The American Civil War

____________________________________________________________________ The American civil war of 1861-5 was a rather important happening pitting Americans against Americans…It revolved around slavery and the disagreement of the south’s refusal to give up what amounted to cheap labour, Sound familiar to you!! Thought so it does to me as well The southerners today yeah... Lots of them have huge assets which their kin acquired by the use of slaves If an agreement had been reached, in hindsight there would have been no war…the war itself was set off by the states that owned slaves (YES NEGRO'S OWNED LIKE DOGS) to accept the decision of the 1860 Presidential election…which had seen the first Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, sweep the northern states but did not gain a single electoral vote in the South… From December 1860-February 1861 seven states in the Deep South passed ordinances of secession, occupied federal installations, and called out their militias. These states set up their own Confederacy with a pro-slavery constitution headed by a Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, and this new government located its capital initially at Montgomery, Alabama. ( later it was moved to Richmond Va) The rebel government was eager to remove the two remaining federal outposts on their territory, at Pensacola in Florida and at Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour. After a stand-off lasting four months, the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour on 12-13 April 1861. Lincoln asked for 75,000 volunteers…it was reckoned quite wrongly it would not last for long…the confederacy was extremely large…a naval blockade was decided on…even submarines were used…very brave guys considering the conditions…in actual fact the civil war was a kind of testing ground for today’s submarines…in the end the union mustered up more,so the 75, 000 volunteers were soon supplemented, and by the 1st of July 1861 300, 000 men had been raised, the majority for three years. Jefferson Davis had succeeded in raising 200, 000 Confederate volunteers by August 1861. These hosts on both sides were difficult to command. The men believed that they were civilians in uniform and enjoyed all their previous rights; they were not deferential to their officers, who were often elected. Many incompetents had to be weeded out by commission’s boards…as usual politicians not only bibbed in with orders they actually got their selves commissioned....nothing has changed there I notice

All the time the Brits were featured buying cotton picked by slaves naturally...that cruddy little Island may have done a lot in colonising the world...it also stuck its nose in to things that really did not concern them. They were still annoyed no doubt that they lost the war between colonial America and their selves...plus France stuck her oar in too A different matter today where bullshitter Brown their PM is crawling up Obama's a**. But I digress. The civil war had cost 620, 000 American soldiers' lives (360, 000 Union and 260, 000 Confederate), although two-thirds of these were victims of disease not bullets. The economic damage inflicted on the South was enormous. Total southern capital, heavily invested in now-demonetised slaves, shrank by 46 per cent, whereas northern capital grew by 50 per cent. In 1860 the slave states contained 30 per cent of the total wealth of the USA; by 1870 this figure had slumped to 12 per cent. The war's political significance was enormous: the issue of secession was dealt with once and for all; slavery was abolished. This is only a brief outline of the civil war...I did find out that Australians and New Zealanders (plus the Irish) fought in this war...but I have no idea as to which side they were on

What worries me is that the way things are going at the moment in the United States, there could well be another one...just my opinions and comments are welcome