ideas would be heavily tested and the war would help to form the national patriotic identity Americans share today. The southerners believed in fidelity to their home while Northerners saw it as a whole.
Oversimplied is great as it gets major points in a short concise video. Obviously in a short video you can't get the entire history of something that took place over several years. I guess if these critics were asked to write an essay on a specific point in history, I guess they would write a 1 million page essay.
One thing this narrator mentioned. Yes Lincoln, spoke out against slavery regularly but he felt that the constitution limited his power. But slavery wasn't his primary aim, it was preserving the Union. Later things changed. He also mentions that African slaves were stolen? Nope not true. African tribes sold their own to Europeans. John Thornton and Linda Heywood say that about 90% were sold by their own into slavery in the New World. The African tribes that sold fellow Africans in return became wealthy. Some were sold into slavery to cover debt as well. The commentary both of you provided is awesome. Sending love to Canada from the US.
You're not wrong. Alot of people in the North didn't want to invade the south. Likewise in the South, alot of Confederates didn't want to invade the North.
I live about 25 miles from Beardstown Illinois...where the almanac trial took place...the Duffy Armstrong case...
McClellan was scared. He always claimed Lee outnumbered him and would not attack out of fear of harming his brand new shiny army. It was the same story for every battle he commanded.
At the time of the revolution slavery was not common in the northern states - in fact illegal. All the northern states abolished slavery before the U.S. Constitution was written. In order to get the constitution ratified by the states in 1788 language had to be included to skirt around the slavery issue.
The United States implemented its ban on the Atlantic slave trade in 1808, Thus the slaves in the slave states were limited to those already there and their offspring.
Culture, Most the northern states were very religious i.e. New England states primarily puritans - the most literate place on Earth at the time those colonies founded, Pennsylvania Quakers. Most the northern states were populated and settled by immigrants from Germanic nations, prior to Britain. New York Dutch, Pennsylvania Germans and Swedish. Compared to the south much older of Scott-Irish heritage (Mercia in middle England).
A big reason that the Slavery issue took so long to come to a head is you must realize is that to the common people like some coal miner and their family in northeastern Pa knew or cared little to nothing about what was happening in South Carolina let alone Texas, was not written about and seemed a world away. That would be a months journey. To them would seems farther away than Beijing China is to us today.
As a non american I feel like its important to notice this has happened everywhere in the world and still happens today which is so sad. We have to stop pretending it was only in America and is all gone today.
Yes and all races were slaves like the Irish
What he does not mention here in the video is one of the other reasons that Europe did not get involved....Russia. The North sent a diplomat to Russia who convinced them to side with the North and Russia sent messages to England and France that should they even recognize the Confederacy that they would be going to war with Russia. Russia then proceeded to send their Atlantic and Pacific fleets to both coasts of the US, the Atlantic fleet even going into New York Harbor, both with sealed orders to only be opened should England or France recognize the South.
That would be Cassius Clay, the greatest abolitionist ever he was the ambassador to Russia. Who was born in Kentucky and came from one of the richest slave owners in the state.
Massachusetts Governor John Albion Andrew championed the anti-slavery cause through his legal and political career. During the Civil War, Andrew also led efforts to enlist African American men as soldiers and organized the famous 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The comander was white There was a movie about it Called GLORY Starring
Matthew Broderick Denzel Washington Cary Elwes Morgan Freeman Maybe do a reaction to the movie
An absolutely incredible film. Definitely a "Must Watch."
I'd suggest 'Gettysburg' as well.
"In 1814 we took a little trip. Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty mississip." Battle of New Orleans, War of 1812
One of the main reasons (if not THE main reason) the civil war lasted as long as it did is that the Confederate States had the best commanders going in while the Union had either over the hill or inexperienced commanders. Yes McClellan was very good at putting an army together, supply and train them but just didn't know how to or had the fortitude to act or fight.
Yeah. I'm biased towards little Mac, but my drill sergeants mainly hailed from Tennessee and to a New England boy, that's South. They knew how to shoot, how to tell people to shut up, and if you can shoot and shut people up, you'll go far.
So 1/4 of my ancestry fought for the South, 1/4 fought for the North and 1/2 of it watched it all from New Brunswick (not Canada yet.) Fun fact, after the war, some Americans suggested annexing Canada due to England's 'support' for the Confederacy including building the commerce raider C.S.S. Alabama. Rep. Nathanial Banks of Massachusetts introduced the Annexation Bill of 1866 which authorized the President to annex Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, East Canada (Quebec), West Canada (Ontario), the Selkirk Lands (Manitoba), Saskatchewan Territory (including modern-day Alberta) and the northern half of Columbia. Evidently he didn't want P.E.I. or Newfoundland. Go figure. The bill went nowhere in Canada but was highly publicized in British North American and helped hasten Confederation.
As a native Kansan bleeding kansas was a huge part of our state’s history and theres a giant mural of it in our state capitol building
nah, McClellan was seriously risk adverse. his battlefield performance played out the same over and over again. he was cautious to a fault, scared to gamble, unwilling to take risks.
Cool little side story there was two soldiers in the Civil War Randolph Mccoy and Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield. After the war they turned against each other and often had shootouts where they lost a few family members. They were confederate soldiers but Randolphs brother was on the northern side of the war. It's something cool yall could look into. There was also romance problems a hatfield boy got a Mccoy girl pregnant and her dad kicked her out and the hatfields frowned on the boy for getting her pregnant
Thomas Jefferson one of the writers of the constitution said slavery was like holding a wolf by the ears. You didn't like it but you dare not let it go.
State rights vs federal government is really what kicked off the war, and slavery was the main topic of that issue. Today’s equivalent is abortion. Recently the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government doesn’t have the right to legalize or make it illegal, but rather the states have the right to control their own destiny
I always love hearing this faux argument that the "Civil War was not about Slavery, it was really about State's Rights vs Federalism." Lmfao 😂
1. Without the issue of Slavery, there would have been NO Civil War.
2. Yes, State's rights was an issue>>>the individual State's rights to OWN SLAVES vs the power of a UNITED STATES OF AMERICA to say, no, we are not going to allow Slavery anymore. The South was fighting for their claimed right to OWN SLAVES. No need to sugar coat what everyone knew what the issue was.
Just to clarify, SCOTUS didn’t rule that the federal government couldn’t legalize abortion. Congress could but hasn’t done so, so there is no federal law to legalize (or ban) abortion.
Did not know you guys were fellow canucks...grew up lower mainland BC...now in Edmonton...how's it goin eh!?
They weren't fighting against their countrymen because their state was their country. The 14th Amendment changed that by saying citizens of the states were also citizens of the United States.
The Constitution was written when people were only loyal to their state, not to the other states.
Each State signed and accepted the FEDERAL NATIONAL GOVERNMENT that was formed via the CONSTITUTION. You're wrong and that's an idiotic statement.
I'm from the Mason-Dixon line. Pennsylvania/Maryland. My ancestors fought in the Civil War. Also, my Northern family members helped with the Underground Railroad. There's still discussions in my family about North a south sides! I graduated from South Hagerstown High School Md...aka The Rebels. Other family members graduated from North Hagerstown High school. Hence, North-South rivalry in sports and school activities. Good fun though!! Really like your history videos so far!
It's not insane to watch a musket battle from visible range. The bullets couldn't travel far enough to hit the onlookers.
A Turkey was the National Bird suggestion before the Eagle. Watch who you’re learning from.
100% myth nobody wanted the turkey to be the national bird... you should practice what you preach lmao
The damn turkey the South fought it all we could. 🤣
Slight correction: the WILD TURKEY was up for nomination as national bird (and I don't mean the whisky).
I’m American born and raised and have always been an independent, the lack of a third party and acknowledgement of a need of one is going to be, in my opinion, the reason we the people will take back what is now a corrupt military industry that runs on greed
If on your own time you both should watch the Ken burns filmmaker documentary from 1990 called "The Civil War A film by Ken Burns" It's lengthy, but in depth.
Just remember the victor writes and enforces his version of the war. There is another and different version but the occupier of the invaded nation makes sure the true reason for the Empire's invasion and eventually colonization of the South is never allowed to be publicly told. The story about the Spanish-American War is recorded differently in Spain than it is in the U.S.A.
George McClellan was a great general for making an army and supplying them and all the recruitment, but he was not a great field general out in the field where he did not want to fight the enemy much. This video is pretty accurate that Lincoln's generals were all cautious and some were old that they didn't want to go after the enemy.
When it comes to seceding from the Union, the erstwhile newspaper columnist Tony Kornheiser once put it this way: "We don't do Meech Lake. We do Antietam."
Lincoln wanted Robert E. Lee who was commandant at West Point. Lee would have been his Patton (of WW2 fame for his aggressiveness) but his loyalty was to his state of Virginia, his captured home was turned into Arlington Cemetery. Instead Lincoln got McClellan who turned out to be his Montgomery (of WW2 fame for being a constant planner always waiting for more troops and supplies).
The reason the UK didn't mind getting involved on the side of the South was because the war at that point was not about slavery. That is why Lincoln made the war explicitly about slavery to make supporting the South morally untenable for Britain.
I would just like to say most of canadas population lives in a small part of your country so it’s not surprising you have less conflict. This initial thing stemmed from different economics and climates (planting versus industry in the north) Canada is mostly the same.
Highly recommend you watch "Lincoln" starring Daniel Day Lewis, helped me understand the situation better. Set at the end of the war
While I adore the movie "Lincoln," it's too narrow a topic to get "new students" embroiled. Reconstruction (the post-war years) itself is yet another mountain to climb.
Slavery in the United States was such a complicated situation. The USA's first industry was in agriculture which was facilitated by slavery. One of the greatest conglomerations of wealth on Earth was in the southern states, tied up in the abomination of slavery. The money crops also ruined the land so expansion of slave states was imperative to maintenance of that wealth. This is also oversimplified, but it is a part of the story that seldom gets talked about. I am not trying to justify the institution, but I think the economic implications need to be understood.
Slavery is difficult to cope with because it's based on a two-component system, wherein the two components are tightly aligned: SOCIOLOGY and ECONOMICS. Socioeconomic concerns that never got unwound until Lincoln, abolitionists, Republicans, and others grappled with the reality of the evils of slavery.
You’re right about about it being an economic issue and a lot of it was just the fact that free labor is obviously incredibly nice to have and it keeps raw materials cheap. And yes, Africans sold their own people into the slave trade proving that morally speaking, none of us is particularly immune from being human beings.
But it also was more than that. The idea of racial supremacy also did play a role. With the Dred Scott case, it’s obvious that people didn’t see African Americans as people. They weren’t citizen and for many, they were a lesser species entirely separate from humans. This idea justified their place as slaves in early American society. It’s unclear what came first, the slave trade or the idea of white supremacy to help justify the existence of it, but it played a massive role in keeping slavery around. It’s not like everyone was sitting there only worried about economics. Many saw not only the ownership of slaves, but also the awful and barbaric treatment of them as the natural way of things. They treated their pack animals in a similar fashion and yet they treated slaves worse because they had the ability to potentially fight back.
All I’m saying is that it was telling that Congress considered the issues of slavery, equal treatment under the law, and racial equality completely different topics of conversation. The radicals backing the abolition of slavery didn’t necessarily believe in racial equality, just that all men should be treated equally under the law.
It’s both very depressing, but also a testament to Western, enlightenment ideals that our culture has so radically transformed over the last 2 centuries. It feels slow, unbearably slow, but it’s more progress than the rest of humanity made in the previous 10,000 years, it’s unimaginably more progress. And the reason is not that the West is better, I think history proves that wrong, but that it encourages and protects people’s right to criticize it. That’s been the ticket, and it’s served us extremely well.
Many changes were happening at the time. Slavery was becoming increasingly unpopular even in the south. However, the southern economy relied upon it. Even at the foundation of our nation, there was a movement to free slaves but economically we couldn't. Our nation was founded as a largely agricultural colony. It was the industrial revolution that finally made slavery obsolete up north anyway. The south however still relied upon it as the souths climate was good for growing crops nearly year around. The nation was changing and rapidly. The south was concerned about many issues becoming federalized and taken from states jurisdiction. Hence thier cry for states rights. The nation couldn't be ran on states rights only any more either as the US was growing very quickly on many levels. A centralised government was inevitable. Of course this meant more say in fewer hands which is usually never good. I see what the souths concerns were as far as federalizing and centralisation of power, but it was a reality they were gonna have to face eventually. We were becoming a regional power and industrially were already in our way to be a world leader.
Gettysburg was the largest battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere, the casulties at Antietam were twice those of D Day
George McClellan was constantly asking for additional men and wouldn't engage the enemy
Another Lincoln quip about McClellan's constant requests for reinforcements was, "Sending more soldiers to General McClellan is as fruitless as shoveling fleas across a barnyard!"
The Civil War was fought to right a great wrong. Yes, the North was telling the South that slavery could no longer endure. It had persisted for four hundred years, but it was past time to bring it to an end. If its abolition could not be achieved through peaceful means, then it would be resolved by military means. Remember, that it was the Confederacy that fired the first shot. Lincoln responded by issuing a declaration of war. If he had simply accepted the argument that, well, southerners believed that slavery was a good thing, so who were we to tell them how to live their lives, (isn't it odd that some of the responses here don't mention that, if we apply that same logic to slavery, then were not the slave owners doing what Mr. Bivins finds so loathsome, namely forcing other people to live lives dictated by those with greater power?). Besides, this is how things change. Slavery was destroyed by the sword. Suffrage for women was achieved through less violent actions, but in both cases, a struggle resulted in historic change. There are always those who point out the way ahead. Lincoln was one such prophet; M.L.K was another.
Well stated.
no, the war was over government influence and property; slaves, territory and facilities.
the noble cause to free the slaves is a well propagated myth.
The encounter between Lincoln and the child at the train station is true.
Guess what else took place at a train station that is a coincidence/quirk of history? In 1864, Abe Lincoln's son Robert got accidentally pushed onto the train tracks of a Pennsylvania platform as a locomotive was approaching. Instead of being blasted and likely killed by the oncoming train, a person in the crowd pulled Robert to safety in the proverbial nick of time. That person was actor Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth. 😀
If I remember correctly, Eli Whitney was actually anti slavery and invented the cotton gin in hopes of reducing the number of slaves in the south
The idea of a single country was a debate from the very beginning. It's a common held position that prior to the civil war the US were referred to with the term "are" where as after the term "is" became more common. Sort of shows the mentality of the people at the time. Some saw a single country, some saw more of a European union type association although that was also often determined on what position made your argument better. Such as with the compromise of 1850 where southerners were able to justify a strong federal government to enforce the fugitive slave act.
nice mix to your portfolio. in time still music is my favorite. history ok. yet like that north canada. i loved calgary stampede. cow boy canada. yee ha. we are the same. brittan. o well. history.
Part 2 please
Wild wild history of ours and it really wasn't that long ago
When I was in Hi Skool 1982 {junior year} down here in Covington Georgia {home of the General Lee & Dukes of Hazzard, Heat of the Night} I had to do a book report for my history class & I interviewed the 114 year old great great grandmother {born 1868, her older brothers & sisters were born into slavery} of a good friend of mine whose parents were slaves & later sharecroppers after they were freed! She talked to me for 3 hours & I used 2 cassette tapes to record her! She told me so many things I never would have gotten from a text book & their family still owns & lives on the same plot of land to this day! Luckily Covington was sparred from Sherman's march to the sea as his roommate when he was a West Point cadet was from Covington! Its still weird for me to think that my school was integrated the first time in 1973 when I was in 2nd grade! Most white folks back then still thought that blacks had no rights & were constantly starting sh*t with them, seen lots of violent acts & I can also remember 2 lynching's that happened during the '70s! We also have our famous confederate carving of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee & Stonewall Jackson on the largest chunk of granite on the planet Stone Mountain which used to be a Creek & Cherokee Native American site 9000 yrs ago then in the 17th century it was a slave trading post & then in 1915 it became the 2nd founding of the KKK until 1958 when the state of Georgia purchased it & made it into a park! Ever get a chance come to Georgia & visit us ✌💖☮
One of my great grandparents was a confederate soldier, pretty crazy to think about
The North enlisted freed slaves before the South. Southern leaders were concerned that if slaves were given weapons, they would take up arms against the slave owners. As the availability of military age men depleted in the South, Confederate leadership had no choice but to arm the slaves and put them into segregated army units.
Probably one of the most complicated wars in history. North vs South just doesn't even come into the same time zone of what actually took place. Ken Burns' 10 hour documentary still only touches the surface. Worth investigating this most critical event of the USA.
Complicated? It's pretty straightforward in the reason and how the fighting itself went.
@@aleksandergolembka8659 Nope
of course it’s true that African coastal kingdoms were selling, or rather, trading slaves for trade goods, after all, it should be obvious to most people that the slave traders began as goods traders and certainly wouldn’t approach the African coast or cross the Atlantic with empty ships, so they traded away their goods for slaves in payment, of course im not going to say that specific slave runners didn’t exist, they certainly could have, but why undertake a dangerous activity like chasing and capturing slaves when you can more safely and easily trade for them?
Commenting on the actual trade of these people as well. The trade of them was not new in any regard to the European and African people. This trade was not started by the Europeans at all. It started during the 250-220 BCE. Largely carried out by the African warlords themselves. The numidians and the carthaginians were well known slavers treated the people they defeated very poorly. The Europeans did not largely get involved in that aspect until the 1400 and 1500s. Many people don’t realize that this was not a new issue. They just found new people to get involved in the trade. And in many cases depending on how you view modern human trading and what not for other various things. (Using polite words to avoid the comment getting this video demonetized.) the slave trade never truly stopped. All they did was change its name and treat it like something different.
Oh! And I live between Chambersburg and Gettysburg Pa.
PLEASE NOTE: When I lived in Europe for three years, so many people asked me why the US started slavery. This was never asked politely. The answer is that the US and other countries on the two American continents did not start slavery, we inherited it from the Europeans who had settled in the south many years before the US became a country. This human horror was so economically and culturally entrenched in these states that war seemed to be the only way to end it. We the current residents of all races are still paying the price for the European slave trade.
I'm gonna stick with it, but I got annoyed at the coverage of the INTENSE Continental Congress debate and even feud in 1776 during the Congress's review of Jefferson's Declaration. The Southern colonies DID walk out of the Congress, and only after a harrowing debate between John Adams and Ben Franklin did Ben convince them both (Jefferson and Adams) that they NEEDED the Southern Colonies to successfully effect their dis-union from Britain. For a great dramatic portrayal of it see the movie 1776. It's a musical, and has some fanciful elements, but that debate was very accurate and well-dramatized in the movie.
Abraham Lincoln actually offered the head general position to Robert E Lee, but Lee declined citing he had to stay loyal to his state. Crazy! He was such a great general, good thing Grant's a coming😎
The comedic effect can also make you think some things were a joke that were also real. Like the guy who really did wear women's underwear, which really was against the rules of his position.
Thank you SO much for calling out that lie that the black slaves were "stolen" from Africa. I was afraid that would have been overlooked. Just by that one lie, these series of OverSimplified videos should not be seen as historical fact, but a guideline to be researched further. Unfortunately, people are lazy and won't do their own research and believe this lie.
@21:00 come on now, your telling me you have thought about teaching Quebec who's boss? 😉
Edit: bah you guys talk about it 9 seconds after I typed that lol
The North sure didn't mind getting their cheap cotton, tobacco, sugar and peanuts from the South.
States rights are important for the reason that not every area of the US is the same economically and also culturally. What works in Hawaii might not work in Texas etc. In a way we are really 50 countries united under a common treaty. Only thing I could think to relate to Canada would be something like a MP in Ottawa dictating how farmers in Alberta can grow their crops when that MP has never farmed or ever left Ottawa. I’m simplifying it obviously but the authorities in Alberta would know better what works for their citizens in a more local capacity rather than some politician that’s never left the city on the other side of the country.
Another thing that you're missing is about logistics
The army at the time was made up of assembled individual state militias and this was before combustion engines
Everything had to be moved on foot, by ship, or in horrse drawn vehicles
McClellan was cautious to the point of insanity. He may well have been scared. There were points where he was convinced he was outnumbered when he had the advantage in numbers by a ratio of as much as 2 to 1. McClellan was great at preparing an army, but terrible at leading one, and may well have been scared.
Keep in mind that this is not modern day politics. Britain was just concerned with the economic climate with the cotton trade at the time which i think like 60% or more of the world's cotton came form the southern states. Infact France also thought about helping the south due to trade and economic reasons. Britain at the time cared for one thing money still do kinda. It was the whole reason they had an empire. There are still issues between the south and north in the states but it's definitely more the states rights. I still Introduce myself as a person form georgia then someone form the USA.
15:28 there's a couple of good video's of the Mexican American war that cover how the USA got the land west from Texas. Check out History Heros and Knowledgia channels for the videos.
Another little-understood, strong-armed, land-grab performed by Americans: some individual U.S. citizens, some governmental movers-and-shakers.
Although General McClennon PROVED himself to be an ineffective General, NOT ONLY, for refusing to attack the Confederacy from Washington, he made NUMEROUS mistakes in his later advance up the Penninsula toward Richmond. In other words, his "caution" was an inherent part of his makeup, as a General. However, there IS a question regarding his feeling that the War was a mistake. So much so he ran for the Presidency, as a Democrat, against Lincoln in the election of 1864. There WAS a thought that if he won, he would approach the Confederacy with "peace feelers" instead of pursing the war to win. McClennon LOST that election. Even though he was loved by the Union troops under his command, they overwhelmingly voted for Lincoln.
Yes ALL of that land was Mexico. AND there were at least a dozen Mexicans living on it. Sooooo.... I mean we didn't kick them out or anything. We said, "Now you are Americans". And they said, "Que? No comprende. Que diferencia hay?" And we said, "Si,Si! much grass, don't get in the way of the railroad."
If you do your research you will find that Mexico actually invited Americans to settle that land because their people weren't. Americans vastly out numbered Mexicans in that part of the land during that time. Plus, Mexico was making threats that they couldn't back up. Which was a major mistake because America called their bluff.